Did You Have a Merry Christmas?

Ours Was Good.

This time of year when many people are taking more time off, are trying to get out of the office a little earlier, and are taking trips away from home to visit with loved ones, I am usually doing just the opposite, I am working more, I am spending less time at home, and there is no way I could get time off to go anywhere. Luckily most everyone is right here close by so that really helps. It is this time of year when try as I might, I have to fight really hard not to get too moody and blue. The truth is, getting Christmas off where I work is not an easy task, and so for the last 3 years in a row, I have worked that day.

I would be lying if I did not say this bothered me quite a lot. It does. In fact, it has completely affected the way my family, and I celebrate the holidays. I usually don't get any of the major 3 holidays off, that means no Thanksgiving, no Christmas Eve, or day, and no New Year's Eve, or day. This year I got Thanksgiving off, it was nice, but it went too fast, and we were all a bit more reserved as we are still feeling grief over losing my uncle such a short time ago.

As Christmas approached, I found myself feeling more and more resentful about working the day. I rationalized with myself, went over all of the arguments as to why I must not let it get to me. I reasoned that it is just a date, the spirit of things is what really matters. I told myself, I must do this, it is part of my job, and I like my job the rest of the year, so overall it is worth it. I convinced myself that we could do things a little before, or a little after, and that it will be just fine. All of those reasoned arguments meant nothing because I honestly resented the fact that I have to work the holidays.

I resented other's getting the holidays off to spend with their friends and families drinking eggnog and eating homemade breads and cookies while listening to Christmas carols, and laughing together while reliving old memories, and seeing the lights and the magic of Christmas reflected in the children's eyes. I missed that our little family did not all get up together on Christmas morning and sit in the living room in our pajamas while our daughter opened up her bounty of gifts, and then head over to my parent's house to spend the rest of the day.

I truly felt bad that I did not get a lot of Christmas shopping done, and was not able to get all of the gifts on my list because I just ran out of time, and/or money before the day rolled around. It was quite upsetting to me that I didn't get around to doing any baking, or making special things to eat without guilt this time of year.

The sad reality is, I spent most of this holiday season feeling shafted, annoyed, and disappointed. I know that is not how it is supposed to be. After feeling like that when the day actually rolled around, I was no longer upset about it, I just didn't care anymore. I had already given our daughter all of her gifts. Everything was done, all that was left was for me to go to work, and by that time, I went and it was like any other day, in fact, I even quite enjoyed working that day because everyone I worked with was extra special nice, and we all brought in little goodies to share so it was good.

The really ironic thing was, I got into it with my manager the day before Christmas Eve because they extended my schedule, and I went into her office and said, "Hey, I'm working Christmas Eve, and day, I don't think it is fair to extend my time here even more than that, isn't there any other way to do this?" We actually had plans to meet people for dinner right after I got off work, so I was a bit put out. Well, she snapped back at me, and we didn't have a pleasant exchange. I am usually not so outspoken with management, but I was really feeling emotional about it all. Later that night I felt bad for approaching her that way, and decided I would apologize.

The next day I went to her office and said, "I am really sorry for snapping at you, it is just this time of year, and working the holidays, and honestly, if you had just asked and said, "We really need you to do this for us," and shown some empathy about it, I would not have been so upset. She apologized for coming across as cold, and admitted to me that she has developed a tough skin because she has to hear it all the time about people working on the holidays, and that she wanted to be home with her family too. We had a good talk about it all, and I realized I was being a big baby about it all. I admitted that I had not really put myself in her shoes, and was only thinking of myself, and suddenly after that, I felt so much better about working that day.

It turns out business was going to be slower than projected on Christmas day, so on Christmas eve she said she was going to take volunteers of people to work on Christmas day first, and then she would decide who would get to be off out of who didn't volunteer to work. Believe it or not, after all of my fussing, and complaining, I went ahead and volunteered to work afterall. I realized that I didn't have any plans on Christmas day anyway because we had already given our daughter her gifts, and we would most likely just go over to my parent's house and eat when I got off work as originally planned.

And you know, I felt strangely good about doing that. One of my co-workers is a single mom with two children under 4, and she really wanted to be home with them, she was so excited that she was going to be off afterall, she said she wasn't going to tell anyone, but just surprise them when she didn't go to work. There were others who I am sure were extremely grateful that they got that call on Christmas Eve telling them they were off the next day.

So, all in all, it worked out fine. We ate with my parents when I got off, and it was a good day, and I think I have finally overcome that hurdle of resentment about working the holidays, which is a good thing because it is part of my job, and I have to accept it. Christmas is a happy and joyous time, that's what it should be about. I think it is hard for some people to put on a happy face and act festive when they don't truly feel that, and there are many reasons they might not. I've been a grinch the past few years because I couldn't do things my way, but I am hoping I have truly let all of that go. I know how to do it now I think.

Anyway, hope you had a good one, and had many reasons to be Merry. Let's all have a Happy New Year, huh?

I'm Still Here

Just Getting By.

I know, I am always apologizing for not blogging regularly. With Christmas and all, I have just not been in the mood to blog. I checked my email today and found that I had a drive-by comment from some major weirdo, so I had to go an delete it, it was quite nasty, and gross. Damn you Google. Please stop sending these strange people here. I wish there was a way to keep from getting referrals from random internet searches, without having to make my blog completely private, although the thought has crossed my mind.

I really don't care about traffic, and I don't get much anyway, but the fact that the very few I do get are still peppered with oddballs is quite disturbing really. The only way I can avoid that is to close up shop and move on which I have considered doing, but for some reason whenever I suggest this my friends and family members say, "Oh don't do that, we love your blog" which is quite funny really because they NEVER read it. I know this because I will ask them, did you see that picture I posted, or something, and they always say "no'' which makes me think, why the heck are they encouraging me when they don't visit it anyway?

In turn, I have to ask the question of myself, why do this at all? I don't know why either, and I am certainly not in the mood to get all profound about such nonsense anyway. There is one thing though I find peculiar and that is, I don't talk about anything that really matters most of the time because it is too personal, or would be a betrayal of someone else's privacy, so most of what is put down here is nothing more than fluff. It does seem sort of like a silly way to spend my free time when I get right down to it, but I guess I still enjoy this medium, so I will continue with it for the time being.

Well, I took down one of the posts that seems to get the most hits from weirdos, so hopefully that will help. Hey, I've still got a lot of holiday baking to do, I never got a chance to make Cherry Nut Bread, Pizzelles, or some of the other things I had planned, and I really wanted to do that. I bought all of the stuff, so now I have no choice, I have got to use the stuff or it will sit in my cabinets until next Christmas.

The bananas are finally ripe enough to make Banana Nut Bread, I made some yesterday, the recipe said it would make one loaf, well I followed that and made one huge loaf that rose a good inch out of the pan, and I was very disappointed to find that the middle of the thing did not cook at all, but the outside was very well done, so I don't know. I am going to try again today, but use two loaf pans instead of one. I think that will bring better results. We shall see.

In any event, I am still here, and I hope you are too. Hugs.

Miss Priss and The High Horse She Rode In On

You can bet your butt it wasn't a mini-van.

I don't think I have ever mentioned this before, but the reason I chose "that broad" as my handle, was because when I was growing up my sister always used to say, "Oh gosh, you're such a broad!" Well, I guess with all of my burping, farting, cussing and giggling she might think that. There was that time I went on an all fruit diet and discovered the joys of flatulence. Actually, it was my best friend and I, we both went on some fad diet where all you eat is fruit, and were overcome with superhuman amounts of gas. It was just too much. I remember walking up the stairs and stopping every other stair when one of us passed gas, and the laughing that ensued. Cut us some slack, we were 13 and therefore unable to resist laughing like hyenas at such noises.

Now, my sister on the other hand, she was and still is in many ways my complete opposite. When she was a little girl, our great aunt dubbed her "Prissy" because, well, she was, and always has been to some extent. She did not laugh at farts, and probably still doesn't. She never found the idea of someone accidentally letting one go with the shift of a leg hilarious, and frankly we firmly believed for quite some time that she didn't actually fart, EVER. Of course this myth was dispelled one night a few years ago at my mom's house when lo and behold Miss Priss let one rip at the kitchen table no less while we were playing cards one night, of course she didn't mean too, it was just all those years of holding it in, I'm sure.

My mom said what we were all thinking, "She hasn't done that since 8th grade!" and of course we all got to laughing, including Miss Priss, and that caused her to finally let loose a torrent of toots whistles and blows which made us all howl with laughter. You just have to know her. Now none of this means that Miss Priss doesn't have a sense of humor, she does, and she can get me to giggling like no one else can, and that is mostly because we share a mother, and therefore have many memories of the antics of our deviant mother.

