Copasetic Beth

Ice Ice Baby!

2011-03-10T19:19:00.012-05:00

I can't believe I skipped the entire month of February! I suppose I was too busy celebrating my birthday. I got to go on an awesome trip to Niagara Falls - it was quick, but really, there's not much to do there short of looking at the falls. I'm definitely not into all the kitchy entertainment offered. My kids were dying to do all the crazy stuff, of course, but we kept pretty much to my idea of fun. And really, how much fun can a 40 year old be? Anyone for Denny's?????

The frozen-ness of everything was incredible! I'm from the deep south so we really don't get to see snow like what we experienced. I'm grateful that there was no snow falling from the sky while we were there, we got to see PLENTY of it piled all around us and floating atop the Great Lakes and the Niagara River. There was about 10 or more feet of ice floating on top of the river just under Niagara Falls, everything around the falls was caked with ice and the portholes behind the falls were completely frozen shut. We still paid to take the Journey Behind the Falls (at a much reduced rate because of the frozen portholes) which allowed us to go down and peek out near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls. It was pretty cool.

What the heck?? I think it's a Boy!

I chose to take my kids on this trip, something we would not normally do during the school year. We took them out of school because I wanted them to be with me to celebrate - I hope it will be a great memory for all of us. I know that I am so grateful that I was able to take the quick trip and enjoy my celebration with the people I love the most!

Back to reality. We recently purchased two horses! The horses are residing at their regular barn until we can get some fencing done around here. We've had horses here before (20 years ago!) and things have become run down, broken, rusted, etc. from non use. There are several trees in the woods that have fallen across areas of the fencing that need mending and we've got tons of new fence to add. We took down a lot of the old fence over the years! Gah!

So here are my new kids - Magic and Hazanny. Magic is a Quarter Horse and Annie is an Arabian. They are sweet as can be and I think will be a lot of fun for my girls (and ME!). I'm totally a horse girl and I have missed my horses soooooooo much. I'm so excited to have this new opportunity. Of course, I am married to a city boy who has barely even touched a horse so I'm on my own with this adventure. Hunk is happy to pay for the stuff, but he's not so keen on the involvement of it all.

Today was probably one of the worst days ever, it's not life threatening or anything, but got totally blindsided by life altering news. I needed some time to pound things out today, so I spent a majority of my day in our old barn. I haven't been down to the barn much at all in the past 20 years since the other horses left. The barn is a good 300ft. away from our house, so it's kinda out there. It has become a catch all storage unit for my dad's tools - in fact, he converted the stalls to a workshop, which means we need new stalls (blergh). We've got various yard appliances parked there and who knows what else. The barn needs a lot of attention with the impending arrival of my new girls so I decided to get started today. I forgot how much I love being in the barn, it's big and airy and it still smells like hay. It was very good therapy for me today, that's for sure. I also unloaded a trailer full of fencing wood - it was heavy and very labor intensive, but I got to throw stuff around, make a lot of noise and just get some of this crap out. I feel better, but damn, this just sucks.

What a week!

2011-01-17T13:32:00.006-05:00

We've had a ton of snow here - it started LAST Sunday evening. Hunk was at the airport sitting on his plane when the first flakes began to fall. The airline said they were going back to the gate because the de-icing line was so long, this turned into sitting at the gate for over an hour until ultimately the flight was cancelled. Unfortunately, all that waiting had allowed the heaviest snow to move in completely which made for a horrible ride home for him. I'm surprised he made it. There were hundreds of vehicles that he passed already stranded on the roadside, but thankfully he had no big issues and made the drive safely.

Monday morning we awoke to 5-6 inches of snow, more than we have seen in many, many, many years. The thing is, usually we get snow, then sun and everything melts within a day or two - no biggie. This time the temps stayed down and here I sit 8 full days later and I still have areas in excess of 1" thick solid ice. School was cancelled for an entire week - add two weekends to the front/back of the cancellation and today is a holiday so we have had 10 full days at home. Needless to say, I'm more than ready for Tuesday morning to finally arrive so that the kids can go to school and I can try to restock the house!

We had great conditions for sledding and of course, we got some great photos and videos! I've included a photo of the treehouse project - it is a full deck now and I'll be adding the walls/roof and fun stuff once the weather warms up.

Right now my focus is on my birthday which is looming over the horizon...yes, the big 4-0. I've got a fun trip planned in a very limited opening of freetime that I will have, but I'm still trying to psyche myself up. It seems like such a milestone, mostly because everyone makes such a big deal out of the number itself, but I just am kind of blah about it. In reflection, there are so many things that haven't happened yet, things that I thought for sure would be fond memories by now. I'm not unhappy with where I am in life, but I don't feel all grown up or anything. It's kind of surreal.

Snowmen!

2010-12-15T14:04:00.009-05:00

That Bakerella has got nothin' on me....nothin', I tell ya! I made these cutie cake snowmen for my GS troop. They have no mouths - it would be baaaaaad for little girls to hear these pricks repeating the string of cussing that was coming out of my mouth while working on this project. Bakerella makes it look so easy. They weren't really too difficult, but mine are lumpy, bumpy and my lack of patience made them....meh. Alas, they are for little girls, and they will think they are perfect!!

That treehouse thing - yeah, it's toooooo cold to proceed. It is a full tree deck with rails and a slide, just no "house" yet. We did decorate it for Christmas - lights and giant candy canes. I should take a picture!! It's playable, so that's what matters right now.

Progress!

2010-11-18T18:50:00.006-05:00

The treehouse is underway. It's not as I had envisioned, but nevertheless things are moving along.

I've tried to design the thing twelve ways from Sunday by using tree bolts and having the design be completely within the tree. I think that would be SO cool. BUT. I want a larger platform and I'm working around 4 trees, so it's been challenging. Plus, I'm not a builder so there's that. I was worried about my house not having enough support to handle my kids plus their friends, so plans ended up changing. I'm a little irked, but in the end my kids won't care - it's still a treehouse to them. For me, it was a personal challenge that I didn't win. Oh well.

I consulted my dad on the supports, etc. and he suggested that I build the treehouse with 4 stilts - basically a deck surrounding the trees. It's the exact opposite of my vision, but I'm moving forward. Got the stilts set today and my dad came and helped get it squared - a difficult thing to do when you can't use your diagonal (the tree is in the way!).

An interesting thing about my tree is that it has a barbed wire fence that runs through it. There was a fence running near the tree WAY before I was born and the tree grew over one of the wires and eventually absorbed it. The fence has been gone for more than 30 years, but there's still a spot hung in the tree. I'll be trimming it soon, but I don't have the proper tool yet. This tree has obviously been through some stuff, so maybe it's a good thing I'm not drilling into it.

My building inspector came by today, just to make sure everything was going well. And to take a pee on a pile of fresh dirt. Can you believe how big my kitten is!!?? She walked along every piece of wood today, walked the entire square like it was her own personal balance beam.

It looks like lots of boards, but all the angled boards are just there to keep the posts leveled while they set - I made concrete today - yeah baby! I'm also all splintered up.

Tomorrow the floor frame is going up! That will be it for a while since next week is holiday week and we have a lot of plans.

Being Thankful

2010-11-14T16:08:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I took my girls & our troop downtown to deliver warm items to the homeless. We made 100 lunches and tied over 200 fleece blankets to give away - we hit the areas where folks are set up fairly permanently and visited those under bridges. It was quite an experience for the kids....ended up taking 12 girls along. The attitudes washed away and the girls spent some quality time talking to the people who we served. I've got tons of great photos, but can't share them because of the girls in them. They all gained a new respect for the comfort they live in. A great way to enter into the Thanksgiving season!

Kindness gone wrong

2010-11-12T08:50:00.008-05:00

My dad has always been a very giving person. Throughout my entire childhood and teen years I experienced his many random acts of kindness and selflessness as he helped both people we knew and also strangers. Many weekends of mine were spent begrudgingly raking an old person's yard and there were countless people who lived with us during stints of distress in their personal lives. This often cramped my life, but he never let me "opt out"....this was what we were doing and I had the opportunity to make the most of it, or to make myself miserable. I often chose the latter...I'd rather be listening to Pat Benetar and dreaming about when John Travolta would finally answer my fan mail. Sadly, he never did.

Even though I didn't always enjoy what we were doing to help someone else, the lesson was not lost on me. I think my dad probably wanted to choke me on several occasions because of my attitude and I'm certain he thought I was a total lost cause, but the seeds were planted. I have a large desire to volunteer and I'm typically thinking of others and how I might help them. I constantly drag my children along on my adventures and chid them when they are less than happy about giving up (insert tween/teeny bopping activity here).

Over the years, I've seen my dad get burned on occasion by an ungrateful recipient. This is to be expected as some folks are looking for an opportunity, not a helping hand. It was something that has turned me into a bit of a skeptic and I've spent a lot of time trying to learn how to read people. I believe I have a knack for discernment after all these years of watching and learning. Yet, it didn't prepare me for my first real encounter with what I feel like is someone trying to take advantage of my family's kindness to them.

Jason is a college senior, I met him when a friend of mine sent him over to our house to move a play structure. We had a big structure and were giving it to her, it required a professional dismantle and a big trailer to haul it, since the structure was not costing money she was paying for the moving fee. She found a neighbor who is very handy and also has a very handy son, in college. What college kid doesn't need money?? Enter...Jason.

Jason spent a day at our house dismantling the mammoth play set and that kid worked his tail off. He was polite, resourceful and seemed to be really handy. I asked my friend how much he was charging her for the work he was doing and it was insanely low. It was a HOT day and I knew that he had overcome many obstacles in getting the set taken apart. I also knew what a big task was ahead of him in trying to re-build the set in her yard. The price was not enough, in my opinion. When he finished at my house I gave him $200 for taking such care with our property and working so hard. My friend couldn't afford to give him more, so I was basically giving him a tip on her behalf.

We used Jason a year later to do some yard work for us, where he once again worked his tail off. We got a great result and I felt that his price was more than reasonable. Since he brought in 2 day laborers to help him I decided to give him another tip. I know those guys get paid in cash and I felt the price wouldn't justify the work with the additional helpers. Jason was VERY happy with the amount of money in the envelope. I was VERY happy with a job well done.

During the yard work, Jason noticed that we had an old truck parked in our shed. He inquired about it and I told him we were probably going to sell it soon - we hadn't had a need for it over 6 months. He became very interested in the truck as he was driving a truck owned by his parents. The value of the truck was $2,400, but the A/C needed a recharge and it had a radiator leak. I offered him to drive the truck for a couple weeks, see if he liked it and then we could talk about it. He jumped on the chance, took the truck that day and said there was no need for a test drive, he wanted it. We decided that we could come up with a project where we buy the supplies and he would provide labor in exchange for the vehicle. We agreed to a price of $1,500 for man hours. Quite a bargain considering the value of the truck. I liked Jason, I respected his work ethic and I remember being broke in college. I wanted to help this kid out.

Today, I feel like I am being taken advantage of. We gave the truck away (kept the title) in June. Jason went to summer school and it was SOOOOO hot that I told him we would wait for cooler weather to start anything. He was thankful, and kept on driving the truck. In September I approached him about a project that we wanted to begin - I inquired about a price for grading with a backhoe (which his family owns) and possibly some plumbing on a water feature we are adding to the yard. I asked him to give us a price on those two items and we could weigh it against the price of the vehicle. Unfortunately, Jason sees this as an opportunity to milk me for cash. We can't reach an agreement on him coming to work without it costing me close to $4,000 in cash. This is down from the $8,000 price that he started with. We approached him with the project that we plan to DIY OURSELVES, we only wanted him to grade and possibly run plumbing. I didn't expect him to do it all for free, but I expected that I could get a price on each part and make decisions based on the $1,500 labor owed. I also offered to pay him an hourly cash rate while he was here - it would be very difficult for him to just work for free. Granted, his lack of cash isn't my problem and he probably should not have taken the vehicle knowing that he couldn't offer labor hours in barter without putting him in a flat broke situation. I've been more than willing to accommodate his schedule and his need for "walking money".

Jason wants a lump sum of cash, he needs it and he is trying to get it from me. There is a huge problem in trying to get him to understand that I have already fronted him $1,500 in the form of a vehicle, I would now like some work out of him. The work should not COST me money, even though I am willing to give him *some* cash. I finally broke it down very specifically and asked him to come & just trim some trees this weekend - what is the price per tree and let's split it between car equity and hourly rate. He still doesn't get it. His offer is this.....tree trimming, eventually doing the grading and the plumbing is $4,000 cash + plus the car title. He wants $750 in cash up front this weekend, then two more installments over two weeks of $1625 cash. And the car title. *blink* I think the kid is smoking crack. We don't even KNOW when we will need the grading and plumbing and he wants to be paid now. I didn't know college kids required retainer fees.

I repeat - what is the price for JUST TREE TRIMMING this weekend and we will address grading and plumbing IF we ever get to that part of the project. He still doesn't get it, his price for this weekend is $750 upfront cash, for yard work. When he owes me $1,500 in labor. The kid wants $125/hr, plus barter credit against the vehicle. I guess he has high expectations for his life after college, but the reality is that most of the population of America makes much less than $125/hr. and get a free car out of it.

This kid must need money desperately. I really do feel for him, but I have extended this more than most would even entertain. I feel at fault for placing trust in him, I should have given more time to get to know him better I suppose. I now face a very hard decision of an ultimatum. I don't want to go there, but it seems like it is the only way he is going to see that he actually owes ME and not that I owe him. I know that this will be the end of the relationship as well and that I could be putting him in a dire situation with no vehicle. Again, not my problem, but I'm not a robot and I don't want to do that to anyone. I also don't want to get screwed. He won't communicate with me by email, he prefers phone calls. At this time I will only respond to him via email because I feel it is the only way for him to see IN PRINT what is really happening. It is also giving me a paper trail if I happen to have to repo the vehicle, at least I'll have my side of the story. What a frackin' shitstorm.

My head is in the trees

2010-11-10T10:03:00.002-05:00

All I can think about lately is the treehouse - I'm ready to get started, but I have yet to get my first big necessity.....attachment bolts. I didn't find what I wanted at the local big box home improvement stores so I'll be ordering online and spending more than I had planned to. Oh well, what in life doesn't cost more than you wish it did?? I'll feel better about getting the bigger, better attachments - especially since I'm a novice builder. I'll post a picture of them once I get them in hand, I think they are going to be huge.

I've been working on design ideas and I keep changing my mind, something that I am definitely going to add is a widow's peak. It will be a small lookout tower that will rest high in the trees above the actual tree house. This project keeps growing in my head....

In other news, I'm dealing with a lot of crap in general - first, my grandfather. He's been someone I've always looked up to, but lately it seems that he is just pissing me off. I don't agree with his ideals, his morals or his view in general. It's really hard to start seeing someone without the filter after so many years. I want him to be my hero, but honestly, he is a racist and a chauvenisitic pig. That's hard to say about him, but I'm just being real. He is old and he is easing his way into dementia so I'm just riding along as usual and playing nice. I wouldn't want to ruin our relationship before he passes (at least, ruin it for him - it's already gone for me). I hate that my memories of him are now shrouded by what I've realized is his true personality. I can think back and see it all along, but as a child I just wanted him to be a hero and I looked past so many things. He was so completely rude to me a few days ago that I left his house in disbelief. He is just selfish. Period. Selfishness is something that I detest.

My grandmother on the other side of the family is slowly going down hill - she now has home healthcare and really just stays in bed most of the time. She has lost her desire to be on earth, but she trys to keep it positive on the outside. I'm inheriting her dog. I'm not a dog person, we have 3 cats. I've been spending a lot of time with her dog so we can all get used to each other - judging by the amount of dog bling I've purchased I could be getting converted. The kids are excited to get him - he is a black lab, very big. He has been an indoor dog his whole life, but that is not an option at my house. I'm kinda worried about the cold weather and how we will handle that. I'm hoping for the sake of the dog that grandma doesn't give in before the spring. The dog can stay in her house as long as she is there.

Funniest thing about the dog - I've always seen the cartoons where dogs bury their bones, etc. I thought is was just a cartoon thing. NOT. I gave Bo a rawhide and then he disappeared into the woods - near the treehouse spot - once I eyed him I saw him digging a hole. He dropped the rawhide into the hole and proceeded to cover it up by nudging dirt and pinestraw with his nose! It was the cutest thing ever! I'm anxious to see if he will actually remember where it is in a few days!!

Treehouse!

2010-10-26T12:01:00.006-04:00

Boy, *the* Twitter sure has affected my desire to blog! No excuses, but it has definately changed things. I've never been a frequent blogger by any stretch, but it just seems like I can keep up with everyone on Twitter. Unless there is something lengthy to report 140 characters seem to work just fine for me! Of course, there isn't a lot to report about in my life - it's regular old day to day around here, EXCEPT...when I get a hairbrained project in mind.

I tend to have a LOT of ideas for projects. A LOT. I'm constantly brainstorming about what I "could" do with my house, my kids, my pets, etc... I have some great ideas and many that are questionable. I usually think BIG and I truly believe that I can do ANYTHING, so that makes other people look at me sideways when I suggest something huge. Let's add another garage! Let's extend the kids' rooms! Let's build a tennis court!! And it goes on and on. A recent idea - I want to install about a mile of fencing around our property (and I think I can do it). Now, I DO NOT want to dig holes, I do draw my lines somewhere. Those can be hired out, BUT I can set posts, mix concrete and nail up the slats. Why not? It's not too terribly "out there", is it? I think the hardest part would be the leveling. It would take a long, long time to complete - yes. But I could do it. We are planning to get two horses next summer and I could finish the project by then, I really think I could.

Do you see why Hunk thinks I've lost it? Honestly, I'm saving him money if I try to do it. I think he hates my ideas most because he would feel the need to help me if I was doing it while he was home. He is not an outdoorsy type, he is not a project type, unless it involves architecting (is that a word?) a server room, or a data center, or a virtual environment...things that happen behind a desk, in other words. I DO NOT have a problem with that, I knew him before I decided to keep him. I'm not trying to change him, but I don't see why MY outdoorsy, crafty, do it yourself inner self must be stifled because he is not interested. I simply do not want to hire out everything, I find it more fun to DIY.....and THEN hire out to fix what you screw up! :)

So my newest obsession is a TREE HOUSE! Last year we gave away our huge outdoor playhouse/swingset to a single mom with younger kids. It was a GREAT set, but in all honesty my kids didn't use it. Of course, now they miss having an outdoor hangout so I think a treehouse would be a really cool thing. I also think that I can build a treehouse. I really do. There will be heavy lifting, but once the main deck is on I can get the parts placed up there and I can do the rest. I have big visions of Robinson Crusoe types of structures, but I am going to try to keep it simple at first with the options of adding on features later.

I've read up a lot on the ins and outs, the safety, etc. and I still think I can do it. Here are some pics of my scouting out for spots. We have a lot of land, but I want to stick to the front so I can see it from my front porch. Plus, it's mostly pine trees in the other area - not good for treehouses.

I had a treehouse growing up and I can't believe we have gone this long without one. I'm so excited to build one, too. I *hope* it turns out as fun as I imagine it will be!

If you have built a treehouse for your kids I'd love your opinions on my spot choice. I'd also love any tips anyone wants to pass my way. I've been first and foremost doing my research on how to minimize the stress and damage to the trees. I plan to put one bolt in two or three trees and use a sliding frame. The Garnier Limbs are expensive as all get out (special bolts) so I think I'll be going with 1"x12" lags if Home Depot has them - and then I'm a bit confused as to how to attach knee joints. I'm going to keep reading though.

Did you have a treehouse growing up? What was the BEST thing about it?? Give me ideas!!

Stupid policies

2010-09-16T09:19:00.001-04:00

So it's no secret that I hate school. It's not a public vs. private issue it's just school in general. I love that my kids have a place to go to interact and learn with friends, but I LOATHE all the " policies". My kids go to public school so it's very possible that private may more laid back, but I don't have a comparison.

At any rate, one (though there are many) thing that bothers me to no end is the Excused/Unexcused absence policy. If my child misses school for any reason I must send in a parent OR doctor note to have the absence excused. Notice the 'OR'. Unless my child misses more than two consecutive days the school will take *my* word on the fact that my child was ill. WIN.

Here's where I get in trouble - the early checkout. With orthodontists, doctors, dentists it is impossible to schedule everything after school hours, especially when your child gets home at 4:45pm. Most offices close at 5pm so you schedule during school. Having orthodontic appointments nearly monthly means a lot of checkouts, then add all the other necessities and it adds up. The policy is that 3 checkouts = 1 absence. In order to not have to attend "you are a sucky parent class" all of these checkouts must be EXCUSED. Leaving early for vacation is unexcused, for the dentist is excused. Easy enough. 5 unexcused absences and you suck as a parent.

So I walk into the building to present my photo ID and to retrieve my child prior to the end of the school day. I sign her out and provide a *written* reason on her attendance card that she is attending a medical appointment. I am then spoken to very harshly by the secretary that "IF she is in fact going to the doctor she will need to bring in a note tomorrow". It is as if she thinks we are just checking out early to go throw back a few beers. Ummm, WHY would I give up any of my precious moments of freedom unless they were absolutely necessary you crazy bat!?!? So I question the fact that I am standing here with photo ID and I just WROTE on her card that she is going to an appt. and so why is it that yet ANOTHER note is needed?? It's policy.

So policy dictates that I'm probably looking you in the eye and lying through my teeth about why I'm checking my child out early. And that what I wrote on the card is probably not true, but by golly if I send in a Post It note within the next five days stating the exact same information then we are all good and peachy with our excused absence. WTH?

This is the tale of how I got a "you suck at parenting letter" because I simply REFUSE to re-do something that I already did for you IN PERSON!! Bite me.

Pancakes and Astronauts

2010-08-16T09:45:00.011-04:00

We had an amazing vacation....3 weeks ago!! I can't believe it has taken me this long to update from our week in Florida, but here we go!

We ended up leaving at midnight on a Friday so that we could drive while the kids slept, but more importantly so that we could arrive in time for PANCAKES at the Old Sugarmill Restaurant in DeLeon Springs. We read about this place in the Florida magazine and it sounded like a fun family place and we were not disappointed. Well, maybe a little bit because they don't have A/C, but I can also be high maintenance that way. The Old Sugarmill is an old cabin looking restaurant inside the Ponce DeLeon State Park, we paid our parking fee and proceeded to find the restaurant. It was right next to a giant cement pond (channelling the Beverly Hillbillies....) which was actually a pool created by the spring. It was really cool and the kids swam in it later - they said it was really cold. According to the literature it maintains 68 degrees. There were tons of people in the pool and even some Scuba divers - this was because the pool ranges up to 30 feet deep!! There is a drop off (according to my daughter with a mask) that is like an abyss - the literature calls it a chimney and it leads to the spring inside a deeper down cavern. COOOOOOOL!

At any rate, I was there for the pancakes. The restaurant has tables that are similar to mini hibachis - each table has it's own built in griddle for making your own pancakes. It's $4.50 per person for ENDLESS pancake batter!! That's right....FOUR DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. For reals. They have regular batter and a whole grain batter. Both were phenomenal. You can purchase things to mix in to your pancakes like bananas, chocolate chips, etc. My daughter also ordered a scrambled egg and they brought her an uncracked egg and a bowl and told her to get to work!! She made her own scrambled egg right on our table - it was definately a very unique experience and we are very glad we made the trip! I was thinking our bill would be incredibly cheap, but once we got Diet Coke (comes in a can, no refills), milk, sides of bacon, an egg and some toppings our breakfast was nearly $50. TOTALLY worth it. It was so much fun. Even though it was sweltering with no A/C and about 20 pancake griddles heating the place up. We got there at opening time and on our way out the wait for a table was close to one hour, a few minutes later it was 1.5 hours. If you go, GO EARLY. But the bonus is that if you are waiting the kids can swim in the spring pool because it is literally at the steps of the restaurant.

