If these plants could talk...

So I'm standing on the coffee table. They were built much sturdier back then. You know made of real wood, not that cheap particle board crap or so my dad would say. Not that the table wasn't cheap, I'm sure we purchased it at a yard sale, thrift store or it was given to us. I was wearing a flag bathing suit meant to look like Wonder Women's costume and my dad had cut me a small piece of rope from his garage to wear on my hip. It was my Magic Lasso of Truth Weapon and I adored it... My mom liked to turn on MTV (music television) so she could listen to music while she cleaned the house and watered her indoor house plants. I remember her singing and talking to her plants, she said to me quite often, " You know Martha Lynn, the plants help us breath, the positive vibrations of your voice, watering them, dusting their leaves and singing to them is what keeps them healthy." My mom had hanging house plants at every house we lived in. She would tack the stems along the wall when they would get to long so they wouldn't get damaged. She loved them plants back then just the same as I love mine today and my son loves his. Back then All I cared about was my MTV, it kept me occupied watching music videos and dancing on the coffee table top. I would jump off yelling things I thought Wonder Women would say, "Don't worry I'll save you, or throw me my Magic Lasso", to my two younger brothers. This is my first memory of really wanting to be something, something big, something important...

The year was 1984 and we had just moved back to Stockton California from Oklahoma a year or so prior. Moving across state was tough. My parents clearly did it so we would have a better life but I remember struggling. We had to go to the food bank on occasion and get government assistance. They waited in line most of the morning once a week to get a paper bag full of unperishable foods like powder milk, canned veggies, rice, beans and my favorite, a huge block of cheese. This was government cheese so it was dry and wrapped in a wax like paper. My parents would cut my brothers and I a slice with the wax still on it and hand it to us just like that. I remember saving my wax paper from my piece of cheese and later I would chew on it and pretend it was gum so my brothers would get jealous or envious of me. I eventually told them my secret so they could pretend it was gum as well. My parents would work almost any job they could get. They worked picking cherries when they were in season. They worked at a chicken plant. My dad started his own concrete finishing company and my mom worked at a school for disabled adults.

It was the summer of 1985 and we just got a new Slip and Slide for the front yard. Incase you don't know, this is nothing but a piece of rubbery plastic that spreads out 25 feet long and screws to your hose, it sprays water from tiny holes all the way down on each side to keep it constantly wet. The idea is to run and slide down it on your belly. After getting a nice long drink from the hose, my brothers yelling, "hurry" the whole time, I finally get it hooked up. My dad says, "Let me learn you kids something and show you how its done". He always said, "Learn" instead of "teach" to be funny. So here he goes, he gets a running start, mind you he is still fully dressed boots and all. He runs and slips going feet first down the water slide so fast some how his feet get wedged under the cyclone fence at the end of the yard. My dad did crazy shit like that all the time. He let us do things my responsible mother would have said no to. We did this sort of family stuff more often then not.

I'm running to my dad's grey primer 1961 Ford van as I yell out, "Dog house", this meant I was going to get to sit on the metal engine cover in between the two front seats, yes with no seatbelt. This was the mid 80's, who needs seatbelts? The entire family loaded into "The van" and off we looking for yard sales. I loved it! I earned an allowance for doing chores, which I used for spending money. Remember it's summer so the engine cover I was sitting on was heating up my ass and I remember being grateful anyway because I liked helping them spot the yard sales on the side streets as we drove along. We stopped at one not far from our house actually and there it was! I found a 1970's typewriter just sitting there at this old ladies drive way. She had some long tables set up to display her merchandise including the typewriter and I was in love. It was a pretty aqua blueish color and the case reminded me of an old hard suit case with a handle. I stood there staring at it the entire time my family looked around the rest of the yard sale. It was the only thing I wanted, I remember I could barely lift it, it was so heavy and had a strong odor of cigarettes'. I asked the women, "How much is this?" I didn't know what to call it at the time, neither one of my parents graduated high school, my mom later got her GED but we didn't have anything even remotely like that at my house. My mom heard me ask the nice lady how much and knew what it was, she said a little loudly from across the lawn, "Martha Lynn you don't have enough for that honey". The women cocked her head back and to the side a little looking me in the eye squinting. She looked up at mom my briefly and said in a don't be silly voice, "She's ok, and asked me how much I had? My eyes got huge, my mom was now walking towards us, I swallowed real hard and got all the money out of my shorts pocket attempting to count it as quickly as possible for a nine year old anyway. I had just about $7.45. That was a few weeks worth of dusting my mom's owl collection, helping her vacuum, grating the cheese when we had taco night, and lots of dishes. It was hard earned money in my nine year old eyes. The women looks up and starts addressing my mother as she gets close instead of me. She explains, it was her late husbands typewriter, it's about 15 years old and about 6 or 7 of the letter keys are not working, a few are completely missing and it has no ink with it. I interrupt them just as soon a the women stops talking and say to my mom, "I just want to pretend with it, pleaseeee mom" in a begging voice. She says, "It's your money". I just about died and gone to heaven as my granny Ruth would have said. I handed that cash over as fast as I possibly could and my brothers ran over to see what I got as I walked it so proudly to the van.

