One More Day...and a special offer for you!

There is one more day of Holiday vacation for Alex. Tomorrow is the last day, as she goes back on Tuesday and I fully admit I am more than ready. I need a little peace and quiet, and the ability to do anything without stepping all over her in the process lol.

I have enjoyed the staying up all night and sleeping most of the day, which is my natural and preferred sleeping pattern, but I will welcome the scheduled days and nights back with open arms, as with her in school I tend to be much more productive, and my efforts are not destroyed an hour later.

I have so much to do and I want to get started on it. So bring on Tuesday! *Giggles*

Jack is making chili for dinner, ( and apparently several of my friends are as well, it must be chili day!  ) and I am going to take this last day to just chill and not do much. Tomorrow I will do my usual cleaning and get things ready for the return to school.

I also want to do a little shameless plug today. Recently I had the chance to name a new fragrance oil created by Esta Weiss of Pagan and Proud Of It, for sale in her Etsy Shop. The scent I helped her to name, along with another lady, is comprised of three of my favorite scents. Nag Champa, Patchouli, and Dragon's Blood. I came up with the name Dragon's Heart, and both Esta and the other lady approved of the name, so there it is! I got my bottle a couple of days ago and let me tell you, the smell is divine. I am wearing it right now. It is rich and enveloping and lasts for a long time. It is so amazing, and if you scroll down the page on that Esty link I gave you, down in the "New"section at the bottom of the page, you will find the Dragon's Heart. I have gotten a lot of scented oils in my time, and most of them are not very strong, they are mostly carrier oil with a drop or two of fragrance oil. Not so with this oil. As stated on her page, she only used enough carrier oil to make it safe to use on the skin. After receiving my bottle, I know this to be true, it is wonderful.

The best news is, if you mention Bella Foxglove from Tales of The Wolf Queen, you will get a 10% discount on your fragrance purchase! Be sure to contact her to let her know I sent you, and she will set up a special listing just for you to reflect the discount! At the very bottom of the fragrance page there is a "contact the seller" link, so use that to let her know I sent you! She has many scents and combinations to choose from, so click HERE to head to the shop and purchase your amazing fragrance oil today!

I hope you all are having a relaxing Sunday, and that you have a wonderful week!

A weird day...

That is what yesterday was for me. The whole day just had an off kilter vibe.

Good things and bad things happened yesterday. The first good thing to happen was that the guy finally showed up to replace our phone lines. Apparently the ones coming from the road to our house were old, and fried in one of the many recent storms we have had over the last month. The result was that we could not hear anything on our phone, due to the static and crackling sounds. Even trying to call something with an automated menu was impossible because you could not hear, and the interference was so bad the computer could not even tell which numbers we were pressing. This has been going on for over a month, and with doctors and lawyers and such needing to be called and to get calls from, I was very stressed out.

So dude comes and tells us he has to run new lines, and it will not take long. He told the truth. The Ditch Witch he had was a monster, and it ran the lines in no time flat.

Enter the first bad thing. As he was pulling the lines through the ground, he snapped the water line running from our well into the house...in two places. So we had no water. I started to freak, but the dude came prepared ( according to him most places never bury their water lines deep enough to protect them, resulting in a lot of breaks ) and in less than 45 minutes we had water again. This guy was cool, I liked him.

Alex and I were getting ready to go to her Open House for school. Jack was supposed to go with us but he had to wait around for the phone guy to make sure the lines were clear, and in case anything else happened. The guy got done right as Alex and I were loading up in the truck to head to the school.

Enter the second bad thing. The truck would not crank. Jack came out to look and listen, and he said the fuel pump was not engaging. So we were stranded. I go in the house and use the now crystal clear phone line to call Mom, and begged her to come get us and take us to the Open House. ( She lives about ten minutes away..) Thankfully she agreed. So we go and meet Alex's new teacher, who is a very nice lady, and get her bus schedule and let her go say hello to her friends and teachers she missed from last year. After explaining everything to Mom, she was going to see if maybe she could help us with the cost of a fuel pump, which is several hundred dollars, but she made no promises.

We get home and Mom drops us off and leaves, and I come in to make Alex and I something to eat, since Jack made his own dinner. A few minutes later he goes outside for a few, and when he came back in I asked him what he was doing.

"Cranking the truck.." he said.

Me: " How in the hell did you manage that?"

Jack: " Pfft please, I AM still a mechanic you know!"

Me: " So it's fixed?"

Jack: "Fixed enough for now."

Me: " Good enough for me, call Mom and tell her not to worry about the money for now."

So he did and  that was the end of that. There was some corrosion or something somewhere, I do not know, I leave that kind of thing up to him for the most part. Point is the truck runs...or at least I think it does, he has not tried to crank it yet today lol. Hopefully it will.

So now that all the drama of yesterday is over, today is the last day of "vacation" and I am excited. Here shortly after Alex finishes breakfast, we are going to do some cleaning and pick out her clothes for tomorrow. Later I will give her a shower ( giving her one in the mornings before school is just to taxing on me, it takes me a while to wake up and move around, getting old sucks sometimes lol ) and if Jack feels up to it, he is going to help me start Operation Blueberry, which is me dying my hair blue for a little while. I have to dye it blonde first and let it rest and heal a little before I put the blue on in like a week or so, maybe two. I need his help with the blonde as it has to be totally covered. When I dye it different shades of red it does not matter if I miss a streak or two, as I am naturally red headed, so it does not show up much. Red streaks mixed in with the blonde would be very noticeable, and while it may look interesting, my dark red hair will not take the blue dye..so it needs to be as even as possible. Hence me needing his help if he is up to it. We shall see.

Other than that, we are just going to hang out and enjoy a last day of not doing much before the early mornings and homework start. I am actually looking forward to it for the most part. Except the homework part. Her homework sucks lol.

Have a great Wednesday folks!  For those of you who have kids, have they started school yet?

Summer winds down to a close...

Good Monday Morning my lovlies! I hope your week is getting off to a great start!

Summer vacation is winding down to a close here in the House of Wolf, and I am glad for it. It has been a long and difficult Summer, and Alex has not had the best of vacations, as we did not get to do anything due to Jack being hurt, my Dad dying, and just general crap. I know she is anxious to get back to her friends and have some fun, and I am ready for her to have that as well, in addition to the relative peace and quiet I will have here.

I am looking forward to writing more here, and over at Planet Buddha, now that I will have more time to devote to it.

Tomorrow is Alex's open house, and they start school on Thursday, for half a day, with a full day Friday, which I find ridiculous. I never understood why the kids just can't go back on a Monday and be done with it.  I guess they are trying to ease the kids back in to it. But yeah, we are ready.

No new developments with Jack yet. Still no second surgery approval, and we have contacted a lawyer. I am not really allowed to talk about it anymore, due to insurance companies having people troll the internet looking for things to use against people when they get a lawyer, so until all that is over, I will not be mentioning it much. There is no change, he is not improving, as he has not had surgery, so I will leave it at that.

I am doing better myself. I have actually had a few days where I have not thought of my Dad at all, not the sad parts anyway. I still tell him goodnight and kiss his little container of bone dust before I go to bed, but I will probably do that for the rest of my life. There are not really any tears anymore. So healing is taking place.

