If you are reading this, I am on an unintentional vacation!

Good morning lovelies!

If you are reading this, that means I am without internet.

I wrote this post a few days ago, and set it to auto publish every day...and since I was still online, I just reset it to post the next day, and so on and so forth.

Since it posted, that means that I have lost my internet and am now on a forced internet break.

I am unhappy, as this was pretty much my only means of communication with the outside world, and now that Alex is in school I know she will need to do research for school ( or I will need help explaining something to her ) but there is nothing I can do about it. I just do not have the 128 bucks for it.

(Exchange 'Take A Nap' with 'Be A Bad-Ass Gamer Chick')

On the bright side, I intend to use what ever time I have to be away in a productive manner. I have plans for things around the house, and I will also use the time to get Alex in a really good routine this year. Third grade now and third grade when I was a kid is vastly different. She is learning things I did not learn until late middle school and early high school. She ( and myself too ) will have to be a lot more focused this year.

So yeah...I will do my best to make the time I am offline personally productive.

I will also be playing a ton of Skyrim and Sims 3. I downloaded 800 books in the last few days from my Kindle account. ( Seriously, when I do get back online, I have got to remember to download the stuff to the pc as soon as I get it...I downloaded 800 books in the last week, yet I still have over 1800 to download into the laptop...and I already had over 1300 downloaded!

( I love free Amazon books. Seriously. )

So I will be reading a lot too.

I will update as I can. I will try to go somewhere with wifi every couple of weeks if I can.

Take care of yourselves while I am gone!

( To my personal friends who read my blog: Sorry I am having to be away for a while. I miss and love you all, and I hope to be back soon <3 )

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Evil Virus of Doom...and other things.

Just a short post today.

Alex and I have been plagued with some terrible virus for the past week. Alex came home Friday with 104 temperature, and Saturday she had a terrible sore throat. I also started coming down with it on Saturday, and Sunday, Mother's Day, we were in the ER getting strep tests.

Luckily, they were negative, but that did not stop the horrible and searing throat pain. We were both unable to eat more than a few bites for three days, and Alex's fever stayed in the 103-104 range for three days. Finally on Thursday it broke to under 100 and stayed there, and I was able to start eating again. She has been fever free for 48 hours now, and can talk and eat with ease again.

All Alex could eat was Popsicles for two days.

Alex has never been so sick in her 8 years. It was very scary for me. She would not eat, could hardly drink, and did not say a word for three days. As most know, Alex is a talker. She talks NON-stop all the time. Yet nothing but head nods and shakes for three days. The few bites of food she would eat I had to feed her like a baby bird. She was so weak she could hardly sit up, much less feed herself.

Jack was very kind, he pretty much ran the house for the week. I was in bed for two days, only getting up to use the bathroom. He cooked and did dishes and got us anything we needed. It was very nice.

I did the dishes and ran the vac today, for the first time in a week, and tomorrow I am going to cook a real meal. We have been living off of broths and soups, as it was so painful to swallow anything, and we are all ready for something more substantial. So I intend to make steak tacos, and I have a giant seedless watermelon in the fridge chilling for dessert. I have been craving the melon like crazy for the last couple of months. I blame it on longing for Summer. ( Try not to gasp in shock over the fact I am longing for Summer lol ) It is the middle of May and we have had a few nights of upper 30's and low 40's. In Florida. I am still wearing jeans most of the time. My shorts sit in the drawers...waiting to see the light of day.

In other news, there are two weeks of school left, and even though we were so sick, it was nice not having to worry about living life by the clock for the past week. Sleeping when we wanted, waking when we felt like it. No rush to eat dinner and do dishes, or make sure laundry was done for the school week. I am really looking forward to a couple of months of that.

Also, we have been given a mediation date with Jack's former employers. It is set for the second week in July. Of course, I can not give any detail, but hopefully this hellish 2 year period of doom will all be over soon, in our favor. Jack had a doctor visit this week and the doc said he should have a fusion. Jack told him " No, thank you." The doc also told Jack that he was a record breaker. The Doc had never operated on one person 4 times in a row in such a short amount of time. Hell of a thing to be a record holder on, eh? There will be no more surgeries unless the alternative is to end up in a wheelchair forever. They keep hacking on him and he is still not fixed, and he is just done with it. There has been no improvements,  so now he just wants pain management and to settle, so we can move on with our lives.



So hopefully, soon we will come to the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel we have been navigating.

Source

Hmmm, what else?

Oh yeah, my birthday! I turned 34 on May 4th, and my Mom and older kids surprised me by taking us all out to dinner at Outback. It was scrumptious, and it was nice to be gathered with my family. The only down side was it was graduation weekend for FSU and FAMU, so the place was packed and very loud, which made talking almost impossible. One we got back to Mom's, I saw that she had made me one of her delicious cakes, which I adore. They also got me a humorous birthday card, with a sexy shirtless guy in it, and he sang happy birthday to me, but you had to rub his abs to get him to do it, and he was ticklish, so he giggled while he sang. It cracked me up. All in all, it was a very nice birthday, the best I have had in a very long time. I still smile when I think about it.

Mother's Day was a wash, due to us being sick, but Saturday, the day before, Jack made a great dinner and did the dishes, so it all worked out. He and Alex also got me a card each, and Alex also made me a handmade card. They both made me cry, they wrote such sweet things in them. It warmed my heart. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I know they love me, and I love them.

I think that is about it for now. My "short" post ended up being a little longer than I intended, but a lot has transpired since I last wrote lol.

So I will end  here, and I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

P.S. I am still looking for questions for my 'Ask Me Anything' segment. I only have a couple, and I am really wanting to do this. So please, send your questions in. Click the graphic in the upper corner of the left sidebar to be taken to the post with the details! Thank you! :D

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It's been a long week...

I know I still owe you all a Part Two of my last post...but it has been a long week. It is also hard to write a post about how you have changed in regards to love, when you want to smack your spouse with a 2x4.

