Sweet Scents Of Summer*

Are Not That Far Away.

Tomorrow it is done. The semester. I know school posts are beyond boring, so that is all I am going to say. Otherwise, I am just looking forward to summer. With all of this springy weather we've had lately I just cannot get enough of being outside.

This is the year. We will get this yard in some sort of shape. Planted, all right, threw down some grass seed, fertilizer, and some little baby grass is finally starting to grow. It is exciting, to me at least, everyone else seems very unenthusiastic about the thing. Oh well, they'll see. I have a vision. I have a plan.

We have a new member in our rapidly growing animal family. Now, I say it all the time, "if I bring another pet home, I am absolutely positive my husband will divorce me." It is enough that the man tolerates the lazy dogs, and the overly affectionate cats, I know that he has a limit. Two dogs, and 3 cats, anything else is just asking too much. But this time, HE brought the animal home. It wasn't my fault.

It all started when the hamster fell victim to an unfortunate ball accident. No, the thing didn't fall down the stairs. Actually, it was in its ball, and my daughter and her friend were cleaning the cage, and decorating her room, they decided to put the little guy in the ball and let it run around the downstairs, I said, downstairs, not down the stairs. I see they were thinking of the hamster's safety by putting it downstairs so it could not fall down. They forgot just one little detail, the dogs.

This might be news to some people, but dogs like to chase balls, they especially find clear plastic balls with furry critters inside all the more exciting to go after. Well, somehow they got the poor thing out of the ball, which led to numerous phone calls from two twelve year old girls who were darn near tramatized by the resulting how can I say this, carnage. It was too much.

Of course I was at work, and being in a non-cubicle profession was unavailable by phone. My friend, the mother of one of the girls had to handle it all from her workplace. My sister had to pick up my daughter, and my friend's dad picked up her daughter, and each were then sufficiently comforted by loving grandparents.

When I went on my lunch break, I checked my cell phone to make sure everything was all right with the girls at home. I had 5 voicemails, and a frantic text message from my sister, saying I "need to call home NOW." That freaked me out really bad, then I started wondering what the voicemails were about, and was quite alarmed. I have terrible reception at work. Luckily, the next text I read was from my friend, "you daughter is extremely upset and crying, Hamster is dead." And that was it. I gathered from those two text messages what was going on.

I got outside and finally got a signal and started calling people and listening to the messages, and most of them were of my daughter hysterically recapping the whole entire thing. Well, in between leaving me 5 voicemails, she also managed to call her daddy's phone and leave him equally heart wrenching messages as well.

I got a hold of my sister who told me everything was fine, and basically that the dog thought he was taking a bite out of crime, and that the little furry friend did not survive. I met up with them at my parents house after work, and over dinner with my folks was given the whole story. I asked, "where is the body?" My sister declared, almost defensively, "well, I wasn't going to bury it, that's a parents job"

"That's fine, but where is it?" I asked. "It is at your house in the garage in a chicken mc nugget box." She informed me. "Great." I said, "Well, I don't know what to do with it, I guess I will flush it down the toilet." Which appalled my father and he said, "NO! Don't do that, it will clog up your plumbing, just throw it in the trash." Apparently he has not seen the movie Flushed Away, although I wanted to blurt out, "Oh come on dad, it is no bigger than your average turd." But I decided against that because it was dinner time after all, and that would have made my mom really annoyed.

Anyway, I wish I could say we disposed of it with dignity, but I figure if you can throw a chicken bone away, then it must be all right to send the hamster out that way. I really did feel bad for the poor little thing. But not as bad as my husband did from all those miles away. He was so upset about her little pet dying that he vowed to get her another pet. Which I secretly questioned the wisdom of, but he insisted if she wanted something he would get her something else.

And that is how we got the chinchilla. I guarantee nothing is going to happen to that guy. My daughter is a zealot about keeping her door closed and all animals out of her room. She even has a gate up in front of her closed door. That's just the way it is. It is a delightful little creature. We are enjoying it very much. Hubby spared no expense and instead of the condo set up, opted for the New York penthouse with a view. The critter is way more high maintenance than a hamster, but it is so much fun.

All right I am off to bed. Should have been a long time ago.

Wasting Time

It Is Too Precious.

I hate to say this but I hardly ever get to see my family anymore. That is a crying shame since they live only about a mile away from me. I think about them all the time, I can go by there any time and stop in, yet, I tell myself, "I'll do X thing first, then go over and just hang out with mom." Trouble is, it ends up being X, Y and Z things first and next thing you know the week is gone, and I never did get by there.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I do it to mom? I know she wants to see me more often. I call her all the time, but I just never seem to make it down there, and that is just silly. For a fat woman I sure am spread thin these days. My family makes fun of me saying, "You always say you are so busy, but you never seem to get anything done." Of course I say, "that is not true at all, I am really busy, but I do get things done."

I didn't make it home early enough tonight and my poor dogs couldn't hold it long enough, and ended up going pooh in the house. They have never pooped in the house before. They have their own schedule, and I should have been home earlier, but I got off work late and there it goes.

At the start of every week, I tell myself, this week I am going to get everything done and under control. Why do the evenings go so fast? Why do the days go so fast? I look up and it is bed time, well, beyond bed time actually, and chores are left undone, put off for the next day, and the next.

But everyone likes to tell me how I have so much time on my hands because I work part-time. Really? Well, no one is going to do my job for me. Not my paying job mind you, I'm talking about my job of being a mother, of taking care of our house, running the household. No one else is going to do that for me. I don't have extra hundreds laying around where I could contract out some of the things that I do around here. Besides, I would spend 18 hours cleaning this house before letting someone come in to clean it lest they think we were dirty pigs living here.

Some women do great at this stuff. I'm not good at it. I'm not being negative or a downer here, I'm really just not that good at juggling so many things. I have a friend whose house looks perfect all the time, any time of day, any day of the week, nobody has ever stopped in unexpectedly and found so much as a dirty dish in the sink, or a shoe not put in its proper place. She works full-time and is a single mom. I don't know how she does it. I've watched her though, and she has a compulsive cleaning gene I think.

She walks by something out of place, she immediately puts it away. I walk by something out of place, I make a mental note to go back later and put it away. That's the heart of it, and that's why I am an underachieving housewife, even though I'm technically not a housewife, but I do have a house and I am a wife, so somewhere in there a lot of cleaning, cooking and shopping is involved.

Forget the house, the chores, the errands, I am going to spend at least one day this week with my momma, and I'm going to do her shopping for her, and clean up around her house for her. I owe it to her, she needs extra help these days.

Now I am off to bed. Have a good one.

Two Words

Why I Don't Want Government In Charge Of Healthcare.

Walter Reed. That's it. The two words that pretty much sums it up. My husband was in the military for 13 years. We experienced first hand government health care. It is a hit or miss experience, and from our position, it is mostly miss. From our own personal experience, we were glad to have some health coverage, however, how efficient, and how good it actually was is another question.

We know what it was like before tri-care, and what it was like after. Before tri-care waiting for a couple of hours on the phone to make an appointment was par for the course. After tri-care, it was much easier, and more streamlined, it improved in many ways as far as availability. It did become easier to make an appointment.

Although it became easier to actually see a health care provider, I can't say the quality of which improved all that much at all. In fact, I'm surprised my daughter and I survived the experience of her birth. All of those fancy things that people experience in regular hospitals when giving birth were non-existent in the military hospital I was in.

I ended up having a C-section. I was lucky in that, those of us who had c-sections only had one room mate, everyone else were housed in a room with multiple beds. The babies were to room in with the mothers, even if she had a C-section, unless there was something wrong with the kid. That sounds all fine and dandy except, the fathers had to leave by 8:00pm, that meant, after that you were on your own with the kid.

After my surgery I could barely move. I had her at 11:29pm at night. I woke up sometime in the middle in the night after all of the anesthesia had worn off, and felt like I had been ripped in half, I could not move one inch without horrible pain. I managed to get into one position and stay that way. My husband had already left, he could not stay for the night. I had not seen my baby yet, except for a brief instance where the nurse held her so I could see her right after she was born. I wasn't even sure where he or she was.

At some point someone came in and told me to massage my stomach, and to keep massaging it as much as possible. I still had my I.V. in, I assumed I was being given pain medication. The next day I talked with my roommate. I told her I was dying in pain, she asked if it was time for my pain medication? I said, "I don't know." She said, "You have to ask for it." I called the nurse and asked for it. Apparently, I was not given anything unless I asked for it. I assumed that after an abdominal surgery that would be given automatically, I was wrong.

It is the next day, I still have not seen my baby. I ask the nurse if I can see my baby. She says, "Pretty soon we will have you get up, and you can walk to the nursery and see her." Remember I said that babies were supposed to room in with the mother unless there was a problem? Apparently they were quite perplexed at our daughter's blood work. My husband came in. I don't remember him being there much at all. I don't remember what happened that day. I know that evening after he had left, a doctor came in and said, "We need to do a spinal tap on your baby to see if she has sepsis."