Nothing else is really happening here at home, things are in a holding pattern until school starts, so we are just hanging around for these last few days until school routine becomes the norm again. Last night was the OFFICIAL start of Operation Bedtime, as all attempts last week died a fiery death, so I said to hell with it, I will start Sunday. Which we did. Of course, the bedtime is more for ME, since I have the issues dragging my ass out of bed that early in the morning. I am not so much worried about Alex, once school starts she will be tired and go to bed on time, just like always. Kids are very adaptive that way lol.

I got up at 8 this morning, although I was awake at 7, I was just enjoying the lounging in bed feeling, I do not get that often. All Summer it has been up all night, sleep most of the day and jump out of bed as soon as my eyes open because it is so late. So it was nice to lounge a bit and wake up fully. I feel good. As much as I am a night owl at heart, I like the routine myself when school starts. I will be fully ready to sleep in when next Summer rolls around, but for the most part, once we get on schedule, things will be great.

Things are about to pick up over at Planet Buddha as well, I can feel it. We have some new writers, and hopefully will have another here in the next couple of days. I have been blessed with an Admin role there, and I am SO happy and excited to be a part of the group there. Everyone there is so kind and intelligent and amazing. It feels like a second home. I feel really good about the whole experience and I am looking forward to working more there.

I think that about sums it up for this post. I am really excited about things to come, great things are in the works!

Have a great week everyone!!

A little bit of this...a little bit of that.

Howdy folks. Look, it has only been a week since I posted last, woohoo!

The school year is winding ever closer to being over. Part of me is thrilled, part of me is terrified. Jack and I are going to have a hard time finding stuff to keep her entertained this Summer, I can tell already lol. With him being home for at least 3 more weeks, hopefully we can get some beach time and other fun stuff in. They get out Thursday the 31st and I am so looking forward to not having to get up at the ass crack of dawn for a couple of months!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. Last Saturday we went with my two oldest kids and my 15 year old's boyfriend to the lake where said boyfriend lives. It was nice. There was a little party that we were there to basically chaperon, but we had a good time swimming.It is a private lake, only accessed my the homeowners, with a locked gate, and we were the only people there all day.

I have been working on a gift for my Mom and my two older kids. Mom bought..the gifts...and I, along with Perth, have been using our talents to improve said gift. I am being cryptic since my eldest girl sometimes reads my blog, and it would be my luck this would be the one post she sees lol. We are going over tomorrow to give the stuff to them. They will be very happy.

Last week Perth and I decided we would have a cookout. Perth would buy the food and Jack and I would prepare it. Perth and I went food shopping Friday, and Saturday I got up and started prep work. Our menu consisted of Steak, green pepper, onion, and whole mushroom kebabs, Chicken, pineapple, onion, orange and yellow pepper kebabs, fresh corn on the cob, Hawaiian rice, baked potatoes and Parmesan garlic bread. All grilled. Steak was marinated in Jack Daniels steak house marinade, and the chicken was in a Tropical marinade. I also baked a homemade lemon cheesecake. All the food was divine, but I was in the kitchen for 8 hours, not counting clean up later. I enjoy prep work in a kitchen, but by the time it was over, I was almost to tired to enjoy it! Still, it was awesome, and the company was great. We watched the Will Smith movie "Seven Pounds". It was good, interesting, but it left me very confused for most of it. It is very emotionally charged, but it moves very slow, to the point of being frustrated. I am glad I saw it, but I would not watch it again for that fact. Still, it was a good day, with great food and great company.

On a more somber note, my Dad had to return to the hospital last week. His pneumonia came back, and he could hardly breathe or function. He was unable to walk, and he was put on a large dose of oxygen just to be able to get from the bed to his chair, or to the bathroom and back to where ever he was sitting. Mom called me today and told me that he was getting worse, and to prepare myself, because it looked like he might not make it out of the hospital. He was facing a surgery to drain the fluid in his lungs, but he would have to be put on a respirator to breathe for him for a couple of days, and both my parents have a no artificial means to live clause in their wills, as well as a no resuscitation order. So I started the mental process of losing my father...for the second time this year. A few hours later, Mom called me to say Dad called her ( which is saying something as this morning he could not even talk, he could not catch enough air to do so ) and told her that the doctors put him back on his Lasik, I think it is called, which he had been taking for his congenital heart failure for years. It takes fluid from the body, so it does not build up around the heart and lungs. Well, when he was undergoing his cancer treatment, he got very dehydrated all the time, so they took him off of it. As of yet they had not started him back. As basically a last resort, the doc put him back on, he thought MAYBE it would help draw some of the fluid that he could audibly hear bubbling in his lungs out. Dad told my mother that after they put him on it, a few hours later he had to use the bathroom. A bit of TMI here, but he told her that he passed two QUARTS of fluid when he went to go urinate. Two...QUARTS! He said the nurse was stunned. ( They had one of those measuring cup things in the toilet and she had to verify how much he passed each time he had to pee.) A couple of hours after THAT, the doc came in and listened to his lungs and said there was NO more bubbling, and that he was moving air once more. ( Not at full capacity, but much better than he was before the meds. ) So they are going to keep him on that, and run some scans tomorrow and see how that worked. But he told Mom he felt a tiny bit better, and he could breathe just a tiny bit better, so I am hopeful that the Lasik will continue to help him, and with his heart issues, after he stopped the radiation and chemo, in my opinion he should have been put back on the damn stuff to start with! But that is my opinion. 

Jack has his last physical therapy appointment Tuesday, and he goes back to the doctor on the 18th and hopefully they will finally let him go back to work. The physical therapist, who is a dingbat little chick who is about 23, keeps scaring Jack, telling him she does not see how he can ever go back to being a mechanic. She is seriously pissing me off. After every appointment he has with her, I have to talk him down from a near panic when he gets home, and remind him what his SURGEON says, which is that he CAN return to being a mechanic, he will just have to be more conscious of how he moves and bends in the future, and that he is still not back to where he was before the accident, and to give it time. The first doctor said it would take a full year to be back to normal, and it has only been 5 and a half months, and only 3 months since surgery. So I am VERY glad that after Tuesday Jack will not have to see that little twit any more. I have seriously wanted to go talk to her supervisor and tell them to have her do her job but keep her opinions to herself. They were supposed to be encouraging him to return to normal, and helping him to do so, not speculating and scaring the crap out of him. I know she is not being malicious or anything, she is probably not even aware of what she is doing, but I still do not think it is right.

So that is what has been going on around here over the last several days. Nothing much, but busy at the same time lol.

What are you folks out there doing this Summer? Any plans?

I'm not okay with that...

Alex only has a week and a half of school left. Time seems to be flying by, but dragging at the same time. I am looking forward to not having to get up at the ass crack of dawn every day.

Her school, which is a small Charter school, has several "Fun Days" at school, for fundraising purposes. Things like Hat day, Pajama Day, Opposite Day, things like that. I have no problem with those. However, last week, Alex informed me that there was going to be a "Nerd Day" coming up. This did not sit well with me. I stewed on it all night, and the next morning I decided I would send a letter in with Alex on what I THOUGHT was going to be Nerd Day, which was last Friday...turns out it was that very day. So for one, Alex did not participate, not that I was going to allow her to do so in the first place. For two, I decided to send an email to the principal of her school. Here is what I wrote:

" I am writing because I have an issue with one of the "Fundraiser Days" that the school is having. "Nerd Day" in specific. Hat Day, PJ Day, Opposite Day; all of those are innocent, but I feel that Nerd Day is harmful. In a time where kids are taking their lives because they are considered different, I feel that Nerd Day is a form of saying bullying is okay, that it is okay for kids to make fun of people who are different than them.