It's been one of those weeks y'all.

We ran errands for two days, and I alternated with being really busy to not having the energy to move.

This morning I got Alex off to school and since it is a Friday and I do not have to get up early tomorrow, I went back to bed until a little after noon.

The mood of the house has not been that great this week either. When the money is gone the day you get it, it tends to make things a little tense.

Such is life.

Next week both Jack and I have doctors appointments. He, for his post-op follow up appointment, and my appointment is to meet with the neurologist to talk about Parkinson's.

I also got picked for Jury Duty yesterday. Thrilling, eh?

So it has just been a long week and I am glad the weekend is here.

We have no plans. We are just going to chill out here at home and watch the race tomorrow night.

So that sums up my week. How was yours? Any plans for the weekend? The weather has been nicer this last week. It seems like Spring is finally here in North Florida. How is the weather where you are?

I will be back soon, with Part Two...once I decide if I need that 2x4 or not...

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Still kicking...

Hello boys and girls. Miss me?

I just wanted to pop in and give everyone a quick rundown on what has been going on in the House of Wolf.

First, I need to tell you about a change I made to the blog. Since I started this, way back in 2009, I have always had this bog set up so anyone could comment, even anonymous users. I switched over to moderated comments, because of the amount of spam I was getting. Now I am switching it to only users who are registered with Google or an Open ID can comment, and this is because I am getting over 70 spam posts a day. A DAY. It is crazy and it is pissing me off. I get so much crap email daily from these spammers and I am just sick of it, so I am going to try this for a while. Hopefully it will help. So to the one or two people who leave REAL comments under the anonymous handle, I apologize, but I have better things to do than sort through fake comments all day. It makes me want to not even come here, because I spend so much time getting rid of spam. So hopefully that will help.

Next, Jack got the results of his MRI back last Wednesday. He has a large bone fragment swimming around his spinal column ( which is probably what we heard pop loose the day he started having so many issues again ) and will now have to have a third surgery to remove it. It has been bad this time. He falls a lot, and he either can't feel his legs most of the time, or they hurt. So once that is approved, he will be  going back under the knife. We are less than thrilled.

I am still waiting for March 19th to roll around. I have an appointment with a neurologist on that day to start the process of finding out just what in the hell is wrong with me. I have also been approved for medicaid, which starts April 1st, so I can finally get help for my other issues.

Things still suck financially. If not for a couple of special people, we would be starving. We had to pawn something yesterday, which is one of the only things of value we have, to try to get some money for food, and it was not worth the gas money to go up there. On the upside, our rent is finally paid as is our light bill. But after that, there has not been anything left for gas or food in pretty much the last month.We have been surviving off of food bank donations and a lot of rice and beans. I know other people have it worse, and I am very grateful for what we do have...but this is getting very old. The feeling of security we had is so long gone we cannot even remember what it feels like. So we take it one day at a time.

( I still have, and will leave, my Paypal buttons up on the right side of this blog. I am not going to beg anymore, I do not have the strength to keep doing it, but they buttons are always there, if anyone can help. It would be very appreciated. )

Aside from that, it is basically same shit, different day around here. I am going to be doing a round of Spring cleaning this week and into next. I am going to tackle my closet and all of the cabinets in the house. Purging and cleaning, getting rid of things or moving them to better suited areas. Especially my kitchen cabinets. All of our cabinets are overhead, so when they get unruly, shit falls out on our my head. We do not have a lot of cabinet space to start with, so I need to create a better system for what space and content we have. Alex's room has been weeded through and is now basically ready to paint, so I will be working on that soon too.

I guess that sums it up for now. I will update when I know more.

I hope you all have a great day, and don't forget to comeback Friday and score some free ebooks!

A few updates...

Hello folks :)

I just wanted to drop in and say thank you to some very special people who have helped my family since I wrote that post asking for help. It was the hardest post I have written, as I have a really hard time asking for help about anything. My way of dealing with issues like this is to go within and just deal with it, I do not ask for help. I felt we had reached rock bottom though, and we had exhausted local resources we had available to us, so I swallowed my pride, if you want to call it that, and asked for outside help, as well as open up about something I had not told anyone except Jack, which was the potential Parkinson's disease. A few of you were AMAZING and donated a few dollars, and my Sirens...my totally amazing Sirens rallied around me and pointed me in the right direction with some programs that could help us, and got me in touch with the Michael J. Fox foundation, in addition to some of them sending me clothes for Alex, a few wonderful gifts for the kids, and just today I got a package with things for Alex from another Siren. My mother also helped us, which was so awesome, with some money and some gifts for us to give Alex from us, as at the time we did not have but two things for her. In addition to those things, others have send messages of support and prayers for us, which is very appreciated also.

Most people have been really amazing, and I am so very grateful for everything. It pulled us out of the hole we were in, and we are treading water again for the most part. I did get a couple of nasty emails, one telling me to "get off my lazy ass and go to work" which was lovely. Going to work NEVER even crossed my mind, dontcha know? *Rolls eyes* If I could work, I would be working, especially when things are so tough for us right now. Maybe this person does not actually read my blog, but that whole being unable to speak for longer than a few minutes without an increasingly worsening stutter, and the fact that my fine motor skills in my hands are decreasing, so I can hardly hold things, or pick things up, or use a basic pincer motion. Add to that the fact my nerves go crazy from time to time, making my arms, hands, and legs jump uncontrollably, and well...that makes it kind of hard to get the jobs I might actually get hired at in the crappy job market around here. I am not even comfortable driving at this point...well...up until this week, which I will explain in a moment.

