A Blissful Fury

Bullying

2010-10-08T19:38:00.002-04:00

Bullying has been in the media a lot lately, with so many teens taking their lives because of it. I was bullied as a child and it hurt and affected me greatly until I was an adult, so I can relate to this kids to a point, but in reality, these children had it much, much worse.

Imagine everytime your phone alerted you to a text, that it was someone wanting to say something mean and nasty to you, going so far as to say they wish you would just die already. Imagine everytime you logged onto your Facebook, or your MySpace, you saw messages from co-workers calling you awful names. Calling you a slut, a whore, a piece of shit that should just die, a faggot, a lesbian. After reading these wall posts or messages, and recieving these texts, you log onto yahoo to talk to your actual friends, and then are bombarded with IM's from people who again wish you would just go away. Then, after ALL this, you have to go and face them at work the next day. Maybe, someone took an embarrassing photo or video of you and had passed it on to all your co-workers on top of all the harrassment. As an adult, this would be hard to handle. I don't know how I would react in this situation. Now, imagine all this happening to you when you were a hormonal teenager.

Today's tweens and teens have to deal with so many different aspects of bullying that we as children never had to experience. A child can be bullied quite literally 24 hours a day, 7 days a week between school and internet and cell phone. There has been such a wide jump in technology from when we were children to now, I think sometimes as parents, we don't realize that by blessing our children with fancy cell phones and internet access, we're also opening them up to potentially becoming victims. Sure, we're aware of internet pedophiles and accidental access to porn sites, but how many of us actually stop to see what other children are saying to our children. Better yet, how many of us are checking to see what OUR OWN children are saying to ANOTHER child.

Bullies have parents too, and often times those parents are clueless to what they're children are doing, and in some cases the parents ARE aware, and are helping their child bully another as was the case with Megan Meier. The mother of a girl who picked on Megan, made a fake MySpace account, pretending to be a boy who wooed and then suddenly turned on Megan, who then hung herself. Yes, the MOTHER and the mother's assistant played with this childs heart and emotions. She participated, knowingly and willingly in this abuse and the child DIED.

My heart breaks when I read another story of another child taking their own lives because they feel like they have no other option. It worries me even more when I hear so many dismissive comments from people who think this is all normal.

We all need to realize that today's kids really DO have it much worse than we did as a children when it comes to bullying. This isn't some bleeding heart liberal reteric I'm spewing. If we all just stop and think about how different the lives the kids lead now in general and then apply it to bullying, you can see how it's different.

About a year ago a young boy somehow got my number and harrassed me on my cell phone for a few days. He didn't say anything really bad. Used some curse words and things like that. At first, I thought it was funny, then it became tedious, and then I got angry. The angrier I got, the more gleeful he became. It got to the point where the sound of my phone ringing made me nervous. I became jumpy. I felt helpless because he always hid his number so I couldn't call back. I didn't know who he was and why he was picking on me of all people and I'm an adult. I can't even imagine how much worse I would feel if I was a teen and I KNEW who was harrassing me and then I had to face them at school the next day.

If we all work together, maybe we can change this horrible trend. It's going to take us as adults, parents especially to make this stop.

Getting Out In the World Today!

2010-09-15T08:48:00.002-04:00

Ooooh today I'm doing something kind of crazy. Kind of.... kooky. I'm LEAVING THE HOUSE!! Not just for a quick errand or stop at the grocery store. I'm going to more than one place, and some of it involves another person. So, if you're wondering.. yes I will be taking a shower today thank you very much.

Let's get this out on the table ok? I am a homebody. Seriously. I like staying at home, and doing nothing. I LIKE talking to my dogs all day. I do! They don't talk back, but I see that they love it when I talk to them, and dress them in the kids old baby clothes, pushing Cuddles in a stroller while carrying Louie in the sling. They LOVE it..... er. Uh. Ahem. Yeah I mean just TALK to them. That's it. None of that other stuff.

Random aside... I new a new ringtone. My mother in law just called me, and I never realized how annoying the Dulcimer can be. Sheesh!

Anyway, what I was saying is that I am a homebody. That's just the way I am. I like to stay home, and sleep. I know it sounds like I have issues, and at one time I would probably agree with you, but I don't know. Sleeping is just.. well it's nice. Who doesn't like sleeping? Oh yeah weirdos like my mom. You know it's bad when your therapist purposely schedules your appointments before ten so you have to get up early because he thinks it's good for you.

I HAVE tried this week to make it a point not to go back to bed after the kids leave. Two out of three days I've done it. Yesterday I had to because I had raging insomnia the night before. I don't know why, but it was pretty bad, laying in bed until 3 am. Last night I decided to take melatonin to help me sleep. Within 15 minutes I was knocked out. It was weird to wake up and see that the clock said 2:12 and I had been asleep for awhile at this point. Usually, I'm awake at 2 am.

So, yep gonna shower and put my going to town clothes on and have myself a fun day. :) And the dogs can run around nude while I'm gone.

CrAsian

2010-09-13T11:08:00.004-04:00

Ok, so this blog has completely fallen to the wayside and I know that, and I suck. What can I say? I suck!!

So, Saturday after the kids left with their dad, I headed out for my facial appointment and I was late. I was late because dickhead got there late. My plan was to shower after the kids left. He was supposed to pick them up at 11. Of course he didn't pick them up until noon. If he had just called and SAID he was going to be late, then I would have showered before he got there, but you know how it is, you hold off thinking it will be a few minutes and you keep doing that until you're like FUCK! I kept thinking.. if I shower, he'll show up and then I'll be nude WHILE HE'S HERE and well that's just unacceptable. Bad enough he has the impeccable timing to know when I'm pantless to show up at the door. Usually when I know he's coming, I get up at dawn, dress in a burka and wait JUST IN CASE.

Anyway, so I'm driving to my facial appointment and I've got the windows down, and I'm speeding, because that's how I drive. I'm not crazy speeder, but you know.. you gotta go a little fast, you're in a big metal box with an engine and wheels. In others words.. WHEEEEE! So, why drive slow? I'm also a bit aggravated because, and this was my own fault, I had to pack a bag before I left because after my appointment I was going to my guy friends house to hang out and stay the night. No you can't know his name. No he's not officially my boyfriend. No you can't have any details other than there is a person with a penis who I visit every chance I get that is NOT my boyfriend... yet. Like that little yet? Thought so, it gave me butterflies just typing it. Well, I was driving and realizing I forgot an asston of stuff because dickhead made me late (well, the bag I could have packed while I was waiting, but in the moment it was dickheads fault)

So, I'm driving, speeding and thoroughly distracted, yet I do have the right of mind to know that the salon has a way of sneaking up on me. That I always think I have further to go when BAM there it is and there it goes and the next u-turn is half a mile down the road and I'm late as it is. All this is going through my head, as I'm making a concious effort NOT to miss the salon, that I must remember... HOLY SHIT THERE'S THE SALON and instead of doing the good girl thing and continueing down the way half a mile down the road to make the u-turn I think slamming on the brakes and going over two lanes is the PERFECT idea.

Yeah not so much.

I completely cut off this guy who lays on the horn. Rightfully so, I mean I would have done the same as this guy if I were in his shoes. What I did was foolish and dangerous and all the other negative words that can describe the situation. But, yay for defensive driving on his part, we're both safe, move along have a good day.

So, why did this asshole follow me into the parking lot? Oh yeah, you read that right. He FOLLOWED ME. Now, I'm sweating and getting nervous. He turned down the side street and met me window to window before I could park.

I immediately say to him before he can get a word in "I am SO sorry, I am so sorry, I am so sorry." I must have said that like 5 or 6 times. I really was. I thought he would accept that and move on, but what I was forgetting is he FOLLOWED ME so, no he's going to get his say in.

"WHAT on earth were you thinking? What were you doing? You could have gotten me into a VERY serious accident. What were you thinking?" Ok, he's obviously irate, so I say in a very apologetic voice "I am so sorry sir, I apologize, I wasn't thinking, it was a horrible mistake I'm so sorry." Again thinking he would leave, granted in a huff, but satisfied. AGain, forgetting he chose to FOLLOW ME into the parking lot, so he's got more crazy to spew.

"What is your problem?!? I want to know your thought process!! I could give you a ticket you know. I should give you a ticket! What the HELL were you thinking? What is your problem? Why would you do something so dangerous and foolish?" Again more apologizing from me.

This goes back and forth about 2 more times, almost exactly. Him asking me the same questions (What was I thinking yadda yadda yadda) me apologizing (It was an accident, it was a mistake, I'm sorry).

Finally, I said "Look, I've apologized profusely, I told you I wasn't thinking, I made a mistake, and honestly sir, I don't know what more I can do to convince you I'm sorry. Yes, I could have caused an accident, but there wasn't one. We're both safe, and so are the other drivers, if I could go back and change it, I would but I can't. I'm sorry." Now, I'm saying this in a pissed off voice because I can't believe King Douche can't let this go.

Well, KD didn't like my TONE. He starts shaking his head and pulls out a notepad to take my name and number down. He said to give me his name, I said "Prove your a cop." Yeah. All of a sudden I got more "What were you thinking?" Just on and on and on.

I asked him what more could I do? Did he want money? He looked completely offended. Did he want blood? No, he wanted to know my thought process. Fine, I was driving, the salon came up on my suddenly, and without thinking.. I swerved. End of story. Was this good enough for KD? Nooooooooo. He wanted to harangue me more.

Finally, I burst into tears. Oh yeah. I did. Because the guy became like my dad. I love my dad but when I was a kid, no matter how much I tried to convince him of something, once he made up his mind that was it, and he'd keep going and going until I agreed that I did it too. Then I usually got spanked for lying. It wasn't like a flashback or anything, but it was just... I knew that no matter what I said, this guy wasn't going to be happy until I was completely contrite, and he wasn't going to leave me alone until I got the magnitude of what I had done, but yet he wasn't sure what it was going to take for him to be satisfied either, so harrassing me was the only option and I felt trapped so I cried.

He asked why I was crying I said "A strange man, confronts me in a parking lot? As a single woman you hear these things turning ugly all the time. I don't know you from Adam and here you are screaming at me." Oh but he's only screaming because I got an attitude first. Well, yeah I did. YOU FOLLOWED ME INTO A PARKING LOT TO HARRASS ME DOUCHEBAG.

At this point people are gathered around, Ashley the receptionist came out to check on the situation as she recognized my car, and at this point I was REALLY late. Finally, I pulled into a parking space, crying and yelling things like "Are you happy? Are you satisfied? You followed a strange woman into the parking lot and made her cry on a Saturday, and beautiful Saturday. Are you happy?!?" He starts to pull off and shaking his head he says one last thing "Unbelievable" and I'm all "Oh I'm unbelievable? You're the psycho that followed me into a parking lot to confront me your crazy creepster!!" I grab my purse, and walk in a huff into the salon, while I waited for Molly to take me into the back to start.

As I sit there, I cry, and cry. Not boohoo but, leaky eyes and sniffles. So much so I had to put my sunglasses on. Then when I went back to the darkened room, and explained to Molly what happened, she leaves and i get undressed and lay there crying HARDER. She comes back in and we start talking about it some more, and I'm proffessing my confusion as to why I'm crying so much over it.

As she starts the facial, and I'm still kind of ranting I said "I think the part that pisses me off the most? I was just told I was a bad driver by an ASIAN guy."

2010-03-28T20:11:00.002-04:00

As you can imagine, my world has been turned upside. My marriage, the marriage that I thought was awesome, the one I had no clue was in trouble, could be over. It's only been a little over a week since Tony hit me with the bombshell from halfway around the world. Just thinking about it makes me feel nauseous and flush. According to him, he started talking to a girl from his childhood online, he told her loved her and that he doesn't think we're good together, he's been unhappy for so long, and he doesn't think counseling will work.

To say this came as a shock is an understatement. To say I saw this coming would be a lie. I sit and think of all the things that were said and done before his deployment and I am lost. The man I speak to on the phone, who has so much hatred in his voice, is not the same man who left me a wonderful card in my car for me to find later, that made me weep in the parking lot of a store when I found it. Everyone who knows says it doesn't make any sense. That if he was so unhappy, he is an amazing actor.

How can you fall in love with someone in six weeks online? I know people have done it, but I still don't get it. He says I need to not focus on WHAT happened but why it happened. I don't know why it happened. From what he says our marriage was a "rollercoaster" and to me that is the definition of marriage. He says I was mean, but when I punched, kicked, belittled and treated him like shit, he loved me like a fat kid loves cake. In the last 4 years I've become emotionally stable and for some reason, he doesn't like it. Does he like and miss the crazy me? The one that was angry 24-7? Maybe in his head if I was mad 24-7 then he could tell himself it wasn't about him so much as it was just that I was a crazy person. Now that I'm different, could it be that when I am mad, he finally has to accept that maybe he isn't the saint everyone thinks he is?

I'm sure if you asked him he'd say no. He'd say he's unhappy and that's all that matters. Counseling won't work and our kids aren't worth the effort. He really can't give me a legitimate reason why he feels it won't work other than "I know you" which is his way of saying "You'll never let me live this down and I can't face that forever" well, maybe he should have thought of that beofre he stepped outside his marriage.

I am devastated. I am crushed. I am alone, and as days go on, everyone elses lives move on and I have no one to talk to. I wonder if this was his plan. Knowing I was all alone, and this would give me the most suffering. I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. To scream and cry and rip out my hair. Yet, I don't get that luxury. I have the kids and I have to keep it together for them.

Two days in a row? No way!

2010-02-09T11:06:00.002-05:00

I'm going to try and keep up with this thing. This might sound totally vain, but I love reading through my older entries and sometimes I think "Oh my God, I wrote that and it's pretty damn entertaining." There, that's my little secret for today. Do with it what you will.

Aislinn is turning 10 on Monday. TEN. TEN!! I just can't believe it. Where did the time go? Jonny turned 6 three weeks ago. They're both getting so big, and I am really relishing having two older kids. Life is so much simpler now. No diaper bags, no rushing around and dressing each kid or having to wipe faces and hands as they can now do it themselves. It's pretty awesome.

Funny enough, it does NOT make me want to have another baby. There was a period awhile ago where I thought about babies non stop. Even considered adopting at one point. I realized that it wasn't so much that I wanted a BABY than it was that I wanted something to care for. I got Louie and now Cuddles and I can't begin to tell you how much joy they bring me. Or. Wait. I'll be honest, LOUIE brings me joy. Cuddles hasn't really clicked into our family just yet. She still feels like a visitor, but we're getting there. Maybe if she wasn't such a surly asshat, we'd get there more quickly. Also, we'd get there more quickly if she stopped using the cat as a chew toy and Louie as her whipping boy when she's pissed. I'm tired of looking at his scab.

Anyway, what I'm saying is life feels good. But, I would say that now in Febuary right? Ask me again in July, when I'm all "life sucks and my husband is a dickhead" Actually, Tony will come home right in the midst of all that. I wonder how I'll be?

I really should write in this more huh?

2010-02-08T11:36:00.002-05:00

So, the big thing around here has been Aislinn's diagnosis. She has been diagnosed as ADD, as we knew, but she's also been diagnosed as having Aspergers. As you can imagine, this upset Tony and I very much. Yet, upon reflecting on it, we can't help but to agree that it only makes sense. It explains her maturity level, which is behind other kids and always has been. It explains her clothing issues (and here I thought she was being a pain in the ass). It explains her bossiness and need to control the play with other kids. It explains why she wants to talk to everyone and doesn't get when they're done talking. With an Aspie kid, as they're called they lack empathy more so than another child.

They can't put themselves in other people's shoes. Aislinn controls the play because she can't understand why no one else wants to play lions when she thinks it so freaking fun. Who wouldn't want to play? Even though the clerk asked her a question to be polite, Aislinn can't see that, and therefore will go on and on while the clerk is trying to do her job. Aislinn likes being comfortable and can't understand why she has to look "nice". To her, Pokemon are the coolest thing ever, why does mom and dad not want to talk about it everyday? (we have actually told her no Pokemon talk allowed a few times because we were so sick of it)

Aspergers is one of those disorders that seems misunderstood. The best way I can describe it is an extreme lack of social skills. Boy, does that describe Aislinn to a "T" People think she should be like Rain Man or something, because it's linked with autism. I expect people to throw down a bunch of toothpicks and have her count them when they hear. It's not like that. Especially for girls. She will not need to be put in special ed, or need to live in a home as an adult, or be under our care forever. She can go on and live her life, get married and have children if she so wishes.

Basically, Asperger's makes her a natural rebel. I'm not trying to make it seem super cool or anything, but Aislinn because she thinks differently will always be that argumentative kid that is going to question everything. She doesn't heed societal norms. This can be both a hindrance and a blessing. Aspie kids are also usually very bright and smart, but because they think differently they may have a hard time at school because they don't fit the "mold" which is something I've always complained about in the past with her.

We're working our way through the process. Her teacher has been super helpful, even though Aislinn thinks she hates her. When I told Mrs. N that, she was really upset and sounded like she was going to cry. She's really trying to help her. She allows Aislinn to sit at the island when she needs to work alone, whenever she wants. It's hard because Aislinn has developed a verbal tic. One that is very distracting and loud. Because her ADD is best treated with stimulants, it brings out the tics and makes them worse. Without the stimulants she can't focus, but with them we get tics. Aislinn has always had tics, but I never knew that's what they were. I just thought Aislinn was weird. She's on another medicine to control the tics, but we just started that so I don't know how well it will work. I noticed them a lot less in the last few days, but she also wasn't on her Concerta.

So, all the things that I used to complain about with Aislinn wasn't just because she wanted to make my life miserable. It was because she truly had a medical reason. I feel guilty about that sometimes, but I try not to dwell on it too much. Right now, I'm trying to find the right balance for discipline. One of the hardest things was trying to ignore the verbal tic which is a high pitched screech in her throat. It really just jars you when it's quiet and I can see why the other kids are getting pissed in her class. That was the reason we decided to medicate this tic. The other kids are making fun of her for it. The more they do that, the more she needs to do it, and it's a vicious cycle.

Hopefully, with the right meds and support, Aislinn will achieve greatness in school. She's so smart and her teacher said if we can just get this all working right, Aislinn could easily be a straight A student.

2009-11-29T00:51:00.002-05:00

Facebook is just a time suck isn't it? It never gets old and you can spend hours on there. Aislinn keeps bugging me for a Facebook account and I just can't do it. I can't let her take that step yet. I know she only wants it because she wants to play all the games we play. She's nine, she doesn't necessarily want to social network, know what I'm saying? There are many reasons I don't want her to have one. My main thing is, of course her safety. Sure, I could sit here and watch her like a hawk and approve her friend requests and all that, but who wants to? Then, I'd have to friend her, and then I couldn't post things like "Miley Cyrus is a twat waffle" because she'd want to know what a twat waffle was, and I REALLY don't want to have that conversation.

The other day she complained about her tv in her room. What is wrong with the tv? It doesn't have DVR. That's right. It is not up to her standard because she can't fucking pause it to go to the bathroom, therefore she refuses to watch it Forget that it has like 4,575,893 channels on it, most of those cartoons. What the hell? My tv was black and white and had bunny ears. We didn't have cable until I was 13 and it was only on ONE tv. The one my dad watched. If he was up, we were screwed, we went to the basement and watched Heathcliff through the fuzz on the screen. I once tried to explain the concept of cartoons coming on only in the morning (you usually missed them because of school), in the afternoon (you usually missed those because of homework) and on Saturdays. Sundays sucked because it was church shows and then Tarzan and then the 3 Stooges and then a dumb movie. You didn't WANT to stay home from school, because after the Price is Right, your mom just watched her "stories" and it was always filled with icky kissing and stuff.

Sure, my day would suck if DVR went away, but I grew up where a remote control? THAT was optional and cost more. Our big tv didn't have one, my mom refused to get one because she didn't want us to be lazy. Good in theory, but we just sat really close to the TV so we could be arms length away from the buttons. Coincidentally, we all had bad eyes growing up. My dad just used us kids as the remote. "Start at channel 2 and go up, slow enough so I can see what's on, but not too slow, and I'll tell you when to stop" We just hoped he found something he wanted to watch in the first 2o channels. Most the time we would sit there cycling through so he could see what was on all the channels that happened to be on a commercial when we passed through it the first time.

Another thing she complained about.. no wifi in the car. Seriously. We were driving around doing errands, and I hear this frustrated grunt. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I was trying to go to the global trading center in my Pokemon game, and there's no wifi" she said the last bit with a disgusted sneer. She actually asked me if we could go to a Starbucks or something so we could get wifi. She said we didn't have to go in. I swear I'm not making this shit up. Anytime I sing something the kids don't recognize, Jonny assumes it's from Sesame Street because it sounds like something a dumb baby show like Sesame Street would have in it. Yes, my FIVE year old thinks Sesame Street is for babies. I think I watched it until I was 14. Oscar the Grouch is dumb, but Spongebob is AWESOME, so what does he know?

And if you were wondering... yes I did walk to school uphill both ways during blizzards with paper shoes.. that's the way it was, and gosh darn it we LIKED it.

Three months really?

2009-11-23T11:55:00.002-05:00

That long eh?

I often think I should write in this thing especially when I'm feeling down, but damn if that was the case I'd be on this fucker all day.

So life. Yeah. Well, I guess the big thing would be that Aislinn has fallen on the Asperger's scale. Everything I read about Asperger's though didn't really fit her. I decided to then google Asperger's and girls, since ADD with girls is much different than ADD with boys and yet most of the info is targeted toward boys. I was right. Asp. in girls is much different and once I read up on it, I can totally see it. Asp. girls are more able to adapt to it. They realize more that they are different and therefore have learned to make the appropriate facial reactions and to show more on their faces, also able to get the subtle nuances of sarcasm.

After reading about it, I realized that Aislinn really doesn't get sarcasm THAT well. Just yesterday she swallowed a mint, and she asked if she'd be ok. I said "Oh yeah, you'll be fine, that is until your stomach explodes." You know.. haha. But, she was like "REALLY?!?" We had to literally break it down and let her know that if it was the case, wouldn't we be more concerned?

I will admit getting this diagnosis has been a comfort. It's not ME. For 9 years, I struggled with "Am I a bad parent?" I think that's pretty common. I told her Girl Scout leaders and they said "Ah you know... we've noticed a few things" One leader says it always looks like she has to pee. That's because she doesn't like her skin to touch between her legs, or the way the pants feel. So, she pushes the material into her crotch and crosses her legs. She does this CONSTANTLY and then wonders why people think she's gross at school. I tried to explain to her that hands in crotch will always freak people out. She just shrugged and said "well it bothers me" ok then.

Tony and I are doing well now. It was a rough patch and it took much longer to get used to having him home from deployment than other times. Before, I was with my family and him coming home was like him saving me from the situation. By staying home I realized.. huh life's a tad bit easier! We went back and forth on issues and finally we were able to get to a point where we could really say what was on our minds. He's gotten it finally. Doing the dishes isn't about doing the dishes for me. It's about showing me you love me enough to do it. You know? He's been more active with the kids, making plans for us on weekends, and helping around the house more.

Also, he's completely and utterly fallen in love with Louie! This makes me happy! I think when he got home, he felt he was competing with Louie for my attention. But, now if I pull Louie up to snuggle me in bed, he doesn't get mad. He pets him too. Louie loves him and gets so excited when he comes home. He has shown tenderness and love toward him lately I've never seen from him toward the dog. I think it took him this long to get over the "small dog" thing. I think after having our friends Golden Retriever here he realized that although doable, a big dog would be too mch work in our town home.

Me, well I am enjoying the few hours a day alone. LOVE IT. Jonny is doing well in Kindy. Above average is the report we got on him.

So, yes we're all doing well!

2009-08-31T10:39:00.003-04:00

I got the icky blechs. Pretty much if you were to use my head as a pinata, you'd get snot candy. It would explain wow I felt really run down the last day and a half before it hit me yesterday evening. It was like I felt really tired, then my nostril kind of clogged, then I got a small runny nose, and then ka-blooie. Head full of snot. Now my throat hurts and my ear hurts. But, not in a strep kind of way, just in a sinus-y kind of way.

Everyone yaks on about netti pots, so I may try that. My sister says I can do the same thing with a wascloth. I have no problems using lab created pharmaceuticals to cure my shit. I took two dayquil earlier. Yet, I have found that a lot of natural remedies really do work and now I will try those first. Now I wonder if garlic on the bottom of the feet really will cure a fever.

Tony and I are in a rough spot. It's gone on for quite a long time. It's not everyday, and sometimes I can remember that he really is a good man. I've come to the conclusion last night that we're at the point where and I need to get over myself and stop being a bitch. I'll never tell him that, but it really is to that point. No matter how much I bitch, or complain, or keep to myself it's not going to solve anything and all it's going to do is make it worse. Then of course, he didn't do the dishes and I got all pissy again.

2009-08-27T10:11:00.002-04:00

Is summer over yet? I am so tired of faking enthusiasm and the constant feeding of childred. I swear every ten minutes Aislinn is showing me something on her Pokemon game. Look! My blah blah is evolving !Look I caught a blah blah! Look how small a blah blah is compared to a person! (yes they do show a size comparison for fake pocket monsters). I try to be patient about it, and throw out the fake mommy "WOW!" and "AWESOME!" But, I found this only encourages her, so then I go to "Neat." notice lack of exclamation. Then it's just "MMhmmm" then I usually end it with "Seriously Aislinn! I don't want to hear about POKEMON all damn day" Then I calm down and vow to do better the next day and the whole process starts all over again. She seems to need a constant stream of electronic entertainment, but really it's August, it's hot, and school is about to start. I'm both not too worried and too tired to really give a shit. She'd be outside if one could go out there without melting.

As far as feeding children goes, this is just a fucking thorn in my side. Trust me, I don't want my kids to starve. Yet, whatever I suggest immediately gets poo pooed so I just stopped suggesting. Then of course, when I start fixing myself something to eat, then it's all "ooh what are you having? Eggs?" Even if I ask them before I make something to eat. "Do you want eggs? Do you want toast?" They almost always say no. Then, as I'm cooking MY food, they all of a sudden want something, usually completely different. If I making scrambled eggs, they want omelets. If I am having leftover chicken from last nights dinner, they want ramen noodles. Whatever it is, it usually means I have to WAIT to eat the food that I was in the process of cooking, which pisses me off as I'm pretty hungry at this point. Then, when I make it, they usually don't eat what I make. There have been a few times I've made them wait until I waas finished eating. I know that gives visions of my kids wasting away while I stuff my gullet. Not so. I just don't think jumping up to take care of a child's whim is a good thing.

Don't even get me started on dinner. It's too depressing. At least one will hate what I've made for dinner and will either eat cereal or canned raviolis. I've kind of slacked in the dinner department because it's too frustrating. Last night it was pushing 9 and I hadn't cooked a thing. Tony finally took it upon himself to try and fix them something to eat. Everything he suggested was met with disdain by one or both. He finally ended up playing short order cook, and I just said "Aaaand that's why I didn't cook dinner" It's exhausting!! It sucks having to cook a meal in the heat knowing that someone is going to whine.

I keep saying I'm going to ban all fast food, take out, eating out for a month. I say it, but I never do it. I give in way to much and I honestly think it's because I know it will always be met with a "YEAH!" and then I get to hear about how great a mom I am. It's easier in so many ways, but I always sit there feeling guilty about the crap food my kids are eating.

