Tales of a Tennessee Tomboy

Hello! My name is Jill R. Hilliard


                                          and I am a tomboy. I really wonder if it was DNA and there was
nothing that could have been done about it. Then I wonder if I wasnt toally surrounded
by mostly men would I be all lace and manners? I was born of the result of an affair that my biologicial mother had. I was the only girl born after 3 boys. I was given to my great aunt and uncle raised on a farm. I followed my (uncle) dad every step he made. I helped feed farm animals .... I watched cows give birth. I even remember trying to be like my dad I got into his snuff and dipped. My (aunt) mom flipped out. I loved my dad and wuld have followed him off a cliff if he would have jumped. Then there was the friends I grew up with. There wastwo families the Arnolds and the Harrisons both families had two boys. The Harrisons also had a girl but she was like 8 years younger than me. So this meant playing cowboys and Indians. We played "Gunsmoke" and I always had to play Miss kitty because I was technically a girl. I always wanted to be a gunslinger. If you have ever seen the movie "Stand by me" that was our gang. There was the Arnold boys. Mark and Paul. Mark was about a year younger than me and Paul was about 3 years younger than me. Now for the Harrison boys their is Darrell who was a year older than me and his little brother Danny who was around Pauls age and we hung out caught fireflies walked for miles and miles on adventures. We would go home at twilight. Around 13 years old I got a crush on Darrell and wreaked the entire foundation of our group. It was the summer before Darrell went into highschool. We had the best summer of holding hands and swing n the porch swing. The the school year begain and he couldnt be known having a girlfriend that was still in elementry school (Before middle schools) and he broke up witho have  me. Dont get me wrong I tried to be normal and have girlfriends. before all the boys my family became friends with a huge family The Andersons. The dad was a preacher and took go forth and multiply seriously. He had 3 girls and 2 boys. and the middle girl was Cindy I went to church with her and I ate dinner with her family. All of Mr. Andersons daughters were blond and at dinner time he would refer to me as his only burnettee daughter. We played dolls and would help feed their baby calves ( they owned a dairy farm) The we started first grade and that is when Cindy meet the mean girls there was Carol the leader and her followers Connie Kristy and on occation Veronica and Renee. I remember the day that Cindy traded our friendship for a seat at the popular table.

Letting them go.

My son passed to the 11th grade this year. The minute he told me I could almost smell the storm coming in. I feel it coming toward me like a train speeding down the track ....its not right upon me yet but I know it coming...... the day my last baby heads off  to college ...out into the big bad world. My daughter Heather left out when she was the mere aga of 18. Just like her momma she was so ready to get out into the world and she what it had to offer her. She moved in with roommates which made her momma sleep better at night knowing that the two people with her would do anything to protect her. Even with all that one year later she was back home.... admmiting that she wasnt

Motherless Mothers DaY

Today is May the 11, 2014..... Its mothers day ... I prepare gifts for my mother-in law and get ready for my kids to come over for dinner. Today is a day also where I go get flowers and take them to my Mothers grave site ..... I sit and talk to her and tell her whats going in my life and how the kids are doing. I am always amazed at how many years its been since she passed. Let me tell you about my mother.

Her name was Nettie Mae DuBois she was 74 years old when she died. Her birthday was December 11 1927. My mothers  ...mother died when mom was around 11 years old..they said of malnutrition but may years later mom got type1 diabetes so I think that is probably  what her mom had but they just didn't know that's what she had back then even if she went to the doctor at all back in those days. She was raised by her father Albrey Delbridge and her older sisters.My mother later fell in love with Jessie Dee DuBois. He was from the poor side of the tracks and knowing that her father would not approve of Dee she met him secretly ... became engaged and during this engagement they found out that Moms father had cancer. My mother married my father privately before her father passed. She cared for her dieing father and would sneak off to spend small amounts of time with her newly wedded husband. When Albrey died mom and dad started their life together. Soon they found out that after years of trying that they could not have children .....ok I know you are like what the heck .... how are you their kid if they couldn't have kids well let me tell you the rest of the story.