So for those ( They would not tell me who they were of course, they sent anonymous comments to my blog, but due to the heavy spam load I moderate my comments before I post them ) who called me lazy and looking for a handout, or telling me I need to change my life?  Bite me. I would gladly exchange ALL of this nightmare to have a good job. I do not go around with my hand out. I have a husband who worked his ass off to provide us with what we needed, and this terrible back injury, which has resulted in two surgeries SO FAR, and the fact we are trying to survive on 80% of what we were barely getting by on at 100%, combined with the fact he sees me struggling every day, he knows the problems I have, he knows my frustration and hurt and confusion, has led us to where we were when I wrote that post. We are not moochers. Yes, I might not have had a paying job for a while, but the truth is when I left Subway, my hands were starting to go...I was unable to take coins out of the cash register to give change to people, but had no idea why...so I changed jobs, and got laid off 3 months later. At that time we, as a family unit, decided it cost us more in gas and babysitting fees to really offset any profit we made from me working. So I work my ass off here at home instead. Yes, we would be so much better off if I could work, or if he was healed enough to go back to work, but I can't, and he isn't. If it makes those people feel bigger and better about themselves to say such things to me, then more power to you. I made a ton of mistakes the first 25 years of my life, I  fully admit that, but that was then, and this is 9 years later.

Everyone needs help at some point in their life. I hope that for those who sent nasty comments, if they ever end up needing help...I hope they get that help, and I hope that no one says to them what those people said to me. But at the same time, karma is a bitch and I hope it slaps em in the face. I am only human. *Shrugs*

So, thank you to those who helped us, I can not thank you enough.You gave us the breathing room to keep from going totally under.

Now, onto other things. I ended up in the E.R. last week..I had some type of terrible flare up in my legs and arms...and the muscles in my legs were contracting really hard and fast, to the point it felt like the muscles were trying to rip off the bone. I was really scared and was actually screaming at one point...I could not control the muscle spasms, and Jack said "We are going or I will call you an ambulance, which is it?" So we went about 8 that night and we were there until 4ish. Long story short, they did a couple of tests, and after explaining to the ER doc about the possible Parkinson's issue, a light bulb kind of went off over his head and he gave me an Rx of Neurontin, a nerve pill...and  let me tell you, it has worked WONDERS! The first 3 days after that I felt like a truck hit me, I could hardly walk, due to those misfiring muscles making my legs spazz out, making them feel like I ran a marathon, and the Neurontin has to build up in your system to have the best effects, but once the muscles recovered and the meds leveled out in my system, the difference was remarkable. The tremors and shaking were not so severe, I can talk for longer periods of time ( but that has not gone away totally, 20 min or so is my max before the muscles get tired and start to spasm ) I could actually get ice out of the ice maker and not drop most of it in the floor. I still do not have much of a grip, but at least the shaking is not as bad. It does not make it all go away totally, but it really helps lessen the severity of the problems. Also, it will knock a migraine out in a heartbeat, which is an added bonus!

I am hoping the MJF foundation will be able to help me. The woman I spoke with was very nice and really seemed to want to help me. I do not really expect to hear back until after the holidays, even though she told me it would be a week to ten days before it would be looked at, due to the volume of people they are working with at any given time. She did say that if for some reason they could not help me, she would set me up with an outside agency that could help, so that is good news. I was actually able to drive again today ( Jack had a Dr. appointment and they gave him a shot which made him unable to drive safely ) with no fear of having my arms flail around at odd times, jerking the wheel, which is dangerous.

On a totally different note, I wore high heels for the first time since I broke my ankle a year and 4 months ago now. I do not wear them often, even before I broke my ankle, but it made me sad to think I would never wear them again. I was so scared I would fall, or turn my ankle, or something, so I just resigned myself to never wearing them again. Jack worked very hard to convince me that I could do it, to not be afraid. My ankle with the hardware is actually more stable than my normal ankle, and the fear was in my head. Not to mention I have lost a total of 43 pounds since I broke my ankle as of today ( I asked the nurse if I could step on their scale today and she agreed ) so I am not as big as I still think I am. I am fitting in clothes I never thought I would be able to again. I wore them all day today ( a pair of black "bitch boots" as I call them, knee high, very sexy to me ) and felt so good! No pain, and once I got used to walking in them again I was all over the place. So nice to feel like a woman again, instead of having to wear stuff that would go with my poor beat up tennis shoes I have had for 6 years all the time. Very nice indeed.

So good things have been happening, and while we are still scrounging for money, at least Christmas will not be a total bust. In addition to the gifts donated to us, Jack has been hard at work on a few special things for the teens. I can not say what they are due to they read my blog every now and then, but he is working his butt off to make them something special from his heart. I am really proud and grateful.

The one sad note, if you will, is that this will be the first Christmas without my Dad. I am so looking forward to going over to my Mom's, I have not really got to see them in a couple of months due to being sick and stuff, so I really miss seeing them, but at the same time, in the back of my mind I am a little shaky feeling about it. I know we will be fine...it is just one of those first milestones that have to be gotten over. First time Alex's birthday passed with no Dad, first holiday season, his birthday is January 18th, my first birthday without him, the anniversary of his passing. Friends and family tell me once you get through the first year of "firsts" without them, it get's a tiny bit easier from then on. I am no longer a wreck or anything...but I have my moments still. I miss the old codger very much :)

I am going to close finally. I will be posting again tomorrow to talk about my Yule plans, as I am actually doing something this year lol. I just wanted to extend  my most heartfelt thanks, love, and appreciation for the wonderful people who have helped us when they could. It means everything to us.

Love to you all!

Update on Jack...

( Just a note, I wrote this late Friday night, the 21st, but due to the late hour I am scheduling it to post Saturday the 22nd, so it is not lost in readers and news feeds. )

Hello folks.

Sorry for my absence from the blog. This week has been super busy and hectic. Jack had his second back surgery on the 18th, and it was a very long day. Once they got him opened up, they saw there was a lot more damage than they originally thought, and I had to sign consent for them to preform the rest of the surgery. A two hour surgery turned into a six and a half hour surgery. It was out patient surgery, so they sent him home afterwards, and the last couple of days have been rough. He is in a lot more pain than he was last time, and he is on some pretty intense medicines for it.

