Monday, October 31, 2005

Happy Halloween

The title says it all. My children have returned with at least 30 lbs of candy. Let the sugar high begin!!


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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Another weekend gone..

And, I guess I did accomplish most of what I set out to accomplish. Carpet in the LR/DR is now cleaned, Chilli for tomorrow is made, some laundry is done, I got my weekly workout pushing a cart that weighed about 200 lbs at Sam's Club (Has anyone walked out of Sam's club with a cart that weighs less than 200lbs? Just curious.) and my kids made it through another weekend with their uncle and managed to stay alive.

I had a minor scare. Most know my appliance woes and I now have an older model washing machine (I would say about 60 in Washer years) that I will use until it too dies and goes to the Mexican guys that drive through my neighborhood daily looking for old appliances to take from the curb. My last load of wash was still soaking wet so I set the washing machine to spin it out again and was met with the smell of burning rubber and then noticced the darn thing wasn't spinning to boot. Ok..bad Karma...Karma very bad lately ESPECIALLY with washing machines and I couldn't believe I killed two in one month. After ringing out about half that pile of wash, and throwing it into the dryer, I made my way to Sam's, drove around the parking lot for a half hour looking for a parking spot, did my thing went home and dealt with the rest of the wash. As I was pulling soaking wet laundry out of the machine, I noticed that a sock had gotten wedged tightly between the drum and the wall of the washer. I felt a little hope as I unwedged the sock (Which of course was MY sock because I have bad washing machine Karma) and re-ran the spin cycle. YAY! it worked..Ahh those little everyday victories! OK yes, it is positively boring in reality that the most interesting part of my entire weekend was a mutilated sock but what can I say? It's just my life.

This past Thursday (I'm backtracking), I bowled my usual league. My lanes are located across the street from a fairly well known adult book store which is open 24 hours and is a popular male hangout. At least, I am guessing it's mostly male as I've never seen a woman walk in there but anyway..There in the parking lot were about 15 minivans. What I want to know is, what did these guys tell their wives they were doing? Working late, watching "football", having drinks with the buds, stopping at the store for diapers? I had a good laugh. I mean, minivan=family guy=kids=carseats in the back of the van while daddy was looking at naked ladies or um..maybe even naked men. Hee! hee!

RANT OF THE DAY


Even when my ex husband isn't around, he's still a manipulator. The kids heard from their grandfather that Kyle is upset that they haven't called him. AHHHHHHH! OK they have a letter that has a bunch of his promises, one being "I promise I'll do better at keeping in touch!" Why does this person seem to thing that we have to come to him? He screwed up. He should be the one DOING something.

END OF RANT


That about covers it.
Have a Happy Halloween everyone! I'll be looking for the pictures of all the cool costumes in my inbox!

Thursday, October 27, 2005

THINGS MY KIDS DO THAT DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!

For those of you who have never seen Bill Cosby's "Himself", it is SUCH a must see for any parent and oh so true. God is the ultimate jokester and we can see it especially in our children. Sense of humor is such a necessity to deal with God and His little creations. Let's face it, it takes a special kind of person to have children and NOT go totally insane. Bill said that all children are BRAIN DAMAGED! My kids are LOADED with Brain damage...it's EVERYWHERE I LOOK! I am a single parent of three children and am happy to announce that I have been on Prozac for YEARS and am feeling MUCH better now.

Why is it that every single light must be on? Are children blind? Every where they go, they leave a light on. It just doesn't matter if it's broad daylight with bright sun, there's a light on. It doesn't matter if they are not in the room, there is a light on. I watch my son and daughter as they move through the house, flicking a light on in every room they go and of course, the light stays on when they leave. Actually, I think that carries through in everything. This past summer, my son Kris had the responsibility of watering the flowers. Needless to say turning OFF the hose after he was done was a particular challenge. One day, we noticed a nice puddle in the backyard so deep there was a duck swimming in it. Since the summer had been dry and there had been a steady rain during the night, I thought maybe the ground was just way too hard to absorb the water. That was until my brother discovered that the hose had been left on since the last time Kris watered the plants...2 DAYS! I'm happy to announce that finally 3 months later, I have the water bill ALMOST paid off.