I was born on October 30th 1966. Jill Renee Johnston. I was the youngest of 4 children. I was given up to my great aunt and uncle by marriage when I was 9 months old. I was told that one day when my biological mother came to pick me up and because she left me with Nettie and Dee for long periods of time Nettie jokingly told her that maybe she should just give me to them ..... and the next week she brought me with all my stuff and gave me to Nettie and Dee.. She left me with them when Nettie was 40 years old and Dee was 51. Now here I sit at 46 years old and I see the sacrifice that they made taking me in at that late in the game. They didn't have to take me ...they just did ... they stepped up to a plate that two people have walked away from.... they took me kindergarten and bought me not one but two pony's. We lived on a 99 acre farm. We went on vacations and went fishing and we went to church ..... I played Mary in the Christmas plays .... so much normal it would scare you.Now we weren't perfect, but it was a great childhood with two parents that loved me. My mother hand washed my clothes and taught me to tell time. We would work in the garden together. When mom would can pears she had to do it as fast as possible because I would eat them so fast it wasn't even funny. I remember one year my mother had waited 7 years for her peony bush to bloom and it finally did, one single bloom and I was around 4 years old and I remember picking that flower and running around the back of the house to hide because I knew I had done wrong. I remember her being upset but hugging me and telling me that it was just a flower and that I meant more to her than that silly flower. She loved me with out bounds even through my teenage years. In 82 my father Dee died of a massive heart attack .... I worried that she would go with him .... but then a couple of years later mom met Chester Bly and her stood by mom til she passed in 2002. She was an awesome mother and to my kids she was a blessing to be my kids Memaw. She met my husband only once when she was in the hospital and she asked him if he was going to take care of her little girl ... my husband said yes and a few days later my mother when to be with the Lord. So be thankful this Mothers day if you have the blessing of going to your mother and hugging her ...placing a kiss on her cheek ....taking her to lunch... because for some of us .... its flowers and a one sided conversation at the grave yard..... and a void in our heart that will only be filled when we

join her in heaven one day. I love you mom and I miss you every day and I a grateful for the sacrifice you made to take care of a little girl who had no one.https://www.facebook.com/

Mental health ...Are doctors just guessing?