As much as he hates it, he has had to stay in bed other than getting up to go to the bathroom, and he is not even arguing about it, which lets me know just how bad it is.

Alex spent Tuesday night with my Mom ( thank goodness for her! ) but she came home Wednesday, so I have been taking care of them both. I have been running on very little sleep, and Jack is not sleeping much, so I get up when he gets up, yet I still have to be up at six a.m. to get Alex up and ready for school. I realized earlier today that I have only eaten twice since Tuesday night. I scarfed down some leftover curry the evening we got home from surgery, and then yesterday I ate some chips with a little bit of guacamole. That's it. Combine hardly any food with very little sleep, and I have been a walking zombie, ready to drop for the last several days.

I made up for the food issue today however. I have eaten four times lol. Small bits each time, but four times none the less. Alex and I made homemade Toquitos for dinner tonight. I did not document it on film for the blog, I was more concerned about feeding us and eating something myself, and spending some time with poor Alex, than I was about taking pictures.

I have been trying to spend extra time with Alex over the last couple of days. She is such a sensitive child, she worries about things, and she has been very worried about Jack, and she can sense I am running on empty, because she is constantly asking me if I am okay. What worries me the most is how hard this year has been on her; she is not quite eight years old yet, and she has dealt with more this year alone than most 30 year old people have gone through. She was smiling and laughing less, and that was breaking my heart, as she is a very effervescent child normally. I have been giving her extra attention, just she and I. Cooking together, watching a movie, extra time during homework, extra hugs, extra talking. Anything to see her smile again, and this afternoon she was a little better, so I hope that continues to improve. I took one of my new eyeliner pencils that I can not use anymore ( because the least bit of heat, even the natural temperature of my skin, makes it run down my face ) and drew on her face, basically doing face painting designs, and filling in the designs with some eye shadow colors I do not wear. I took pictures, but her eyes were so damn sad in them I can not stand to post them, they break my heart. I hate it when she is sad.

Back to Jack, he has 3 to 4 weeks of recovery ahead of him, then his follow up appointment with the doctor, and then he will have to go through physical therapy again. After that, I do not know what is going to happen. We will just have to wait and see, as this surgery was much more invasive and much deeper than the first one was.

So that is where we are right now, and until he is a little more independent my time online and on the blog will be a bit spotty. It seems that every time I sit down here to do anything, he or Alex need something, or something needs to be done in the house, that I feel like a jumping bean lol. So that is where I am, and what I have been doing. Please forgive my lack of a Thursday and Friday post this week, but as I mentioned on the Facebook fan page  earlier today, the thought of trying to string together cohesive thoughts into a blog post make me want to take a nap lol. I will be back more regularly when he is more able to get around and do things for himself. I just wanted to update everyone and explain my absence.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and for those who celebrate, have a Merry Mabon/Blessed Ostara!

Tired...

I am tired folks. Flat out tired. It has been a long week...month...Summer...year. This whole year has been one gigantic crapfest and I am just tired to my core. There have been a few bright moments, and I am very thankful for them, but unfortunately there is not enough good to offset the bad these days.

Take just the last week for starters. Rain. Never. Ending. Rain. It has been raining every single day, 75% of the day, for two months. No exaggeration. All day rain. I feel like I am molding. Friday night Alex and I were up and the power kept surging. I was not surprised..because it was RAINING and our power goes out all the freaking time in the rain. It did this for about 15 minutes and then seemed to regulate. So we went to bed shortly thereafter. Jack woke me up at 8 on Saturday because it was doing it again, and the surging was so bad we were afraid for our electronics and the lights, and they were all bright as the sun. So we killed the main breaker and called the power company. They came out and determined that our main breaker outside was fried. So we called the landlord, as it is his responsibility to fix these things. Of course, it was a weekend and he is cheap and does not want to pay weekend service charges, so he gave us some bullshit story about nothing being open and he could do nothing until Monday. So I called my Mom and she was kind enough to let us come stay the weekend with her, and we would just bring Alex to the bus stop Monday morning and then come to the house and wait for the electrician, which was supposed to be here first thing in the morning. We did that, and came home and waited. The old guy finally shows up and says "Yep, the breaker is fried." ( No shit Sherlock, we already TOLD you that. ) So he says he has to go get the breaker as he did not have one like that on hand, and would be back in a couple of hours. 6 hours later he calls and says he has it but it is pouring ( as usual ) and he can not fix it in the rain, so he would be over first thing the next morning. So I call Mom and ask if we can stay one more night and she agrees.

So we pack up and head back over there. I will not go into details, but later, we all got into a wicked fight over some one else's lies and a mistake on Jack's part, and we ended up having to leave, to come home to a house with no power and no way to eat and no way to get Alex up the next morning. I was very unhappy. Other things happened, which are personal , but I was heartbroken and sick with all the stress and drama, and I got a wicked migraine that almost sent me to the hospital it was so bad. Jack ended up staying up half the night so Alex would get up on time, and he got her up and off to school. He had to take her to school because the bus never showed. We found out later the bus had a headlight out and was being fixed. Nice of them to call and let us know. I was still in bed, my head was pounding and I could hardly stand.

He gets home around 9 and the landlord calls and says the guy will be out there soon. 2 hours go by, and it was starting to get dark and I knew it was about to rain. Two not so nice calls by me to the landlord later ( I never get mouthy with these people, but I have just had enough of everybody and their bullshit, by law he has to provide us with power ( as long as we pay the bill of course ) and it had been four days and I had to spend the night there with a 7 year old with no way to eat or anything, as our stuff is electric and it was pouring so we could not cook outside, so I was just beyond fed up. It starts raining, and with each drop I get angrier and angrier. I call the landlord back and I told him I do not care if the guy has to come out with an umbrella and some rubber ducks, but he needs to get my power back on NOW. 20 minutes later the electrician shows up, puts the breaker in and finds out that did not solve the issue. So now we were facing a house wiring issue. I was near tears by this point. An hour and much tracking of mud all over my friggen house later, the guy finds out that when that moron who came over to put our new phone lines in, also managed to not only break our water pipes in two places, in addition to cutting every single other phone line in the neighborhood and having to come back and repair them, he ALSO managed to cut the ground wire leading from the meter box to our house. So un-grounded power was surging through our home. I thought I was going to have a stroke. Luckily the electrician ran us a temp line from the box to the house, above ground, and is supposed to come back out Thursday to bury the wire once he gets the proper machine to do so, and that will be fixed. So at least we have power back. Then came the fun of my landlord screaming at me to get him the name of the jerk who cut it, since he was going to make him pay the 1300 dollars it is taking to get us back up and running. Lots of fun.