I set up a desk, some books, some papers I had practiced my handwriting on, an old calculator, and I was now a teacher, or at least I thought I was. I had my two younger brothers and sometimes my cousins when they would visit as students. I would sit and pretend for hours. I struggled through all the way through school, rarely getting good grades. I was in trouble a lot, more than the other kids and my teachers would get frustrated with what I learned later was Attention Deficit Disorder symptoms when I was diagnosed as an adult. When I got home from school, I gained my control back and would roll play and reenact how my teachers treated me. I was someone else again, I felt more in control of my emotions when I got to be the teacher. I'm 44 years old and I can tell you the name of the teacher with the least amount of patience with me and the one that made me feel differently about how I looked at school and Teachers. Mrs. Palacio put my desk in the coat closet because I wouldn't stop talking to my peers. Little did we know it wasn't that I wouldn't, I just couldn't stop being disruptive. ADHD wasn't recognized as a disability until the Americans Disability Act of 1990. In fifth grade Mrs. Gilfillan took me in as her teachers pet. She changed my whole outlook on school and Teachers. This women gave so much of her time and money to help a small group of girls feel better about ourselves and be successful instead of being trouble makers. We stayed after class to help her do things like hand posters on the wall or correct papers and she even took us to dinner at a restaurant. I didn't get to eat out at restaurants very often. This women single handedly made me want to be a teacher again and I enjoyed going to school.

One year later, I'm now in sixth grade, same school. It's January 17th, 1989 around noon. We had just came in from our lunch recess and the younger children had just went out to lunch recess. Our sixth grade classrooms were separate from the rest of the school and they were two portable buildings on the other side of the main playground buildings out in the field. The substitute teacher says, "Alright guys get out your math worksheet and start working on it quietly." We all hear load thumping noises on the roof as if someone is walking around up there. I myself having ADHA state the obvious without raising my hand, "There's a noise on the roof, it sounds like someone is up there." My substitute teacher smacks my desk with a ruler in order to startle me and says, "Yes Miss Wiles we all hear it, quiet down and do your work. The maintenance man is probably working on something up there." Within what seemed like only a few minutes the noise on the roof is gone but the sound of automatic gunfire rings out. I had never heard gunfire before, however I knew what it was. Myself and a few others darted to the side window to look out at the playground to see what was going on and witnessed a man wearing what looked like Army clothes and combat boots shooting an automatic rifle towards the children on the playground. My substitute teacher runs and locks the classroom door and starts pulling the book shelves away from the wall making a barrier towards the back of the classroom. He's directing us to hide behind them for hopefully protection. My classmates and I crying at the sight of our younger siblings running for shelter on the playground do as the teacher says and hide behind the book shelves. The gunfire stops and I hear footsteps running up the wheelchair ramp of the portable. The footsteps stop. I can barely see him through a small rectangle vertical window in the classroom door but I hear him jiggle the door handle. It's locked but I am uncontrollably shaking and crying thinking he will shoot through it. He doesn't. I hear a few more footsteps, lots of sirens at this point and boom! He shoots himself right there at the steps on the other side of the ramp to the portables. We are stuck there for hours until we are all reunited with our families. My brothers were ok, Thank God! my mother had learned of the shooting on the T.V. Emergency Broadcast System, remember this is 1989 so she had no cell phone. This man had killed himself because he knew it was his only way out. He just killed 5 kids and wounded another 32 people including a teacher. I had survived this horrific tragedy only later to become a teacher of autistic adults. I loved this job and did it for about 18 years of my career life. I truly believe my life's purpose is educating people any way I know how.

