Chaos & Confusion

What A Difference A Year Makes

2011-09-26T17:24:00.004-05:00

Here I sit.....infront of my laptop wondering what to write about. I miss writing and if I wrote on this blog everytime I thought about writing on it.....you'd have a lot more to read......and I'd probably find this easier to write, since practice usually makes things easier.

It's been quite a year. I could ramble on about each event endlessly....cuz I'm talented like that, but I won't. What I thought I'd do is make a list....cuz there is beauty in a nice list.

* i was off work for a month following surgery...and during this time decided to go back to school
* emily broke her arm
* i started my med lab assistant training and commuted into the city early every morning....and I don't 'do' mornings.
* we got a new puppy - a not so little 3ish month old American Bull/Boxer cross with one blue eye, one brown eye and two ears that do not hear that has grown into a not at all little one year old pup with an appetite for destruction
* tyler broke his arm (almost exactly 6 months after emily)
* i went completely out of my comfort zone and left my family for an entire month during my clinical practicum in Thompson.
* i loved almost every single minute of "single life", living on my own for the first time ever for that month.
* i totally completely absolutely loved every single minute of the time i spent working at Thompson General Hospital.
* al & i decided this spring that financially we'd hit the end of being able to salvage all we'd built the past 15yrs and we got ourselves a legal trustee and are working through the steps of bankrupcy and moving forward.
* emily & 3 other girls from our bowling centre qualified for the provincial bowling team and represented Manitoba at Nationals in Regina....and placed 3rd!!!!
* tyler attended a hockey officials training camp for a week in June and received an offical NHL jersey from one of the officials for his dedication and attitude (he got hurt the first day and sucked it up the rest of the week without giving up)
* aarica graduated from highschool....looked so beautiful in her gown.....and took her brother with her to the grad party after the ceremony & dinner.....and they stayed out all night and had a blast!
* i quit my job at Sobeys and went across the street to work with Al & Ty at Macs.
* i wrote....AND PASSED....the national certification exam and am officially a certified med lab assistant....whoohoooo!!!!
* we experienced the most amazing summer weather wise this year and even though i spent a lot of it working, at least i was inside an air conditioned store....it was a good summer
* ty got himself a car...and all the joys car ownership brings
* ty's still convinced he can pull the money together for another trip to europe next year.....i'm not as convinced but hope he can because warsaw/poland and tours of WWII concentration camps would be an intense, amazing experience for him.
* even though the weather was amazing....our pool got set up be never filled with water
* all the kids...aarica included, are back in school..
* i'm networking, sending out resumes and hoping to find work in a hospital soon.

So there ya have some of the highlights of the past 12 months. We've survived one heck of a year and I'm looking forward to what the next few months have in store for us....except the winter part. I could do without that. We've registered for a few activities to keep us busy (but not too busy) and are trying to get back into the routine of school and activities....and one of the 'activities' I'm hoping to work into a routine is blogging on a regular basis...and this includes reading a few of my old favs too.

~K

Huh - She was right (she usually is)

2011-06-16T23:24:00.003-05:00

Received a text message tonight that said....reading your blog. you've actually written something.

And while I didn't doubt that she was right (as I've said...she usually is - it's kind of annoying sometimes but don't tell her I told you) I couldn't for the life of me remember what the latest episode of rambling was about so I just took her word for it (because again, she usually is right)

Once I got home from my 2nd trip to the city today I put aside my desire for sleep to just have a peek at the old blog.

Sure enough, she was right. I have written something lately. (and it's a heck of a lot more recent than the last post on her own neglected blog....I'm just saying).

And now that my curiosity has been satisfied, it is time for sleep. My very last early morning commute into the city (for school anyway) is tomorrow.

LAST DAY!!!!! Whooohoooo! I've been dreaming of this day for many weeks and am so glad it is finally here. I've enjoyed school but it's been a love/hate relationship for the past few months so I'm definately doing a happy dance now that it's done.

Night all. Love and Hugs heading your way. Oh and say HI in the comments if you do stop by so I know you've been around.

Oh Ya....I have a blog.

2011-04-22T23:57:00.002-05:00

How could I forget about something that was a daily experience once upon a time. Things do have a way of changing and rearranging what we do on a daily basis don't they.

Never have I been more aware of how quickly things can change than I have been lately. I find myself thinking about this alot actually. Like, how can I commit to doing something or being somewhere 6 months or 3 months or even 3 weeks from now because really, I have no way of knowing what change could be just around the corner.

I keep meaning to update all the little and not so little changes that have happened but who am I kidding - I'll never get around to telling the whole story. I barely remember it.

I think last August was the last BIG change-maker or at least what happened in August started the ball rolling. It could stop rolling anytime. I'm tired of chasing it.