Every since I can remember I have fought this thing inside of me. I always thought of it as a bear. Sometimes this bear is sweet and loving.I am always aware of his presence but when he is in this loving quite mood this is when I am the happiest.These are the times that I can live a semi normal life. Then there are days the bear demands a little of my short attention span. He needs to be petting this is where it feels like he is leaning on me. He doesnt demand all my attention but he does demand some. These days I feel pressure but I can juggle the bear and the world with a little effort on my part. Then there are  days while I am working or talking to people he is smacking me in the face constantly. Roaring in my ear to the point I almost cant hear anything or fully fuction. There have been times the bear demand that I go be alone so that he can have all my attention. I have actually lost a good job due to this last phase. This is how my anxiety feels. When I was young I could endure it. My mother and father thought it was cute that I danced beside the dinner table while I ate. When I was a kid we were just labeled "High Energy Children" Hell I didnt even know what it was back then. I thought every kid was this way, but as I grew I realized that I was very different. My main problem was I talked too much ...I could not be still. I over talked other kids which made them mad and so this threw me out of main stream kids and into the rejected sector ..... but still as a kids you endure... you cry it out and move on. School work was a nightmare for me.Most of the time I could read a page in my school book and look up and couldnt tell you one word of what I read. I could really study the night before but sometimes the noise in my head would be so loud that I couldnt remember anything I studied so that also slated where my future was headed. So my self esteem was taking a nosedive and this links into all the bad relationships I have suffered. At first people think I am super neat...loud and fast paced ... always up for the next thing .... love doing things that where a dare or dangerous ..... but then the extreme of me would wear down for them .... I was never that friend that would call you to see how you were doing ...you always had to call me because for the most I would be so busy in my own head I couldnt even entertain anybody elses world ... thats how I lost so many friends and the ones that would stay with me were as broken a human being as I was. I lost one of my oldest friends because she finally got tired of my "time outs" when I go into what I call time out I dont talk to any one I ignore calls. I have even hid while friends knocked on my door to check on me .This also entered into boyfriends and husbands ...they all thought I was this neat little wild animal some of the guys after looking back I see they took me as a challenge something that just needed to be broken  ..tamed .... they thought they could "cage"the bear. My first husband tried his best to subdue this beast with only a divorce to show for it. I fought this through two kids .... I remember fighting off a panic attack at my daughters field day.... I suceeded because I so didnt want to embarrass my daughter and show her friends that her mother was mentally defective. I have always felt like it was always 0 or 100 with me ....I would be complete "on" or I taught myself how to just shut her ....so for a large part of my kids growning up I was never that involved mother because I was always in fear that the monster in me might poke its head out and cause my children problems at school. So I worked as much as I could using that excuse to keep me out of school functions ....every once in a great while I would have to go in and pretend to have it all togeather and for the most I would suceed ...it was exhasting ... it always felt as though I was holding the full weight of that bear back. Work that is the one place that the bear worked for me and not agaisnt me. I had so much energy.... so much drive everything for me was a challenge ...a race .... a compotistion. I was always compeating with people even if they were not aware of it. I would work harder .... I would work more hours than anyone else ... I would take on way more respondsiblity that I should but it always made me a valued employee. Somehow I used to always sleep well and up to about 2 years ago that was my one saving grace was I could sleep at the drop of a hat. I have gone to my doctor for help .... he has ran me through many different anti depression meds ...Zoloft ....Prozac.....Paxal .... It feels as though it doesnt subdue the bear .... but it destracts him a little but never enough to make it worth the side effects of the drugs ... I was just took off anoughter shot at Zoloft because I was breaking out in hives that were making me itch myself til I bled . I talked to my doctor about maybe this being Adult attention disorder but he dismissed it ...sometimes I think its because so many people who dont have the problem want the drug because its effect on them is like crack so all theses people end up pretending to have Adult attention disorder to get the meds and then it makes it impossible for people like me who might actually have it get treated for it ...or even checked. Now here I amin my mid 40's and I dont have the phyiscal energy to keep up witht the bear and this is making the anxiety so much worse.What a mad mad world we live in.So as for now my bear still roams free .... not that I ever wanted him caged but I would like a life where both of us could live in peace.