I'm sure it is not nice to say ones mother is a deviant, and that might not be the exact word, but it is close. My mom might have the rest of the world fooled with all of her innocent pie baking, but we know better. Oh she's honest, upstanding, a good citizen, and absolutely one of the most generous people I've ever known, but there is a side to her that only we her family know, it is actually her strength, and an attitude she carries that has got her through some of the most dire circumstances. You just don't mess with her that's all I'm saying. She will jack a person up if they hurt one of hers. Anyway, it is hard to explain, and all I'm doing is making her sound like a psycho which is not the case at all, as I was saying, she's an absolutely kind person, a kind person who does whatever the hell she pleases.

The reason I brought all of this up is because I wanted to mention that my sister, Miss Priss has a blog. She finally got a blog. I waited a while to see if she put more than two posts up, and she has, so I will direct your attention there. She's a lot like me without all of the gaseous noises, and trucker talk. Check it out.

Beautiful Building

A few people might recognize this unmistakable monument that sits on ole Route 66. I'm thinking of you CG. From what I understand, this courthouse is made out of marble, obviously rough unfinished marble. The town used to revolve around this marble quarry, my grandfather and dad both hauled this marble all over the country. It is Carthage Marble, and they no longer quarry it I'm told, although there is still plenty there. My grandfather was a great lover of marble, and collected as many pieces as he could of all sorts of different marble from all over the world.

Good Stuff

Last Bits of Fall.

I love Fall in Missouri, although it is much better in person, I hoped to capture some of it's beauty with a $4 disposable camera. Not too shabby all things considered.

Good Things

Front Porch Sitting.

This is the front porch of what once was my great grandparent's house. Pretend garbage can is not in picture. :)

More Cheer

Spreading Joy.

I think I will try to spend the rest of December posting nothing but good things, and pictures that make me feel happy. Like this.

Who Needs A Little Cheer?

Me, That's Who.

I can't resist the desire to check the ole site meter thingy every so often and see who has been dropping by. This is how I know that what I am doing here has exactly zero impact on 99.9% of the population, but I love the 3 of you who do stop by regularly, and it is because of you I continue to hurl obnoxious thoughts with random regularity. I'm pretty sure I just made an English teacher somewhere out there cry with that last sentence, but it did seem clever when I wrote it.

Anyway, so lately I've been getting more hits which is to say in the overall scheme of things, two more than the usual drive by visitors I get thanks to google. Google, please stop pointing out my pointless points to total strangers on the internet. Why do you send them here? If I wanted everyone to know my business I would get a website and put it all on the internet, oh wait, I've done that. Well, I didn't really want icky strangers to read my stuff all right, at least not ones who do searches on seeing their mother's thong when she bent over to clean up a spill on the kitchen floor. Ok? Stop sending the freaks and weirdos here. I mean it.

With that said, I think this is the perfect opportunity to talk about referrals. I've been getting some good ones lately:

1. "Black yard boy statue"--I don't have one.

2. "Extremely bushy women"--ok, I'm somewhat insulted by this, and I promise as soon as they perfect that laser I'm going to take care of the leg hair problem, sheesh.

3. "A Christmas gift for people who love to nap"--personally, I like this one, I'm all about napping, and I think a great gift would be silence, without judgement. Nappers are NOT lazy, we just LIKE to sleep, that's all.

4. "Clock is ticking, want a baby"--this is not really something to make fun of, I understand this. Luckily I had one child, but if that is not possible, I highly suggest a puppy.

5. "Pot of chili, left out over night"--Oh my gosh, I can't believe someone else did that. I don't recommend eating it.

6. "Two fat ladies cooking"--Ok, you can call me fat, but my friend does not appreciate it.

7. "My husband got pepper in his eyes"--Hey, so did mine!

8. "Things to do in a snowstorm"--multiple searches on this one, my favorite thing to do is bake and clean house, and take a nice long nap.

9. "Pee on a Christmas tree"--it makes me wonder, is someone contemplating this, or have they already done it.

10. And there is, "Dog pee on the Christmas tree"--dogs do like to pee on trees, it is only natural.

11. "Cats taking underwear"--I think we could make a whole 'nother blog on this subject.

12. "Bikini tattoos for women"--I don't know.

There's more, but I don't want to bore you. This time there was no real weird stuff, which I'm always glad about.

I Don't Know

This has been hard lately.

Putting anything on this blog lately has been very difficult for me. It is not necessarily that I don't have anything to say, but that I just don't know what to say. A lot of things feel out of balance right now. Work has been slow, and I was off for two weeks when we went back to be with my uncle as he passed from this world to the next. I've had too much time off I think, and yet, I still feel like I've got so much to do at home I welcome the time off.

I just don't feel like I have a firm grip on anything right now. I am surrounded by piles of things to do, and I move at snail pace at accomplishing anything. It is just plain ridiculous. I made a wonderful pot of chili last night, I left it on the stove and was going to put it away, but I knew my daughter would want some, and sure enough I woke up this morning and realized I left it out overnight and had to throw the whole pot away.

I was mad at myself for wasting the food. It felt like I had wasted a blessing from God. We have been provided so many gifts, and to throw one away seems like an insult to the giver. The puritan in me said, "waste not, want not!" as I scooped the chili into the trash, and I was disappointed with myself. Anyway, I may be over thinking it a bit, but I did feel bad.

The vacuum cleaner finally broke. It just can't handle the amount of dirt that needs cleaned up in this house I guess. Actually, it was clogging up a lot, and my husband threw his hands up in the air the last time he tried to unclog it. The daughter and I went and bought a new one at the Wal-Mart last night. Hopefully it will last more than a year, although I am starting to suspect that these vacuums are designed not to go any longer than that. I've had to buy a new vacuum every year for the last few years now, it is a trend I cannot ignore. My floors aren't that bad.

My parent's had their vacuum that they bought at Sears for at least 25 years, they may still use it for all I know. My parents get things fixed, they don't replace them, but in this case it is just cheaper to go get a new vacuum. I hate to say that, but it is true. If anyone knows of a model that lasts longer and is worth repairing I will happily invest in it. I've tried all brands, Eureka, Dirt Devil, Hoover, each seems to have about the same life in it. I can't tell any real difference in any of them.

Anyway, I'm going on and on, and my mom called this morning and wanted me to take her someplace, this is code for me getting to her house and her deciding that she doesn't want to go, and I will go for her which I don't mind really. We've all run so many errands for her, she just hands over her debit card and we go.

Oh and she really stunned me the other day, she called me up and said, "Will you go to the store and buy me a cake?" She went on to say, "I have pie, but it is DAD who really likes the pie, I prefer cake and I really just want a piece of cake!" I was crushed. I said, "Mom, do you realize that I have devoted entire sections of my blog to your love of pie, and here I find out that it is DAD who really likes pie?" All of those shopping trips to 3 different grocery stores buying 12 different kinds of pie because I thought SHE loved pie, and it turns out my dad is the real culprit in the pie department. It doesn't really change anything, but still I was surprised.

Today she wants me to go have something framed for my dad, I better get a move on.

Just a Squirrel

Nuts.



I'm sorry, this just made me chuckle. Found at SimplyJews.

Things

Just Stuff.

1. We already put our Christmas tree up.

2. My husband and I never buy each other Christmas gifts. This was a tradition we started when we first got married, and everyone did tell us that we would make our own traditions as a family. Back then we were too broke to buy each other anything, now I guess we are just too cheap. My husband says, "Just buy what you want throughout the year", I think he just doesn't like shopping all that much.

3. Our daughter gets a lion share of gifts for Christmas because she is an only child, and because we don't buy for each other.

4. The kiddo wants an X-box, or some other such trendy gadget for Christmas, she is not getting one. I just won't spend nearly $400 on one of these things. That is ridiculous. She will still have a nice Christmas.

5. Some years the majority of gifts our family received were from my parents. Our first year stationed overseas, we were so broke from the move that we could not afford anything much at all, even for our daughter, and my mother knowing this, sent so many boxes that we actually had gifts under the tree.

6. I've never made a whole Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner in all of these years. The 3 of us would never eat all of that food even if I tried to make smaller portions.

7. Our first Thanksgiving overseas we ate at Taco Bell on base.

8. The holidays are not as fun when you have no family around.

9. My husband and I are both going to be working on Christmas.

10. We both had Thanksgiving off. We had dinner at my parent's house.

11. Thanksgiving was the first major holiday I have had off in 3 years.

12. My husband will be working on Christmas for the next 7 years.

13. The holidays are only really fun for people when they are off and get to spend that time with family.

14. The best part about Christmas for me is the tree and the decorations because I actually get to enjoy those parts at my leisure.

15. Christmas has been marketed to death, but I still think it is an important time for families, and an important day of celebration for our culture. Nothing will make someone appreciate that time more, than not being able to participate in the celebrations.