2009-08-20T10:33:00.002-04:00

Today, I am babysitting my friends toddler daughter. We are at their house right now while the kids entertain her. She really digs "hanging out" with the older kids. It's funny because my kids are glued to BabyFirst Tv, while B hardly watches at all. They fussed a bit when I put it on, but it's mesmerizing. Even I get sucked in. There is something about it.

Driving over here this morning I was reminded me how long it's been since I've had to drive in any kind of traffic. On top of that, we were running behind, so I stopped and got us some breakfast from Chick-Fil-A so I'm trying to eat my sandwhich too. I rememeber a time when I could have a smoke in one hand, a sandwhich in another and still flip off the person next to me while I drove to work. Now, I hug the slow lane like it's my blankie, and weep softly as I try tentatively to merge. It doesn't help that the people here in VA are aggresive drivers on top of it all. It's enough to give me the vapors and recline in a cool dark room when I get back home.

The car. Oh man the car is all kinds of fucked up. At this point, Tony is just going to tear the engine apart and see if he can repair it on his own time because finding a used engine (Oh did I mention we needed a NEW FUCKING ENGINE?!?) isn't as easy as going to Auto Zone and picking one up. So, that has a stressed out a little bit. I don't mind driving him too and from. It's not far, but it does suck that he has to be dropped off at 6 am everyday. It's also ok now, but it's not going to work when the kids start school. He found a place online to order an engine that's pretty cheap, but found out to have it shipped would cost more than buying the engine.

So, that's what we're dealing with. You know.. life.

Sucktacular week ended

2009-08-05T23:43:00.003-04:00

So, everything seems to be going ok. Ringworm is slowly clearing up on the kids, not so much the cats. I made a vet appointment for the kitten next week, so we'll see. I am doing all I can to clear it up, but it just takes time.

We got out provisional credit fairly early. I love that it's provisional. Like we frauded ourselves from afar.

One cool thing happened. I went to the dentist a few months ago. They gave me an X-ray. The insurance company denied the claim because I had gotten an x-ray 2 years and 10 months earlier. I'm allowed one ever 3 years. I get the bill, and set it aside thinking I'll contact the insurance company to have it taken care of. Well, my ADD got in the way, and it never happened. I get another bill this time threatening to steal and eat my kitten if I don't pay. I say.. fine by me, she's all funus-y anyway. But, her adorable face got me and I went and paid it yesterday. When I got there, the finance lady was not there. So, I paid it with the receptionist, who is the dentist's wife. Explain to her why I have to pay etc. I get a call this morning, and they're crediting my account. Which is freaking sweet. I think brining the kids in with me helped. At least they're good for SOMETHING.

I have been super hungry lately. I hate it. I've been doing low carb quite well the last few week, but the last two mornings at like 4 am I've been getting up and eating massive amounts of cereal because it's that or be sick. Of course its like knock off cookie crisp and fruity pebbles. I don't know what my deal is. Like right now, I could eat. It's not boredom either, not that "meh I could eat something" to have a taste in my mouth. It's all out hunger. I've had water and waited but it's not going away.

Tony had duty today, and that sucks. Tomorrow I have to baby sit for my friend. We'll hang out there because it's close to Tony's work, and we'll pick him up and then go to therapy, where he will meet my therapist and have a talk with him with me. I'm nervous. What if they gang up on me?

Sucktacular week

2009-08-02T08:57:00.003-04:00

That title isn's an exaggeration either. It truly was a sucktacular week.

First of all, July was a sucky month for me emotionally. It's like this every July, and it always hits me hard. My mood changes around end of May, beginning of June and it just slowly ramps up until about the beginning of August, and then starts a down hill descent into normal-dom by September. It sucks. It was kind of worse this summer, but it's getting better. Tony's eyes are now safe, I no longer feel the need to claw them out of his face.

Anyway, back to sucktacular week. First of all, the kitten from Hell. She's adorable but has been a pain in the ass since we got her. She's sickly, always full of snot. When we took her to the vet, we were given THREE oral syrups to give her, twice a day. What. The. Hell? Three? That's a lot of fucking work. Granted, we didn't have to pay for it since it was covered under the shelter's account. It pisses me off for a twp reasons. First of all, you're a fucking shelter. Not that you can guarantee me a healthy cat, but in reality, I'm doing you a fucking favor by taking her. I could have gotten a free kitten from Craigslist. Yes, yes I know.. you run on donations, and you are short staffed blah blah blah. Whatever. Go cry on your tax exempion forms.

Second, Lola wasn't the cat we wanted. We wanted another one that was a boy. Don't get me wrong, I think it ended up for the better as she's super affectionate, but here's the kicker.. they wouldn't let us have the boy because they felt HE WAS TOO SICKLY. They said he had some intestinal issues, and felt like our family wouldn't be a good match as he may need more medical attention. What kind of business are they running over there? Jeez. Lola is sickly, the other cat must have like a little kitty oxygen tank we didn't see or something.

On top of being sickly, she got ringworm. I didn't know that's what it was, just assumed she was losing some hair or something. I didn't realize what it was until Aislinn got ring worm. Now, both Aislinn and the kitten have ringworm and both are pissy about putting medicine on. Jonny has poison ivy and Tony has both. I haven't gotten anything so far, although now I'm noticing some weird bumps on my thigh. No matter how much crap I put on Aislinn she wakes up with more on her. It's now on her HANDS, because do yu think she can leave the kitten alone? Last night I looked at Leah our adult cat and guess what's on her chin? All of a sudden she and Lola are best buds, and since Leah is a licker.. well there you go. How do I keep medicine on her CHIN? She just licks it right off. If it doesn't get better for us all soon, the kitten and cat will have to be seperated and sequestered from the rest of the family. It's going to suck.

So, today I have to go on a quest for sulphur soap because of the ringworm. Fun.

To go on with the sucktacular week, I dropped the ball on Jonny's kindy physical you know because of the crazy I get, and got an appointment for August 31st. School starts like Sept.2nd or something. I hate living in a military town and dealing with the bullshit healthcare system they have here. If you get sick, you need like a month warning to get seen.

While I'm stressing out about that, Tony walks in from work. The car broke down on him on the way to work. His friend towed him to a lot, he went to work, and a friend gave him a ride home. He got all his tools and went to fix it. Was it fixable? Of course not. He pays to have it towed home. While he's doing this, I'm googling. Everything is pointing to the timing belt, which is BAD BAD NEWS for a foreign car. When a timing belt goes out on a Kia, the gates of hell open up and swallows your soul and the souls of your family members, condemning you all to an eternity of scorching fire. Ok, well not really, but it does fuck up your engine. Not as bad as the fiery depths of hell, but we now may need either a new engine.. or more than likely a new car. There is still a glimmer of hope because when it died it did so with quiet dignity. Not the catastrophic event that makes all your pistons and doohickies in the engine to smash together like a bunch of people in a mosh pit. We may be able to just to change the belt and be ok. Tony and his friends will work on in next week. Which means I've been having to pick him up and drop him off. Waking up at 6:30 when you've gone to bed at 2 sucks.

So pretty suck week huh? BUT WAIT.. THER'S MORE.

On Friday, which was payday I went online to start paying bills. Went to our bank site, logged into our account and someone had stolen $419 out of our checking account. So, I call customer service, and get told that this has been a problem all week. That someone got a hold of visa check card numbers and made fake cards and used them at various 7-elevens and RaceTrack gas stations in Florida. Right before she put me on hold she kind of is talking to herself and says "are you a part of e-statements? Yep, you are." and then she sighs heavily. She also said this in a knowing kind of like the e-statements were the problem kind of thing. What's hilarious is that they had a big push for their e-statements. You couldn't get to your account without a pic of a guy wearing pantyhose on his face with the words "Don't let this guy steal your identity or money! Enroll for E-statements today!" So, I did, and it ended up being the cause of oour problem.

She comes back on the line, tells me all I have to do, and then says we will get "provisional credit" in 2-157 days. So, even though it wasn't OUR fault, even though we fit the profile of rampant fraud being committed, even though Tony had the card in his possession and never uses it online.. EVEN THOUGH WE DID EVERYTHING RIGHT.. we'll get our money when the 2nd coming of Jesus happens, or whenever they feel like giving it us. Because.. you know I don't need $419 to pay my bills or get food or anything.

We've just been hanging around the house this weekend because we're afraid a meteor is going to fall out of the sky and crush one of us. Oh damn. I just cursed myself.

2009-07-17T12:31:00.002-04:00

When I went to my therapy appointment, I was talking about how I felt stressed about having to constantly find ways to entertain the children. Not that we're doing anything fun, I have to save money for our trip back home in December (A whole 'nother thing bugging me.) and money is limited. But, I think about it a lot, and I do what I can when we can. The therapist asked me what my husband did with the kids, and I just stared at him like he had sprouted a horn and a third nipple right before my eyes. Husband? Kids? Together? Doing... things? Things that don't involve me? After what he was asking sunk in, I collapsed in a fit of giggles right there on his couch. Funny man! Dads doing things with kids. Hilarious!

After my giggle fit, he assured me tha yes, he was quite serious. That when his kids were youger they were HIS on the weekend. He said it was never a question, and he took them out and did things with them every weekend because he was always working. I just stared with wide eyed wonderment at this wonderful thing he was speaking of.

I told my therapist that I was feeling Tony should be more involved, but haven't said anything. This is how an argument goes with Tony.

"Tony, I'm not trying to upset you, but I really think you should clean up the yard"

"Oh my GOD, you think I'm a fucking horrible husband and father and I don't evne know why you stay with me, if everything I do is wrong."

So, yeah you see why I've stopped telling him things. I've gone to being super bitch do as I say and DO IT NOW kind of person, to a really, it's never going to change why bother kind of person, and it really bugs me. When I was a bitch, I got my way but it's exhausting. So, my thinking was.. if I lay off he'll naturally do the things he needs to do, and that blew up in my face because his natural instinct is to be totally selfish and lazy. You know, he continued BEING A MAN, but a man without constant nagging to steer him proper.

So, anyway, I asked the therapist "Well, what about him working all week?" Because, I come a family where the man does what he wants, when he wants, because DAMN IT he worked all week and deserves it. My therapist just shrugged and said "yeah it sucks for the dad, but you know they're not kids forever. Now I have all the time in the world to do what I want."

Trying to fight the urge to make out with my therapist, I left with some things to think about.

Long story short, I had a talk with Tony about it. I feel that especially in our situation, he really needs to make an effort. Since he's come home from deployment, (you know that time he was gone for FIVE MONTHS! That time, where he got to live like a college student for almost HALF A YEAR. You know that time where I was stuck here holding down the fort while he played with guns and got drunk for A HUNDRED A FIFTY DAYS?) he's taken the kids out to do something.. ready for this? TWICE.

Yeah.

He took it well, because I made him work for my talk. When he came home, he could tell I was upset, and I said "Why even tell you, you'll just make it all about how you're a victim" totally passive aggressive but it worked. After about two hours of my pouting and denying him, he was practically BEGGING me to bitch him out. I shall remember this. Of course, he wanted to tell me about the one time recently when he dropped off Aislinn at Girl Scout stuff at the park, and he took Jonny along with him to pick her up. I think I stared at HIM like he sprouted a horn and a third nipple. Wow, congrats.

He said he knew he was slacking, and that he'll try to do better. I'll try to believe it this time and not roll my eyes.

2009-07-09T13:33:00.002-04:00

Life has been pretty quiet around. It's summer and the kids are in a never ending mix of fun and boredom. This year, the two kids down the street are allowed to come out and play all day, so that's what they have been doing. Also, we bought them one of those huge pools with a ladder and everything. I am surprised and also a little miffed at how little it gets used. I guess for a kid, it's more fun to hang out with friends in the heat than to play with your sib in the pool. Especially when mean ole mom doesn't let the kids down the street in the pool. Isn't that horrible? I feel guilty and I know I will have to relent eventually, but the thought of four wet and whiny kids in and out of my backyard/pool is enough to give me the vapors. Plus, they've had their pool up for WEEKS and my kids haven't been asked to join them in it. I'm not playing tit for tat, I'm just saying.. I'm not the only mom that doesn't like the idea, thank God.

We've spent some time at the beach, but mainly most out time at home. The kids have been surprisingly ok with that. They watch tv, play with the pets. Even without the Wii (which is on the fritz and sitting in a box waiting to be shipped back for repairs) they've been pretty mellow.
They're older now, and damn if it's not amazing and awesome and super fucking cool.

Jonny was 3 months old when Tony got his vasectomy. Everyone hinted that we would regret that decision. That once Jonny got out of his baby days, we'd want another one. Sure, there are times when I see a baby and my ovaries let loose a plethora of eggs, but it's always short lived. We ARE complete and I know it,and I love it, and I don't want it to change. We got started in the baby making department first out of our group of friends, and while they're doing diaper duty and breastfeeding, their lives on hold for the next few years, we're taking our kids to see Transformers 2 and they were able to sit and enjoy a 2 and a half hour movie without a fuss. No one was scared, or wanted to go home, or cried. When we left we were able to discuss the movie and who we liked and what we didn't like. I was very worried about taking them to see it. It is rated pg-13. But, halfway through the movie I turned to Tony and said "Oh my God, it's AWESOME to have older kids!"

Aislinn is just getting so big. She is growing like a weed. I know when we go to St. Louis next time, people are going to freak out. She's looks so grown up. She's starting to get into my girly things, although her natural stubborn streak makes her fight the urge. But, she is sporting painted nails and toes, although she wants DARK colors. I'm ok with that. She let me put a french braid in her hair. and when she saw it, was very excited and just loved the way it looked.

Jonny is getting big too, but he's still five and the baby and acts like it. He's still my snuggle bug.

Life has been good. My summer depression has showed up, but my family understands (finally!) and gives me a wide berth and a pass when it comes to certain things, and because they've beeen so understanding, I've feel better and willing to do more around here. Tony has been great. He's been getting into cooking more and more. Last night he made us amazing chicken wings. It's nice that once or twice a week, he can take over cooking duty. It cuts back on the eating out when I just feel too tired to cook.

So, it's been fine here, a bit quiet, a lot relaxed, and going well.

2009-06-09T07:45:00.002-04:00

So, I don't know how many times I've sat down to write something in this thing, only to get a sentence or two out and then quit. I don't know. My life is just boring I guess. Facebook has sucked the life right out of me.

As I sit here, I worry about Louie. He's crazy allergic to fleas and I don't know what to do. There isn't a medicine out there that repels fleas, other than Advantix and I've read some scary stuff about it, especially for smaller dogs. Also, not once has my vet reccomended it. Frontline works, but if your pet gets a flea, it takes 18 hours of coming in contact with your pet for it to work. So, for 18 hours, Louie is the flea's personal buffet, making him miserable.

If I see him being aggresive with a spot, I'll get the flea comb out and give him a once over, but trying to find one flea on a dog with a wiry top coat, and a thick undercoat is hard. I will admit feeling a great sense of accomplishment when I do find it though and smash that little fucker on the comb, even better if there is an audible pop. I'm gross like that.

Basically, we're treating him with meds to keep his comfort level as close to normal. He has to take a antihistamine twice a day and I have a topical spray that I use when he's really going nuts. He is TERRIFIED of the spray. He runs away. I only used a water bottle as a punishment once before when we first got him. Well, that is until Jonny got a hold of it, and took Louie to the side of the house and sprayed him over and over again, making it a fun game. When I couldn't find them, I yelled for them, and here comes a guilty kid and a very wet and happy dog.

Jonny has been a bit of a pill lately. I'm just so used to him being so good. Tony and I are noticing that Jonny is "that" kid when he plays. The one who can dish but can't take it. He comes runnining in every five minutes wanting to tattle on some kid. Come to find out, it's usually becasue Jonny is being a d-bag. Like, yesterday he came in WAILING saying that the other kids beat him up. Aislinn even came in and said "Yeah they were, I thought they were playing, but they weren't" So, I'm thinking it's the older kids Aislinn was playing with. Tony goes out there and the kid that "beat up" Jonny was smaller than him and he did it because Jonny called him a name. Now, I'm not saying Jonny deserved to get his ass kicked... but.. well... I'm just saying. Really, he didn't get his ass kicked, the kid pushed him down to the ground. That's what happens when you call someone a name. Tough lesson to learn kid. He wasn't really happy when his Dad told him that. He's an antagonizer, then when the kids retaliate, he runs to mom. Usually I tell him to suck it up and if he's going to keep crying he can stay in the house. THat usually works for awhile.

Aislinn has her bridging ceremony tomorrow for Girl Scouts. That's where she leaves the Brownies behind and continues her journey as a Junior. Her leader, who will be her leader in the Juniors asked me if Aislinn even liked Girl Scouts. That was a puzzling question, since I thought it was obvious that she did. Tani said that Aislinn often seemed upset to be there, or not into it. I told her that she is, but she likes crafts and outdoorsy stuff and when it falls into singing or manners or anything she deems too girly eh you're not going to get the most positive of responses. We're thinking that when she moves up it will be more fun for her. First of all, there are THREE girls in her Brownie group. The two other girls are younger than Aislinn, and one of those two girls really pisses Aislinn off. The co-leader sucks as she's all about her daughter and not the other two girls. Her daughter is the kind of kid who always has something "special" planned for each meeting. The kind of kid who cries when she doesn't get her way. You know the kind.

Having Tony home has been nice. We're adjusting but I'll save that for another time.

Quivering with excitement

2009-05-27T20:39:00.002-04:00

I am so happy I could burst! Tony goes to work on Friday!! Teehee! It's going to be awesome.

We went from not seeing him for many months to having him home for three straight weeks. It's been awesome and fun, but my shiz is all screwed up. I forgot Aislinn's therapy appointment yesterday, and even though the therapist reminded me before we left about my appointment today, yep almost missed it. I woke up at 10:21 and my appointment was at 10:30. I made it. I stunk and had morning breath, but I made it. Then I spent 45 minutes talking about dog food and how you have to buy the good kind.

Aislinn still has school, and doesn't get out until the 18th. I feel bad for her. That's a long time!! I've been researching some acitivities to break up her summer. I am going to get her a membership to the rec center and get her in some martial arts and pottery I think. She's right at the age where she can start doing all the fun things.

Oh hey ya'll

2009-05-20T13:23:00.002-04:00

So, yeah. Lots going on in recent weeks. Mainly, the touching of my things. Funny how possesive a person can become when left to their own devices for many months. Tony will move something and it freaks me the fuck out. I'm being nice about it for the most part, but I am missing a ton of Real Woman dollars from Lane Bryant and that's like throwing out fucking money. I could be buying shit right now, but can't because someone fingered my shit and NOT in a good way.

I bitch of course, but it is nice having my husband home again. He's in total fixer upper mode which is nice. We're discussing paint colors and all that jazz. I'm hoping to get some paint and have him start this weekend. I have found the perfect colors finally. I figure if it looks like ass, we can always repaint.

Our big thing of course was our trip to Disney which was fabulous. We had a great time. Honestly, though we're not Disney people. When I watched grown women weeping over seeing Mickey like he's fucking John Lennon... I rolled my eyes. I didn't scream or get overly excited. We had breakfast with Mickey and the gang and had the misfortune of sitting next to a woman who dressed her baby as Mickey. Everytime a character would come to the table, she would scream their name, get the vapors, pee a little and then faint. When they would come to our table we would give and akward "Hey it's ...." and Aisy would get an autograph, we'd all pose awkwardly, and then sit down. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but come on.. it's not REALLY Pluto. It's some chick who thought she'd get a job being a Disney Princess, but instead was stuck in a hot, stinky costume, posing with fat families as a giant non speaking dog. The fact of the matter is I am too much of a cynic to get into it. After watching the chinese contortionists, I said quite loudly... BACK to the cages for them. I got a lot of dirty looks. But seriously, I have a feeling I'm not too far from the truth.

I'm making it seem like I went to to Disney to mock it all and that is NOT the case. I got a little teary standing near Cinderella's castle while fireworks went off in the night sky. How many times have we seen that as children on TV and THERE I WAS. Yeah, my sister was the first to graduate from college this year, but I was the first to see that you know? Not that it compares, but I've never had high expectations for myself. It's the best place to spend time with your family. We plan on going again sometime in the next two years. Tony loved it way more than I expected him to.

The other big thing was that I left my family here in Virginia Beach and flew out to see my sister graduate WITH HONORS. It was awesome and I'm crazy proud of her. She's the type of persson who, even though she's graduating at 28 and lots of people in her shoes would be all "c's get degrees" she got honors you know? That's just how she is and that's awesome and she looked totally gorgeous to boot. We had a great time, Dad treated us all to Kobe steak house where they cook the food right there and make you catch food in your mouth and stuff like that. Dad.... well... he doesn't "do" outings, as Bobo put it, it was nice to see him out of the basement, in slacks and black socks no less.

Mostly us girls hung out and laughed a lot, and played with the dogs and drank a ton of coffee. I miss them like crazy.

Hopefully now that life is getting back under control, I'll update this thing more.

I am an idiot

2009-04-23T07:51:00.002-04:00

Yes, I am.

I just looked at my Ipod and realized that my husband comes home a day earlier than I thought. Nothing has changed, I was just looking at XXX day and seeing YYY day for like 5 months. Seriously. I have told people up until last night that it was YYY day. (Sorry for the secrecy. I can't actually SAY when on a public site) Even when I went to therapy we sat down and talked about how everyone kept saying we only had X days but I was counting it as XX days.

It's kind of cool because for me, it's like they come home a day earlier.

I haven't written in awhile because Facebook is a time sucking, soul wrenching affair. I can't believe how much time you can spend on FB. FB though is starting to get irritating. I liked FB as a way to keep in contact with my friends from both message boards. I liked reading about Pam's day and then reading about Teri's right after without having to click to the sites. Because you know, now clicking is just TOO much work. Forget writing. I get tired from writing a check. My hand writing, which used to be bad, is now horrendous. Its like a flat line with a hump or a bump occasionally.

Anyway, I don't know it's nice to get the gist of what everyone is doing. REcently though, I've seen a major influx of high school people join and it's just UGH. I'm the kind of person that will hide from school people if I see them out in public. I don't really know why. High school wasn't that great for me. It wasn't that I was teased or harrassed when I think about it. I just felt alone and didn't have many friends.

Don't get me wrong, some of the people I have made friendships with. Like Jeremy, who I only kind of talked to in HS and found out I was kinda mean to him. I don't even remember, but when he recounted it, I blushed furiously on my side of the computer. It reminded me of the episode of 30 Rock when Liz didn't want to go to her HS reunion because the popular girls picked on her. She remembered it as them being snooty and her mumbling some snarky response under her breath. Come to find out, they were terrified of her, and she was the actual bully! The way they remembered it was that they were trying to reach out to her and she actually wasn't mumbling "Nice mole it looks like God pooped on your face" under her breath. Some of the women were in therapy thanks to Liz. Loves it! So, yeah I wasn't very friendly, so that's why I didn't have friends I guess.

Tony and I have talked a lot through IM, and I swear there is something about the internet that makes it easier to say things. Not for me. I have no problems saying anything to Tony. Good or bad. For him though. It's been so nice to hear some of the things he thinks and feels about me and our relationship. When I would ask him face to face, he was put on the spot and I would never get a satisfying answer. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? You bet it does. I figure by the end of his 3 week leave though I'll be more than ready for him to go back to work. Although, I've always enjoyed having him home. The best part is that the kids will be in school for part of the time he's on leave. We'll be alone for three days a week for four hours!! Nice!

2009-04-03T22:00:00.002-04:00

We've had Louie for almost six months. What a six months it has been. I credit him for keeping me sane while Tony has been on deployment. He gave me focus and was my project. He's given me a million puppy kisses, and tons of puppy snuggles. He's made me mad, he's made me laugh, but most of all he's made me happy.

As most of you all know. I did a bad thing and got Louie from a pet shop. Before getting him, I was VERY against pet shops, preached the evilness of them, and had a talk with my daughter about how shelter dogs needed a home over a pet shop dog. I had always wanted a Cairn but was against paying a lot of money for a dog. I did kind of research them, and couldn't really find any breeders in my immediate area, came up with nothing My looks around the shelters weren't coming up with anything other than pit bulls or old dogs. I was going to do a rescue cairn, but most won't give a Cairn to someone with young children.

One day, at the mall, we went in. We've done it thousands of times before. I mean, you know the situation, but you can't resisit watching a puppy romp. I've fallen in love with many a puppy in the window, but never, ever, EVER asked a price until I saw Louie. He was in the very first window. No one was looking at him, and he was facing away from the window. I told my husband "OMG that's a Cairn!" and he said "What's a Cairn?" and then wandered off with the kids to look at the other puppies. I tapped the window trying to get his attention. I looked at the big JUST REDUCED AGAIN! sign plastered on the cage. I stood there forever, just to get a glimpse of his face. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to see his face. I had never seen a Cairn in real life, and I wanted to see him. For the first time EVER I asked to see the puppy in the window. My kids were SHOCKED as they have asked a million time in the past and alway got a "No. Let's go."

We got him in one of those rooms, and he turned his personality on, although he didn't stand out. Just a jumpy little puppy. We found out why he had been reduced twice so far. He was four months old, and had lost his puppy cuteness. I think thats common with terrier breeds. They have the puppy cute for such a short time, then they look like mini versions of the adults. People passed him up to look at the Yorkies and Jack Russels and Shih Tzus and Maltese. The little bundles of energy and fluff that makes even the hardest of hearts melt. They had me. I was holding the "reject" puppy. The one no one wanted. Going against everything I knew was right, we left that night to think it over, but we knew we'd be back.

We got there the next day before the store opened. Swallowing my pride, I bought my pet store dog. I even made up elaborate lies to my family as not to seem like a hypocrit. For weeks I thought of reselling him to appease my guilt. On top of that.. he was a boring dog.Yeah I said it. He was boring. He never wagged his tail, he was scared of loud noises, he was lacking all that puppy happiness he exhibited in the cubicle, which I now realize was from just the overwhelming happiness to be OUT OF HIS CAGE!! He didn't know how to play, he didn't want to be held, or petted. A few weeks go by, and he starts to adjust, but he's still pretty surly. I was amazed that he never wagged his tail. I read about dogs and their "happy smile" in a dog training book, and realized in the time we've had him, I've never once seen that face. I would see pics of grinning Cairns and I was sad. I had begun to regret my decision, thinking Karma was punishing me. Oh yeah, I got a Cairn, but a surly, snarly, boring one. One who refused to let you touch him or who looked at you blankly when you threw a ball.

Over time, he learned to walk on a leash, he learned who he could hit up for food, he became more family oriented. I remember the first time he wagged his tail at a time other than upon our return home. We were out playing in the yard. He was wagging his tail and PLAYING. He learned fetch, he learned NO bite, and NO bark. He kinda got better at pottying outside. Then came our first trip to the dog park. I saw his first smile. Although happy, I was heartbroken that he would never do that at home. That was almost 2 months after getting him.

I loved him anyway. He is my heart. He slowly became my velcro dog. He started sleeping wtih me, comforting me while husband was away. He is surprisingly obedient, amazingly laid back for a Cairn and he had never chewed on anything of signifigance. He loves to do his tricks, he's pretty tolerable of the kids, he loves the cat, and after awhile with us, one day his tail started wagging, and hardly ever stops. Recently, he's started running to me with a huge smile on his face, panting just happy to be a part of the family. Six months it took for him to adjust. But, I know that at least once a day, I'll see that smile.