After breakfast we finished our drive into New Smyrna Beach and piddled around on the beach watching surfing lessons until our beach house was ready for occupancy. We rented a fabulous condo with a beachfront pool. Our living room window overlooked the pool and the ocean. It was great!

The next day was spent at Kennedy Space Center - we had planned this vacation around a Shuttle Launch (which was cancelled AFTER we had already paid for the house), but we had fun doing the extended tour of the facility and getting the closest as any tour goes to the launch pad. Hunk was totally geeking out all day long. We met an astronaut who did not look at all like Kevin Bacon :( and we got Icee drinks in giant space shuttle shaped bottles. What could be better?

We spent the following three days laying around on the beach and then at the end of the week we went to Islands of Adventure to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!! So.Much.Fun!! In fact, it will be another post because it deserves all the attention! Plus, this one is getting long winded....

Can't believe I've been away so long that I almost forgot my blog password. Eeeeeeek! How've you all been?

Packing Heaven

2010-07-02T13:13:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned before that I really do enjoy packing....or even more - planning. It's not the thrill of putting things in a suitcase that I love, but the whole idea of gathering, shopping and planning for all the fun stuff I can organize with. Then I really do love putting it all together neatly and "just so".

My kids are going away to camp in a week and the prep and lead up time to this has been absolutely fun for me. My kids, quite frankly, could probably not care any less. If I sent them to camp with a trashbag full of t-shirts and shorts they would both probably be just fine. In fact, last year my oldest daughter refused some of my 'bunk set up techniques' because one of the other girls called her a "fancy camper". Sadly, this made me feel very accomplished.

At any rate, I only have a week left to find all the perfect little things to get these kids off to camp. I spent this morning at one of my favorite place - The Container Store - and I spent way to much money on organizational tools for packing. I bought my oldest daughter things that I know she probably will not want to use, but things that I just could not resist. Luckily my younger daughter is all about the "set up" and she thrives on taking an idea to the limit. There's still hope for me as long as no one teases my younger child about all her accessories. If she gets the minimalist attitude I'm going to have to enter a program or intervention.

If you'll excuse me I've got a trunk to organize......

It's all related

2010-06-11T08:32:00.007-04:00

We've got family coming to visit for a week tomorrow, so don't mind me as I try to get my ass in gear and clean up this place. Did I mention they are staying for an entire WEEK? Did I mention that I don't necessarily have ANYTHING to talk about with 75% of the crowd? That I'm not really looking forward to this?

I'm struggling with the whole idea that family is the most important. I understand it for me, Hunk and our kids, but beyond that I don't understand why blood relation is a requirement to bend over backwards and spend time with someone whom you would not ordinarily ever hang out with. I get it for my parents, really - while we don't have a lot in common I can appreciate all that they have done for me over my lifetime. I can understand how they probably feel about me because I can translate that from how I feel about my kids. And while we don't have the same interests they are both pretty cool. I just don't get why we usually feel obligated to spend so much time with cousins, siblings, etc. with whom we really don't have anything in common with. If we weren't related I would NEVER go on vacation with them, and I certainly wouldn't let them invade my house.

Don't think I'm a jerk - I love my family, many of them.....but what about all the asshats in there? Why do they get a pass just because we played together when we were younger? I just don't place the value of blood relation as the foundation for "family" and why I have to cater to them. I guess I'm just too nice to say no. I mean, 'I' don't want to be THE asshat in the family...

Who has a vacuum and wants to come over?

The lost art of the "note".....

2010-05-26T08:56:00.006-04:00

I was reorganizing a shelf and I came across a super sized manilla envelope with my name penciled across the front. I had forgotten that I put this envelope aside well over a year ago, but the memories came rushing back as soon as I saw it. I remember more about my teenage life because of this envelope. Things that I had long ago let fade away are now funny, sad and pathetic memories, many of them are moments that I would never have gotten back....no thanks to my addiction to Diet Coke. And, of course, the fact that I am approaching 40.

This envelope came from the mother of my best friend since 10th grade. Sadly, my friend died in a horrible car accident 13 years ago. I've been in touch with her mom over the years, though not very often, but we met a little over a year ago and she presented me with this envelope of "notes" that I had written to my friend. She had saved every scrap of paper I had ever given her, movie tickets, concert stubs, receipts...everything. She was the kind of friend that I find myself longing to find these days. She was completely invested in our friendship, she was the kind of friend that I could call anytime and not worry one ounce about the fact that I might be bothersome to her busy life.

There are a lot of memories that I have of days, nights, weekends and parties with my friend, but there was SO much that I couldn't possibly remember it all. There was also a lot of alcohol consumption which managed to fade away remembrances of places & events. But this envelope is chock full of notes and letters where I spilled my heart out to my kindred spirit. Thoughts of boredom, struggles, plans, fantasies....and, best of all, love. Love for my friends and love for all those stupid, stupid boys that I thought loved me back. The letters date from 10th grade all the way through my college years....and even the first introduction to my HUNK. Talk about a blast from the past. I'd long forgotten that I was struggling to decide between two guys when I met him -he almost didn't make the cut!!

The notes are all different and each carry their own distinctive clue to the mood of the day. Some are funny, some are serious, some are wildly stupid. Some are done with a dot matrix printer and clip art that makes me laugh. They are like small time capsules of my life. And I realized that my girls won't have anything like this. It's kind of strange to think that the hopes and dreams that they are sharing with their friends are lost in Facebook chat or a deleted text log. Not to mention that a typed message certainly doesn't hold the context, mood or feeling behind a message. There are no doodles, no puffy hearts and no Ziggy stickers.

I remember putting so much thought into most of my notes - I was forever drawing things around the borders, looking for perfect stickers and folding them just right for discreet passing in the classroom. I also remember getting in trouble for reading notes when I should've been working, hurting feelings by writing something down that got into the wrong hands and being embarrassed when my mom found a note from a boy talking about sex. The notes were good, but they could also be a tangible reference of ignorance and stupidity.

I didn't keep notes from friends, there were a few that got put inside a book along the way, but most were long since thrown away. I did keep all the letters and notes that I got from Hunk while we were in college. The very first letters were before we started dating, when I was trying to get his attention. It didn't seem to be working out too well, and he was in the desert for Operation Desert Storm/Strike war. I was still at school and I was casually dating other guys. I tried my best to get him to notice me before he was activated, but it just didn't pan out. I didn't give up and I sent him letters and care packages to the desert throughout his tour. Luckily, he started to catch on through my letter 'flirting'. He started writing back to me and our love developed through our letters. When he returned we were immediately 'together'. I have all those letters, stacked in order, and tied with ribbons stashed away with the many love notes that followed once we were officially dating. I don't really do anything with them, but on an off chance that I'm in our storage area I might pick one up and re-read it, bringing a wave of emotion and nostalgia....those letters can re-ignite the spark in a flash. Hunk can probably pinpoint the days I've come across an old love note by the way I ravage him when he walks through the door. It's definately a wonderful archive to have after 19 years together.

I think it's a sad thing that the 'note' is falling by the wayside while our kids send texts and hold conversations in chat. I suppose Facebook will be their memory lane, but I wonder how far back it saves -does your wall ever wipe clean? Is there an archive? I'm all about the electronic world, but this envelope just made me stop and think today. It also made me think about the fact that someday I'll be approaching 80 and since I don't write notes to Hunk any longer I guess I'll get nostalgic looking back at my blog while I float around on my hover chair.

Keeping it to myself

2010-05-14T08:53:00.006-04:00

Putting words out on a blog can be a lot of different things to people. I have kept my blog somewhat anonymous because I like to use it at times to rant about people who annoy me, or situations that clearly I would handle in a much better way. I use my blog for both good and bad, but it's been pretty easy to just put anything out there since many of my readers are strangers. Some of my readers have turned into friends and aquaintances, but the majority are not people who would be affected personally by my everyday complaint.

Today, I wish my blog was totally anonymous - I want so bad to spill my guts and yet I know that the person who hath offended reads here. I feel so restrained because I want to share the situation, but I know that if I do it opens up a whole can of worms for me, not to mention that it could be hurtful for the other party to put it all out in the public. It's a fine line of deciding what to put out there and what to keep. Having a sounding board of readers, but not being able to use them feels paralyzing.

So, I'll just leave you with this......that whole thing, with them, and the others, it's very frustrating and I hate it. And I wish you could step back from yourself...and just realize.

Y'all have a good weekend - it's going to rain here, with big thunderstorms. Quite appropriate..

Random nothingness

2010-05-12T12:32:00.003-04:00

Nothing to see here - just waiting out the last two weeks of school so that I can SLEEP IN! In which case I am certain that my body will awaken me by 7am regardless. I have never been one to sleep late, even when I was a teenager I was always up very early. My dad used to say that sleeping in was wasting daylight, and I kind of agreed. I just really hate to be forced to get up early, which is what school does to me, therefore I complain. It's a mental issue really, the wanting what you can't have.......

I'm feeling kinda weird lately because I don't seem to have a lot to do - it's like I was jam packed busy for a very long time and then, now....nothing. I don't have a lot of work going on, the sports are finishing up, school and scouts are ending. I'm trying to decide if I even WANT to work with my sewing anymore. I mean, I LOVE to do the fun stuff, but I'm just pretty irritated with the "have to" and all the shithead people I have to deal with as a business owner. I'm just feeling a little bored with the whole set up. Perhaps I need to go to a business related conference to get my creative juices flowing and to renew my love for what I do. It wouldn't hurt if it were somewhere awesome like Hawaii or Vegas or S.F! I usually scoff at conferences and their credibility/necessity, but I think I need to eat those words. So who wants to organize a trip in the name of sewing??!!

I have not planned out the summer, which is a first for me. We have a trip at the very end of July, but beyond that we aren't doing anything spectacular. Both of my kids are going away to camp for the same week, and I would be very excited to have an entire week of solitude, but I'm 99 3/4% certain that my youngest child will not enjoy her first experience away. I have a strong feeling that I'll be picking her up early. I hope not, I hope she has a BLAST, but I'm just not too optimistic. I planned for them both to be at camp the same week and I hope that having her sister there will be a comfort for her. It was her idea to go to camp, but I just know her personality and I know how much she loves to have 'her space' - something that she won't get at camp. I do feel a great amount of relief that her big sister will be there and that she has such a GREAT big sister. As much as they can fight and bicker my oldest daughter loves my youngest like she is her child. It may have a lot to do with the 4 year age difference, but she is very protective of her and takes such good care of her. But all of that is not until July.

What a boring post. But that's just how I feel. Boring.

I was Avitaballed....

2010-05-03T11:30:00.004-04:00

Not really - at least, I *think* he kept his pants on the whole time......but I did finally get to meet Adam, along with being able to hang out with Muskrat, Whipstitch, Coalminer's Granddaughter, and Grant which was great! I've had a record month meeting with new folks so I've been a really happy girl!!

Last week was spent getting back into the reality that is life after being away - I took the kids to The Atlanta Community Food Bank which was an awesome thing to see. There is so much opportunity there to help feed the hungry, so we have some ideas to keep us busy once school is out.

We also got a new lawn installed because ours had pretty much gone to crap. It was so weedy, and we've tried numerous times to spruce it up. It just needed to start over - so we got sod installed. It's like an instant lawn!! So cool!! I've got a list of house projects that I hope to get accomplished over the summer time, the next one is re-doing & expanding our back deck.

Now, I'm just trying to burn through the last few weeks of school for the kids - have I mentioned how much I hate school? Yeah, I think I do that a lot!!

I love these people

2010-04-28T11:35:00.004-04:00

people handing out sandwiches to the homeless

in downtown Vancouver

You're going where?

2010-04-27T09:40:00.016-04:00

People questioned me about flying across the country to have a drink with a few people. Specifically, Canadian customs agents questioned me. I left for Vancouver on a relatively uneventful Thursday morning, I planned my flight so that I could drop my kids at school and have time to get to the airport. Bonus for me was that there was NO traffic and I was way ahead of schedule, no line at security, I got a great seat with in flight entertainment. The perfect day of travel! UNTIL......I got to Canada.

I got off of the plane and instead of going straight to baggage claim, I hit the washroom and proceeded to freshen up my hair, face & breath - knowing that Hunk was waiting for me at the exit and we hadn't seen each other for quite some time, I was banking on getting some tongue. This all resulted in me being the last person to claim my bag in a virtually empty baggage claim area. I was the last person to approach the customs checkout and for whatever reason, I was diverted the opposite direction from all other passengers. I followed directions to a large waiting area full of officers and quite a few male passengers just sitting around, awaiting questioning. So, I sat. When it was finally my turn, I was pulled to a more private area where an officer proceeded to ask me why I was coming to Canada. My mistake, I said I was getting together with friends I met on the internet. **SOUND THE ALARMS** I was drilled on what a blog is, what's my blog, who are the other bloggers, how many are meeting, where are we meeting, what will we eat? drink? do? What do I have to show that supports this claim? Uhhhhm. I had nothing, well, I had a stack of TequilaCon hats in my bag that I did not claim on the customs form - I chose not to bring that up for the sake of creating more of a problem. I thought of my iPhone, while I had no service in this area I did have a few "Dave" related widgets. So, I showed him. He was not convinced just because I had a link button, so I showed him ASK DAVE....***MORE ALARMS***. I tried to explain that I was meeting this super fun dude who creates cartoons & apps, and I'm really just a housewife that needed to get away. Use this app, just ask it if I'm a threat to Canada, clicking on Geeky Dave "do I have any dangerous items with me?" - to which he replied "The data indicates Y-E-S". "Am I in anyway here for malicious reason?".... "Aye Captain!" says Pirate Dave. This is not going well - let's switch to Nirvana Dave who is notoriously positive. "Am I a nice person, just on vacation?"......"This is doubtful". Greaaat. I spent a solid half hour in behind the scenes customs, turned the government onto Blogography and finally managed to convince them that I had no ill intentions with my flat irons and chapstick.

Hunk met me on the other side, not surprisingly a bit worried by my delay in exiting the plane. He was all snazzed out in his suit and he met me with flowers....and you might've thought we hadn't seen each other in a month by the way we were groping in the airport.

It's hard to explain to the people in my world why I would go to Vancouver to meet some internet people. Nobody gets it, they never will. Fortunately for me I wasn't just going across the country for TC2010, Hunk was there for work and the absence was definately taxing. We knew that he was going to be travelling across Canada for quite a few days leading up to TC2010 so this was a great chance for us to plan a "getaway".

While Hunk did have to work on Friday, it gave me a day to explore Vancouver on my own and decide on the best spots for us to make the most of "our" time together on Saturday and Sunday. Plus, I'm a rather independent type of girl and I absolutely LOVE to be by myself and be free to just check stuff out without holding anyone back or dragging someone to a place they aren't really interested in.

Saturday, we had some issues understanding exactly where public transportation would take us (we didn't buy a transit map!) and we ended up getting dropped on the opposite side of the Lions Gate Bridge. We thought we would just walk back across the bridge to get to Stanley Park, which was really fun, but OMG, it was raining and that is a long assed bridge. So we got wet, and cold, but it was a really nice view. Then we walked all the way around the seawall to get to the totem poles in Stanley Park and holy crap my legs were about to snap off. I can say that I ate without guilt that day because I literally walked my ass off. Funny thing is that we then ate a really small lunch. We went to a place called SALT where they only serve salt cured meat and artisan cheeses. Hunk is a total cheese head, so we thought this would be fun. It was in a REALLY bad area - there were a lot of colorful things happening around us as we walked down the side alley that Salt was in. Blood Alley was aptly named, partially because it is a known rough area. We survived, but I am confident that there was more illegal activity that happened in that alley than I have seen in my lifetime. We got a plate with a combination of 2 cheeses, 1 meat and 3 condiments. I thought it was a bit pricey because it was really only an appetizer, but it was unique and the selections were really good so I'm not complaining. I'm also kinda frugal, so there's that.

Later that evening we readied ourselves for TequilaCon. I was excited to see Dave again, but I was stoked that was finally going to meet some people that I thought I would never get to meet due to our continental divide. It was funny that some people were really different than I thought they would be and then some were exactly as I imagined them, or even more awesome than I already knew they were. I can say that Jenny is now on a pedestal - she is one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met. I didn't know much about her from her blog posts since many of them have been photo booth essays, but I kinda figured she would be entertaining at the very least. I would've taken her home with me if I could because she is just good people. And Shari, whom I thought had dropped off the face of the earth after TC 2008 - she's alive and well and she is freakin' awesome. There were just so many nice people to meet, it was just fun and I'm so glad I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to be able to attend. Dave, Jenny, Dustin, Brandon and Vahid (who I might've drooled over a little bit) are all so cool to put this gathering together. There should be more people like them in the world. And they were all so extremely thoughtful, like SHARK EXTREME, just because I brought a few hats and I am forever honored to know them.

Some of the fabulous people I met......Angie & Brandon, Kerri Anne, Sarah, Sizzle & Mr. Darcy, Laura & Abby, Flo, Hillary, Angella.....there were more, but my photographic evidence wasn't very thorough and my memory was floating in tequila.

Sunday was my hike day, there were so many places I wanted to go, but I had to pick one so we chose Lynn Canyon for the suspension bridge, waterfalls and hiking trails. It was just gorgeous, I've wanted to be outside in the PNW for many, many moons and there was no way I was leaving this area without getting into the woods. It was so lush and the trees...the trees are just different than the south. I could spend all day just studying the evergreens and the moss - it was just perfect. My city boy loved the bridge and waterfall and I must admit I did pee myself a little on the suspension bridge. Holy crap those things are scary.

My trip home was less eventful, no customs problems. I also had NOTHING to watch!! I had started a few downloads in iTunes that didn't get to finish before I left home. On my trip up I watched all the completely downloaded movies and figured I'd hook up to wireless and finish the partial downloads for my trip home. Guess what!? You can't do that in Canada! There's also no hulu in Canada. Holy Crap!!!! I was really disappointed because man, that is a LONG way and the trip back had NO in-flight entertainment. FAIL!!

We got off the plane just in time to go straight to the softball field to my daughter's game, which I'm SO glad I didn't miss because she ROCKED the ballfield. I missed my kids, but I can't lie that I am happy to get away from them when these opportunities arise. I love them with all my heart, but I have to put just as much into my marriage because in the end, the kids will leave. I am proud that Hunk and I still have things that are "just ours" and that we can come home and slay the parenting deal just as well. So many of my friends put their children first and in the end, their marriages have suffered or failed. While we don't have a perfect marriage I have no doubt that we will be together forever, and while we have wonderful children and we give them as much of ourselves as we can, they do not define "us" and we will still be "us" after they are grown. This trip was a great opportunity to practice the balance of our commitments to each other and to our children and it was worth every penny spent, all the stressing travel drama, every shot of tequila and every stolen moment. And THAT is why I traveled across the country.

My hair was seriously cute when I left the hotel, screw you, rain!

Spring Break Camping, sort of

2010-04-16T09:12:00.008-04:00

We survived the camping trip, though every single thing we took is now completely YELLOW from the blanketing of pollen that we received. You can not even imagine how much pollen was in the area we were. We were enjoying a nice overlook of a waterfall and the wind blew just a bit - a massive cloud of yellow came lumbering over the falls and continued down stream. The air was completely cloudly. Driving home the air looked smog filled and I was using the wipers to remove yellow dust from the windshield. It was bad.

We definately bought our fair share of Claritin on this trip! We did have fun, and one of the highlights was that we did not use our tent on this trip. Less to take, less to set up. And no, we did not sleep under the stars - you must remember I am married to a city boy. We rented a YURT. This was our second time using a yurt - it is like a round tent with canvas sides, but it has hardwood floors and electricity. Yeah, not REALLY camping....but we still have to do all the outdoor cooking and walk to the bathroom, so it's modified camping!

This is a yurt.

The yurt also looks really cool on the inside because it is a round lattice frame and has big cedar futons inside - it also has a sunroof on the top that you can pop up. We left ours closed to try to keep the pollen out!

While on our trip we visited an animal rescue where they have a unique animal family of fully grown Lion, Tiger & Bear - they all grew up together and live in the same habitat. They play together like overgrown kittens. SO FUNNY! They had lots of animals, including retired circus tigers, leopards, wolves, primates, pigs, deer, bison, zebra.....like a zoo, but at someone's house. They had a lot of property and it was just beautiful. Very nice!

We also visited Ocumulgee National Monument - indian mounds which was really cool. I like hiking, walking and being outside, but I prefer to do those things in the SHADE. Walking to the big mound was not my idea of fun, but once we got on top it was worth it. And to think that these mounds were built by hand/basket is mind boggling. There was also a mound where they held tribal meetings and it is mostly a completely original clay floor. Very creepy to go inside if you are claustrophobic, but I didn't want to miss it. I waited until it was empty and made Hunk guard the passage so I wouldn't get trapped and freak out. It was very cool. I took a picture in the museum of the re-creation of the interior because I was too busy trying to keep my cool while inside the real thing.

a long trek to the mound - no shade!

entrance into the mound, looks tall - it's NOT

a VERY LOW, NARROW path...eeeeeeek

And thus ends our Spring Break camping. I've decided we won't camp again at this time of year due to the pollen. I would've thought I remembered that we were coated in yellow at our camping trip last year, but I didn't. I think I have finally etched it in my brain.

Gone Camping! See you on the flipside!

2010-04-06T06:59:00.001-04:00

I crawled in a buttcrack...

2010-03-27T06:59:00.005-04:00

I'm typically a very laid back type of person. I do have a list of things that I am extremely particular about, and there are a few things that rattle me, but for the most part, I'm a pretty calm person.

One thing, in particular, that can send me to edge of reason is the invasion of my SPACE. I don't like to be touched (except by Hunk) and ESPECIALLY when I'm hot/sweaty. I don't like to be in tight spaces and I don't like to share workspace. I'm borderline claustrophobic. I don't say that I truly have a phobia about space because I like to think that I have control over my reactions to things, but in the end, I'm teetering on the edge of a full blown hysteria when I feel trapped.

I can handle most elevators, I've been in a few small ones that made me wish I had taken the stairs. I am okay on airplanes, but I do insist on an aisle seat. My biggest problem to date has been a cruise ship. Yes, a SHIP made me freak like a mad person. Our very first cruise was on a Radisson Seven Seas ship with a mere 170 rooms. This was only a 20,000 ton ship which is a dwarf to those 70,000+ ton ships that you see from Carnival, etc. Being a small ship the room was big (in my later comparison to a Carnival ship). At the time, however, I had never been on a cruise and the room size was a bit annoying to my phobia. The biggest issue was the hallway outside of the room. If you met another person in the hallway you had to each turn sideways to pass. O.M.G. And, of course, our room was 3/4 of the way down the hall. I would stand at the doorway, send Hunk to the end of the hall so he could block anyone coming in and then I would sprint down to the lobby. Yeah, I know, weird. I was also freaked out by the room that had no balcony - there was no way out except into that freakishly narrow hallway. My thoughts raced around to all the what-ifs. I could imagine the hallway crammed with people trying to escape and how I'd rather die in my room that to try to push through a crowd in that tube of a passageway. We didn't cruise again for MANY years after that incident, until I finally could no longer deny my kids the fun, and we went on a Carnival cruise. Luckily, I was able to find a full map of the ship and locate a room that was nearly in a big open lobby - I made it very clear that if I could not have THAT ROOM, I was not going. It cost more and caused me a lot of stress leading up to the trip, but in the end it was great. This ship had huge hallways (small rooms, but with OPENINGS!) and I had no worries at all. Anyway, back on topic....