16. At least we got Thanksgiving off. That was nice.

I Don't Like Him

Which 2008 candidate do you hate the most?

The candidate you like least is Democrat Barack Obama. He is pro-choice, opposes the death penalty, wants universal healthcare, supports embryonic stem cell research, is in favor of banning assault weapons -- this guy is your worst nightmare!

Take the quiz at Buttafly.com

Death And Taxes

Taxed in the Grave.

There were two homes, my grandparent's home which my father was born and raised in, and the house across the street that was my great parent's home. When the last of the great grandparent's passed away in 1974, my uncle ended up living in that house, it became his. I don't know the circumstances as to how that happened, but it was his, and no one had any beef with that. He may have bought it from my grandparents, I don't know, it is not really important.

My grandfather died in 1983, and my grandmother continued living in their home until her death in 1998, at that time, the house went to 3 of the 4 children. My dad did not want to be included in that as we live in a different state, and other reasons that aren't all that important. So, my uncle took out a mortgage, and bought the other two siblings out of the house. Truth be told they didn't want the house, they wanted the money, it was a win win for the most part.

So, my uncle had his house which was my great grandparent's home, and he also owned the house across the street which was my grandparent's home. He felt they were family homes, and did not want to let them go. In many ways he became a prisoner of those two homes. Both homes were very old, over 100 years old, and with that they needed some repairs although, overall both are in very good condition.

He put a lot of money in his home, and did many major upgrades and repairs. Grandmother's home was empty a lot of the time. He couldn't bear to let anyone other than family live in that home. He did let one of my cousins light there for a while, and my husband, daughter and I even lived in that house when he left the Marine Corps, we paid a very modest rent, which covered the mortgage he had to take out on it to buy the other two out. I got homesick for mom and dad, and we decided to move closer to parents.

Then grandmother's house was empty again. No one was there to enjoy the beautiful woodwork, the mahogany stair case, and all of the other great features old homes like that have to offer. It still sits empty.

When my uncle learned he was dying, he wanted to marry his lovely lady, and leave her his estate. He was going to leave the homes to my dad, but my dad did not want them. He has no intention of moving back there, and agreed that he should leave these things to his wife. Which is what my uncle decided to do.

He had an iron clad will, and had plans to add her to all titles etc. but he ran out of time. The doctors thought he might have 9 months to a year and a half, it turns out he died 2 months after they gave him this timeline. He got very ill towards the end and didn't get all of those things done. When he left us for a better world, we have only his will, and their marriage to support his wishes.

For most decent people that would be enough, but unfortunately, his estate is going to go to probate. I don't know what that is, other than an opportunity for thieves to rape and pillage his estate down to next to nothing. Which is what is going to happen. The attorney has already suggested that his wife will have to sell my grandmother's home to pay the probate and lawyer's fees. It will cost that much. The state takes a percentage of the estate, and the lawyer matches it.

That is the best case scenario, the worst case scenario is his widow may have to sell both properties to pay the costs. It all depends on how much our glorious rulers think is enough. All this so that some newspaper ads can be run to see who else wants a piece of the action. Never mind the fact that his widow could have assumed his debts, if any, and paid them with whatever he left. No, that's too darn simple.

I am astounded, and I had no idea this would happen. It is such a shame, and a sham. My dad said to me, "You know, I'd have more respect for a thief that sticks a gun in my face and robs me than this."

Even if my uncle had been able to get his new wife's name on everything, the state is not satisfied with that, they like to take a look back over the last couple of years to see if people have tried to unload anything that they might have been able to take. Their situation of being newly married complicated things, but the state still would have came barging in.

This is a very serious lesson, one that no one should learn while in the process of grieving the loss of a loved one. The state is hard enough to take on, let alone when in such a fragile state. It is disgusting. There are less and less ways around these death taxes.

It is a shame to work your whole life for something only to have it taken away and sold off for profit by greedy people. Let this be a lesson to you. Don't wait until you are ill to talk about these things, and work on them. Somehow my grandmother avoided probate because she had put her children's names on the title of everything. That is about the only loophole left, but you can't do it a year before you die as the state looks back. These are things an attorney should be able to get through, and prevent happening, but even still they have motive to let you fall into that probate trap as well.

I tell you, we're going to have to go back to hiding things in our mattresses. Something to think about.

Time Crunch

Loose Ends.


We lost my uncle last Saturday, he was my dad's youngest brother, and really the last of any family we have outside of our clan. He was 54 years old, a Captain with his police department, and an all around great guy. He had met a nice woman a few years ago, and was finally able to love again after having gone through a trainwreck of a divorce and marriage. She was his perfect match, and I could tell they had become extremely close, close on that level that we often refer to as "soulmates".

He had a rare form of cancer, which was a particularly vicious cancer of the liver. Chemo and radiation did nothing to spite this cancer, and as his time neared the end he fought hard. He suffered, and was in terrible agony. His new wife, my dad and I were there. Dad and I were the only ones who could get away, but the rest of our family would have been there if at all possible. My mom virtually sat and cried at home at her kitchen table for a week and a half because she wanted to be there for him, but she couldn't. Her own health would not permit such a trip.

My uncle was a dedicated planner. Being a police officer for over 30 years, he had a way of seeing and planning for every possible contingency and always tried to have all of his ducks in a row. Unfortunately in this case, time was not on his side. He left some loose ends behind, but he tried everything he could to get it all right. He had spent the last several years working hard to get right with God, and that relationship gave him a great deal of comfort at the end. He was a very private person and I'm not even sure he would have liked all of the attention his passing was given, but he would have gave a most sheepish grin, and accepted it most likely. He never wanted to offend anyone.

We found many people cared very deeply for him, and they were overwhelmingly supportive and sympathetic. His passing and funeral made the evening news. I had no idea so many people knew him in so many ways. The community came out and offered a great deal of respect towards the man that I knew as a humble person. It was surreal in so many ways, and I don't use that word lightly. He was a special person, a complicated man, a storyteller, and a person with a great sense of humor. I will miss those things about him the most.

Many lessons were learned here. Take care of those loose ends. Just love each other.

Deep Sigh

Update.

I'm back home. My dad and I arrived last night. I have a ton of things to do, but first things first, I need to make some coffee, and then maybe make a list. I've missed my blog, and all of the blogs that I read. I have not looked at a single blog, including my own since I left home almost two weeks ago.

I want to get caught up on all of that really soon. My husband is such a dear man, he thinks I have "fans", hehe, I asked him to post something so people wouldn't think that I had died, and he promptly took care of that for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop in really quick, I have to get up and get away from the computer immediately, or I will be tempted to go visit my favorites and that will distract me from the overwhelming pile of things I have to do today--right now. I want to get back as soon as possible because I have a lot of stuff I want to write about.

Our family suffered a huge and tragic loss. He was all we had left of family outside of my parents and siblings, and we all loved him very much. Back Soon.

Away From Keyboard

Dear Family, Friends, and Loyal Fans,

This post was titled Away From Keyboard, also known as AFK. It's early in the morning and AFK was the best I could come up with. Anyway, my wife is unfortunately out of town and has been for about a week. She asked me to post something here explaining her sudden disappearance. In summary, one of her last living relatives, her uncle, was very sick. She felt obligated to be there with him so she left immediately. I will end on that note. If she wants to fill you in with more details, more power to her. Nevertheless, she sends her deepest apologies for not being avail to post in her blog. However, she asks that if you can find it in your heart to forgive her, she would feel so much better. She loves and misses you all.

Sincerely,

Brown Eyes

That's So Passive Aggressive!

My brother found this passive aggressive note. It cracked us up. See also PassiveaggressiveNotes for more humorous notes.

Update: It seems there are tons of these signs out there, who would have thought? Posted just one day after this over at PassiveaggressiveNotes are tons of signs saying the exact same thing.

Things The Baby Has Chewed On This Week

I have no life.

We're still in the honeymoon phase with the new baby. Sure, I get tired of my living room looking like a playground with various chew toys strewn about, but the pleasure exceeds the inconvenience so we deal with it.

He's just so darn fluffy and cute, there was no way I could get mad at him today when he managed to go outside with a pair of my daughter's undies in his ferocious razor sharp baby teeth. He proceeded to carry them to and fro around the back yard, until I went to call him in and noticed he was carrying them around. It was a little embarrassing, but I thought the chances of someone actually noticing the little fur ball with the underpants was pretty slim, but to be on the safe side, I made my daughter run out and get them right away anyway. It's best we not let the little guy parade our unmentionables in such an unruly manner in front of the neighbors.