I was completely blown away. I said, "I don't know about that." He said, "We can't wait, if she has it, she could die within hours." He said, "I will bring you some paperwork to sign." Then he left the room. I didn't have a phone in my room to call my husband or anything. I was crying. I was very confused.

Later the nurse came in and said that I could get up and take a walk. I got up and slowly walked over to the nursery, there in the middle of the nursery was the doctor doing a spinal tap on my baby. I will never forget that image in my mind. I walked in the door of the nursery and made my presence known, the doctor came over and said, "You probably shouldn't be here for this" and shuffled me out into the hallway.

I found a pay phone in the hallway and called my mom in another state collect and told her what was going on. She told me to call my husband and get him down there that I was in no state to deal with this stuff. I was mentally out of it. He could not come down there, it was after visiting hours. The nurse told me to go back to bed.

Later the Doctor brought me the paperwork to sign. I asked if she was all right, He said, "We were unable to get any spinal fluid, we are going to start her on anti-biotics." That night they came and removed my i.v.

The next morning my husband came in with our baby. He brought her in the room and said she could stay in there with us. I told him what happened. He did not know what to do or think. Nobody told us anything. Nobody had any answers for us.

On the board in the nursery was our daughter's name, and several other babies, and next to all of them it said, "R/O Sepsis"-- rule out sepsis. I supposed that the other babies were given spinal taps as well. They eventually told me something was wrong with her blood, we learned years later that she had Spherocytosis. Everything they did was completely wrong, a good hematologist could have made that diagnosis without sticking a needle in our daughter's spine 13 times. Thirteen, that's how many poke marks were on our daughter's back.

I was in there for 5 days. I was not allowed to bath for 5 days. My daughter was there for a week and a half as she developed jaundice and they would not release her. The jaundice was most likely related to her spherocytosis. During the time we were in there, we were isolated from family, and they did pretty much whatever tests they wanted on our daughter. There is absolutely no reason that she needed that spinal tap, that Doctor was abusing his position and authority and practicing on innocent people. There was nothing we could do about it.

It was a horrible experience that we just wanted to put behind us. Towards the end of my stay, as my condition improved I began confronting the medical staff and demanding more answers. Basically I started throwing a major shit fit after I came to my senses and realized the number of ethics violations that were taking place. They started listening to me. I spoke with a patient representative, of course nothing was done about any of it, they are all on the same team you know. I left that hell hole hoping to never go back.

A few years later, at a different military hospital, they almost killed our daughter. She had been running a low-grade fever, and was listless I kept taking her to the military hospital, a different hospital, completely different state. There, foreigners made up a great number of the staff in the "clinics", they were not even doctors, I don't know what their qualifications were to be practicing medicine. I told them my daughter was extremely pale, was listless, running a low fever, was stumbling around when she walked, was incoherent, I was told to give her some tylenol. I was told this 3 times on 3 different occasions as I kept taking her back and saying, "Something is Wrong!"

Finally, after my daughter slept for almost 24 hours straight, we took her to a civilian hospital in town. There in the E.R. they drew her blood and found that she had a hemoglobin of 4. It is supposed to be 12-18. The doctor told me she had 1/3 of the blood in her body that she was supposed to have. That had this gone on much longer she would have most likely went into congestive heart failure and died.

She was admitted immediately and within a short period of time was diagnosed with spherocytosis, and started receiving a series of 4 blood transfusions. She was in the hospital for 3 days. She was attended to, she was treated with dignity. My husband I were allowed to stay with her continuously.

When it came time for tri-care to pony up and pay for this expedition, I received a phone call from a commander at the military hospital were she had previously been seen. In a very heated conversation he told me, "I am not going to sign off on this claim, you should have brought her here and not to the civilian hospital." I said, "Well, I did take her to your hospital, 3 times, I was told to give her tylenol and take her home, if you people had done a simple CBC I wouldn't have had to take her elsewhere, I took her to the nearest hospital when I was unable to wake her up and she was practically unconscious. You guys almost killed my daughter." He replied, "Well, I hope you have lots of money saved up because tri-care is not going to pay for her visit there, what was she in there for 3 days, hope you can afford that."

I hung up and called her hematologist and told him exactly what happened, and said, "I'm sorry, tri-care might not pay." He said, "they will pay, don't worry, let me handle it." After he got done with them, they were kissing my rear. She had a special doctor assigned to her in the pediatric unit who did absolutely nothing concerning her health without consulting the hematologist, and the hematologist even went down to the hospital to teach classes on these types of cases and how not to miss them. Oh, and tri-care paid for everything. Miracle of miracles.

I stand by my position, I never want the government in charge of my health care. The Walter Reed scandal was not shocking to me in the least. Most of the military hospitals I've been in were run down, and not much better. Staffed by inexperienced, or downright unqualified people who have no business "practicing" medicine on anyone. They practiced on my daughter all right. Practiced.

Being An Adult

Means Seeing Reality.

Our employment, jobs, careers, whatever you wish to call the source of your income, are an enormous part of our lives. The alternatives to working for a living a limited and unacceptable to most reasonable people. Sometimes things are great, sometimes they are terrible, there are often bumps in the road, and people get into slumps, get burned out, or sometimes just need a break from it all.

Most people will happily grind along if they feel adequately compensated, and sufficiently appreciated. Morale rides high, and turn over is slow. Which brings me to this, probably the most detrimental thing any manager can do to morale is let slip the notion that every single one of his employees is replaceable. Immediately replaceable, and that he would just as soon see you go than stay. If you treat people like machines, you get machines. Machines only give the required output, nothing more. Machines don't strive for more, or to be better. They are simply machines which care nothing for you, your mission, or the professional goals which you cannot truly reach without the people below you working for you.

Sure, people know there are others who would fill their spot were they to leave their post. That is not what I am referring to, I am speaking of an attitude which if allowed to prevail will bring the morale of the people working below to its knees. One might say, who cares about morale, people are paid to do a job, they can do it or move on. Sure, that is true, but low morale is a poison which festers and brings the whole group down. New people are immediately brought into the fold, and are exposed to the negativity right away. It leads to bickering at best, and back biting at worst. These are not good conditions, they do not promote productivity.

All of this does nothing to promote team work. Yes, I hate the team team team go TEAM cheerleading as much as the next person, but teamwork is necessary to any group working towards the same ultimate goals. Being an adult means, find another job, or suck it up and get through it hoping for better days. That is the reality of the thing. Do your best no matter how many roadblocks are hurled at you. And try to keep your mouth shut.

I Owe An Apology

For Boring.

I have written some really cruddy posts. I spent some time this morning reading through some old posts and I noticed that whenever I started a post talking about school I immediately felt an overwhelming urge to just pass it right over. The school posts are incredibly boring. I'm sorry. I am not going to write about that anymore. That's all.

Almost There

Where Ever That Is.

Next week this semester will be over. Yippee! I haven't been planning well what I will do after it is over, I know school will start again soon for the summer. I'm debating on whether I am going to take classes this summer, or just enjoy the time with kiddo. Right now I'm leaning towards hanging with the kid instead. That and, well I haven't the funds right now. I think I will take the summer off and save some money for the fall. I think I just need the time to get a grip and think about some things.

I really need to take a writing class because I am not confident about writing research papers, and lets face it, people have to do that in college. I used to be just fine with that sort of thing, but now things have changed and I feel intimidated. I would rather spend the money and get up to speed so I don't have to stress it so much and freak out all the time. Anyway, that's a thought. Maybe I could just take one English course over the summer. Nahhhh. I'm going to have fun with my kid instead.

That's probably what got me in this bind to begin with. Choosing fun over what I should do. Only in this case I'm choosing it because my daughter has been so great, and I have been stressed out and haven't done hardly anything other than ordinary with her for pretty much the whole school year. She deserves a break, and a nice summer. It is decided then.

And since this post is about as exciting as reading my grocery list, I am going to close here. More later. It is a beautiful day out there. Just lovely. Today I will mow the lawn and pull weeds. I can't wait. Really. I like doing it. It makes me feel good.

Ordinary People

See Past All The Hoopla.

When I was very young I heard people use racist language. I was even related to some of them. As I grew older and began the process of thinking for myself I learned this was wrong, and decided I did not want to be that kind of person. I decided at some point without even realizing it, to deal with people as individuals, and judge them based on their actions. That is who I am. I've always been this way.

With the nappy headed ho's scandal, my husband and I have talked a lot about the reactions that some people have had. We both seem to believe that people have generally over reacted to the thing, although we think it was a stupid thing for him to say. My dad always says, "these days everything is taken to the extreme position." I believe he is correct, there are countless examples of this every single day on the news.