Which leads me to the second thing--throwing things away and why does it never happen?
After a child takes a bandaid in my house, the box is left on the counter and the little plastic strip thingy's are still left there on the bathroom sink. Yes, the garbage can is right next to the sink so there is no way I have erroneously expected my children to walk a few feet. After one of my children feeds the cat, there on the counter, is an empty can of catfood with a fork in it. Empty milk containers, empty cereal boxes, cookie boxes, are either left next to the garbage or put back into the pantry. Throw it away??? Never. Perhaps they are thinking that if they put those things back, the rest of us will not notice that they are empty. Perhaps they are just not thinking at all. My daughter when she cleans her room does not throw away used kleenex, candy wrappers or Q-TIPS, she just shoves them in a drawer, under a bed, or in the closet. So, if anyone is ever a victim of the great kleenex shortage, please let me know. We have some used ones I would be happy to send you. Putting things away is along these same lines. Right now as I type this, there is a loaf of bread and a container of mustard sitting on the counter where my son left it after he made his lunch this morning. Yesterday, it was a gallon of milk and a box of cereal.

I bought laundry bags for both children a year ago because I was tired of seeing all the laundry scattered all over the floors of the childrens rooms. Needless to say, with the introduction of the laundry bag, I am happy to announce that the laundry is not scattered all over the room anymore. It is dumped in a pile NEXT to the laundry bag.

My kids are now responsible for cleaning the kitchen after dinner. I wasn't aware and I'm so glad my children told me, that the counter by the microwave, the counter next to the stove and the floor are NOT part of the kitchen. I was wondering why those never get swept and wiped down.

Putting things away is a blog in itself. It never happens. We'll leave it at that.

Other things of note, my son used the garage door as a way to stop his bike. Yes, his brakes worked perfectly fine but I guess it was more fun to smash his bike into the garage door to stop himself. Of course after yelling at him for doing that, he stopped and decided once to use the outdoor grill instead. No, I have not yet purchased another grill. No more funny than when he decided to find out what happens when you run a lawn mower over a newspaper. Funny thing is, the newspaper wasn't even in the lawn at the time. It was in the middle of the driveway. I just don't know... Or when we caught him peeing in a bush in the front of the yard. I just don't know.


Upon cleaning my daughters room once, I found a bunch of Oreo cookie crumbs in her bed. Of course she insisted she had no idea how they got there. I looked at her said, "Are there gnomes in your room?" " I don't know!" She says. Under her pillow, were little rolled up balls of Oreo cookie filling that she was obviously saving for when the world runs out of Oreos.

I do not buy poptarts. I refuse! Not that I have something against a pop tart. Not that I don't like them. BUT MY KIDS MAKE ME CRAZY FIGHTING OVER THE DAMN THINGS. The last incident, we fondly call "POPTART GATE 2005" occurred for the last time a month ago. What happened? Someone, (JOE), ate the last Poptart that Cass was saving for the weekend. She came up to me as I was working and shoved the empty box in my face and screetched.."KRIS ATE THE LAST POPTART!!! HE KNEW IT WAS MIIIINNNNE!!!" She stomped around. She yelled. She screamed. She threw a fit! It was ugly..UGLY folks. Geez Cass...it's a POPTART! It's not the Hope Diamond! There are more in the store! Of course, that just led to a laundry list of food someone took the last of that she was saving for herself...NO MORE POPTARTS!

And then there is the phone. As I was working on a huge account this past summer, I had a daily conference call at 3:30 every day to go over the orders, the equipment yadda yadda..Important business stuff. Cass sits next to me as I'm on this call with a scowl on her face. Finally after 10 minutes she stomps into the kitchen and comes back a few minutes later with a note that said, "Are you almost done with the phone? I need to call Caitlin." No need to go into what happened to her when I was done with the call.. but she is still alive.

Please share your stories. I would love to hear them.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

What a party! But the day after has been HELL!