So far he has managed to kill the hedgehog puppet, a rabbit fur, and a phone cord. He has also taken ownership of a stray flip flop, and anything and everything he can find that will fit in his tiny mouth. I ask how he finds all of this stuff, but it seems a mystery to all at this point. Frankly, I blame my daughter, she's really good at leaving stuff laying about, but then again, she probably gets that trait from me, and I from my mother and so on, and it all boils down to it being the fault of my long lost great grandparents, who were first cousins and therefore not very great genetic candidates for breeding responsible and normal people.

He has been proving himself to be quite a sneaky and foxy little thing after all. He has tried on many occasion to take over the big dog bowl of food, he has his own little dog bowl with puppy food in it, but he prefers to eat from the big bowl which doesn't bode well at times with the big guys and sometimes there is gruffing and complaining, but it mostly comes from the little one trying to take over the bowl when the big dogs are eating. He has figured out that I hide the bag of dog food behind the bench of the nook, and he has also, through sound and logical research, realized that if he jumps on that bag when our big boy dog is at the bowl, the sound of the bag crunching startles him and he leaves the bowl.

I can't help but be entertained by this, and when I told my husband about it he looked at me as if I had just said, "Our dogs know how to read." He took a very skeptical position right away, until we sat at the table and it happened, and I said, "There, did you see that?" Yes, sure he did, but one incident did not prove anything to him, and so the pup as if knowing somehow, went and did it again, and then my husband said, "Oh my gosh, he's smart!" And then we felt very proud.

They grow up so fast!

What Have They Done?

Strange Vegetables.

My friend bought these at produce stand at the flea market, she gave me two of them. I've never seen cucumbers like this before, I'm quite perplexed, and a bit afraid to eat them.

I Can't Take It

Just Too Cute.




Found at Cuteoverload where else?

I Clicked

I'm Here.

I will write something.

First, homeschooling. Despite meeting much resistance by a certain spoiled 12 year old, I have managed to pull the energy from my already tapped reserves to persevere and push on. She is trying really hard to break me down. She is pulling out all of the stops, and is not trying to make this easy on me at all. She doesn't want to do the work. She doesn't see the importance of it, and yet, I see her having success. For example, she can look at a globe of our planet and point out the 7 continents, she can name the four oceans, and knows which direction is east west north south, and can even name interesting features of each continent. For example, she is familiar with the Great Plains of North America, and the Rainforests of South America.

It doesn't sound like much, but I see it as a major accomplishment for her, and myself. It is something that causes me to say, "Hey, you might not think you are learning anything, but look at what you know!" I wish I could say it inspires her to want to learn more, and sometimes it does, but most of the time I have to really work hard to get her to participate. Despite that, we are learning about matter now in science. She hasn't mastered this concept, but she is getting there, and I'm surprised at how much I had forgotten of basic concepts, but it has been fun learning.

We are progressing although I think it is much harder on me than her. She is really trying to get out of this work, and is not making it easy on me at all. I have cried many tears over this. I keep working on it, on her. I know she can do this, but she doesn't believe me, yet.

Second, the roses. I cut down my beautiful rose bushes yesterday. The temperatures are more like fall now, and they were really starting to wilt. I have never had rose bushes, so I am not even sure if I did it right. I hoped as I cut them down that they would come back next year with as much glory as they had this summer. I will be disappointed if I inadvertently killed them, or ruined them.

I'm lazy, so instead of raking all of the leaves that covered my front yard, I got out the lawn mower and took off. I felt sort of stupid mowing the lawn when it didn't need it, but it sure did clean up those leaves. After I mowed I watered the yard so that all of the cut up leaves would sink in a provide nourishment to the grass. My dad says our climate is too dry for this to work, but I did it anyway, thinking, I will just water really good, and besides it looks a whole lot better. It's a little trick my uncle in Missouri taught me, "don't rake, mulch instead!" is his motto, and I think it just works for me.

I noticed my neighbor watching me out there, and I thought, he probably thinks I am an idiot, but I noticed later he went out with his mower and did the same thing, so maybe I inspired him, and I'm not so dumb afterall.

Next, the puppy is still bringing much joy to our household. My goodness! What a little character he is. He's been into all sorts of trouble, and he completely ignores his name. He doesn't like being called Pumpkin, so we pretty much just call him "Puppy Power" most of the time, and he answers to that. He really likes people food, and knows how to beg already, but he knew that before he came to live here, he's been doing that since day one.

The girl dog developed a case of hives, and her face swelled up. I was quite worried about her, but my sister told me we could give her Benadryl, and after two doses she was all better, and it saved me an expensive trip to the emergency vet. I've never seen a dog have an allergic reaction like that before. I decided that if she didn't show any signs of relief the next morning, I would take her in, but luckily she got all better over night.

And, my dad was supposed to retire this month, but when I asked my mom about it the other day she told me they offered him a very generous raise, and he said he couldn't turn it down, so he will be working longer. I don't know when he plans to retire now. He works so hard. He always has, since he was a young child working on his grandfather's two farms, he has always just worked and worked. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for his loved ones. If I asked him to come and mow my lawn every week, he would do it, of course I would never do that. As it is right now, he spends quite a great deal of his free time mowing the enormous yard that surrounds his church, with winter coming he will have a reprieve from that, but I'm sure there will be other things that need tending to.

This post is getting long, so I will close for now. People always tell me my posts are too long. I think they are right. I have not mastered the short concise snippet thing that so many others seem to be good at. I'm just too long winded for my own good I guess.

Another Year

Getting Older.

And fatter, but we don't want to talk about that. I had a birthday recently. I'm 37 years old now. I don't really know if I feel my age or not. Most of the time I think I don't. I remember when my mom was my age. She was getting ready to have my brother if I recall correctly. She worked hard as a nurse, and I used to hate it when she went to work. At the time we were living in a less than savory neighborhood in a little 3 bedroom/1 bath rental house.

Around that time our landlord announced that the house was to be painted. He had our house painted green apple. Bright green apple. I don't know if that was the actual name of the color used, but it was the same color as the green apple gum I liked to chew, so I immediately made the connection. I remember my parents saying, "He must have been drunk when he picked out that color!" I had overheard them talking about how he does like to spend a great deal of time in a little dive bar, he had even taken them to lunch at the little bar, and of course my parents were a little appalled at his choice of "restaurant" when he offered to take them to lunch.

That was the year that my wonderful, and pretty 2nd grade teacher started visiting our homes. Every week she would schedule a time to go and visit with the families of her students. When it came our turn, I was very excited. The day before my mom and I spent time tidying up the house, and vacuuming up the white Gidget hairs that we usually ignored unless company was coming. Gidget was our labradoodle. I'm pretty sure that is what she was, although she was a labradoodle before they were even called that and considered cool. She had long hair, and it seemed to fall off in clumps sometimes, at least it really showed up on the 70's olive green carpet we had.

Anyway, I rode home from school with my teacher so I could show her where we lived. When we pulled up to the house I was suddenly embarrassed by the apple green paint our landlord had chosen. I told her, "We just got our house painted, but the landlord was drunk when he picked out the color!" I remember she laughed at that, but I didn't know why, I was being serious. I thought she would be just appalled as I was to think of a man being drunk while shopping for paint colors.

The visit went well as I can remember. I showed her my room, and my dad's desk which was part of my room at the time. She visited with my mom some and left shortly after that.

At the end of the school year we moved. My parent's had bought a house in a completely different neighborhood. It was huge in comparison to our little rental house with 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. They still live in that house, it is still a big house to me. The other night I sat at my mom's kitchen table and told her "I remember when you were my age mom, and it wasn't that long ago, life sure does go fast!"

"Oh, I know," she said, "and it goes faster as you get older." I felt a bit sad to think about it. My parents are getting older, both turning 66 this year. I see them having more difficulty with some tasks that used to be so easy for them. I'm ashamed that sometimes I wish my daughter would grow up, and I look forward to a different time in life where I have less burdens. I know it is wrong to feel that way, and I don't really mean it. Sometimes parenting is not a rewarding, and joyful experience, sometimes it it just damn hard work. Lately it has been challenging to say the least.

Having hard times does not change how much I love her, as I'm sure it didn't for my mother either, but your kids can tug on your heart strings in ways no one who isn't a parent can even imagine. I'm serious. For some people parenting is a breeze, their children just do everything right, and are so agreeable. That sure hasn't been my experience lately, but I know this will pass in time, and I will be cursing myself for ever wanting her to grow up faster. I know it.

I just pray to God that I live long enough to see her to independence, able to stand on her own two feet and with the ability to survive in this world with dignity, and honor. I guess in that it would be all worth it. That is the reward in parenting. My tears will no longer be of frustration, but of joy when that happens.

We will see how I feel next year. Hugs.

Da Funk

Where I've Been.

I am so sorry for not posting anything lately. It is not that I haven't thought about it, it is more that I've just been in a sort of funk lately. My posting now is not a sign that the malaise is gone, just that my friend, the bossy one that reminds me of Peppermint Patty that I call, "sir" basically told me she is sick and tired of coming to this page and finding nothing and that I should post something soon. She went on to remind me lest I had forgotten that I had not posted anything since October 3.