So I can't decide if I'm just claustrophobic or if it is something else as well. When I said that I would imagine all the 'what if's' on that small ship - that is something that I do all the time, with every situation. I was walking on the treadmill and I saw a shadow moving in the other room (it was the cat, and I knew it), but I spent the rest of that walk spinning all the scenarios of 'what if that were an intruder' and they suddenly burst around the corner - what would I do, where would I go? And I stayed on the treadmill longer than I ever have planning out all of my escape routes. It was at that time that I realized that my house is built with multiple exits in each and every room. When we built this home the general contractor thought I was the biggest pain in the ass because I kept adding doors to the blueprint. I thought I was planning a practical home, but I think I was subconsciously planning escape routes throughout my home!! It is really odd that it took me this many years to figure it out, but both floors in our house have 'circular' patterns, and every room has an alternate exit door - except bathrooms, however all but one has a window. I think I have issues.....

I can't explain why I fear being cramped or trapped. Funnier still is that when I see situations on movies or TV where people are trapped I get SO uncomfortable!! The scene in Kill Bill when Uma was buried alive made me want to rip my skin off!!!! Even worse, is that it isn't just having my whole body trapped that freaks me out, it can be just 'parts' of me. Even if it is just my foot or my hand that is trapped I can have a full panic attack. Seeing other people with trapped body parts makes me squirm, too. I've also already informed my family that I shall not be buried when I pass away. Even though the thought of being cremated sends me into a tailspin it is worse to think of my body forever trapped inside a box! I want to be cremated in the express lane and then tossed out, anywhere, no urn for this chick - they seal those things shut!! EEEEK! And there lies more weirdness, why am I even worried about my dead body. Uhm, hello, I won't be in there anymore!!

This past Halloween we went to Ripley's Haunted House in Gatlingburg, TN and the entire theme was PHOBIA (Hey Adam, great party idea for you!). Each room was themed with a phobia - dentist drilling, dead babies, clowns, bugs, etc. And then, THEN there was the CLAUSTROPHOBIA room....oh my, I thought I was going to pass out before I got through it. The only thing keeping me alive was that I was trying to be calm for my 8 year old who we should've never taken to a haunted house in the first place! If it weren't for my kids I would have freaked the fuck out, no doubt. The doorway was a single opening and there were canvas bladders to the ceiling on each side of the room. Behind the bladders were what sounded fans blowing them up like balloons. Two room-sized balloons pushing against each other with jet powered force. Basically it was like squeezing into a huge buttcrack and digging your way through in total darkness - no reference to 'how much farther'. The walls were pushing in so hard I could picture myself suffocating, my arms were aching from trying to keep the walls from pressing against my face and trying to give my daughter enough space for passage. The smell was horrid, like old socks and diesel. I thought about all the bodies that have squeezed along this path, the germs, the sweat, the tears rubbing up against me. In my mind, I thought it would never end, I thought it was THE END. I was on auto pilot, just telling myself that I had to get my kid out of there, my focus was completely on her or I would not have been able to do it. Finally, we were out, the humanity! We survived! We rounded the corner only to be chased out by a masked figure and a REAL chain saw. OH, the fun family moments we've had......

So, if you don't know me very well, welcome to the first installment of how to freak my ass out, sit on me or show me your crack, that is all it takes. Just ask Hunk, he knows all to well...

It's looking up....

2010-03-23T11:04:00.010-04:00

So things are looking up around here....my daughter finally got her shit together, even if it only lasts a few days, and we are getting the party planned. I am beyond stressed at all that has to be done before Saturday, but I'll take party stress over work stress any day of the week!!

I have a ton of great ideas for the party, but I don't have the time to implement any of them so we are having a sleepover and possibly will go to the movies. I'm still working automobile logistics on that idea....

I told Hunk he was being an ass and he pretty much agreed - he's got the work stress thing going on, so I can't blame him too much. Something really cool happened because of work for him, he goes to Canada a few times a year, but not anything too regular. He found out yesterday that he is scheduled to be in Canada for the TequilaCon date. Well, Canada is a big place, and he's going to multiple cities, but it just so happens that he will be in VANCOUVER the exact date. Could the stars align any better? The bigger hurdle now is trying to get myself there to be with him, but hell, somebody in this house gets to go so...HUAH!! My schedule is open that week/weekend, but getting my kids' calendar covered for a few days is like herding kittens... I only have two kids - I can't imagine all those people with 4-5 kids all doing their own thing. I would lose my mind!!!

And because I love myself for being a volunteer, this past weekend we helped pack up cookies to send to soldiers serving overseas. All four of us went to help and it was so fun - tons of girls, and a few dads & moms, decorating boxes, writing notes and packing up cookies with love. Over 5,000 boxes - that's a lot of cookies!! And they will travel via military crates, on military planes and be delivered far and wide to the soldiers. It's really hard for the kids to understand how much this can mean to a soldier. Hell, it's hard for ME to understand. I've never had to leave my family behind to go work, I've never had to dig myself a hole to take a crap in, I've never had desert sand in my eyes and I have never had to eat MRE's three times a day, seven days a week. While we were selling cookies in front of a store we had a mom come up to our booth and purchase cookies to add to our "Ship to Soldiers" bin. It so happened that she had recently come home from being stationed in Iraq and she told us how getting a box of cookies, decorated with puppy stickers, silly notes and smiley faces absolutely made her day. She could not stress enough how "you just have no idea what it meant to me..." And she is so very right....I have no idea, and I am thankful that I will never have to know that struggle.

..a trailer full of cookies...notes for each case...notes from donors........every box decorated..

I get no respect.....

2010-03-18T11:07:00.003-04:00

I typically have thought of my kids as being very respectful and kind. This week, however, has been a challenge for me. I'm the FIRST to admit that my kids can be annoying - ALL kids can. Any parent who says their child is always a dream is obviously high. They are kids, they are annoying. They are plowing through life, trying to figure out all the things that we already know. This is where my frustration lies.....those things that I 'know', the common sense, the street knowledge, the things that are just second nature to my being are the things that I mostly EXPECT my kids to 'just get it'. Which isn't fair, they haven't experienced everything that I have and for some stupid reason, I feel that they should just have all this common sense by OSMOSIS, because I am the all reigning queen of common sense. They should've inherited it, right?

Getting back to the point - Respect. I've been getting a lot of lip from my oldest in the past two weeks. This is HIGHLY unusual and I've not dealt with it in the best way. I just get really angry because it is a struggle for control of the situation, and I don't like to lose. In fact, I actually got so mad at her a few days ago that I just told her, "I'm done with this conversation, just do the fucking dishes". She nearly passed out by my lack of censorship. I never say the "f" word to my kids. Never. It KILLS me that this child does not have the common sense to realize that she can make her life easy, or hard and that she is in control of her actions and reactions. It is so hard to remember that I wasn't born knowing all this stuff.

My youngest child got raked over the coals last night. We were putting things in the car (A LOT of things) after softball and she wanted me to load in her bat bag, very impatiently she's all "UUUHHHHHM, HELLLLOOOOO, you NEED to get my bag!!!!" I snapped around and nearly pinched her little head off. I let her know very quickly that should she ever speak to me that way again that she will live to regret it. But I just keep asking myself where on earth it came from? I mean, why did she all of a sudden decide that it was okay to be so rude?? I just kinda thought that they would realize when sarcasm is funny, and when it is disrespectful - but why would they know these things without getting to experience them?

My kids are good kids, but they have to test the theories that they are learning to find out when they are appropriate and unfortunately, I am the test dummy. And I don't test well.

It's not just the kids, either. I'm getting lip from Hunk, and NOT THE GOOD KIND! It's like my shields have been lowered and someone put a sign on my back that says "Talk to me like I'm the dog....".

The best part of all of this is that my oldest child's 13th birthday is near. I didn't have a huge celebration when I was 13, but apparently this is a big milestone and everyone can't believe that I just wanted to go to the movies and call it a night. So, in the midst of being treated like yesterday's news I'm supposed to be planning a blowout bash for this kid who I really can't stand right now. This irks me on so many levels......first, because I'm MAD AT HER (and clearly, I'm 13, too) and secondly, because I am a planner. The very thought of tossing together a party in a week's time makes me want to vomit. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to event planning and I'd rather just not have it if it can't be top notch. If we had discussed that this age bracket was huge about a month ago, when said child wasn't being a butthole, I would've happily planned an extravagant event. Now I'm rubbing sticks together trying to come up with fire. I'm so uninspired, and mostly because I'm so unhappy with the dynamic that is going on in our household. Even the cat threw up on the carpet today, RIGHT NEXT to where the hardwood meets the carpet, but ON THE CARPET. Everybody is a butthole....except me.

BUT - since one of my 4.2 readers thinks that blogs are becoming bitchfests I will include a happy tidbit. I'm looking at YOU, LSL. I'm on my way to the post office to mail a package to my Chemo-friend as a part of the Chemo Angel program. My kids and I picked out a cute little sign of hope for her to hang on her wall. This was during a 10 minute lapse that we were all happy and inside Target. Because going to Target makes everyone happy, right?

Let's Get Physical

2010-03-10T15:01:00.003-05:00

I don't think I'll ever like to exercise. It baffles me that there are people who love it, I have tried and tried and tried some more, but I just.don't.like.it.

Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean I don't do it. I just don't find any enjoyment in it whatsoever. At first I thought that perhaps once I got into better shape that I would find enjoyment in it, but thinking back to my much younger years when I was in great shape I still hated it. I hated it with every bone in my being. I remember in college how I completely LOATHED having to take P.E. I took aerobics classes and used the gym at college like crazy, but it was completely a social game for me - I was never in it for the feeling. I never look forward to it and it is always something to "get out of the way" so that I can get on with my day. The days that I wait to do it I feel like it is constantly hanging over me. I just don't like it.

I am not a member of a gym - my exercise is limited to what I have here at home, but I really do not think that a gym would change my perspective. I used to belong to a gym and I went out of being a slave to a payment, not enjoyment. I took classes, used equipment, but I didn't find anything that I truly enjoyed.

I just wonder if some people just don't ever get there. Will I ever feel it? It baffles me to hear people who are so excited about going to a class, or who are fighting over who 'gets' to go and who has to stay home with the kids!! I was talking to Hunk about people who exercise while on vacation - I personally think they are NUTS!!! The only reason I can think that I would exercise on vacation would be so I could eat more!! If there wasn't good food on a particular day then I'm OUT! You won't find this chick on the ship's treadmill!!

Why do you exercise? Do you love it? Have you always loved it? Am I all alone here?

Entitled

2010-03-03T20:44:00.005-05:00

I think probably everyone feels entitled at some point in their life - we are taught very young that if we are good, we are entitled to a treat or if we work hard, we are entitled to better opportunity. If we treat others with respect we are entitled to receive the same.

What I don't get is why there are so many people in the world that feel they are entitled to a different set of rules or laws than the rest of us. This week has been the epitome of entitlement by a number of fucktards that have crossed my path.

Driving. I really should not even get started on this. The road is a sea of entitlement - every driver out there thinks they are better than the next. I get irritated when drivers do stupid things, but this week has been a plethora of annoyance. Yesterday, some asshole in the school carline decided that he didn't like the pattern of merging so he just decided to keep going and not let the next car in (which happened to be me). Honestly, is one car length going to get your child to school any faster? Really? THEN, when the bus dropped my child off in the afternoon some pimply faced hotshot decided that he was too good to stop for the bus STOP sign and blew right through - could've killed my kid, but hell, we don't want him to be late to Abercrombie now, do we? THEN I was turning right on GREEN and a dude coming from the facing traffic decided he should get to turn RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and blew his horn AT ME. Uhm, hello asshole, first of all you DO NOT have a green arrow, secondly, screw you.

I swear, I am surrounded by idiots.

Yesterday, I had to go to the Cookie Warehouse. Did you know that in almost every city there is a Girl Scout Cookie Warehouse chock full of pallet upon pallet of cases of cookies? Well, there is - and when a troop runs out of cookies they can simple back up to the dock and take a carload. There are rules and proceedures to get the cookies, of course. One rule being that NO CHILDREN ARE ALLOWED AT THE WAREHOUSE. This rule is stressed because as GS leaders we almost all have kids, usually in tow. We are frequently reminded that they are not welcome at the warehouse. OF COURSE, as I waited in line to secure my cookie stash a lady jumped IN FRONT OF ME, gave me a pathetic apology "I'll just be a second" and stated to the warehouse manager that she must be allowed to go ahead and load her car first because she has a 1yr old and a 3yr old in the car. Excuse me you entitled HO, but we all have kids and we all made arrangements so that this particular scenario wouldn't happen. How is it that YOU are special, or different, or that the rule does not apply to you. Last time I checked your kids are young enough to be strapped into car seats and therefore if you are stupid enough to bring them they can sit in the car locked down.

Lastly, I want to vent about our experience at the eye doctor. I made an appt. for my child, though they accept walk-ins I wanted a dedicated time slot. I made the appt. a few days in advance and showed up 15 minutes prior to our appt. Apparently, appt. means nothing to this establishment because we waited for OVER an hour and a half. People who needed "quick checks" were ushered in before us, walk-ins who came in prior to our appt. all got preference. This means that if 20 people 'walked-in' at 2:14 and I had an appt. at 2:15 every.single.one of them would get seen before me. That is BULLSHIT. The best part is that when we finally got seen it took a whopping 14 minutes to complete the eye exam. The clerk tried to explain that the 12 people who were seen before us had "quick checks" which only takes a few minutes, obviously they are entitled to slide in first. So instead of making a person on a quick appt. wait an additional 14 minutes for us to finish, we had to wait over 90 minutes for a variety of 5-7 minute walk in's to be seen. I was FUMING. Obviously, those who just SHOW UP are entitled to be seen before the customer who politely waited 2 days for an open time slot - which wasn't open to begin with. We ended up getting a discount, because clearly I was NOT happy, but in the end I would have preferred to have my day back.

It just makes no sense to me why some people believe that they are above the rest of us. My sister in law is one of these people. No matter what the situation is, she has to go about it a different way - a way that says "I'm better than you and the rules". In the 19 years that I have known her she goes out of her way to break a rule or guideline, just because she knows she can get away with it. She does these things because she knows it pisses people off and she knows that most of the time no one will call her out on it. Which leads me to the fact that some of us rule followers are PART OF THE PROBLEM. I don't always call people out, sometimes I just choose to take the high road and avoid the confrontation, but this allows people like my SIL to keep getting away with shit. I'd like to think that the mom at the warehouse was just having a stressful day, maybe her sitter cancelled, but the reality is that she probably plays this card all the time. If she's like my SIL, she pulls it out every chance she gets, knowing that no one is going to call her on it.

I don't think I'm better than other people, or that my moral code is superior to others. I have plently of flaws, but I'm just so tired of this world that is so full of self centeredness. I try not to make my problems become those of other people, I try to be respectful of other's space and time and I am keenly aware of what is going on around me. Too bad that 90% of the population is the complete opposite. And it will never change, so all I can do is vent. I'm entitled to my opinion, right?

Dinner

2010-03-03T13:34:00.004-05:00

Okay, I realize I sounded like I was whining for comments - I really wasn't! I was just thinking out loud about what other people would think......onward!

A few months ago I decided that our family needed to do some charitable work - we are usually pretty involved and like to volunteer, but I just felt like we needed something new for our plate. Something we could do as a family. So I signed us up to cook dinner for the Ronald McDonald House.

I chose some specific dates that would work, or that had meaning for us, but nothing was working out for the volunteer schedule. I ended up taking a random date that meant nothing to me, but according to my calendar I was available. February 7. I am a horrible football wife.

Many of you know that Feb. 7 was Super Bowl Sunday - and I didn't even know it. Better yet, I signed up our family for a 4-5 hour commitment between 4-9pm, which is smack in the heart of Super Bowl kickoff, pre game, etc. GO ME!

Fortunately, Hunk decided that he would DVR and catch up when we got home - even though I gave him full liberty to stay home and I would handle the dinner with just my girls. THANK GOD! I had no idea what I had gotten myself into and having him there was quite a relief!!

I did a lot of pre-cooking for the meal to try to make it easier on myself, but my goal was to serve a well thought out, no corners cut meal. After all, these folks could get cafeteria food at the hospital - what they needed was well prepared comfort food.

Our evening started out very stressful - I had incorrect directions and I was on edge about my portions, constantly second guessing myself on whether or not we had enough food. We got lost on the way there and were then 30 minutes behind the "start time" that I had planted in my head as the only road to success. I was freaking out that the food would not get done in time and the world would end. Hunk was on edge because, well, we were lost and he was driving (though not his fault, I had the directions). And he's a man. We finally made it, though behind schedule and found ourselves in the biggest kitchen I've ever seen in my life!

If you don't know what the Ronald McDonald House is, it is a place for families of children in the hospital - a place to stay, two meals a day and it is located right near the Children's hospital. It alleviates stress on families who don't live near the hospital, plus saves all the money that a hotel would cost. It's like a small home away from home, with lots of support to help them through a time when their focus should be on their child's medical health. It is a dream come true for families in medical stress. Thankfully we have never had to use their services, but both of my kids have had their fair share of medical needs and had we needed Ronald McDonald House, they would've been there for us. There are TWO Ronald McDonald Houses in Atlanta, obviously since we were lost, this is the location I had never been to before!

Our meal consisted of Pot Roast - mostly because it is my number one comfort food, and secondly because I knew that I could start it in the crock pots (I borrowed crocks from everyone I knew!) a day early and let it cook over the 24 hours leading up to the dinner. We also made twice baked potatoes, broccoli casserole (vegetarian option), green beans w/almonds and garlic cheese bread. Since it was Super Bowl Sunday I also decided a good appetizer would be a 5 layer mexican dip - and by the looks of the licked out pan I made a good choice!! We made cookies for dessert so that we could fill the house with the fresh baked smell. It turned out great - one woman commented that my cooking reminded her of her mother, another man was a chef (for a very famous TV personality) and gave my Pot Roast rave reviews and came back for seconds!

I left the dinner feeling great - we had done something wonderful for families who aren't as fortunate as we are at the moment and I left feeling like the greatest cook on earth from all the compliments I received. I didn't do it for my own satisfaction, but I certainly got a lot from the experience.

We are now on a volunteer schedule and I plan to cook for them as often as I can - it's time consuming and expensive (meal for 80+ people), but I think we've found a great outlet for our family to work together helping others - something that we are all equally a part of and all interested in.

Empty

2010-03-01T12:46:00.003-05:00

My blog feels so empty.

My comment site was Haloscan, which is now gone. It decided to vanish and take everyone's comments with it. I did have an opportunity to export my comments to a file, but I can't really do much with it. I saved all of your thoughts, jabs and musings - tucked them away to never be seen again. Since I'm just a peanut of a blogger, I didn't think this transition would really be an issue for me, but coming here and not seeing anyone's name listed as a recent comment makes it feel so empty.

I wonder if anyone new were to stop by and see that I had no comments on any of my posts - what would they think? Would they feel sorry that I have no one interested in my drivel? Why do I even care?

I tend to look at most situations from the perspective of 'the other person'. What does that make me? When I say things to people I often put myself in their shoes, trying to understand how they heard what I said. Did I correctly convey my true thought? Could it be taken the wrong way? I usually try to carefully word emails that I send and I'm not quick to answer questions in a group - I prefer to think out my answer to make sure I don't blurt out something weird or stupid. I often wonder what someone else thinks of this, that or the other. Perhaps this is a small part of my self imagine issue, I'm constantly working to try to be better than what I perceive that I am. Keeping my mouth shut and my thoughts under reign will assure that I don't make myself look like a buffoon. Right? Or does it make me look like a quiet wallflower? If I have no comments, do I look like a loser?

There have been occasions where I've taken my perspective and tried to shed some light on how a conversation could've come across the wrong way. Recently, I tried to tell Hunk that he sent out a message that I thought was inappropriate for the situation. That had he really thought about it before he sent it, he might've changed his mind. He got really irritated, with good reason. I mean, who am I to tell him what to say? We had a big discussion and he has said before that I "take the other side", meaning I am forever defending the other person(s). But I'm not. I am simply taking what was said and trying to see how it could've been perceived by the other 'side'. And then I often will say, hey, that kinda sounded smart assed, or don't you think you might've offended someone? But it comes across as defending someone other than him - when really, I'm just thinking out loud about the 'what if's'.

On many occasions Hunk loves to proclaim to anyone who will listen that there is no point in arguing with me because I am ALWAYS right. Kudos to him for being smart enough of a husband to realize that YES, the wife is always right. This will lead to a long and happy marriage (at least for me). And, yes, I am usually right if I'm being bold enough to take part in the discussion. That being said, I don't "know it all". I am simple smart enough to keep my mouth shut if I am uncertain about the facts. If I know what I'm talking about I will loudly and passionately argue with you until the death.....because I KNOW that I am right. So, no, I'm not a wallflower, though there are many situations when I will choose to just be quiet (meaning I don't know Jack Shit what you are talking about), but I'm listening, and learning and next time...I will be ready to speak up.

In the end, I'm not a big talker and by reading this post, that may make you think that I just don't know Jack Shit about much. You may be right.

This took a weird turn, from being about missing comments to self esteem and on to my knowledge base.

39 Candles

2010-02-16T14:47:00.003-05:00

It's my birthday and I am totally planning on giving my panties to a geek!!

Happy Self Love Day!

2010-02-15T17:38:00.003-05:00

Here’s how the whole thing works:
1.) You’re gonna grab yourself a banner. If you don’t like the one I’ve used in this post, you can find another one here.
2.) You’re gonna post that banner and then tell us all something that you really like love about yourself (thus, the “self-love” portion of our program).
3.) Ask or beg your readers to post one thing that they too love about you!!! If your blog friends are nice, you shouldn’t have to beg…much.
4.) Enjoy yourself and spread the love by doing this on your blog!

I generally think I'm pretty full of awesome, but I usually am not quite sure that other people feel that way. This year, something that I love about me is that I have spent more time focusing on helping other people. I've allocated more time and commitment to volunteering for things that I feel are truly important. I've made a difference to people who were hurting and I think that is really important! I also love that I am sharing this with my kids and hopefully instilling in them a desire to be more than just someone taking up space on the planet.

And since my Hunk doesn't blog anymore, I'll tell you something I love about him - uhhhhm, well, it's really hard to pick ONE thing, but I just love that he LOVES me, and I mean that in a way that he loves me and takes a genuine interest in things that I love. We have our own separate 'stuff', but we still do a lot together and when I like something he finds something about it that he can enjoy right along with me. Yeah, and he has AWESOME hands that soothe me and can make me scream. Ok, that was two, but still.......

LOVE YOU ALL!

Own it!

2010-02-01T12:13:00.004-05:00

Why is it so hard for someone to JUST.OWN.IT? If you upset someone, and they let you know what is wrong, why do some people continue to just back pedal in the discussion???

Is it really SOOO difficult to just say "Yeah, I can see where you're coming from...." (and ACTUALLY assess the situation). Heh, I said "The Situation". I'm not even trolling for an apology, especially a forced one. Just OWN IT. You pissed me off and I have every right on earth to let you know it. No matter how misguided you believe my anger to be does not replace the fact that YOU upset ME. If you cared an ounce about me I would think the fact that I am upset about something would be enough for you to step out of your box and look at the situation instead of being a blamer.

Key words - Acknowledgement & Discussion - take note.

Lose It!

2010-01-29T11:56:00.004-05:00

I've lost a lot of things in my life, most specifically my marbles, but I've found a new App that encourages me to LOSE. Calories that is. I got the new Lose It App for my iPhone and have begun recording everything I eat on a daily basis.....and HOLY COW it is eye opening!!

I've always read that a food journal is a good thing, but I can't keep up with one single notebook to save my life. The one thing in my life that I have managed not to lose (including my kids) is my iPhone. Therefore, this App is always with me and easy to use. I've been trying to eat healthy for over a year, we've switched to whole grains, 1% milk, blah, blah, blah....but until you actually realize HOW MUCH stuff you are putting in, it really doesn't make a huge impact on your body size. Plus, it is easy to rationalize small snacks throughout the day because they are just 100 calories, but in the end it really adds up fast!