Add to that we are beyond broke, the only reason we have food in the house is because my Mom cleaned out her freezers and gave us the stuff so we would not starve, the truck needs a fuel pump and only works half the time, leaving us sitting on the side of the road more than once, the doctors are dragging their feet with Jack, family issues, stress after stress and I have had just about as much as I can take. I have migraines daily, and I told Jack that I was going to end up either dying from a heart attack or my brain would explode from the migraines. The family issues also screwed up a 20 year friendship with Jack and one of his oldest friends, and all because some ego tripping power complex having asshole decided to tell three different sets of lies to three different people, resulting in a lot of heartache, broken relationships, and loss of time and money, and us having to pay money we do not have for something we had nothing to do with. All I can say is that man better hope I never lay eyes on him again.

I may gripe every now and then, but this is a hole I just can not seem to drag myself out of. I do not know what to do, or where to turn, or how to fix it. I am a positive ( albeit realistic ) thinker, but this...I am not finding much to be positive in my life right now. I know that eventually things will turn around, but this year, and most of last year, have been terrible, and I can no longer see the light up ahead, guiding me on my way, and the batteries in my flashlight are dead.

I am tired of tripping over rocks and falling in the dark...I really need to find a light switch.

Blog work ahead!

Just wanted to pop in real quick and let everyone know that new posts and a few changes are coming soon. Tomorrow I will be writing, and doing some clean up work on my "Blogs I love" page, as there are a lot of broken links and now defunct blogs on there. I also have several buttons to add to that list, so once I get it all cleaned up, you should check it out, there are some great blogs on there ( or will be there, as the case may be. )

I want to add some other things, and I have some work to do over on Planet Buddha as well. It has been a crazy and hectic week, and I have a lot to write about.

I am also going to be adding a Foodie Friday segment, although I admit it is hard for me to wait a whole week to post my recipes lol. I hope you all enjoy them!

So that it is for now, just wanted to touch base and let you all know I am still alive, I have just been a little busy!

Be on the lookout for the new stuff!

Until then, may your days and nights be smooth sailing!

Time to clean house...

I just simply can not stand it any longer. Ever since I got hurt, my house has looked like crap. Since I got home, I have done what I could, but with 4 people living here now, there is just to much crap laying around and it is driving me insane. Not that Perth is messy, in fact he helps me clean, but we have simply been making it presentable.

I was going to do it today, but it was another wet and dreary day, my ankle was hurting, and every time any of us went out we brought back in mud and dirt, so it would have been pointless. It finally started drying out late this afternoon, and it is supposed to be clearer tomorrow as well, so today I took it easy and rested my ankle ( the rain and cold really do a number on it already ) and watched TV with Perth. Tomorrow I am going to clean and sage the house and get rid of the negative energy lingering around here. Quite a bit happened while I was hurt and it has built up in the house to the point everyone is acting odd. Jack and myself are snappy with each other, Alex is a wild animal and Perth has felt it too, so it is time for a good cleansing and sage session.

I have to call tomorrow and order a birthday cake for Alex's 7th birthday on Saturday. Mom is feeling run down right now, and with her health issues I did not want her to have to make a cake even though she makes the best ones, and I am just not a good sweets baker, so I am going to order a Hello Kitty cake. It is hard to believe that she is going to be seven already. Time is flying by it seems.

I have no clue what I am going to do for gifts yet, Perth and I will probably go shopping Thursday.

Nothing much else has gone on since I posted yesterday really. With the rain of the last two days making my leg ache, I have pretty much been taking it easy and hunkering down on the couch, resting. I got another one of those sutures that are coming out of my skin out last night so it is feeling a bit better today. I will be so glad when the 31st gets here and I no longer have to deal with that boot, not that I have been wearing it much. Only when I have to walk a long way like to the bus stop. It makes my foot hurt to wear it and the sides hit those incisions which are inflamed and I just can not stand it, it hurts to much. So I wear it when I feel I need some extra support or when I am walking a lot or cleaning or cooking and whatnot, but I do not bother with it just to walk to the bathroom which is only like 10 feet away lol. I have no pain other than the skin or if it rains ( which will happen for the rest of my life ) so I am just listening to my body at this point. I am full weight bearing so it is not like I am putting to much weight on it. For the most part I feel good, I just get tired really easy. I even took my first standing up shower ( I have been using a step stool to sit on ) the other day. That was pretty liberating. A little scary, as you have that " I hope I do not slip" fear in the back of your mind, but I still had my step stool in there just in case I needed to rest, which I did towards the end. But now I can step in and out of the tub like a normal person instead of having to sit down and swivel around which is kind of painful on my narrow tub edge.

I am improving every day, and as long as I do not over do it, I get along just fine. Having Perth here is such a huge help, I am so glad he is here, I would not be as far along in my recovery if it were not for him.

I guess that sums it up for tonight. More again tomorrow!

                                                                Photo Credit

Floating in limbo...

The countdown has begun. I have just six days before I go back to the doctor, and if my ankle is still in "good" shape, meaning if the bones and hardware have not moved, I will get a walking cast and will be in the home stretch of this cast business. I considered trying to beg the doctor not to put another one one if I promised not to put any weight on it, but as they want me to start using it soon, I guess that would be counter productive. Besides, who am I kidding, I am putting light weight on it NOW in order to get up and down stairs, so I will need the protection and support of the cast.