She knows I've been in a cruddy mood lately, and she's been patiently waiting for my blues to pass. Her mood hasn't been all that great lately either, but that's just because since she has been driving her dad's van while her Dodge is in the shop having major repairs she's gone all stressed out career/soccer mom on me. She's doing the supermom thing and I applaud her for that. I drove to McDonalds today for lunch, I was wearing my orange pajama bottoms and a white tee-shirt, with NO BRA, I did at least put shoes on.

I was extremely frustrated that I had to sit at a few traffic lights because all I wanted to do was get home, and back to my HGTV and Fox News. After I ate I marched myself upstairs and went straight to bed. I slept with my husband's shirt snuggled against my face and was quite content until my daughter showed up and started laughing at me for cuddling with her dad's shirt. I told her I miss him and leave me alone with the shirt so I can continue my nap in peace, but she started tugging at the shirt which soon led to a wrestling match in which I exclaimed, "Why can't you just leave me alone with daddy's shirt, I just want to hold it!" Which made her laugh and tug even more until finally I got out of bed and she forgot the shirt.

Then I quietly took the shirt back to bed where I snuggled with it again and slept just a little while longer until some screaming brats outside woke me up for good. I needed to get up anyway.

I feel like I wasted the whole day, but I am starting to perk up some now. I hope the funk has passed. I don't know what the source of it was, and I wouldn't want to talk about it anyway. I think it is the weather changing, I haven't been spending as much time outside.

All right, probably a disappointing post, but at least a post at this point.

Video of Woman Repeatedly Tased

Quite Disturbing.



This is appalling. I can't believe that fat SADISTIC bastard is on paid leave. I cannot believe he was not fired immediately, and charged with assault. That fat fuck needs to be tased and kicked in the ass repeatedly so he can see what his victim experienced, and it should be by a person at least twice his size, if we can find anyone that big.

What I see too often in these types of videos is how the cops are taking extra shots at people even after they are subdued. It's like they get some perverse and sadistic enjoyment out of tasing people.

To Post Or Not To Post

Or Take A Nap?

And there is one more option, I could clean house, but we all know how I feel about that sort of thing. Then again, I do like a clean house even if mine never is. The kiddo went to visit relatives for a week, she has never really been away from home much, and she called me the first night, last night, bawling. She told me she missed me and she loved me, and wanted me to come get her. Of course, I can't really do that right now, so I calmly told her to get a grip, and take it one day at a time.

This may sound cruel, but I think we both needed this time apart. She is with me practically 24/7 and some days that is too much for both of us. She called me this morning and she is doing fine. She is much happier, and feeling better. I was not really worried, I knew she would be fine, and that they will take good care of her. She wanted to go, and was beyond excited when the opportunity came up. It is only for a week anyway. Anyway, she is all right now, and there is the added bonus that we both get to actually miss each other for a few days which any parent of a pre-teen knows is a good thing.

Now, I sit here with what feels like an enormous chunk of free time on my hands, and I practically don't know what to do with myself. Yesterday after she left, I thought, "So this is what it feels like not to have kids around." I felt totally free. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change having a kid for anything, but as we approach the empty nest, I couldn't help but envision a life where I am able to do pretty much whatever I want with my free time. It was sort of a selfish revelation, that some day I won't make all of my decisions based on having a child at home. It was a strange feeling, and so I went and took a two hour nap to ponder it.

When I got up, I didn't even think about dinner. I knew I could eat whatever was in the kitchen, and I would not hear any complaints about it. I ended up going to my mom's and eating a baked potato. I came home, and walked around my silent house, and didn't so much as glance at the t.v. It remained off. I blogged, and talked on the phone, and then read my book until my eyes were so heavy I couldn't stay awake another minute. I was going to clean, but then I thought, who cares? I picked up a few things, and pretty much left the rest.

I want to get the house all clean because it will be so nice to have a clean house all to myself, but I'm torn between walking around in silence, and actually doing something productive, and so I've been reading blogs all morning instead. This is great. I can deal with this for a week. I'll be glad for her to be home, but right now I just enjoying this quiet messy paradise. I should clean the house, but I will probably take a nap instead.

Underwear Chewer Extraordinaire

What Is It With The Underpants?

Don't answer that. I think we all know, and we don't need to say a word about it. These things should never be spoken about, only contemplated silently. I'm a little concerned about my baby's uncanny knack to find pre-worn underwears--we won't say dirty as that is a little harsh--and drag them out into the living room. Just a side note, from here on out we will be referring to the puppy as "the baby" please allow me this eccentricity, (I think that is a word, if not it is now) and go along with this strange request, all righty? Thanks. I'm only drinking sweet tea here folks. Just tea.

Anyway, it is a little embarrassing when the whole family, including the extended family, is sitting around watching movies on the huge couch, and the baby comes barreling down the stairs with a freshly worn pair of under pants on his head. Ah hahaha it's so funny, unless it's your underwear the baby is dragging around and trying to kill by shaking them violently back and forth while he clenches them with all of his might with his tiny razor sharp baby teeth. For privacy sake we will not say exactly whose underwear were on display, but lets just say that her sister of course had to remind her of the time that she (the sister) tacked all of her underwear to the ceiling in her room while she was away at a slumber party.

Not only did she do that, but this prankster sister also stuck a gigantic maxi pad in this same innocent person's back pack hoping that it would fall out at the slumber party and embarrass the poor girl half to death. It was the age you see. This same sister laughed her butt off when the poor girl told her she found the maxi pad and was so embarrassed that she threw it behind her friend's washing machine just so the other girls would not see it, and only confessed to the friend years later when getting a period wasn't such an embarrassing fact of life, and she and the friend laughed their asses off about it later.

So, of course the sister of the person whose underwear was being dragged around shamelessly by the baby found it quite amusing because that is how she is. The husband of this person just put his hand over his mouth and tried not to laugh. He is always fussing and saying that this person leaves her undies laying around, which is completely not true, but he keeps saying it. He is only saying it because she made fun of him one time because she noticed that the cats keep dragging his boxer briefs into the cat box, along with his socks.

The baby has amassed quite a pile of various household items to include undies, stuffed animals, stray socks, leashes, and the real chew toys. His favorite by far is this monster. He likes to get the monster and kill it. It has eyes that rattle so I think it makes it seem more like the monster is fighting back. He really likes the monster, and underwear, but we don't talk about that.

The Girl Dog Assistant Blogger

She Likes To Sit At The Kitchen Table With Me.

And I let her. What kind of example am I setting here? It's too late now. She's already become accustomed to having things her way. We do at least make her get down if we are going to eat, so we are not totally trashy all right? I mean what's is so wrong about letting the dog sit at the kitchen table if she wants to? Huh? Tell me.

It sort of cracks me up because my father in law doesn't like animals all that much, and the last time he came to visit we sat down at the kitchen table, and here she comes up on the seat next to him and just sitting there. The look on his face was priceless. Really. I know he wanted to say something, but he didn't. So, I made her get down, and she went and put her paws on his legs and tried to give him kisses, which I could tell annoyed him because as I said, he is not much of an animal person. Instead of letting him dangle there, as much as I get a kick out of that, I put her outside, and of course she and the other one started barking like fools out there. Great. I can't win.

Look, my great-aunt Ducky used to say, "There is something wrong with people that don't like animals and children" and I think she was right. What is it about animals that they have this uncanny knack of picking out the one person in the room that does not like them? I mean really.

The Clock Is Ticking

These Eggs Aren't Getting Any Younger.

The puppy coming to live with us has brought out some strange feelings in me. I find myself treating the puppy like a baby, and well, he is a baby, just not of the human variety. I thought my sister was certifiable a few years ago when she told me she wanted to have a baby, and had even thought about going to a sperm bank. Not that wanting to have a baby makes one crazy, or that even going to a sperm bank does either, but that her daughter was 16 years old, and well, why start all over again, plus, I know some people wait to have children later in life, but I never really thought that was ideal for most people.

And so, upon the advice of a close and trusted confidante my sister went out and got a puppy instead. She said it completely took away her urge to have another baby. I thought she was sort of wacko at the time, especially since she got herself a boxer puppy. The puppy went on to slowly chew up an entire couch. She spent 40 hours a week working to bring home fresh chew toys, and he systematically destroyed as much furniture as possible in the process. Not exactly a win win if you ask me, but she is happy with the dog. Who am I to judge?

Well, I can somewhat understand that feeling now although I didn't need a couch eater to set me straight with my own biological time clock, but I do sort of have a strong nurturing feeling while cuddling my little poopy butt pup. He doesn't really have a poopy rear end, but I would totally put a diaper on him if he had that problem, that's how much I feel the need to take care of the baby. He is a baby, completely and totally, and something about that is so wonderful for me.