My first job. I started working at McDonald's at about the age 15 and it was 1992. I had to acquire a work permit from my school to work there. This insured that I kept my grades up even with my work hours added to my load. I was a sophomore in high school and didn't own my own car. My dad took me to the bank and I signed my first paycheck over to him so he could cash it for me because I didn't have a bank account yet or an I.D., being only 15 years old and my parents not really teaching me that type of stuff yet. I was super excited to have my own money. I could finally get all the cute things my friends had I was all dressed up in some what I thought was really cute shorts and a cute top I had just bought. I had a nice tan because back in those days that's just what you did. I'm waiting in "The Van" for my dad in the bank parking lot (yes we still have the same van). He mounted and wired a regular small desk fan to the dash with a switch to turn it off and on because the air conditioning didn't work anymore. The metal "Dog House" engine cover had a chromed bull dog hood ornament mounted to it in the front middle so he could lift it open easier. He also put some windows in the back, overall though it was the same van. So these cute shorts were riding up and I sat forward a little to basically dig my panty wedgie out of my ass and when I did my very long blond hair got caught in the small fan that was mounted to the dash. It winded my hair around so fast and so tight that my face was stuck side ways against the outside fan guard. I had to wait there stuck like this until my dad came out of the bank to help. My dad walks out, see's what has happened and just dies laughing. He was literally on the ground laughing. It took what felt like an eternity for him to save me. Once he flipped the switch to off my hair came right out and I was fine. I had panicked and couldn't see the switch because my face was glued to the fan guard. Needless to say, I quickly started saving money for my own car. I got a taste of money and was hungry for more. I didn't know what I wanted to be or how I was gonna do it. I had watched my parents live paycheck to paycheck and was starting to do the same.

It's now April 29. 1996, five days prior to this I turned 19 years old. I was in the hospital having my first child. It's a boy. Later that year November 5, 1996 55.6% of California residents voted to legalize weed for medical use. My maternal grandmothers birthday was in April, she was murdered when I was about two years old. My mothers birthday is in April, my birthday is in April and now my sons birthday is in April. My grandmother, my son and I are all Taurus zodiac sign and Earth signs. We were born to garden. This may be why my mother loved plants so much, and why I grew to love them. November of 2016 Californians voted to legalize recreational adult use of marijuana and we were now allowed to grow our own with a permit. That baby boy I gave birth to back in 1996 is now 25 years old and has his own indoor cannabis grow and cares for his plants just as much as I do. We both have studied for hours and hours educating ourselves about the cannabis plant varieties and how to take care of them. I didn't start showing interest in growing weed until 2018. By happenstance, we'll save that for another story, I started dating a man and we moved in with each other in the middle of a cherry orchard. I call it my Farm House. He was really into growing weed. I found it so fascinating and couldn't wait to grow my own. I'm a very by the book sort of person and he's, well just say not. It's a toxic relationship by any point of view but the plants, well the plants have been the glue that's held us together through some tragic times in just the short amount of time we've been together. Sticking to my goals, trying to find that positivity is so difficult some days. I tell myself, "If I can do it even for a minute on those shitty ass days, imagine what I can do when I'm surrounded by accomplished people rooting me on. I have Passion, I have motivation, I'm hungry for it, I have a fan club and followers. I CAN DO THIS!!!" I send my kids messages when I have a huge increase in my Instagram followers and they cheer me on like I used to do them in Choir, football, wrestling, and theater. It's almost endearing. I'm very proud of my kids and I want them to be proud of me. The thing is, whether I win or lose this challenge, they are so caring they will be proud that I posted a story.

Everyone is different and different things motivate each of us. There's a fine line between passion and addiction. Passion being a strong emotion you can barely control but you can because you see the outcome, however there's times when nothing else matters. Addiction you no longer are able to control the cravings and the cravings are so chronic and in those times nothing else matters. Truth is, we all have our vice or even more then one for some. There's a fine line but they are not the same. When nothing else matters people in your life start to feel that. If you never see your family because you're working endless hours on a business you're passionate about, you will eventually have a business to build further with them. If you never see your family because you're addicted to gambling, or drugs you will just disappoint them and never have anything to show for it, especially not a business.

It's a warm Wednesday afternoon, I'm sitting in my oversize fancy blue leather office chair bouncing one leg up and down really fast, barely being able to control my excitement for the work day to be over. I'm typing on auto piolet while I'm day dreaming about going home to feed my cannabis plants and work on starting my own company. I hear my manager say loudly down the hall from her office, "Martha are you ready to go?". I'm elated and rush to set the building alarm and go. I will stay up until 1:00 A.M. if I have to, the plants all have to get fed. I'm my best self when I'm taking care of my plants or talking about my business. My kids are grown and have their own lives. My living situation well, I know he will probably go to the casino.