I joined WW once, and it wasn't willingly AT ALL. My friend asked me to go with her and since I am an awesome friend, I did. I was shouting joy from the roof tops the very next week when said friend got knocked up and could no longer follow WW. Now, there was no need for me to try to count points and all this nonsense!! That baby remains my favorite child to this very day!! I just can't see keeping up with conversions and points - it's just not me. The Lose It! App is FREE (no weekly fee, like WW) and you just put in what you ate, then it tells you how much more you can eat if you want to stay on track. Granted, I know that calories are only one equation to the overall process with fats and carbs, but this thing is EASY - and it works like it says it will. I've lost some poundage just by being aware of how much is going in. I still eat what I like, but I can realize better how to space out the things that I love the most. You can add in fats, carbs, etc., but I haven't done that. You can also record your weight and watch your progress on a fancy schmancy graph.

One of the biggest eye openers I had was my Macaroni Grill Penne Rustica - this revelation made me cry. This is my absolute favorite dish in all of the USA and I realized that it is almost 1600 calories!! Thank goodness I have never finished off a whole one in one sitting, but I could. That is an entire days worth of eating!! In one dish!! OY!

It is also eye opening that just a small bit of exercise allows you to eat another 100 calories, and the App will allow you to add in your exercise (even if it is SEX! wooty!) and then you realize that you can have that midnight snack after all (and not feel horrible about it).

If I get to the end of the day and I'm out of calories it is a good motivation to go hit the treadmill, even if just for 30 minutes.

So, while I have not been paid to do this post - I did get the App for FREE - but so can everyone else on earth, I can highly recommend this App for even the most casual attempt at a healthier life. It really makes it easy and makes it very straight forward.

PANTS!!

2010-01-24T13:16:00.004-05:00

I don't know where I have been for the past few years, but dudes, I have been missing out!

I went shopping for a baby gift and I ended up at T.J.Maxx - this place has something for everyone! So I found something cute for the baby that I could embellish with embroidery (and on Clearance! Woot!) and then I decided to wander through the clothing.

Now, I don't typically like to shop for clothing - I'm short and wide, so nothing really fits. I've given up on finding things I like so I stick to my tried and true wardrobe, crossing my fingers that I can make things last! I have a pair of adidas pants that I really like, so I decided I would look for a second pair. Unfortunately, I had no luck. But I did find something new.... YOGA PANTS! I have really missed the boat! These things are tre-awesome!!!

I've never purchased Yoga pants before, they are made for those who are blessed with long, slender legs - or so I thought. I am right about the LONG part, good lord every pair of yoga pants I've ever looked at would've been a good 8 inches past my feet. Out of the question. But I found a cute pair of cropped yoga pants, with a roll down waist. I figured for 15 bucks it was worth a shot. I kind of figured that I probably would not like them, or that I would be squeezed into them at best, but O.M.G. they are frickin' perfect.....AND I don't look half bad in them. They fall at all the right places (especially the roll down waist) and they are sooooo comfortable!! I am completely in love with these pants.

I've heard that it is not socially acceptable to wear yoga pants in public, except in class transit. My new mission in life is to find any and all retailers that deem my yoga pants acceptable shopping wear, otherwise I plan to just stay at home. Or maybe I should open up my own yoga wear shop, therefore I could be a working model! I suppose I could take a yoga class, then if I get caught at Target in my yoga pants I can say that I was just leaving class......yeah. Or I could just lie about it.

He saw me NAKED!

2010-01-08T21:26:00.006-05:00

What is your modesty level with your spouse? Ours goes in and out, depending on my mood, but there is one hard and fast rule that I have - DO NOT enter the bathroom with me, unless you are invited. Hunk has been a good little scout for the most part, he's very respectful - I mean I've only heard the man fart 3 times in 18 years, he's very gentlemanly(?), he opens doors, send flowers, etc. - plus our bathroom is big and it has lots of doors. While we live in a pretty small house - as comparison to the McMansions that we are surrounded by - we are blessed to have a nice sized home for our family. Our master bath has 5 doors in it - entry, toilet, a closet for each of us, and a linen closet. My dad comments about once a month that my bathroom has more doors than his entire house......anyway!! The point is that if I'm truly in the toilet, there is a buffer zone which means that if Hunk comes in the bathroom uninvited, he is still at least one layer away. The same goes for if I'm dressing since I typically get dressed inside my closet.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't want to be naked around my spouse. It's just that there is good naked and bad naked, and I like to keep the bad naked all to myself. Can you see where this is going????

A few days ago, I was in the bathroom getting ready to take a shower. Usually, I do my business very fast when it comes to showers, dressing, poop, etc. I don't hide in the bathroom for long periods of time, get in, get out, get on with my life. For some strange reason, I decided to linger in front of the mirror while waiting for the shower to warm up. I was doing the "younger boobs" trick - arms down my boobs are 38 years old, but if I put my arms up they are 28 again, completely over my head I am pushing 25. So I'm standing in front of the mirror, completely facsinated with my boobs, 38, 28, 25, 38, 25, 28, 38, 25 - and trying to decide exactly how it is that I will be able to walk around the beach on our next trip with my arms up all the time. Maybe if I get a basket of bananas to carry on my head......that's another post.

Of course, this is when the door to the bathroom opens, one arm above my head and the other arm down, looking like a monkey - and ogling my boobs. WTF!? Granted, seeing boobs in any form is a happy place for a man, apparently it was a really good day because Hunk got to see a 25 year old boob - even if it was right next to my other one, which was still 38!

Piggie Fun!

2009-12-21T21:28:00.002-05:00

I am super excited about tomorrow! I'm a person who doesn't like "routine", so I really don't hold fast to traditions. I can't stand it when someone freaks out because "we always do it this way...." I'm really easy going and I don't really mind when things change, or happen differently than they used to. But tomorrow.....

Tomorrow we are going to do some fun stuff that we try to do with our kids every year during the holidays. Things that just make our holiday so much more fun, and I can't imagine not getting to do them every year!! First we are going to ride the PINK PIG! Granted, my legs go numb from being crammed into the ultra small seats, but the Pink Pig is an Atlanta legend and it's in a big tent outside of Macy's and they project pink lights everywhere and it is just a Pepto Bismol explosion of awesome!! After the Pink Pig, we will be spending the night downtown and then we will go to The Fabulous Fox Theatre to see The Nutcracker, performed by the Atlanta Ballet. Nothing puts me in the mood of Christmas quite like watching the Nutcracker!

I'm really looking forward to getting away from the house (even if only for one night) and just having FUN! I had visions of taking my little girl to the Nutcracker before she was even conceived, and now that we have TWO girls (though they aren't ballerinas, or even very girlie) this is such a fun thing to look forward to every year. I hope they will look back someday, when they have their own little girls, and have wonderful memories of this "tradition" with their not so traditional mom (and dad)!

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!

Your kid annoys me...

2009-12-17T15:53:00.005-05:00

I have kids. Like most parents, I think my kids are pretty amazing. There is a distinct difference in me and many parents (that I encounter) - I live in REALITY. You see, even though I think my kids are pretty amazing, I also think that my kids can be really annoying. Every kid on earth has the opportunity to be really annoying, on many levels, on many occasions and it is up to me, and others as parents, to STOP THAT SHIT, immediately.

We went to see Santa last night. This year, the mall did this wonderful new trick where they no longer take reservations to see Santa - you just have to wait in line, for an hour and a half. With no benches. No wi-fi. No fountain to drown yourself in......

We had the option to go see a different Santa, however, THIS is OUR Santa. We've sat on this man's lap for the past 12 years, there was no chance I wanted to find a new Santa. It would totally mess up our entire photo collection. So, we waited.

Hunk offered to let me take the kids to dinner and he would hold our spot. I didn't take him up on that offer because I feared for the kid behind us. In the 1 and a half minutes that they had been behind us in line, the kid had bumped, rammed or otherwise touched me 5 times. I DO NOT like to be touched. I was on the verge of losing my cool, and let's just say that when it comes to obnoxious kids I am about 8 million times more patient than Hunk. I stayed for the safety of that kid.

When I get in a line, I strategically stop well before I get close to the folks in front of me. I don't like to be crowed, I don't like to be touched by strangers and I have limited patience for ignoramous people. I compensate for my known issues and I leave a buffer zone. The people behind us were reasonably buffered, for about 10 minutes, then they began to "inch". I have no earthly idea why people in a line must "inch" - especially when the line is NOT moving. See, Santa was away on his dinner break so we were just standing there, and yet people continued to "inch" forward as if it were going to help them get to Santa faster. By the time we reached the 45 minute mark the people behind us were literally rubbing up against me with every breath they took. I was seriously on the verge of a break down. But, I had my buffer in the front. I saved at least 3 feet between me and the people before me......so I scooted up a little. They CONTINUED to "inch". There was no escaping these people behind me and their obnoxious kid.

And it wasn't just them - it was a myriad of obnoxious kids. I don't understand how people let their children act so utterly annoying in public. There was a kiosk next to use where you could print off a coupon for your photos, well since there wasn't any entertainment for those kids waiting in line lots of kids thought the kiosk was a great thing to play with. In an hour and a half we waited there were about 6-8 kids who managed to print off about 856 coupons, and only to leave them in a pile on the floor. WTH? I realize that little kids need to be occupied, but here's a newsflash - you are going to WAIT IN LINE for Santa, what part of that shit does a parent not understand? Hello?! Bring a bag of tricks, a DS, a book, WHATEVER it takes. There has never been a Santa without a line, do you people not watch movies??????? Have you ever been to see Santa?????? There is ALWAYS a line!

The icing on the cake is that the obnoxious kids have such pathetic parents. It literally makes me ill to hear a parent giving their child exactly what they want when the kid is being a total douche. I want to kick the parents in the shins who have no balls to tell their kid to cool it.

But, hey, we got to see Santa. And the 30 seconds we spent with him were totally worth the 90 minutes of excruciating agony spent with your annoying kid shoving his face in my crack. And then we were treated to a wallet assassination by the photo people. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Alive and Kicking

2009-12-03T13:18:00.004-05:00

We had a successful thanksgiving dinner at my house last week, we had 13 people to feed and I hardly had enough leftovers to send a plate over to my grandmother's house (she hates people and won't come over).

Prior to everyone coming over we did the usual scrubbing of the house. I don't really know why, but I feel like we have to do this crazy cleaning ritual before having a party. Are people really going to look in the closets? After the house was sparkling I decided to work on the outdoor entry area. I had the typical fall decorations up, but it had been awhile since I had refreshed the flower bed mulch. It was looking faded and thin. I typically pay someone to deliver truckloads of cypress mulch, or pecan shells (yes, they work great!) to spread around our many beds. This gets pretty pricey since it really should be refreshed twice a year. I've gone a full year before adding to them, but they look really ragged if I wait.

I was walking around the property admiring the trees, etc. and just taking note that we have eleventy four bazillion pine trees around, which are constantly dropping pine needles on every surface around. In fact, I had spent Monday of last week blowing off the yard and driveway only to find on Thanksgiving Thursday that everything was completely recovered as if I had not lifted a finger! Anyway, on Monday I figured if I was blowing and piling all this pinestraw I should try to put it to use. In a matter of minutes I had filled the entire back of our truck with clean pinestraw. It took 2-3 truckloads to fill all our beds, but this was EASY. The pinestraw was mostly clean (a few leaves to pick out) and it was in abundance all along our driveway. I basically just drove up and down the driveway and piled it into the truck. We have a REALLY long drive so I was able to get enough pinestraw to cover ALL of our beds and it took me a grand total of about an hour to gather it all. It was much easier to spread than mulch because pinestraw weighs practically nothing.

So, for the past 1o years I've spent countless amounts of money on mulch, plus delivery when I could have just spent a few hours time and gotten it all done for free!

Unrelated, but pertaining to pinestraw.....we got two hermit crabs in November of 2008, FINALLY they both kicked the bucket last week. One of them was clearly dead and halfway out of his shell, the other was tucked really far down inside and was unresponsive. My daughter took them outside and buried them under pinestraw, not in a hole. This was because she wanted to go back and see what happened after a few days. I sent her out to take a look and Mr. Crab #2 was GONE!! Apparently, he was not dead after all and had been prancing around our yard for 4 days. She found him not far from the 'grave' and he was alive and kicking. He has since been returned to the cage (and warmth). I am amazed that he did not freeze to death out there. But it also gives a new appreciation to the reason that folks used to hold 'wakes', in case someone thought to be dead were to wake up! It happens!!!

Struggle

2009-11-20T14:29:00.003-05:00

I've been struggling for weeks with something exciting to write about. Turns out, my life is just.that.dull. and I really have nothing.

The regular mundane things are going on around here, everyone is sort of healthy, mildly happy and getting ready for a week of vacation. We are having a STAYcation, as in, we are not going to the beach for Thanksgiving this year. Boo. It was my choice, and I figured we could all use some down time. I'm GLAD I don't have to stress about going away and the logistics and THE LAUNDRY.....but I'm kinda sad, too. I LOVE the beach, especially in the winter.

The funniest thing that happened this week was that my 8 year old fell off of her top bunk in the middle of the night (ok, maybe not funny....) and she completely busted up her face, but instead of waking up anyone she got back in the bed and went to sleep. She woke up the next morning and started telling me about it and got all upset about it and was just bawling. Which is sad, but kinda funny when it all happened like HOURS ago..... And just to prove that I'm not evil, I let her skip school - partially so I could watch her closely and make sure she didn't get all wonky from wacking her head. We did not go for an x-ray because she seems to have great movement, etc. She says her neck hurts, but she already had a pulled muscle there. I have noticed that her nose looks different. Maybe I'm over scrutinizing it, maybe I never really studied her nose? Nothing looks wrong with her nose, but it just looks different. If it keeps nagging me I'm gonna get her head examined.

I am really excited that I get to see Dave2 tomorrow. I'm not a very exciting person to hang out with, but he doesn't seem to mind. For now I'm off to serve lunch to Hunk who is fighting a battle in the trenches, risking his life against the enemy, working very hard........on the Playstation.

Get well Anissa!! Thinking of you often....

Suck It, Dude

2009-11-05T11:35:00.003-05:00

I'm a parent who volunteers. Sometimes, I wish I were one of the parents who just drop their kids off and screech out of the parking lot to the nearest Starbucks. But I'm not. I play the roll of coach, leader, etc.... There are very few activities that my kids are involved in that I don't play some sort of roll as a volunteer.

I volunteer because I like to see what my kids are up to and I enjoy being a part of their interests. I usually have a great time, get to do fun things with my kids and see who they are hanging out with. I am currently volunteering for my daughter's drama production. While I signed up for several very specific areas, I was mostly interested in set production and I've shown up for 2 weekends to build a set. It is driving me crazy that there is no "plan" in place here! We show up and the theater kids are spending their time socializing, not working. Not to mention that the adults are helpless without direction. When a job finally becomes apparent, there are so many bored people that jump in to assist that it becomes annoying. Does it really take 3 people to screw in 6 screws? No, but there is not a job list, there is not a direction, there is not a vision and it is driving me batty! The drama director has it all locked up in his head and by the time he tries to show you what he wants, he has basically done it for himself. BAHHHH!!

I'm appalled by the lack of architectural integrity that is going into this project - things are unstable (which I've pointed out several areas of concern) and the work is shoddy. I realize that we are all just trying to pull something together with a very little amount of money, but the reality is that if the project had some real planning and thought it could be spectacular - and stable! The director has asked me to come in on 2 occasions to do some paperwork for him, and both times I have shown up he was not ready for me. An email or phone call could have saved me a trip!!

I'm wasting my time left and right with this guy and I want to tell him exactly what I think of him, but I don't. I'm often reluctant to voice my opinions to teachers in fear of my child becoming a 'target'. I would never hold my thoughts on any serious matter, but the fact that I think this guy is a total disorganized, pathetic leader is something that I hold my tongue on. I want to scream at him that he pales to invisibility when compared to his predecessor, I want to shout at him that he has no business leading a group of 30+ preteen girls and how he has absolutely not one frickin' clue on how to handle the real 'drama' that these girls are going through just because of their age. But, for now and for the sake of saving my child the embarrassment, I must keep my mouth shut and continue to waste my time piddling around this prick's idea of production!! The show must go on!

I hate Doctors

2009-10-21T08:46:00.004-04:00

Please don't take this personally if you are a medical doctor, but if you are, I hate you. Which in itself is kind of funny. When I met Hunk, he was a Pre Med student well on his path to Physicianhood. Is that a word? I almost MARRIED a doctor, and I hate them!!

My grandmother always told me I should marry a doctor because I'm so independent. She honestly felt like I would never be able to conform to any sort of committed relationship, but if I insisted she said it must be a doctor - because they are never at home and I would pretty much be on my own! Ha!

Why do I hate doctors? I don't know!! I really do not hate them, I just seriously dislike going to see them. I have a bit of a phobia I suppose. I will wait until the grim reaper is knocking on my door before I will schedule a doctor's appt. I will only see a doctor if I have come to a firm conclusion that whatever I have is not going to go away without a prescription. Luckily, I have been relatively healthy and have not had too much of a need for medical intervention. Pregnancy and birth for my two children were, by far, the most traumatic experiences of my life - and it was all due to the fact that I had to go to a doctor's office so often!! Forget the vomit, forget the stretchmarks, forget the tearing of flesh and excruciating pain - I frickin' HATED the doctor's office visits, every month, then every two weeks, then every week!!! OHHHH the horror......

I am telling you all of this because I am not feeling so healthy at the moment. I haven't felt really good in quite a while, and yet, I don't want to go to the doctor. Yeah, I know it's stupid. I know that I am anemic in a really bad way. I take iron supplements (when I remember), but I am still just soooo tired ALL the time. I'm so drained and I wonder sometimes if I'm depressed. Some days I feel like a robot, somedays it's a challenge to just move around. I don't feel sad, but I just don't feel like doing anything. I'd be really happy to just put up a hammock under a tree and stay in it all day (with a fully charged iPhone....). Probably, I'm just overly busy. We do a lot of stuff around here and I never feel like I'm caught up on the laundry, the bills, the food, the menus, the homework, the volunteer positions, the sports, the charities, the business, the, the, the.....I could go on for days. I think I'm feeling the weight of the world, and it's draining the life out of me. I should probably see a doctor about that....

Celebrate

2009-10-19T08:35:00.005-04:00

I love a good party, so I volunteered to have a Disney Celebration in my home from the Mickey Moms Club. They sent me a big red box full of fun things to have any sort of celebration I wished.

The first order of business was to decide what we should celebrate. My first thought was Halloween, since that is the closest holiday, but we decided against it since it was still two weeks out. We had a Celebration of Girls. Basically, we got out all the princess stuff, fluff and paint and celebrated that we are girls! I put out princess dresses for modeling and we had a princess cake - which is really easy! Bake your cake in a bowl, turn it upside down and shove a doll in it.

The Mickey Moms Club sent games, activities and goodie bags to give away, so that was all taken care of. We watched the Disney vacation DVD and dreamed about our next getaway to the Kingdom - a girls trip, no doubt! Everyone left really excited....and ready for a trip!

Camp Out

2009-10-16T08:37:00.003-04:00

I was lucky enough to go camping this past weekend. The weather turned out to be pretty good, not near as much rain as we expected and the temperature was just right the entire time.

This camping trip was for Girl Scouts and we ended up taking 21 girls. About half of them had never camped before and I must say that they all did SO good. We slept in Platform Tents, which if you don't know what that is - ummm, ICK! I am a big fan of the ZIP UP tent. I can control what is coming in and out of my tent. Platforms are basically wood decks with a canvas tent around it. The front, back and corners are all just tied together with ropes. It's like a flap tent that never fully closes. Upon our arrival, which was in the dark (we had to wait until school was over to leave, then a long drive, bad GPS, etc) I went to my platform and scoped it out with my flashlight - spiders in every corner, leaves and a ROACH! I can handle a lot of things, but roaches are not one of them. I 'almost' put up my hammock and just slept outside. But I plowed through and acted big for the girls. We have two Army issue mosquito nets which I always use for platform camping. The thing is that this was the first trip that I had BOTH of my girls and each one of them wanted a bug net. This left me out in the cold. I tried to share one of the nets with my littlest girl, but it was just shy of being big enough. I spent most of the two nights wondering if something was crawling on me.

The age range of the girls was 7 - 13, the little ones were SO EXCITED. I decided to split up the ages and do separate things with them and, by far, the most fun was the Canoeing for the little ones. Many of them had never canoe'd before and they did fantastic and they learned so much. And got SO WET! It was the best!

I had to push past the fact that half of me did not want to be there, at all. Hunk had been away for the week and I had to leave for this trip as soon as he got home. We weren't on bad terms while he was away, but it was just off and things were just empty for me. I didn't want to leave, but I had to so it was another 3 days of separation. It was hard to put on the happy face all weekend, but I did.

We finally got our "time" on Sunday - late - but it was good to finally just be together and figure out why I was feeling so apart. Things are fine now, but it would just be so much easier if I could just SAY what I'm always feeling. I don't want to do that, I want him to read my mind and figure it all out, it just feels like it's not as genuine if I have to TELL YOU. Yanno?

Anyhoo, all is well now. And I'm ready for another camping adventure, this one just wet my whistle. Unfortunately, our weekends are chock full until the cold weather will appear, so I think I'm going to have to wait until spring. Boo!

HP Premium Touchsmart Web Printer

2009-10-13T12:41:00.005-04:00

I was the lucky winner of an HP Printer from the blog of Anissa Mayhew. Somehow, Anissa has convinced HP to drink her kool-aid, she has printers to give and they even have her set up to host parties with her Aiming Low friends in swanky towns like Boston and New York. So, if you ever get the pleasure of meeting Anissa, note that she is a lovely person, a wonderful mother and friend and that she has a stash of HP SWAG - so make her share!!

My totally FREE printer arrived directly from HP via the super hot FedEx man. I wasn't expecting it, and I thought he was delivering my new hearing aid. I was working in the yard when he pulled up and he asked if he could carry it to the house for me. And, I'm like, dude, it's a hearing aid it can't be that heavy. And he's all, no m'am, it's BIG, upon which I peeked inside his truck and saw the glorious HP logo and I screamed. Just a little bit. Which made him think I was a little bit wonky.

So, it had arrived! Hunk was out of town and so I texted him that "IT's HERE"! Which proceeded to make him very jealous because he loves to open boxes that contain new gadgets/electronics. Since I was preparing to leave town myself I didn't have time to open my new printer right away. I had a crazy schedule which I was trying to accomplish a list a mile long and basically, Hunk was to arrive home, just in time to give me a high five on my way out of town. Since I wanted to be the one to open MY printer, I had to wake up an hour earlier the next day so that I could fit in time to piddle with it. At the crack of dark o'thirty, I was opening up my new box. And I took pictures because I was so excited. Dude, the thing was FREEEE!

My first view is of all the cables, which are neatly packed into a reusable bag - I thought that was super cool. THEN, oh then, I found that the ENTIRE printer was packed in a bigger reusable bag! The bag is amazingly large and I promptly filled it with stuff and took it out of town with me! So the entire printer was packaged in like 90% reusable/recyclable product. There were only two pieces of styrofoam and virtually no plastic. I have to say, this makes me happy.

I have only one complaint with the print cartridges. Instead of just having a tape across the well there is a piece of orange plastic that must be twisted off before they can be installed. It seems like a waste of a lot of plastic, they are pretty bulky. Additionally, on one of them I twisted it off and it left some remnants as it wasn't a clean break. I wondered if it would still sit properly in the ink carriage (so far it seems okay).