When my husband and I decided to announce to the world that we were going to get married, his parents sat us down and said, "Do you really think you know what you are getting into as a mixed couple?" We assured them we did, and were ready to deal with whatever came our way. We were young, and believed that race relations would only get better over time. Plus we came from a community that was very well integrated racially, and neither of us had known much racism.

That was 13 years ago. We have only run into a small number of situations where anyone had the nerve to express disapproval of our bond. I used to believe that racism was practically non-existent. I really did. As I said, I saw people change their ways, and turn away from those ideas as a child, I assumed this was a widespread phenomena, and I think it was for the most part.

After the Imus thing, my husband told me that his boss expressed anger over the situation and the reactions to it. He said, black people say all sorts of racist things, but if a white person says anything they are attacked over and over. His boss even used the N-word. My husband was somewhat put off by that, which was a bit extreme of his boss. He said it to illustrate his point, but it was lost on my husband.

Look, it may be a double standard, but it generally alarms black people when whites say that word. I recommend not doing it, even if trying to illustrate a point. Early on in our marriage, my husband sometimes used the word when hanging out with his friends. I asked him not to. I told him it made me uncomfortable, and that I didn't want our child growing up talking that way. He agreed and doesn't use it.

I have watched my husband let racism roll off his back. I'm afraid to say that there have been occasions where he has been called that word by total strangers. I wish it weren't true, but it is. I also wish that there were not times where I was treated harshly because of my race, but I have. I actually had a woman tell me she hated me for being married to a black man, she was a black woman. She told me that once she got to know me, she decided that I was too sweet to hate.

I believe the vast majority of whites do not use that racist language. I also believe the majority of whites are not bigots who hate people based on their race. Unfortunately it is not these ordinary people who get the press. As a result of the press presenting everything that happens as white racism gone mad the resentments grow on all sides.

Sometimes I ponder what will happen if the extremists get a hold on the ordinary people. What if people start acting out on all of these resentments. We see cases of this now. What if things get worse instead of better? Where will that leave our little family in all of it? My husband and I have discussed this, we know how far we can be pushed. We won't let anyone tear us apart, we know where we stand.

Spring Changes

Time Rolls On.

I love spring. Yesterday we had a minor blip in our Spring weather, it was pretty major in some parts, but not where I live. I had to bring in my new pots of flowers, but they were fine in the garage. It was not super cold, but it was extremely windy, and I thought it might get too cold for the plants.

The kiddo is going through a growth spurt. She's been really tired, hungry, and suddenly very concerned about bathing and combing her hair. This is a new thing. My sister used to joke that my daughter only takes 52 baths a year, and we would laugh to ourselves. I hear from other parents that sometimes kids go through this phase. There comes a point in time where bathing is viewed as optional, a chore even. Everyone knows we have been going through this phase for a while.

It is not a particularly pleasant time for the parents of children with soap and water aversions, but if one is patient the phase ends (in best case scenarios of course, I have known of people who seem to enter adulthood stuck in this phase). In our case it went on for what seems like years, in fact, I think this has been something we have been dealing with for years now, but I think we are coming out of it and the future where I can proudly proclaim that my child takes 365 baths a year may be just around the corner. She has taken two baths today so we may be onto something yet.

Just last summer I remember arguing with her that just because she goes swimming everyday, it is not the same as bathing. My friend and I even contemplated throwing a bar of soap in the pool with her and encouraging her to use it, but thought that might offend the other swimmers. She seemed to think immersing herself in a swimming pool for hours would do just as well as a washcloth and a good old bar of soap, I had difficulty convincing her otherwise.

And so we've reached a new high, the point where the girl looks at me and says, "Mom, can I go take another bath?" Oh how long I have waited for this day.

The Cracken Has Released The Evil Rabbit

I Actually Said That To Someone.

My niece once had a dream that my mother stood up on the table and became an evil rabbit. She was a little kid, and it was a big deal to her at the time. We don't let her forget it either. I've been showing up at mom and dad's house regularly this week, which is something I haven't been able to do for the past several months. Their cat is sick, and my mom happened to ask me if I thought I could help my dad give the cat some medicine.

She said that they have been having a horrible time getting the cat to take the medicine. Which reminds me I need to find that email about how to give cats medicine, I think my dad in particular will get a kick out of it. Well, I don't know how to do a lot of things, but I DO know how to give a cat medicine, so I offered to help out with it. She needs two doses a day so I've been showing up here and there at medicine giving time.

The cat likes to hang out in their bedroom the majority of the time, so dad and I go in there, close the door, and then proceed to chase the cat back and forth between the Lucy and Ricky beds until she finally makes the mistake of coming out long enough for us to grab her. We try to use calming and soothing voices during this process to alleviate as much stress for her as possible, but even doing so she still scratched my dad's arm really bad yesterday. Catching her is the hard part, once we've got her dad holds her down while I give the medicine. There is a trick to it, a vet taught me a long time ago, but if done correctly it is pretty easy.

My dad works night shift, and has done so for as long as I can remember, so he usually takes an evening nap. I guess the cat was fussing tonight while he tried to catch his zzz's so he was grumpy as he was leaving for work he stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and told my mom, "Go ahead and sack up that stuff at the end of the hall and throw it away!" I asked, "What is it one of your useless dogs?" He laughed and went on out the door.

My mom got this look on her face, she was not happy. It seems there were some clothes hanging on this hook thing on the door, and like everything in my parents house has been there since the year I graduated high school, well dad apparently decided at that very moment he could not tolerate the things on the door any longer and took them off, leaving them in a pile at the end of the hallway. This combined with his command that it be sacked up was not acceptable to my mother who had a few choice words to say in his general direction.

My brother was there, and he and I were sort of amused by this whole scene, and were cracking jokes about how she should cut up the clothing and place them in a neat pile on the Ricky bed, but she was not laughing. She was stewing. And then I realized something, when my husband and I are 65 years old, we might still be fighting about stupid things. I thought we might outgrow our petty arguments, but I see now there is a possibility that we might not.

I said, "well mom, that's the difference between you and I, I would have told him to shove the pile of clothes where the sun doesn't shine, and he would have told me, 'if you keep talking to me like that, one day I will just leave'" Instead, she was just mad, but I knew she wouldn't say anything to him, she never does, and I guess it is a good thing they don't read my blog since now I've let the cat out of the bag.

My parents don't fight openly, or when they are alone even. I've never seen them fight. I know they take an opportunity here and there to poke a jab at each other, but it is never discussed. I tried to do things differently in my marriage. I told myself, I'm not going to just take things and say nothing, I am going to speak my mind, I am going to stand up for myself, and I do. Sometimes I don't do it right, and I say mean things like, "Go cram X item," when I feel angry or cornered. I am actually only speaking about one incident where I said that, it was a few weeks ago, and my husband has not forgotten it yet. In fact, he brought it up tonight when we spoke on the phone and were having a disagreement about something, he said, "I'm surprised you haven't told me to shove it yet." I felt bad, but I assured him I had no intention of saying it.

I know it was the wrong thing to say. I shouldn't have said it to him before, I guess he is still bothered by it. I shouldn't risk the love of the man by saying stupid things in anger. We will get over it. I just shouldn't make the mistake of assuming we will always get over it, I would hate to lose him over something like that.

Well, I'm off to bed. Have a good one.

Last Pair Of Underwear

Maybe Do Laundry?

I'm not really going to write about underwear, although it has been a great topic of interest to many people who find this site by doing searches on underwear. I do need to do laundry though, which is another topic I write about with too much frequency. What does that tell you about me? Does it suggest that I have no life? I don't know about that. Underwear and laundry are definitely a part of my life, which suggests that in some way I must have one no matter how boring it may be.

I love the rain we had last night. I went to sleep to the sound of it hitting the house. I even cracked my window so I could hear it better as I drifted off to sleep. It was quite a pleasant experience. Sometimes it is the little things in life.

I'm hanging in there at school. I think a lot about the decision to go back. I feel old in so many ways when I sit in a classroom full of kids. There are other adults there too. We all have reasons for being there. I suppose others feel the same way. I sometimes want to kick myself for not having done this earlier, but the choices I made led me to this point in my life. I sometimes think I should give up, that it is too late.

I can't stand the idea of doing what I do now for the rest of my life. That is why I am there. I must get over my pride, my shame, my own disappointment and continue. In a few years no one will care that I went to school in my 30's. At least that is what I am hoping. Sometimes I think maybe I should just go get a job at a bank or something, sure it would be a dramatic pay cut, but at least I wouldn't have to work every weekend and holiday for the rest of my life, all the while making my employer much richer, when in truth, my employer doesn't even know my name, except on paper in some HR file.

What to do? I guess I will keep going. I will swallow my pride, keep my mouth shut, and do it. I hope it is the right decision and that I am not just wasting time and money. The answers will come.

A Reminder

Sad Stuff.