Same warm Wednesday afternoon, he's parking the tractor in the shop. He is the maintenance man at the school I work at. That's how we met. He can't wait for the work day to be over so he can drive 100 miles per hour up the hill to the casino. He's thinking to himself, "I'm not even going to tell her, (me) I'm going to the casino because I know we're just going to fight, besides she's going to be working on her business."

We're two people with our own agendas trying to live together in a what's became a weird roommate/relationship situation. We both don't see our families much these days. We both make sacrifices, we both believe we are going to succeed and no one can tell either of us any different. I'm at home taking care of our beautiful cannabis plants, writing stories to enter into contest to hopefully earn money for my business. I started a Go fund me account and an Instagram account @frostedcannabliss to build followers. I create new canvas paintings and gift sets for my gift store I'm going to open. I also want to offer some kind of monthly membership offer or a seed of the month club or maybe a name your own strain certificate with seed membership.

I read somewhere once, you should act and dress as the person you want to be. I am running and advertising a business I haven't actually started yet. I'm CEO of Frosted Cannabliss gift store and dispensary. It will be a gift store/dispensary with a cannabis farm/nursery onsite. Despite the constant fights with my "friend", I'm staying positive and trying to focus on my future. I'm more passionate and determined now then I've ever been. I've wrote out a business plan and I can almost taste it and I'm hungry. I think or I at least hope people follow me and want to hear what I have to say because I have a hard life and I stay positive and build people up. I act and conduct myself as if I already own a business and have integrity at all times. I'm passionate about everything I do and look forward to growth. I am passionate about building a family business that will hopefully one day be a franchise all over the world that help people with medical and recreational cannabis purchases.

I think about my business all the time, I'm some what obsessed with it and I know I'll succeed. I have researched a town near mine that is opening a huge hotel and already has a casino, this is the place my friend goes to gamble. This town also has a scary fall castle attraction that brings thousands of people per year. The closest marijuana dispensary is 35 minutes away in a busy community. I also invested money in the corporation that owns the casino/hotel in that town. The closest dispensary that is owned by a women is 6 hours away and only 22% of cannabis cultivation company's are owned by women. I've researched the license and permits for my state as well as the county I'm dreaming of putting my business.

My mom always said, "Power of the mind, you can do anything you put your mind to and that includes negative thoughts so always think positively". I have believed that my whole life but sometimes bad shit happens and it's out of our hands. It's the path that's already carved out for us, I believe everything happens for a reason and that's why I found out about this challenge just in time to enter it. I was about 12 years old and my next door neighbor would give me her news paper. I loved looking through it and reading all the comics. One afternoon I came across a poem writing contest for teens and I had wrote a couple poems so I submitted one. All it cost was a stamp and an envelope. about 5 or 6 weeks later I received a prize in the mail. I had won a tent that you could pop up and put it on your twin bed like a sheet. It was amazing. I had been listening to my mom and just kept hoping and wishing to win and I did. I was on top of the world, I could do anything and no one could tell me any different. I have that same enthusiasm today entering in this challenge. I think people follow me because I do a little bit of everything so you never know what to expect. It's always something exciting and new but most of all, it's the positivity that I bring to a negative world.

I am huge on the residual income ideas and love the services Memberful offers. Once my company is up and running I am definitely going to use them for the Cannabliss seed of the month club or the monthly gift sets. I think I could also use them for the name your own strain seed club. I'm super excited about my company's progress so far and look forward to growing with Memberful for years to come. I would have never heard of memberful without vocal. I believe things happen for a reason.

If these plants that I feed could talk they would tell you I love him and he loves me. The plants I water would tell you we are both independent and have our own goals and dreams. These plants that I transplant and check for mites and predator's would tell you we both struggle with low self esteem and you can never own another human being even if you think you do. They would tell you I feel like I need to do something big so I feel like I'm actually doing something and that I paid my dues and am deserving of any support I get. These plants would also tell you he knows he's repeating the same life he's lived before and so am I...

These Plants are resilient and beautiful, they are a reminder to stay strong and keep believing in myself. They would tell you I am determined to make my goals a reality any which way I can. Stand up tall like them and prove people wrong that said it's impossible. I will come out on top better than ever. Life is short so do what you love, make it happen, Do what you know. Teach the next generation so your legacy will carry on, your passion will carry on, your success will motivate the next person who needs it. Take it one step at a time, if you run into an obstacle skip it for now or slow down a little but don't stop. Ever!! You Got This!!!