Now of course I understand that is not what the day is SUPPOSED to mean, but I feel that it is teaching kids to make fun of others, that someone who is considered a "Nerd" is not someone to be taken seriously, that it is someone to mock. I am the mother of two teens and a first grader, of which the first grader attends *Insert School Name Here* and I have seen the damage that bullying can do to kids. I am lucky in the fact that my children do not view different as bad, but they were taught to give everyone a chance and not make fun of someone because they were different.

I am just not okay with "Nerd Day", and I was hoping that in the future it can be changed to something else. Pirate Day, Animal Day, *Insert decade here* Day. Something that is not aimed at one type of person, something that is not hurtful and has the potential to ostracize anyone, and make them feel mocked for being who and what they are.

I hope you will consider my thoughts, and give it some thought yourself. There are plenty of other things to do to raise money for the school and not potentially hurt kids.

Thank you for your time,
*Insert real name here*"

So yeah, I was not okay with that at all, but I was nervous when I sent the email. Would I be ignored? Would they make life for Alex hard because I was rocking the boat?

Turns out I need not have worried. I got a phone call not five minutes later, from the school principal. She apologized profusely, and said that when the middle school classes decided to host it, it did not sit well with her, but as she is new, and that is how they always did it, she did not thing to do any thing about it. She said that as the day was already almost over, there was not much she could do for that day, but she promised me that there would never be another Nerd Day or any other type of derogatory day from that point on.

She is a new first time mother herself, so I can only speculate that maybe she thought for a second about her own sons future, and what type of person he may be when he grows up, and how he might be the brunt of a stereotypical joke.

It felt good to know that I was able to facilitate even a small change, that might help my own or some other kid one day. It was the first time I have ever done something like that, and I admit I was terrified at what would happen, but I could not let it go, and still be able to look at myself in the mirror every day, knowing it bothered me so much, and not do something about it.

So that is what I did last week. For those out there who might want to speak out against something like that, but are afraid to, please do not be. Yes, I had a favorable outcome, and a lot of the time it does not work that way, but you never know until you try. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!

The Help, being tired, and other stuff.

I just can not seem to find much energy these days. I do not know if my body is going through another healing spurt, if I am being drained by people, either on purpose or accidentally, or if I am just getting old or what lol. All I know is that I am perpetually exhausted and I am not even doing much these days. It has been cold and rainy, and now just cold, and that makes my ankle ache like crazy so maybe I am just expending all my energy dealing with that constant ache. I am still loving the cold snap we are having. It will not last long, back up to 80 next week but it is a taste of what is right around the corner.

I am making a big pot of chicken and dumplings tonight, one of my favorite Winter foods. I am excited. I made blueberry cheesecake muffins (although I did them in a skillet instead of a muffin pan lol ) for Perth and I for breakfast but he is still asleep. So I ate my half covered in warm butter. Yummmm.

Back to the tired thing. I guess I need to start taking my vitamins again. I mean, by 8 at night I am wishing I could be asleep already, which is crazy. I have two loads of clothes to fold and two to wash and at this point I rather burn them than to look at them lol. I need to sweep and mop but I do not see that happening today either. I did run the vac yesterday so there is that at least lol.

After meeting with Alex's teacher Tuesday I found out she is having trouble taking tests. Her homework and weekly work are great, but then she bombs on the test and it drags her grades down. Luckily her teacher is wonderful and gave me some pointers of things I can do with her here at home to hopefully make her more sure of her answers and make her more confident at test taking time. I have also gotten a lot of information and help from my friends about websites and things to ask her teacher, and I am very grateful for that! I also found out one of her textbooks, the reading and vocabulary one, is on the school's website in its entirety, so I can help her in real time when she gets home, using the exact lesson the teacher is using. She also told me she is bringing in a special teacher's assistant for the rest of the school year, to help the class with reading and math, since apparently Alex is not alone in her struggles. I have been working with her for quite some time every night on her homework and it is mentally exhausting...especially since she tends to get upset if she has difficulty and if there is one thing I hate, it is to see her cry, especially over things I can not just "fix" for her. I have to help her do this on her own. Her teacher said Alex is a joy, and she said she could tell I was a good Mom, because Alex was so loving and kind and helpful and happy and well balanced, and I found myself choking back unexpected tears to hear her tell me that. It made me feel so good. She said Alex was a hard worker, and very smart ( her other grades are fine ), she just needed a bit of help in the math and reading comprehension department. Jack and I, hell, my whole family, loves to read so I know that with some extra effort on our part we can instill a love of reading in her too. Well, I should mention she loves to read already, she is just having issues with the concept of stories and their purpose and what the author was trying to convey and whatnot. Considering the kids reading material, *I* have issues trying to figure out what in the hell the author was trying to convey with that nonsense lol. So it will involve some extra work on my part but if it will help her then I will do whatever it takes.

In between homework and sleeping, I have been reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It is about life in Jackson, Mississippi between rich white folks and their black domestic help in the 60's. It was a wonderful book, very poignant. Full of emotions, I laughed, cried and cheered to myself throughout the book. I am not quite old enough to have experienced all that first hand ( nor have I ever been financially rich enough to have hired help lol ) but living in the South, it is a part of Southern Culture so it was like reading something a friend wrote. I have been power reading it, telling myself it was because my Mom loaned it to me and had about 20 people waiting to read it after me, but the truth is, I hated to put it down. It was that good. I finished it yesterday and I can not recommend it highly enough. I know there is no way the movie can hold a candle to the book, but I really want to see it. I will do a full review later and add it to the book review page on the blog. Now that I am finished with it, I am about to begin Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert. Perth and I were in the library Tuesday and I bumped into a shelf and the book all but flew off the shelf at me. So apparently I was meant to read this book lol..What are you gals and guys reading these days? I am always on the hunt for a good book!


Not much else going on here. I do not have the energy to do much else lol. I am looking forward to Sunday when we do the Breast Cancer walk. Then next exciting thing is the 31st when I go find out if I can officially stop wearing my boot. I only wear it outside now, I am healing much faster by not wearing it inside. My skin, where those sutures were being rejected and working their way out of my body was agony with the boot on, and since I stopped wearing it inside, my incisions are healing with lightning speed compared to how it was trapped inside that sweaty boot all day and night.

So that sums it up for today. I hope you all have a great day and a wonderful weekend!

This house IS clean...er.......

So yeah, I did manage to do some cleaning today. Cleaned my kitchen, got all the crap off the counters, rearranged my pots and pans cabinet, cleaned the glass tables in the living room, ran the vac and swept like three times. Oh and washed two loads of clothes and folded two. One is still in the dryer lol. Over 12 hours later and you can only tell about half of it now, but at least it was clean looking for a few hours lol. It made me feel better for a while.

Tomorrow Perth and I are going shopping hopefully. I am going to get my nails done ( I have not had a treat in a loooong time and after being hurt for so long I sure would like one! ) and we are going to order Alex's cake and see about some gifts and some food and what not. Just a nice outing hopefully.