As the Socialist Democrats have taken hold of the government for the next couple of years, at some point in the future the thought that we might have Hillary or Obama in the white house is a real threat Americans must accept. I remember the last time Hillary was in the white house, I was much younger then, but I distinctly remember that she wanted to socialize medicine in this country even back then. I can't imagine her passing up that opportunity again with a bunch of democrats in congress just waiting to give her everything she asks.

One of my biggest concerns since the last election is that we may very well end up with socialized medicine here in the U.S. It always chills me when I hear people spout off what they have heard about how Cuba has the greatest medical system in the world, blah, blah, etc. Really now? Who says so, well famous Hollywood socialist agitators and the left biased main stream media of course. And it's all "freeeeeeee" they cried. Well my mom told me a long time ago, nothing is free in this world, and judging from the photos I just looked at, I say she must be right.

Now, I want you people to go and look at these horrible, and gruesome photographs of the "best medical system in the world" and you tell me what you get for free. I mean it, go look. Notice the picture of Che looking down on the victims of his communism from the photo on the wall.

Democrats want this for us. Oh sure, they'll say it won't be like that here, or this is an isolated incident, but they would be lying. There are people in these photos, why would they go there if they didn't have any other choice? I'm sorry, but I don't trust our own government to treat us any better. Next time you are at the DMV ask yourself, would you want these people running your health care? ASK YOURSELF.

Link found at Fighting in the Shade
Read his post on the subject.

Busy Busy Busy

Have A Picture or Two.

Lazy Pigs

Sleeping All Day.

My dad would accuse me of thinking it was my birthday or something, and it isn't but I still slept the day away as if it was. I wasn't alone, my lazy dogs were right there with me zonked out and sleeping like the lazy pigs we are today.

It was nice though, and really I had some very entertaining dreams. Dreams that kept on coming as I hit the snooze button on my alarm every ten minutes for an hour. I thought I would only sleep 4o minutes, but I kept on sleeping until I finally realized I had better get up and get something productive done.

I guess I can't complain about all the things I didn't get done today, my day off, but I will spend the rest of the day trying to catch up. What's the difference? I am always trying to catch up. It takes hours and hours of reading and note taking to keep up with my one class and the tests are still next to impossible to pass.

This semester is almost over, and there is no one more thankful about that than me. I am just glad my math class is fairly easy, I have had to devote so much time to the other class, I barely have time to do my math homework. Which makes me incredibly thankful for the brilliant math teachers I had in high school, it is on that basis alone that I have achieved A's on all of my math tests. Actually, my current math teacher is wonderful, I enjoy her teaching so much. Every time I go to class it is the same thing, I look at the material, feel completely clueless about it, then she explains it, and a flood of memories returns to me, and I am able to do the math with little or no problem at all.

The teacher told me I was a good student. She asked about what math classes I had taken. I told her this was my first math class in way too many years to count, and that I can't remember how to do any math at all until she shows us on the board. She laughs and says you must have had good teachers in high school, I agree that yes indeed I did. Sadly, there are people in my math class who have trouble with basic multiplication facts, they never learned them. I recall very specifically that I was forced to learn them by rote memorization in third grade.

That's the problem with schools these days, they don't force kids to learn anything by rote. I believe that. My math instructor and I discussed how kids are given just a bit of everything now in schools, but they become masters of nothing. You can't learn math doing a few problems a day, you've got to do at least 30 to master the problem.

Anyway, I've been thinking about homeschooling a lot lately. I am really considering it for next year. My sister in law is homeschooling their daughter, and she's doing quite well. I think it is time to take a giant, although scary leap with out own daughter. I found the most wonderful homeschooling website, I can't remember where, but I intend to sit down and follow the many links this lady has on her site. That's just one of the things I want to do this week.

I've got to take off and get the kiddo. Back later. Maybe. I've got a lot of studying to catch up on.

As Good A Time As Any

I should say.

I've been pretty reserved about politics lately, mostly because the subject can be draining, and the quarrels never ending. But I just have to say this, it has been on my mind, practically every day I hear on the news about this candidate has raised XXmillion dollars for their bid. We are just a working middle class family and this boggles my mind. In fact, it the whole thing borders on ridiculous.

Pick yer millionaire folks. What? It's nothing against millionaires at all, I just think what are the people who lose going to feel like after having blown 25 million on a campaign? I can't imagine spending that kind of money on such a thing. I'm not here to tell people how to spend their money, but oh wait, these people are going to be deciding on how they spend my money, perhaps I shouldn't try to be so kind about it.

Oh sure, I guess the losers aren't really losing their own money either now are they? Apparently it is all donated to these people. The draw of power brings out all kinds. I say one thing, I'm not giving a dang dollar to any of them, besides my itty bitty dollar doesn't mean a dang thing anyway, except when they are taking it out of my paycheck of course. I don't care what their platform is, after all it all changes once they get in office anyway.

While visiting my mother the other day she said, "Dad thinks Obama is going to be our next President." It sort of made me chuckle because she pronounces his name, Oh Bam Ma, like Alabama. I said, "Nothing would surprise me mom." I hate to say this now, but I knew the Dems were going to take the last election. I will vote against the Dems in the next one, but I don't think it will matter I'm sorry to say, and I hope I am wrong.

Nancy Pelosi makes my skin crawl. I can say that here. I was very put off by her little comment to the President about how there is a new congress in town. It made my stomach lurch.

As far as the bunch of Republicans we've got, there is no way I will vote for McCain. That is out of the question. Right now I'm leaning towards Guilliani despite some of his more liberal positions, I think he could be quite popular, especially with the fence sitters. As long as he doesn't prove to be an outright socialist commie he seems the best bet, I could be disappointed with him yet. I don't know much about this Romney fellow, and I will give him more consideration in the future. Critics worry that Guilliani is pro-choice and gay marriage, but at this point those are not deal breakers for me personally. I am more worried about the war and stomping out Islamic terrorism.

My husband and I share disgust at the congress trying to pull the funding out from under the troops. That has been very disappointing, but neither of us expected anything else from the Dems.

All this politicking makes my stomach hurt. I'll leave this to the experts. There are people much better at it than I. We will just keep on working and producing so those millionaire candidates have some money left to spend when they get into office.

I love this kid

I have been going to blah blah blog everyday to look at this because it is so cute. I finally decided to hijack it, but of course I'll still go to blah blah blog everyday.

Back Seat Driver

Free Morning

Somewhat.

Got up. Yeah. That's a good way to start the day. I took the youngster to school, and had a fairly peaceful drive home unlike yesterday where every nut job in town with a license was taking a leisurely Sunday drive, never mind the fact that it was not Sunday at all.

I stopped at 7-11 to get a cup of coffee. A police officer was in there getting some too. He said, "I saw some snow flurries on my way here." I said, "Oh I did too, at first I thought it was pollen or something, but it was snow." He chuckled. Got my coffee and headed out.

I got in the car and "I love rock and roll" was playing on the radio, I looked at my dog and sang, "Put another dime in the juke-box baby!" Then I felt very stupid because the police officer was walking by and saw me singing to my dog in the car. By now I am wondering just exactly how long it will take him to pull me over and search my car for intoxicants, what with the, "the snow looked like pollen," and the singing to my dog, who likes my singing very much by the way.

I drive away. The cop must have decided that I was not drunk at 8:30am, and that my bedhead look was more of an indication that I was only half awake and therefore not necessarily breaking any laws, and so he left me alone.

I'm driving up the hill towards my street and see a car slowly backing out of its driveway. I stop for the car who apparently doesn't see me coming, or doesn't care that I'm coming. Whatever, I've got coffee. I notice the car is unmanned. It is rolling out of someone's driveway onto the street and heading for a very nice looking silver pick up. Before I can do anything it rolls up onto the curb and slows to a stop, missing nice truck by about 2 feet. Yikes. A man runs out of the house to get the car. He waves me past. I smile and move on.

I pull into the driveway at home, I get out my camera phone and take a picture of my boy dog sitting in the backseat. I send the picture to my co-worker. I hear a strange rat a tat tapping with rapidity noise. I get out of the car and immediately look for the noise. I suspect I know what the noise is, but I am unsure. It sounds like it is coming from two houses away. I tell myself it is the neighbor working with some sort of power tool from the privacy of their own home.

I get on the computer and start to read blogs and write this post. I hear the strange rapid tapping noise again, this time it is closer. It is coming from my house. I say, "Oh no," and run out the front door and look at the outside of the house. "The little son of a...is back." I look for the woodpecker, for the source of the noise, he flies by me and lands in the tree next door. I've been wondering when the birds were going to make their appearance this Spring.

The hole on the front of our house has long since been repaired. Father in law took care of that before he sold the house. He bought extra boards because he has fixed the hole several times, and he left them in the shed for us as he suspected we might need them. I've been hoping and praying that little turd burglar would not come back, but that tapping tells me he is here to make his home again.