The printer was a breeze to set up, basically you just plug it in and then hit the button to search for wireless, put in your password and watch the magic happen. I then put the CD in my PC and let it do it's thing and I was ready to print in no time, which was good because I had a zillion pounds of paperwork to finish before leaving for my trip. So, my first use of the printer was for plain jane printing. I was racing against the clock and so once it was set up I just started cranking out the paperwork that I needed. And did I mention that it's wireless, so I was able to put the printer in the office and still be able to work from the kitchen.

Flash forward to today, this has been my first opportunity to play with the web applications on the printer. They are very cool. There are things like school papers, which isn't an entirely new concept for an HP Printer, but nonetheless it is an important app. I've found that I can check the weather - or have my kids check it before getting ready for school. My younger daughter has apparently figured out the Nickalodeon & Disney fun pages because I keep finding little projects all around the house. She is happy to print and entertain herself, which is cool that she doesn't have to log onto a website to print fun stuff. I also don't have to worry that she might make a typo and end up somewhere other than Disney or Nick. Believe me, with kids, the typos happen and they can see stuff that kids should not see.

I can log onto my snapfish.com albums without using my PC at all, the printer can access my account and allow me to print photos right there. I've found that I can print my own tabbloid to read - it will pull from websites like Jezebel, Engadget, The Big Picture, etc. and you can decide how many pages you want to read. Since I use my iPhone so much, I'm not likely to use tabbloid, but it is interesting and who knows... I can print from my iPhone which is all kinds of awesome. And there are recipes and coupons and games, and and and and....the possibilities are endless. I imagine the choices for apps will grow, much like the iPhone apps until I can do virtually anything directly from my printer.

I have no complaints for the printer itself, it is sleek and extrememly functional. It has all the features of most printers with the fax, copy, scan, but with the addition of the Web Apps it is quite a step further into convenience. Our household has 3 laptops, but we still manage to end up with someone needing a PC when there isn't one available and this printer can help with that. Hopefully the app developers will take this printer to even more amazing levels! I am waiting patiently for the app that will print out the missing sock.

A new addition

2009-10-01T09:23:00.005-04:00

We have a new addition to our family. Oh God NO, I am not pregnant - people I am old and my eggs are shriveled, if I had a baby it would look like Benjamin Button!

Anyhoo, we have a new cat, sort of. We've had her since August 16 I just haven't talked about her. With good reason.

One week prior to getting "new cat" was the day that my cat "Ashley" disappeared. I was devastated, and so was my other cat "Emmie". Some friends of ours thought that it would ease our pain to give us this kitten(ish) that they found while camping the weekend of the 16th. So, they brought her home, and with all of the best intentions, gave her to us. We found her to be about 8 months old, full of ear mites and very hungry and scared. I agreed to keep her and thought it might be a good distraction for "Emmie" to have a little cat to boss around. "New Cat" looks A LOT like "Emmie" and so my kids, who are extremely creative and thoughtful, named her "Emma". Yeaahhh, that took a ton of brain power........

Now that "Emmie" is gone as well (and we do have a theory on that one)....."Emma" is our cat, sort of. She lives here, but she doesn't really like us. I'm trying really hard to like her, but I feel guilty that she is here - I'd rather have Ashley and Emmie back. I never wanted to replace them, and this is what it feels like. I think that if they are looking down on us, they see that they were replaced swiftly and thoughtlessly. This is the farthest from the truth.

"Emma" needed a home, and I am happy to give her one. We still have a long way to go in building a relationship though. She is not cuddly in the least, will never be held and if you sit near her, she gets up and moves away. In short, she is a snob. She has come out of her shell in the playful department, she really enjoys biting and attacking us - along with anything else that dares to move which is to be expected with such a young cat. It's a transition for me, and for her. I'm hoping it works out for the best, she can be really cute, but it passes very quickly.

As far as the fate of "Emmie", my mom reported that we have a coyote hanging around. This leaves me with all sorts of grisly thoughts about my poor kitty, but I can hope that it was fast and painless if that was his match. It's hard to gain closure when you never really know. My hearts goes out to anyone with a missing child, I can not even fathom the daily struggle and torture of the wondering.

It's not FAIR!

2009-09-21T09:32:00.006-04:00

I'm usually pretty easy going, I don't get too rattled about stuff - except within my own house, and then crap will fly if you leave a wet towel on the floor, or look at me sideways. Anyway, in the big world I don't typically sweat the small stuff, and many of my friends would say that I am pretty laid back. I don't lose my head if things go awry at school, work, sports, etc. I'm typically fine to be along for the ride and if you screw something up, I'm trying to downplay it so that you don't feel so bad.

But some things, just make me mad. And they are so stupid, and so petty and I feel like such a moron for it. Mostly these things are when people who are super shitty seemingly spend their lives walking on beds of roses. Now, I know that everyone has their demons, their problems and their hidden woes - nothing is all how it seems on the outside. I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't like to see these people succeed, in anything. Yeah, like I said, PETTY. I'm being it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not walking around wishing the plague on anyone. I don't hope they contract horrible diseases, or die a fiery death. But I just can't be happy for certain people when things go their way. When I hear good news, or stories of success, about someone that I know is a total douche it just pisses me off. I hate this about myself, because I don't want to walk around loathing certain people, but if you are a bottom feeder, I prefer to see you staying at the bottom.

Of course, the universe doesn't exist so that all the happy, fun people can get ahead. I don't know WHY the universe exists, but that's not it. The universe is perfectly happy to see the backstabbers and the manipulators get ahead. What I have to realize is the DEFINITION of "ahead". Maybe, what I see as their success is covering a much deeper problem (I can HOPE!). Maybe, I need to quit thinking that "ahead" means this, this and this.....

I just feel like a loser, because someone I know is reporting all kinds of happiness, bunnies and unicorns in her life. And in my heart, I know that she is a total wanker, and I don't like her. And to hear of her success, just pisses me off. I'm stamping my foot and screaming in my head that it just isn't FAIR!

Think me shallow, much?

Round Two

2009-09-16T10:52:00.006-04:00

I posted a month ago about my cat Ashley and how she disappeared. It seems that the loss was too much for my other cat, Emmie to take. He sat on the front porch and waited and watched for just over a month and now he is gone. I think he was heartbroken. I know I was, now I'm double.

This cat took more shit from my kids, and kept on purring. While Ashley made it clear that we belonged to her, Emmie was the total opposite. He BELONGED to us, he loved us so unconditionally and so fully. Emmie did not know how to be a snob, he was the best cat I've ever had, in my life and I've had A LOT of cats. He will be a tough act to follow.

RIP Emmie, I'll miss you.

Trapped

2009-09-08T15:58:00.005-04:00

While on my trip last week, I got trapped in the bathroom of my hotel room. I thought I'd share a bit more of the details.

We stayed at a Hilton in San Francisco, just a standard businessy hotel, with an executive level room. We had a fabulous view of the Bay and the room was just as we usually expect from a Hilton. The one thing that I hated was the bathroom door. I hated it from day one. Instead of a standard swinging door, it was a wooden door on a sliding track. I can see how this creates tons of floor space and it seems much less cramped than a door that opens up either into the small bathroom, or out into the entry way of the room. I get it. But this was not a pocket door, it was an attempt to be "like" a built in pocket door. The problem was that since this was added to a door that used to be a standard swinging door, the track rested on the outside of the wall. A typical pocket door disappears into the wall - also, when it is closed there are no gaps.

The door at the Hilton had gaps. BIG gaps. The door would slide in front of the bathroom opening, however it was not flush against the wall (if it was, it would not slide easily). Granted they designed the sliding door to be wider than the opening to the bathroom, but still, it did not lay against the wall, so if you are standing near the door you can pretty much see in the bathroom. Catch the gap at an angle and you can look right into the shower.

Nakedness is no secret between married folk, but there are some things are just better left 'unHEARD'. And believe me, if there is a gap there is NOT a sound barrier. This bathroom offered very little privacy and I was constantly wondering if Hunk was playing peeping tom through the gaps. Though I am a delicate flower, sometimes flowers have to poop, or toot, or a combination of both. This lovely door left a gap that allowed all sights, sounds and smells their freedom to run amuck. I HATED this bathroom door.

Apparently, it hated me, too. I was in the room alone in the afternoon and decided to shower. Was expecting Hunk to be back in two hours to go to an event. So, I bolted the hotel room door with the swinging bolty thing. I went into the bathroom and slid the door closed. I heard it click because I slid it a bit too far and left a crack, who cares, I'm alone. After my shower, I tried to slide the door open and it would not budge. I had wet hair and was in a towel trying to move a solid wood door that was HEAVY. It had fallen out of the track. It fell when I slid it too far, and only the part that slid out fell - meaning it was at an angle and it was jammed into the carpet. I tried and tried and could not move the thing. It is definately an odd thing to be flexing and lifting and groaning - while naked. At least if you are trying to move a door.

I eventually tried getting some leverage at the bottom of the door by using a hairbrush. It helped a bit, but then broke under the weight/pressure of the door. I managed to push the bottom of the door outward so that I could at least reach the bolt on the room door and unlock it to let management in to help me. I was twittering and getting advice on what to do. I figured it was pointless (in the beginning) to call the hotel because the room door had the slider bolt on - they could not get in the room. And, hello, I was also in a towel. Once I got an opening large enough to reach the slider I called for help. Before help arrived, I was able to continue to push the bottom of the door until I created an opening large enough for me to climb out.

I ended up breaking the header thing across the top of the door by pushing it out. When the hotel staff finally arrived, the guy was all confused as to what I had exactly done to the door. He had to rehang it and get the header repaired. I tried to explain that I had been trapped in the bathroom, but honestly, he didn't care. Just fix it and move on.

I took a photo of the door after I got out. It was the weirdest experience I've had in a while. I was in no danger, but just the dilemma of calling for help while naked, or waiting it out a couple hours and hoping that Hunk could save me. Luckily, I used my skills to get out on my own and thankfully I had my phone with me so I could call for help if needed. And no, I don't normally take my phone with me to the bathroom, but I was hoping to get a call from my daughter and I didn't want to miss it. It's hard to connect when your kids are on the opposite coast and have busy schedules!

Define Homeless

2009-09-02T15:46:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, MSN had an article about a young blogger. The title was something like, Homeless Blogger lands great job at Elle Magazine. Intrigued, I clicked through and read the story.

Apparently this young woman, while homeless, wrote a letter to the editor of Elle about her search for a job and pulled some heartstrings. She mentioned her blog about being homeless and Elle took notice. The magazine ended up giving her a small job, and then in the end it has turned into a paid blogging gig. They are branding her as "the new face of the homeless" - meaning that homeless people aren't all dirty and uneducated, they can be tecnologically ept and have electronics to boot. I can agree with this, to an extent.

The thing about this girl is that I don't think that she was technically "homeless". She was living in an RV in a Walmart parking lot. She spent her days in Starbucks using free wifi and refills while she was job hunting and blogging. Correct me if I'm wrong, but an RV has a roof, walls, floor and BED, not to mention a bathroom/sink/shower.

I would not want to be in this girl's situation, however, walking down the streets of almost any major metropolis area can give you a completely different definition to the word homeless. There are people who have nothing, no where to go, no where to sleep and nothing to eat. Generally, I don't pity the homeless, I see many shelters and agencies that are willing to help them get back on their feet. Many of them just have no desire to do more with themselves. It is a choice that some of them have made to stay homeless - whether it be depression, drugs, alcohol, whatever. But the fact of the matter is, the girl in the article was FAR from homeless. Not only did she have an RV, she had an option to live with her mother, which she choose not to do. She had SOMEWHERE to live, she just didn't want to live there. She took to living in her RV at a free parking spot at Walmart by choice. But, still, the RV was her home. She had somewhere dry and secure to go every night. People on the street don't have that luxury - if the shelters are full, they are out of luck. The people on the street literally have only what is on their backs. They can't claim any property or structure as their own. To me, that is a much better definition of homeless.

So, this girl didn't have a job and (probably) got pissed at her mom, she choose to live on her own in a free RV in a free parking space and blog off the kindness of Starbucks wifi on a computer that she owned. But OH MY, let's all see this as a heart warming story of the saving of the homeless!!

While I hate to see so many people in bad financial situations due to job loss or economic strain, this just doesn't strike me as a great story. She got lucky by being the first person to use this spin on her situation, but to many people who are truly homeless, the girl had it made. I feel for her being in the situation she was in, but just because you don't live in a brick and mortar structure does not automatically drop you into the homeless category in my book. Kudos to her for landing a job, but call it what it is - and it isn't homeless.

Japantown

2009-09-01T17:42:00.001-04:00

Pimping Out Anissa

2009-08-27T09:19:00.004-04:00

Anissa is giving away a free printer, so go check out her blog and get all the details.

But don't win, because I totally need this printer for my living room, so I can hide in my bedroom with the door locked and print out directives to my children. Wireless is a wonderful thing......

And today, I pack....

2009-08-24T09:14:00.005-04:00

I'm going to San Francisco next week, therefore I must begin packing now. I LOVE to pack. Packing is like a zen fest for me - as long as I'm not being hurried. I like to pack and prepare for trips weeks in advance.

We went on a cruise a few years ago, the first cruise with kids. We were travelling with 3 other families on a Caribbean adventure and we all got together and planned our big excursion 6 months in advance, and yes, 6 months in advance was when I began packing for that trip.

I don't like to overpack, so it would seem that packing so far in advance would lend me time to accumulate too much stuff, but it works the opposite for me. If I have enough time I can plan out every possible scenario and then plan the easiest, most compact way to deal with it. This is the part that I love so much, trying to think of everything, and then trying to be prepared for it. It sounds OCD, but I'm really not. I like to be in control, but I'm not obsessive about it - most of the time. It is more of a challenge to have everything I need, or to know exactly where the closest retailer is, so that I might purchase the item of necessity.

I think this stems a lot from being a mother. I absofuckinglutely hate to see a kid having a melt down or throwing a tantrum. I do NOT agree with giving a kid a reward in such a behavior, so NO, I'm not packing cookies for my screaming child. I fully believe that my kids fear my tantrum & wrath much worse than their own, therefore they learned to behave. BUT, I did always have things on hand to be prepared to steer around situations which could lead to a meltdown. Most kids go nuts because someone waited too long to let them rest, eat or be comfortable. And then some kids are just spoiled rotten piss heads. I can't remember a time when I had to deal with either of my kids for a public meltdown. We had a few at home, but that was mostly due to me ignoring requests for help (mom of the year!!). We are WAY past those years now, but I look back and have memories of my extrememly well behaved children. And I do not look at the world through rose colored lenses, so I'm pretty sure my memories are accurate. My kids are well behaved and polite, and anyone who knows them will agree......*cracks the whip*. I also suffer back pain from the back of tricks I constantly carried around. :) My oldest daughter loves to proclaim that I am the most prepared woman on earth. I like her the most.

I remember the days when I carried diaper bags. I had a different diaper bag for every occasion and the sole reason was so that I could rePACK a damn bag every.single.day. I got so much joy from neatly tucking little things in pockets and flaps. I special ordered several bags because of their compartmental attraction. I had everything that my baby could possible need. I was prepared!

So, I'm beginning to pack today, and I actually feel a little behind because I'm leaving in 5 days. I'm usually farther along by now!

Anyone in San Francisco? I'll be solo for most of my journey as Hunk will be working and entertaining. I'm so very excited to be going, if I didn't have a fear of earthquakes I would move to SF tomorrow. Of course, can you imagine how FUN it would be to pack an earthquake preparedness kit. OMG!

Missing Cat

2009-08-18T11:01:00.005-04:00

My cat is gone. The cat I got when I first got married (our first child!), Ashley. She was a lovely little Russian Blue with beautiful gray hair. She has been a daily part of my life for the past 16 years and 2 months. Ashley was an indoor cat up until June of this year. She had no interest in stepping outside of the house, but suddenly she was streaking out of the house every time there was a crack in the door. She would push her way through and leap out into the yard. It was all really weird, but after a week of trying to discourage her she became an outdoor cat. She would come to the back door and bang the screen door to get my attention. She would act all frantic as if she were a starving orphan (when she ate not 20 minutes prior) I would open the door and she would race through the house to the front door (where the food was) and persistently exclaim that she was HUNGRY! And she did not want to eat inside the house, she demanded that her food be served on the front porch. Weirdo.

I brought her in the house every chance I got and she would claw her way back outside. She simply decided that she was now an outdoor cat. And her personality changed completely. Our other cat (Emmie) goes in and out of the house as he pleases. He has been the ruler of the universe for many, many moons. But as Ashley gained her new independance she became very fiesty. Ashley used to watch Emmie steal her treats and sit quietly by, but outside she became the Queen of Everything and suddenly Emmie was taking a backseat. I watched in astonishment as Ashley would literally push Emmie away from the food as she took the lion's share of whatever she wanted. It was like Bizarro Cat World. Everything was totally backwards and opposite.

Until Saturday, August 8. Hunk was awake at 4 am, not sure why. He said Ashley was at the back door. Nothing unusual, she was waiting for breakfast. When I awoke around 7 am and went to feed her, she was not there. She hasn't been back since. I have worried and searched for that cat everyday since then. I have come to the realization that she is probably not coming back.

I've made flyers, visited Animal Control, etc. I know that no one would let her stay inside their house because she shits everywhere (she is old and had lost a lot of control), also her insistance to be outdoors. We had our house carpeted in puppy pads for her problems, so when she decided to take it outside I admit we were a bit happy. I have a hard time believing that she was just old and died in her sleep, because of the tenacity she was showing the day prior to her disappearance. I would like to think that she just died of old age, but I have visions of her meeting a coyote, or getting hit by a car (not TOO likely, we live in the sticks) and it just haunts me. I HATE HATE HATE to think she might've suffered, or needed help and felt all alone. But she is an animal, she was equipped to handle herself (she had her claws) and she WANTED to be outside.

At times I feel irresponsible for letting her go outside, but then again, I feel like it is the right thing to do to let her be where she truly wanted to be. We have a LOT of land, and while I can't control the animals I feel that she was completely safe from any man-made dangers. I felt better that Emmie decided to stay outside once she was out there - they were fierce friends and I felt that *maybe* they would look out for each other. Emmie continues to look for her everyday, he is lost without her and he has not left the front porch since she has been missing. He absolutely will not come inside the house - I guess he thinks he might miss her if she returns. He is no doubt a sad cat.

I just miss her. Not knowing is just the WORST part. I keep looking at the back door, expecting to see her little gray face getting all frantic as if she hadn't eaten in months. I'm longing for the way she got underfoot to swirl between my legs to let me know that I was indeed "her person". I'm just sad.

I went to Davelanta and all I got was a lousy VIRUS!

2009-08-10T11:22:00.006-04:00

OK, not really a virus, though there was a lot of touching and sharing and such. Really, my computer pissed out on me and therefore I have been unable to post my wonderful experiences. It wasn't a virus, but more of a short circuit - which, in retrospect, fits the bill for my point that Davelanta was a mind altering experience.

I am sure you have all been there, seen that with the photos, but I do have one with the Almighty Dave and my Hunk, so I look like a ham sandwich. Not a bad place to be, except we had all been baking in Atlanta for the better part of the day. I even took the boys through Dillard's and encouraged them to be complimentarily (is that a word?) sprayed with Versace', but they didn't, they are boys. And I stand my ground, boys are weird. And I live with one. By choice.

They also did not choose to get their hair freshened up at the flat iron cart, but can you see how nice and smooth my hair is? Take THAT Atlanta humidity!! I am a very curly girl (think Monica in Barbados).

I really did have a great time and even met some new people. I'm a rather quiet girl, so while I should have jumped out of my shell and made some rounds at the table, I stayed in my seat like a loser and didn't get a lot of quality face time with some people. There were some wonderful people there, like Heather and Diana (who will soon be admitted into the Saints Hall of Fame for her selflessness), Anissa, Kim, Val, Muskrat & the Mrs. (who I hear may have fabric?, hello, I'm a total fabric hoarder, call me!) and Julie. Realistically, I had two pink lemonades of the alcoholic sort and I really could not get off of my stool, I'm not a total tool. I just can't hold my alcohol.

I'm still amazed that I ever agreed to meet up with total strangers, I'm more than a rather quiet girl, I'm ass backwards shy. But sometimes, it is so totally worth it to step out of your box!

Pioneer

2009-07-27T12:09:00.004-04:00

I've been working on de-cluttering my life. We simply have TOO.MUCH.STUFF. And the thing is, I'm not really a "stuff" kind of person. The problem is that after 16 years we have just accumulated a lot, and failed to go 'out with the old and in with the new'(er). I donate a ton to Goodwill, especially the kids clothes and old toys. But we have tons of other things that I have a hard time sending out the door, which turns into piles of stuff. I'm a bit sentimental when it comes to things that my belong to my kids. I think this comes from having a bad memory - and I really do have a bad memory. I used to have an excellent memory and could tell you dates and events without batting an eye, but I've had WAY TOO MANY Diet Cokes in the past 20 years and I truly, honestly believe that Diet Coke has robbed me of my brain cells. Or at least the Aspartame (?). I don't have vivid memories like I used to have. I remember stuff, but if I have a tangible item it really does spark a memory, so I tend to hold onto "stuff". I'm also of the mindset that "this could be useful at some point", which causes me to hang onto things that could be better off sent to Goodwill (or the trash!). It also invariably happens that the moment I donate something, within a month I am wishing that I had it for (fill in the blank).

Anyway, my point - I'm cleaning in my basement. Half of the basement is finished, but we have some unfinished storage, too. And a basement garage. Both of those areas tend to get spidery, which freaks me out completely. So upon cleaning in those areas, I'm sucking up webs and debris (shudders) and finding things to recycle, or trash. I found some jackets, towels, gloves and just general items of clothing that for one reason or another were stored away. And these are items that we can still use (when winter rolls around) so I now need to wash them and rid them of could be spiders (eeeek!). My problem is that I have a nice, new, fancy washing machine and the thought of putting these items in my new machine gives me the total heebie jeebies.

Speaking of hanging onto STUFF - guess what is sitting in my garage? My OLD washing machine. STILL. My intention is to put it on Craigslist or donate it to someone in need, but I have done neither. The machine still works great and it is just sitting there. A pity.

So, I decide that I will do the 'could be' spider laundry in the old machine, which I rolled out onto the patio and hooked up to the outdoor hose for a water supply. See, I am a bit ingenious. And now, I am doing laundry outside. Honestly, it is like I am a Pioneer woman. Really, we live in the woods and I'm washing clothes out here with Mother Nature - except that I have electricity. And running water. And laundry detergent. And a washing machine.

Ahem.

TOUR

2009-07-21T13:38:00.004-04:00

I feel as though I have been on a tour of the South East in the past two weeks!

We had a quick, unexpected trip to Memphis, TN for a family funeral July 7. We ended up being there for a few days and I took the opportunity to take my kids to Beale Street in downtown Memphis.

Note: There's not a lot for a person on Beale Street who is not allowed to drink beer! The street performers were interesting to watch, but the street is bar, after bar, after bar, after bar..... My kids were not as enthralled as I'd imagined. There were a TON of awesome musicians, like on every corner. The music was surrounding us from every direction - if you could get to an area to single out one musician, many of them were pretty amazing.

As soon as we returned from Memphis, we hopped on a plane to Houston, TX. We met my family there to tour the Johnson Space Center - it was nothing like I had expected! It was like an attraction, there was a ton of stuff for the kids to do. We did go on a tour, but it was bare bones at best. The behind the scenes tours are only for those over the age of 14, which puts my kids out. Therefore, we could not participate in that - bummer. We were at the space center just two hours prior to launch so we were able to watch live feed of the happenings of preparing for blast off. Yes, you can watch it on TV, but it was fun to "be there".

There was a George Lucas exhibit as well - a nice displaying of costumes, scripts, props, etc. There was a handwritten script from Star Wars as well (which one? ask my nerd....)