After I get the walking cast on Monday, next Friday here will be my last day at my parent's house, and as much as I wanted to go home in the beginning, I am now pretty happy to be here, and I am not looking forward to going home and being with out my older two kids. It has been a dream to be with them every day, and I will miss them terribly. My son is so sweet, he has gotten up early several times on school days just to make he and I French Toast for breakfast, and he goes out of his way to help me with things.

I just feel as if I am in a perpetual state of limbo. Waiting on the leg to heal, waiting to go home, waiting for changes to come to my household. I wish I could say more about that, but I am afraid to jinx it, and if anyone wants to throw some good vibes and positive energy my way that Jack and I achieve our goals in this situation would be much appreciated!

I can take care of myself now, and would already be home if I were able to get Alex on and off the bus, but as I can not make it to the bus stop yet I will be here until I can get used to walking on the walking cast when they put it on.

Other than that, not much is going on. I read a lot, and I spend time with the kids, and I go home with Jack on weekends. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Last weekend I did manage to cook for the first time since I got hurt, made some yummy potato soup from scratch, and I cleaned the kitchen and the counters, and even managed to do a load of laundry. I can do for myself now, it just takes me a lot longer to do it, and I have to sit down a lot. I have begun to try to build my endurance, last Friday I stood outside on the front deck for 15 minutes while waiting for Alex to get off the bus and I thought I was going to die. I was on my crutches and it was warm outside, and suddenly I got dizzy and nauseous and my good leg wanted to give out. A friend said it sounded like vertigo, which would make sense as I am always sitting or laying down, so being up for that long made my body freak out. The hardest part of all this now is how weak and tired I am when I get around on my crutches, so I have been trying to exercise my legs with leg lifts and modified sit ups to strengthen my back muscles, which have weakened as well and cause me some discomfort. All of this is better than the agony I was in the first two weeks, so I am not really complaining lol.

So now it is just a waiting game. It is amazing how well the body adapts to injury, the cast is somewhat "normal" now and unless I am hurting I hardly think about it. I was talking with a friend last night and he said that soon I will be back to normal, and I had to disagree with him,.as with the hurt leg and all the changes that have or are about to take place, what was "normal" before I got hurt will never be the same again. Granted, in another month all the casts will come off ( hopefully ) and I should be ambulatory, but I will have pain and swelling for a year or more, and my gait will take that long to be somewhat close to normal again, if ever. I may walk with a cane for the rest of my life, I just do not know, and none of us will until time passes. I found out that the people I thought were my friends were not, and that one of those friends is actually a relative of Jack's, which somehow made it worse. So that part of my "normal" life is done and over with. The other two things which I can not name yet will also make sure that what was normal before I got hurt will not be normal after. Not in a bad way or anything, but I AM a Taurus and you know how we feel about change.

One thing I am glad of is that the soul crushing depression is over. I expected the physical pain, but the mental and emotional pain just about did me in. No one tells you that part. They tell you that your injury will hurt, and here is some meds to help, but no one tells you about the depression, and loneliness and sadness and guilt and frustration. No one helps with that, they usually make it worse. people think that " Oh it is not that bad, she is not curling up in a ball crying, she can deal with it herself." Well at first, you CAN'T deal with ANYTHING yourself, and even later, when you can, you still need help, and when you are the type who does everything for everyone else, it is HARD to ask someone else for help, and even worse when and if you get an attitude for asking. So if you know someone who does not have use of a limb, show some kindness, because their life has an added level of difficulty that you simply can't fathom unless you have gone through it yourself. This has certainly made me gain respect for those who have lost limbs totally. I will heal and this nightmare will be over, but for these people, it is now a way of life, and they deserve some kindness and help.

That sums it up for now. I hope everyone is doing well!

Busted Ankle

Just wanted to let everyone know I broke my ankle Sunday afternoon whilst trying to hop up on Vix' back porch. My flip flop got caught on the edge of the porch and I over compensated and fell about 4 feet, with all of my weight on my right ankle. Shattered it in 3 places.

I had surgery Monday, and I have been recovering at my parents house. I will continue to be here until I am healed, as I can not walk for almost 3 months and I can not be alone due to the severity of my injury. I now have a 5 inch metal plate in my leg and several screws. I have to go back in a few days and get the staples taken out and a hard cast put on, right now I am in a semi-soft fiberglass cast.

My parents have been so kind. Taking care of me and making sure Alex is cared for while I am out of commission. I wish Mom had a lap top so I could blog from bed but she does not so I will just have to make baby posts. I can sit here for about an hour before the pain gets to be to much and I have to go elevate it again.

Hope you are all well!

Ouch.

I have not fallen off the face of the Earth again, I promise. I just popped a tendon in my hand a couple of days ago and have not been able to use it and typing a lot is painful so I have been taking it easy. Hope to be back full swing in a day or two!

Be good, or at least be good at it!

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!

Down cycles and new obsessions...

What a week.


As most of you know I am Bi-Polar, and as such I am sometimes hit with vicious down cycles. I have been lucky, I have not had a really bad one in over 6 months, but last weekend it more than caught up with me and made up for lost time.


Since the Universe has a sense of sadistic humor, I was also hit with some personal issues, 3 of them at the same time. So this last week was pure hell. I went into "Hermit Mode" and did not leave the inside of my house from Saturday evening until today, other than to walk the dog. Alex did not go to school yesterday so it was this morning while taking her to the bus stop that I saw any major form of daylight.


Luckily for me, my latest obsession arrived in the mail on Saturday:

Even if I had not been in the process of losing my mind, I would not have moved off the couch once I popped this baby in the PS3. I am hooked. I have not even thought about my other game I have been playing for weeks; Elder Scrolls Oblivion.