It just goes to show how horrible the puppy mill business is (although I have contributed to it). I had a dog that didn't know how to be a dog! Even at 4 months old. He got skittish around metal noises which I assume comes from being in a cage most his life. If we even so much as touch the fireplace screen, he would bark and freak. He does that still, but it has since turn to a game. It's the best way to guarantee and panting happy pup.I don't know. I just felt the need to get it out. He had come over to me to play "fiesty" which is just rough housing and hand biting. It's amazing because he knows when he does it too hard, and if he forgets I just say "easy" or put my face down for a lick and he goes back to being gentle. I was just struck with the difference between the 4 month old who was stand offish to the dog who jumps up on the couch, plants his fat paws on my chest and gives me kisses to I beg him to stop.

Therapy.. good for the soul

2009-04-01T11:03:00.002-04:00

So, for many years I've resisted talk therapy. I don't know why. When I was diagnosed with depression, Dr. M said that my Cymbalta wouldn't work alone, that I needed talk therapy as well. I came from a family that doesn't TALK about their problems. Also, surprisingly, the Cymbalta DID work on it's own. Very well thank you very much.

Recently, I started therapy to see if I too have ADD. Aislinn as I've mentioned has it, and is doing very well with it. She's coming home and doing her homework quickly and without a fight. It's amazing. After reading Driven to Distraction I realized I had a lot of the qualities in that back. Lack of focus, started but unfinished projects, I do things like start the laundry and walk off without closing the lid, coming back to it at bedtime to put them in the dryer only to realize what I've done, and because I need something out of there for tomorrow, I have to stay up late to put them in the dryer.

Inevitably what ends up happening when I get there is I end up talking about my parents. My parents... well all parents are good and bad. Our family life was frought with issues of all kinds. I don't FAULT my parents (at one time I did) for it, but I can't deny that things happened that affected the person I am. Just like things happened to THEM that affected the person they are, and things happened to THEIR parents that affected their parents personality and so on and so forth. Looking at my family, all sides of it, it's just layer upon layer of issues. Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, yelling, screaming, blaming, fighting, alienation, pain, estrangement.. blah blah blah blah. The list goes on and on.

While talking today I told the therapist that it's amazing how ONE decision can change a person's course of history so dramatically. My grandmother's decision to marry her second husband, who in turn sexually abused my aunt, and physically abused my father, changed my dad and aunt forever. A one second answer alters courses forever.

My therapist is surprised that I seem over the things that happened to me. I told him that before taking my anti depressant I wallowed in it, but now I'm clear headed enough to know that what happened, happened and you just move forward. It's kind of weird to talk to someone about it. We don't discuss the past in our family, and over time, I was often told I dwell to much on it. So, I kinda got over it (family motto! Just get over it already) and have accepted the situation for what it is. I can't change the past. It wasn't all bad. It wasn't mostly bad. When I visit with my family, we laugh so hard our faces hurt. (does your face hurt? It's killing me) We all have a ton of things in common and what matters is NOW. NOW we get along, now I'm adult and know I control my actions and destiny at this point. Now I have children and before therapy was all too familiar with how one decision affects many. I have taken my bad situations, learned from them and am doing my best to break the cycle, but in a way that doesn't go completely keeling off to the other side, which in the end can be just as bad, over indulgence is a form of abuse in my book.

I like therapy. I have found with going to therapy I am not as screwed up as I think I am, and to give myself a pat on the back, I have found that I'm pretty good at observing myself and situations in a true light, without being over positive or negative. I am very self aware, and aware of my little family. And lets be honest.. this guys job is to listen to me talk about myself for an hour. There's nothing wrong wtih that right?

One of those days

2009-03-29T15:49:00.002-04:00

It's just one of those days where everything is either going wrong, is somewhat off, or just irritating the SHIT out of me.

First of all.. it's been raining like crazy for the last few weeks. Really. Right now, between the mud, dog poop, puddles and long grass hiding it all, my yard is like a freaking mine field. It didn't help the drying out process that this morning Jonny thought playing in the hose would be a good thing. It was sixty degrees out and he was out there getting wet. After I told him to STOP, he did it again.

Because he didn't listen, he's grounded. So he's spent his day seeing just how grounded he is. Is it ok to sit at the table outside? No? Ok.. let me try this chair right by the door, is that ok? Still no? Ok, well what about if I just STAND right in front of the door on the patio. Ok, ok don't yell. What about out front? Geez, lady calm down. What about if I come out when YOU come out? Mom.. why is your face all red? Ok, ok I'm going back in!

I must be a weird mom because I actually hate it when Aislinn goes out to play with her friends. Because it's always a day of putting me in the spot and running in and out in and out in and out in and out. While kids stand RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DOOR staring. Then Jonathan goes out there, and stands in front of the door talking to the kids, and the dogs going nuts, the trying to get out. The kids are pressing their faces to the door trying to see the cartoon/dog/my messy house. Mom, Cameron wants to know if we can play in the back yard? No, its full of mud and dog poo. Cameron wants to know why? Why can't we play. I just told you why. Then Cameron whines BUT, WE'LL BE CAREFUL. I don't care... go play in your own backyard. Can we hook the hose up to the front yard spigot and play in it. What?!? No of course not! It's not even seventy degrees outside and hello, it's muddy enough! Cameron whines BUT, IT'S SO HOT. Cameron, why don't you go ask YOUR mom if you can play in the hose. Oh.. I did. She said no. and So did his mom. And you're surrpised I said no? Mom can we please take the dog out. Sure. As she latches the leash she decides to RUN with the dog IN the house, knocking over my coffee in the process. My very full cup of coffee. Everytime she comes in and out, that sends Jonathan into a screaming fit because he misses his Aisy.

Tony was supposed to call and or IM. Ok. WAited around ALL DAY. Finally got an email that said... sorry not happening.

The house is a mess after just being clean. Two pairs of my shoes are outside caked in mud. The recycling was all over the yard after a brisk wind. My floor have dog/cat/shoe/feet prints all over it. Went into the laundry room, and was wondering...why are there so many clothes on the floor? That's because my darling son took the clean clothes out of the dryer and dumped them on the floor. I went to start the dryer and it wasn't working becuase Jonny was INSIDE it last night. I finally get it working and now have to redry the clothes that were in the basket because the kids had taken them out of the laundry basket and put them on the couch, and now they're wrinkled and full of cat hair.

And in all of this all I want is a newspaper. But in order to get a newspaper, I have to wait unil Aislinn is done playing, and get Jonny dressed, and go out and hope the van starts because it has a hard time with all this rain.

Sigh.

Has it really been that long?

2009-03-19T12:44:00.002-04:00

It's almost been a MONTH since I've written anything.

Not much has been happening here. Just living each day, counting down until Tony comes home. We aren't able to talk as much because he's been preparing for an inspection. He did email today to tell me he did NOT make boards to make chief. I can imagine he is very upset. He missed it by 1.7 points. That must really suck to miss it by so little. He's such a hard worker, and it breaks my heart that he didn't make it.

Aislinn started taking her ADHD medicine today. I'm curious to see how she'll feel today. I hear it can make you feel nauseous. I was worried that it would be a big fight since she was so against taking the medicine, but she took it quite easily. She just... took it. Swallowed it and said "There" and continued to eat her Frosted Flakes. The Dr. was very nice, and made Aislinn feel better about taking it. We then had a conversation about it after getting the RX.

One thing I am worried about is something the Dr. said. While getting our family history, she was concerned that my sister in law, Denise is bi-polar. She said since it's such a close family memeber and Aisy has ADHD, I guess her chance of becoming bi-polar is greater. That as a child, it won't manifest itself but it can later. She said that ADHD and bi-polar can often go hand in hand, and that fixing one problem while not the other can cause more problems. Poor kid. Tony and I have always joked between the two family histories of addiction, mental disorders and stuff of the like that are kids are screwed, especially Aisy since all the women in his family are just plain nuts. It looks like the joke could be on us. At least we KNOW and we can keep an eye on it. During the appointment, Aislinn exhibited every aspect of ADD. Getting up, walking around, talking out of turn. I'm sure a lot of it was nerves, but that just goes to show how ADD affects some people. Where as one person can make themselves sit still, Aislinn can't help herself, she has to get up and walk adn touch everyhing in the room, even after being told to stop.

Today has been a busy day. After over a week of rain, we finally got some sun. I went outside and cleaned out the van. Finally got EVERYHING OUT I had left from Christmas. Blankets and pillows we had just left in there.. stuff like that. I cleaned the windows then Jonny and I took Louie for a walk. In a bit we have to get Aislinn from school. She started Thursday Extra Curriculars.

On a personal note, I myself have started therapy. It's really been helpful to have someone to vent to about how hard it is being a mom sometimes. Especially a mom who has a child like Aislinn who has a husband that is deployed. I don't know why it took me so long to do it.

2009-02-27T09:30:00.003-05:00

I have a cold, although today, it's much better. Yesterday was a lot of moaning, shuffling, aching and sweating. It was one day of that. I did take some Airborne yesterday, I don't know if that helped it? My mother swears by that stuff. Airborne and DayQuil. Great stuff.

I got to watch some movies yesterday since I was on the couch most the day with the aching and the sweating. First, I watched Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. It's not an Oscar winner or anything, but it was pretty funny. Although, the two dogs getting it on I could have done without. Then I watched Taking Chance an HBO original movie with Kevin Bacon, who the older he gets the finer he gets. Jesus, he played a Marine in the movie and was in uniform for probably 90% of the movie. HOT. Although, the movie was heartbreakingly sad. Even though I'm a baby eating liberal, I am always touched by military movies. Maybe because my husband is a military man? Maybe because I went to military school? Living in the day to day military life as a spouse it's rarely like what you see in the movies. The movie was about an officer who volunteered to escort a body back home, even though he didn't know the boy, but the boy was from his hometown. It showed that through the week long travels, Americans as a whole, all different walks of life were touched by the death of this fallen Marine. I cried like a baby. It's a true story. All along the trip, everyone revered this box that held the boy inside it. Treating it with the utmost respect and crying for him. Strangers who never knew him, but appreciated him and his sacrifice. It was just a really good movie

After that I came to my liberal senses.. I microwaved the left over kitten casserole and emailed Satan.

2009-02-25T08:01:00.002-05:00

Wow, I haven't written here in awhile. There really isn't a reason, other than I really don't want to bore everyone with how much I love my dog.

Ok but now that I'm here...... Ok, I won't go there. Suffice it to say I love him, and I love the kids, and even the cat is coming around and hanging out more.

Other than that, well I don't have much else going on. Staying busy of course, and you know, doing stuff. Last week and the week before I got to spend a lot of time chatting with Tony on yahoo. That has been really helpful with keeping the bitter feelings at bay. When you go a week or two without contact, you start getting a little pissy and even though I'm an old pro at this, I can't help but to take it personally when he doesn't contact me, even though I know it's not because he doesn't want to.

The other day he said the guys in his villa were mad at him because he didn't want to go out. He wanted to stay in and chat with me. I'm sure he got all types of pussy whipped jokes. I told him he didn't have to, that I honestly don't expect him to chat with me EVERY day. Hey, on the old ship, I could go literally a month without an email, so I take every chance we get to chat online as a gift, and never expect it when I shouldn't. He said he knows that, but if he has the time he WANTS to chat with me. He also wants me to put my camera on so he can look at me and the kids as we interact while we chat. Usually, it's me jumping up to let the dog out or get a kid a drink, or making my fiftieth cup of coffee. I think maybe it makes him feel like he's here.

Aislinn had a program at school and she was so cute! They dressed like Egyptians and did a thing called "Temples and Tombs" and they had to do some hand motions and singing. Then each kid had a part in the play, and she had one line and she did so well. I mean, I know hello it's one line, but her voice was clear and she didn't rush through it like some of the other kids. I was pretty proud of her. She said she was so nervous before hand. It's a wonderful feeling to see your child up on a school stage and have them look for you and wave. You think WOW that's MY kid up there.

I guess I had more to say than I thought I did.

2009-02-19T16:41:00.002-05:00

It is freaking NUTS how much planning goes into a Disney vacation!! I've been staring at this piece of paper all day now that has "May 4th.. Animal Kingdom" written on it. Because, I plan on us doing Animal Kingdom on May 4th. The main problem here is that you must make table reservations beforehand. How in the HELL do I know what I want to eat for dinner two and a half months from now??

Thankfully, I know a ton of Disney Fan(atics) and that are helping me wade through it all. It's really quite daunting. I don't think we'll do this again for many, many years so I decided to go for it, and went ahead and made reservations at a deluxe resort. We're staying at the Animal Kingdom Resort that has wild animals all over. Aislinn is going to be THRILLED. We're telling the kids we;re going to St. Louis so Tony can visit family. It will take us about 12 hours to drive there. What surprises me is that this Disney thing is Tony's idea. I mean, sure ok we discussed trying to get there sometime, and had kicked around next September, but he did some research and found these amazing deals and said "let's go! Let's do it" I told him today I had a hard time imagining him in Disney.

Tony and I have spent a lot of time chatting via Yahoo instant messenger. Sigh. These little chats have made me fall in love all over again. I look forward to the chats and never want them to end. We talk about everything, from what the kids are doing, to things we'd like to change about our relationship. Of course we also talk a LOT about sex. We remember things we've done in the past, we talk about what we're going to do when he gets home, things we'd like to try, and even things we don't really care for. I've learned some surprising things though. One thing is he DOES get mad when I won't have sex with him. He says sometimes he has to really try to not let me know, and he will lay in bed long after I've been asleepp stewing over it. This surprises me. He always seems so accepting of my rejection. He said he doesn't want me to ever feel bad or do anything I don't want to, so he just shuts up about it. Another thing that surprised me is that he finds my glasses of all things extremely sexy. I mentioned getting contacts and he said No, he likes my glasses. He said he never had a thing for glasses, but once I got them he just finds them so sexy. When he said that I blushed.

A little a this, a little a that

2009-02-13T08:46:00.003-05:00

We're half way through the deployment, and this is when it starts getting hard. The newness of it all has worn off. I'm tired of the kids in my face 24-7. People have stopped calling to make sure I'm ok. The other day, Tony wanted to chat online, and he got himself a webcam. I hate webcams, because all you do is look at the person typing. I told him about oovoo and how we could talk through the cameras, but he didn't download it. Anyway, as he is sitting there in the quiet villa, with guys going in and out and cracking jokes with him like some type of dorm, drinking his beer and talking about his upcoming weekend off, I honestly wanted to claw his eyes out. I was struck with such a white hot flash of bitterness, it surprised me how strong that feeling was. It probably stemmed from the fact that here it was 3 pm and Aislinn had just come home from school, and everything was crazy here. So, while I'm fielding questions, breaking up fights, fetching drinks, telling kids to do this and that that last thing I want to see is him sitting at 10 pm his time, chillin' with a beer.

I find the bitterness creeping up at different times lately. Like the stress of care packages. You should always send your overseas loved one care packages, yet the same is never expected of the overseas person. I don't get that. Especially this time around. He's not on a ship, they've only been to sea once, he's living in a house in town. He can't send a package? He couldn't send the kids birthay cards? I mean honestly. Here I am busting my ass to make sure he has a package, a package of stuff he can buy at the store, just to show how much we love him, yet no one thinks "Hey has he sent YOu anything?"

That is another thing. Everyone always thinks I should be SO accomodating to him. He's the one that is gone. This probably irks me the most. Look, as much as we want to romanticize this whole deployment thing, he's not getting shot at in Iraq. There I said it. People hear "deployment" and think he's off defending the American way. No. He's not. He's working on a broken ship and coming home to the Villa every night to watch movies. Don't feel bad for him. Truly. He's getting paid for this. Trust me, I get that it's hard for him to be away, but you know.. gotta figure if you JOIN THE NAVY this shit was going to happen. Just sayin'. I guess you could say well you gotta figure if you marry a man in the Navy this is going to happen. He wasn't in the Navy when we were first together. He joined.. behind my back. So you know there's that whole aspect of it too.

Meh so you know.. it doesn't get easier the longer it lasts, it actually gets harder. Not only are you kinda done at the half way point, you're also on end of it, and you are also excited as the end is in sight. That takes a lot of energy, reigning in your excitement.

On a more positive note, Aislinn will be nine on Sunday. I just can't believe it. I had a parent teacher conference yesterday with her teacher, and it was a good one. We've been in contact through out the year over Aislinn's homework woes. Basically the teacher told me that I should not allow myself to get sucked in by helping her. She said that she should no longer need me to sit right there, and help her. Thank God. It has really gotten on my nerves. She also told me not to check her homework to make sure it's right. I admitted to her that I had kinda stopped that for awhile because it just made my night SO much easier. Aislinn would freak out when she would see me marking things wrong on her homework, and start crying. So, in turn she was to afraid to write answers down, she wanted me to verify the correct answer BEFORE she wrote it down. As you can imagine this was frustrating. This was our conversations for homework:

"Mom? I think this answer is five. Am I right?"
"I don't know. Are you?"
"Can you check to see if the answer is five?"
"No Aislinn, just do your homework, I'll check it after and if it's wrong we'll go over it together"
"But! Why can't you just tell me if it's five?"
"Sigh"
"MOM! PLEASE!"
"No, Aislinn. It's not my homework ok?"
"But, I don't want to write the wrong answer down!"
"Don't worry about writing down the wrong answer"
"But, jajdkakdkjakjdaddk" (this is her blubbering and crying)
"Geez, Aislinn crying isn't going to give you the answer is it?"
"I just wiajdkasdfajsdfafjjf"
I walk over and look
"No, the answer is not five, there happy? Now that is it! Ok?"
"Sniff. Thanks mommy"
"No problem"
"Is the answer four?"
"AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH"

Do you see how much time gets wasted? Why homework lasts two and half hours? She won't go do her homework upstairs, so its 2.5 hours of being absolutely silent so as not to distract her. The teacher said read the direction with her. If she still pushes on the whole "I don't get it thing" (something the teacher says she DOES NOT do at school) then do the first one with her, and stress that was all I was going to do. Then ask her how long she thought it would take her to do that particular thing. Set a timer for 5 minutes more than she thinks she'll get it done. If the timer goes off and she's not done, set it aside, even if unfinished and say Mrs. Morgan (the teacher) will help her tomorrow, but more than likely she'll have to skip recess to do it. Then move on to the next. The hope is that if we work together, if she realizes that what happens at school affects home, and vice versa, she'll stop farting around and focus. I plan on getting a pencil box while out today, and sharpening a ton of pencils and filling it with erasers as this is another stalling tactic of hers. Break teh pencil lead know it is going to be a hassle to get a new one sharpened. Bite the eraser off so we have to find another pencil with a decent eraser. What's hysterical is that she expends so much energy NOT doing her homework, energy that could be used to JUST DO IT GOD DAMN IT!

She is so smart though. I just want to focus this energy into more positive things you know?

Speaking of smart... here are a list of Louies commands he can do consistently:

come
leave it
drop it
sit
lay down
Shake

wait.. I make him wait at his bowl when it's time to eat, I put his bowl of food down and he must wait until I say ok, then he goes to the bowl and eats.

get the ball... this one is when he has dropped the ball too far away. I feel as the master I shouldn't have to go and get his ball to throw it. He should bring it to me. So I say "Get the ball" and he knows to bring it closer. Whatever it takes to get me to throw it, he'll do.

What we're working on

Beg ...he really just wants to jump up and snatch the food out of my fingers. I can't figure out how to get him to stay on his butt.

Roll over...he got this one right away this morning, but he rolls on his back not all the way around.

Other one... shake with opposite paw.

There really is no other reason to teach him these things other than 1. I think it's kinda fun and 2. I think it keeps him on his toes mentally. He's such a curious little guy. I watch him around the yard, and I've honestly never seen such a curious dog. You can just see his mind working. It's so me to get an ADD kinda dog. When we do the tricks, he likes it. I'm sure its the food in my hand he really likes, but I also think he likes his little mental work out. I love to watch him try to get around the tricks to get the treat. When he sees the clicker in my hand, he immediately sits, and then will go through the gamut of tricks without me asking. Like he knows usually shake is the last trick to get the treat, so he will immediatly shake right off the bat. The clicker is what sealed it for us. Louie hears praise from us all the time. So, having that CLICK lets him know.. Yeah good boy you did it! Then he knows the treat is coming. What's funny is I've started to chain the tricks together. Sit and then lay down and then shaket before he'll get the treat. After lay down though, sometimes he'll look at the clicker willing me to click it. Then huff a bit when I don't and then goes ahead and shakes.

The cat.. she's a cat. She eats poops and sleeps. She doesn't do anything cool.

Jonny is doing well. Loves school, becoming a little man. Still my snuggy butt.

2009-02-11T12:36:00.003-05:00

If there is one thing I can't stand... it's yard clutter. My sister is laughing since she's seen my yard in the past. I'm not talking toys, I'm talking junk. Stuff people refuse to throw away. Growing up, I don't ever remember having a lot of yard clutter. "Dirty" houses had yard clutter. Boxes and bags of stuff that never quite made it out to the curb.

Imagine my embarrassment that we have yard clutter. It's driving me nuts. I just went out there and threw a bunch of stuff away, but I'm just PISSED in general. Tony is a pack rat. A slobby pack rat. I can't even begin to tell you how many beer bottles, soda cans, and packs of empty smokes I found out there "thrown away". I use quotes because they were thrown away in something that was not a trash can. It's the same way in the shed.

This is the one thing that shows how differently Tony and I grew up. Although, by my family's standard I'm a mess, on Tony's family standard, I'm down right Martha fucking Stewart. I get having a few and leaving them to collect on the table outside. I can eve see leaving them there over night. What I don't see is how can a fucker be so lazy as to throw them away in a tub that is literally a few feet away from our dumpster. The only thing you have to do is open the gate to throw them out. Then, since fifty bottles and cans are in there, lets just pile other trash on there so that the kids now mistake it for trash, and when I ask them to take out the trash from the bathroom they throw it away in there, and the bags of poo they've collected in the yard, that has now been rained on, and we've got a nice gross slurry of beer, piss and poo water.

Barf.

Can you tell who found this treasure and had to clean it up? It's been sixty consistenly for a week now, so you can imagine the smell. I taped a plastic bag over one hand, had tongs in the other and a towel coated with deodarant around my nose.

Happy Valentines Week! Woohoo.

Fairly busy weekend

2009-02-09T12:03:00.002-05:00

This weekend was a pretty busy one. Saturday Aislinn had Girl Scouts field trip. We went to Home Depot to do their monthly kid's project. Has anyone heard of this before? I wish I had known about it before!! Once a month, they offer a free project. The kids do it, and then they get a pin for the free apron, and a certificate saying they completed that project. Then, as if that wasn't good enough, they give them free lunch!! They get a hot dog (a BEEF hot dog, not one made out of anuses and beaks, well unless they use cow anuses) chips adn a juice box from the little lunch cart outside. It's smart because, you get the kids in, and the parents start looking around and buy stuff. Of course, this is when the vendors, and the employees are out in full force with demos and stuff. Even the lunch guy benefits because, if the kids are going to have free lunch, mom and dad will probably get a philly cheese steak, or an italian sausage too. Gotta love smart marketing. Being.. you know, poor I am immune to the pressures the sales people put on me. But, I will look around next month to maybe get some ideas for the house.

After that, we took the girls caching. We had a lot of fun. We found all the caches in that particular park. Aislinn's GS leader has recently gotten into caching, and has really, really taken to the hobby. She started before Xmas and already has 120 something finds under her belt. As of Saturday, we had um.. 15. We've been doing this almost a year. After the official Girl Scout outing, we went to some other spots taht had been giving me trouble that she had already found and played hot and cold until I found them. Caching is funny, because you become kinda paranoid in a caching kinda way. When you can't find the cache you get home and you think.. "Was it the acorn? I don't know, the acorn was just laying on the playground in the mulch, it can't be the acorn just lying loose like that, usually it's attatched to something. But, what if it fell off. Remember the pine cone* so is it so far fetched that it was that acorn. FUCK I bet it was that fucking acorn." An acorn would be welcome. There are some people who get ever more devious.

*a pine cone cache plagued me for MONTHS. Someone hid the cache in a pinecone that had fallen behind the fence, and I just knew it wsa the fucking pinecone. I was right.

Aislinn is a natural cacher, because she always thinks outside of the box. Take for instance there was one that I looked for and couldn't find, andwe went again with Tani so she could hold my hand. She kept insisting I was looking RIGHT AT IT, and all I was seeing was a huge power box. Nothing sticking out, poking off funny, skewed. It was just a huge power box. Aislinn walks right over to the "serial stickers" and says "Here it is" and pulls the stickers off. They stickers were actually a magnet and upon further inspection, the serieal letters was the name of the people (sans vowels) who had hidden the cache. On the back was magnet with a log to sign. WTF?!? When I asked her how she knew, she just shrugged and said "They looked too thick to be stickers" Seriously, my mind was blown.

We went again yesterday and found all the caches in the park near us. It is a lot of fun to cache with other people. So total for the weekend, I added nine finds to my total, so I'm up to 24. W00t!

I made reservations for Aislinn's bday party at a paint your own pottery place, and ONE person has RSVP'ed thus far. I'm starting to worry. It's two weeks from now, but still. I want her to be able to have friends there.

This cracks my shit up

2009-02-04T13:16:00.006-05:00

I regularly go to http://www.perezhilton.com/ and recently read on there this quote...

"Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that [Harry Potter author] Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and [Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
- Stephen King tells USA Today

What is even FUNNIER are the comments following this tidbit...

That is absolute Bullshit … he is clearly jealous of her new found fame

He is an old hag who wants some of the attention!!!

Well F*** YOU Stephen King!

Bitter much, Stephen?

The man has gone senile.

This is a man who has written a a book about writing and who has had another author write a book about his series of books . Never mind the fact that he reads every book within this genre of horror/fantasy. If it has vampires, dragons, mind readers, boogie men, yadda, yadda, yadda he's read it, or it's on his night stand to read. He is one of the leading critical voices. If Stephen King is quoted as saying he likes it, I know I will too. He's like the geeky version of Oprah and her book club. Also, have I mentioned the man is going BLIND and manages to read a book a day?

Even if you don't like his books, you still have to give the man credit for being a leading force in the literary world in our time. Sheesh.

I am a big girl...

2009-02-04T01:11:00.002-05:00

Yet here are the tired clothing choices for us big girls

Animal print
fake velvet
rhinestones
wild prints (Don't get me wrong I like prints, but sometimes I'm SICK of prints)
sheer sleeves
kimono tops
huge eyelets (is that the correct term? Where there are hole designs around the neck?)
Biased cut tops and or dresses
big, flowy dress pants (everytime I go to a wedding or something similar all the big woman wear these and I've had a pair about six years ago)
Pant suits as really my only option for "dressing up"
Shirts with attatched "jewelry"

Maybe because I'm you know... poor, these are the only options available to me. Looking through a small catalog Lane Bryant sent me everything was beribboned, festooned, flowy, and bedazzled. You can't get a damn tshirt at LB without rhinestones.

Sigh. I'm in a bad mood. Time for bed.