Not much else is going on. I have been emailing back and forth with Alex's teacher. She is having some trouble in her reading comprehension so we are going to have to work with her on that. Jack, Perth and I had a discussion tonight about how advanced the curriculum is now at such young ages compared to when we were all in school. I did not have algebra until 8th grade and now they have pre-algebra in second grade! So I am going to go in Tuesday for a conference to see how we can help her improve. She loves to read, she is just having some trouble retaining some words, like tonight she kept confusing 'they' and 'there', ( she kept reading they as there, as in "let us go over there ) so I made her write "they" twenty times. Seemed to stick. I just have to buckle down with her and get us both on track. Apparently me being hurt did more damage than to just my ankle. She suffered too. That bugs me.

She is taking a field trip on Halloween to watch the Monarch Butterflies migrate. I think she will really enjoy that and I hope she has a ton of fun. That will be a busy day. I hopefully get rid of my walking boot for good that day, as it is my next doctors appointment.

I guess that sums it up for today. Not much else going on and I am about to hit the sack.

OH, I almost forgot, I am doing a guest post tomorrow morning over at Unleashed Diva Living Out Loud so be sure and check me out and read my friend Rae's other posts while you are there, maybe say hello!

Have a great night folks!

Summer Vacation draws to a close....

Today is the last day of summer vacation for the kids. Tomorrow they go back, armed with new backpacks filled with shiny new school supplies, ready to start a new year of learning and making friends and memories.

I have spent this week getting us back into our school day routines. Up at 6 am and Alex in bed by 9 or 10, and myself to bed by 11. It has not been that difficult. Jack said I should sleep in this morning, as it is the last day I can do so, and that sounded like a good idea. It did not work out that way. He woke me at 6 and I snuggled deeper into the covers, Alex climbing in bed with me and out like a light. I dozed for about 45 minutes and then my eyelids sprang open like those old window shades that roll up and down.

My body and mind remember.

They remember the routine, and I have to say, as much of a night owl as I am, I have been happier getting up at six and greeting the sun as it rises in the sky. The only down side is the days are SO long. Getting up at noon meant Jack would be home in 4 hours. Getting up at six in the morning means it is 10 hours until I see him, and time drags on. I get much more accomplished however, which is a good thing.

Tomorrow is a half day, with a full day on Friday. I plan to take the next two days to just decompress and enjoy the blissful silence that comes with an empty house. Monday I will hit the ground running, crank up my stereo for the first time in 3 months and rock out while I do some power cleaning.

This summer has not been as bad as I expected, to be honest. Alex was gone a lot, playing outside and with the kids of the neighborhood. She made a new friend, and spent the night away over a dozen times, with nary a tear in her eye. Much different that last year, when the thought of being away from us after dark was terrifying to her. She has grown so much.

The last two weeks or so, however, have been a nightmare. She was then aware that school would be starting soon, and the kids of the neighborhood were getting ready to go back to school and taking last minute mini-vacations and were gone a lot, so Alex was here all the time. So she was bored and she talks..like all the time. She got in trouble the other day for not being quiet and I sent her to her room and she was sitting on the edge of her bed, with her own hand over her mouth, and was STILL TALKING. I think silence makes her twitchy, upon further reflection..her mind moves so fast, silence is torture to her. The problem is, noise makes ME twitchy. My mind moves so fast that the silence and stillness is a welcome respite from the constant brain chatter that goes on all day.

So we have butted heads a lot over the last two weeks. She makes me more than a little crazy at times, and I am glad she will be going back to school so we get a break from each other and I will look forward to her talking to me and telling me what she has learned that day.

Another thing that is making me happy is the weather. It has been deliciously cool here the last two mornings. It has been around 64 to 66 and it has been so nice. I have had the house open the last two mornings until noon, when the humidity creeps back up and the air has to come back on. These few hours have been amazing, it reminds me that this horrible heat will not last forever and Fall is fast upon us.

So now the days will pass by once more in routine, and this gives me a strange inner peace. Good things are happening left and right, and I look forward to seeing what each new day brings.

Checking In...

Hello my lovelies.

Yes, I KNOW I have missed a few blog posts, but things have been hectic around here, and at night when things finally calm down I am just to brain dead to scare up a post. Nothing wrong, nothing major, just a ton of little things that add up to a hectic and busy day.

Phone calls, visitors, being zapped from the heat, dog gastrointestinal issues....on top of the everyday house cleaning and cooking and laundry. My brain is just fried.


School starts on the 18th and I need to start getting our sleeping schedules turned back around, but it seems no matter how early I get to bed, we still sleep till 11 or so in the morning! Of course "early" is midnight, and during school days I go to bed at 9 or 10, depending on if the few shows I watch on TV are in season or not. I am going to let it be through the weekend, and start in earnest Monday.


I did get Alex's walls painted somewhat. She picked out a few cookie cutters and I gathered the paint colors and one night we got in there and just goofed off, painting the shapes and I did some freehand spirals and wavy lines. She did a lot of it herself, and painted hair on some bears and what not. I was not going for some strict professional look, it is her room and I gave her free reign over it and she loves it. Here are a couple of pics:

She actually likes to play and sleep in there now, so we did a good thing I suppose!

I still need to work on my room and get it cleared out so I can put my gorgeous sapphire blue paint on the walls, but I am seriously thinking of holding off on the painting in there until Alex returns to school and I do not have to worry about her spilling very dark blue paint all over anything. She wants to "help" with everything and there are just some things I rather her not even be around. Working with dark paint in my room is one of those things for sure.

Jack is currently making a headboard for our bed. He engraved a couple of hearts on it, one on each of our sides, and once he sands it we are going to wood burn a design and our "nicknames" on it and then stain it. I used to go by Dark Angel ( Angel being my nickname for Angela since birth ) and he is Nightwolf. He wants to put Dark Angel but I can not decide if I want that or Bella. Probably Dark Angel, it may be cheesy but it fits lol. I downloaded some kick ass Celtic fonts and I am going to blow them up and make a stencil out of them, so the letters will be Celtic looking, and we are thinking maybe a Celtic cross for the center, but that is undecided as of right now. Maybe a Love Knot or something.

On top of that, my eldest daughter has shingles, on her face of all places. She is in pain and her eye is swollen almost shut, and as it is only a couple of weeks before she starts High School, you can imagine the snit her 14 year old self is in over all of this. She is on antibiotics and a pain medicine, and she went to the eye doctor yesterday to make sure it had not gotten IN her eye. Thankfully it had not, but it has to be watched very carefully. The redness goes from her eye and follows the nerve all the way around to the back of her head. I feel so bad for her and wish there was more I could do.

My Dad has not bounced back from his episode in the hospital the other week either. He came home after they finally did a heart cath after stabilizing his potassium levels, and two days later he was screaming in pain because the entry point for the cath in his groin was agonizing, which is not normal for him. He went back to the ER and they gave him meds, he had pulled the muscle or something right there at the entry point, and his groin area is black and blue, according to him. Then on top of that, his gout flared up, making him unable to walk much.