20 years since High School graduation! I can't even believe it especially since I don't remember ever growing older especially 20 YEARS older but there it was, my reunion night. I was a little nervous about the whole thing being a total freak and geek in high school but no one was more surprised than me when I had a total BLAST! Benet still looks the same. There is new gym and a redone chapel but it was the same old Benet. I was helping check in. As the class of 85 approached, we tried to figure out who they were and in some instances, whether it was the guy or the girl we went to school with. Some classmates are bald and paunchy, some look the same with more gray, some are nicer than I remember. Some are exactly the same. I looked at this as the perfect practice for all that I have learned in the past 20 years about attitude and how it shapes every experience. It was up to me to make it fun or make it miserable. I decided on the former. So, that said, I said hello to everyone, smiled at everyone that came in that door, whether I liked them 20 years ago or not. To be honest, I didn't dislike anyone really. We had the clicks but I was barely conscious of anyone outside my own immediate group. I was happy to see at least 3 of the people that I hung around with back in the day and it was good to hear about what they have been up to. So far, it sounds like pretty boring stuff. There was absolutely nothing earth shattering, I guess. No big 20 year old secrets came out, no secret crushes. My crush was there..didn't talk to him. Just said my hello's at the door and went about my biz. Hung around people that were in my crowd and some that I never said hello to or even remember having a class with 20 years ago. I had way toooooo much to drink, closed the after party bar, and staggered in at 3am. This morning, I woke up with a huge headache and upset stomach, just barely dodging worship of the porcelain god at least 5 times. I am way too old for nights like that more than once a year. Of course my youngest, Emily, decided that today was a great day for extra REALLY nasty diapers and as I was lying there, she crawled all over me, hit me in the head with a recorder, and was queen of the temper tantrum. Bless her heart. I guess I needed a reminder that drinking too much means I REALLY pay the next day. What a great cure for alcoholism. Drink too much, add one very active and loud toddler with a hugely messy diaper to wake you up 2 hours after you go to bed.

In other news, we are all de-loused. The washing machine has agitation. Still haven't gone for the dishwasher but I'll get there. The kids did wonderfully in their parent teacher conferences.
And I had an accident with my work laptop which resulted in me being out of commission for 2 days. Ok, someone who shall be nameless spilled coffee on it. But, it wasn't me. DAMMIT! Emmie pooped AGAIN. Later!

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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Sunday, October 02, 2005

I am..

Having a little trouble fitting my life into my work schedule. I know I spend way too much time talking about my job but little by little, it demands more and more of my time. We have many problems and issues with our main supplier WHICH IS CISCO SYSTEMS, by the way. My co-workers and I were faced with over 200 projects critically past due and the equipment we ordered is nowhere in sight. Therefore, we spent the week going through all these orders and tried to get them somewhere else, a daunting, cumbersome and extremely frustrating task. I know I'm a little crabbier and a little grayer. My apologies to my friends who I have had absolutely NO time to catch up with. My kids get crabbed at on a daily basis so be happy you're not them :) The sad thing is, after all this, I can't even afford to pay attention. I am so broke and so sick of it. Haven't even replaced the broken appliances so I am still washing everything by hand and have the prunie fingers to prove it.

So, it's Sunday morning. This past week, I had a birthday which I have had no time to celebrate. We fit in some cake and ice cream in between a conference call and my Thursday night bowling league. Then my brother went up to our cabin this weekend to begin the process of raising our underground well. We may have time to go out for dinner sometime during the week, who knows? I also had to fit in a meeting for our 20th year high school reunion. Honestly, I have no idea why I am even involved. I was nobody in high school. I barely remember being there. I have no feelings fond or otherwise towards Benet Academy and after looking at the guest list there may be two people on it that I really would like to see again. I was very quiet in high school so a word about that. The quiet ones are usually the ones with the most to say. They just haven't found anyone they've felt safe enough with to say it to. One of my friends asked if I had made any new friends during the process. No, I don't think so. I'm not sure I have a lot in common with them or maybe it's just me. It's probably the "quiet person" syndrome creeping up again. I don't feel safe enough to talk about it. The past 20 years...well life has been hard on me. And not hard in the typical sense but in the A-Typical sense. I've dealt with Divorce, learning coping skills for depression and anxiety disorder, an eating disorder, an alcoholic ex husband, recovering from bankrupcy, those are all big hurdles. I haven't done it perfectly but I feel I am what I am intended to be... recovery is possible from whatever life throws at you. Not too many appreciate the difficulties of recovery. It always seems you take a 2 steps forward and another back but the key is getting the fight to try to go forward after the setback. My house isn't fancy. My car isn't huge. My bank account has little in it but whatever is in it, I worked for myself. Most of all, I'm still standing and not unhappy and whatever has been thrown at me, and there have been a LOT of things lately, I've dealt with and am working to resolve. I have great friends. I have hobbies I love and the 3 greatest kids on the planet!

Public Service Announcement..
Thank You to this website:
http://www.somethingfishy.org/

I've met a lot of wonderful people and new friends because of this recovery website. For anyone suffering or in need of information, this website is the best out there. Telling an anorexic or bulimic to "just eat" or "not eat so much" is a waste of breath. It's the same as telling an alcoholic not to drink. It's an addiction, a way that the afflicted has chosen to cope with his or her problems and the afflicted need medical and psychological help to help lessen the affect on the body and to learn a new way of thinking and coping.

END OF PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.