We left Houston to go to Dallas, where my family lives. While in Dallas we visited the Forth Worth stockyards and saw a real herd of longhorns walking down Exchange street. It is amazing how large those animals really are, and the horns(!), whoa!

I'm glad to be home. We were visiting my brother and his wife, we had never been to their house before this trip. My kids stayed with them (their kids are the same ages), but Hunk and I stayed at a hotel. While they had space for us in the house, it wasn't a bedroom - it was a media room with a futon and a bathroom to be shared with 4 little girls. I thought that our decision to sleep in a real bed for 5 nights was a good one, but apparently we offended my sister in law. My brother made several comments about us staying offsite, but whatever. I'm so done with my SIL, I have never met a person who is so self absorbed in my life. I could write a book about all the incidences from the past week, but that is for another day.....I am SOOOOOO glad to be home!

Now, I have Dave to look forward to with DAVELANTA just around the corner. YEEEHAW!!

Stuck

2009-07-08T11:14:00.004-04:00

We had a long holiday weekend and so we decided to take the family to Stone Mountain. We go there a few times a year since it is only about 45 minutes from our house. We typically purchase an annual park pass so that we can do the attractions as well as just enjoy the nature aspect of the park.

The park offers a tram ride to the top of Stone Mountain. (You can see the cable towers in the photo above). The tram car carries up to 82 people per car and runs every 15 minutes or so. We've been to the top many times, but it never gets old, so away we went - it was about 5pm. The top of the mountain is a large area with a fence around the steep sides and then on one side the mountain slopes off so there is a trail you can walk down. The trail down the mountain is about a mile, but it is pretty steep and it is not smooth walking. There are boulders to step off and around and just general mountainy stuff. It is recommended that you wear proper hiking shoes for the trail.

When we were done enjoying the view from above, we noticed that the top of the mountain was basically deserted and we were alone. GREAT! There would be no line for the tram ride down. WRONG! We went in to the mountain top lobby to find that they had closed the tram ride down to the bottom due to a storm looming on the horizon. They had the weather channel on and we could see that there was indeed a very large storm coming in from Alabama. The park ranger suggested that once it hits, we could be waiting for a few hours for it to pass over. Basically, we were stuck on the top of the mountain - at the mercy of mother nature. Knowing that I was not dressed for hiking, nor were my kids, nor was Hunk, we thought we should wait it out. By now it was 6pm and we were ready for dinner. We decided to go to the mountain top snack shop and bite the bullet to purchase overpriced, low quality food. The alternative was to start walking, or wait it out and get really hungry. The problem with waiting it out was that 1) my kids get really irritating when they are overly hungry. 2) Hunk puts on an ASSHAT quicker than a bee to honey when he is not fed on a regular schedule. I was not in any mood to deal with either of these so $8 hotdogs was fine with me!!

PROBLEM! When they close the tram ride, they close THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN!? So the snack shop became CLOSED for our wait. Now, I'm no marketing genius, but to me this is the.worst.idea.ever. We were captive and hungry, I was willing to pay out the ass for crap - this should be a retailers dream. With this, we decided that the waiting idea was out.

The storm was not yet on us, no rain, only clouds on the horizon. We decided to start walking despite our attire. It wasn't really all that bad, but it makes me wonder what the protocol is if we had brought Grandma along. Seeing as how the tram was to close for the night at 8:30, what is the deal if this big storm comes in and last for hours!!?? At what point, and how, do they finally get folks to the bottom of the mountain? It took us about 40 minutes to walk down, we were going pretty slow due to fact that two of us were wearing shoes that slide rather easily. It did make my knees scream (still are hurting), but it was fun and we saw lots of carvings on the way down. The mountain has been visited by people for many years and there were carvings dated back to 1814 - probably some were even older, but that is what we saw. Pretty amazing that they are still there!!

So, we survived the trek and we promptly went out to dinner. Did you know? Stone Mountain is an un-erupted volcano?? That is your history for the day, my friend.

Size Matters

2009-06-27T09:27:00.005-04:00

I love that my little girls have dolls, I have a small obsession with all things miniature (well, almost all things....). I love that we can get doll accessories that are near perfect replicas of everything we have - I just think they are so cute! Often times, we will find something that is not designed for a doll, but it will click in my mind that it would be the perfect size for the doll to use. For example I found some Snapple chapstick in a mini Snapple bottle which I immediately purchased 4 of them to use with their dolls. They were the perfect size for a doll!!

In other news, I went to a Pure Romance party that a friend hosted. It was a night of women learning all about sex toys, lubes, etc. We ended up tasting flavored lubes, body oils, etc. There was a balm that was made to "heat up" your lips or could be used on nipples. We were to try it as a lip balm (for the mouth!!) just to see how it feels and how it heats up. We were each given a little disposable applicator so we didn't share any germs. The little applicator was red and made out of a penis mold. I had to bring mine home to show Hunk, because you just had to see it to believe it!

I was explaining to him some of the products they offered and that they had quite a few dildos to pass around the group. In order to give him a better idea of one of the products I pulled out my little red penis applicator to give him a visual. And then. It hit me. A miniature dildo.

I know, ewwwww. But OMG. I just could not resist. The sizing is just perfect. Good thing my kids are out of town with Grandma!!

40 hours

2009-06-15T14:57:00.002-04:00

I only have 40 hours until I leave for vacation! Kidless vacation! Yaaaaahoooo!

We went to see UP this weekend, so that my kids would not have to wait until we returned to see it. I had NO idea it would be such a romantic story. I was crying before the lights were all the way out!! I'm not a cryer, either. I can usually control my urge to cry, but tears were POURING in the first 15 minutes. Perhaps I was particularly in tune to the romanticism due to our anniversary being this week - we've been looking at "old" photos and reminiscing about our past together. I still like Toy Story the best, but UP was remarkable. I really loved it.

In order to curb my guilt for ditching my kids, today we just returned from the Children's Museum of Atlanta. We spent 3 hours playing with stuff and learning about trees. In reality, my youngest daughter is on the very edge of being too old for this museum, but we have been there before and they still think it is a fun place to go. I had different ideas, but I let them decide where we would go for fun today. You do get to paint on the walls there, which I have to admit is a fun thing to do...

We then went to The Varsity for lunch. I got my standard "FO" and a slaw dog. My older daughter got fries, which I normally LOVE the fries at the Varsity, but today they were all limp and really greasy. This is not a bad thing for someone who shouldn't be eating fries - I certainly was not tempted by them today. We ate in the car (they have car jockeys) because the place was PACKED inside. I was done with dealing with crowds and rude people (from the museum) so the car was the best choice for my sanity. Besides, the car jockeys are cute mostly older gentlemen who are always fun to talk to.

Now, I'm off to try and get all the work done that needs to be finished before leaving town, not to mention the packing. Oh yeah, and the kids - even though they are not going I still have to pack for them to stay with their grandparents. It's actually HARDER to pack for kids staying behind, because I have to think of every.single.possible.occurance that could happen where I would not be there to just know what to do. When my kids are with me, I can make anything work for what they need.....when someone else is there they may not know how to interpret, therefore I feel like I should prepare. I always over prepare. This is what makes me insane, yet I continue to do it.

I look good

2009-06-04T11:39:00.004-04:00

Today is a good day - my 8 year old looked at my driver's license and said, "You look really good in this picture!"

I said, "Whaat?" because I was half reading an email. And she said, "I mean, you always look good, but that's a good picture of you, Mommy."

Can you say.....FAVORITE CHILD?????? :)

In other news, we are volunteering at a community camp this week - I'm running the food portion and I'm working with the same volunteer from last year that gives me the willies. She is still giving me the vibe, and it is more so this year. I'm feeling a bit less uncomfortable about it because I have HUNK with me, but still. There is just something about this person that I just don't get.

Once this week is over my oldest daughter will be working on her camp counselor training. She is working with 3 camps this summer, helping as an assistant counselor and she is super excited. I'm helping her get her get ready to teach a class next week to a group of 20 younger girls. She has them for 3 hours and gets to teach them about Geocaching. We think this is going to be fun to do - hopefully they will all "get it"!!

THEN, the following week I am OFF. We are going to Key West for our anniversary. I can.not.WAIT!! I can feel the salty air, I can picture myself by the pool (the whitest person there, no doubt). I can literally taste the Sex On The Beach...... Oh wait, is that a drink, or a suggestion? Anyway, I am already there, mentally. So bear with me in my absence of mind for the next 12 days.

Released!

2009-05-22T10:22:00.002-04:00

Wheeee - today is the last day of schooooooool! School's out for Summer! School's out Forever! (I wish!, well, somedays....)

Anyhoo, I sent my kids packing for the last day, no more alarm clocks, yipee!!

I am the editor of the memory book at my kids school. I create quite a book for the kids - compared to the books of the schools surrounding us, I can confidently say that our book is the frickin' bomb! I have a few others who submit pages here and there, but 90% of the book is layed out by yours truly. I have to say that I was very pleased with our book and got many compliments on how great it was.

Besides one person. This person purchased a personalized page for their child, which I did not design. One of the volunteers did this page as this was a child she knew and wanted to do her recognition page. The page was very cute, just as described by the parent EXCEPT there were two errors that I did not catch. The wording was altered - meaning that one word was replaced with another word - both words mean the same thing, for some reason the mom designing it got it wrong. "Pleased" became "delighted". Then there was an extra letter in the spelling of the signature line......ex. " Love, Mom, Dad & Jenna". Only Jenna should've had one "n", not two.

In this case, my first reaction is to immediately refund them their money, as a gesture of good faith. It's an honest mistake, we are just moms trying to make a cute book, and we are not professionals. Hell, I got the other 200 recognitions correct.... It is unfortunate that is was a mistake, but we are in elementary school and in all honesty, don't sweat the small stuff. The photos were fabulous and the overall message was intact, still take the money since we didn't get it just right.

But some people can surprise you. This person was one of them. This has become an outright TRAGEDY for this family. I have been called names, accused of doing this purposefully and the mom who did the page was verbally attacked by the mom of the kid. The parent wants the entire project re-done with corrections and wants compensation for their grief. WTF??

These kids are 11 years old. This is meant to be a memory book, and a fundraiser for the school. Are you really THAT consumed with yourself? I agree that it is an unfortunate mistake, but no one was hurt, the recognition made sense and just......WTF!! The amount of anger that these people have spent on this is INSANE!

I am proud of myself, though. In the past I would have let this really bother me. I really do like to please people and I will run myself to the ground if I screw up. But not this time. These people had a choice - they took the low road and I will not let it ruin my day, my week or the accomplishment of a volunteer job well done. I guess I am accepting the fact that there are people who just SUCK ASS out there. I can't understand how you raise a child to become a person of society who is so completely unaware of those around them. The real tragedy in this situation is these people, and how everyone around them is looking at them with total disgust because of their behavior. These people, who are teaching their child to be just as pathetic as they are. I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go round......eh?

Just out of the woods....

2009-05-12T20:31:00.002-04:00

My Mother's Day was spent in the woods. My oldest daughter's Girl Scout troop wanted to camp and wouldn't you know that the ONLY weekend we could include ALL girls would be Mother's Day!! Not really my idea of a pampering experience, but I did want to take them camping and if this was the only way, then so be it.

The girls decided that since it was Mother's Day myself and my co-leads would "sleep in" while they all cooked us up a big breakfast. It was a good theory.

I woke up at 6 am, had to pee - I passed one of the girl tents and heard talking so I'm thinking this is good, I may get to eat before lunchtime!! I did my business and climbed back in the sleeping bag.

After an hour, I couldn't lay there any longer so I got out of the tent expecting to find a flurry of girls preparing food. NADA. Not a one of them were out of their tents! I grabbed a Diet Coke and set myself up to 'nap' in my hammock.

The girls finally got moving about 7:30, they spent about 45 minutes trying to get a fire going (perhaps we should re-visit the firebuilding technique?). I was getting LOTS of questions about what to do, so it ended up that the leaders did a lot of the cooking - the girls really were not ready for this big of a meal on their own (maybe in a kitchen, but not over a fire). They were also all really bickering A LOT about who got to do which station. Aye yi yi! So, I'd say that the whole Mother's Day breakfast was a bit of a bust. They also did a really crappy job at cleaning up after the meal! I wasn't in the mood to be a bitch about it (I'm usually the one to enforce the chores in the group) so I let it go - something I have NEVER done!! Hope I haven't ruined my reputation there! I did not do the cleaning though, I got back in my hammock. One of the other leaders who REALLY does not let the girls take lead cleaned up the whole shooting match. I think this is the WORST possible thing she could do for these kids, but like I said, I was not in the mood to be The Enforcer.

Though the breakfast didn't happen, the rest of the day was really good. The girls wrote a play and acted it all out for us. They worked on it all weekend and did a lot of practicing. It was actually a very clever play - one of the girls wrote the entire script (three scenes) and then she did all of the directing. It was very funny and the entire group worked together on it, and HAPPILY!! I was very proud of them for coming together - something we have had a lot of issue with. I can say that the one girl who causes a lot of strife had left early - I realized how much the group dynamic changed without her there.

I then introduced them all to Geocaching. They loved it! We went on a hunt for two cache boxes and were successful at finding both of them. Both of the boxes were filled with swag and they happily swapped some stuff and we found a Geocoin to boot. It turned out to be much more exciting for them than I ever imagined!

When I got home, Hunk made lasagna for my dinner and I dropped I was so exhausted from the trip. The girls wore me out!

Caught in the Act

2009-05-06T10:28:00.004-04:00

Suppose you went to a party hosted by a business acquaintance. Suppose your 'date' had a lot to drink and was feeling frisky. Suppose he suggests that you have a rendezvous in the restroom on the yacht of your business acquaintance. Suppose you give in and say, yes.......

Now, imagine that while you are in the middle of being frisky, that you hear a KNOCK. Ok, he calmly says, "just a second" and the abbreviated ending ensues. KNOCKING, more persistent, "just oonnnne second", in a breathy tone. Then you hear a voice, it's the owner of the boat, "I need to get in there!", more KNOCKING. Trying to wrap things up rather quickly, now.

OF COURSE, there is only one way out. OF COURSE, the owner is waiting on the other side of the closed door and there are TWO people in one restroom. OF COURSE, this is not a person that you know that well. OF COURSE, there are 3 other restrooms on the boat and this is the one that he comes to, AT THIS EXACT MOMENT.

Sigh.

Exiting the restroom, rather quickly, eyes averted.

Suppose you probably won't be invited to the next cruise.......

Zilch to blog

2009-04-30T15:52:00.002-04:00

I've got nothing.

I'm literally just surviving these last 3 weeks of school. I can.not.wait to be freed from the school schedule!! I really don't have a problem getting up early in the morning, unless I am FORCED to. It is then that it becomes a chore that I loathe. I just can't get myself moving. I'm seriously thinking of home-schooling my kids, just so I don't have to be somewhere at a certain time every single day of the week. How pathetic is that?

I'm so against doing the same thing over and over. I have never been a good conformer to routine. I like to get things done and then do something new altogether. Luckily, this didn't hit me until a few years after college. I used to be a school teacher and had my life laid out on a schedule all the way to when I could pee. Once we moved and I was forced to get a 'different' job in the interim I realized that I HATE SCHEDULES! Therefore, I never went back to teaching. I kept my office job which allowed me to do all sorts of different and fun projects. I was also able to stay home one day a week. This completely spoiled me and I have not been the same since.

So, I've got nothing to blog, except that I am living for May 23. A day where I will likely wake up at 6 am, but I won't HAVE to. :)

Really?!

2009-04-27T13:03:00.002-04:00

I barely caught the tail end of a commercial yesterday. The most important part that I glanced up and noticed was a web address. I then realized I was hearing a commercial advertising prunes as a snack. The web site is

popaprune.com

Really?! NO one in marketing gave any thought to the geriatric porn references here? I'm surprised the address was available, especially given to the weirdos in the world that consider things like donkey porn to be acceptable. I'll admit I have a sense of humor, but my mind is not nearly as far into the gutter as other folks around and it took me all of two seconds to see this address and say...."ewwww". If I noticed it could be taken out of context, then SURELY a marketing executive making WAY MORE MONEY THAN ME could have considered this possibility. Perhaps I have missed my career calling.....

Anger

2009-04-22T13:14:00.001-04:00

A Deal!

2009-04-14T15:47:00.007-04:00

Kapgar motivated me to post about our great GameStop deal last week....

Since it was Easter, and we have children we were trying to think of something fun to put in the Easter baskets. Typically, I try to keep Easter low key. A lot of folks we know make Easter a second Christmas as far as gifts for the kids. I *kind of* fell into that category this year. Ahem.

Since I'm married to a Hunk of a Nerd, the new Nintendo DSi has been a hot topic around this house. We tossed around the idea of getting the kids DSi's for Easter. The new DSi costs $169. That, times two. Uhhh, no, not for Easter. Sigh.

Then, my coupon loving, deal finding Hunk realized that GameStop was offering an exceptional trade in value for the DSLite (we have two). Normally, you get $40 for a trade and they were offering an additional $30 for a $7o trade in value!! Not bad, considering a DSLite costs $129 new. We've had them for at least 2 years and gotten TONS of use out of them. So, Hunk looked through his Xbox, Playstation, Wii games and found a few that were old, unused or just no longer appealing, coupled with two DSLites and he headed off to make a deal.

The result is that he got two DSi's for $150. Now, that is a deal!! It is still more than I would have preferred to put in an Easter basket, but Hunk has had just as much fun, if not MORE FUN, than the girls playing with the new DSi's. They do so much more than just games!!

The rest of the Easter basket was candy, however I did get my youngest daughter a Darth Vader holding jellybeans. I mean, really, could anyone pass him up?

Spring Break!!!!

2009-04-08T19:02:00.003-04:00

My kids are on Spring Break this week!! Whooo Hoooo!

We leave tomorrow to go camping - I'm happy we are going, but it is supposed to rain on Friday and after our last camping trip in the pouring rain.....well, I'm not really looking forward to the wetness. I'm hoping that the forecaster will be dead wrong and it will all just blow over.

Today, we went bowling. We went to our local bowling center at 10:30 a.m. and the guy said we had to come back at 1:30p.m upon which we would be placed on a waiting list. So basically, we should wait 2.5 hours, come back and then wait for an indefinate amount of time for a lane?? No thanks. My other option was to reserve a lane for $15 - but that amount is not credited for any games or anything, soo.... we hopped in the car and went to the next town over (15 minute drive) and we walked right in and got a lane for as long as we wished!! The $15 would not have been a problem, but the entire bowling alley was EMPTY as he stood there and delivered this information. Apparently, a plethora of folks had called in and paid the $15 reservation fee for all the morning hours, but NO ONE was there. It just pissed me off that the whole place was quiet, yet we could not walk in and get a lane. The bowling alley we went to works on first come, first served basis - I liked that idea much better, at least for today!!

I didn't blog on April 1, however I did manage to get my kids really good for April Fool's.....at dinnertime I put some "mashed potatoes" on their plates with their dinner - which was vanilla ice cream I had softened and mushed around.....THEY TOTALLY FELL FOR IT! As a matter of fact, my oldest daughter covered hers in salt and pepper!! I didn't think it looked all that convincing, but apparently it did because they both got the surprise of their lives when they took that first bite....... I like April Fool's when the joke is not on me.

Thieves

2009-03-31T14:26:00.002-04:00

There is an empty lot at the end of our country road. There was an old farmhouse there, once. It burned to the ground about 7 years ago. There's no concrete slab, or basement walls to note that there was a house there at one time. The house was old, probably from the early 1900's, before slabs and basements were thought of. What does remain are the flowers. A long time ago, someone planted flowers in the yard of the old house. Bright yellow daffodils and deep purple Phlox (or Thrift?).

This lot sits alone on a busy road, it has a For Sale sign on it, but it hasn't been touched in years. Every once in a while someone will take it upon themselves to park a car "For Sale" - on a lot that doesn't belong to them. About a month ago, as I turned into my road I noticed a car parked on the lot, with the doors open. I then saw a man with a shovel, digging up the blooming flowers! I drove on.

When I came back by later, where there was once a few long rows of pretty yellow flowers, there was dirt. A few broken flowers were tossed around and there was one small patch of flowers left. The purple flowers were undisturbed.

The next day, a different car was in the same spot, this time it was a woman. And a shovel. She took ALL of the remaining yellow flowers. Apparently, she had seen the man taking flowers, and thought they were free game so she came back for the leftovers.

Today, a new car, a new woman and a new shovel. She dug up the entire back row of the purple Thrift.

I won't be surprised if her thievery causes someone else to take the rest tomorrow. The lot will be nothing but overturned dirt and overgrown shrubs.

So, just because someone else is doing it, it must be okay? In this world, all property belongs to someone. There is no unclaimed land. What gives people the right to steal these flowers? Just because no one is there to tell them 'NO', they have taken it upon themselves to decide that the flowers are out for the taking.

What I find interesting is that it took one person to 'go first'. Then the rest just followed and probably justified themselves by the fact that 'he did it first, so we thought it was okay'.....

Minus One Appendix

2009-03-26T13:21:00.003-04:00

We spent our weekend and the first part of this week in the Children's hospital. My oldest had to have her appendix removed....of course, unplanned!! Does anyone have a planned apendectomy?

Today was her first day back at school, and she only went in at 11:00 a.m. I've already gotten a call from her that she needs pain medication and it is currently 1:15!! I have strong reservations that the doctor should've given her more time to recover. He suggested that she attend school on Wednesday this week, but I didn't send her - we are all exhausted from trying to live in a hospital room and keep up with our younger child, so we needed a day off. Plus, it was her BIRTHDAY!! I figured the kid deserved a day off after having been sliced open right before her birthday!!

In retrospect, we were pretty lucky that we were only in the hospital from Saturday evening until Tuesday. There were so many people around us that were in there for much longer periods of time and for much more serious ailments. The thing that made me so sad was a little boy who was on our floor, he was all alone most of the time. His parents had to be at work and so he spent his days alone, playing Nintendo or hanging out at the nurse's station. We were lucky enough to be able to have one parent with our child at all times. I can't even imagine how crushing it would be to have to leave your 6 year old all alone at a hospital. Knowing that if you don't go to work, you could lose your job and insurance, knowing that healthcare can cause you to be in financial ruin. Knowing that you had to make a choice to be with your child, or to secure your group insurance. Ugh. It is just not right.

But we are home now, and my child is doing better. I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep that was lost, a hospital is no place to get any rest!!

Money and Movie

2009-03-20T08:24:00.004-04:00

The latest update on our money is that WE GOT IT ALL BACK! Paypal completed their investigation and we got a full refund. Yahoo!! The thing that I'm dying to know are all the details!! I have no idea if they found the jeweler to be a part of the whole case, or if they got a credit for the cost of the diamond. It just grates on my nerves when I don't have details!! I'll get past it though, since I have my moolah back!

Speaking of money, last night I dropped a nice chunk of change on my daughter's birthday party. I try not to spend tons of money on birthday parties, I don't rent out the jumpy houses for $400, we don't hire zoos, mascots, etc. But I do like to have a fun party. Our ill-planned party (due to my lack of planning ahead) went off really well......it just cost more than I ever thought it would. We met at Chick Fil A where I purchased a nugget tray and fruit cups - instead of getting everyone a single meal. This turned out to be about the same price, but at least we were able to forgo the french fries. While I knew the kids were going to eat a lot of candy, I tried to sneak in some better choices...i.e. fruit cups. After dinner we walked over to the candy store and I allowed each of them to get the equivalent of one scoop of candy. Silly me, I thought this would amount to about $3 per child, but since I could not police them - they were going batshit crazy - some of them filled their bags with more than the allotted amount. I gave too much credit to other people's kids, I fully expect my kids to follow direction and not act like an animal in public. Other people, apparently, do not teach their children these policies. Not to mention that these girls were all 11 or 12 years old, they SHOULD have some level of responsibility and grace. Eh. What I expected to cost $30 ended up being $60! Yes, I purchased $60 worth of CANDY. That makes me want to hurl. But once you scoop it out, you can't really put it back, so we were kind of stuck with it. I definately learned NOT to turn a kid loose in a candy store......heh.