Needless to say my poor Mom is exhausted and running herself ragged which is very bad for her own health. I expect her to crash soon to be honest, and it sucks because there is not much we can do about it. A lot of the things that have to be taken care of, only she can deal with it. I can not even offer to drive them to appointments as I still have not been able to afford to get my drivers license renewed. Sucks too because of all those flaming hoops I had to jump through just to get the damn paperwork to prove who I was so I can get the damn thing.

I have been doing a lot of research into dehydration, as I am realizing a LOT of my physical problems and my mood problems are coming from lack of fluid. I never realized just how much havoc being dehydrated can cause for a person. It also explains my wonky moon times. Jack figured out why I bled like a stuck pig this last time. I am chronically dehydrated, and the day I started we were at the lake and I spent 6 hours in the water. The skin absorbs water, so since I started that night and bled so heavy, but for a normal amount of time, his hypothesis is that being in the water all that time allowed me to NOT be dehydrated for a change, so things flowed as they were supposed to. It just seemed extra heavy to me because I am used to 11 to 21 days of spitting and sputtering so to speak, because there was not enough fluid in me to let things come out as they should. Makes perfect sense if you think about it. SO I have been making an effort to be much more mindful of my fluid intake. I notice the difference big time if I drink less on any given day than I am supposed to.

I think that sums it up for now, that is the lowdown on what has been happening for the last week. This heat is sapping the life out of everything. The heat index for my area was 128 two days ago, according to the weather channel website. A hundred and twenty-eight freaking degrees. The real temp has been between 99 and 105 with a 100% humidity level, so it has just been flat out miserable around these parts. You have to lean forward to walk around outside, the heat is so oppressive it feels like it is pushing against you!

I hope that you are all staying cool as possible, and I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

The space in between...

I know I have been kind of quiet these days. Nothing is wrong, just lots of little things going on.

For starters, you all know we have been working on some house projects. New tile, Jack finally fixed my cabinet drawers, I bought paint for my bedroom in the most gorgeous Sapphire blue, and some pink and teal paint to sponge paint Alex's walls. She decided instead that she wanted to take the 40000 cookie cutters in all kinds of shapes a friend gave me a long time ago and paint shapes on her walls. I am down with that! 

Jack is also going to make doors to cover our built in pantry, and little doors to cover the open cubbies on my desk. I love my desk and have posted pics here before, but as I was saying on a friend's blog ( Seriously, check her out. Her blog is Secret Agent Soul Truth and she is awesome. Tell her I sent ya! ) as much as I love my desk, I still do not feel it is "my perfect writing space" because of the open cubbies, and since the desk can be seen as you walk in the door, I have a bunch of decorative stuff on it instead of using it as a functioning writers desk. With the doors, I can hide my stuff so to speak from looking jumbled or cluttered when it is filled with the things I create with. It thrilled me when out of the blue Jack suggested he make hinged doors for each cubby without me even mentioning my plight to him!

Speaking of Jack, I do not know what has gotten into him but he has turned into Mr. HandyMan and I love it. Now when I mention something I would love in the house he jumps on the idea and tries to figure out how we can do it, or something similar. He is planning on building a small covered deck out the back door to put the washer and dryer on so we can slide the two pantry cabinets we have into the space they use, thus turning the 3 cabinets on the wall into more pantry space, and the cabinets will slide right into the space the washer/dryer vacates, making a pantry wall so to speak. I am thrilled with this idea.

Before I paint my room I want to figure out the best way to arrange it so it looks better and is more functional. Right now everything is just crammed in where it will fit due to the smallness of the room and the largeness of my bed. No, I will not get a smaller bed, we fight on my queen size for leg room as it is lol. I like to sleep sprawled on my back now due to my torn rotator cuff in my shoulder, and he likes to sleep diagonal for some reason.

So I want to see if we can make more sense of it than the way it is now. I just know that something has changed in his mindset and I am reaping the benefits of it.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah. We went to the lake for the first time in a couple of weeks yesterday, and met one of my oldest friend and her family met us there. I have not seen my friend in two years and it was wonderful to spend time with her and her family. I am so in love with her and her husband and her two precious kids. I think ( and I hope ) we will all be spending a lot more time together in the future.

School starts back on the 18th of August, and in another week or so it will be time to switch things back around and get Alex and myself back on a "school" schedule, meaning earlier to bed and earlier to rise. I am ready to be honest. Staying up late may suit my inner self but it can be lonely and a little boring when no one else is really around. ( Except for two of my best friends, they are night owls like me but even they have to go to bed or work at times lol )

I have a couple of other things I want to write about but I feel they deserve posts of their own so I am going to close here. Yes I KNOW I say that and seldom write about whatever it is, but this is meaningful to me so it will happen lol. Another one of those changes I keep alluding to!

Have a great week folks!

Food Revolution? Leave my kid out of it...

Alex's first year of school is rapidly drawing to a close. On one hand I am in a panic, sometimes just the weekends are enough to drive me insane, and in Summer there will be 3 months of non stop yammering. I can feel it. But on the other hand I am glad because we get to sleep in and our schedules will not have to be so rigid.


I am having some minor issues with her school. Last week or week before, I think it was, her class had a Health teacher come in, who was probably a nutritionist since every thing she brought home that week had to do with food and the food pyramid. The class learned about good foods and bad foods, and about to much sugar and sodium and so on and so forth. Pretty typical stuff and great knowledge to have. However, we already eat very healthy. Jack and I are heavy because other than him at work and me moving around the house, we do not get near enough exercise. Alex is thin as a whip though, and she is going through a picky stage. She loves veggies and most fruit, she is on a less or no meat kick, which is fine, and she is not a big sweet eater. She just does not care for it. She likes salty stuff more, like I do. 


The problem is, since this teacher came in for the week, every thing Alex puts in her mouth she has to ask if it had to much sugar or to much salt in it. Now keep in mind, I do not fry, I bake or broil, we eat mostly veggies, and we hardly ever have junk in the house. Now, every single thing she puts in her face she has to ask these questions, and no matter what my answer is, she will take it upon herself to decide that whatever it is is not "good" for her and refuses to eat it. She eats like a bird on the best of days, and now, she will hardly eat anything. It ticks me off. She has decided she wants to be a "cold luncher" meaning she takes her lunch instead of eating the hot lunch provided by the school. That is also fine with me. Cheaper and better for her. Not that all the food in her school is bad, but you know most of it is pre-packaged or processed food. The school does make some things fresh, but still. I understand that it is just to expensive for most schools to truck in fresh ingredients daily and make everything from scratch. Schools have enough trouble having the budget for transportation and to pay teachers, much less pay for fresh food. It sucks, but it is reality for the moment. When I cook, as I said, I do not fry, I do not use a lot of fats like oil or butter and I use sea salt in place of regular table salt. I know there are many ways I could be healthier but for the most part we are in a good place when it comes to food. I rely on spice for flavor instead of tons of salt or fat, to accentuate the natural taste of the food, instead of covering it up. So for her to question everything irritates me, because I try my damnedest to make sure we eat right, and now because a teacher told her all salt and all sugar are bad, she thinks all we eat is shit.


For instance, the cold lunch she wants is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a little handful of pretzel sticks, some apple slices and red grapes for "dessert" and as a treat I got a thing of YooHoo drinks, the little juice box sized ones. She usually drinks chocolate milk at school anyways. Well yesterday was the first day she took her lunch, and she came home and told me she could not take that any more because PB&J, and the yoohoo had to much sugar, and the pretzels had to much salt, her teacher said so. 