Blah blah blah

2009-01-26T22:21:00.002-05:00

I just spent all evening decluttering the living room. It started with trying to figure out a way to keep Louie's ball from rolling under the couch. The only solution I could come up was to shove sheets under the couches. It looks tacky but it's worked. Although, now he has the fucking ball under the ottoman. I've moved it just a few minutes to get it and he rolled it under there again. He's just convinced me he's doing this shit on purpose. If it rolls under there again a third time (he managed to get it out the second time) I'm putting the balls up. I don't know why he has to play with them RIGHT by the couch and the ottomans.

Anyway, that led to decluttering. I pulled the couches out and depsite having just cleaned out from under them, they had SO much shit under there. I just don't get how all that stuff gets under there. Anyway, so I swept that out, and there was just SHIT everywhere. Then I got to looking around and every fucking surface in my living room had shit everywhere. Just stuff on every possible space. I swear why do we need 4 sets of ear buds? Why can't anyone put Wii games back in their cases? Why do the cases and games have to be stacked vicariously on the edge? I figured now was a good time to get rid of a lot of junk Tony has been holding on to. Then I decided to glue down something on the floor edge that had come off because Tony couldn't find a good way of securing it down. I didn't fix the problem, but it's no longer hanging there either.

So, now everything is dusted- and cleaned off. There is a huge bag of stuff that I can get rid of. It feels good.

Damn it the dog got the fucking ball under the couch this time. How is that possible?

Most romantic songs according to me

2009-01-25T19:35:00.003-05:00

With Tony gone, I can't just go out on my own and get time alone, but I have found that when I really just need to get away, I put my headphones on. It works surprisingly well. I can block out all the noise and hub bub of the kids, and just kind of sink into myself. I throw them on and do the chores I need to get done. It reminds me of when I was a kid, I would put on my little cassette player (how's that for 80's?) and listen to Madonn's True Blue,or Paula Adbul's Forever Your Girl cassette while I had to clean my room, or the basement. Sometimes, I'd let my sister listen to her Bobby Brown cassette, but only when I was feeling nice.

I've never been a picky music listener. I know some people who get an immense sense of satisfaction when listening too music. The music speaks to them, and sometimes they can be a little scornful of say Britney Spears. I don't care about all that. I like music because I like it. I'll sing along to Britney Spears, I like her music.

But, I am a woman, and I have to say if there was any music that "spoke" to me would be a good romantic song that makes me think "Oh yes, I've felt THAT before." Even though Tony and I are in our thirties with two kids, a mortgage and a dog, and are able to live away from each otehr for half a year, there were times when I thought I would die without his kiss. There were times I thought laying together skin to skin was not even close enough, and if I could I would tear open his chest to get closer. So, yeah I was a little psycho. But, when that love is new and fresh and hot (kinda sounds like a pizza commercial) with all that passion just burning your skin, you have a tendency to get a little crazy. You want to tie your lover up to a concrete pole and feed him strawberries lovingly in the dark, soundproof basement, while he weeps through his blindfold pleading wtih you "Who are you? Where am I? How did I get here? Why won't you let me go? I'm allergic to strawberries!"

Ok so maybe not EVERYONE feels that way. But, you know what I'm getting at. Love when it's new, it's ok to be a little bit obsessive over it.

Anyway, I spewed out all the crazy just to list my favorire romantic/love/sexy/crazy obsessive songs.

Brown Skin by India Arie
Everytime you come around, something magnetic pulls me and I can't get out.
Disoriented, I can't tell my up from down
All I know is that I want to lay you donw.

Ok... so Tony and I obviously do not have brown skin. Actually, we're about as white as you can get, skin wise. We're the honkiest of the honkies. We're so white, we've marvelled at our skin in the moonlight as it sometimes looks like it's glowing. Camera flashes bounce of my skin ok? We don't show up in mirrors, we hiss in the sun. Do you get what I'm saying? But, this song is HOT, and it makes me SAD that I don't have brown skin, as I want this song to apply to US. It is probably the sexiest song I've ever heard without being overly sexual.

Cupid's Chokehold By Gym Class Heroes
I mean, she even cooks me pancakes
And Alka-seltzer when my tummy aches
If that ain't love, then I don't know what love is

Because isn't that what it's all about? Someone to cook for you,and give you medicine when you're not feeling well? I love this song because it's real, because after you settle down and release him from his padded sound proof cell, it's the little things he does for you to make you feel good. Like not call the police.

Long Walk by Jill Scott
You're here, I'm pleased
I really dig your company
Your style, your smile, your peace mentality
Lord, have mercy on me
I was blind, now I can see
What a king's supposed to be
Baby I feel free, come on and go with me

This is one of my favorite songs of all time. This is one of those songs that I really hope comes round when I have the Ipod on shuffle, yet it rarely does for some reason. Anyway, this song is one of my favorites because it's simple message about love. That it's not about wine and roses. It's about taking the time to get to know one another and you're here and that's what makes me happy and the only thing that matters. Taking a long walk... it's cheap and it's good for the heart in more ways than one.

Sweetest Goodbye by Maroon 5
I'll never leave you behind
Or treat you unkind
I know you understand
And with a tear in my eye
Give me the sweetest goodbye
That I ever did receive

This song makes me cry everytime I listen to it. It reminds me of when Tony has to leave for any amount of time. Even when he was on shore duty and never had to go anywhere, I would still get choked up. The pain of having to say good-bye when you love someone is immense. I'm not an overly emotional person, but I weep everytime it's time to say good-bye and it never gets easier. *wiping tears away*

Ok so that's all I can think of right now, or actually I can think of a ton more, but I realize that music is subjective. Like the song Crazy Bitch by Buck Cherry is extremely hot in a very sick way, and obviously not for everyone.

Hey!
You're crazy bitch
But you fuck so good I'm on top of it
When I dream
I'm doing you all night
Scratches all down my back to keep me right on

See, my crazy is coming out again, I better stop here.

2009-01-22T09:45:00.002-05:00

Through the course of a day, I have many, many ideas and thoughts on what to write about here, but when I actually sit down to do something, it's all just *poof* goes away. I remember when I had my journal on Spirit Chasers, a website a friend of mine ran, I could make 5 or more entries in a day. Then I got medicine, and realized that my funny was from all the crazy. Now, I'm just boring.

Maybe I can just make a list of the random things I always want to talk about.....

Twilight Vs. Southern Vampire Series..... Since reading the SVS with Sookie Stackhouse, I have become disillusioned with Twilight. It's obvious to me where Ms. Myers got her ideas. The similarities are too much, with just slight twists in plot and characters. Both books feature people who can read minds and finds a person whose mind they can not read. In Twilight it's Edward who can read minds, the vamp, in SVS it's the human... Sookie. Both are based in small, quiet, out of the way towns, who just so happen to have a ton of mystical shit happening. Even Sookie and Bella are similiar in their refusal to be taken care of and blah blah blah. Accident prone. There are even werewolves and shape shifters and an old Vampire order who wants to keep Sookie to themselves for her mind reading abilities. SVS came out first. Stephanie Myers claims her idea for Twilight came from a dream, I say it came from a dream while she was reading SVS.

A confusing trend.... So, lately I've noticed that a lot of girls are into deer hunting camo. I know that camoflage comes in and out of fashion a lot, but usually it's army type camo in girly colors. This is altogether different though. This is straight deer hunting crap. Leaves and sticks and twigs and little speckles of deer poop. I've seen girls wearing the jackets you can only really get at Bass Pro Shop, and the other day at Sam's Club, I saw a girl with a purse that had rhinestones on the strap. So, I know it's a trend because shit is starting to be bedazzled. I don't get it. I love my husband, but I'm not OBSESSED with my husband. To me this is what this is about. Girls, who want to identify with their husband and their hobbies so badly, that they will allow themselves to wear some ugly shit. Then I think, well maybe this is the new way of showing your redneck pride? No, I'm sticking with people obsessed with their husbands.

When will I learn?.... My sister pointed out ONCE AGAIN when I was back home that my blog is like my medical journal. Well, yeah it is. But, she's right I do talk about my many aches and pains quite often, and I'm going to do it again.

When will I learn that carbs are NOT my friend? Let's see since I've fallen off the wagon... my migraines have come back full force, I'm hungry all the time, my acne is back, and my stomach hurts a lot, I have a horrible gas, and I need a nap in the afternoons. You'd THINK I'd be frying up eggs up the dozen, but oh no. For some reason, I want to torture myself. What is with that? I had PASTA for breakfast. I'm an idiot.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many thoughts I have throughout the day. I bore even myself.

2009-01-21T11:57:00.002-05:00

I haven't had much to write about since my days feel like I'm in that movie Groundhog Day. I get up, and do what I did yesterday all over again. Not much changes, not much happens.

I finally got Jonathan into school. He was really ready and I'm glad I waited until now. I think if I had put him in school in September it wouldn't have been as easy as it was now. Yesterday was supposed to be the first day, but because it was supposed to snow, everyone canceled school. For snow that was SUPPOSED to come later in the day.. maybe. Yes, you read that correctly. MIGHT come later on in the day, but none at that the moment we're cancelling schools. Of course, we didn't see a single snowflake all day yesterday. Being from St. Louis, it never occured to me that the chance of snow was enough to cancel school. We got up, got dressed, and got Aisy out the door. She comes back ten minutes later and told me a parent saw her and told her school was closed. We didn't hear the phone ringing this morning to let us know.

Anyway, all that to say TODAY was Jonny's first day. He did great. Got dressed, ate his breakfast, waited with baited breath until it was time to leave. We get there, he does what he's supposed to do, walks into the classroom, gives me a kiss and a hug and I start to walk out. Right as I open the door I hear "NOOOOOOOOOO" and I look behind me and he's bawling his eyes out, runnning toward me with arms outstretched. He trips and falls, and then crawls out the door with me. It was quite a pitiful sight. I took his hand and pulled him, nearly dragged him, to the classroom, telling him calmly that everyone goes to school at some point, and he's a big boy now, and is ready to learn. The teacher takes over and I march out. I'm not one to sit and soothe. I think it makes it harder for the teacher and for everyone all round. I knew once the kids got there and the day started he would feel better. I got a call later to say he cried for a few minutes but then was fine and told the teacher that he liked it there. What a relief it was to hear that.

I said it was easier on him to do it now, and he still got upset. But, trying to imagine his reaction if I had done it in September, it would have been much worse. I would suspect that I would have gotten a call not to say he was ok, but a call to say "um you need to come and get him, he's still hysterical."

I also made an appointment for Aislinn. The teacher says she is still struggling with trying to focus. I can not deny it much anymore, I need to get her evaluated. She has an appointment tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for all of us that she can get some help. The teacher said she's an amazing student, willing to learn and smart, but her lack of focus is hurting her right now.

I misss Tony like crazy. It's really been bringing me down. Then I think that he'll be gone again next year at this time, and I can't help but to think... what the fuck is he doing to us and our family and our marriage? I know that sounds unfair, but I can't help but wonder how he can see this half a year seperation as something that we can deal with. On other ships, deployments are stretched out. It may be another 18 months after you get back before you have to go again, but this job it's a yearly thing since there is no ship to be repaired and prepared for deployment. Every November-December they pack up and leave. Why does MY husband want THIS job? Being in the Navy? Why does he think being gone from his family for half the year in an acceptable way to live life?

As you can see.. I've been a bit bitter about it for awhile.

2009-01-13T08:35:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to get back on goal with going to bed by midnight, but in order for that to work, I can not let myself to go back to bed after Aislinn leaves for school. It's harder than it sounds, because the pets go up to bed after she leaves. Do you know how hard it is to resist a nice warm bed, piled high with two blankets, and two warm, furry bodies to snuggle with? It's TORTURE. It's so tempting right now.

I miss Tony. A lot. We got into a fight recently about his lack of gumption when it came to fixing things that needed to be fixed before he left, and instead he made a dog house for our INDOOR DOG. So, now I have this pretty cool dog house in my backyard that no one uses. Why would the dog want to go outside to then go inside this dog house, when he could, oh I don't know... COME INSIDE THE BIG HOUSE. Where there's food and water, and crumbs to lick off the floor, and a cat to drag around.

But, anyway. Even though he made me mad, he's still a good guy, and I miss him. He doesn't talk much but he's good for keeping my feet warm at night. Plus I miss saying "The queen needs coffee" and you know him doing it. Now when I say that I just hear crickets, and I sigh heavily and go make my own. It sounds totally bitchy that I say that right? That's ok, we get it.

The kids have been so fight-y lately. I'm at my wits end. I don't know if its their age, or the fact that they both just really suck or what. Yesterday, I heard Aislinn slap Jonathan from upstairs. Then she had the nerve to be mad at ME because I grounded. She was only trying to LIGHTLY slap him. Why didn't I get that?

Aislinn told me the other day she wanted to be a boy. I think I scared her because as we were leaving Ace Hardware (to buy a snake to fix the sink that my husband did not fix before he left) I stopped short and said... "Oh God. I am bleeding all over myself". To make matters worse, I then went into the van, grabbed some papertowels and crammed them down my pants. Talk about traumatic for a little girl right? It was on the way home she said she wished she was a boy. She also informed me that she was never going to have a baby, that she would adopt. I think all little girls think this as kids, before hormones and horniness come into the picture. I know I did.

Aislinn reminds me of myself as a kid. She is surly and quick to burst someone's bubble, but yet so naive and trusting an innocent. I totally get why my mom told me I was a "miserable child". Aislinn is the same way. If Jonny is happy about something, Aislinn will say the one thing to suck the happiness right out of his bubble. I thought I had improved on this, but apparantly not since she had to learn it from somewhere. I have made it a point to watch myself.

It's not so much about her doing it to be mean I don't think, but doing it to be realistic. Like, if Jonny says he can't wait to start kindergarten because schools have playgrounds, and that means he can play on them, Aislinn doesn't say "Yeah buddy, isn't that cool?",. even though she knows Jonny is scared of school, and this is the first positive thing he's said about school... ever. Instead she has to point out that he only gets to play on there once a day. Which crushes his hopes, but in all fairness... is true. She just needs to learn some tact.

Bed is still looking tempting. My coffee hasn't kicked my sleepies away just yet, and the animals are looking extra snorgly. I may have to give in.

Totally going to be lazy here

2009-01-06T23:01:00.002-05:00

I'm going to post something on here I posted on one of my message boards. Sorry for those of you that read it there. But, I wanted to keep a record of it.

The question was about tackiest gifts recieved this year. A woman Chris got presents from the DUMP from her mother in law. Chris' presents were even broken. Nothing says I love you like broken dump presents.

But, that reminded me of the gifts from Nana this year:

Ok well we all agree Chris wins hands down. I thought my Nana was bad, but man Chris's MIL took the cake!!

My Nana is 78 and has a history of giving shitty gifts. The thing is... the woman knows what good taste is. She walked into my moms home with a new kick ass leather coat and a FENDI bag ok? A BIG FENDI bag. Not a wristlet. I could have put Louie in it. Actually, he was in it, trying to dig out a pork chop bone she had stashed away. Anyway.

She informed my mom that she got my sister's boyfriend Jordan a leather coat. We couldn't WAIT because we knew it was going to be horrible!! That's one of our favorite parts of Xmas. The passing out of tacky gifts by my Nana. First of all, Jordan is 21, and a hipster. You know the type, black band tee, houndstooth hoodie, pants down below the crack of his ass with a studded belt holding them there, lip ring, stretched out earlobes. The nicest guy you will ever meet, and my parents adore him (probably because he doesn't believe in premarital sex unlike their other two son in laws. )

So, she passes out gifts. My mom makes out well. Silver tray with cream and sugar set. Michelle gets one of those purses that used to house like nail polish.. sans nail polish. It's like the tiniest purse ever, and Michelle carries a suitcase. Her wallet is bigger than this thing. Bo gets a cell phone/purse wristlet in patent leather blue. I got a used copy of Dr. Phil's weight loss solution.. with SOMEONES OLD NOTES INSIDE. (In her defense she claimed she didn't know I was coming ) My dad got a camoflage shirt. My dad doesn't hunt, nor does he wear camoflage or has the pressing need to hide in the woods. The worst part is it was UGLY camo. With like leaves and sticks on it.

But, then came Jordan's coat. This used leather coat. It wasn't as bad as we thought, until she turned it around (I'm cracking up) and there was a big ole rip in the back. When we pointed it out she exclaimed "Well shit! I paid TEN DOLLARS for that thing!!"

Oh Nana. You never fail to amuse.

You know give us all $5 gc to Mickey D's if you feel the need to give us anything at all. We would rather not get anything than those things. It's feels like an insult.

As she left she puffed with pride and said "No one is ever disappointed when I shop from my house" Then she took her Fendi bag and left.

2009-01-06T01:36:00.003-05:00

Blah blah blah.

First of all, can I say that my dog is extra freaking cute right now? He's laying on my bed, all comy and relaxed.

His coat is driving me nuts. I have hand stripped the top part pretty much completely, and he's got a nice new coat coming in. With cairns, you have to hand strip them. That means, in case you didn't know, YANK OUT THE HAIR BY HAND. It sucks. Yes you read that correctly. I usually bunch up his fur,skin and meat, and pull the stuff that's dead. It's the stuff a normal dog would shed, but because I can't allow myself to HAVE AN EASY LIFE, I got a dog that needs to have those hairs ripped out. But, since I don't have hours upon hours a day to sit and rip out hairs from my dog, I only mananged to get the top part done.

The dog brings me crazy joy people. He's bad as all get out. He peed on my floor probably a hundred times today. He's the loudest little fucker on the planet, but his signal to let me know he needs to go out? Sitting or standing by the door quietly. If I'm upstairs, he will not come get me, he just stands there quietly, then pees if no one notices him. But, if a piece of dog food is floating in his water dish, he'll barkbarkbarkbark to warn us of the impending danger of AHHH FLOATING KIBBLE!! At my mom's over Christmas break his nemesis was the shed (nemesis is Jonny's new word. What's Jonny's nemesis? He says pineapple) first he didn't like it because he has issues with tall flat things. It's totally weird. We found out this little tidbit when the kids were playing with a top to a rubbermaid bin. Then my dad pulled his little scooter and that just tore if for him. Not ONLY did the shed have the audacity to be tall and flat, but it also housed a loud thing with wheels? Awwww HELLS NAW Louie don't play dat. So, everyone time he went outside to pee, which is literally every twenty minutes, he would run and barkbarkbark at the shed until I went out there and chased him around to get him to come inside.

Today, Aislinn got sent home from school for being sick. First time ever and pretty frantic and borderling traumatic.

1. I totally brain farted and forgot to give the school our new number. We did it right before Xmas break, and everything was kinda hectic. So, I get a call at 11, she had been in the Nurse's office since like 9:30. They had to contact a kid from schools mom who had my number because she cat sitted for me (and totally went through my shit).

2. I went outside and it had been raining. My cars BOTH of them, sometimes, ok all the time, give me problems when it's been raining. It took me thirty minutes of trying before I got one of them started. Of course it was the CAR, which was in FRONT of my van. Luckily, the neighbors weren';t home to see me drive on their lawn.

I walked in, and NurseyPoo looked at me like I was scum. Treated me like it too. What kind of mother doesn't inform the school of a number change, THEN has the balls to come strolling in an hour after the phone call? I just hate that feeling of being judged. It bothers me more than I care to admit, and it's something that will probably stick with this woman for a long time. Not to mention the fact that Aislinn looks like a scrub on a daily basis, and I can't even get my child when she's sick AND my car wouldn't start? That's just a recipe for welfare family in her book you know?

I think I need to seriously think about getting a new vehicle. Not that there is anything wrong per se with ours, other than the whole won't start when it rains and oh yeah in VA? IT RAINS A LOT. Sure I would love a new mini van, but you know I kinda dig my granny van a lot. Not enough to say... get a newer version of it, but I like having the granny van when everyone else is driving a newer mini van. I like the "Fuck you and your car payment" feeling of superiority I get while driving it. Why? Because I have issues, and if you've read this blog for awhile, you know I'm not lying about that.

My Christmas of extreme AWESOMENESS

2009-01-05T13:43:00.002-05:00

Well, maybe that title was a bit over the top, but considering I had to drive 900 miles with two kids and a puppy to sleep on a tiny twin bed while my husband is overseas, my Christmas vacation was pretty exceptional.

Louie did really well. He didn't bark once on the ride there. He was too busy being morose and barfing. Poor dog. He's pretty tough, but a big ole wuss when it comes to car riding. I was pretty sure that by the second hour of our trip, I was going to convince myself not to leave him on teh side of the road. On the way back he started to bark about three blocks from our house. It was like he knew we were going home, and that the cat needed to be dragged by her ear around the house.

Jonny told me while we were gone that he enjoys to bite the cat's ear. Leah isn't much of a vocalizer and this disappoints him. He bites her ear so that she will meow. When we got home, and I was holding the cat, he looked at me with an intense burning in his eyes and said "I REALLY want to bite her ear right now." The sad thing is... I totally get that. Don't we get that way with our pets and shit sometimes our kids. That intense need to do something so gross/weird and we can't help it? He bit her ear and I saw how HARD he was bitting (honestly I thought he was like nipping her) and I was like "Whoa! Next step is like serial killer there buddy. Don't do that again." He was disappointed, and I'm sure he still bites her ears when I'm not there.

Aislinn got sent home today for being sick and barfing. Poor girl. The school had to hunt me down as I forgot to give them the new number. I won't be winning mom of the year awards any time soon.

I partially unpacked my van, and I still have things.. just things in there. Then I take the things and put the things in my dining room. So now my dining room is just fullof things, and honetly I don't know where all the things will go. I think I'll just take a nap instead of dealing with it.

an hour behind schedule...

2008-12-19T15:54:00.002-05:00

That's the story of my life. Just waiting for the directions to print and get the kids loaded into the van. Got my big ole mug of coffee, shed a tear for my Keurig (I actually contemplated taking it with me and making coffee on the way with our plug in thingy) and kissed the kitty good-bye.

The kids are antsy. The dog hates his harness, and I'm ready to be around my loved ones.

Everyone have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that jazz. Pray for me. 937 miles, two kids, one puppy, and a stop in WV.

2008-12-15T00:00:00.002-05:00

Whoa it's been awhile. Geez when was the last time I even wrote in here? I'm pretty sure it was pissy and moany whatever it was.

I'm feeling better. Physically, I'm tired. That's for a few reasons, mainly that lovely, special time that women get once every 28 days or so. I had been super head achey the last week too. It would come and go, and I didn't know what it was. I put it together today. I've been getting withdrawals from carbs/sugar when I tried to go back to low carb. Once that dawned on me, and realized my body was rebelling, that was exactly what I needed to get in gear. Knowing that just after a DAY of not having sugar/carbs my body is so miserable makes me upset. So, today is day one! And also the hardest day because it's day two of that lovely, special time. I actually had to lay down and sleep around 4:30 today for awhile because my body was so run down. It wanted sugar and was laying it on thick. I didn't give in, just went to sleep. The kids were awesome about it.

I got most my Christmas shopping done. I just need to run out and get two things for two people, and wait for a delivery of another one. I wrapped some of the gifts today for family. I need to get the kids gifts wrapped soon too. I need to clean up, and get the van's oil changed, and packed. I can't believe it's already Christmas! I hope that the rest of the six month goes as quickly as these last two weeks have.

I'm here

2008-12-11T20:21:00.002-05:00

Ugh. Well, life has been interesting since Tony has left. I've been super crabby and kinda mopey. It doesn't help that I have PMS as well. I'm trying to get back on track with my diet too. That's kinda hard when you're sad. When I'm sad I have a tendency to lose my appetite. I usually then go so long without eating I make myself sick, then when I do eat, it's whatever is lying around like Cheez-its. So, then I walk around feeling like I'm going to blurf everywhere, and the thought of food makes it worse. Because I'm having low blood sugar, I snap and get pissy. I get a headache, I feel lethargic and pissy. I know I said pissy twice. All I have to say is... feel really sorry for my childred. One day I realized at dinner time while I was walking around wondering why I was barfy that the only thing I ate all day was 2 hard boiled eggs and coffee.

Coffee... ugh. I've been running on caffeine for about a week now. Got a new Keurig, and it's so easy to make a hot fresh cuppa, that I do it quite often.

The garbage disposal is busted, my laptop is on the fritz, I have on week to get all my Xmas presents wrapped, packed and put in the van. I have to get myself and the kids ready for an extended trip.

Sigh.

One Week

2008-12-07T20:06:00.003-05:00

One measly week and I'm already done. Right now I have my earphones on just so I can have QUIET. Funny isn't it? I have to put my headphones on so I don't have to hear fighting, whining and fucking Hannah Montana!

I decided to take the kids to see Madagascar 2. First of all, it was a big snit because one wanted to see Bolt, and one wanted to see M2. I went back and forth and decided I wanted to see M2 and so we did. At the last minute, Aislinn wanted to go to Cinema Cafe. I HATE this place. They cram about 100 people into a tiny theater, with these desk chairs. The food is horrible, the service is horrible, and you have to be really concious about not bumping your neighbor or being in the way of the person behind you etc. Plus the kids can't sit still in those fucking chairs. So, througout the whole movie my chair is being whacked by their chairs once going one way, once again on the way back. Back and forth on both sides. It's enough to make me scream. I finally told the kids we were NEVER going there again.

Ugh, I'm just grumpy.

Two days down

2008-12-03T17:51:00.002-05:00

One day at a time right?

Yesterday, we changed our internet/phone providers. Thank GOD. We had Cox. I could go for the obvious joke right now about their name and them sucking themselves, but I won't. They were horrible. Our phone rang I would say a third of the time and it went on for a year. We made several calls and nothing was ever resolved. Near the end I found that if I made a call first thing in the morning, then that would sometimes, but not always, "reset" the phone and it would up the chance that the phone would ring the rest of the day.

What really makes me mad is that I thought it was maybe our phones, so I spent about a hundred dollars on new phones when we first moved here. Still, they wouldn't ring. If we were psychic and knew you were calling, then we could pick up and talk to you, but alas we're not mutants running with the X-men. We're just mere mortals. It actually gave me and Tony a complex as our phone would go a week without ringing before we realized it was a problem. We thought everyone hated us.

Nothing new or fabulous has happened. Oh wait I take that back! I got a new battery and cord for my laptop. It's now working again! It's been about a week. It's also nice to be free and not dependent on my power cord.

Soon it will be bed time, and we can cross yet another day off the calender. It just won't be the same until he comes back.

Cross one day off the calender

2008-12-01T21:56:00.002-05:00

What a day it was.

Actually, it all started to fall apart last night. We all had excess emotions being flung all over the place. Jonny, who usually starts asking when bedtime is around 3 pm, would not go to sleep last night. Finally, when I ended up getting down and dirty with him, he burst into tears about missing his daddy. Then it was tears from both of them for hours after bedtime.

The dog freaked not having Tony here. He spent most the evening into the wee mornings pacing back and forth, growling at any noise he heard, real or imagined. He had seperation anxiety for the first time last night in his crate. I had to go and get him, bring him upstairs where he then fought for most the night with the cat. They were bouncing off the bed, Leah was biting my feet, Louie jumped on my face. I think I finally got to bed around five am.

The sucky thing was Tony was stuck in DC. Just so close! He coulda stayed another night. Oh well.

It does get easier each time

2008-11-30T21:07:00.002-05:00

As sucky as that sounds, it is the truth.