After he is finished with the hole, other birds will move in. My cats will obsess about the noise of the little bird families living in the wall in our bedroom, and my husband will have to fix the board on the outside again. I found a picture of the suspect. My father in law said it was a woodpecker, I thought they were rare or endangered or something.

I found this about the woodpeckers. Doesn't seem like there is a whole lot we can do other than patch the holes. We'll see. Maybe they will decide not to like our house this year. It is a pretty bird though.

What I am up Against

A Mountain of Beanie Babies.

The Record

Set Straight.

I was thinking about my grandfather this morning when I was stuck in annoying traffic. He and I share the same birthday. He has long since passed, back in 1990, he was on his 9th decade. My mom's parents split when she was in nursing school back in the 60's. He remained in Oklahoma, grandma moved to California where she eventually died in 1978.

They adopted my mom when she was 9 years old. They were fairly well off and so offered my mother everything she could ever desire. She had been from an extremely poor background, and lived most of her life up to that point in an orphanage. They owned property in several different states, and had several businesses over the years. Grandpa was a builder, grandma helped him by cleaning the homes before they were to be sold. They owned many different homes.

Grandpa liked the women. Grandma was a good Christian. One particular woman was my grandmother's friend, she was married to an abusive drunk who did odd jobs for my grandpa. Grandma befriended the woman and being the Christian she was, she took her to church with them.

Grandma found out about gramps and this woman and their affair. I believe that was the final straw. After all the years of cheating, she decided she could no longer tolerate it. She divorced grandpa. He married the woman, and at the ripe age of 65 fathered a child with her. She was much younger than him, he was older than her mother even.

So, he had his first biological child. My mother had my older sister only a year later than his. His daughter was a fiery redhead, and spoiled rotten. He retained most of the wealth from the years of marriage with my grandmother, and so was pretty much a rich old man with a younger wife.

Mom tried to put the past aside. She loved both of her parents, and so she kept contact with him and his new family despite her own feelings about the whole thing. We would go and visit. My sister and I spent most of our time playing with his daughter who was practically the same age.

Gramps and his wife pretty much kept the kid in the dark about their past, but they lived in a small town, and every one knew the story. Everyone except the kid. She began to get a clue as she got older, and whenever we would visit she would ask us, particularly me, questions about our grandmother, and the past.

As a child I had a sort of untempered honesty about me. I pretty much told the truth no matter what it was. I knew the story, and so I told her. I don't think she believed me, but she kept asking me every time we went to visit she would corner me and ask me questions about it all. Every time I told her what I knew. Her parents tried to keep her completely in the dark.

After grandpa died, she stopped talking to us. We visited a few times, but it was never the same. She got really snotty with my sister, and said a bunch of bad things about my grandmother, and my mother. Her mother on the other hand, for some reason adored me. I could never figure this one out, I was the big blabber mouth who kept telling all of the family secrets, but she did. And for years we kept contact, but as I got older, I decided I didn't want that relationship with her.

It was a combination of things, but mostly because she seemed to pretend like my daughter did not exist because she did not agree with the fact that my husband and I are a mixed couple. It was bizarre, but I knew when I made the choice to marry the man I loved some people would not agree with it.

She called me last year on my birthday, on his birthday. I did not take the call. I just don't want to go there. I think after my grandfather died and I saw the way that they treated my mother, I just couldn't. They wouldn't allow my mother to see him before he died. It was extremely cruel. Of course, all of the wealth he had is theirs now, so my mother will have no inheritance. She has accepted that.

It may seem tacky to speak of inheritance, but it is a part of life. I have actually thought a lot about this as a parent myself. My husband and I have agreed that we have some responsibility to see to our daughter's future. We fully intend to see to that. That doesn't mean we will hand her our livelihood on a silver platter, but that we will try to put something away for her if we can. That is our duty.

Anyway, I was just thinking about them.

Home

Thank Goodness.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes changing the time you leave the house by just minutes can completely upset your entire commute? Traffic seems to go in flows, some are good, some are teeth gritting, wheel gripping, brake hitting bad, today was bad. It seems we hit every single light, every single 4 cylinder beater in town seemed to be on the same course, and taking their sweet precious time smelling the Spring flowers along the way, or something.

Of course the motorcycle cops did nothing to help the flow of traffic. What kind of sadistic mother sets up speed traps during rush hour? It is brake light central when people see those cops sitting on the side of the road, their mustaches and mirrored sunglasses reflecting the sunlight which is already unbearable and blinding.

Add to that the fact that our roads are in horrible condition due to all of the ice and snow we had this winter. Cracks, potholes, uneven surfaces, and patched spots really make a bumpy stop and go drive just that much more frustrating. That our population has practically doubled in the last 10 years, and our roads were never made for this amount of traffic certainly does not help matters. Pretty much every road in this town needs resurfaced and widening.

Argh. I'm just glad I'm home. I'm not really ready for today. It is back to school, and I spent the last 2 days trying to get all my studying done so I would not start the week off behind in class. I almost made it, but this one class is taking up all of my study time, so I didn't get my math done. Tomorrow I will have to work on it some more.

I go back to work on Friday. I never have much time to study on the weekends. Besides I am not looking forward to heading back to the grind at all. We are heading into our busy time of year which means getting our butts kicked every day at work. I hate to say I don't look forward to going back, but there are a lot of changes going on around there, which mostly means, we work harder, but they don't pay us any more for our efforts.

I am not going to increase my work hours this summer as I usually do. Nope. I am going to take classes this summer. I always liked summer classes, they are shorter, and move along faster. I'm downright tired of this long drawn out semester, it seems the one teacher of mine is using the long semester as an excuse to screw with our heads as much as possible. I have never wanted a class to get over more than this one.

Ahh thank God for coffee. I love the stuff. My day does not go right if I don't start with a nice delicious cup of the good stuff.

I've just got to get through school. I am so thankful I can go now, I can't forget that. It is a blessing to be able to do this. I'm so lucky my husband is supportive of me going to school.

Hamburgers and Hot Dogs

Isn't That What Life Is All About?

Well no, certainly not, but it was today. We had a little BBQ. Just an impromptu thing, we called up the family peeps yesterday and invited them over. After spending 12 hours cleaning the house (hubby even tackled the garage), shopping, and food prepping yesterday, we were finally ready to fire up the ole grill this afternoon.

I personally formed 23 hamburger patties from the big lumps o' meat I bought at the store yesterday. We also had umpteen number of hot dogs. I made the usual BBQ fare, potato salad, pasta salad, and cole slaw. We had chips, pickles, and olives too. Hubby manned the grill, and he did so without complaining one little bit although he probably would have rather gone downstairs and played his computer game. Pretty standard stuff.

Everyone piled in around 2:00pm as directed, and we proceeded to get our grub on. I thought it was fun although I was busy with kitchen stuff, getting kids drinks, and watching to make sure none of the youngin's pulled my dog's tail.

About 10:30pm everyone had gone home. I looked around and was completely amazed that despite having at least 6 children under the age of 10 in the house it was still in reasonably good condition. I call that success. My pets even seemed to survive the day unscathed, although my cat did venture out of his hiding place and cause one of the children to have a very nasty allergic reaction with the puffy eyes and sniffling and everything. If that wasn't enough, once my cat realized the power he had, he seemed to be following the child around trying to make him worse

Despite the mishap with the toilet overflowing from the 1 year old stuffing an entire double roll down it, the urine in the soda bottle in the garage, don't ask about that one, and having two divorced people in the same room for probably the longest period of time that they have seen each other, in who knows how many years, overall everything ran pretty smoothly. I will call it a good day.

Now, I'm pretty darn tired. I'm going to take some heartburn medicine which I am sure I will need, and head to bed, but not without first hollering at those two giggling girls to get to bed. I don't know what they are up to, but the laughter is a sure sign of something I most likely wouldn't approve of, and it most likely involves putting clothing on one of our poor pets or flatulence.

Good Night.

Chipping Away At The Time

Spring Break.

Tomorrow is Thursday. Hopefully you stopped in today to get this titillating news, otherwise it may be too late for you to be informed on this new development. Well where was I? Man, our President is on t.v. right now, and he is hilarious, they are showing it on Hannity and Colmes. He is telling some great jokes with perfect timing. Serious, it is good stuff. Hope you didn't miss it. I hear it in the background. He's even joking about Cheney shooting people.

Anyway, I wasn't actually going to post about that. I just caught it when I started this post. It is actually way more entertaining than what I was going to write about in any event. What I was going to say is it is Spring break for us here. I took the week off to spend time with the family. The time is flying way faster than I would like it too. I had such grand ambitions for this week.
I have yet to meet any of them, but what the heck. It has been very laid back around here and maybe that is just what I needed afterall.

Anyhoot, I'm going to take off for now. Be back later.

Not Important

Really.