My eyes crossed, I was so pissed. 


So my lunch of wheat bread, natural PB and jelly, low sodium pretzels, apples and grapes, and ONE 6 oz chocolate drink is worse for her than the greasy pizza and brownies that they served that day??? I don't freaking think so.


Guess what she took today for lunch? Yes, the same damn thing. I am all for food education, but kids at that age are easily impressionable, and while having knowledge is one thing, being a freaking Nazi about it to a 6 year old is not okay with me. I am not going to send my kid to school with a lunch box full of crap. We just do not eat that way. So this first year teacher ( This is her first teaching gig ) has warped my kid's mind into thinking unless she grazes in a pasture like a cow then I am trying to make her fat and unhealthy. That makes me livid. Using scare tactics to teach anything pisses me off, but when you tell my 6 year old that unless they NEVER eat sugar or salt they will get fat and die from a myriad of diseases, then I have a huge problem with it. Nothing about moderation, everything about never having it at all. I then got to explain to her that all food, even if you plucked it off a plant 5 minutes ago, have some level of sodium and sugar, and there was no possible way to cut it totally out of your life. She refused to accept that explanation. She does not comprehend the difference between naturally occurring sugar and sodium and refined sugar and dumping salt all over your food.


I do not know what to do about the situation, or if I should do anything. This is her first year after all, and the first year for the teacher, and there is less than 6 weeks of school left for the year. The problem is, when Alex attaches to an adult, ( other than Jack and I ) then whatever they say is law, so in her eyes her teacher is the most important person in her little world right now. I do not want to give her the impression that her teacher is not to be listened to or minded, but at the same time in this case what is being taught is not okay with me.


I think I will wait and see what she has to say when she gets home this afternoon. If she comes home with a story about what this teacher told her about her lunch being bad for her, then it is on like Donkey Kong...

Surviving Spring Break

How on Earth did I stay at home with this child for 3 years? I used to be with her 24/7. For THREE years. Now she is only home all the time from Friday to Sunday, but by Sunday night I am usually wishing I were the drinking type.


Spring Break started Friday. I have no working vehicle, and Jack works all week. So I am stuck at home with her. Thank GOODNESS for Vix and Steph living across the street with their kids, or I would be in a straight jacket.


Today my Dad dropped by and told me he was going to come get Alex Thursday and keep her for a couple of days. I immediately cursed the fact it was only Tuesday.


I love my kids, do not get me wrong, but my personality is so unequipped to handle the constant yapping and zooming around ball of energy my youngest has turned into over the last year for a solid week. The thought of Summer Vacation makes me break out in a cold sweat!


She has spent a good portion of time across the street, but right now I have her and one of Steph's kids here now. Today they are being good, but I have them on lock down on the couch watching movies. ( It is really hot right now and Steven has this bad habit of traipsing all over my garden plants. )


Speaking of garden plants, my squash, zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes are all about 2 to 4 inches high, and my basil, rosemary and garden sage is about an inch tall! We did a lot of amending to the soil this year, and started seedlings in my mini greenhouse, and things are going much better than they did last year. Jack planted speckled butter beans, corn, bell peppers, onions, and scallions, along with carrots and a couple of other things I can not remember off the top of my head. I think he has some Lima Beans out there as well.


All in all I am very happy so far this year with the crops we are growing. 


Things are pretty much back to normal here. The days are warm ( okay hot ) and the birds and butterflies are out in force...the downside to that is so are the ticks and biting flies and other evil winged creatures of doom, like the wasps and bumblebees. I SWEAR I read somewhere that bumblebees were going extinct. They are not extinct, they are all here in my yard! But even with the critters around I am so happy to see the backside of Winter! The days of longing for Fall and Winter are over. The last two years of abnormally brutal temps for an unusually long time have cured me of my love for Winter. I must be getting old lol.


Jack has been working in the yard for the last few weekends, but the leaves are still falling like rain, so there is a lot more raking to come. I might even get out there myself and rake some. Yes, me, outside, in the sun. Write it on your calendars, take a picture, whatever you have to do to get over the shock of disbelief. 


*Chuckles*


I started going through the closets and pulling the winter gear out and stashing it in Alex's closet, and dragging the summer stuff out. Alex has grown so much since last summer she needs a whole new wardrobe, which I get to start buying this weekend. 


Other than that, it is business as usual here at home. However, if you come over and Alex is duct taped to the wall in her room, just pretend not to notice. 

Not much of anything.

That is what I have been doing folks. Not much of anything. It has been great.

Alex has been in school for just shy of a month, and she loves it. She is doing very well and I am excited to see her first report card sometime this month. While I am still not a morning person, the getting up at 5 A.M. has not been that big of a deal, once I got used to it. I have started sleeping until almost 6 however, since that is when Jack leaves, as I simply can not tolerate his happy happy joy joy self in the mornings lol. The only down side to her being in school, even though it is one I totally expected, is that she brought home a cold almost immediately, and it mutated into a super virus in me. She and I have lived cut off from 98% of the population at large for three years, venturing out to my parents every so often or a rare trip to the store or out to eat ( Jack usually picks up groceries on his way home from work so I seldom leave the house ) so I knew the first cold would be brutal. She got over it fairly quickly, other than the sniffles, but I have had flu like symptoms for a couple of weeks now. Luckily, she IS at school so I can rest and not have to worry about taking care of anyone but me during the day, and I love that.

I have even gotten into morning TV, sorta. I watch Good Morning America and Regis and Kelly and The Doctors and The View every day ( altho everything past Good Morning America is really just background noise lol ) and then I either put a movie on, turn on the radio, or turn it to the Create channel and listen to cooking shows. I clean a little, read a little, eat a little, and play around on Facebook and read blogs and chat with my friends. I have projects I want to do, but I have been taking time to just decompress from 3 years of Alex care, 24/7. I have been cooking some fantastic meals for dinner. One day last week, the oppressive rain and humidity took a break and it was cool one morning, and I even went for a 2 mile walk. Once the cooler weather is here to stay, and I am not so sick, I intend to make it a morning ritual. Put her on the bus and take a walk.

My son turned 12 on the 26th of August, and we had a little party on the 28th at my Mom's, which was nice. Mike had a friend over, and Mom made a wonderful cake. ( Her cakes are the BEST! ) We stayed from 10 A.M. till 8 P.M. and it was a great day full of laughter and good conversation and good food.

Malorie is out of the hospital, and is in physical therapy, and doing great. They should be back up here in October, and are going to take classes at a local college up here and start FSU in the Summer, for which both Mal and my cousin Shelby have scholarships. My cousin is going to be a Dermatologist and I think Mal wants to be an OB/GYN, if I remember correctly.

It is Labor Day weekend, and Jack took a 4 day weekend. He has two weeks of vacation built up, but he is the type to take a day here and there, especially during hunting season and income tax time, as opposed to taking it all at once. So he has Monday off anyway and took Tuesday off so we could have a day alone once Alex goes back to school. She is NOT happy about not getting to go to school tomorrow! She informed me this morning that she "did not like this bacation ( vacation ) stuff" lol. She still has no concept of the fact she will be in school for the next 12 years, minimum, so she still has it in the back of her mind that one day we will say she can not go anymore. I may or may not exploit that way of thinking with the occasional " If you do not clean your room you can not go to school tomorrow!" statement lol. Hey, she has never kept her room so clean , leave me alone lol...