Wait, sorry had to move a shit head DOG from in front of my monitor. Yes, I'm on the desktop and he climbed up on the couch, onto the desk, and stood in front of the monitor.

Anyway, like I was saying, it does get easier, but what doesn't get easier is the time before he leaves. Today was like being stuck in limbo. On one hand, you feel the need to be aware of the situation, but on the other hand, what are you supposed to do? Cry at his feet while he packs his bag? Plus, knowing Tony, it really is just better if you act normal. It hurts him to see us upset, so he'd rather us just play Wii if it makes us feel better, and he'll play PSP and we'll all drive to the airport and weep there.

Moving dog AGAIN. I swear he thinks he's a cat. As you can see, I won't be BORED while he's gone.

Then again, crying and whining and stomping around huffing "IS IT TIME TO GO YET?!?" will hurt Tony's feelings. I made the mistake of the telling the kids we'd get McDonalds for dinner on the way home. So for about four hours, Jonny stomped around pissy because we weren't LEAVING already. At first Tony thought it was cute, but the time we left, I think his feelings were hurt.

We all held it goether until we dropped him off and yes I wept like a baby. I even tried to jokingly say I hated him for leaving, then sobbed "No! No I don't! I'm sorry!!" It was quite pathetic. It makes it hard for Tony to leave when I'm distraught.

So, onward we go.

Date night

2008-11-23T16:10:00.003-05:00

Tony and I went on a date last night. It was.... kinda lame. Seriously, but that's ok. Life right now for Tony and I? Well, it's lame and I'm ok with that. So, don't think I'm complaining.

We hadn't been on a date in a good long while. I want to say that maybe possibly we went on one when we were in St. Louis in August, but I don't think so and if we did, it was so unspectacular that I chose to block it from my mind.

The lady down the street said she'd watch the kids. We didn't want to be rude, so we dropped teh kids off at 4:30 and headed to the movie theater. We watched Role Models, which was hilarious. The two ladies behind us added to the hilarity because they talked to the screen the whole time. During a scary movie or a drama or a romance movie this is annoying, during a comedy it is most welcome. During a comedy, I want everyone to talk and laugh and have a good time. There were only about ten people in there, I thought we should all sit clustered together, sharing our popcorn and twizzlers, talking to the screen and laughing together.

Anyway, there was nothing great about the movie, but it was really, really funny if you like dick jokes and a foul mouth little kid obsessed with boobies. Oh and Paul Rudd. Need I say more ladies? Mmm hmm didn't think so. I heart Paul Rudd. Even with a dumb name like Paul Rudd, I'd let him do me.

After the movie we had mexican food. I don't particularly care for mexican, but Tony wanted it because it was something we can't eat with the kids, and like my friend Teri said, sometimes that's reason enough to do something.

Speaking of kids, they were both torn over date night. They really wanted to play with Bethany down the street, but they were also upset we were going to the movies. I told them we were going to see Madagascar which sent both of them into a snit. We calmed them down, but they still wanted to know why they couldn't come. We explained that there are some movies that we want to see that they can't see. Movies filled with bad words and probably real naked boobies. They were happy with that answer and Aislinn announced "Ew who wants to see boobies?" Aislinn have you MET your father? Sheesh.

Louie feels better. He's back to his old self. I don't know if us caring for him while he was sick did something to his attitude, but I must say the dog is downright loving. He was stand offish with us for awhile, only showing excitement when we came home, or in the morning after we woke up. But now he is choosing to stay by us, and is becoming more playful as the days go on. I just love his intelligient face and bright brown eyes. I love when he barks at a toy and wags his tail at the same time. I love his stumpy short legs. His legs were made for digging and his paws are broad and strong. He's a small dog, but he's a little powerhouse. He was built for digging in piles of rock and killing rats and things. He has a strong hunting instinct and his nose is always to the ground. He once wanted to smell something on the bottom of Aislinn's shoe and scratched and dug at the floor around her shoe to get to it.

We have one week left until Tony leaves. It really sucks, but I'm trying not to obsess or think about it too much so I don't ruin the time we have left. Six months people. That's a long ass time.

2008-11-21T14:53:00.002-05:00

This week has been a tense week for me. Louie has been sick. He got his kennel cough vax on Sunday and by Monday night was coughing and by last night had progressed to not eating, shivering with smelly yellow snot running from his nose. He slept in bed with me and Tony with me waking every thirty minutes to make sure he was still alive. I got him up this morning to potty where he promptly peed and pooped and came back in and barely ate his food, even though I had added some of the freeze dried medallions and wetting them like he likes. Usually he will eat this all down in one sitting and then walk around with his fat puppy belly hanging low.

I got Aislinn off to school and after that Louie decided to chase the case. He lasted five minutes before he started to hack and cough. He napped while I waited for the vets office to open to see if they had anything available today. Of course they didn't and I have to take him in tomorrow.

Yet, in true "kid" fashion, after I have worked myself up enough to actually decide to take him to the Dr. he's fine. He woke up from his all day long doze peppy. His eyes are clear, he played with me outside, he ran after Jonny and didn't cough once. He came in allowed me to play wrastle and even fetched his squeaky star for me once before walking off in search of the cat. He found the cat and decided to terrorize her for a bit. Now he's walking around looking for toilet paper to chew.

I've never been one to take my children, or myself for that matter, to the Dr. right away, and the Dr. is free. I like to take a wait and see approach. So, you can see how I waited so long for the dog. I heard that some dogs get kennel cough after getting the vax for it. I just didn't know kennel cough was so scary! It was like the dog flu or something. I wish I could have given him Nyquil or something. Of course, after not being able to take the uncertainty anymore, after second guessing my wait and see attitude, I break and call the vet adn now I either cancel or pay to have them look at my healthy-ish dog and say "Give him a few more days.. that will be 1 billion dollars".

I grew up in a family that had outside dogs. You got a dog, you put him in your backyard. You fed it, you watered it, you cleaned up its poo, but you never really played with it or did anything with it. It was mainly there to disuade people from breaking in. So, this is all new territory for me.

2008-11-17T14:29:00.005-05:00

I'm feeling a little better. I made myself get up and clean the floors and wipe the table down, just to get some movement going in my muscles. I love how easy it is to sweep and mop my floors. I got a microfiber mop and it works great. I was trying to listen to my new Ipod but of course whenever I put my earphones in, someone has to ask me something. That's how I got so far behind in music. The kids never really want to listen to music, and it's hard to be a mom when you can't hear you know? Then, when I want to listen to music, I usually want to hear something I know and can sing along with. My friend C cent me a $20 internet GC to Itunes and I decided to buy the Twilight soundtrack. I saw that it had two Paramore songs on there, and I've seen them here and there, and decided to get it. It's good and best of all NEW. I was getting sick of usual mix of Beyonce, Elvis, and Motley Crue.

Louie is sitting next to me sleeping. He has been down today. He had to get shots yesterday which he did well with, but I also had his nails clipped and that was traumatic for him. Poor baby. Louie ha now officially learned to fetch. This is monumental because this means he trusts us to give him his toy back, and issue we were working on for awhile. He still doesn't trust Jonny, but that is a legitimate concern. Jonny is still too young to get it. Louie does listen to Aislinn much better now. She can tell him to drop something and he will. He's doing great on walking on the leash. He mostly walks right next to me, looking up at me with eyes that say "Look how good I'm doing" I probably sound like an idiot as I tell him what a great boy he is pretty much the whole walk. When he comes back from the dog park it takes him awhile to get back into it though.

Potty training is going better. He's hasn't had a poop accident in a while, and he's letting us know more and more he has to go outside by sitting in front of the door. Unfortunately, if we don't see him, he just wanders off and pees. What's funny is he will scratch and bark when he wants to come IN but not when he wants to go out. The problem we have now is that he wants to go in and out constantly. I'm not complaining right now because I want him to know that if he wants out, we'll gladly let him out. But, it's starting to get old already.

Some pictures of our new floors:

New pics of Louie and Leah :

2008-11-17T12:17:00.002-05:00

So, yesterday was my birthday, and it was nice. Tony always makes sure I have a nice day. I've been feeling very blah lately, and honestly it's because I've completely stopped eating the way I usually do. Junk food, fast food, sugar, bread. The whole nine yards. I've been sick and achy. That's not to say I wouldn't have caught a cold while eating the right way for me, but I don't think it would have stuck around this long. It's been almost two weeks.

Tony leaves soon, and I'm trying to not think about it, but I can't help it. It's coming in two short weeks.

2008-11-11T21:05:00.003-05:00

I'm trying really hard not being a control freak, but Tony is really pissing me off with the dog. He won't LISTEN to me (Tony) and then does everything wrong to get the dog to listen to him. He actually gave the dog FOOD when he was barking in his crate. I was like "Yeah good way to get him to learn barking brings him a treat" for the rest of the dinner the barking was ampled up like crazy. Usually, Louie will bark for a few minutes and if we ignore him, he'll stop. I don't know WHAT posessed Tony to feed the dog.

When I tell the dog to sit, I tell him ONCE then I make him sit with my hand if I have to. Tony just says "sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit" and eventually, Louie gets tired of waiting for the food, and you know takes a rest, and then Tony gives him food because "Look he sat!".

What aggravates me the most is that Tony gets the most upset with the dog when he acts spazzy and doesn't listen. It's the same thing with the kids. He gets so angry that they don't listen to him, but he doesn't do anything to make them listen. He's a pushover that way I guess.

The clutter of my house is driving me nuts. Between having four people home all the time (Aislinn has had a lot of time off school recently due to report cards and Veterans day) and the projects there is just STUFF everywhere. Jonny antagonizes the animals so it's just like so noisy at all times. I haven't been a very nice person to be around today I'm sure.

2008-11-10T10:26:00.003-05:00

Being a homeowner is so much fun! Who knew going to Home Depot could be so exciting?

We have wanted to do laminate flooring in the living room and dining room ever since we moved in. Of course, when we moved in, this wasn't our house. We always thought though that it would be really nice. When we bought it we said "let's do it". We assumed that laminate wood flooring would be an economical way to get a wood look without doing hardwood floors. Plus, it's more durable, more kid and pet friendly. We have friends who did hardword flooring and although beautiful, it seems like a pain. For one, they can't have a dog, and people who have dogs can't bring them over. I guess I won't really be visiting with them in December. The dogs nails can scratch their floors, the kids have to be careful with their toys, and well it just doesn't make for a very fun house. (Not that it was very fun before then either, but I digress)

We priced flooring and to our shock, it was going to cost us almost a 1,000 dollars! We were amazed. We were thinking literally, half that. We just had more floor to cover than we realized. Even the Home Depot "cheap stuff" that was clearanced or a lesser known company was around $800.

We had heard of a few places we may be able to get it cheaper, but we were kind of disheartened by it all. I mean, if HD had it clearanced at $1.47 a SQF, how much cheaper could it get? Plus the clearanced stuf was kind of ugly. Real light and plain looking and it just wasn't what I envisioned for our home. We decided to at least do the dining room (I hate eating our food over a carpet with kids! It just stays stained all the time) and save for the living room for when he got back.

On Friday we got a flyer for a place called Ollie's Bargain Outlet . Now, if you saw this paper advert, you wouldn't take it seriously. I didn't for a YEAR while I lived here. Every few months we'd get some flyer with Ollie on it, a cartoony looking grandpa figure with a buck tooth grin and a hawaiin print shirt. It adverstised the usual bargain stuff... mix matched sheets, discontinued toys etc. I never went there. Yet, this time, something told me to try it. They had laminate for NINETY SEVEN CENTS! a SQF! Wow.

We went there on Saturday, walked around, and took a gander at all the stuff. We didn't make a beeline for the laminate. I think Tony had the same attitude as I had, we didn't want to get too excited only to be sorely disappointed over a) the ad being too good to be true or b) if the laminated was that cheap it would really, really ugly. We perused the toys, the kids found some Nintendo themed wall stickers for their rooms (Aislinn has Pokemon on her side, Jonny Nintendogs on his) and we found some super cheap beef jerky.

We wandered over to the home section and were immediatley struck by their HUGE rug selection. I don't know if I'd be able to FIND a rug there I liked, but I would have fun trying. We saw where the laminate was and we took our sweet time to get there. When we got there, we were honestly and TRULY surprised!

The laminate was NICE! It even had a little bit of texture to it, it wasn't just flat. The color wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but we could definitely be ok with it for that price and when we got it home we realized it matched everything we already had perfectly, so it worked out well. We got all we needed and the underlayment for a bit over five hundred dollars for both rooms!

Tony has most of it done. He just needs to do the step (our living room is sunken by a foot) and the trim. We also plan on painting too. This is driving me nuts. The pictures I have all have a teal accent to to them. On the color wheel the "warm" complimentary color would be peach, and the cool a yellow. I was thinking of doing a gold, not yellow, but more orangy/brown/gold/honey. Actually honey is a good way to describe what I mean. Or doing a very dark brownish pink. I'll take pictures as soon as I find the camera somewhere in this mess!

You know I couldn't end this without talking about my Louie. He's doing good. He's letting us know more and more when he has to go to the bathroom by standing in front of the door. Whenever he stands by it, I let him out, even if he doesn't have to go just so he can know that if he stands by it, he'll get a response. It sucks though because if we don't notice him, he will just wander off and pee. In the morning I'm the only one who can take him out. If Tony takes him out, he won't go poop. Tony can sit out with him for twenty minutes and he'll hold it and then run upstairs to poop. I also think he hates having to go in his crate when he doesn't go. My thinking was... if he goes outside and doesn't pee or poop (when I think he should be pooping like after eating) then he goes in his crate. Tony and the kids think this is mean. But, I can't have him wandering around pooping in the house just because they think he should be free. I recently got a dog training book that said to do this very thing! It was good to see my instincts were right. When he poops or pees then he is free to run around. When it's time to go again, if he doesn't go then back in his crate he goes. He doesn't like it, but he doesn't fuss much anymore, only when we eat. He just now lays down and goes to sleep and is now sleeping in his crate at night. Another thing the book said was that when you get a new puppy home, one option is to sleep with him at night with him in your bed. This would be a good way to transition him. We did this too! When we made the transition from our bed to crate it was easy. The first night was whining for about five minutes and that was it. We noticed he wasn't interested in sleeping with us. He used to sleep between us or in my arms, and then moved to the bottom of the bed, then one night he jumped down and slept on the floor. That's when we put him in his "den" at night.

He's also learning to wait before going in and out of a door and drop it. I really love drop it since he runs off with just about everything he can get his puppy mouth on. There are some things he gets pissy about and a bit snappy over. It's hard having kids to deal with as they chase him around and try to yank things out of his mouth and don't give him anything in return or praise him for giving it up. He gets possesive of his things and can get aggressive. I'm working on him with this, and everytime he drops it, even if he growls at me and I have to pry it out, as soon as I have it in my hand I give him good boys and give him one of HIS toys or a treat. Today he ran off with Aisy's granola bar that fell out of her backpack. She immediately chased him making him run, and I just said in my stern voice "Drop it" and he did.

Also, today when I went out front I made him sit and wait, and when I came back from teh van he was STILL sitting there waiting for me! Having a dog feeds my controlling side I swear.

Leah, well she's a cat and even though she's sweet and snorgely she just does what a cat does, sleep and eat and poop. I swear this cat does NOT shed. Today, me and Tony ran our fingers through her roughly to see if we could pull out any hair, and none came out! It's awesome!

2008-11-07T11:16:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday night I quit my playgroup. I'm sure everyone there thinks it's because of the election. What they don't realize is that the election and the political disagreements on the board for the group was just the icing on my departure cake. It was something I had toyed with for a very long time.

I tried to ignore things that were said that went against my core principles. At first I excused my staying with "I'm trying to be accepting of all people" or "That isn't how I feel, and they are allowed to say what they want". Yet I was leaving each meetup increasingly more uncomfortable when things were said like soy makes men gay, or that depression isn't "real", or the time the hostess was telling us a story about getting into a shouting match with a teenaged boy at the gas station and repeatedly called him the N word and laughed through the whole thing, and then finished the story with "I would NEVER use that word normally" Hmm just when a CHILD pisses you off. Gotcha. Or most recently calling an austic woman a retard when she made a ball call at a childs football game.

Ultimately though my loneliness won over my head. I LIKED being a part of a group. Mostly it was a good time. When the conversations stayed light and banal, I was able to push my uneasy feelings to the side. Near the end, there always seem to be those people that got soap box preachy when something would come up in normal conversation. It would be all finger waving and neck rolling about something they believed in, making the rest of the room feel uncomfortable and squirmy while they preached. Not even politcal stuff, just STUFF. I constantly felt like someone was trying to convince me to "switch sides" almost. I realized in my state of trying to be accepting of their ideals, they weren't being accepting of mine at all.

I knew I had to leave when Aislinn overheard me talking to Tony about what happened at a playgroup, where someone went all soap boxy. She said "Wow, that person seems all nice on the outside, but she seems not so nice on the inside. Why are you her friend?" I realized that she was right. How many times have I told Aislinn I would rather be lonely than be in a miserable friendship when she has come to me heartbroken over a tiff she's had with her friend? Yet, here I was taking crap from people just to get out of the house?

So, I left. I left right when Obama won the presidency.

Yes we can. Yes! I did!

Bad idea for today...

2008-11-06T14:11:00.002-05:00

Using the FurMinator on your dog in the house.

Since Louie doesn't shed (and he really doesn't) you have to get rid of the "dead" hairs. His coat has been looking a little raggedy. I knew you weren't supposed to cut a Cairn's coat, but then what the hell do you do?

Thanks to Google I found out that a cairn should be stripped, the preferred method is by hand. This is where you pull your dogs hair out. I am NOT KIDDING. I gave it a little try while Louie was sleeping and he didn't seem hurt, but he did get up and move to the other end of the couch.

I figured the FurMinator would work and boy does it. I got SO much hair off the dog, and his coat looks smooth and clean. He liked it too.

I want to try it on Leah, but that will have to wait until it stops raining. Already I feel like I have little spiders on me from Louies hair.

Pets are awesome!

2008-11-06T08:09:00.002-05:00

When Tony and I first moved in together, we had so many cats. Cats out the ass! They were our lives. We adored them. Then we got kids. Kids take up a lot of your time. You don't have time to train a dog or clean a litter box.

Now that my kids are older, I have time for pets again, and I can't express enough how much joy both Louie and Leah has brought into my life in such a short period of time. I get a little choked up thinking about it.

Animals aren't complex and that's what makes them so wonderful. When they love, they love fully. You know when they're mad. You always know where you stand with your pets. After having kids, I realized pets are like toddlers which is my favorite kid stage. They usually feel one emotion at a time and they show it with their whole soul. Nothing beats coming home from being gone and Louie going nuts to get to me and when I pick him up, he licks and can hardly contain his happiness, when I walk around and he has to be right by my side, or when Leah lays in my arms and sleeps.

I've been really blessed to find the two I found. For a terrier, Louie is calm, but he IS a terrier so he's spazzy. He and Jonny get into shenanigans constantly. Leah is just the most amazing cat. I've never heard her meow, growl, or hiss. Only purr. She lets Jonny carry her around all day. For a full grown cat, she is very passive and accepting, she loves snuggles. She and Louie hang out together, and she just goes and hides if he gets to be too much.

One day I swear I'll make an entry about something other than animals!

The one day adults like stickers!

2008-11-05T10:40:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone exercised their right to vote yesterday, even if your party didn't win and you got your free coffee, doughnut, chick fil-a sandwhich and sex toy! Also, if you voted I hope you didn't have to wait a long time. Like an HOUR behind a man that smelled strongly of pee. Just sayin'.

Last night was exciting for Tony and I. I held it together pretty ok until I smelled Tony's cigar. He had one, and said he needed to figure out when to smoke it. I said "How about when Obama wins tonight?" and when he was announced he lit it up. For some reason that made me cry a bit. Also, Obama is proof that when a child says they want to be President, it CAN happen. Also, when Obama said the girls earned a puppy? Ugh tears!

In between the election results and chatting with my friends and leaving a playgroup that wasn't a good fit for me Tony and I spent a lot of time watching the cat and dog interact. Finally, Leah came out last night and is comfortable with being with the family. We also realized that Louie is pretty dumb. He won't go down the steps, but he'll climb th back of the couch, stand precariously on the banister that seperates the living room and dining room and then JUMP from it to get Leah. Idiot. But it made for a good laugh. He also eat crayons so when he poops he literally poops rainbows. It's a miracle!

Aislinn made honor role, which has me even MORE confused about the ADD thing. I still haven't gone forward with that.

Tony leaves soon and he's getting a little bit here and there done around the house.

2008-10-30T10:29:00.003-04:00

If you had a friend who secluded herself from all her family and friends for weeks at a time, exercising for six plus hours a day, and eating less than 2k calories a day what would you think? I would think my friend needed serious help and was on her way to an eating disorder.

Yet, the people on the Biggest Loser do this for the whole world to see, and people tune in every week because they find it MOTIVATIONAL and INSPIRATIONAL.

I personally don;t get it.

2008-10-30T07:56:00.003-04:00

Right now I'm sitting outside freezing my ass off because SOMEONE won't just pee already. Yesterday was an accident free day for Louie. There were times he couldn't hold it and peed as soon as he got outside on my patio, but I don't care. It wasn't INSIDE and that's a beautiful thing.

Usually when Tony wakes up he takes Louie out, then brings him back to bed with me. Then when I get up, he has to pee again. He didn't pee. We came back inside, got Aislinn off and he usually goes back out, but I was cold and distracted. I finally said off handedly "Hey Louie you gotta go potty" and kinda mosied in the general direction of the door but stopped. I just so happen to look over at him, and he's doing the circling that signals a poo is acomin'! I screamed "NO LOUIE" right as he was assuming the poo position. I grabbed him up and ran outside and plopped him in the grass, and he very casually walked to his poo spot and went. So, our no poo in the house ever streak remains intact! He's never not once poo'ed in the house.

Also, he is learning the "quiet" command and able to follow it more frequently, so the barking is much better. I'm not a nazi about it. If there is another dog barking or if the bird that likes to taunt him is taunting, I let him bark. If he's playing with the kids, have at it. It's the jags I can't take. Where he starts and can't stop. Right now his little birdy friend is calling but Louie isn't responding. The other day he was rocket dogging it around the yard when he accidently bumped into the swing set and it moved. He freaked out and barked and the only thing that made him shut it is when I brought him inside.

Yesterday, we carved pumpkins. It always sounds fun, but about half way through it just sucks. Luckily for me, Jonny just wanted a face, nothing fancy. So, I carved a face, while Tony and Aisy did more elaborate pumpkins using the patterns.

Of course, Tony does a kick ass job. He makes me ill. It took him a long time to decide if he wanted to do this pattern because he didn't even want to do pumpkins period. Jonny's face pumpkin. It took me two minutes to do standard triangle eyes, nose and mouth. So, I fancied it up. I went too far, and one of the upper teeth fell off. So, like Ren pointed out on Facebook.. it's a hillbilly pumpkin! The squiggles on the side is hair.

Aisy did a ghost holding a candleabra. It's really cute, and she did most of it herself, including scraping it out! I just poked the pattern on the pumpkin for her. She even carved extras like that pumpkin on the bottom and there is a star and moon on the sides and a face on the back.

I know most of you have already seen these, but SOME people, who shall remain nameless, can't get with the times and GET FACEBOOK already.

I swear I have other aspects of my life right now

2008-10-28T08:06:00.002-04:00

Ok, well that's a lie. Honestly, when you're training a puppy, your life is the puppy. You have to think like the puppy, feel like the puppy, hump like the puppy. Wait. What?

Louie has started to hump to show his dominance. Usually, he just humps the kids, which they think is HIGH-larious. Little do they know they're just making life sucky for themselves.

Yesterday was a great day on the Louie front. I got to pick my friend Cindy's brain on some dog tips during a playgroup. I actually kinda forgot we had a dog, and left later than I had planned. I expected Louie to be covered in piss and shit as he doesn't get the whole "Dogs don't go where they sleep" thing. But, we got home, and he was quietly sitting in his crate pee free. We had actually done really well and was going on an accident free day until.. duh duh duuuuhhhh... we just HAD to go out and pick up our deluxe version of Guitar Hero 4. Yes, WITH drums. Of course, Tony and I totally got sucked into that. If you play video games, you know about nerdvana, where all time stands still. An hour feels like 10 minutes. While we played Louie peed THREE times on the carpet. I was so mad at ourselves.

Which brings me to another boring and uninteresting dog query. How in the HELL do you teach a dog to let you know when they want to go out? Looking back, I think Louies way of telling us he wants to go out was to pee on the floor. Just a bit to get our attention I think. Before when he would pee on the floor we'd take him out. So I wonder if that was his way of saying "Hey geeks who think they're ACTUALLY rocking out, I HAVE TO PEE DAMN IT"

Puppies are evil

2008-10-26T14:14:00.002-04:00

Evil, evil little things!

I've never owned a puppy, and although I love my King Louie with all my heart, he is so very obnoxious. If he wasn't so effing cute, I'd staple a free puppy sign to his forehead and put him by the curb.

This marks one week we've had Louie. He started off scared and shy, sleeping to hide from the stimuli. Now, he's awake and a terror. He barks constantly, and not just to hear his voice but because he's afraid of every damn thing. Anything that is bigger than him sends him yapping. Anything that makes a different noise sends him into a tizzy. If a chair scrapes on the floor, if the tv makes a funny sound, if a bird squawks, if a butterfly flaps it's wings, if someone in Chesepeake sneezes, he flips out.

Everything I had read about puppies and potty training all said the same thing.. DO NOT GIVE THEM FREE RUN OF THE HOUSE. What? That's crazy talk! Why WOULDN'T the puppy get free reign? I mean, it's HIS house too. After endless puddles I've had to sop up, puddles that happen AFTER I've taken him out in the rain for twenty minutes, I've decided to crate it is. He's not in there all day. He goes in there to for about an hour or so, and then I take him out, let him pee, he eats, plays and pees again, then back in. Eventually his length OUT of the crate will increase until we don't have to crate him at all. We'll still keep it out as his home, and probably crate him while we're gone. Also, it's good for him when the kids won't leave him alone. This way he can sleep. This weekend the kids were all in his face, even when he slept. He got pretty cranky by evening time.

Today we had our first ever walkie. Since he's afraid of everything, this was kind of tough, but on the other hand he relished it. He had his nose into every nook and cranny I allowed him to sniff. He didn't bark once, and he did well on his leash. A little pulling but not too bad. I'm thinking maybe the barking is also stemming from not enough exercise and stimulation.

Puppies are a lot of work. I need a nap now.

What's the hardest part about training a puppy?

2008-10-22T23:14:00.002-04:00

Training my family.

The puppy is easy, the family not so much.

I've always been a big believer in schedules with my human babies. I believe that to be the case with puppies too. At this point King Louie's spazzy terrier brain can't understand more than one concept at a time. The concept I want him to get through that fuzzy little head is simple. Outside is where you do yo bid'ness. When he gets older he'll be able to play outside with the kids and pee if he has to.

Yesterday and today I've had an on again off again migraine. Probably from weather changes and I think from the excessive amount of sugar I've been ingesting lately. I woke up this morning again with a migraine and because of Louie and constantly taking him out, I couldn't sleep it off. I called Tony and told him if he could come home as soon as possible I'd REALLY appreciate it. He was home by 3 and I was in bed and snoozing.