I am just going to get right to the gist of things. I love writing on this blog. I truly enjoy it. That being said, I do realize that it has been rather stale lately. I'm a 36 year old part time college student, part time employee, and wife and mother, I've got a lot on my mind. In fact, I have so much on my mind I have had a difficult time forming thoughts for posts.

The strange thing is, with all of this going on, in some ways I feel I am really testing the bounds of my own mental capacity. That brain of mine has gone sort of soft and mushy over the years, and now that I am really pushing it I find at times it fails me. I honestly have had moments of frustration when I cannot get my brain to retain information that I will it to retain. It is difficult to explain, but I find it interesting to think about.

Have you ever just thought about your brain and what it does? It is sort of like an athlete pushing their body to perform at a higher level. Man can only run so fast, man can continue to work and train, and perform, but eventually all athletes will reach a limit to what their bodies can do. I guess it must be true with the brain as well. Right now I am working and training my brain to think about a great many things, something I have not done much of in the last oh say 15 years.

Like an athlete training his muscles to perform, I am training my brain to produce for me. I may never get it to be where I would like it to be, just as many athletes meet disappointing limitations in their own training. It is sort of strange to think with my brain about my brain as if it is a whole different entity. My brain knows itself, but it is not my self. Whoa dude, this is getting out of hand.

What I am trying to say is, my brain is on overload. Something has to give, it has been this blog, my little outlet. This is why I keep blogging, even crap posts bring me a certain amount of satisfaction. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I don't know how long this dry spell will last. I will keep trying.

Cuddly

Kick off your feet and throw up your shoes

Something or other.

I wouldn't mind if someone just wanted to rub my feet just for the sheer delight of it. Unfortunately the door bell isn't ringing with volunteers for that effort just yet. Maybe I can con a foot rub out of the kiddo, however I know that will cost me. She will give my sister a pedicure for only a couple of dollars, but she charges me $5/per foot. I don't know why she does this. It is not like my feet are gross or something. I'm not even missing any toenails or anything. They are pretty neatly painted and groomed right now since I had a pedicure not too long ago, but the child holds out.

Strange things have been afoot lately. What is it with me and the feet thing today? The other day I woke up to go to work, and was somewhat perplexed that our garage door was partially open. It certainly wasn't open when I got home from work the previous evening. This startled me. My daughter had a friend spend the night and the girls had come into my room about midnight saying that there was a man outside. I looked out the window in my groggy state and saw a car in front of our driveway, I heard a car door shut and the car turned around and drove away.

At the time I just thought it was some kids goofing off or something, but when I woke up and found our garage door opened I thought maybe something else had happened. I am strongly suspicious that an intruder had been in there. I inspected the garage and it was in its usual disorderly chaos and nothing seemed to be missing. I noticed the back door from the garage was unlocked, and I specifically remembered checking the locks the night before.

I'm not sure what happened. Last night my daughter had an extremely difficult time sleeping. Every little noise scared her. We were both freaked out. I didn't sleep well myself. Anyway, I'm sure hubby will make sure all the outside lights are in working order when he can here. It is a real freaky feeling thinking that if someone was in my garage, had I forgot to check the lock on the door into the house, they would have had easy and unfettered access to our house. Luckily I am somewhat obsessive about checking all of the deadbolts before I go to bed each night. I'm still a bit puzzled about it.

Yesterday after work I talked to our back door neighbor, and told him what happened. He mentioned that he occasionally sees a car parked on the side of our house. We have a fairly long fenceline on the side of our house with the street since we are on the corner. The car that he described was exactly the same car I saw the night before in front of my driveway. Anyway, he said he and his wife would pay more attention to things happening in the neighborhood.

Hopefully that is the last of any such types of incidents. It doesn't appear that they took anything. This may sound strange but I think I would be more comfortable if they had took something, at least I could say to myself, oh they stole X item, and not entertain thoughts like, maybe they were trying to get into the house instead.

And you know those 2 lazy dogs of ours spent more time barking at the hampster running on its wheel then the mysterious noises occurring around our house that night. That's all right, they were just saving their energy for the action had someone actually came into this house. I have no doubt our 2 pit-bulls would happily take a bite out of crime, no matter how sweet and loving they are as pets.

Well, that's all I've got for now. I'm going to call and harass hubby. Maybe HE will give me a foot rub. Back soon. Hugs.

I'm Totally Not Ignoring You

Really.

I will post soon. Well, actually I am posting now, but after I post this one I will post again soon. I have been having internet problems lately, and haven't had the time to sit down and try to figure out why. It seemed like too much bother, so I spent my time other ways.

I managed to pass both of my mid-term exams, although it was touch and go on that one class. In math I've pretty much aced all of the tests. The other class is all right. I'm disappointed as far as the test because I think I could have done better, but it was a difficult exam, and a lot of people had trouble with it.

Things have been hectic at work. Etc.

I have to get ready for work. Have a good one. I will be back soon. I can't wait just to sit down and read my favorite blogs.

What do you know?

I don't know a darn thing.

I know that I wanted to post much earlier today but the internet was not working. I sent my husband a text message and he called me and told me how to fix it. I finally got it fixed, but it has been one thing after another and here I am. I've missed you.

Well, life has been whirring by as it does, and I am just trying to maintain some sense of balance about it all. I was doing quite well for a while there, I was even somewhat proud of how I was managing all of these things at once, and even having only a very small pile of laundry dirty at any given time. Which given my history on laundry that is pretty darn good.

Then I went to work, and I even came home and cleaned and vacuumed, and swept and mopped keeping up with this thing. My homework was done. I was feeling good. Then, on Sunday I came home from work and the whole entire house was in shambles. The dishes were all dirty, there were all sorts of blankets, dog beds, and miscellaneous things all over the living room floor, when I ventured into my bedroom I found my drawers had been gone through, piles of my clean under wears, and other clothes strewn all about. I looked in my closet and the neatly organized basket of dirty clothes had been dumped on end, and there were even more clothes piled on top of the heap in the closet. There were toys all about the house, and things thrown all over the place.

Upon first entering the house one might think, Oh my this place has been invaded and whoever came was looking for something very specific, probably a very small computer disk which holds the key to some mystery of intrigue and such. The place has obviously been ransacked, but by who? Or is it whom? Who would do such a thing?

I'll tell you who, there is only one person capable of toppling a place with such obvious precision, and that is my very own daughter. She is even better when she has an accomplice which she did. The two of them, she and her cousin, went through this place like two tiny tornadoes, and still had the nerve to ask me the very minute I pulled into the driveway to take them swimming. Uh yeah, no.

So there it is. What possessed them to do such a thing? Well, they were looking for--bathing suits! I can imagine my daughter standing in front of my dresser with all of the drawers open tossing my fresh clean clothing over her shoulder frantically looking for her bathing suit saying, "I just know it has got to be here somewhere!"

She knew I was mad when I just had this extremely disappointed look on my face as I glanced around the house. I didn't say anything. I was too tired. I had a rough day at work, and I just needed to lie down for a few minutes. And so I did. When I got up 40 minutes later I told them, "get your shoes on, we're taking her home, and you are coming home and taking a shower and getting ready for bed." They started to argue, to ask for more time, but I said no.

When we got home my daughter cleaned up the living room without being asked. It was a start, but the rest of the house was left in the wreck in which I found it. I did a bit of a clean up and decided I would just have to do the rest later. I planned to have help with that. It still isn't done. I don't care. I'll get to it when I get to it. It bothers me quite a lot, but I've had studies to do, and some extra time to put in at work, and well, I decided not to make it a priority.

Like a lot of people, I'm just flat out tired. I could handle doing a quick clean up here and there, but this is just too much. I'm not a perfect housekeeper. I could be better at it if I had some help with it, but I just can't do it all like this. The truth is, I'm angry about it. I'm still mad as I write this.

I better get to bed. Good night.

Did I Ever Tell You?

About my brother's inheritance.

The two most memorable events in the 70's for me was my baby brother being born, and my grandmother dying less than 2 months later. My sister and I were shuffled off to stay with my dad's parents in Missouri when my mother went out to California to care for my grandmother. I was 8 years old.

I remember my mother telling my sis and I that grandma had cancer and that she was going to die. Mom felt it was best to be honest with us about this fact. There would be no more cassette tapes with a narrative from grandma, there would be no more visits, the would be no more presents on all of those special occasions that grandma always saw to sending.

We were only at my other grandparent's house for at most what seemed a week before mom and dad came from California. My grandmother called us from outside saying our parent's had arrived. We went into the living room, my grandfather sat in his usual spot on the couch. The spot I so often remember walking up to him and having him wrap his arms tightly around me giving me the "bear hug" I loved to receive.