Jessica Dee Hoover Aug.19 1985 - Sept 7th 1985

Sometime in the month of Feb 1985 I became pregnant with my first child. I remember it was my fiance Jimmy and my brother Kenneth were at the clinic with me ...I came outside where they were standing and told them the good news. Jimmy was so happy. I didn't want to get married at this point even though we were in the middle of planning our wedding this came about. I didn't want it to look like we had to get married so I called off the wedding ...but after a couple of months Jimmy talked me into it because he so wanted our child to have his last name...at about 4 months pregnant we got married southern style in front of a judge with his sister and her boyfriend as witnesses. The bride wore a blue sundress because it was big enough. I wore blue cameo earrings that I still have to this day. That were borrowed from his grandmother. We came home and he went fishing and I started cooking dinner. I was about 6 months pregnant ....and the pregnancy felt weird.....I had this strange feeling that something was wrong with the baby. Everyone told me that I was just worried and its was just first time pregnancy pains. I tried to put it out of my mine but that weird feeling never left me. about 10:00 on August the 18th I went to the bathroom and felt some kind of leakage happening. I told Jimmy that we needed to go to the hospital that something wasn't right. Jimmy was so excited that the baby was coming it was dawning on him that she was coming 3 months too early. They did all they could to stop the contractions but the baby was in distress and they rushed me to a hospital Vanderbilt Medical hospital in Nashville Tennessee and there Jessica Dee Hoover was born at 7:15 that morning she weighed in at 3 pounds and 2 ounces. She has blood on the brain. She had Jaundice. She had a virus called the CMV Virus. Its simple ...I caught a cold and its like a 1 in 10,000 chance that she could catch it but ...she did and it did a lot of damage to my little girl. It was hard to grip how tiny she was. Jimmy could hold her in one of his big hands. Here we were two kids ...not only having a kid but I premature one. My world spun out of control. I prayed even when doctors took me into their office and told me there was no hope for her. Here health during this time would improve and then decline ...it was a nightmare roller coaster that I couldn't get off and I had to hold my head up high and know that God had this. I stayed in the hospital for 2 weeks. They took blood ...so much blood and ran test on me. You see Jessica was one of 7 kids that had contracted this virus and they weren't understanding it fulling so they were running every test know to man on me and my little girl trying to beat a ticking time bomb which was going to be my daughters death. on the 9th day of my stay I was walking down one of the halls trying to get my strenght back and I heard a voice I cant tell you either in my head but it sound just like hearing a person talk to you... and it told me that my daughter was going to leave me and that it was o.k. That it was the way thinks where supposed to work out. I stepped back ...I thought it was my own minds voice or maybe the devil trying to make me lose my faith... but at that moment I was ashamed that I even entertain an idea like that .....but I later I figured that it had to be God preparing me for my daughters departure. One Sept.7th 1985 my daughter left this world. to perfect for the sin of this world she went back to be with her father and there she wait for me and one day I will see her again and I will hold her in my arms and she will call my name "Mommy". I still have a void in my soul where she firs perfectly. I know the Lord has a plan for this ....for it to make me stronger for it to make me love my daughter Heather and my son Taylor more than I would have without her. She is in this little box in my heart and every now and again I get it out and I remember every smile and sound she made and the way she felt in my arms and how her little heart would just race when she would her her fathers voice and how blessed I was to have her in my life if only for a brief moment it was one of the best moments of my my life and nothing in this world will ever come close to it. I held on to a real angel and it was amazing and scary and I would do it again all over again just hold her again.

Husband Grooming

Yes ... you read that right Spouse Grooming, Its when a "friend" "Co-Worker" Set into being everything you as their Wife/Husband are not. They take time to listen to your spouse because innocently they will tell these people all their marrige problems then the Groomers will figure out what is missing or lacking in your marriage then they slowly talk to your spouse and slowly morph into that person your are failing to be. The conversation also always head innocently into a sexual nature and his is when the Groomergets to innocently tell your spouse all the great things that they can do for them sexually and from where they have sat and listening to all the lacking points of your marriage can totally get big points in this area .... but once they have brooched the subject both parties usually knows where this relationship is headed.
Sometimes its just a game people play without any intent of hooking up with them sometimes its just the high of getting attention from someone .... but sometimes these Grooming sessions end marriages.

Let me explain to you ..... My husbands ex-girfriend reconnected with both of us around our 8th year of marriage. My husband even asked if it was o.k. if she was friends with us. I being a full believer in trust, said yes. Fully convident that my husband would never cheat on me. This ran into her coming to a huge Halloween bash that I throw every year and us being invited to her kids birthday parties. I thought that things were going along just great.Not that we were besties or anything but they seemed o.k. Now here is where the red flags popped and I ignored them (Note: never ignore red flag) She ended up without a job and my husband and I worked at the same place and once again my husband asked me would I mind if he asked my boss if they had a job for her and once again.... I said "Sure" Well that is where this little nightmare begins. It stared with the fact that she was working third shift and I was working dayshift and my husand kinda hit right in between. So if my husband had to stay late enough which was a couple of nights a week they would sit at the picnic table and talk. I am sure that my husband talked to her about how our marriage had changed since the wreck. (Had a wreak about 5 years ago almost died took along recovery time) So this girl  K.C was grooming herself to be the girl that I wasnt to my husband...please dont get this broken I blame both partys takes two to dance this dance. But as I would come in to work she would constainly tell me that she either talk to my husband or facebooked him or texted him and all red flags but the one that had the brightest red light was when she poked me and told me if I ever needed help with him *wink*  *wink* she would be there for me. I told my husband all of this and he asked if I wanted him to quit talking to her.... but I didnt want to sound jealous I said no .... (Dumb move again)  Well the year rolled on her family attended our Halloween party and Christmas came and went ... We got her a candleholder and candle and she got us bath towel and a candle ...these gifts will matter later. My husband had accumulated too many vacation days at work so for about three weeks he was going to have to take Monday and Tuesday off for the next three weeks. The first Monday I came home from work and there was my loving husband .... I asked him how was his day off ....what did you end up doing I asked ....nothing he responded , I told him 