I get up at 8-ish to eat something and Tony tells me that they've had a grand old time with the puppy outside. That he even pooped outside. Great! From 8 until now though, Louie has tinkled on my carpet and NEW RUG at least five times.

My family fucked my shit up is what I'm trying to say. Now, whenever I take Louie out he wants to play, then will immediately walk inside and pee. Every time he pees inside, I get a little more frantic as I think that's one more time he thinks it's ok to pee in the house, one more spot to sniff when he feels the urge. I'm already watching him as close as possible without having to gate him off at this point.

Tomorrow we start again.

Life with Louie

2008-10-22T10:27:00.002-04:00

We've had Louie the Cairn Terrier (pronouced CAR-IN, not CARN like I thought, funny enough my MIL is named Karen) for three days now, and each day he gets more and more comfortable with us. The first day I got barfed on in the van after driving around with him too much. The second day he pretty much slept the whole time, and yesterday we finally got to see some of his terrier personality. There was a lot of spazzy running and barking. I loved it! We're working hard to get him potty trained. We seem to be having less accidents each day. We decided to use the crate for now only while we're out of the house and when he wants to sit in it which is pretty much never. We left him alone yesterday for 2 hours for the first time and he did well. Started to tinkle when we came home out of excitement. He stopped himself and finished up outside. We finally pooed out in the grass last night and this morning. He does that adorable little scratching thing when he's done.

I've never really raised a puppy before and I've spent a lot of time googling things like "How many times a day should a puppy poop" and "Why does my puppy breathe fast while sleeping" and learning about things like a reverse sneeze, which when you don't know what it is and experience it for the first time is quite alarming. He is quite taken with Aislinn, and recognizes me as the pack leader. He's already tried to hump Jonny. I knew that was coming. Jonny is just little and a laid back little guy, so I knew he'd be the first to be "dominated". I stopped Louie right away and Jonny said "Heeeeyyy! I like it when he lays on me" I cracked up. If he only knew! Luckily Louie is new to humping and was doing it without actually touching Jonny with his junk.

With a terrier comes a stubborn streak (he shall fit in well with this family) and walking him on a leash is getting quite aggravating. He'll willingly follow Aislinn but if she's not there he just stubbornly sits. I plan on taking him out a little later today for a little stroll around the block with his harness and leash. I tried it last time with his collar and leash thinking it might be better, but he just choked himself continuously.

He is just an adorable little guy and I love him so much.

Ok. Everyone remain calm.

2008-10-17T07:36:00.003-04:00

I'm going to hit you with a bomb, and I just want to prepare you.

Aislinn went to school today.... with a PONYTAIL.

Smelling salts! Someone get the smelling salts, we've got a fainter!

And.... are you ready?

It was HER idea, she was BEGGING ME to do it this morning. BEGGING! With "Aww why not mom?" and "But I WANT a ponytail" and "PLLLLEEEEAAASSSEEEE?!?!?"

It all started last night. She had been doing her homework for about three hours at this point (the teacher says it should take 30 minutes max) and getting frustrated with her hair. Her hair like mine, naturally falls foward, so anytime you lean forward to read or work you get a lot of hair in your face. She kept insisting she needed a haircut. Aislinn just got a haircut, and she only needs like one haircut a year since her hair grows so slowly. I asked her how she wanted it cut as there wasn't much hair left to cut. The style she suggested was a mullet. She pretty much wanted to cut off ALL the hair in the front, but keeping it long in the back, because then it wouldn't get in her eyes. Why this is an issue for her NOW is beyond me. So, I casually got some bobby pins, and showed her how she could pin her hair back to keep it from falling in her face. I told her that's why I keep my hair up all the time, because I don't like it in my face either.

She let me do that, and then later I caught her trying to make a ponytail. Again, casually showed her how to do it, trying to contain my excitement. She worried that it would look too poofy in the back. I made her hair how my sister used to wear hers to show her if Bobo could walk around with a Pebbles Flintstones type hairstyle in HIGH SCHOOL then Aisy should be fine with a ponytail. She said "Well I think I'll wear it this way tomorrow."

This morning I didn't mention it. I let her bring it up, and she said she'd only wear one if she could take it out if it was bothering her. I said "Well then there really is no point in doing a ponytail then, just don't worry about it, you don't HAVE to wear one" and walked away. I know her little mind was reeling. Huh? What's this now? My mom said no to a ponytail? WHat? I'm confused. She quickly added "But, I don't think I WILL take it out" and I just replied "Whatever, just get your stuff together, we won't worry about a ponytail today." That's when she started in with the BEGGING to wear a ponytail.

Reverse psychology! It worked!

It only took me EIGHT YEARS to figure her out, but I think I'm getting it.

2008-10-16T08:01:00.003-04:00

Whooo.

I finally had people over socially. I've popped the cherry so to speak, and we've only been here what? A year? Geez. We've had like Navy guys over, but never females. I don't know, I am just socially awkward. But, I figured if we're going to BUY this house, we're going to have to start having people over soon.

Anyway, I invited my playgroup and we had a great time, even a new girl showed up with her teeny, tiny 2 month old. He slept the whole time snuggled up against his mommy's bosom. SHe had more patience than me because she held that baby for like four hours.

It was a lot of fun, and we all sat and talked, the kids had a blast. Jonny was so sweaty by the time they all left having two other boys and a girl here to play with. I couldn't believe how nervous I was at first. Like I was on my first date.

Whatsa happenin'?

2008-10-13T09:35:00.005-04:00

I never have anything exciting going on in my life. Hmm excitement? Erm, yeah... hmm. Well, Ummmm. Oh! We broke the ten cache mark. We officially have found TWELVE caches. I thought this was pretty sweet, until I found out another lady on my message board is at 213. We started at pretty much the same time too.

What else? What else? Oh! We got a new lawn mower and a new rug. That's pretty freakin' sweet right? We had chinese buffet on Saturday? Come on guys, I'm trying.

No, seriously our weekend was good when you think of it from an old fogey got two kids kind of way. We kind of hung out on Saturday for the first half of the day so Aislinn could run amok in the hood with her friends. A church was holding a little "community day" at the park down the street complete with SKETCHES.

I went down there to make sure they weren't like those weirdo christians who think breathing air is a sin, but, all the ladies were wearing pants so I took that as a good sign. Some even wore makeup! One older guy had a ponytail! They were rebel christians. Even their skits didn't outright mention God. I admit I was scornful and giving Aislinn this whole speech about how you don't get nothing for free and was expecting them to start baptizing people in the creek at any moment, or passing out some mysterious Kool-aid.

Nope, they were just there to put their name out there for anyone who was looking for a home church. Very nice, very normal, not overly pushy. One guy was even kind of a dick, and that for some reason felt right to me. Like he was only there because the court ordered him to be, or worse yet, his wife made him go. Then on top of not wanting to waste his Saturday doing that crap, he had the added indignity of having to man the bounce house and he just couldn't hold his 'tude in check. I liked that. I am always leery of those Christians that are so in love with God they seem void of any other emotion other than blind happiness. Life is REAL and just cuz you love the Lord, doesn't mean you can't feel pissiness. That's why God gave us emotions.

After that we went to Mount Trashmore and did four caches and the Tony and Aislinn flew kites for a few hours after that. Those two are nutso for kites. It was the perfect day for kite flying. Aislinn's kite never fell out of the sky. Tony's did only because he had to go and get some fancy plane kite. We've had these kites for like a year and just now got around to flying them. I always feel weird when flying a kite like I'm going to let it go at any moment. It's unnerving and makes tummy twist and turn like I'm on a rollercoaster. You're basically holding onto a wildly flying piece of plastic by a tiny string.

And of course I has pictures... not cheezeburgers... pictures.

Tony digging for a cache that was stuck in a hole in a wall. I always say I love caching, and I do, but Tony usually ends up finding them only because he's not a spaz-o-tron like me who runs around like a puppy with ADD. Then I usually get pissy that he finds them. Out of four he found three.

Aislinn of course HAD to chase the geese, and Jonny does what she does. She wanted to "pet a goose with my stick" we informed her that was called "hitting a goose" She didn't agree.
Running up Mt. Trashmore, which yes is a big hill of solid waste with grass on it then dubbed a "park". Whatever, it's still a Mountain O' trash. I only took this picture for a chance to stop and catch my breath.
Getting the kites ready. What you didn't see is right after this shot, Jonny sniffed those fingers by his butt. This has become a gross habit of his.
Aislinn's Pokemon kite. Speaking of Pokemon, I officially started my Christmas shopping. I got Aisy those two characters that are on her kite. Palkia and Dialga. Last year we saw them in HUGE form, and have been unable to find them since. I found them yesterday at Toys R Us and snapped them up!
Aislinn flying her kite. She had so much fun. Later she met a little girl that was JUST like her. They spent many hours avoiding their brothers and flying their kites while lying on the grass and talking.
Tony flying his kite.
A shot of the big seal at Mt. Trashmore. Not a great picture, but I thought interesting.
Tony's fancy bi-plane kite that spent most of it's time crashing into the ground. I think it was made to give you that true WWI experience. They stood still for a second to let me take a pic. I love those shitheads. Notice Jonny and his Sears Catalog posing again.

2008-10-08T08:03:00.002-04:00

It's so quiet here this morning. Jonny has been grounded from the Wii, so the television is off, and he's out in the backyard wearing a winter coat over his Spongebob pj's.

Got good news on the house. Everything us a go. We do need to close a few days earlier, so that's awesome. Today so far I have been looking at pictures for my walls. My walls are pretty bare. I found that I want! WANT!!11! as they would say in LOLspeak. Always my champagne tastes never fit my beer budget. For two prints framed... $250. Yeah. But, they are PERFECT for what I have in mind for my living room.

In case anyone is curious they're here. In a perfect world, I would get the two canvas stretched (I just like those better) for $339. I'm going to talk it over with Tony. I just can not stress enough how much I like these. It is VERY rare when I see something and go "Bam those are it" you know?

I also found a stretched canvas oil reproduction of Klimt's The Kiss on Ebay for under a hundred bucks. We're not talking print, this is an actual oil painting. I have always wanted one of those, not necessarily the oil painting version, but the print. I just love it and I think it would go well in my dining room, and the color scheme I am thinking about in there.

So, yeah that's my boring little house update. I'm very excited, but scared as well as we have fallen on hard times in this country. The VA has said we're good to go, well we're good to go as soon as a railing upstairs is fixed, which will be no big deal. The mortgage has passed the underwriters approval, just waiting around for the day to sign those papers. We decided as a celebration when we sign, we're going to take the kids to a local teppanyaki place where they cook the food right at your table. I think they will enjoy that.

Speaking of kids, this whole ADD thing is kind of driving me nuts. People are either really supportive or very vocal about the over medicating of our country's children. I guess that is to be expected right? I've been trying to provide Aislinn more protein for breakfast and you would think I'm trying to get her to eat baby kittens. Actually, at this point if she wanted to eat baby kittens, I'd probably let her just so she'd get more protein. I have to really think about what I'm going to do. Aislinn has two control issues in her life. Her clothes, which is getting better and her food. Aislinn used to be a good eater, but as she has gotten older her acceptable food list is about as long as her acceptable article of clothing list. She will eat chips, McDonalds, chicken wings, chicken fingers, cucumbers, cereal, toast, spaghetti, doughnuts, certain granola bars, cereal bars, ice cream. Dinner is hit or miss. If it has charring on the meat, she will sit there for an hour and wittle the pork chop down to nothing to get every single piece of burn off there. The other day she refused to eat her meatloaf because and I quote "It's in like a big chunk". Chunk was said in total disgust. Yesterday, I made a nice little breakfast shake for the kids. It was milk, carnation instant breakfast (chocolate, sugar free) frozen strawberries, whole milk yogurt. I was tempted to put in flax seed but I didn't. Trying to keep it simple. (off topic real fast. Can I just say I hate it when people refer to KISS as Keep it simple SWEETIE, instead of Keep it simple STUPID. Come on, everyone knows it's supposed to be STUPID not SWEETIE. I want to punch people when I hear sweetie. Anyhoo) They HATED it. I thought it was delicious! I drank both their shakes and had such a tummy ache from the milk, but I didn't care. It was amazing! They both suck.

I've had people suggest that maybe she should eat something non breakfast food types, and I was encouraged to "Think outside of the box" to which I responded "Aislinn is so far IN the box, she IS the box." I love how people assume I'm the problem. Hello? Low carber here? I mean, I have to think outside of the friggin' box on a daily basis. I had a shake yesterday made from eggs and raw spinach and people were like "Uh uh, no freaking way." Trust me I think outside of the food box. But, it would blow her little control freak mind if she were to eat say... a ham sandwhich for breakfast. Her world would spin off it's axis and float away into oblivion.

Another thing I'm trying to avoid with her is artificial coloring. Seriously people, it's in EVERYTHING. Like, she can drink water and have bread, but she can't have bread because she needs more protein and AAAAAAHHHHHH. You see what I'm dealing with here?

Today, I may go ahead and run to Trader Joe's and see if I can get any ideas from there. Sigh.

2008-10-06T14:40:00.003-04:00

I found out that TriCare the military insurance covers gastric bypass. Not that I'm thinking about it or anything, I just found it kind of... well... weird. I mean, it kinda goes against the whole military thing with being fit. But, after being home alone with two kids for just a little over a week I TOTALLY get it now. I mean, I've done more eating off program here at home than ever (I ate off plan for vacation but vacation carbs don't count). It's all totally emotional eating too because honestly, I've not been THAT hungry.

Yesterday, it was granola bars, those super crunchy ones by Nature Valley? We went to Sam's and as you can imagine this was the least favorite sample spot. So much so, the lady was giving away full size samples if you picked up her little cup o'sample just to make her quota or whatever. The kids were all "Oooh granola bars" then they took a nibble, then stood there awkwardly holding these things and it was like I could totally see what they were thinking "I took it, it's healthy, I SHOULD eat it, but this is NOT what I expected. Oooh are those cream puffs over there? Maybe when mom isn't looking we can just discreetly dump these in the trash. It's going to be tough, because for some reason she keeps staring at them and drooling." This sample spot was my most favorite, as I LOVE those crunchy bars. Needless to say,I took their samples and then ate the other two packages later on in the day.

Then today, it's been Sun Chips. Oh.My.God. Those were always my favorite before and now they're off limits and I was ok until I caugh a whiff, and it's been several trips to the bag today for a handful here and there.

I worry about when Tony is gone for six months. Hopefully, not having him here will become routine and it won't affect me as much then. It is nice actually having a group of friends to hang out with a few times a week. That has made it much easier on me.

Wanna see inside a low carb fridge?

2008-10-04T05:06:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest things that annoy me about people who do not understand the low carb lifestyle is the assumption that I live on meat, cheese and bacon and not much else. Oh God. If they only knew. Although, yes I DO eat those things, there can be days or weeks I can go without bacon, and cheese? I laugh. Cheese isn't something I eat a lot of unless it's cream cheese, and again, days or a week can go by without indulging in that.

Another thing I hear is "I can't believe in a diet that doesn't allow fruit." I eat fruit. I have strawberries, grapes, apples and pears. Granted I do not eat those a lot as they can cause my blood sugar to get wonky since I am diabetic. But, there are a lot of people out there that follow a low carb lifestyle that do. The trick is to not eat too much. There are lots of people who only eat fruit thinking it's "healthy". The fact of the matter is fruit is full of sugar, so if you eat 5 servings of fruit, you're not doing your body much good, then you add in other things you might have eaten that day, bread, low fat yogurt, milk, cereal, and well you got a recipe for disaster right there, and I can guarantee you will be much hungrier than I will have been eating my way. Also, if I eat fruit I eat it with protein and fat. Never just an apple, it's apple and peanut butter, grapes and cheese, strawberries and heavy cream. Helps stabilize the blood sugar, and keeps you feel satifsfied.

So without further ado.. here is my fridge:

As you can see, I have 39 eggs. Eggs are the perfect food. The whole bottom half of my fridge? Vegetables. I have green beans, broccoli, peppers, zucchini, squash, cabbage, spinach, iceberg lettuce, celery. Some apples for Aisy's lunch, oranges for snacks. Milk for the kids, heavy whipping cream, real mayo, butter, cream cheese, green goddess dressing, ranch. In the little lunch meat drawere we have some REAL american cheese, ham for Aisy's lunch, a package of bacon, some sausage. There are also some non low carb things, but those are mainly for the kids, or remnants that I am loathe to pitch. Like the Miracle Whip (I really missed that when I first started) and Aislinn's BBQ sauce. Regular ketchup, syrup, and the Yoplait yogurt.

Speaking of yogurt, you can see the big tub of Stoneyfields whole milk plain yogurt. I add some Splenda sweetened flavored syrups and add some flax seeds if I want to eat this for breakfast and I use it for my lunch shakes. It's got a luscious cream on the top. Heavenly. Here is something interesting I want to point out. My kids wanted "regular" yogurt. So I got them a few cartons of Yoplait original 99% fat free yogurt. I was shocked when I compared the labels:

Stoneyfield yogurt.... I serving size 8 oz Yoplait..... 1 serving size 6 oz

Calories per serving 170 for both yogurts.

S. Fat... 9g Y. Fat... 1.5g

S. Carbs 13g Y. Carbs 33g

S. Sugars 13g Y.Sugars 27g

S. Protein 9g Y. Protein 5g

Ok, I know you low fatters are like THE FAT! AHHH THE FAT! First of all, do you see the difference in serving sizes? You get MORE bang for your buck with the whole milk. You get half the sugar as well. Caloric intake? Same. You could eat 6 oz of the full fat, and feel more satisfied than with 6 oz of the "healthy" yogurt because of what? FAT!! It helps you feel full!

Let's look at ingredients. I have the yogurts RIGHT here and I'm typing from the cartons:

Yoplait.... cultured pasteurized grade a low fat milk, sugar (SUGAR is the second ingredient!) strawberries, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, non fat milk, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavor, pectin, colored with camine, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3.

Stoneyfield Whole milk plain yogurt.... cultured pasteraurized organic whole milk, inulin, pectin, live cultures.

Granted, my yogurt is plain, but I have eaten it right of the carton with nothing, and it's so good. I can have whatever flavor I want using my sugar free syrups. I can add a scoop of cocoa for chocolate flavored. The point I'm trying to make is this though, it's best to eat it as close to it's natural form as you can. You go diddling with things, that's where you get in trouble. People are so scared of fat, but if it's good natural fats, you will feel satisfied and in turn eat less, I think overall.

But, this will only work if you eat low carb as well. If you are unable to give up things like bread and pasta, then by all means stick to low fat. High fat and high carbs is NOT good. You WILL gain weight.

Never in a million years would I think my fridge would have so many vegetables, things I WILL eat. Not just put in there for show. That big bottle of hot sauce was a joke for Tony. But, he makes me the most delicious wings with that.

Cream cheese. I make great things with it, like low carb muffins, or oopsie rolls. It's a staple for sure. The thing is, I have to buy a lot because the recipes I make call for a block, but I don't eat it all at once. You know? I am just looking at this pic and realized I have the low fat Philly in there! SEriously, I did not notice that when I bought it. Ugh.

Another plus to low carbing. Heavy whipping cream for my coffee. Kind of hard to get used to at first, now I can drink nothing else.

Ok, now here is where it gets ugly. My cabinets. This was right after a grocery shopping day. A MAJOR one as you can see. I have ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee chips, chocolate and natural granola bars. All that is for the kids or remnants from days gone by. I do have some protein powder, the chocolate is mine, I have a square or two on occasion. It's dark chocolate. Those granola bars are less in sugar than regular ones. Some Splenda is in there, fiber powder, tuna, peanut butter. Jonny asked for some Sun chips. They're still in the cabinet unopened. I have a can of something called Caffe D'vitta. Sugar free instant mocha cappucino that I don't really like, but will come in handy if I want something different. The kids LOVE mandarin oranges. HEre's a tip. Buy them in the asian/hispanic foolds aisle. About half the price!
Then YIKES.

Big ole tub of cheese balls. Those have been there for about a month now. I'm getting ready to pitch them. An old bag of tortilla chips that need to be pitched. Some old coffee I don't drink anymore, a box of cake mix that will be donated, doughnuts that are for the kids, two bags of chicharonnes,pretzels, and mini rice cakes for the kids. Under that is all the stuff I moved over there that I will donate later. This again was right after a grocery shopping excursion, so the cabinets are fuller than usual. I will say this though, I shopped on Wednesday, and those snacks? STill unopened. I take that as a good sign that my kids are slowly coming around. They still love their Chef Boyardee though.

So there you have it. For myself, I am doing well, and working toward getting my kids there. I am proud of the changes I have made for us all.

2008-10-03T16:36:00.002-04:00

I'm wearing a pair of jorts (jean shorts) and usually I do not wear them in the house. Usually when I have to wear jeans or jorts, the kids get all excited because that means we're leaving the house. Then, when we come home, I usually take them right off and put on comfy pants. I actually have a "comfy pants" song that I sing as I take off the jorts/jeans and put the comfy pants on. Why do I have a song? Because I'm borderline window licker. My point of all this is that the aforementioned jorts are too big, so they fall below my fat line, which pushes all my fat up, and makes me feel like super fat, and that is not a good feeling. Yes, all that just to say hey I have a huge ass muffin top.

I took Aisy to her appointment for ADD which was very anti climatic. I was all prepared and nervous and we get there, we're handed a questionaire that I have to fill out and the teachers have to fill out. Then we make an appointment with a psychiatrist. So, here I was all like totally freaked out and ready for whatever may come our way, only to have more waiting and paperwork. That's fine. I ended up getting a good recomendation from my friend Veronica on a place to go near our house. This place does thorough testing, and has therapies as well. It's not like they just throw medicine at the problem.

I am trying to make some changes at home. I heard that food coloring can cause ADD like symptoms. Trying to cut out the high sugary carb filled breakfasts. This morning I made Aislinn a couple of eggs and she acted like I was trying to feed her boogers on toast.

Aislinn is really worried about if she has to take medicine. She says that God made her this way and we should accept that and not change it. I agree with her! Yet, I don't want her to have to suffer through school and slowly fall behind. As it is she's borderline. She doesn't suck enough to get extra help or be held back, so she just skates by and that's even worse. So each year she slowly falls more and more behind. I'm trying to do right by her, but she thinks I'm doing wrong by her and it's a tough position to be in.

What IS the answer? Is it ok to let my child be mediocre becuase that is the way she is, even though I know with all my heart she could be so much more? Or do I do whatever it takes to get her to be more than what she is now? Will she resent me for it later if I never get her the help? Will she resent me later for medicating her if it comes to that?

What do I do?

2008-10-01T07:42:00.002-04:00

Every day I wait patiently (ok well, not so much) for the kids to go to bed, and I SWEAR I'm going to be in bed by 10:30, then I swear I'm going to be in bed by 11, then 12. Usually, by 1am I'm crawling into bed after loading the dishwasher.

For the last two nights I've had something weird happen. Usually, I'm a drop off to sleep right away kind of person. But, these last two nights I've laid there and not been able to fall asleep, despite the fact I'm really tired. Then, I feel the need to get up and check out my pimples and scar my face, and when I do get up, my heart pounds very hard, but not fast or anything. Almost as if it gets tight. Not painful. But, it just gives me that weird heart in throat kinda feeling. I feel borderline stressed? I don't know if that is the right word. Worried? Not panicked or freaked. I don't know. It's an odd feeling, especially since I wasn't thinking of anything stressful in particular. I know the need to get up and check my face is something I do when feeling stressed.

Money. I just wish I had a lot of it. Don't we all? Everything is so damn expensive. I try to keep the cost of groceries low, but it's not working as well as I'd like it to. Especially since I'm trying to go the whole foods route for us all. I used to go and get things like Hamburger Helper and mac and cheese when things got tight, but hell that's what got me like this in the first place. Even simple things are so expensive. The kids love spaghetti and I usually make them a small batch once a week, and I eat something else. A box of spaghetti noodles used to be like forty nine cents. Now it's a deal if I can get them for a buck. Eggs used to be under a dollar, now they're two dollars. The thing is, I'm lucky since I get to shop at the commisary. So you other non military peoples, I feel for you!

The shame of it all is yesterday I got coupons for Hardees, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Wendy's, Arby's, Old Country Buffet, and Dominoes. The hard times must be hitting the fast food places too. I don't think I've ever gotten so many coupons at once.

Well, I just had a snuggle break. Jonny came down, with his touseled hair and sleep swollen face and demanded I snuggle with him. As much as I love to do it, I hate it too because I always just want to lay there and sleep. I pretty much avoid my bedroom at all costs during the day so I won't lay down and sleep. It feels so good in there.

I am actually going to check out a Moms Day Out Program at a church near me. It's not so academically based, more play based which is what I prefer. I can't help but think he has the rest of his whole life to go to school. I know some might disagree with me. As much as I love having him home with me, I can not deny he's pretty bored. When I brought up school though, he freaked but not as much as before. He'll get over it.

Is it bedtime yet?

2008-09-28T15:44:00.002-04:00

This weekend has been a good one, but an annoying one. Does that make sense? Like, nothing horrible happened, but it was just filled minor annoyances and little things that make me feel pissy momentarily.

Friday was nice actually. I had a nice playgroup in the afternoon, and a mom's night out with the same group that evening. Everyone wore dresses. At first I was thinking "Oh man a dress? Seriously?" but like one of the ladies pointed out, as moms we sometimes have to make a reason to wear a dress. Luckily, when I was in Portland my friend Shell gave me a dress that was too big on her. It is really cute. I got a new necklace and small clutch purse and I stepped out in style. We had a really good time. We went to dinner at an italian resteraunt where I did NOT eat pasta. But, what I did eat was very good. I did have a piece of bread. We hung out at someones house until 12:30. It was so nice to get out and do something just for me.

Saturday morning Tony left for nine days. Aislinn also had a sleep over. That's where the little minor annoyances happened. The girls were up until 1, and I finally drifted off around 2. Jonny woke me up at 3, and our guest woke me up at 4 crying and wanting to call her mom. I honestly do NOT get that. My kids have never done that, and I've never done that as a kid. So finally at 4:30 I got to sleep, and then at 8 the MOM calls. I wanted to punch someone. I tried to go back to sleep, but the phone woke the kids up, who then started screaming and yelling. I got out of bed with a headache that I still have.

Then of course, Aislinn wanted every freaking kid within a 100 mile radius to come over in our backyard or in the house today. I really couldn't take anymore, and finally kinda flipped out, and the kids all left.

I did manage to clean out the fridge today. Like take everything out, shelves and all and wash it all down. I love the way a clean fridge looks, I just hate having to do the work to get it that way. Another reason to not have anymore babies, now that my kids are older, there isn't as much mess in my fridge. Not a lot of stuff knocked over and not cleaned up. Now I need to go grocery shopping, my fridge is BARE.

Snork and uuuggggh

2008-09-23T23:32:00.002-04:00

I have a cold. Luvleee. I'm trying not to be like totally whiny about it, but it is pissing me off. I hate not being able to breathe.