I have just about all the Sims available for consoles except the Gamecube version ( but my eldest daughter does have that one..) and up until now, 2 was my favorite, but 3 blows them all out of the water. As soon as I wake I hurry through my chores and get Alex out the door so I can get back to my virtual world. I know it is a horrible time sucker, but it helped me get through a very rough time, and I am pretty sure if I did not have it this down cycle would have lasted much longer.


Alex is still a total chatterbox that makes my brain leak out of my ears after a few hours of her incessant yammering at me. I am a very quiet person by nature, I could go days without ever speaking if I were allowed to. I guess that is why Alex is the way she is, to bust up one of those hermit qualities I have. I think it busts my sanity up more than anything lol.


I guess that is about it. That is why I have been back in the "Dead Zone" of blogging, but as you can see, I have come up for air long enough to bang out a quick update lol...


Now, I am pretty sure it is time for my Sims peeps to go to work and school.....

Enough

I have had enough. I have had more than my fill. Bella needs a break.


I am really starting to dislike February. 2 weeks ago I find out my mom had to go to the hospital. She was talking and "normal", just having serious breathing issues. The next day my Dad said she was not going to make it.


I called Jack home so he could tend Alex and I hauled up to the hospital at noon. Mom had crashed. She was having a hard time moving air, she was unconscious most of the time, and when she was conscious, she was delirious. She thought she was in North Carolina, and thought I was someone named Betsy. They did not expect her to last the night, and told us all to prepare. Her friends came in and out of the hospital all day, talking to her, rubbing on her and telling her they loved her. I sat quietly in the corner. That evening my Dad, who was sick himself, he JUST got out of the hospital from having stints put in not a week before, was exhausted, and mom was maintaining at that point, still terminal though, and I sent him home. I stayed up there for 26 hours. At 9 that night I had the nurse help me run all her co workers off so it was she and I alone, she needed to rest. I ticked a few folks off that night. I sat with her all night, she was trying to crawl out of the bed, ripping her oxygen tubes out, her blood pressure cuff off, her saturation meter off, and kept clawing at her IV...it was a long night. The CSICU was short staffed so it was me who tended after her for the most part.


Later that night the awesome nurse Jeremy told me that if I wanted to, they could give her a little bit of morphine to settle her down. The danger with morphine however, is that is suppresses breathing, which is not something mom could handle. I thought it over for about an hour, and just before midnight Jeremy came in and told me that the amount they would be giving her every hour was not enough to suppress her breathing, and it would not hasten her progress towards death. I made the hardest choice of my life that night, which was to give her the medicine. She got her first dose at midnight. Shortly after that they came in and gave her a breathing treatment, and she actually rested. I kept on Jeremy all night, every hour, about her meds, I know he was probably tired of me, but as it started to wear off she would start trying to rip her lines out and crawl out of the bed. At one point she got a breathing treatment and a shot of morphine at the same time, and it did wonders. She actually rested mostly comfortable. I still expected her to go at any time, the doctors gave her less than one percent chance at making it.


The next morning the hospital Chaplain came in while her boss was there visiting her, and we prayed over here, well I sent healing, they prayed. She had prayer chains going all over the world for her. Later that morning, about 10, one of her friends came in to relieve me so I could go home and get some rest and take Jack to his doctors appointment. I had to stop my moms to drop her personal belongings home, and I was so out of it and exhausted I have no clue how I made it home. Jack and I had errands to run, so I changed clothes and we did all that until we got home at 2...I took a 2 hour nap and got up and headed back to dad's to feed him and the kids, dad was sick and distraught and could not do it. I called the hospital after dinner and was told that she had come to a little, and had recognized people. Her friend told me she would stay the night with her when she learned I had no sleep.


The next morning I called and found out that Mom had woken that morning, fully alert, wanting to know what happened, and what her prognosis was.  The doctors were honest with her, it was slim and next to none. Mom said " Apparently you do not know me that well, I am a tough old bird." I actually got to talk to her and tell her I loved her and she could talk back to me. I called the nursing staff ( of which I got to know very well while I was there ) and he told me " Angel, I do not know how, but I think she beat it, I think she is going to make it!" 


I cried.


I went up there that afternoon when Jack got home, and she was sitting up in the bed talking to my dad's best friend who was visiting, and I walked in and just said " I love you" and gave her a hug. I sat with her for a few hours, filling her in  on what happened while she was out of it. I went back the next day, and the next. I brought her home Thursday. Let me clarify. Monday she was dying. Thursday she came HOME.


I believe in miracles.


It was the hardest week I have been through, facing my mothers possible death and the driving and taking care of everyone. I took her to her doctor this past Thursday and he gave her a clean bill of health. ( Clean as it can be for someone who has half their lungs anyway. ) He gave her the go ahead to return to work, but she is going to work from home this coming week, as her strength is not 100% yet. 


So all that was over, and I had not even processed it all yet, I was wanting to rest so much.


Not in the cards for me.


Jack has been having stomach pains for a while now, but the cost of co-pays are very high for the pitiful insurance his company has, so he just dealt with it. He went to his doc after we got our income tax in, and they sent him for X-Rays and blood work Friday. He came home, and he could hardly walk, he was feverish and freezing, and looked horrible. The slightest pressure on his stomach would make him cry out in agony. 


I loaded him up in the truck to drive him to the emergency room, stopping off to drop Alex off with my parents along the way. Just the short drive over there was agony for him, and we decided to call an ambulance at my moms. They came and got him and I followed. About 10 minutes later they flipped the lights on and left me in the dust. My heart stopped. I called my mom, shaking, telling her what happened, and she was like just be calm and don't wreck. After what seemed like an eternity I finally got to the hospital I spent so much time in over the last two weeks and ran inside. It was 15 minutes before I could see him. They gave him pain meds and fluids, he had to fast the night before for his X-Rays and blood work, so he had nothing to eat or drink for over 24 hours. Then they took him for a CAT Scan, and the doc told me he had a really bad infection from his Diverticulitis. They were going to keep him overnight. 