Our next stop was to see Race to Witch Mountain. I have fond memories of watching Witch Mountain movies when I was a kid, so I was excited for my kids to share the fun. It was okay, but it was not as much about the kids having powers as it was about car chases/crashes. My 7 year old was not impressed with it at all - she got in my lap and tried to sleep. It was shaky filming which I can not stand and it just wasn't all that interesting. The older girls seemed to like it, but I thought the kid actors were weird. Maybe my memory is all messed up, but Tia didn't act like a frickin' robot in Escape to Witch Mountain. The classic movies featured the kids having fun, but this release gave them virtually no personality whatsoever. They were all sad in the end when leaving "The Rock" (Dwayne), and don't get me wrong, I would be sad to leave that man behind, but as the movie went, I didn't really see them make a familial connection to him since they had really no emotion at all. So, either the movie was just okay, or I'm just ass old. Probably a little bit of both! By the way, both of the child actors from the original movies had small parts in this release - I thought that was cool.

One last thing about money is that when one of the mom's dropped off her daughter (I do not know this family), the mom pulled me aside and stated that her child had picked out the gift on her own. The mom thought that the daughter did not spend enough money on the gift, so she wanted me to know that she dropped a $20 down in the gift bag so her daughter wouldn't look cheap. HUH? First of all, how did the daughter go shopping without an adult? Second of all, the little girl gave my daughter 2 new tops, both of which were very cute. ?? I'm not sure where this mom was coming from and how much she feels you should spend on a gift for a kid's birthday - a kid that is just a casual friend from school. Unless it is a really special occasion I see birthday gifts as gestures of kindness, not to be measured by worth. Maybe I am the cheap one? The funny thing is that my daughter just went to this girl's birthday a few weeks ago - I suppose she thought we sent a cheap gift because I let my child pick out the gift. She chose to give the girl a set of colored art pencils because the girl really loves to draw. The set was $9.99, we threw in a cheap sketch book and that was it! She chose something she thought the girl would really love based on her interests, not by price! I wasn't sure how to take that comment! How do you measure what is appropriate to spend on a birthday gift?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T08:22:00.001-04:00

No News

2009-03-15T09:30:00.003-04:00

No news is not necessarily good news, or bad - it is ANNOYING! We've got no information on our Paypal/Ebay issue. I've talked to two different people at Paypal. The first one I talked to was mildly reassuring, but she didn't offer much information. She basically said that Paypal protects us and to wait up to 10 days for a decision. Pardon me, but a 'decision' means that I may or may not get my money back (in my opinion). I called again, to try to get an update, and I talked with another representative who was VERY reassuring. She asked a TON of questions, made some major restrictions on our account to prevent any further fraud (which should have been done IMMEDIATELY on my first call!), she seemed very interested in this investigation and wanted to gather as much information as possible. She states that Paypal will cover our money, AND they will pay the seller of the diamond if they had already shipped it. I suppose they would then use law enforcement to try and track the actual offender. I have hope, but I will believe it when I see it in the form of $$$$.

It's very frustrating to wait for information. On my end it seems as though nothing is happening and I'm the type of person that likes to make stuff happen. I hate to wait, on anything. The waiting is just killing me. I am also obsessed with having lots of information about stuff. I think I'm more focused on the fact that I need more information about this crime than the money itself. Well, maybe..... :)

In other news, I'm hosting a baby shower at my house next weekend. I'm getting kind of freaked out about it because I feel like my house is not 'show ready'. I also don't have a lot of time between now and the shower, sooooo... I'm a little irritated.

I have no window treatments in my living room. Not a real issue, but there were window treatments at one time, so now there are holes where the hardware once was. It needs filling, sanding and painting. Oh yeah, I don't have that paint anymore, either. The bathroom that is most likely to be used by guests also needs a paint job along with the hallway attached to it. I watched my friends kids a week or so ago and they ended up coloring all over the walls. Sounds like I did a fantastic job watching them, huh? I was actually getting their dinner together and they were playing nicely in the next room - or so I thought. I tried using a magic eraser to remove most of the coloring - it does work, but I can 'see' where I've erased. And not all of it will come off. Hey, they are aspiring artists and they used different mediums of coloring tools! There were crayons, markers and pencils.

There are a lot of other little things that I would like to have done before having a mulititude of people sticking their noses in every corner of my house, but I think I'm just going to have to get past it. There are not enough hours in the day. What is it with people coming over that they have to go on a 'tour' of the whole house and look behind every door!? I'm really letting just one person get to me about this whole house thing. I have a relative who will be attending that loves to point out things that they could do so much better!

I should just let it go, much like my obsession with our claim. It will all happen the way it was meant to happen. I will do what I can to make the shower nice, and I will do what I can to find the prick who took my money, but in the end no amount of my worry will change an outcome.

Shaft

2009-03-12T09:10:00.005-04:00

I've been using online service, vendors, banking, etc. since the beginning of 'internet' time. It must have been more than 10 years. I've had very few 'problems' aside from the occasional suckbucket on ebay. None of my problems have ever amounted to much. Until today.

When logging on to my online banking this morning I noticed that Paypal has taken a nice chunk of my money. A $2,649.99 chunk, to be exact. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (this is the amount of silence it took before what was happening sunk in). Fu#@#^^&*%$###$***$#@!!!!!!!!! began the line of obsenities that spewed from my mouth. In my kitchen. Where my kids were eating chocolate chip waffles. I'll probably get a call from the principal today when my 7 year old asks her teacher what "you fucking fucker douchebag shit" means.

Apparently, someone has captured the password of my Hunk's ebay and paypal account. Upon which they decided they wanted to purchase a $2,649.99 loose diamond. They changed the confirmed shipping address on the paypal account and did an instant transfer from our bank account. For $2,649.99. ahem. Apparently, I have moved to El Paso, TX where I will be receiving my loose diamond via US Postal service any day now.

So, Paypal will investigate this claim, but it takes 10 days. My bank will let me file an unauthorized form of some sort, which takes 5 days to process. I doubt I have a leg to stand on with the bank. Paypal.....we shall see. I've heard a lot of bad stories, but I'll hold my judgement until it is considered a closed deal. My hope is that Paypal will indeed protect this purchase.

I checked out the auction that Hunk supposedly won, a brilliant loose diamond. Not only am I missing money, it was lost to something that I don't like AT ALL, jewelry. I don't wear any jewelry other than my wedding rings. I don't have any desire to wear jewelry. Anyhoo, I called the number of the "Seller". They have a website - a strange address, though (no www). I dialed the 877 number and a man answered, possibly having been awakened by the phone. He was clearly NOT at a jewelry store. I asked him if he could refund my purchase, he said yes, but he needed to call his partner. "Has the item been shipped?" Yes, I was assured that the diamond was shipped to El Paso yesterday. "A Tracking Number, please". He didn't have it at the moment and he really needed to call his partner to figure this all out. His partner happened to have just left for Israel. Hmmmm.

I then followed up my dispute with a call to Paypal to see what leg I have to stand on, especially if they say this item has shipped. According to Paypal, they have not yet released the money to the seller (thank GOD if that is true). Which brings me back to the seller - why would they ship a diamond supposedly valued at $6,500 (I really got a bargain!! ha) if they haven't received their $2.649.99???

There's a lot of fishy going on here. At first I thought that perhaps both the seller and myself had been duped. But with the reaction I'm getting from the seller, I'm wondering if they are not a part of the scam? Whatever the case, if the seller is legit, and they shipped this diamond then someone in El Paso is going out for a steak dinner and doing a happy dance.

A good lesson learned here, is that I should be logging on to my online banking DAILY. Paypal 'says' that there is a 3-4 day waiting period before they would have actually released the money. If I had not happened to have checked, the money would have DEFINATELY been gone and I would have no grounds at all. I'm in my account a lot, but if I set up all my billpay info, I can go a week or so without logging in.

I've made all the appropriate changes to passwords, etc., but it doesn't replace the fact that I'm out of $2,649.99 in CASH, and I may never see it again. I honestly do not see how people can live with themselves by taking things from other people. What kind of a mind do you have to have to feel as though you deserve something that I worked for? It really is amazing how people can be so different, so unfeeling, so self righteous. I wonder if I would be a different person if I weren't as blessed as I am. I don't want for food, or clothing. I have a nice place to live. If I didn't have these things would it alter my compassion for others?

Funny

2009-03-06T10:19:00.003-05:00

My 7 year old came running into the kitchen and exclaimed, "MOMMY!! I found the perfect thing! It makes the house smell good AND it babysits!!" WTH? I'm kind of half listening, but then I realized what she said. "Honey, you heard it wrong". She insisted that she heard it as plain as the nose on her face - "no, REALLY, it's a smell good thing that watches KIDS! It's a commercial and it's really real, I promise!".

Ok - my full undivided attention is now on this kid. "Honey, you must be mistaken, that sounds a little crazy".

Enter Tivo*. Rewind, find the commercial. Play it.

So there's an Airwick air freshener commercial that features an Owl and she has all these little Owl kids running around. She states that she's too busy to keep an eye on everything all the time, but that her Airwick plug in is always on duty, it can even sense when a stinky kid walks by - or something to that effect. I can see where she gathered her conclusion and I just about wet myself laughing. It shows the air freshener perking up when the kids are around, so naturally my kid thinks that it is watching the kids!! And it's always on duty!!

So, if my kids are home alone, but I have an Airwick do I have a case against DFACs??

*Thank heavens for Tivo, or I might have had my kid tested for weirdness*

Sink or Swim

2009-03-05T07:49:00.005-05:00

I'm so mad right now that I can't stand it. My 11 year old did it, again. They say that the two's are terrible, but I'm having a much harder time with 11. I think that something ate my child's brain. She habitually 'forgets' things that are pretty important because she is so wrapped up in whatever else is more important at the moment. She almost never thinks ahead and I'm finding it quite annoying. It is most annoying because she used to be much different. This is completely new territory for us. She used to be the kid that I could ask her where anything was and she remembered exact locations - of everything, hers or someone else's. She was very observant of all around her, yet that seems to have been lost in the shuffle. She's starting to act like a ditzy teen (but she's only 11!!!!). If this is a preview of 13-17, then people, I'm screwed. Let's hope this is a phase.

The latest comes about 11pm last night. Apparently, her conscious got to her so much that it jolted her out of sleep...."HEY, TOMORROW IS THURSDAY, remember....". She stumbled into our room to inform us that she almost(?) forgot that tomorrow is the day for her to do a cooking demonstration for her speech class. Blink. 11 pm. Blink. The day before.

What makes me the most angry is that we talked about this demonstration 2 weeks ago. We brainstormed, we came up with ideas that would be easy and ones that would really wow the teacher. We decided on something that would have an interesting story behind it so she would have good 'chat' material while demonstrating the recipe. The schedule for demonstrations was not set, so we had no date. I also asked her to speak with her instructor to make sure that she would be permitted to do what we had planned. I asked her a few times over the course of the past two weeks if she had gotten permission, etc., the last inquiry from me was Friday. She had no new information. I'm guessing she probably got the go ahead and date on Monday of this week, but failed to let me know.

Since we only had half the ingredients necessary for this project I had to get up two hours early to go to the grocery store and get what she needed, then we had to practice and time the speech and make her note cards. All on the day of the demonstration.

The worst part is that I absolutely could not enjoy doing this project with her. It started out great with the ideas and decision making. I had anticipated having a lot of fun with this, but I could not get past my anger - at 5:30 a.m. no less. The entire morning just completely sucked ass and I pretty much just helped her do enough to 'get by'. She was concerned that it would not last as long as it was supposed to and instead of being a great mom I said, "well, I guess you're grade is just screwed then!".

I'm wondering if I would have been better off to just not help her at all, to just let her tell her teacher that she was unprepared and see where the chips would fall. I might have been a lot less angry at the whole situation and I might have been a better parental unit. The jury is out, I think I would still be mad that she let the grade go, but maybe I would have been a bit less vocal to her about it.

Sometimes it just sucks to be the grown up. Would you let them sink or help them swim? I probably did more harm by helping her throw something together, than to let her just fail and learn from her mistake. Considering that this was a large percentage of her grade, would you knowingly let your child fail a class to teach them a lesson? Where do you draw the line? Failing a class is different (to me) than screwing up outside of school.

Uncomfortable

2009-03-04T09:11:00.003-05:00

Have you ever had a conversation with friends that took a turn to made things uncomfortable from that point on?

I was talking with two friends yesterday and the subject of taxes came up. Throughout the conversation we were talking about scenarios, etc. and things that are irritating. At some point, there was some information that kind of "gave away" that of these three people, one of them is in an income category that is heinously different than the others.

Once it sank in, there was a definate feeling of uncomfortable-ness in the conversation. The thing is that all three of us lead basically the same outward lives.....as in vehicles, homes (sort of) and the activities that our kids participate in. We all send our kids to public schools, the same summer camps. We vacation alike. There is nothing of our lifestyles that suggest that we are world's apart in tax brackets.

Yet, now, it seems as though there is something in the way. The conversation went silent, and then I could just see the discomfort, the thoughts whirling. I won't divulge the specifics, because then it might make YOU uncomfortable. But I'm peeved that this has created a feeling of 'difference', when it is not something that matters at all. We are all so much alike in most everything we do. Even if we weren't alike in our daily lives, this should not be an issue. I have friends in (what I can only assume) a lot of different financial situations. I don't feel differently about any of them based on their jobs or supposed income. Why should it matter if you have more, or less, money than me. I'm still me. Are you jealous? Do you pity me? I guess it's that I just don't care about your money, and I assume that you shouldn't care about mine. Maybe I'm reading too much into how I felt the conversation went. Perhaps there will be nothing different the next time we all meet up. I hope this is the case, but there was a definate 'cloud' for the rest of the evening. The conversation wasn't 'easy' anymore.

Would it make you uncomfortable if you assumed that a good friend was 'in the same boat' with you, only to find that their boat was actually a yacht...or a dingy?

NOT a Snowy Sunday

2009-03-02T10:26:00.004-05:00

As you can see by my highly accurate weather map that we did not get snow. Atlanta got snow, Athens got a truckload, but our little slice of town got the shaft. It has been YEARS since we had any real snow and we were thrilled at the prospect. Today, I have some very disappointed kids. But let me tell you that the kids that are 20 miles to the east of us are out building snowmen today. I shit you not, 20 miles. We got nuthin'.

We did get to see some snow falling, but it was a snow/rain mix, so the rain was pretty much just killing it as it fell. We had about 15 minutes of white falling and then it just rained. Then it got really cold and evaporated all of the moisture, so we didn't even get to skip school for ice.

We got nuthin'.

And here I thought I was going to get to do a Snowy Sunday Show....... pft.

Meaty

2009-02-26T11:17:00.007-05:00

I did my superhero, but being as intelligent as I am, I did not scroll down and add eyes/nose. I just plugged right through and got a quick result. Mainly because my kids were still awake!!

So my superhero was all cool, but had no facial features which makes her a bit less 'super'. So, I banned the children to their rooms and began, once again, using all of the exact same features, accessories and remembering to add a FACE. The outcome looked the same, only more normal and yet the name changed by quite a bit.

I know, I know, it is a simple name generator, blah, blah, blah....but I went from being Baroness Von Burning Inferno to the following......

I'll admit - the new persona entitled "MEATY" does fit me a bit better, but "Experimental Hottie"??? If there are any dudes out there that like KINKY CHUBBALUBBIN' CHICKS, then I guess I'm your girl. I chose the torcher accessory and would have referenced my insane abilities to flame some meringue pie, but with this new title I could be roasting something completely off-base.

I digress...

My post yesterday was about my encounter with a person that was affected with 'something'. I try really hard to not to be judgmental. I actually thought I was mostly on the side of acceptance of people that are different or otherwise labeled. That was until I encountered something that I had never come across before. His hands were covered with raised, whitish lumps. I imagined it would be what a 'boil' would look like. Whatever it was, it was awful in appearance and in my head I didn't feel pity, I felt "ick". A similar feeling that I imagine most people felt about the Elephant Man. And then I felt about a half inch tall. I think it is only when something stares you in the face that you can truly measure your character. I'd say that I failed on that one. I still don't know what it was, and in the end I did shake his hand. I am embarrassed to admit, though, that I did not WANT to.

Do you or don't you?

2009-02-25T08:50:00.004-05:00

When making a business transaction with a salesperson, assuming all goes well, you would anticipate a hand shake upon the conclusion of the sale - right? Usually, I would say that this is the case.

When dealing with salespeople one would assume that a person hired would not have communicable diseases, right? So, knowing that a company allows a person to work for them you would gather that contact with this person would be safe to be in contact with. Are you still with me?

That said, if the person is visually affected with something you are not familiar with, say protrusions or growths on their body, would you assume that they are risk free and be comfortable with a handshake?

Taking this a step further, your salesperson has small growths on their face/eyelids and then along the hands and arms there are large protruding growths, with coloration. Do you welcome the handshake?

If you do shake their hand, how would you feel? Were you forced and now feel the need to cleanse? Would you think nothing of it?

If you don't want to shake, how would you decline a person with an outstretched hand waiting? Do you wonder if you've offended them? Do you care?

**I'll be more specific once I hear reactions from some of you**

Eyeball

2009-02-19T08:39:00.003-05:00

Last night I thought I was going to be making rainbows out of colored water, and I find myself wearing latex gloves, holding a sharp object and only breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell.

Have you ever seen an eyeball just laying on a tray? I had not. Didn't really want to either. But we went to the science display at my daughter's school and one of the activities involved eyeballs. Not just any eyeball. A cow's eyeball. Did you ever notice that cow's are kinda large, with big heads and enormous eyeballs? The task at hand was to dissect the eyeball.

Luckily, I was only an assistant, here to watch my child slice up a pupil. The eyeball filled her entire hand, as if it were a raquetball. It was squishy and wet, but she jabbed the scissors in and began to cut all the way around the cornea. She peeled the cornea off and squeezed the eyeball like a wet sponge. The lens popped out and was described by the instructor to be just like a coughdrop..."but don't taste it" he says. As if. Meanwhile, her sister is huddled in the corner refusing to touch, or help.

The next step, she turned the eyeball inside out to expel the vitreous humor which is the gel that fills the eyeball. There was a lot more to see and learn, but I was trying to keep my cookies in while consoling her sister that she should at least "try to touch it".....

In the end, she was proud of herself and amazed at what she found inside the cow's eye. She could not wait to tell all her friends about what she did. She took off her gloves and told her sister how awesome it was and said, "you are such a girl...."

**the 7 year old dissected the cow eye, while the 11 year old middle school student shrieked and gagged in the corner**

We're off to see the Wizard

2009-02-16T08:20:00.004-05:00

Today, we are off to Blue Ridge, Georgia to visit my favorite Apple House.

My birthday wish was to get a mercedes of an Apple Cutter and to get my favorite Apple Fritter. There's no rocket science to apple cutting, but I just want a really good cutter and a bag of the biggest, best apples I can get - a tub of caramel dip and a fritter for dessert.

Honestly, this apple house we are going to makes the best fritter I have ever had. And it is huge! I have never been a fritter kind of girl, in fact, I am completely devoted to CAKE. When I'm at a bakery or dessert establishment I never sway from my beloved CAKE. I LOVE CAKE! Cupcakes are even better, because everything is better in a "mini" (well, maybe not EVERYthing...) In the fall we visited this orchard and they had no cake. I decided to try a fritter and I became completely hooked. I swear they must have a little man behind a curtain working some frickin' magic on these fritters.

I also wished to sleep in today, and I got it! All the way until 8:15 am - it doesn't sound like much, but to a mom that is like sleeping all day!

Hope you all have a fantastic day, I know I will - all my laundry is DONE!

You touch every place in my heart

2009-02-14T15:04:00.004-05:00

Every time our eyes meet

This feeling inside me

Is almost more than I can take

Baby when you touch me

I can feel how much you love me

And it just blows me away

I've never been this close to anyone or anything

I can hear your thoughts

I can see your dreams

I don't know how you do what you do

I'm so in love with you

It just keeps getting better

I wanna spend the rest of my life

With you by my side

Forever and ever

Every little thing that you do

Baby I'm amazed by you

The smell of your skin

The taste of your kiss

The way you whisper in the dark

Your hair all around me

Baby you surround me

You touch every place in my heart

Lonestar, Amazed

Self Love Day

2009-02-13T07:48:00.005-05:00

Today is Self Love Day! I should tell you something about myself that I just LOVE!

This is a hard one for me........but one thing I can say is that I think I am one of the most easy going people I know. I am typically the one who can keep the cool in a uncomfortable situation. If you screw up, I tend to downplay the whole thing to help you save face. When most everyone around me is freaking out, I play it cool. I do not panic.....

Something that goes along with my level head is that I am a very anticipatory (is that a word?) type of person. I notice what's going on around me and I react to what I can see is about to happen. I don't live my life with blinders on, and never feel that I should be the center of attention. I do everything in my power to notice how I can help those around me. For instance, Hunk and I were once about to get on an airplane and I noticed a couple that had been waiting - just like us - for our delayed aircraft. The difference was that they had their two small kids with them and both kids had fallen asleep. The couple had carry on bags and a car seat - and each of them were holding a sleeping child. Being a mom I know that the worst case scenario is to wake up a kid when they have FINALLY fallen asleep. The dad was attempting to hold a sleeping child and a car seat. I could see the thoughts and ideas racing through their heads of how to accomplish this, so before she began to try and wake up those kids I offered for Hunk and myself to carry all their stuff on the plane. She practically melted into happiness. Not that tons of people wouldn't help like this, but I anticipated that this couple would need help long before boarding when I first saw them both with sleeping kids.

I've got a cool head (mostly) and I am noticing those around me.

I've given you something about me that I like, do any of you like me? If so, why??

Love me and then go and Love Yourself!

Love Me!

2009-02-11T08:17:00.008-05:00

Friday will be Self Love Day 2009 - I'll be thinking of something to love about ME between now and then. I'll be cramming for this test for the next 2 days........

Please go and visit Hilly to find out the official rules and to join in on the fun. And then, don't forget to come back here on FRIDAY and show me some love......

In other news....

I'm no longer sick - yay! I seriously had some bad germs because I felt horrible for a number of days. HOPEFULLY, no one else in this house gets to share that love!

MONDAY - Feb. 16 - there will be no mail, no banking, many businesses will be closed, school is out and there are a number of fantastic sales going on at your local retailers. You can all thank me that my birthday is such an all important day.

I am thrilled beyond belief that there is NO SCHOOL on Monday. One of the things that annoys me to no end is the constant slavery of the early school day. Monday, I will get to sleep late!! I spent 20 years of my life attending various educational institutions which required my early morning attendance. The holy grail of graduation was the very idea of not being chained to the school schedule ever again. Then I had to go and have kids. Apparently, I am not a morning person. I don't know when this happened because I spent most of my younger years being the first one up, wasting daylight was criminal. I guess this means I am actually getting old. I'm looking down the barrel of 38.

My current goal is to have every stitch of clothing in the house clean and on a hanger before midnight on Sunday. My only wish - to not have a pile of laundry ANY WHERE for one entire day. Fleeting dreams, but one can hope......

NO Snow

2009-02-05T16:29:00.003-05:00

No, people. The snow tease was a BIG FAT LIE! LIES, I tell you. It did rain, but nothing came of it. Poo!

I just knew everyone was on pins and needles wondering if we were covered in a blizzard, so that's my update. I'm going back to bed - I feel "flu-ish".

Talk amongst yourselves...

SNOW Day!?