Tony leaves tomorrow (maybe) for 12 days. There are supposed to be big waves so they may not leave tomorrow, but the next day, which really doesn't matter since he has duty. Ummm he hasn't packed. I brought it up while he dozed, but he said he's fine. I'm glad I don't have to be around him and his 12 day ball funk. Whatever. I'm just going to trust that he has enough stuff to get him through a TWELVE days, and try not to think about the 12 day ball funk too much.

The kids are already asking for things for Christmas. Aislinn is older and of course her wants are very expensive. I may have to rethink my budgets for Christmas. Jonathan, he wants big things as well. He told me he wanted me to give away our train table, and get a NEW one, becasue the NEW one mommy? The NEW one has a TURNING TABLE! I can TURN THE TRAINS MOMMY! Isn't that AWESOME, MOmmy? Mommy, I love you. Did you hear me Mommy? I LOVE YOU! You're pretty, mommy. Look at this train with the TURNING TABLE!

Tony brought me flowers yesterday. They are so pretty. But according to Jonny not as pretty as me. He REALLY wansts that turning train table.

2008-09-20T15:39:00.002-04:00

Tony got a new video game, and it feels like the good ole days, when we used to stay home on a Saturday while he played Sega Genesis or Nintendo 64 all day while I read a book and watched. Now he has the kids to watch, and I just sit here on my laptop. He got the new Star Wars game, and it seems pretty cool. I may give it a go. I think it's cute that my kids don't even complain, they actually encourage Tony and I to play Wii so they can watch.

We had our appraisal today. And the lady just left without telling Tony. She did tell me, but Tony was like "Oh I need to ask her something" and I said "Ummm she's gone" He didn't believe me, and walked back in teh house saying "Son of bitch, she did leave". I don't know when we'll get the info on the appraisal. That was our last thing we needed to get done. From what we understand too, the owner is going to fix everything as well.

2008-09-18T16:53:00.002-04:00

I have had the SAME window open on my class pretty much since 9 am. I just can't sit down and DO it. Of course, Tony has duty, so going to the library is out of the question. I could sit in my room, but then Jonny will just come up and ask me a zillion questions.

I really hate that he's not in school. Ok, well I don't HATE it, but I can't help but think of all the things I could be getting done. I was doing school before he got up, but now that Aislinn has gotten used to school, getting her up is hard. She's no longer excited to go, as it's become old hat, so I have to go in there and yell at her over and over to get her up, which in turn wakes up Jonny.

Oh well, I'll get it done. I know there are people who do it with less time, more kids, no help and with harder classes. I'm just whining a bit.

Aislinn is grounded until Monday for not coming home last night after I told her to. She just decided... NOT to come home. I told her to come home, she left, and went to play some more. So, she's in her room until Monday. Sucks to be her, but that's what she gets. It wasn't like she misunderstood me, or didn't hear me. She actually whined back to me that she didn't want to. When I became distracted she ran off. I was furious.

Today was a little warmer, but still cool enough to go without the AC. Tony fixed our screen last night, so now I can keep the one window down here open without flies coming in. I love that Tony is so handy. He fixed our toilet and screen last night, and it cost us $20. I mean sure we could have called the leasing company, but why bothers when they're all simple fixes and we don't have to wait.

I took Jonny to the park today. He was so excited. It's a rinky little park down the street, and there are never any kids there. We walked around, played pirates, played fast food resteraunt, and played tic tac toe on the jungle gym. He didn't get tic tac toe, but he tried. At the end I ended spining just one of the thingies and he would guess if it would land on blank, x or o. We even picked up the park a bit and poked around the trees and found acorns. When I told him it was time to go, he said ok and we left. He is such a sweet boy.

He has been wanting me to play Mario KArt with him, and I hate it because usually he wins. There is nothing more humbling than being beaten by your FOUR yr old on a driving game. He doesn't even know how to drive yet!

My boring life

2008-09-17T10:26:00.005-04:00

Finally!! Finally, the heat is gone, the humidity is down to an acceptable level, and we've been able to fling open our windows, and let the fresh air in!! Last night we put our handy little window fan up and our bedroom was a cool and breezy 68 all night. It was heavenly!! It's been hard not to go up there and just lay in bed and snuggle in and doze the day away.

The most exciting thing to happen to me, other than the weather, has been my new coffee syrups. Yawn I know. Tony pointed out that I look like an alcoholic with my bottles of syrup on the fridge.

The pumpkin pie one I am excited about. Usually, I celebrate fall with pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks. Unfortunately, SB does not offer a sugar free version of this seasonal treat. So, I had to order my own. I have it in my coffee that is next to me right now, and I haven't tried it yet. I'm worried that it will suck, as I don't care for the smell. I'm going to try it now......Meh. It's NOT the same :( It has a sort of licorice taste to it that is a little odd. I'll drink it, but it's not that great. I had such high hopes for it too. Oh well. That's life.

This past weekend and yesterday, I had to babysit a 1 year old. As fun as it has been having a toddler in the house, I forgot how TIRING it is to have a toddler in the house. How AGGRAVATING it is to have a toddler in the house. Right when you think you just can't take ONE MORE MINUTE the toddler goes and gets all cute and snurgly, holding their fat little arms up to you so you can hold them, and of course, you do, because they're so effing cute, and you smell their good smell, and kiss their sticky cheek and you do it all over again.

Emily was a real doll and I did enjoy her company, but I had to nip the babysitting thing in the bud. It was for a young couple who is from around our home town, who recruited out of Tony's office after he left. They're really trying to do the right thing, as they weren't quite making it out there, but he also took a paycut by joining. So, they're trying to make ends meet, which include both of them working, and him working 2 jobs. It's a lot for a newly married couple, in a new city, 900 miles away from their support system, making less than before. That's the only reason why I agreed to bail them out, but I can't be their everyday sitter. I'm just not cut from that cloth. That cloth that makes me all nice and maternal for all children. My kids? My kids didn't have DINNER last night, so that shows you how much I care about the two I carried around in my tummy for 9 months.

Speaking of kids, both of them are doing well. Aislinn is still enjoying school, Jonny is enjoying having her gone. He wasn't digging having Emily hone in on his mama time either, but he took it with good grace. When she left he said "Boy, am I glad that baby is gone!" Also, he has stopped talking about little brothers. I think he saw his future if mama were to have more kids. He didn't like it one bit!

On the house front, we had our inspection last Friday. Not much is wrong with the house, even though it's older than dirt! The roof is newish, the ac is too the water heater is old. Tony said after they left he thought that the roof looked kinda new, because he went out there one day and noticed the granules were still on the shingles. We're just waiting to hear back from Chuck the Realtor to see when the owner plans to fix everything that needs fixing. CTR seems to be a little hesitant on contacting the guy. I think CTR is scared of him. I don't know, that is just my impression. I have been perusing the SPCA website and listings for animals. I can't wait.

I always assumed that once I got my own place, my feelings toward it would change. I find that happening already. The other day I pulled into the driveway, and smiled at the quaintness of our little abode. Before, I just pulled up and got out and went about my business. It really is quite cute, especially when you see some of the others on our street. It has character. I like it.

So, as you can see, nothing new or exciting is going on in my life. Nothing ever is new or exciting here. Just taking it day by day, and preparing for when Tony leaves in 8 weeks. It's going to be hard, but it's part of our lives, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Well, back to the schoolwork I guess.

The one where I bore you with my low carb talk

2008-09-14T15:16:00.003-04:00

Let me just start off this post by saying one thing. I love low carb.

I realize it's not for everyone. I realize that most of you probably follow and low fat/low calorie/high sugar diet. Ok. Well, that last part was a dig, but honestly if you're eating low fat, you're eating sugar, and if you're NOT eating sugar, you're probably eating high fructose corn syrups, or corn syrup solids, and just because they make a commercial about HFCS being ok in moderation, doesn't make it so. It's just sugar in disguise. Sugar is evil. I probably feel this way since I am a diabetic, and really for me SUGAR IS EVIL. So, realize I am biased.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be preachy, my point of this whole thing is that even though it's been easy breezy for Me and Tony, it's been hard for me to change my kids diets. I have successfully gotten them off juice, and even better, got them from whining about it. I had this whole battle in my head, how I felt I was an evil mom for making them drink WATER, boring ole WATER. AHH THE HUMANITY. I finally had to tell myself that I'm not being a horrible mom by making them drink the best thing to drink.

We have also successfully ditched prepackaged snacks for the most part. Chips are still around, just not as often, and they're not eaten as quickly as before. A bag of chips can last almost a week instead of like a day. We still have sugary cereals. I still haven't figured out how I can replace those (in both convenience and taste) for something healthier. The kids don't eat as much cereal as they could, so I just kind of let that go. They both prefer toast and eggs for breakfast. We still have cans of pasta and ramen noodles. But they aren't eaten nearly as often as before. The kids are eating better, therefore they're eating a lot less in the long run. There were some days over the summer all the kids did was eat junk all day. That's what made me realize that their habits needed to change. It's also funny how after a few weeks of slowly weeding things out, how they have come to prefer the new way without noticing.

I get a little burst of pride when I see my bare cabinets. This is a whole food way of eating. 90% of the things I eat need to be put in my refrigerator, and most of those need to be cooked. There is nothing that is grab and go in my house, and that is good, because we always have to stop and think about what we eat. You never really see mindless munching here anymore. Tony and I watched two movies last night, never once did we have to get up and get a snack. Even though the kids had ramen, they were good for the rest of the night. Oh wait, Jonny did have a low carb pumpkin muffin (made with cream cheese, egg, and a can of pumpkin) but I think that had more to do with it being a muffin than him being hungry.

This way for us is the best way.

Who is this child? Where is my daughter?

2008-09-09T08:27:00.004-04:00

First the pants, then she comes home and gets all her homework done in 20 minutes.

*cue mysterious music*

She also voluntarily wore more pants today. I'm starting to get freaked out here folks!

Last night I was in bed at like 8:30. I was sitting here with the family and Tony was watching some dude movie. I just got so tired, I went to bed and crashed. I didn't turn the lights off or take my clothes off or anything. Jonny came in later yelling for me, and it scared the shit out of me. I ended up yelling at him, and Tony put the kids to bed. He had to clean the kitchen and everything. He did it though. Ran the dishwasher and everything.

Yesterday, like I mentioned in my last post, I am starting to learn Photoshop. My friend Christina, the all might wise one when it comes to Photoshop helped me a ton. I learned more in one day from her than I have ever gleaned from books or videos or tutorials. She really dumbed it down for me and I appreciated it so much. Like it was "Now look on you right, see that button thingy. Push it" Thank you Christina. Then I remembered Pioneer Woman http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ had tutorials, and I hoped that with the knowledge C gave me, I might be able to understand better, and I did! I downloaded some of her actions, and tried some of her techniques. She also gives really good descriptions on how to use your camera. I can't wait to play with settings now on my new fangly camera. I've had it for months now, and it's pretty much stayed on auto mode the whole time.

So, I present to you my first official Photoshopped picture! (Those framed ones don't count!)

This is the original. It's a peacock feather, and I took it at the Portland Saturday Market. In my head I envisioned something much more decadent than what I actually got.

So with some futzing I was able to get more of what I envisioned when I first took the picture.
There you have it. Nothing drastic, but it's prettier by far, and I did it in PHOTOSHOP people. Something that I've had forever, and was too scared to use. I don't know what I did to it to be honest, as I did a bunch of different things, lost it all once, and restarted.

Did you see a pig fly by today?

2008-09-08T13:05:00.003-04:00

What about the sun? Did the sun come up on the other side? I guess we can't check to see if hell has frozen over.

Why do I ask?

Well, let me tell you! Aislinn. Aislinn wore PANTS today. Real pants, with buttons! and zippers!

Oh and I learned to add frames to pictures in Photoshop! There went another pig! My friend Christina got tired of me whining about it, and finally broke down and showed me what to do. I knew she'd break eventually! haha! The first things I learned in Photoshop. I'm so happy.

Anyway, as you can see, the pants are big, but I don't care. I will take it! She looked SO cute when she left for school. The trick was to get her to try on jeans right away. After that, everything felt good! She was so afraid that I'd make her buy jeans, that she was more open minded about other kinds of pants. She also got two tunics with LEGGINGS. I know! LEGGINGS!!!!! She's two years behind that style trend, but hey whatever. THEY'RE NOT GAUCHOS that's good enough for me! She looked SO cute in the jeans she tried on. I could totally tell that she was digging the look of the jeans, but she couldn't resign herself to the feel. Honestly, I think we are going to have a bona fide jean wearer next year.

Can I just say how much I HATE little girls clothes? Aislinn is 8. She is no bigger than other 8 year olds. She isn't fat, or even chubby. But they make clothes for girls her age ridiculously tight. See her Tshirt? That tshirt is a freaking 14/16 the biggest size in girls clothing! The next option is going to be xs in the junior section! Those pants are a 12. She could have gotten away with a 10, but, that only leaves her with one more size until again, she's moving onto the juniors section. The 14/16 fits perfectly on her. I just can't get over it. Ijust can't believe we're supposed to put our 8 yr olds in skin tight clothing. The jeans? Don't even get me started. Skirts so short a child could never bend over. What is WRONG with the world?

Anyway, she felt good when she went to school. I am happy!

Early morning ramblings

2008-09-05T08:05:00.002-04:00

If you have an old mattress, I highly recommend a memory foam mattress topper/pad doohicky. Tony and I have batted back and forth on getting one for awhile now and I had the opportunity to try one in Portland for myself, and I knew we had to get one.

We got one last night, and it was heavenly. I didn't wake up once laying next to Tony. We've been having a hard time sleeping in the same bed lately. We're constantly waking one another. That didn't seem to happen last night. Who would have thought those measly two inches of foam would have made such a difference?

I forgot to mention yesterday that we put a contract on the townhome. I have to run a check by there later for "earnest" money whatever the hell that means. $100 and it will applied toward whatever we have to pay in the end. We're going to close at the end of October. We will be home owners O.M.G. The only thing that could go wrong at this point is if the appraisal comes back super low or inspecitions come back with something wrong. This IS an old townhome. Built in the 70's so we'll see.

I'm enjoying having my Jonny home to myself. He's SUCH a good boy. Yesterday, while we were stuck at the realtor office, he was so good, even the guy said so right before we left. Sure he was bored, and he whined, but we were there for 2 hours, and he hadn't had breakfast. He's been hanging out with me, and we have fun. He likes being at home to do the things he wants to do without Aislinn bothering him. He's kind of a loner, and has no problems sitting with the TV off, making long train tracks on the floor, or playing Mario Kart by himself. We also have to go up to my room and snuggle in my bed at least once a day. I love it!

Today is going to be just a chill day. Actually this whole weekend will be like that with the rain. I have a few small errands to run, and I have to buy some groceries. Our Harris Teeter gave out $20 off coupons. I don't know WHY, but I'll take it! $50 worth of groceries for $30? Sign me up baby.

So I changed my mind!

2008-09-04T21:46:00.001-04:00

No Ipod touch for me. I just couldn't bring myself to buy it.

We did get a new memory foam pad for our bed, and I got a cool laptop cooler for my lap, since my laptop gets so warm and makes me sweaty, and we also got the Dr. Skip DVD/CD fixer. Basically all the stuff we say we want to get, but are too cheap to get.

Scary, black man

2008-09-04T17:55:00.003-04:00

I've noticed people saying that Obama is just "scary" people who are usually Democrats. They say things like "I can't vote for him, he SCARES me" This is everywhere, this mentality. Honestly, I can't help but think the only thing "scary" about him to these people is that he's black. I hate to make that assumption, but I just don't get the"scary" reference. Maybe it's the knuckle touch he did with Michelle? Maybe they took that as a gang sign? I don't know, but to read otherwise normal people call a grown man "scary" baffles me. Was he my first choice? No, am I scared of him? No. I just think it goes to show that no matter how progressive people see themselves, they still want to the old white guy to be running thangs.

This morning I don't know what I did, but I overslept. I woke up at 7:33 and by the time Aislinn and I made it downstairs the bus was going down the street. First week of school. On top of that, I didn't sleep well last night. I was up late watching Sarah Palin's speech (I strained my eyes from rolling them so much) watched the news to get info on our Hurricane Hannah, which had me freaked out enough, but then we have Ike and Josephine right behind her. Then, because I couldn't go to bed with visions of Hannah and Palin dancin' in my head, I watched some of Joe Biden's speech since I had missed it.

I purposely didn't watch it when it happened because I am still testing myself on what I REALLY believe in. I've been doing this for four years now. Trying to decipher if I vote D because I'm trying to be cool, or because I feel strongly about it. Last night I found it's because I DO believe in it. I sat to watch Palin's speech and wanted to hurl all over the couch watching her. I will say though, she was a breath of fresh air around those dusty old farts. She was a charismatic speaker, and had the most adorable kids. Too bad she wants to set us ladies back about fifty years.

Anyway, today I have a headache from lack of sleep. I could just lay down right now and pass out. We're going out to get my anniversary present today. I am doing something I swore I'd NEVER EVER do. I'm... getting an Ipod. I know! Iknow! I was suckered in by my friend's Ipod Touch! It's got like everything on it and it can surf the web! I've been drooling over one for weeks now, and Tony has to leave tomorrow because of Hurricane Hannah, so he'll be gone for our anniversary. He said he was going to get my present tonight if he could, and I totally guessed what it was. I really don't NEED a Touch, but he said that's what makes it a good present. It's something totally frivolous. I may get there though and decide against it. We'll see.

Big sisters unite

2008-09-03T08:29:00.002-04:00

This morning as I was putting away Aislinn's folder I noticed that she had drawn on it. The school provides a very sturdy folder that is supposed to last the whole year. She had hers half the year last year, and it was a mess by the end of the school year. I said something like "Oh Aisy, you drew on your folder already?" and she said "No!" and looked at it and started to cry. "Jooonnnyy" she wailed and burst into tears.

I got annoyed and told her to just erase it at school since it was pencil. I kinda chewed her butt a bit about it just because, well it was early and that's now how I really want to start my day you know? She sat there sniffing, and whimpering while I got the folder together, and put away. I looked over, and told her to come here. I gave her a hug and said "It must stink having a little brother who touches your things and messes up your stuff" I felt her little shoulders sag in relief that I finally got why it was so upsetting. I told her I had two little sisters that were always causing me trouble, so I understood. She said "That must be WORSE than having a little brother, girls whine more" God, she makes me laugh.

We hugged and I told her a few horrible sister stories to make her feel better about her brother writing in her folder. She was all smiles when she went to school, and right when she was runningo out the door she said "Bye mom, I love you and thank you"

What a sweetheart she can be sometimes.

It's like Christmas time for adults

2008-09-02T12:23:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day of school! Although it sucked getting up early, and I'm already tired, I have gotten a TON of stuff done today. I mean it's 12:30 and I've already had two meals! I've also done about three hours of school work. I had a nice quiet morning, as Jonny slept in. I had about a good two hour stretch where I sat outside, and did school work and drank coffee. I have also made a list for grocery shopping, and the dishes have been done since 8:30 this morning. Ah, routine is a wonderful thing.

I squeezed in another hour of schoolwork after Jonny got up and I had lunch, but it was peppered with interuptions. No wonder I had such a hard time this summer. I didn't want to SAY that's why I wasn't getting stuff done, but having that two hour break, fresh from a decen nights sleep made me realize that it was a lot harder with the kids home than I was letting myself believe. I am also going to try and go to the library in the evening at least once a week to do some work.

Aislinn did well. She even wore her tennis shoes from LAST YEAR. I know right? She's so grown up. They actually fit her feet properly! She also said she'd like to go to Target after school (we'll hit payless too) to try on a "new style" Sniff sniff. My baby girl is all grown up. Last year I had to buy her the same shoes over and over.

We had one minor incident over a hole in her sock. She almost cried, but we got it fixed quickly with a new sock. She was very excited about going to school, she was ready early, and was waiting at the bus stop before anyone else was there.

Yesterday I decided to read through my blog. Man, I bitch about Tony a LOT. I was actually kind of embarrassed. I do that though because it's better to bitch here than fight all.the.time. In the end though, we love each other very much, and we get along great, and I don't want to be with anyone else.

Today, Jonny is enjoying his Mommy time again. He's actually mopping my floor. I got it a little wet and he's having fun, and cleaning my floor at the same time.

It's been a week

2008-08-31T15:03:00.011-04:00

If I were to sum my week up into one neat, tidy sentence it would be:
Tony is a douche.

There, end of blog post.

Seriously, he just really upset me earlier in the week. I took some me time to sit and play Sims. I NEVER play Sims anymore. It had been a month or more. I cooked a nice dinner and loaded the dishwasher while I did so and there was enough room for the dinner dishes so I didn't turn it on. Right after dinner I told Tony I felt like playing and told the kids to pretty much stay out of my room. I went upstairs after awhile, he came to bed. I stopped playing. I asked if he turned the dishwasher on and he said no. Ok. Why not? But, whatever. I went downstairs, and the dinner dishes were still on the table at 1 am. So, at 1 am I was scraping plates, and putting the dishes in the dishwasher. I was not happy. The next day he had duty, and I didn't call him at all. He said he tried to call, but the phone wouldn't ring (we have this problem) and expected me to call him. But, I was mad, and had a whole day to just stew.

When he got home, I told him that he hurt my feelings. How it hurt that he didn't care enough to realize that I never have any time for myself anymore, and when I made time (he always says all I have to do is just make the time, and he'll help) he left the work for me to do. He said he was sorry. But, you know I'm sick of sorry. It's always he's sorry and then he never does what he's supposed to do. It's not like I wanted him to clean the tub, or scrub toilets. I got angrier, and he got angrier, and then it turned into him yelling that I'm the stay at home parent, and he shouldn't HAVE to do anything. Which is so unlike Tony, I was just floored, shocked and hurt. It wasn't an argument about who does what, it was about how he could think it's ok to leave food out and crusty plates on the table? What if I had just gone right to bed? I would have to deal with it in the morning as he had duty. I would have been furious. In my mind, it's never ok to leave food out! Not to say I haven't ever left a jar of peanut butter on the counter over night with the jar open, I'm talking dirty plates. We make fun of people who do that! Also, MY plate was in the sink, and one of the kids was in the sink, whichever was finished by the time I was. Tony and the other kid (I can't remember which) was still eating.

I ended up taking the kids to the park, and only coming back when our hunger was too much. I left a meatloaf in teh oven, and he had pulled it out on time. When I walked in he said "I wasn't sure if you wanted anything to go with the meatloaf" I snapped "Of course that means you didn't make ANYTHING because I didn't give you step by step instructions on what to do" and started to make steamed brocolli. I mumbled "No wonder you're in the military, you can't ever think for yourself, or make decisions on your own"

So, that set my whole week into motion, of pretty much ignoring my husband. He's been trying to do better, and we've gotten over it, but still a bitter part of me is still burning over the stay at home parent part. I know he doesn't like his job (he told me yesterday that it's not as bad as recruiting, but its almost) and he must think staying home all day, with the third day me doing it all alone is sitting on easy street. Then only to have my partner who is supposed to help me out, leave dirty dishes on the table and go to bed. I purposely don't ask him to do much, since he IS so busy. Take out the trash, put the food away at night. He does them only half the time. That's it. He cuts the grass when it's unbearably high.

So yeah, that's been my week. We did go to the beach yesterday evening, which was nice. We have some issues with the house buying. Not so much issues, as it's just a different situation than most people are in. Basically the owner isn't LISTING the house, but offering it to us at this price. Becuase of this, we're unable to get a realtor, and we just feel really like we're not going to be fairly represented. When we think about it though, there really is NO way for us to be ripped. With a VA loan, they won't loan us the money if their appraiser finds something wrong with the house, and we'd hire an inspector. I already know some issues we're going to bring to the table, old windows, and I think we need to have the chimney fixed as it leaks water during heavy rains, and I'm sure the roof is old.

Anyway, to end this bitchy post on a positive note here are some pictures from the beach yesterday....

It is surprisingly hard to get these two to take a picture together. I thought once they got older it would be easier but now we have the whole "I'm not going to touch him" or "She's squeezing me too hard" bro/sis thing going on and they both are easily distracted, so getting them to look at the camera and smilie at the same time is like trying to catch lightening in a bottle.

The two boys playing in the sand. They had a grand time

Jonny saw someone burying someone else, and wanted Tony to do it to him. Then Tony got a great idea:

This is what Aislinn likes to do best, find stuff in the water. At one point she had on her goggles, face down in the water. We caught a video of it, as she looked like a crazy person. But, she was having fun, that's all that matters.
This is a piece of mother of pearl, which I love to find on the beach. They are always inside the ugliest shells, and that is comforting to me for some reason. Inside the ugly, gnarly shells that most people look over, is a complex and shiny beauty. Kinda like some people you know? This piece was without shell though, I had never seen that before.
They had some type of sail boat thing ending right when we got there. I got to take some pictures though, the sails were colorful, and beautiful.

I love this picture. It's kind of like the one I took on put on our Christmas card.

2008-08-24T13:28:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, we decided to take the kids to Busch Gardens. When we first started the day, I was thinking about how having kids changes your perspective of an amusement park, how you do things you wouldn't normally do because you're usually too busy standing in line for the roller coasters and stuff. My perspective changed after awhile though.

Man, my kids... don't tell them I said this, but they're big ole wusses.

Jonny cried over just about every single effing ride while we were in line for that ride. We're talking the CAROUSEL folks. We didn't make them go on anything that was too fast, or to spinny. He didn't even want to ride the little kids rides at Dragonland. He didn't want to walk across the rope bridge at the playground part. He was so adamant about the rope bridge thing, he took off! Yes, he ran away in a crowded amusement park! While I was halfway across the fucking suspended rope bridge thing. Tony looked away for one second in aggravation, and I saw Jonny shoot down the stairs. I tried to yell, but Tony couldn't hear it was so loud. I picked my way across the bridge, and we went chasing after him. I thought Tony was going to bust one of his veins in his forehead! All the rides we did make him go on, he did enjoy. Except the Log Flume. He didn't like that one at all. BTW, that was most exciting ride we went on.

Aislinn was pretty adamant about not riding anything either. She just wanted to do things that cost extra money. Like get her face painted for TWELVE effing dollars (we did let her do that) and play games. She wanted to play games the WHOLE time, and got mad when we only allowed her to play ONE game. Do you want to know how much we payed for that game? TEN dollars. The game where you throw the wiffle balls and they land in the cups. Guess what we won? NOTHING. That's right a big ole pile of nothing for ten dollars. She just didn't get why I didn't want to waste my money on those games. She sees all these people walkng around with these stuffed animals, and they either got really lucky, or they're walking around with $50 stuffed animal. She CRIED when we left the game area, because mean old mom didn't want to spend the grocery money for her to have a good time.

While we were playing that game, I watched a man totally bully his way into a prize. That really bothered me. How would someone think that is an ok thing to do? He claimed his ball went into a yellow cup, and the kid showed him that if it HAD gone in the cup it would have stayed in the cup (if it falls in a white cup, it falls through) the kid took the yellow sleeve out and showed him the bar at the bottom, that enables the cup to stay put, and the guy STILL insisted that he had a ball in that cup! WTF?!? He blustered (from embarrassment I'm sure) "Well someone took it out!" There was ONE guy behind that counter, and he was helping us the whole time. What an ass! While his kid stood there and watched. All for a tiny stuffed monkey. Asshole!