Over the next couple of weeks I intend to do a complete overhaul on my blog, now that I am getting over the new and blissful feeling of having 8 hours a day to do nothing at all. New layout, new widgets, new content hopefully. I hope to have new pictures to post in the coming weeks, as I can feel the breath of Fall in the air, and I will be spending more time outside when it finally gets here. I can not wait to be able to open my house up and air it out! I also have more indoor painting to do, and some more weeding out of stuff in the house.

As it stands, I will not be able ( or really even have to ) go back to work until the first of the year. My truck has a flat tire, an invalid tag and no insurance, so other than on weekends when Jack is home, I am parked for a while, until income tax time gets here. I hardly ever go anywhere anyways, so it just makes sense to let my truck go until income tax time, and just keep his valid and insured, since his costs next to nothing to insure. Plus, if some things keep going in the direction they have been, I will not NEED to go to work, since all I was going to work for is grocery money. Plus with Alex's school schedule, and no one but me to get her on and off the bus, any job I had would have to be some pretty odd hours. It is hard enough to get a normal hour job around here with the economy, so finding one with the hours I needed would be next to impossible. So if all goes well, that will no longer be something we have to worry about.

I guess that about sums it up for now. I have wanted to blog but at the same time my brain just wanted some time off, and my body too since I have been sick, so I have been listening to it and doing what I felt needed to be done..which was nothing lol. It has been great, but I think I am about over that stage and ready to get some stuff done I have been putting off for the last three years. So let us move on to the next phase shall we?

Have a great holiday everyone!

School Girl...and a tragic situation...

Well my baby girl Alex is officially a school girl now! She started Kindergarten on the 12th and she is loving it so far! She has already made little friends and there is some little girl that rides the bus with her that hangs out the window when she gets off the bus yelling and waving " Bye Alex, see you tomorrow!" at the top of her lungs. It is so cute! Jack took off work for her first day, and he was a wreck! He cried all the way to her school after she got on the bus, and all the way home, and spent all day watching the clock lol. I was perfectly fine, which was unexpected!

The sleep schedule has been pretty easy to change, as I knew it would, now that school actually has started. She plays so hard and we get up so early she has NO problems going to bed, and last night was the first night she even mentioned not wanting to go to bed yet, but 10 minutes after she laid down she was out cold lol. I had some trouble the first couple of nights getting to sleep, but my body seems to have started getting used to it as well. I actually go to bed between 9 and 10 most nights, and I am up between 5 and 6 the next morning. I m still adjusting to being alone most of the day. I enjoy it but it is kind of lonely at the same time. I cleaned out my fridge the other day, and yesterday I cleaned Alex's room. I am not sure what I want to do next. Maybe paint the wall of the kitchen I have not done yet, plus, once I get a longer phone cord I am going to move my desk.

One thing I have enjoyed is day time TV...or "adult TV" as I call it lol. I get to watch the morning news shows like Good Morning America, and I guiltily admit I have gotten in the habit of watching Regis and Kelly and The Doctors lol. The rest of the day it is pretty much just background noise, or I will put on a CD or listen to the radio. I like the time to do what I want however, so it is all good :)

On the sad side, my 18 year old cousin's best friend, Malorie, was in a horrible car accident in while driving my parent's Suburban on Sunday. I do not know if I have given any background on those two, but my Mom's brother's oldest daughter Shelby and her best friend Malorie, also 18, have been living with my parents this summer, waiting for their college apartment to become available for them to live in when they start FSU in the Fall. These are two of the sweetest and funniest girls you will ever meet, and I love them both even though I have not gotten to spend a lot of time with them. They are just so likable and give off great vibes, everyone loves them. Well both girls are from the Ft Myer's area in Florida, South of us, and Malorie was driving my parent's vehicle down south to get the last of her and Shelby's clothes and groceries and all kinds of stuff since they were supposed to move into their apartment on the 21st. Mal was gone for not quite a week, and she was driving back up here on Sunday, and was a couple of hours away when the tread separated from the back right tire. It had been raining, and Mal steered the Suburban to the median on I-10, and when the front tires hit the soft wet mud on the median ( it has been raining daily like crazy here for a couple of weeks due to a tropical depression that refused to leave the area ) and ended up digging into the mud and it spun the vehicle around, and then it rolled it several times. They had to cut her out, she was trapped in the vehicle. She tore almost every tendon in her neck from what I understand, and had to have a lot of stitches in her leg and foot. The doctors were stunned that she was alive, and not paralyzed, and said that she must have a purpose because a fraction of an inch either way her neck would have been broken, leaving her paralyzed at best, or dead. I have a link with pictures of the vehicle at the scene of the accident HERE. Mal  had some sort of surgery at 9:30 this morning, In Gainesville,  at Shand's Hospital, which is where they took her after the hospital here could not do what needed to be done for her.

She will have to be in something called a Halo for 4 months, which is some sort of neck brace and had to be anchored through bolts drilled into her skull. I just heard that she has some disc out of place, and the surgery she is having could or will ( not sure ) cause her to lose 50 percent of her upper body movement for the rest of her life. Things are very serious, but she is fighting hard. She is only 18 years old, and was just starting her life. As a result my cousin has pulled herself and Mal out of school, gave up the apartment, and she is staying with Mal until she is recovered or whatever happens next. If any of you would be so kind to send prayers and healing for Malorie, and calmness and strength to my cousin, who will not leave her side, we would all appreciate it so much. These are special girls and my heart is breaking for what is happening.

I am going to post a picture of Mal, and  hope if my cousin sees this she will not be upset, but they can use all the help we can give them, and I know a lot of us work better when we have something or someone to visualize. This is a pic taken Monday or Tuesday of Mal in the hospital. The doctors said this type of injury was 99% fatal, and the fact she was alive, and that her reflexes were so good, was a miracle.

She is strong, and is fighting to survive and recover, so any thoughts and healing anyone can send would be wonderful. My cousin has said that she will not return to school until she knows Mal is okay and will hopefully go with her, so for many reasons I hope Mal makes a wonderful recovery. Most of my waking hours are spent thinking about these girls and hoping everything goes well.

You entire life can change in the span of a heartbeat, so be sure that you let the people you love know how you feel. You never know what tomorrow might bring.

Stay safe everyone.

*Update* I just spoke to my Mom, and the Halo is not doing what it is supposed to do, so they are putting in a rod and fusing everything, so she *will* lose half of her upper body mobility. She also has a blood clot in her chin they are having to remove, it is some how affecting her breathing. Shelby and her parents, my Aunt and Uncle, are on the way to my parent's house now to get the girls stuff to take back to Ft. Myers. The girls will hopefully get to start school in the Spring. Mal is still in surgery so please keep her in your prayers!*

Time flies....

Good grief. Every time I want to sit down and blog, something else always comes up! Such is life right?