I told my husband the other day that he is the second child that I never got to have, and of course he looked at me like I was completely bonkers. I said, "You just don't understand, I just like to hold him and cuddle him, and love him because I never got to have that second baby, and now it is too late. And I'm okay with it, but one of us needs to take measures to make sure that we don't have any surprises that we weren't expecting." And then he agreed that I should do that.

I just looked at him because I knew he was yanking my chain, and I said, all right, I'll go get my tubes tied then, and he said, that he would go get his stuff done so I don't have to. I think he was dreading me showing him my c-section scar as a reminder of what I went through to have the one child we do have. It is a particularly hideous scar, not the horizontal kind, but the vertical kind which was out of date even when I had my c-section, but I guess my doctor was also out of date as well. I'm just glad I lived, I mean I did give birth in a military hospital afterall, I'm lucky to be alive even if I do bear a hideous scar. And of course my extremely compassionate Dr. said, "well, you aren't exactly the type to wear a bikini now are you?" Well, I certainly can't now even if I was, but I'm not any way, and really the scar has never bothered me all that much, except the first few years when it was very sensitive.

This puppy has confirmed a few things for us: my sister and I are kooks who think a puppy can fix the desire to have children--and we are right, I love baby talking the puppy, and my husband and I realized we don't really want any more children, and one of us is going to get fixed here real soon, and I've got a hideous scar that provides me a great deal of leverage in that decision, but I would just like to say here and now, I will do it if he decides the idea of getting snipped is too much for him. I know it is an easier procedure for men, but still, I hate the idea of him being in pain at all, but I'm sure some good drugs would be involved, so it probably won't be too bad.

First Thing's First

Get A Load Of This.

All right, a few moments before this picture was taken, he was had completely flipped over his little "house" there and was walking around with it on him completely blind. It was hilarious watching him scuttle around with his house on his head. Adorable. Puppy Power!!!

Stuffed Peppers

Mucho Caliente.

See, I can speak some Spanish. Actually, I studied it the first time I was in college and found it a very nice language to learn, as opposed to French, which I enjoyed, but Spanish was more beautiful sounding to me. This is why no one related to me reads this blog, I can't just tell the story, I have to go on and on with side details. I can't help it. This is how I talk. I like to give the back ground first, but in this case whether I studied Spanish or not is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story as I remember it.

It is pepper season. I went to the Farmer's Market one day, walked past a bin of peppers and inhaled the most wonderful scent. I paused, "What is that wonderful smell?" I found a bag of roasted peppers with the display and held it up to my nose and breathed in the warm pepper scent. It was delightful. I thought, "I wonder how people use these peppers?" I have never cooked with them before. I know my friend makes green chili so I decided to ask her, and later she told me everything I needed to know to be make all sorts of use out of those wonderful roasted peppers. It is a new avenue in cooking I have to explore.

Now, my brother, at one of our bbq's, made stuff jalapenos. Actually, they were kind of like jalapeno poppers you might get at a restaurant. It was a very simple recipe: half the jalapenos, discard the seeds, fill with garden veggie, or chive and onion cream cheese, wrap with bacon and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, those at sea level may need adjust the cooking time on that. Anyway, just watch 'em and cook the bacon all the way. They are pretty yummy. My husband loves them.

The last time he was home he asked that we make some of these stuffed peppers, and we carted off to the store to get the 3 ingredients. There we stood in the produce section analyzing the jalapeno peppers. I grabbed a plastic bag and began grabbing and throwing the peppers in the bag. There were 4 baskets of them, so I proceeded to pick and choose the best peppers from each basket. My husband said, "Whoa, hold on a minute there, those say they are habanero peppers" I looked at the sign, and said, "No, those are jalapenos, they must just have it labelled wrong, we're fine."

As soon as we got home we began assembling the peppers. My husband began slicing and removing the innards, and I reminded him, "Don't touch your face or your eyes, or you will seriously regret it, oh, and your hands will probably burn for the rest of the day." At one point I saw him at the sink throwing water on his face, his eyes were watering, and his whole face looked distorted, his nose started running, and I said, "You touched your face didn't you?" He shook his head yes, and continued to water. It eventually calmed down for him, and we cooked our peppers.

Now, we had made these things on two other occasions, and every thing was fine, but this time was different. My husband took one huge bite out of a pepper and got a very strange look on his face. "These are really hot" he said. "Uh oh, do you think we might have got the habanero peppers after all?" I wondered. "I don't know, maybe it was just a really hot one." He thought.
I decided to risk it and took a cautious bite out of one of the peppers, my mouth was immediately engulfed in flames. "Oh my gosh, fire just shot across my tongue, I think we must have grabbed the habanero peppers." We both started laughing at our mistake, and decided we would try a few more since we had gone to so much trouble to make all of these darn things. We simultaneously each stuck a whole pepper in our mouths, and chewed them up, and that is when things got really bad. We were in excruciating pain. We asked our 12 year old to drive us to the hospital, but she refused. We laughed at our foolishness and imagined the doctors in the E.R. when we came busting through the doors with our mouths bleeding, and our 12 year old parking the car.

Well, we couldn't really eat them. They were scary hot for us, and we tried to eat them, but we both kept thinking, which ones are habaneros and which one are jalapenos? We just couldn't tell because we are ignorant in the way of peppers, and so I called my friend again, and she told me, "Habaneros don't look like jalapenos, they are sort of an orangish color!" Man, did I ever feel stupid. We were eating jalapenos all along, but they were particularly hot at least to our tongues. No, it is probably because when we had made them before they were not a really hot bunch maybe because they weren't in season then, it just so happens the ones we bought this time had a lot more fire in them. You can never tell with a pepper I guess.

Yesterday we bought some more jalapenos to try it again, this time they actually had habanero peppers and they looked nothing like jalapenos. You live and you learn. We will make them today.

Oh Hi

Guess I Am Supposed To Write Stuff Here?

And here too? All right. I will. A few things. Home schooling keeps me very busy. It is somewhat like having a second job, which is perfectly fine, but it comes with a tad bit of sacrifice of certain leisurely pleasures, blogging to name just one. I think it is totally worth all of it though. It is going splendidly so far, even though the kiddo sometimes wants to gaff off the work, I still see progress being made, and I believe in my ultimate heart of hearts that it was the best thing to do. In fact, I wish I had done this years ago, but we can't turn back time, so we just have to make do with what we have now.

The house has gone to the weeds. Somehow when I imagined myself homeschooling, I had this image of being able to do housework, my own school work, and give the kiddo her lessons, pretty much all at the same time. Don't fault me for thinking too big, I really thought I could do it. Then, one day I had an epiphany, I realized, I can't do all of that. I can't work, go to school, and home school, so I gave up the most obvious choice, I dropped all of the classes I had registered for before school even started. I thought, "I had my chance to go to college and I screwed it off, it is her turn for an education, not mine." With that, I knew I could not serve 3 masters, it would be just too much. Best decision I could have made if you ask me.

I want to talk about something. You know Rodney Dangerfield's routine about not getting any respect? I sometimes think I have the same problem. Lately I've been asking myself, why is it people think they have the right to question my personal choices and decisions? I mean really, if I tell you I am homeschooling my child, do you think you have the right to question that decision? Do you think you have the right to grill me about socialization, and how I am doing it, and what I am doing? I mean seriously. I have had people actually look dumbfounded that I would make such a choice. Here is a thought, I don't have to answer to you. All right?

So, I have patented an answer for the nosy busy bodies out there, who did not give a hoot about my faulty decision in the past to leave my precious child in the public education system which was a complete and utter failure for her: "Well...I gave the school system 7 years with my child, and for seven years I was told, she can't do this, and she can't do that, and one day I realized, she CAN do this, and she CAN do that, but she needs some help getting there, so I decided not to wait any more for the system to finish screwing up her education, and let her graduate from high school functionally illiterate, and so I have taken control of her education, which I should have done years ago."

And then, nine times out of ten they say, "Oh. Well, what are you doing about her socialization?" To which I kindly reply, "I'm not letting her go to school every day where the other kids call her dumb and stupid." Excuse my language, but FUCK socialization. Seriously. I am so sick of hearing that. Do you have any idea what kind of crap your kids are being exposed to at school? Mind you, none of these same people ever questioned what kind of socialization my kid was getting before home schooling. They were not concerned at all about how vulnerable she was to bullying, and abuse by other children, and even school staff.

Next thing, we got a puppy. Even though I said I wouldn't, I changed my mind and got one. I do that. I'm wishy washy that way. I don't know why this is a topic of debate for anyone who doesn't live in this house, but of course, my neighbors have added their little two cents to the discussion. Well, only one neighbor, and it wasn't the bitchy fat one across the street either, it was the friendly one behind us. This one, she has always been friendly, and nice, but for some reason she thinks it is all right to flat out question my decisions. She thinks we should raise our dogs a certain way, and do certain things with them.