that was exactly what a vacation day was for.. When in fact my husband had went out to eat lunch with K.C. and she had to give him the hat she bought him for Christmas  .... their lunch date was on April the 11th 2012. I came home on Wednesday of that week and my husband of 9 years informs me that she has given him a hat and it was a Christmas present. I asked "Why is she giving you a Christmas present we have already done Christmas....Then he informs me that its because he made her a braclet to go with a necklace that she already had. .... The he lowered the lunch date on me. I blew up seven way of Sunday he said he didnt tell me because he knew I would get angry.... Really?  Now .... let me tell you ladies ... and some will argue but you trust me second marriage trusted both of them to the max and have been served my ass on a platter both times .... if your wife has a male friend or your husband has a female friend..... almost always there is one party in that pair that wants the other ..... your husband or wife might be the one wanting or maybe they are the one wanted.... but it starts slowly and some even innocently were neither of them knew they had feeling .... but one of them will start turning into the spouse that you are not and they can because they dont have to be that person all the time ...just the few minutes or hour that they get to spend with the person you love, Then all of a sudden you get that speach of how its not you or anything you did ....they didnt mean for it to happen......it just happened ...no my friends it doesnt  JUST happen ......it grows slowly and its called emotional cheating and honest to me its worse that phyical cheating because ...the heart is involved. This happens in factories and  cubicles all around the world and ....you the spouse are caught off guard. So if the spouse is dressing better or putting on cologne/perfume when he/she used to not ...... Realize that this is a "RED FLAG" and that your marriage is in jeapory. If it wasnt for my husbands conscience ....I always wonder where that relationship might have gone. My husband and I are still in the beginnings of trying to even figure out if this is worth saving. I have never had something hurt me so deeply and emotionally. Be careful of the women/men  married or not that standing or touching your spouse too much. Attached men have no need to hang out with married or single women As do attached women have no reason to hang out with married or single men. You are just asking for trouble and any desent man or woman  know this. Eyes open ladies/Gentlemen ....from me to you ....

George Foreman Mind blower

Hi .... today's blog is going to be titled "The George Foreman Grill Mind blower" I am always looking for ways that get me the heck out of the kitchen. Just because I was born with "Lady Parts" did not make me a automatic chef. I have never had a natural desire to cook. With that said I am going to share with you something so simple ...but every time I tell someone about it ...they freak out on me .... like wow that's is awesome!! Why in the world didn't I think of that. So I thought it was time to blog it ...Pin it and face book this for the people out there that not only hate to cook but hate to clean as
well. First you need a George Foreman Grill ...

 any size .... this is one of those times that size really doesn't matter. As you can see mine gets alot of use.

Now you are going to need some Tin Foil. I use Reynolds Wrap because it is thicker.



You pull off enough tin foil to cover the bottom and top of your grill

Meat on foil

 Season it or not

Now here is a freebie that I am going to throw out there just because of the good human being that I am. See that black tray in the picture above .... Well place that under the food "BEFORE" you start cooking so it can go ahead and catch all the grease and juices before they run all over the counter and make a total mess and make you say words that you have to pray about later!!!

                         Place your other piece of foil on top of this and pull lid down as usual.

                       Few minutes later food is hopefully not fatal and can be consumed

(It will be hot so please handle with caution)

Chicken on platter wad up tin foil and throw away

And low and behold most of the time you will have

a clean grill that you might have to wipe down with a rag.

Most of the time it will be totally clean.