Anyway, I have been keeping myself busy with mundane tasks over the last several days, and some not so mundane. I FINALLY got Alex's room painted, although it is just the gods-awful purple undercoat. I am going to be sponge painting it over with pink and teal to match her bedspread and so when I get the paint and get that done I will post some pics. I did this room all alone, a couple of nights ago, stayed up all night to do it. Alex has decided she does not need to sleep more than 3 hours a night so might as well be productive while I sit up all night right lol?

I do not know what it is about this shade of purple that I despise and Jack and Alex love. It honestly looks to be the same color as grape bubble yum bubble gum. It is dark and horrendous, but everyone loves it but me lol. Oh well, I don't have to sleep in there, right lol?

In other news, I found out today that Alex got accepted into the school that I really wanted her to be in today! It is a charter school, Pre-K through eighth grade, small, with excellent staff and teachers, and with small classes ( hence the pre-k waiting list from last year that we did not get called in for ) so the students get way more of the teachers time than the other two schools she could have gone in, with 45 kids crammed into a class. I feel more comfortable with the smaller school as well, since she will be going into kindergarten and I am afraid she will be shell shocked since she has been here with me for 3 years. I know I am underestimating her, but she is my last "baby" and all of the sudden she went from independent big girl to "omg she is to little to be away from me already" lol.. That is all in my head of course, she is STILL the "way to independent for my peace of mind" almost 6 year old! I am so relieved and she is so excited.

That means I will get a few days of empty house bliss before I have to go hunt something part time for work. Jack and I sat down the other night and had a talk and decided that if I make enough to cover groceries and gas for our trucks, all will be fine, and I will not have to work full time if I do not want. Which I do not, not until Alex gets used to her new routine. Plus, being a charter school, one of the requirements of her being able to go there is for a parent to volunteer so many hours per year at the school, which is fine with me. I am going to be one of those moms who are involved in everything, so excuse me if I get annoying in telling you all about how I did this and that with her school lol..I missed out on so much with my older two, I am not going to let my last chance slip by!

Let's see, what else? Nothing much out of the ordinary has been going on, other than Alex's weird sleep schedule. Suddenly she runs wide open on only three hours of sleep and it is killing me, because if I lived in a perfect world of no responsibility, I could EASILY sleep 12 or 14 hours a day lol. I love to sleep when able, what can I say?

My birthday went well, my Mom made me an awesome cake and I got flowers and her awesome chicken salad ( I think I already posted about that ) and some other stuff, it was really nice. I am STILL weeding clutter out of my house, I think that will take the rest of my life I swear! The kids are doing well, parents are doing okay, so life is pretty normal!

I was recently honored by Magaly at Pagan Culture with an award, which is really cool. She asked 10 questions, and after I answer them I am supposed to nominate some people, but to be honest, I see so many of those "award cauldrons" and people bitching about them, I am not sure of who to send what to anymore, so if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged!

Here are the 10 questions:

1. How old were you when you first showed interest in the written word?

I was three years old when my Mom taught me to read. Both my parents were ( and still are ) avid readers, and neither of them could sit down and read without me crawling in their lap asking " What is this word?" so Mom said enough, and taught me to read. I have read avidly ever since!

2. What is your favorite old time book and why?

The first book that impacted my life was The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. I read it when I was 8 or 9 and fell in love with it, and read the whole series. It was unlike anything I have ever read, it went into so much detail about hunting and gathering, from food to medicinal, and with practical application, and prehistoric life. The research Jean did for her books are nothing short of phenomenal and I highly recommend the entire Earth Children Series if you have not read it.

3. Superstitious?

Nah, not really.

4. Are you afraid of the dark or do you chase the things that go bump when the lights are out?

With the exception of certain bugs, I am the one who chases away all the things that go bump in the night. I am a creature of the night for sure!

5. Done any skinny dipping lately? Ever? 

Lately? No, I do not want to cause any fish or aquatic creature any mental trauma, I am not so sure that they have therapists down there to help them unsee what they might have seen LOL. In the past I have gone a handful of times!

6.  What makes you go "DAMN!" when you look at an attractive person?

On males, long hair, muscular ( but not crazy steroid buff ) arms and legs, and some well placed tattoos. On a female, usually longer hair, kind of punk rock look, with great legs, preferably in sexy heels, but I am also attracted to the "Earthy" types as well. That is more of an attitude thing more so than looks however. A sexy and confident attitude can make anyone look hot to me!

7. What do you know about Witches?

That there are good ones and bad ones, just like everyone else. Which Witch is Which? Lol..

8. Environmentally friendly or environmentally terrorist? The last kind would get really pissed if others don't conserve water. 

Environmentally friendly, those that are the terrorist type make me run the other way.

9. Have you been in a strip club?

Several in fact lol...some good, some sleazy. If twirling around on a pole in your undies or less feeds your kids better than working at the fast food restaurant, more power to ya.  It is your body, flaunt it if you got it!

10. What was the last book you read?

I am currently re-reading Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. (I think that is how to spell her name!) I read it years ago, but I currently own all the Avalon series, and read them in chronological order ( when they take place in a timeline, not the order they were written )  and in keeping with the series I am reading it again as I am sure there are some parts I have forgotten!

So there they are! Thanks again to Mags for bestowing me with the award, I am very honored! Again, if you want to snag her questions, or even write 10 of your own, feel free!

So I think that about sums up what has been going on in my life. I am hopefully going out for the first time in two years with two old friends of mine next weekend, so I am pretty excited about that, and will post about it when it happens!

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Lunch with Dad

I was in a deep sleep when I was awoken by the shrill ringing of the telephone....

*Groggily* "Hello?"

Dad bellowing: "ARE YOU AWAKE??"

Me, holding phone a foot away from my ear: " I am now..."

Insert almost 2 minutes of him trying to talk and his cell phone fading in and out. Finally I hang up..and wait. A few seconds later the phone rings and I can actually hear him now, bitching about cell phone reception...INSIDE HIS HOUSE. He has four....FOUR phones in his house, and can't hear out of any of them, hearing aids or not lol. But I digress...

Dad: "Mike and I are going to get Chinese, and I was calling to see if you and Alex wanted to go.."

Me: "Sure, let me get us dressed and I will be over."

Dad: "Ok, see you in a few.."

So I get us ready and head over to Dads, and we head out to The Ming Tree and get a divine lunch. Well after we left there, he drove to Wal-Mart and proceeded to drop 100 bucks on Alex's school clothes and two pairs of tennis shoes...I was amazed!

Her outfits are adorable, and mix and match stuff...and her little shoes are adorable. I also picked up the stuff that my Dad's friend and his wife got Alex for her to start school with, which was all kinds of things, even stuff for the classroom, so the teacher will be very happy when she does start, because she will not need supplies for a little while lol.

After we got back to his place, I helped Mike and Dad shell black eyed peas from his garden for a couple of hours. After Mom breezed in from work to whisk Mike off for an eye exam, I showed her what Dad bought and she seemed really pleased.

It was a wonderful day, and now I do not have to worry about her looking like an orphan when she starts school lol.

Now, again, let us hope a couple of people moved or decided to go to different schools over the summer.

Open house is the 11th, and I am taking Alex, and Mom might go with me, I hope...

So that is what I did with my day. It was a nice visit and I had a good time. it is always nice to visit with the family on good terms.....

Now, time to clean the kitchen...*groans*

Ta!

*Music of the Moment: Cry me a River by Justin Timberlake*