He finally got put in a room at about 10:30 that night ( we got there at 3 that afternoon ) and I finally got someone to tell me what was going on at midnight. The computer system was down but the awesome nurse showed me the orders for Jack, which was a lot of antibiotics and pain meds, and a consult with a surgeon the next morning. I was scared. I got home about 1:30, ate a sandwich and went to bed. I woke up at 7 and hit the road, I got there at 8. The doc came in about 9 and said that Jack would be in there a few days, on medication, and if he got better then he could come home, and if he got worse he might need surgery. He is on a morphine pump so he is sleeping most of the time. I stayed until almost noon, and when we woke he told me to go home and get Alex, who was upset that we did not come back and get her the night before.


I left and spent about an hour at Moms and then Alex and I came home and she took a nap and I talked with my neighbors turned awesome friends Vickie and Steph, which made me feel better.


So I am riding solo for the next few days, and I am not looking forward to it. The house does not feel right without him here, and Alex keeps asking when he is coming home. We are going to go see him in the morning, and hopefully after they take the X-Rays for that morning it will show he is improving. I want my Jack back.




I have had enough of February.

Order is restored!

After a  very hard day yesterday of no cleaning, ( we all know the old new year's day superstitions, right? ) I have been cleaning since my feet hit the floor this morning!


The laundry save for the bed sheets I am washing is all done and put away, the living room is clean, vacuumed and dusted, the holiday decor is put away for another year, and the house looks much better and I feel much better.


I still need to clean Alex's room, and straighten mine, but I will wait until she goes back to school on Tuesday before I tackle those. I do not want to hear the " But Mama, I NEED that!" arguments that come when I go through her things when she is here. My room is not dirty, it just needs a good dusting and a rearranging of some things.


Later in the week I have some other things that need to be done, like the movie and game cabinet needs to be gone through and reorganized...and I need to organize the pantry and the kitchen, but I will get to that later. 


Tomorrow I am going to sit on my rear and play Final Fantasy 13 all day since I have not gotten to play but once since I got the PS3 for Christmas. Jack has been hogging it, but that is okay, I am always trying to get him to play, and he finally got a game that will hold his attention for long periods of time, which is rare!


After I get done washing the sheets I have to get Alex in the bath. Tonight is normal school day bedtime for everyone, as Jack goes back to work tomorrow after a long weekend and to get her back in the habit before Tuesday. I am so ready to have my routine back, I just can not tell you!


I am so ready to get this year started, and get to work on some projects. Income tax time is coming at the end of the month, and that is always something we look forward to. I have three birthdays to celebrate this month; Jack's is on the 15th, my father's is on the 18th and my eldest daughter will be turning 14 on the 21st!


I have been doing some personal journal writing, which is something I always tried to do in the past with pen and paper, but never stuck with it, so I started a private online journal, which is more suited to my needs and I have written a few things in it so far. I have also been tweeting more, and trying to interact with people on Facebook more. Last year was the year for going within and growing and processing, this year will be the year I come out of the dark cave and embrace the light once more, and I am really looking forward to it!


I just feel really good, full of energy and promise, unlike anything I have felt in a long time.


Tonight I am making a yummy dinner of beef roast with roasted potatoes, black eyed peas and turnip greens, along with some cornbread. I was supposed to make it last night for new years dinner, but we had a heavy late lunch and no one was hungry, so I just decided to do it tonight instead. I hate to cook when no one is hungry, I feel it just goes to waste.


I think that sums it up for now, I am off to go get those sheets in the dryer. 


Have a fantastic week everyone!

I'm Back!

Just wanted to let everyone know after 10 days with no internet I am finally back, but I have a wicked chest cold so it might take a few more days for me to get back on track, I have a lot of catching up to do online!


I have been watching seasons of Lost to keep me sane, I think I would have done something drastic if I had not had them to entertain me lol.


Alex has a half day of school tomorrow and then her 2 week vacation starts....the net could not have come back at a better time I tell ya lol. She was in her first school play this past Tuesday night, and she did a wonderful job! We are so proud of her!


I missed everyone and I hope you are all safe in this crazy weather we are all having!

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!

New Blog Button

So I got a lovely email today from Blogger, informing me that the image I use for my blog button that I spent an entire day searching for on the royalty free websites some months ago for, was subject to copyright, and hijacked one of my posts telling me to remove it and then repost. I must add that the post they hijacked had no images in it what so ever, and my button is in fact, on my sidebar.

At first I was pissed, but then realized that even if the image I had was copyright free when I got it, the artist could have at any time decided to have it copyrighted. So I just made a new one, with my face, so no one can claim it belongs to anyone but me since I took the pic myself lol.

So if you do not mind, those of you who have my button, please switch it with the new one. The code has been updated so it should work fine. Sorry to be a pain in the ass but such is life lol.

Nothing else is really going on around here, I still spend most nights playing a video game ( currently Sims 2 Castaway ) and my usual cleaning and FB games etc etc.

I feel great, I am happy for the most part. I feel much lighter internally, as new people enter my life and others leave it. I enjoy each person that walks my path with me, no matter how long or short that time is, and realize that sometimes it is just time to move on, for both people, and that sometimes you have to make space in your  life for better things to come along.

So that is about it for me for now, I know I have not posted much, but honestly nothing spectacular has happened, which is okay with me because that means things are just as they should be.

Cherish your friends and loved ones while they are with you, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Have a great week and weekend everyone!

Fast update

Just a quick note to say that I have not been home the last few days. My Dad had to go back to the doc to have that last artery cleaned out, and had to stay overnight. He got to come home today, but I have been over at my parents house looking after the kids and stuff. I will have a handful of blogs to post about it all over the weekend, but now I must go to bed. I have been getting up at 4 or 4:30 AM for the last few days and it has caught up with me, I am off to sleep!

Stay tuned, and thank you for all the healing and well wishes for my Dad, we really appreciate it!!