Then, when we wanted to go on one of the 4D rides, an employee said it was closed for a bit as it wasn't working, right as she said that, some people came out of the exit, and yelled at us "Hey, don't waste your time! It's closed!" Then they storm over to the employee (this teeny asian teenager) and starting YELLING at her! "This is the SECOND time this has happened, why can't you guys get your stuff together? Why did you make us walk ALL THE WAY THROUGH to only have it be broken?!?" Blah blah blah. As Tony and I walked away, I turned to him and said "What is THAT girl going to do about it? What is the purpose of yelling at that poor girl? She's not a mechanic, and she's not psychic." People are really just gross sometimes.

We really DID have a good time though. The kids liked looking at everything, as Busch Gardens has a lot of animals. The show we saw was this little skit with house pets. Dogs, cats, rats, parrots, etc doing all these tricks. It was pretty cool. I just want to know how they trained those cats to do that stuff? It was really cute. The finally was the animals doing tricks without a trainer on stage. It was really cute, they had a white cat, and a black cat jump in a bucket, and then three black and white cats came out. Things like that. I think they said they had 36 animals in all in the show and all of them were from the SPCA.

We saw the Clydesdales. They probably won't be there next year since Anheisur Busch sold out. My father in law gave us eight free tickets to go, and this is the last year we'll get those. I'm sure :( Supposedly, the park has been sold to a private owner. We had dinner that was way to expensive, but hey, we got to eat next to a roller coaster!

The hit of the day by far was the bumper cars. They had little kid bumpers that they could drive themselves, and then we each took a kid in a big bumper, and we had a wild time crashing into each other. Jonny just giggled cracked up through the whole thing.

We left around nine and it was just enough to see and do what we could with the kids. They were really good overall. We stopped and got ice cream at McDonalds on the way home, and I got a Starbucks. I was exhausted and as soon as I got home last night at 10:30 I went to bed.

Could this be really happening?

2008-08-22T17:37:00.005-04:00

So, this house thing seems to be coming along. So far, the guy DOES want to sell, and has given us a price. Of course the price will be fanagled with back and forth.

I eemailed my friend Barbara who sells real estate, just to get some info. My email went like this...

Hey girl,

We got an interesting offer from the owner of this house. He is ready to sell, and we want to buy.

AAAAAHHHHHH

What do I do first?

Love,
Sandi

Because I have no clue about anything buying a house related. I live oh 900 miles from my BIL who sells houses. I even googled "How to buy a house" and just got a lot of info about morgages and how you need to pre-qualify and all that. Well duh of course I know THAT, but what's the first STEP? What do I do FIRST. WHAT?

Anyway, it may be happening soon! My friend Barbara gave me a lot of great info, things I wouldn't have thought about, things to look for with being military etc. What banks to avoid, even if they have "Navy" in the name. Things like that.

I am so excited! Today.. I looked at puppies. And kittens. And rats.

Mean girl

2008-08-20T12:36:00.003-04:00

I am a mean girl.

I can't help it. I don't know why, you'd think after years of being teased in grade school, I'd know better, but I can't help it. If I don't like someone, the dislike, it takes hold fairly quickly and fairly strongly. Sure, there have been a few people that have managed to change my mind. Roxie, Mike's wife for one. I didn't like her the first time I met her, but now she is one of my best friends. That had to do with listening to what someone else had to say about her that was never anything positive for years. I had never met her, but was told about her from her so called best friend, and none of it was nice. So, that colored my opinion. But, she is the sweetest person, and I can't believe someone can talk smack about her. That's like talking smack about a rabbit, or a unicorn. Fucking bunnies with their noses, and fluffy butts. Damn unicorns, thinking they're all high and mighty with their... um.. horns. See? Doesn't work does it? Same thing with Roxie.

Recently I read the Twilight series, that is amazing by the way. Those of you mourning Harry Potter. Go get you a dose of Edward. Anyway, there is a phenomenom in the book that involves werewolves. (yes werewolves too! I am telling you, read the books!) called imprinting. That is where they are walking along one day doot da doot da do, and then BAM they make eye contact with a female, and all of sudden they're hearts are instantly intertwined. Even if... er um they're babies. But, not sexually when they're babies, it goes beyond lust, as it's just an intense love, and protectiveness. Anyway, that how I liken my dislike for people. Once it's been imprinted into my soul, not much is going to change it.

It's a characteristic that I do not like in myself. Not everyone I dislike does it ever go that far (again Roxie) there are people I dislike in general that I am more than able to tolerate and even be friendly with in a social gathering. There are some though, there are some that just can't do anythign right in my eyes. No matter how positively I try to act around them, that mean girl sneaks in and I can barely contain my mocking tone, my air of disdain, and over all aloofness.

One might point out that it's not so hard to be nice. For some it is, but for me, I can not help it. I have tried to like or at the very least tolerate these imprinted people but it always ends up in failure. I feel shame for feeling glee at their failures, or their attempts to do things I think they may be doing because I did them first.

It's an ugly trait, one I am not proud of, but one that may not ever change.

G'night you crazy kids

2008-08-19T23:50:00.002-04:00

Jesus please-us. The kids have been driving me crazy lately. I don't know if it's my PMS or if it's just taking FOREVER for school to start or they're just being major pains in the asses.

Today they both ended up grounded from all the fun things at home. The only thing they could watch was what I wanted to watch on TV, and I turned on the Olympics. Teehee. They did NOT enjoy that at all.

When they're being punished, I am punished along with them, and it's so tempting to just let them off the hook just to get some peace, but I didn't. Since they're not preoccupied, they ask me a gagillion and one questions, they wrestle, and that usually means someone will end up in tears. I had to watch Jonny's "magic" which was going into the kitchen cupboard and making the drawer move. Oooh magic!

Tony having duty every three days really, really sucks. On top of that, this week and next, he'll be doing 18 hours of watch or something crazy. So, tomorrow he'll come home from work, have dinner, and go to bed. Then he'll have one "normal" day, and then duty again, 18 hours of watch and then more sleeping. I try not to be bitter about it. The kids are just all up in my arse!

We got the last of Aislinn's supplies today. She picked out a green camo backpack, and I was surprised by my angry reaction to it. I mean, I was pissed! Then I was pissed because it bothered me so much. This just wasn't what I imagined having a little girl. I also didn't imagine having to buy her the ugliest shorts on the planet (long knee length basketball type mesh shorts) for school either. The thing is, right now is the PERFECT time to be a girl. You are never stuck with "girly" stuff. I found the cutest messenger bag that was black white and hot pink (my fave color combo right now) the black and white was kinda like toile, but it was like skulls, dogs, bows, bones, stuff like that. On one hand cute but only a bit girly. But, NOOOOO she went with the green CAMO backpack. Then to confound me even MORE, she got a Hannah Montana lunch box.

I should respect her decisions, and feel blessed that my daughter thinks outside the box. Next time, I'll point at all the ugly backpacks and say I like those the best, and I know she'll not want them. She was going to go for a black and white camo back pack and I made the mistake of saying I liked that one better than the green, so she immediately put the black and white down in favor of the green. She lives to irk me.

I think the rest of the week is going to be pretty decent weather wise. I'm trying to come up with something to do with the kids that isn't going to cost a fortune. Thursday my playgroup is doing breakfast and the zoo. I may do that, or I may skip it and do something just the three of us. It's getting really hard trying to fill the days with fun things without spending all our money.

2008-08-18T12:48:00.002-04:00

Saturday the phone rings, and I answer. It was our leasing company for the townhome. The owner of our townhome is thinking of selling it, and hey would we be interested? Tony wasn't home, so I gave them the "I have to talk to my husband" line and fight the urge to reassure her that I was not chained to the stove and NO it's my choice to be a stay at home parent. I hate having to say "I need to talk to my husband" but really, isn't that the POLITE thing to do?

I really didn't expect Tony to be all "Hmmm why not?" since he's been pretty anti-purchasing of a townhome. My heart gave a little flutter. We talked about it, and I'm pretty positive that I may be ensconced in my own home very soon. Is it unrealistic to think before December? I'm not sure. It could even be THIS one, which would be fine by me. First thing? I'd rip up the carpet in the dining room. Carpet in dining room is just yuck. Second I'd change the tiling in the foyer. Thirdly, I'm going to paint every motherfucking room in this house some wild and outrageous color. I've already have some ideas for our living room.

Tony just came to his senses about homes. The choices are these.... unattatched home the same size we have now, in a not so great neighborhood with private schools for the kids, or big unattatched homes in the ghetto with private schools for the kids, or a small townhome in the best school district in the area. For me... it's a no brainer. Not that I'm against private school, but why pay when you have an amazing school two blocks from you? Aislinn has really grown there.

So, everything is up in the air right now. We're supposed to get more info today. Tony is looking at other houses in the area. He found one a four bedroom in our price range but without AC. Um pass.

I am getting excited. I wasn't sure if I was ready for this next step, and it was the nudge I needed to make it.

Obligatory vacation post

2008-08-14T21:56:00.002-04:00

You know how it is, your friends go on vacation, they come back, they HAVE to bore you with the details and pictures of themselves smiling in front of different backgrounds. I have gone back and forth on whether or not I would go there. Not because I want to keep it a secret or anything, I'm just really lazy.

Ok quickly summed up... it was great. I hit all three times zones in 10 days. I got a great family vacation combined with an awesome girls only weekend.

Then end

I <3 my kids

2008-07-28T14:05:00.002-04:00

I do. They're just the most wonderfulest things evah. I love when they play together, and they just laugh and laugh. Usually about a body part or function. Like beans, or poop, or farts. But, that's what being a kid is about right?

Jonny brought me a HUGE weed/flower roots and all today. He was just tickled that I put it in an empty sweetener bottle I was about to pitch. It's on my table, it's really ridiculously tall, but it was worth it to see how proud he was. He told me he was going to marry me tonight.

We went to see Wall-E last night. I love Pixar movies, but I had heard that this movie was dull. I disagreed. Both kids were glued. Jonny got scared a few times from the noise, so he would dive under the table when it got loud. (we went to a dinner and movie place, which is why there was a table) At one point he looked at me with an awestruck voice and said "That.was.the.loudest.noise.ever!" He hates loud noises. At the bathroom there, they have a turbo jet engine you use to dry your hands. He was so freaked out by the noise, he couldn't even pee, becuase he couldn't hold his junk, and cover his ears at the same time. His noise sensitivity is probably my fault. I used to yell AWWWWWWWW MONKEY TOES at him when he was a baby to watch him cry. Yes, I know... I am evil. But, Jonny had and actually still has a perfect frown. It's too cute.

Today, they played in the sprinkler, and are now naked and goofing off, that will come to an end when party pooper daddy comes home. Right now, they're discussing CAR INSURANCE. I don't know why, but it's funny.

Today, I am probably going to do some running around. ALONE. Or, I'll take Aisy. She needs some special mommy time. I want to find her some more swim shorts. Not like the tight boy shorts kind, she likes the actual girl styled trunks. The only difference between the boys and girls, is that the girls don't have the mesh, they have a swimsuit panty thing in there. The one I got her is already too small, and it's of all things velcro, so it doesn't stay closed very well anymore. I also want to find wii fit. I NEED wii fit.

We're hoping today, Tony finds out what is going on with his leave. I called him earlier and he had his phone off. Probably so I wouldn't call and bug him about it, but I wasn't calling about that! My water bottle is missing, and I can bet dollars to doughnuts, that he accidently took mine, and put some disgusting fruit drink in it. My water bottle has had nothing but WATER in it since I got it. There is nothing more gross than having the slight taste of whatever drink was in there before mixed with your water.

Anyway, at this point I am hoping that MAYBE we can go back to our ORIGINAL plan of camping with our friends on the 1st and then hanging with fam, then I leave for girls weekend from St. Louis, then we go home. If we do it the way we have now with us coming in on the 5th, leave for girls weekend, come back, hang with fam more, we , well no I actually I would have NO time to hang iwth my friends back home. Becuase the following weekend we'd have to travel to get back home, and that just stinks.

Who knows though. It will all work out in the end. I kinda wish we had flown. I figured up gas, adn we'll probably spend about 800 bucks on gas alone!

2008-07-27T14:07:00.002-04:00

My sister pointed out that I only seem to blog when there is something wrong with me. The funny thing is, I read through my blog earlier in the week, and she's right. Honestly though, these things I whine about ARE true. I just have a lot of shit going on with with my body at all times. Like right now.. my period. The horrible second day.

Miley Cyrus has HUGE teeth.

Right now, we're living in domestic bliss. Well, ok not BLISS, as Jonny is whining about Aislinn not wanting to play in the hose, and Tony is shirtless and sweaty eating a bowl of cereal after cutting the jungle that was our yard, while I sit here and slowly bleed to death. For once, Aislinn is the only quiet and content one in this house.

OMG I forgot about this

2008-07-25T20:06:00.001-04:00

The other day, Aislinn and Jonny were wrestling and I overheard this conversation....

Jonny: Your teeth are really yellow EEEWWWW
Aisy: Uh uh!
Jonny: Yes they are!
Aisy: Nuh uh!
Jonny: Uh huh! Your teeth looke like Corn Pops.

O
M
G

I died.

Summer dreams

2008-07-25T19:44:00.002-04:00

Can you believe that July is almost over? KUH-RAZEE I know! Aislinn will be going to school in like a month! We've already gotten most her school supplies since I hate elbowing people out of the way just to get to the pencils that are usually gone. I wanted it over and done with early.

Today, we had a very fun day. We went out with our playgroup and spent the whole day OUT OF THE HOUSE. I know right? Don't have a heart attack. Sandi.left.the.house. I've been doing that a lot lately.

We went to this little place... it's hard to explain, well ok not really, but you pay these people to let your kids play with their toys. Just think of the ultimate toy room. That is what this place was like. The best part is, you don't have to pick up after the kids! Someone does for you! It's like a kids wonderland. They can play, and change their little spazzy minds as their attention switches to something else, and no on is yelling "Hey pick that up!"

Actually, I commented that if I were to go to hell, my personal hell would be to work there. This place bumped pedicures in hell right off my radar. Having to pick up after kids all.day.long? No thank you.

They did have one worker that was OBSESSIVE. She probably loves picking up all day long. If a child walked away for a second, she put the toy up, and then the child would come back looking for their toy, and it would be gone. One girl on our group had a baby doll with a stroller. She would "park" it, and come back and the stroller would be gone! Dollnapped! After this happened a couple of times, she started carrying the doll EVERYWHERE. I would too if someone was stealing my baby!

I got to hold (and sniff!) and four month old today. No baby lust. I just sniffed her babylicious head, and let her gnaw on my fingers. Then I handed her back. It was nice. The handing back part wasn't even hard. I didn't feel the need to bite her cheeks, or hug her hard enough to make her soft spot bubble out, so that's good right? I was having some bad baby lust, but I think being around these younger kids (babies-toddlers) has kind of satisfied my need. I kinda thought that would be the case. Before I joined the group, I thought maybe I would take on a baby to care for during the day, just to give me that taste. Come to find out I didn't need that big of a baby bite. I'm glad I found out before I got myself into something that I would have regretted. I bet it's hard to play Guitar Hero with a baby here. I don't think a baby could sleep to Barracuda or Slow Ride.

Warning poo mentioned.

2008-07-23T11:40:00.002-04:00

Tony came home last night. After the kids went to bed, we watched tv, and headed upstairs........where I tried to poop and he was alseep by the time I came back to the room. Hot! We're so old. It's ridiculous, he's been going 11 days, and it's like no big deal to not do it when he gets back. It is hard to do it when you're tummy is full of poo though, and then you talk about it extensively. I wouldn't want to do it with me either.

Seriously, my stomach is distended and bloated. I've gained three lbs and I know it's just from the poo collecting in my stomach. I don't know what has changed in my diet other than almonds. I haven't been eating them like I used to.

Today I am actually considering going to Wal Greens and getting something for it. I don't think I've ever felt this constipated before. I don't plan on taking anything drastic, just getting some magnesium. I read that taking a magnesium supplement will help with this, and that people taking calcium should take the magnesium.

I woke us this morning semi migrainy. I can't explain why, other than maybe from me starting my period soon. I had to cancel our play group and I just want to STAY HOME. I have been very busy this last week. Yesterday and the day before it was almost four hours in the van taking Aislinn to and from Williamsburg. It's usually only an hour, but with rush hour traffic it's much much more.

Aislinn was fine with it, Jonny was mad. But, you know, he can get over it. If I feel like it, I may go to the beach later with them, like later later. But that's a big IF. I may just decide sitting in the AC reading is better.

I rate this post meh

2008-07-21T22:47:00.003-04:00

This afternoon, we dropped Aislinn off at Great Wolf Lodge. She was the only one without a parent. I couldn't go because I didn't have anyone to watch Jonny and he couldn't go, unless I wanted to pay for my own room. Yeah, that's not happening. She was fine with it, and I think she was happy not to have to hang around with her brother who would just want to bug her the whole time.

Jonny and I left, and I went to Starbucks and got an iced coffee. With heavy whipping cream instead of milk. I could tell the girl making it was thoroughly disgusted. Whatever, she can suck it. It was GOOOOOD too. I haven't had Starbucks in such a long time, it was a nice treat, and I just knew I was going to be stuck in traffic. I was right.

Jonny snoozed on the way home, it took us almost two hours to get there. We did some shopping, and then to the library, and then I got him McDonalds. He likes all the attention.

Then I just sat my butt down, and watched 27 Dresses (I give it a meh) and painted my toes and my fingernails which hello is so not what I usually do, but have been getting into it lately since I like have nails now. Even if they bend at all the corners for some reason.

Jonny is ready for bed now too. I told him he could sleep with me when he was bawling his eyes out about leaving Aislinn behind. He said he was going to miss her. He was seriously bawling his little eyes out! So, I hope he doesn't think I'm going to bed at like 11 tonight although I probably should so that I can get up early tomorrow to get ready for our beach outing.

I.Am.Exhausted.

2008-07-18T17:03:00.002-04:00

I don't know how much more I can take of these horrible, horrible kids. Right now they're upstairs taking a bath. For some reason, Jonny won't Aislinn wash his hair, and I refuse to go up there and deal with it, because honestly I just don't have the strength. I really, really don't.

I just want to lay on this couch, with my down comforter and my book, and just STAY there for the rest of the night. But, no I can't.

We just got back from the beach. Granted it was me who wanted to go,and I would have stayed longer but Aislinn refused to wear a swimsuit to the beach, claiming she didn't want to swim. After much back and forth, I said FINE but she wasn't allowed to swim in her clothes. She could wade if she felt like it, but she wasn't allowed to swim. What kind of kid doesn't like the beach? Tell me? Anyway, we get there, to a new section we've never visted before, and of course Aislinn was kicking herself for once again being a stubborn mule. The waves were minimal, there was a sandbar that made the water clear, and you could see crabs and stuff. She kept going on and on about how she WISHED she could GET IN THE WATER. I would say back "I WISH you had listened to me when I told you to WEAR YOUR SWIMSUIT!" At one point me and Jonny went out kinds far in teh water, and she followed us, I told her "Sorry no swimming in your clothes" so she had to go back to the shore and watch.

Then on the way home, they asked what was for dinner and I told them bulgogi. She was like BULGOGI?!?! What's THAT?!? It sounds NASTY! I calmly told her that she says that EVERY time I make it, but usually end up scarfing it down. I said "You know the beef stir fry that's kinda sweet? You know what I'm talking about? She was like "Ew no! are you sure I like it?" and I said "Yesss Aislinn we always go through this" a couple minutes go by and I hear her like shudder and say "Uugggghhhh" I asked her what was wrong and she says "Beef isn't supposed to be SWEET!" we had stopped talking about this for a few minutes at this point, so it was just out of the blue.

I told her fine, she wasn't allowed to eat any of it. Then all of a sudden it was "No I want to" I told her no. That she would be kicking herself when she realizes what it is, and she is not allowed to have any. She begged me. I told her no. Seriously she can eat cold raviolis. She has got to learn to shut her mouth.

So, now they're in the tub an dhave been up there forever. I may not be able to do the bulgogi bit tonight anyway now. It's getting late. I'm tired, and they're taking too long.

When Tony gets home, I'm packing my book, my water bottle, and my mp3 player, and I'm going to go sit at the beach ALONE for awhile. Won't that be nice?

Day two, please send caffeine!

2008-07-17T15:17:00.003-04:00

Last night was the first night of no caffeine at after dark. It felt like my head was going to explode. My NECK ached. Trust me I'm not doing this for any health reasons. I am doing this because I'm sick of staying up until five am.

This morning I woke up with the same headache, but I was asleep by 1:30. No laying there for hours and hours. Last night I tried some weird DandyBlend coffee. It was a coffee tea. Which meant it wasn't actually made out of coffee, but some sort weird hippy concoction of dandielion root, chicory, and some other stuff. It actually wasn't that bad. It got me over the hump. Kinda like methadone. Just something to stop the shakes. I only had three sample packets that I bought at the hippy store. I needed two to make it strong enough.

Today I'm going to try decaf. The last time I tried decaf it went horribly wrong. But, it was instant decaf. Blech. I also got decaf Columbian, which is the kind of caffeinated I drink. I'm hoping that this too will be a good option, I may even try 1/2 adn 1/2 if the headache gets too bad.

It sucks getting old.

Actually, I got to thinking I don't think it ever affected me this way before because of my diabetes. I was ALWAYS tired. Also, I used to drink it with milk and fat free half and half, both had sugar. The sugar probably counteracted the caffeine high I would normally get. Now that 1. my blood sugar is under control 2. I use heavy whipping cream which has very little natural sugar, the caffeine is just too much for me.

I do know my blood sugar has gotten better because I woke up and we left the house. We got home about 2:30 and I hadn't eaten anything all day, and was just fine. Not shaky, not sick, by the time I was pulling into the driveway I was getting a bit of a headache. Not even crabby! That's a good sign!

The Pros and Cons

2008-07-14T14:08:00.002-04:00

The Pros to having Tony gone

The house is so much cleaner!

The kids are better bevaved.

All the cups, bowls, and glasses are all present and accounted for.

No stinky cigarette smell.

No feeling guilty about not having sex.

Splenda packets go directly into the trash, not forming a community on my counter.

No stress over when is he going to do BLAH BLAH BLAH I just do it, since I'm the only one here.

I can sit wherever I want on the couch.

The bed ALL TO MYSELF!

The cons to having Tony gone.

The kids ALL TO MYSELF!

Carrying Jonny's heavy butt up the stairs when he falls asleep.

I can't say "Go ask your dad for blah blah blah"

No one to share LOLCats with.

I have to take the trash out.

No one to oogle me when I get out of the shower.

I miss his smell

The bed all to myself.

*************************************************************

Aislinn just handed me a contract. It is to and I quote "Hand over the boy" which would be Jonny. She informed me I would still have to take care of his needs like clothing, housing and feeding the aforementioned boy, but he is now her "employee". I'm scared for Jonny. Very, very scared. I mean, she had me sign, initial and everything! She had her shit together. I'm afraid I just signed over a very legal contract. I wonder if spelling counts in a contract? If not, I may have some explaining to do when Tony gets home.

I've been having major insomnia, and was up until five am this morning. I am now exhausted, but I have errands. I need to go do them soon. TOnight I'm skipping my nightly cups of Joe, and hoping the headache I get from not having my nightly caffeine dose will send me to bed early. When I got up, I did my business and signed on to the internets to see the happenings of the world. Firs thing I see, Aheuser Busch sold to a Denmark Company. I literaly yelled "Oh no!" I didn't know this would affect me, but I've been fighting tears all day from the shock of it all. All those people, my father in law included! What if they lose their jobs? What if they move the plant out of St. Louis? The city may never recover! Another American company no longer an American company. I called my in-laws and they are of course at the bar. :( One of the bars that will more than likely close if AB closes. :( Soulard will be dead.

Well forget you internet

2008-07-13T13:43:00.005-04:00

I see how you are. I make it 200 posts without moving blogs, and I get no pats on the hiney? Herumph. I am no longer speaking to you internet.

Seriously,who am I kidding? I am just one voice in billions. Who DOESN'T blog at this point right? I ain't special. O wouldn't be surprised if Aislinn has a secret blog about how to aggravate your mother on a daily basis, but still make your mom want to do your bidding.

We got into an argument yesterday. I will say although she aggravated me, I did see how much Aislinn has grown. Last year this argument would have resulted in a stomping, screaming fit while at the store. Yesterday, she just wept quietly. THAT I can handle. I've always said that I understood that Aislinn isn't faking when she is upset. It's not some "I'm going to hold my breath until I get my way" kinda thing. She really feels the anger/hurt/disappointmet so much that it manifests itself with crying. It was the over the top displays that got under my skin. Even if it was a legit response on her part. I think it would do that to anyone though.

Aislinn is essentially a party pooper, and this is annoying. Yesterday, I was all "Hey let's go to the PARK" even though I hate the park. I grab a book, and Aislinn grabs a book, and we drive to the nice park. We get there, and the tire swing is gone. Aislinn is upset. But, she plays for about 10 minutes then it's all I'm bored, there's no tire swing, I don't like it here. blah blah blah.

For some really odd reason, when Aislinn is unhappy, I feel this need to correct the situation. If Jonny is unhappy, I tell him to deal with it. I don't know why, and I finally realized yesterday what Tony has been saying about giving in to her. I do. If Aislinn isn't happy at the park, then I'm, all "Ok, well how about we go to the beach tomorrow instead. Let's go to Target so I can ge a beach chair, and you all can get a new toy" WTF is wrong with me? Granted... I had already planned on taking them to the beach, but a new toy? Because the tire swing is gone? Sheesh.

So, we pack it up, and at the grocery store getting my prescription it comes out that Aislinn does NOT like the beach. She went on and on about how she doesn;t like it, and the sand, and she's afraid of getting stung by jellyfish. Now, I'm disappointed because my plan was to go get this Twilight book everyone is raving about, sit on the beach and read, but how can I do that knowing I am causing my eldest daughter so much aggravation? So I said "Fine, we won't go. Let's just skip TArget and go home"

This is where the tears come in. See Little Miss Party Pooper, she still wanted to go to Target to get her toy. And I wasn't letting her. So she cried. Then she said "Ok now I want to go" and I said "Too late. This family does not do things just because you said so. Maybe next time you'll rethink all your complaining before opening your mouth" So she cried in the Harris Teeter.

I will say this about her though, she did apologize later on her own, and she did say that maybe she was just being crabby. I know that she only said those things in hopes of making a trip to Target. But, I'm not stupid. You know what she would have done? We would have gone to Target, and she would have gotten teh toy and STILL whined about going to the beach. But, I am proud of her that she was able to remember to do those two things.

I think she didn't want to go to the beach because on the weekends is when the girl down the street can play. She goes to summer camp and doesn't get home until 5-ish. So she can't play during the week. I think Aislinn was worried about missing the opportunity to play. Like now she is playing with the boy down the street in his pool. He usually can't play during the week either.

Tony is gone, and with this comes the everyday phone call. Which is funny because i used to expect a phone call from him everday, the usual, it only takes two minutes to call, you don't have two minutes to call me? Now, he WANTS to call me, and I'm all yeah you don't HAVE to call everday. Actually I never say that would be mean. But, it does show me that Tony probably loves me more now than ever, and I think me not needing to talk to him everday is proof that I love HIM more than ever. Isn't it funny how that works?