I see her exasperated sometimes because she is running from this trainer, to that trainer with her dogs, and she and her husband foster dogs. They like dogs, but they live in a different situation than we do. She can leave her dogs out in the back yard any time she likes, and since they are not directly facing the street there, they don't bark at every leaf that blows across the street,but they do bark, it is just people can't see them bark. Mine don't bark at every leaf blowing, but they do bark at every pedestrian that passes by our fence. She knows we have this problem with our dogs. She sees us out there with them all the time hushing, and shooing them for barking at the fence.

So she says, "Oh you got a puppy, what does your husband think about that? You had to go get a little yipper huh?" I'm not kidding you. That is what she said. My husband came home, and he was less than happy that I got the puppy. I was a bit surprised at that since he had just said a week or two before that when our daughter was asking for a puppy that maybe we should just get one. Anyway, I said, "Well honey, no matter how you feel about my decision, if the neighbor asks you what you think of the puppy, just tell her you love it. I don't want her having the satisfaction of thinking you don't like it, she will gloat over it."

We were going to grill out that day, and so my husband went to set up the grill, and the first thing she asked him, with a smirk I might add, "So, what do you think of the new puppy?" He said, and this is why I love him so much, he won't let anyone else gloat on me, "Oh, I love it, he's great." Well, he came in the house, and said, "Man, you are good, you've got her pegged." When he said that, I knew exactly what had happened. I told him, "thank you honey, I always know you have my back, even if you are not particularly happy with me about it, she doesn't need to know that."

I shouldn't have got the puppy without a definite okay from him. I know that, he knows that. I generally don't do stuff like that. It really was an impulse decision. I am used to making decisions without him around, but I usually try to check out what he is thinking on something before I do something big. He generally trusts my judgment but if I do something he disagrees with, he can be a bear about it of course, but he usually forgives it.

Anyway, I've been running into this problem with people a lot lately, which means, maybe I should check myself. I am pretty good at pushing my own opinions around as well, I have been wondering how many times I've come across with other people this way. How many times have I overstepped the bounds of a conversation and poked my nose where it didn't belong? Knowing myself means, probably too many times. Well, I don't like it when people do it to me, so I am going to really concentrate on not acting this way myself.

Last night we cleaned the kiddo's room. OH MY GOSH! What a horrible pig stye. I guess I haven't actually opened her closet door in a while because when I did I wanted to cry. Everything under the sun, except what was supposed to be, was stuffed in there. Well, two hours later, we had moved the furniture around, and completely cleaned that room. We got rid of a bunch of stuff, including the big toy box, which is going to be given away. She put her new bedding on the bed, and we plan to get new curtains, and some posters. We are going to make it more of a big kid's room, and really cool.

As for the rest of the house, it is not going to clean itself, unfortunately, that technology hasn't been invented yet, so I better get a move on. Which reminds me, I totally wanted to live in a house like the Jetsons when I was a kid. I had amazing foresight as a child I guess. Be back soon. Hugs.

My Neighbor Might Have Found My Blog

Or Cuckoo For Coco Puffs.

Someone doing a search on ''barking dogs property value" showed up. She left the following comment on this post:

"Morrigan is so right - dogs belong in the country where they can run. Keeping a dog on a city or suburban lot is cruel and just plain selfish. Have you ever seen your dog run at truly full speed? I am not talking about scampering around the yard. They need about a football-field-size space to adequately exercise. Taking them on a leash when you're jogging is woefully inadequate - it's only one step above shackles and chains. (End of soapbox rant.)"--Angela

Firstly, she quite misinterpreted Morrigan's comment. I also took this Angela person's comment as a sort of cheap pot shot at me, and pretty much anyone who has dogs that doesn't live in the country. Apparently, I am cruel and just plain selfish because my poor lazy dogs don't have the opportunity to run free in the country. Let me clear up one thing first, I don't JOG, all right. Suggesting that I take my dogs on a leash while I jog is just passive aggressive. Angela is probably some skinny celery eating SUBARU driver.

Why yes I have seen my dog run at full speed, WHEN I took them to the "football-field-sized-space" a block from my house. Amazing huh? Who woulda thunk us city folkses had big ole lumps o' dert big enuff fer our critters to run out in the open huh?

Oh Angela, thank you for the rant, and the lecture. I'm sure all of the hundreds of millions of dog owners that don't live in the country thank you as well. We appreciate Subaru drivers who can point out our faults and set us straight. We're just selfish city dwellers after all.

I am sure you make a great neighbor by the way. I've got some really good ones like you too. What would the world be without people like you? I'm sure dogs would be a lot happier if we just opened up the doors and said, "Go Be Free, Stretch Your Legs Dog, No More Bondage For You Slaves to Beggin' Strips, No More Couch Sleeping!" Get out there you poor tortured creatures, throw off your collars and your shackles and run, run, run.

This reminds me of a story my dad used to tell when we were kids. He would say, "Do you know about the agreement that man made with the dogs and cats in the cave?" I would say "No, what?" And he would say, "Way back in the earliest days man made a pact with the dogs and the cats."

"The Dogs agreed to help man watch over his cave, and in exchange man agreed that he would give the dogs meat and bones. The cats agreed that they would keep the cave free of vermin, and in exchange man would give the cat meat to eat."

"And to this day, the dogs and cats and man have kept their agreement, and over time the cats and the dogs have become pets, and man their care taker, but the dogs still help guard the cave, and the cats still keep the cave free of vermin, and man still feeds the dogs and cats, it is quite a wonderful arrangement."

I always loved my dad's way of telling this so much better. I tried to tell it as close to how he did, but he did it so much better.

There, I took a negative and turned it into a positive.

Bleh

Too Busy.

I'm too busy lately. Will catch up later. So busy.

Puppy Go Night Night

You Will Hate Me For This.

Eeee. Awww. Ittle Wittle Punkin' Pie go night night? Ahh, da wittle Punkin pie give keeses. Oh da little baby puppy is so cute and cuddly. I wuv him. I WUV heem! Look Car Car, look at the little Punkin' pie, give him kisses Car Car. Give baby brother kisses Car Car. Aww, ok Puppers go night night now.

I can't stop talking baby talk to the puppy, and it is making people hate me, but not as much as I hate myself. All right. I know I said I wasn't going to get a puppy, no way, no how, but I just couldn't resist. He was the cutest most cuddly little thing I ever did see, and I found him completely irresistible, he pulled me into his powerful vortex of fluffy cuteness and try as I might I could not get out of it, so I got him. He is a baby Pomeranian for goodness sakes, I can only think of two classes of people that can resist a baby pom pom, and they are either incarcerated, or members of a terrorist cell, and even most hardened criminals could not resist a baby pom pom, anyone else not capable of loving such a creature is not worth knowing as far as I am concerned.

Save your lectures ok. It's done. I wasn't going to say anything since I made such a big enormous stink a few posts down about how I was not going to get a puppy, but this is me. Hello, I'm flaky and wishy washy, and somewhat indecisive. I got a new puppy. We love him, and named him Pumpkin, and no my husband did not leave me, although he probably did think about it, but still, I've caught him cuddling the little guy far too often for him to deny liking the little critter. So there.

Odd Things

Underwears Advice.

I hate that people find this site on anonymous searches. I wish I could just be invisible to google. I probably shouldn't blog since that is the case. I pretty much know "who" is visiting this site, and I'm thrilled with some of the visitors who stop by, I just hate the anony search peeps. What bothers me about it is that every so often a perve ends up coming through here as a result of some strange search. Thankfully, this is very rare, but when it does happen it leaves me feeling dirty.

When I wrote the post about spanking, I almost didn't want to post it because I was afraid that it would bring some freaks out of the woodwork, and it has to some extent. Just check the ole site meter referrals thingy at the bottom of the page. That shows what is bringing some people here.

Just ignore the stalker who visits 20 times a day and views 15 pages each time. That is me. I recently commented over at Dustbury blog that at one time I thought I had a stalker because this same person kept coming by so much. It turns out it was me. I was stalking myself. I thought I had clicked the "ignore my own visits" feature, but for some reason it didn't take, and well, I'm by far the most frequent visitor to this page which does nothing more than feed my deep seated fears that I actually have no life.

Anyway, got an interesting search, someone from India wants to know, "Why cannot thong be used routinely as a underwear, bikini" ? It is an excellent question really. Why not? Well, I've covered this before, but let me briefly summarize: It is not comfortable going around with a piece of fabric wedged up in your gluteal cleft, or in layman's terms, your butt crack. It just isn't. So, before running out and buying the latest in thong bikini fashion and wasting $5.00 at the Wal-Mart store, try this simple test, grab your granny panties by the elastic waist, and pull them up, pull 'em up as far as they will go, until your cheeks are fully exposed, then walk around the house like that for 5 hours.