Mom and dad sat on the love seat. After saying our hello's I turned to my mom and asked, "Where is grandma?" I knew she just had to have got all better from the cancer, and had come with my parents from California. Mom said, "She died, she is not with us." I was crushed. I turned to my grandpa, he was ready with open arms. I realize now that he was there to offer support as my parents had to give us the news.

I don't remember anything else about that time except the actual funeral. My grandmother's body was flown out to the small Missouri town, and all the family from all around came. I had never seen my dad's parents interact with my mom's family. At that age, I didn't even think any of them knew each other at all. I remember that my dad's mother was not going to go to the funeral. She didn't tell me why. As a child I thought it was because she didn't care, or didn't know my grandmother.

I will never forget as we all gathered around the grave site I looked behind me, and there stood my grandfather, my dad's dad. I felt so much better that he came. That he was there on that sad day. This is one of the most vivid memories I have of my grandfather. It was that time that he was there when we needed him so much. He told me if I ever needed anything at all I could call him whenever I wanted for any reason. I wish I could call him sometime, but he's gone, he passed away only a few short years later. He was such a funny and intelligent man.

Well, my grandmother, my mom's mom, she was very specific in her will as to where she wanted her belongings to go. She left my older sister a diamond broach, it was stolen years later from my parent's home. She left me a roll top secretary, which I have sitting in my living room now. I don't know why she left me that piece of furniture, she just did. She left my brother, whom she would never have the chance to know, a valuable silver dollar. An extremely valuable silver dollar.

I suppose she did this because he was her first grandson, and her heart must have been so broken that she would never get to be a part of his life as she was for my sister and I. Whatever her reasoning, that is what she choose to do. Everyone knew this.

When my mother was out in California caring for her, she told my mother where she had hidden the silver dollar. At the time various family members, church people and friends had been coming and going offering care, and support for my dying grandmother.

After everything was over, and my parent's returned from California with a U-haul of everything my grandmother owned, my mom went to the item where my grandmother had told her she had hidden the silver dollar, the coin was gone. Someone had taken it. My mom thought perhaps she had misunderstood my grandmother, she looked through everything with a fine toothed comb, it wasn't there.

It has never been found. Someone stole it. It is gone. Someone has it, the inheritance intended for my baby brother. It was someone close enough to my grandmother that she would have confided in them. My mother was obviously very distraught at time, she wasn't paying attention to people, who were trusted by my grandmother anyway. It was hidden in a place only someone with knowledge would look. My grandmother had sewn it into an item that would have completely concealed it.

My mother looked through the item, it had been cut open and patched over. It was not there. It is gone. It has been nearly 30 years since then, I suppose we will never know what happened to it. Many of the people who were there have since died anyway. It is a shame, but it is what it is.

Now, if we could only get my mother to give up my grandmother's clothes. I'm serious, she has a closet full of my grandma's clothes. She won't give them up, we've tried. She can't even fit them besides they are from the 70's. I can't blame her I guess, sometimes it is hard to let things like that go.

For Fun

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a la Dustbury

Words Don't Work

But I Will Try.

I've started this post over about 3 times now. It just kept sounding corny and cliche. I am forced to admit that I lack the words to describe the love I feel for my husband. It seems impossible to write about. Every time I start I think, ugh, that sounds dumb, that sounds silly, that sounds too private.

What can I say after all of that? I don't know. I guess just simply, I'm glad I married the man I did. I'm glad we had a beautiful child together. I'm excited about our future together. I am an individual as is he, but together we make one.

If this ship goes down, we go down together. We're the young version of the old couple holding each other in the bed as the Titanic went down. As we have endured the various sucker punches that life sometimes offers up, we have shared the bruises, we have overcome the obstacles together.

Just as he tucks his feet under mine for warmth on cold winter nights, so do I turn to him for his strength when I am feeling worn. When I have gone and screwed everything up, he is there to say, "Don't worry." When he is tired on his long journey home, I am there on the phone talking to him for hours to keep him company. He can't wait to get home, I can't wait to see him arrive.
When I get stressed out and cry, he stands next to me and rubs my back, and says, "What's wrong?" He listens when I tell him. He offers solutions. He defends me, even if he thinks I'm overreacting, or that I'm just flat out wrong. He'll say, "You're my wife, I can't believe you are letting people treat you like that." He is saying, no one will mistreat what is mine. I like being his.

He doesn't make any big decision without asking, "How is this going to affect my family?" I have always admired this about him. There is no greater force to be reckoned with than a man serving his family. He defers to my opinion, he respects my insight on things.

The man loves my cooking, or he is smart enough not to say otherwise. Sometimes he makes fun of the stuff I make, but he always eats it, and then he goes back for seconds and says, "That was really good, you put that together very well, I could eat that again."

It wasn't always so easy. Neither one of us has changed much since we got married. We've matured more, we've learned to really put our trust in each other and not just give lip service to the idea, but we are basically the same people with the same likes and dislikes we've always had. The big difference now is we have found a way to put all of those mix matched puzzle pieces together and come out with one coherent image.

It saddens me when people divorce for reasons like, "We just can't get along." I always try to encourage them to work it out if they ask for my opinion, and sometimes even if they don't. If it is a case of abuse, or adultery then I don't try so hard, but if it is just disagreements, those can be overcome. Anyone who has known us over the 13 years of our marriage knows we have had plenty of disagreements.

People who have had the misfortune of being present when we have a fight are always amazed at how vicious we can be with each other. We get downright mean. Sometimes a houseplant or two might get hurled across the room. Haha I'm laughing really hard as I write this, but it is true. We don't strike out at each other, just the houseplants.

Once my niece was staying over and she woke up to us fighting. She said, "Are you guys going to get divorced? I can't imagine you guys not together." I said, "Oh hell no, we're just having a fight, we do that, but we love each other."

He used to stay mad for a long time. It drove me nuts. Finally I had to tell him I can't stand it when he stays mad so long. He must get over it. I can't stay mad at him, even if I tried, and believe me I have. He doesn't do that anymore. After it is all over, and some time has passed, I usually walk up to him and kiss him and say, "I love you dickhead." He used to tell me to leave him alone, but now he usually laughs and then we talk.

After we got over the psychological idea of the perfect relationship that permeates society, we realized that yes indeed people do fight, it does get ugly, and there is no pretty way to do it. Sometimes you just have to cuss someone out. Get over it. Stop psycho analyzing your mate, and be surprised at how much things improve.

That's all I've got.

I'm Home From Work

That's About It.

I found out from my daughter that my sister is a double handed flipper-offer when she drives. According to my daughter, my quiet and shy sister will even roll down her window and stick her arm all the way out to give people the single finger salute. This shocked me, so I asked my sister tonight if this was true, she did not deny it. In fact she said, "yes, I need to watch my mouth around her." Apparently there is a narrative to accompany the hand gestures.

Here I am innocently driving along and having old men starting flip off wars against me for no reason at all and I find out my sister is an actual aggressor in these types of things. I'm shocked. Truly I am.

I don't have to worry about her reading this, she only goes online to go to a shopping website, and she doesn't look at any other websites.

That's it. That is all I have to talk about right now. I can't keep going on with the, oh my gosh I'm tired, I'm so busy, life is hectic, laundry is piling up thing. It is so boring. Anyway, in a great show of strength my daughter and I whipped this whole entire house into shape last night. The laundry is pretty much done. Everybody has laundry, this is not a topic of discussion, is it?

I will close for now. Have a good one. Hugs.

I Woke Up To Two Hundred and Forty Problems Today

That's What I Get.

Procrastinating never pays. This is the lesson that college courses are really meant to teach. Sure, people think they are being given a well rounded education in math, science, history and English, but what they are really being taught is how not to let molehills turn into mountains. If one can master that, then by golly he is master of all.

I wasn't actually so much guilty of procrastinating as I was giving too much time to my other class, and that is what landed me in the position of waking up to 240 math problems to do this morning before I went to class today. It keeps working out this way because my other class takes so much time for reading and note taking that by the time I get done it is bed time and I have to put the math off until the morning right before class.

Oh well, at least I enjoy the math. I can't believe I'm saying that. I never really liked it, but I've found it much more fun then I remember it being. My father would be proud, he would love nothing more than to have one of his children follow in his footsteps and be a total math nerd. For years I remember my father spending countless hours in his office working various math problems. For fun. He did it for fun. I could never understand that, but now I do. There is something very satisfying about completing several steps to find that one has arrived at a correct answer.

All right, I admit I'm at a very beginning level in math, but I keep thinking each time I go to class, if I master this, I am ready for the next thing, and I will just keep getting it all until suddenly I will look up and I'm doing calculus or something.

I keep saying to myself, so this is what it is like to be a non-traditional student. I can't get enough of this stuff. Yes, I'm a lot more stressed out and busy with it, but everyday I think I am taking one more step towards something new. It is exciting stuff.

That Time of Year Again

Cookie Blackmail.