2009-02-01T21:04:00.005-05:00

In Atlanta we don't get snow very often. If we are lucky, we will get ice once or twice a year. So when Stone Mountain Park decided to become SNOW Mountain Park we were definately in.

They took the gigantic sloping lawn (typically used for Laser Show viewings) and have turned it into a snow tubing slope with 8 lanes, snow blowers and the works. THey added a snow playing area and provide everything you need to build snowmen, igloos, sled, etc. We just purchased a lift ticket and show up - no equipment or toys needed.

We got to the park at 3pm today and I brought all of our snow clothing - bibs, boots, heavy coats, gloves, hats, scarves - you name it, I had it. We got out of the car and proceeded to put the stuff on before walking over to the entrance. I started to feel really silly because it was actually really warm out today - 62 degrees at the time we were doing this. People in the parking lot were in short sleeves, no coats, and thought perhaps we were over-dressing for this. I got the kids all suited up, but I carried my own snowpants. I needed to see if they were actually necessary before I was going to put them on. Turns out, lots of people were wearing snow gear, so we didn't look ridiculous once we got to the tube hill.

See what's wrong with this picture? This is the line for the tubing hill, all these people you see are going SNOW TUBING. Do you see the guy in khaki shorts and a Tommy Bahama shirt??? SNOW tubing, people.

The first area we went was the snow playing area where the snowmen/igloo building was. It was very soft "snow", but it was super slippery. It was the consistency of an ICEE drink. The snow blower then came on and the "snow" was coming out in giant chunks. It was funny to watch this pipe toss out hunks of ice/snow mix. It was not at all like snow blowing at ski resorts - likely due to the temperature. My kids still thought it was awesome. You can't tell from the picture, but they are standing in the falling snow chunks here. They put on their coats so they would not get it in their hair, but they both spent most of the day with their coats off. It was warm!!

The tubing line was long, on the first run we waited for 30 minutes. The sessions are only 2 hours, so I thought that a 30 minute wait was a bit obnoxious. It turned out in the end that we were able to go down the hill 4 times in 2 hours. We may have been able to get in one more run, but the kids slowed us down a bit. The tube ride was fun - the "snow" had melted quite a bit with the bright, warm day we were having. Everything was pretty drippy, but there was a nice thick base so the slopes were fine. By sundown, the melty was beginning to get packed and hard so the slopes got a lot FASTER. They kept blowing the icee mix the whole time, and I am still amazed that they are able to keep SNOW in this weather. It is crazy!!

I am VERY glad we wore all the snow gear because if you can imagine playing, rolling and tubing in an ICEE you can imagine that we got very wet. The snow clothing came in handy for keeping us dry, though we were all a bit hot in the thickness.

I don't have a lot of good pics, we had the camera, but Hunk ended up leaving it at the school function we stopped at along the way. We needed to go help the Drama dept. get ready for a play my oldest is in. They were playing with the makeup and we took a few pictures, the camera was put down and then forgotten. I did end up purchasing a toss away camera, but I won't see those pics for a few days. It is hard to use film after being so accustomed to digital. I ran out of shots quickly because I'm so used to taking a bazillion pics and just deleting the bad ones. Hopefully I don't have a film roll full of bad pics!! I guess in this respect that film will never die. There will always be the disposable camera, I don't think they will be able to create a disposable digital camera - or maybe there is such a thing and I live under a rock.? What I have today is from my iPhone....so yeah, they suck.

We had a lot of fun - I hope I got some good pictures on the disposable camera, because this was just something to see - in Atlanta - a snow slope. Who would've thought?? We are actually expecting some REAL SNOW according to the weather man - possibly on Monday evening. Can everyone please just put all your karma, postive thoughts, prayers or whatever you choose that we will get a frickin' BLIZZARD? I could use a day off this week - my calendar is packed!!

G'Day Mates!

2009-01-29T16:00:00.003-05:00

As a Girl Scout Leader for two troops, one of my many challenges is to help girls come up with SWAPS!

What is a SWAP? It's a Special Whatchamacallit Affectionately Pinned Somewhere. Yeah, whatever...It's basically homemade FLAIR!

In February we are to represent Australia at our World Thinking Day Event (we are thinking about Girls in other countries sharing in our Girl Scout experience). Anyhoo, we need some Aussie Flair. As we attempt to share a bit of an Aussie experience with our Girl Scout sisters here in the US, we want to give them a "lil' sumthin" to pin to their hat.

We have thought of lots of easy things to do ( EASY seems to be the KEY for my co-leader....as in "let's take the easy way out" - I do not agree with this philosophy!! ). Mainly the ideas are boring. I wanted to paint mini Boomerangs, but I can't find the wooden shapes ANYWHERE that are small enough. That would have been fun!!

They ruled out making Pom Pom Koalas, too tedious. Fine by me, while I welcome the work I thought it was a snooze to give away Pom Pom animals.

My absolute favorite idea was to make Aboriginal shrunken heads out of beads and rick-rack. That idea was considered "too much work". BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!

So, I'm thinking and searching, but to no avail. If anyone has any ideas, by all means, SHARE! I may be making Aboriginal heads with just my daughter. It would be rude, to have a boring troop SWAP and then for her to have her own cool one, but I'm beginning to not give a shit at all.

The latest decision was to print off pictures of Koalas and have it laminated and stick a pin through it. Now, tell me, what kid is going to find a piece of paper exciting!!??

BLEH.

Butts

2009-01-26T08:58:00.003-05:00

I don't smoke, I never have - well, I did try it once, but I hated it. I've always hated it and it became a total dealbreaker for me with guys. I dated one guy who smoked, however I rarely saw him smoke and he rarely smelled like smoke - the thing is that I knew it was never going to go anywhere because of that one habit. There were PLENTY of other indicators that this guy was a loser, but it was that ONE that made me keep my heart guarded. It was a blessing in disguise because had I been "in" this relationship completely my heart would have been destroyed. He was one of many men who made me *hate* men.

Smoking is something that I do not understand and something that I knew that I could never live with. I've known so many people in my life that have quit, failed, quit, failed, etc. I figured that I did not want to take a chance if a guy said he would quit. I had no faith that he would not start smoking again, and it was something I could never put up with.

I have friends & family members who smoke cigarettes and while I still don't understand it, I don't place it as a dealbreaker on those relationships. It is just something that I knew I could never live with day to day. I don't like the smell, the look and I just don't get it.

To get to my point though, is the BUTTS. I was driving behind a car and during the course of our 20 minute ride I watched this person toss 3 butts out the window. It seems to be an un-written excuse that tossing cigarette butts out the window is not littering. This is something that I just don't get. Of the people that I know that smoke, I'd say roughly 99% of them would never toss their McDonald's trash or their gum wrapper out the car window, but almost all of them feel free and clear to drop a cigarette butt wherever they happen to be. ???

I did have one friend that would never throw her butts out - she said her daughter caught her and was devastated that she was littering. So, she stopped. However, her car was disgusting with an ashtray jammed to overflowing with butts. Ohhhhh, the smell!! So, I see the issue of not wanting the butts in the car - it can be down right nasty. (I wish her daughter's devastation with her actual smoking would've made her stop!)

Am I missing something, or is it socially acceptable to litter with cigarette butts?

Dongle-de-doo

2009-01-21T09:24:00.003-05:00

I have a dongle for the software that I use to operate my business. A dongle, or keylock, which means that if said dongle is not attached to my computer my software will not function. It is a security item, so that the software can not be shared. I get it. The software was expensive in my book - $5,000. There are definately folks out there that would try to copy, share or sell software with such a price tag. The keylock is justifiable.

The keylock is also an annoyance. The problem is that I purchased a new laptop to replace the relic (5 years old) that I've been using. My hard drive died and it made more sense to just upgrade. I've got a new, sleek machine that does not have a parallel port - a parallel port is needed to attach my dongle. This renders my software useless.

My first run of business was to contact the software manufacturer to see if I could get a new dongle that is USB compatible. YES, they say.....however, the cost is $500. WTF? If I am willing to surrender my parallel dongle, in replacement for a USB key I should not be ripped a new asshole with a $500 fee. Maybe I'm expecting too much?? I realize that the new dongle has materials and labor expenses, but I really don't feel that it should come with a $500 price tag! Seriously. I'm happy to pay for all shipping and a modest upgrade fee, but I just really feel like this company is being a total rip off.

I tried a work-around option by purchasing a USB to Parallel converter cable. Unfortunately, this option did not work. I even got my little Hunky nerd to work on it, but it just didn't work. So, my best "legal" option is to purchase a new dongle. Whooop de doo.

My second option is to do a full-on upgrade of the software. The thing is, the "upgrade" is not an upgrade, it is a switch to a completely new software (which uses USB keylock). Granted what they suggest I switch to is a really awesome software, but I'm doing fine with what I have and I really don't have the luxury of time to learn a completely new process. Nor, do I have another $6,000 budgeted for a complete software overhaul. I'm really kind of stuck.

So, I pour money into a new PC, more money into a new dongle and next year I'll pour my last remaining dollars into new software. At least maybe I'll be able to sell the $500 dongle to someone who needs it - like I need it now.

***why didn't I purchase a new PC with a parallel if I knew I needed one? well, to be honest, I got a helluva deal on this machine and to get a parallel port I would have to have a special ordered PC. Parallel is so dated that new machines don't have them any longer. Of course, I never thought it would be this big of a deal, either. So, YES, I brought this on myself so I should just SHUT UP***

Avoidance

2009-01-16T14:05:00.008-05:00

I am in complete and utter avoidance of all things labeled as "productive".

I do not have one ounce of motivation in me to do anything that I "should" be doing.

THANK GOD IT IS FRIDAY! And I have deemed Saturday as 'The Day That I Shall Eat Bacon', and none of the turkey that tries to call itself bacon. I'm having BACON, dammit.

Is it time to go to sleep yet?

On a side note, I am putting together a package for my chemo buddy. While I was looking for something fun to send to her, I found some awesome Valentine things that I will send to her dogs in February. Can you just say CUTE? And I don't really care for dogs all that much.....I'm a cat girl.

They are red and pink - I can totally see her weiner dogs dragging these things around. I also liked them because of the toothy grin. It just flashed me right back to the Mumbly cartoon. I LOVE that dog's wheezy snicker. Great, now I've got that and Grape Ape on the mind...

Grape Ape
Grape Ape!!

Retirement

2009-01-15T15:18:00.003-05:00

So I pull into the parking spot at the grocery store. I notice an old guy in the car next to me, sitting alone. Nice Toyota Camry, an old gal approaching. They seem very grandparent-ish, dressed nice. Typical retired looking couple, I'd say in their 70's.

She gets in the car and hands out lottery tickets, they both start scratching.....having some fun on this cold wintery day. I go in to shop.

Fast forward 50 minutes to an hour...I'm walking to my car. The Camry is still there and the old folks are still in it. Still scratching!

I'm thinking that they are SLOW scratchers, but then I look and see the PILE of tickets they have been scratching on. And they are the $5 lotto tickets. Then grandma gets out of the car with one ticket and what appears to be $40.....she is heading inside the store for MORE TICKETS.

Is this what retirement looks like?

We are going to be insanely rich from our magnificent 401K's, but bored to tears and need to spice things up blowing it all on lottery madness....

OR

Desperate for a miracle, spending our last $500 on lottery tickets to save the Camry from Joe Repo.

I'm thinking the latter.....

Cheesy

2009-01-12T14:05:00.003-05:00

Was pointed to this Microsoft Songsmith ad, it is the cheesiest thing I've watched in a looonngg time.

Had to share.

Alone

2009-01-12T13:53:00.002-05:00

I'm completely ALONE today - whoo hooo! And I've done absolutely nothing productive -

except to not stuff my face with Ding Dongs.....the day, however, is not over.

Tom and Jerry

2009-01-09T12:32:00.003-05:00

I believe that I have seen every episode ever made of Tom & Jerry. And I think, maybe, twice.

The doctor gave strict orders that I was to place no limits on the amount of time my child may plant herself on the couch in front of the TV for.two.weeks.

OMG - I think the child's brain is melting. We have 3 more days of this!!

In the past 2 hours I have received an order for strawberries, with powdered sugar.....but actually 3 more than I put on the plate because 10 is way better than 7 (?), a bowl of Trix cereal, an egg - cooked like the one we just saw on a commercial (!) that is all white around the edges and nice and smiley face yellow and round in the center (which I did completely wrong and had to start over), and oh, just one more egg exactly like the one you just made and had already cleaned up from, some chicken & garlic ravioli, Gatorade - but not this dark blue one you poured, the light blue because it feels much better on the throat, 5 more strawberries, and the big motorcycle ramp looking pillows that you keep in your closet......the ones that you say are for your back, because the patient's back is feeling like it needs a special pillow. Whew.....

Can you see why I am anxiously awaiting for this child to be able to go back to school. I'm so thankful that she is doing well after surgery, but I'm not cut out to be a hand maiden!!

She did say thank you, each and everytime and my 'commercial looking' eggs were super yummy......go figure.

Today we get to finish up all the work that we picked up from the school so she will be all caught up. I imagine this is a bit like homeschooling would be, well, minus the TV. I don't think I could do it!

***motorcycle ramp pillows = Liberator sex positioning pillows which we won from a radio contest. They are HUGE! And I must say, they do look like fun, whether you are a kid or an adult***

Slut?

2009-01-07T08:16:00.003-05:00

Hunk is out of town.

My 11 year old walked in to my room this a.m. and I was still asleep, she saw a big mound of body laying next to me and screamed, "Mom! WHO is THAT?!! WHO are you SLEEPING with?"

Nice to know that when the pool boy comes over that my oldest child will have no restraint in calling him out.

**my little one had a painful night and got in bed with me, I piled pillows down the middle of the bed (making it appear to be a large person) so that I would not get kicked and rolled over. Sleeping with a kid who sleeps sideways, backwards and upsidedown does not make for a sleepful night.

Remote

2009-01-05T11:09:00.002-05:00

So my hard drive is toast. Yes. My wonderful, pocket protected, horn-rimmed, live-in geek squad had made an image of my drive the day before we left for vacation.

Last nite, from Toronto, my nerd was able, from Toronto, to start up a Virtual Machine of my hard drive image. So, as I sat in front of his PC in our basement, he, from Toronto, moved my mouse, opened up shit and showed me how to access my stuff, from Toronto. It was as if he were right there, in my basement, hanging over my shoulder, moving my mouse.......except that there was no tongue in my ear. Which is a given if the man is behind me.

I'm not sure which is better, technology itself or having a geek that GETS IT.

Now, if only I could get some tongue......some things are just better in person.

Pain

2009-01-04T20:42:00.003-05:00

Does it make me a horrible parent if I'm just DONE. I'm so over this whole 'vacation'. I can. not. wait. for school on Tuesday.

I guess I feel partially horrible because one of my kids just had surgery and I'm just not so happy to answer a damn ringing bell every three seconds. I'm so over all of this. I truly do hate to see her in pain, but I am about to go over the frickin' edge here. I have another week at home with this kid, but THANK GOD for TUESDAY when I can ship this other one out!!

In other news, uhhhhm. There is no other news.

Hunk and I were discussing on December 18 how great we've been getting along. Not that we normally hate each other or anything, but we bicker and annoy one another pretty often. We had a long streak of pleasantness. Unusually long. But let me tell you, that streak has been broken, stripped and puree'd in a Magic Bullet. You see, December 18 was the first day of Hunk's vacation. And then he was off until January 2. And the kiddos were home from school for the entire time. And we all slowly began to despise one another.

Hopefully getting back to work and school for half of the household will relieve some of this stress. Of course, my crashed PC isn't helping anything. It truly SUCKS to depend on your better half as your PC geek and WITHOUT FAIL he is traveling EVERY TIME there is a hiccup. Only this time, it's a fucking puke storm. And I REALLY need to work. Shit.

**don't you judge me - I'm not some stupid idiot that knows nothing about PC's. I'm very self sufficient, mostly. The stupid ass hard drive is clicking and the operating system can't be found - that's serious doo doo.

Difficult

2008-12-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

5 theme parks, 4 tired people, 3 days, 2 ten dollar balloons, 1 dollar left and ZERO sightings of Mickey Mouse in person. Really, who goes to the Magic Kingdom and does NOT see Mickey Mouse - we do, that's who.

We had a great time in Orlando, but I can say that we did not see Mickey Mouse in character the entire trip. Granted, we only did Disney parks on one of our 3 days. We were on a tight schedule and we were completely focused on cramming in every ride we wanted to, so doing character meetings was not important to my kids. In fact, we skipped A LOT of the Magic Kingdom. They would have stayed in Frontierland the entire time if we would have let them - it was Splash Mountain and Thunder Railroad that were the big tickets.

We started our trip with Sea World which they loved, and they were really only interested in seeing the animals, not riding anything. We had to drag them on to the Atlantis ride, upon which I got completely soaked from head to toe. I was one of those people coming off the ride that people laugh and point at for getting SO WET. We stayed until the park closed and we finished it off with the Miracles Killer Whale show in the Shamu theater - it was awesome.

Day two took us to the Magic Kingdom where we went straight to Splash Mountain. The park had been open for 2 hours prior and oddly enough the ride was not yet open. It opened just as we walked up and we were able to get right on. The best part is that upon exiting we were "winners" of Dream Fastpasses for the day. We were able to Fastpass 10 rides, many of them were the most popular rides, so this made for a great day for us. I feel kind of like a slug passing people who are standing in line for hours, but this really helped us fit this park into a half day trip. We were then able to go to Epcot for the rest of the early evening. Lines at Epcot were horribly long and we only rode Test Track and then wandered around the World Showcase. The kids loved Japan the most and we spent most of our time there.

Day three took us to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. This was a very cold day, which made it hard to really enjoy Islands - they have a lot of water rides and at 40 degrees there was no way we were doing it. There were plenty of crazy people willing to get drenched, and we laughed and pointed! We really wanted to ride the Hulk coaster, it has always been our favorite, but HUNK was afraid that we would end up with SNOTCICLES it was so cold. We ended up skipping it. In fact, we did not really do much at all by the time we got to Islands, it was really cold and we were all just pooped.

We tried to cram too much into a short time, and while we thought the kids were big enough to handle the all day time frame we were wrong. They just couldn't take the 14 hour days were were pushing. We will do it differently next time, but we did have fun.

We came home and had a great holiday with family - some came into town and some we took a road trip to visit. The kids had a fun, but small Christmas morning (the trip was THE GIFT). And now we look forward.

Monday morning my youngest will have surgery, yet AGAIN. A proceedure we had done in May of this year just isn't cutting it, so we are trying something new. While I hated to use her school break for surgery, this recovery is two weeks, so this way she will only truly miss one week of school......but it sucks for her. Luckily (I think) we are pet sitting for our friend's hamsters and guinea pig. This should keep her occupied once she gets home, something new and she can hold them and they will run around on her!

Think of us on Monday and send some good vibes. She is excited to go back because Children's Healthcare of Atlanta makes her feel like a rockstar. She doesn't even remember the pain, just the awesome staff and all the fun distractions that are there. I, however, will be on the verge of mental breakdown. It's difficult - to watch your child's body go limp as they put her to sleep. To know that her little body needs help and that you have no control over any of it. But I do realize that we are lucky, that this is our only problem, that there are so many kids that have so many more difficulties. And we are blessed with near perfect bodies and so many opportunities....it is still difficult.

Not out of the woods....

2008-12-14T07:48:00.004-05:00

Just when I thought we were on the mend, we woke up with another sick kid today. The madness continues!!

But I'm fine, so I have no excuse not to blog. The latest news around here is CHRISTMAS! We are realizing that we have virtually no time left to finish our shopping. We have committments (aka..jobs!) and then we leave for Orlando on Friday. We won't return until Dec. 23rd, late. WOW, I'm actually going to be one of those insane parents scrambling around on Christmas Eve in search of something better than incense sticks to give my kids. I did get a number of things on Black Friday, so all is not lost, but this is the first time I've been this far behind. It has really snuck up on me.

I am excited that this year the Hunk and myself decided to finally not give each other gifts, and no cheating allowed. We always say it, and it never works, someone always gives in and buys stuff - usually both of us cheat. But this year, first of all we are both out of time and we know it, secondly we are very blessed and we just don't need to buy each other more stuff. Besides, the only thing that I really want is a BIG ASS chaise lounge which is a) not cheap, b) BIG ASS, c) WAY too hip for our house and d) did I mention HUGE and EXPENSIVE?? It is a furniture piece that I will have to only dream about. At least until we can get these kids out of this house, and the cats....Kids and cats = ruined furniture. My house is not exactly a decorators paradise, it is clear that children and animals reside here and so really, a high end chaise lounge would be sooooo out of place. I'm living someone else's life in my head. We gave a nice chunk of change to a charity and so I'm hoping that since I made Hunk write the check, he will realize that we donated the money we would normally spend on one another. He's a tight wad, so I think it will work.

We are leaving for Orlando on Friday. I'm so excited I can't stand it. The kids have no clue that we are going anywhere. We are going to pick them up from school on Friday with the car packed up and just leave. They are going to flip out. Better still, we are meeting up with Hunk's brother and their 6 month old who are also going to be at Disney. My kids go ape for babies, so this will be babies + Mickey Mouse which should cause my children to puddle into a grape kool-aid mess. We are only doing Disney for one day and then we will go to Universal for one day and then we will have one day left to decide what we want to do. I think I'm going to take my kids over to Adam's house for a swim, especially knowing that hates kids......oh, and he swims naked. Who needs to buy a calendar when you can get the whole enchilada in person!

Did I mention that we have a family elf? His name is Bobby and he lives at our house from Dec. 1 until the 24th. He watches to see if we are behaving ourselves and reports to Santa each night. He also likes to make a mess while we sleep. He makes coke can pyramids in the living room, he hides all the stockings and he dresses up the cat. He has also been known to dump out an entire bag of powdered sugar all over the kitchen floor. Can I tell you how much I love our elf? And his ideas for messes.....some of which a MOTHER could NEVER come up with. Seriously, our elf thinks like a MAN, and MAN who DOES NOT CLEAN. Are you getting my drift? I'll be happy on Friday when we take our elf to the hotel with us and there is a MAID!! I believe the best gift I could possibly have is to spend the 5 days leading up to Christmas in a place where I do not have to COOK or CLEAN! It's a wonderful life!

PS...still no word on the kitten situation.

Sick

2008-12-09T08:29:00.002-05:00

We have a stomach bug in our house.....can someone come kill it, and then put me out of my misery???

Blah

Hermit

2008-12-03T15:52:00.004-05:00

So......does a feed reader drop you if you fail to post, for like, a month! I can't believe it! Time is just flying by and I wonder if I will end up in anyone's feed after such an absence. Hey, anyone, can I get a shout out?

We just arrived home from the beach for our Thanksgiving holiday. It was great, low 70 temperatures and sunny all but one day. The kids even got in the ocean, but I'll admit that the water was freezing. They didn't seem to care.

We built a sand snowman - which is a lot harder than one might think. I don't know what else I could do, but he turned out to look like total crap. Kind of a sad, melting sand snowman.....a bit freaky, too. I had a snowman kit and the eyes are so big, kind of possessed looking.

We came home and decorated the house and are now ready for Christmas. We even have a mischeivous elf visiting our home this month. He tends to go nuts at night a make messes - what fun. I wonder what genius came up with this idea.

We also came home with two hermit crabs. Yipee, they do absolutely nothing and the whole set up cost $25. They stay in their shell unless it is the middle of the night. The only way I know that they are not dead is because I poke the little prick and he reaches out and pinches the crap out of my finger.

That's the latest from this hood......and we are trying to decide whether or not to get the kids a kitten for Christmas. Anyone want to weigh in on it? We've got two really old ass cats, I think a kitten would totally rock the house, and would really piss off los gatos en la casa.......might be kind of fun. Hunk thinks we should wait until one of the others dies - you know, nothing like planning someone's death. Harsh!