During this time I highly recommend performing some house hold chores like vacuuming, mopping, and pulling weeds, and if at any point you feel the overwhelming urge to reach behind and pull those nagging drawers out of your crack, you are not a candidate to wear a thong routinely as underwear. It is fool proof method of finding out if you were made to wear your underwears up your butt. If you manage to pass this test, then by all means, you are one of the chosen few and you will be blessed with invisible panty lines the rest of your days. Good luck.

I Got Embarrassed

About My Filthy Mouth.

It is one thing to rattle off dirty words while driving during rush hour, it is an entirely different thing to see it all in print. I decided to remove a couple of posts. If you missed it, don't worry, it was no big deal, just a bunch of ranting and raving and cussing. If you saw it, well, I'm sorry, sometimes I do run off at the mouth. I just don't want to look back a year from now and see a written record of my transgressions.

Yeah, I'm flaky, and extremely wishy washy. These are not my better traits, but I don't want to be a vortex of negativity here, so I won't continue to list my faults. I will be even more considerate and not list my great attributes either. Blogging is narcissistic enough as it is, that sure is a hard word to spell, without tooting one's own horn every chance you get.

All righty, it seems there will be an outage tonight at 11:00PM PDT, I don't know what PDT stands for other than Pacific D Time, it is the D part I'm having trouble with. And I can't remember if Pacific is an hour or two hours behind where I am. Boy, I'm really showing off my smarts here. One in five U.S. Americans doesn't know what time it actually is where they live, and to add insult to injury, they can't find the U.S. on a map. Personally, I blame Communism.

Have a wonderful day, or night, or whatever time it is where ever you are.

One Day

Day One.

Whew. We successfully completed day one of home schooling. What a relief. I can say this now, I have been nearly having anxiety attacks about this thing. I know that sounds completely dramatic to say it that way, but I have really been nervous about it. What can I say? I just don't want to screw this up. Anyway, I think we both have had an enormous confidence boost by our success today.

I'm not going to say it was easy because it wasn't, but we made it, and I only started to yell once. My friend who home schooled her kids told me "no matter what, don't yell at her." I understand her logic on that, and want to keep this really positive. I think she pretty much hates it so far, but I caught her being interested a couple of times. I watched her completely shut down and tune me out a couple of times as well, it was hard to pull her back in. Well we are both new to this so I guess we will go through some rough patches until we get a good rhythm going.

Honestly, I was having trouble figuring out what exactly I was supposed to do with all the books and stuff I ordered, some subjects did not come with workbooks, but are covered online. There is an online portion with the curriculum, and it was a little confusing as to how it all fit together, hence, starting a day later than we planned. Long story short, we dove in head first today, and finally figured things out. Man, I can't imagine doing this without some sort of plan to follow. That is going to help immensely.

We worked for 6 hours with a few breaks thrown in here and there. It took us a bit longer I think because we had to go through all of the supplies to get this and that item we needed, now we sort of have a better feel for what goes with what. I think we are going to do just fine, and I can say with confidence that my child is now one of the U.S. Americans that can find the U.S. on a map. That's pretty cool. She liked the geography stuff.

So, that was day one. Just one day. I think we are going to be all right.

Oh My Look At The Time

It's September Already.

I love fall, but I also love summer, and honestly, I'm not ready for it to be over yet. Maybe when the trees start turning I will feel better about it, but right now it is just sort of depressing. I guess there is nothing left to do but look forward to it. Maybe I will get some good pictures of the trees this year that might make me feel better. I see some trees are starting to give a hint that they will start turning soon.

At least cooler weather will be nice, it is still quite warm around here.

Are You Thankful Enough?

I Need Work In That Area.

As my husband was preparing to go to work, I whined, "Aww, I wish you didn't have to go, this sucks." He said, "I know." And almost immediately I ate my words. "Gosh, listen to me honey, I have nothing to complain about, we have more time together than anyone we know, and still I have the nerve to whine, I should be more thankful for what I have." He agreed, and we laughed about it.

The thing is, we do have it pretty darn good. He works two weeks a month, and I work 3 days a week, and the rest of the time we have each other. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. I know I should be so thankful for what I have, and I truly am. We have come a long long way. Back in 2004 after he left the military, we claimed just a little over 10 thousand dollars as our income that year. Just 10 thousand dollars for a whole year, and yet, we were happy. We were driving really old cars, and renting out his father's house, but we were all right.

We did have the foresight to realize that we could not go on like that forever, that old cars break down and we were one financial crisis away from completely going down the tubes. We were looking for jobs, and he took a job at a factory nearby putting little bitty ball bearings in pad locks. He worked long hours and made squat for money, but he did it. I applied for job after job, and for the first time in my life had difficulty finding employment. Then he got a job at a hospital as the laundry supervisor. The man who hired him was particularly interested in his background in the Marine Corps, we later realized that what the man wanted was a drill sergeant to whip that slovenly crew into shape.

My husband did his best, but had never worked in the "civilian" world, and soon found that people did not respond to Marine Corps leadership tactics. That people did not just follow orders, and did not accept being yelled at. It was a learning experience for him. He applied for a different position, one that did not involve managing people who refused to be managed, and he seemed much more happy. He had a little desk job, we had health insurance, and all seemed well with the world. The desk job didn't pay much, but it was steady, and decent employment.

I was still struggling to find employment, and eventually got a job at a grocery store at the customer service desk. It paid 7.00/hour, and sucked. This was the time that I made the revelation that grocery store customers are the rudest customers in all land. I had worked fast food as a youngster, and even there was treated more politely than at the customer "service" desk. Perhaps people were less inclined to mouth off to someone fixing their food than someone behind a desk, or maybe in the almost 20 years since I worked in that type of job people had just become total assholes. I can't say which is for sure.

It was working at the customer service desk that I realized that being called a stupid idiot by senior citizens wearing too much rouge was just not my bag, and so I started imagining myself working elsewhere. I had no idea that so many drunk people frequented the customer service desk, but it was there that I discovered that people will return a half eaten loaf of moldy bread, and expect a refund, which they will then take to the nearest liquor store and buy the biggest bottle of Night Train they can get their hands on. Well, we sold the cigarettes, and drunks like cigarettes, and lottos too for that matter.

Oh the lotto players. I still get in line behind them at the 7-11 and want to shoot myself. What a process. These people are hard core, and they are always out in droves on Sunday mornings when I am trying to get to work. What possesses people to get up so early just to exchange their losing scratch tickets is beyond me, but I have seen a pattern. I always feel for the clerks because the lottery ticket people used to drive me nuts. They come in with handfuls of the things, and it can get really confusing.

The day that the old lady stood there and asked me if I was some sort of idiot or something, and my boss stood right next to me and said nothing was the day that I knew I was not humble enough to work there. Luckily there was another plan for me, and an old friend helped me get back to a place that I had loved working before, and after a fairly simple process of jumping through hoops and giving a lock of my dead grandmother's hair, I was hired on some where much nicer where the customers have some manners. I have been there ever since.

I have never so much as set foot in the grocery store I worked at, no matter what they have on sale, and I probably never will. It was not just the customers who were beyond rude, but the management at that store was particularly hateful. I just have no desire to shop there now.

Well, I had the good job, hubby had a good job, and we were doing fine, but really my husband was underemployed, and we knew he could do better. We didn't know how, or what, but we knew he could find a better job. He says he was quite content and that I told him to look for a better job, and that is the truth of the matter. I knew that I had a decent income that could carry us in the interim, and when my dad mentioned that the oil and gas industry was looking for a few good men, my husband looked into it, and being the go getter that he is, he landed himself a job on a rig, and started making 3 times the amount of money he was making sitting at the desk.

And here we are. We've got every reason to be thankful. We both work very hard in physical jobs, but we are happy. I wanted to go to school, but that is not happening right now, and I can live with that for the time being. I may never go back to school, I just don't know. I just know that right now I have to give my daughter that chance. I had my chance when I was younger, I made my choices, and have to live with them.

My dad always says, "People make a series of choices that get them to the place they are." I think he is right. We made a series of choices, but we also took calculated risks as well, and in our case that worked out for the better. We both agree that God had a hand in the whole thing, and that he knows where he wants us to be. We could not have planned this better. Now, we are in a position to homeschool our daughter, and that is something we never planned for, but we are able to do. It is funny how things work out sometimes.

We know from experience things can change at any time. We know we must remain flexible, and be able to make it through the hard times. I think at times we both wonder when the other shoe is going to drop, but we're trying to enjoy things while we can. We sure do have a lot to be thankful for.