For days I've managed to not buy a box of girl scout cookies. It is that time of year where friendships are put to the test, and the only determining factor of how good a friend is can be seen in the number of boxes of girl scout cookies they buy from your kid, well you actually, because 9 times out of 10 it is the parents who are pushing these things. There is not a store in town which is not staked out by these zealots, these fanatical cookies sellers.

What exactly they get from selling all of these boxes of cookies is what remains a mystery to me. I would stop and ask, but then I would get the pouty hurt look if I didn't buy 12 boxes to take home with me. I'm really not into breaking kid's hearts. They really want us to buy these things.

Well guess what? I don't want to buy any. And according to some people that makes me a scrooge of the most evil nature. "We neeeeed to support themmmm!" they cry to me. Why? Why do I have to buy over priced cookies to show support of complete stranger's children? Why do I even need to support other people's children? Answer that question there Mister Smarty Pants. How about I just don't want any darn cookies? Sheesh if I were to say that all hell would break lose, soccer moms and dads in mini vans would circle my block with signs while screaming profanities at me for my selfishness.

If people want to buy them great, if I don't want to buy them leave me alone about it. I got tricked into the selling girl scout cookies when I was a kid. I honestly do not remember what the purpose of it was. I think we got a badge or something, maybe we made some money to take our troop on a field trip or something. I don't even remember, I do recall my parents doing most of the work by taking the things to their workplaces and bugging their co-workers into buying them. Most places won't even allow people to bring in stuff their kids are selling anymore. This is why they stake out store entrances now.

I refuse to feel guilty about not buying the cookies. I just don't want any.

Thoughts Swirl

For Real.

My mind is in a whirl. I've just spent the evening with some very hefty reading. I don't even know who or what I am anymore, or if I am even real. For all I know I could be in a padded room somewhere living all of this out in my mind. You might not even be real, who can say? Maybe we are all just figments of someone unknown person's imagination. No, I can't believe that. It just doesn't make sense.

I can't figure out why my cat likes eating cellophane but he does. Well, I shouldn't say eating, it's more like chewing on it before we grab it away from him which royally ticks him off. He is the only one of the three that does that. If there is a plastic wrapper to be had he will find it, and try to eat it.

No matter how often I fill the dog bowls, they still eat cat cookies. I wish they wouldn't do it. It is not nice to live with.

I've finally got to the bottom of the mysterious laundry pile. Unfortunately, I have nothing interesting to report as to my findings. All I can say is that for some reason getting to the bottom means I find a lot of socks which irritates me because if there is nothing I hate doing more it is folding an entire basket of socks. I don't actually fold them, it is more about pairing them until I get sick of it and eventually open the drawer and dump the rest of them in it. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but we don't all have our own socks, we just have one sock drawer that is completely filled with socks and the whole family just picks and chooses which white sock they want to wear that day. I like to keep things simple.

It once came to my attention that there was a point in time when we were so busy with work, school, etc. that instead of doing laundry, I just kept buying new clothes. I kept thinking, we don't have enough clothes, I should buy us more clothes, and so I did, and then when I did all the laundry I realized we had way too many clothes. I don't do that anymore. Those were dark days.

I went through a phase recently where I bought a big old stack of paper plates. It was nice for a while, we had less dishes to wash, but the plates have run out, and now we have to use real plates again which means more washing of the dishes, unless I go buy some more paper plates which I'm debating the merits of. I am a woman on the edge here people.

I think I will go to bed. Good Night.

What Are You Doing?

I'm Not Doing Anything Either.

We had beautiful weather today. It really makes me long for longer days and warmer temperatures. The house has been closed up all winter practically, and it is starting to wear on me. It seems so silly to complain about the weather, what can we do about it anyway?

I have been dreaming about all the things I would like to do to the house. I wish I was more creative, I would love to turn our backyard into a beautifully landscaped place for relaxation and just spending time together. I picked up one of those gardening magazines which claimed to make it simple, I flipped through the pages and thought, there is nothing simple about any of this. Besides, I guess it is really not my style anyway. We're not perfectly manicured lawn types of people. We are just not.

I realized that I must accept the fact that my home will never look like a magazine spread. We just don't live that way. Most likely I've just fallen for all of the marketing, when I really think about it, I don't need that stuff. I have a great husband and a terrific kid, I suppose I can live with a bare looking backyard, although we definitely do want to get a privacy fence.

I'm not a planner I guess. What I am is a messy sort of decorator, I put something somewhere, if I like the way it looks I leave it there and move on. I look at those perfectly planned yards and I have to admit they are lovely, but I don't think I could do that. Don't even get me started on the rest of the house.

We've got a lot of weeds to kill off. They had pretty much run over the place before we bought it. We worked on it last summer while we could, but we only had a couple of months before the weather turned cold. It has been darn cold ever since.

Life is short, and precious. I shouldn't spend so much time worrying about the silly things that don't matter at all. This post stinks, but I don't care. It is not all that important. I'm sorry to have wasted your time. Thank you for stopping by, and please come back soon.

I've Never Even Been There

You Are 8% NYC

At best, you're a tourist. At worst, you're a poseur.

How NYC Are You?

a la Miriam

My Brother

He's a Chef in Training. He made this. It was delicious.

I Want To Blog

Really I do.

So many things have crossed my mind this week that I've had to say, "That is going on the blog." Then, when I actually have time to sit down and pound on the keyboard, I get nothing at all. Nothing. Yet, I sit here wanting to write something, wanting to put something down. I don't know why, I just want to.

My own family rarely if ever reads my blog, although my husband did confess recently that he enjoys reading it. I never really knew that. He has always been very honest with me, I can't imagine he would say that for my own vanity.

I guess I'll start with my test results. Not exactly as I wished them to be, but not necessarily unexpected either. This is what he did, he graded our tests, which were a lot of writing about all sorts of interesting things, and he gave us a grade on that. I did quite well except on the last part which he graded specifically on grammar and our writing itself, and not necessarily the thoughts we had. On this part it seems I made several errors which resulted in lowering my grade from an "A" to a "C". Bummer.

Probably all of my sloppy blog writing has had an effect on my writing structure. I guess I'm a bit rusty with writing. The good news is, he is going to allow us to fix our errors and get those points back, which means I could get the "A" that I covet. I'm happy with that idea. It seems pretty fair to me.

Now, my sister on the other hand, had quite a strange thing happen. Apparently, he overlooked part of her writing, and thought she had not included it, and therefore gave her a zero for that section. She looked at me with tears in her eyes as she told me what she got on her test. I could not believe it. I encouraged her to speak with him after class, which she did, he apologized for missing it, and agreed to grade it over the weekend. Poor girl was about to drop the class, she looked at me and said, "D means Drop." Which I understand really.

What I have to do now is find in a writing book just what exactly the errors I made are, and then show him, and he will raise the grade. I guess I can handle that. I feel sort of embarrassed that my writing was so poor after all I actually write just for the fun of it. Granted it has been a long time since anyone has graded anything I wrote.

Wow. My life is incredibly boring. What's more, I just want to go to bed now. Ibuprofen, muscle relaxant, sleep. In that order. Good Night.

Full Moon

I blame it on that.

I was pretty tired, but not sleepy, when I drove home from work this evening. I was driving about 5 miles below the speed limit, in the right lane. I exited, got in the proper turn lane, I didn't do anything wrong. I thought. I was talking on my cell phone, maybe that is what it was.

I stopped at the light, and when it turned green I didn't hesitate to turn. I turned into the proper lane. It was then that I noticed this bozo in a mini van next to me flip me the bird as he passes me. My reaction was, what the? What did I do?

Being not in the mood for dealing with jerk offs in mini vans, I honked my horn, and gave it right back. I looked and it was some old man. Which for some reason really made me laugh. He stopped at the light in front of me, and was looking back at me, and I couldn't stop laughing because for some reason it struck me funny that a man my father's age would actually go around town flipping people off for no apparent reason.

He looked like a crazed lunatic as he sat at the light watching me laugh hysterically at him. I just couldn't help it. Finally, I just waved at him and smiled because I figured since he was picking for a fight with a woman half his age, it would probably bother him more if I did that. The light changed and he took off in a heck of a hurry.

All I could think is, what is a lunatic like that doing running the streets at all? It was so strange. My dad would never stoop to flipping off a woman in traffic, or anyone for that matter. This man was clearly not in his right mind. Whatever, I blame the moon. It seems to have brought the ugly out in a lot of people this weekend.

So I carry on, and as I approach the turn to my street there is a car just sitting in the middle of the street. I stop behind the woman, and wait. Well, she gets mad at me for doing this, yet I don't know what else to do, if I go around her I will literally miss my turn. She flips me off for having the audacity to not do whatever it is she thinks I should do and then drives on. Good gosh.

I'm glad I'm home. I plan on staying home until the moon wanes and these freaks go back under their rocks. And there you have it, not much of a post, but I suppose it will do for now.