About mid august I got sick. I'd had a cold/fever/flu and a few days later I noticed my face was swelling. There was an infection inside my right cheek and it just wouldn't go away. After a few days of trips to the ER for IV antibiotics it was actually getting worse and I ended up with the most disgusting and painful abcess on my face and after a CT scan I ended up in surgery to have it removed (and after years of recurring sinus infections, I have not had one since....even though the docs swear it was not from my sinuses) Anyway, after surgery, I was off work for about a month while the hole in my face healed and boy did I enjoy that time off. It really made me wish I didn't have to go back to work and I started thinking about what I wanted to 'do'.....you know, like what do I want to be when I grow up kind of stuff.

I'd had an idea in my mind about just this sort of question for about a year but it meant going back to school and at the time, with taking care of mom and with just trying to get my world put all back together after loosing the business it was something that I didn't think was possible.

BUT....with that time off post-surgery, I started again to explore this idea and then I was reading the newspaper one afternoon and came across an ad for a community college program offering training in exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I said to myself "self. you need to go there" and even though there were roadblocks along the way, I didn't get scared and bail. I jumped in with both feet and in mid October I started school.

Now THAT was a huge change and did it ever add to the chaos and confusion of our lives but it has been worth it, at least for the most part - there are some issues with school itself that make me question my decision of taking the course where I did but if I'd waited for an opportunity at another location I don't know that I would have actually done it.

So I am in the final stages of becoming a Medical Laboratory Assistant and I'm hoping in the very near future to be working in a lab as a phlebotomist.

And back in January, I jumped in with both feet again and said 'why not' when the opportunity to go north to Thompson for 4 weeks of clinical practicum was offered to me. There is also a good chance that once I am done school in the next 6 weeks that I will be heading back to Thompson for a 6 month term position - I would only commit to 6 months because if I've learned anything the last couple years it's that you never know what's around the corner.

In the mean time, I'm still working part time (very part time) and preparing to write the certification exam in mid June and after a month away from home I've adjusted to living with all these people again....boy was it nice living alone for 4 weeks.

There have also been a few very recent changes to our world but that's another chapter in the ever changing life of chaos and confusion and it's best covered in it's own post, for now I think I'll end this post and go finish up my homework.

Hugs to you all!

~K

Happy New-ish Year

2011-01-10T19:02:00.003-06:00

Here we are, 10 days into the New Year and I'm just getting around to stopping by to ramble.

But hey. Nobody's really been stopping by to listen to me talk to myself lately anyway. Can't say that I blame ya. Words were few and far between in 2010.

How about a resolution that I ramble a little more often and you grab a coffee (Timmies xl triple/triple for me and whatever your pleasure is for you) and stop by once in a while. Sounds good huh. Thought you might agree.

I was just relaxing here at home tonight, making supper which - shocking as it might sound - is ready as soon as the rest of the family gets home from the arena and does not involve cereal or tv dinners. I actually cooked. And while waiting for my damn rice to barely cook in my not-awesome microwave that I can't figure out how to use properly I've been checking out the list of blogs I follow. The last couple months I've been going through one at a time and reading their archives to see what I missed last year. I missed alot from my own life nevermind what other people were doing.

We survived the holidays and the return to reality when school started back up last week. Everyone else adjusted better than I did. I was exhausted. I'd become quite happy with sleeping in and chillin at home thank you very much. Getting up early for the commute to school kicked my butt and I spent most of the weekend trying to catch up on some sleep. Still feel like I could use another 12hour nap to fully function but that won't happen anytime soon so I take what I can get.

I guess a smart(er) person would have taken advantage of a rare bit of quiet in the house and had a nap but I never said I was smart. The house is even more noisy lately with the addition of a puppy who's made it his personal mission to bark till my eardrums burst. What's he barking at? Who knows. Mostly our old dog who just won't play no matter how in-his-face Pup gets and usually at me when I've repeatedly confiscated whatever interesting treasure he's scrounged from around the house to chew on. It's awesome having a "toddler" in the house having temper tantrums again - not. Right now he's having a nap which I will probably regret later because a napping puppy only means one thing.....he's recharging his batteries so he can go all crazy and tear around the house like he's possessed, nipping and terrorizing everything in his path. Of course I'll probably also regret letting Owen fall asleep on the couch too but his rollercoaster fever is back for another loop through the amuseement park. Every 36 hours he seems to spike back up and not feel good. Wonder if him and I can both call in sick to school tomorrow? That would be cool. A chillin on the couch day.

So that's mostly what I'm up to at this moment in time. Think I'll read a few more blog pages and then go read a text book or work on some math questions or something. Reading blogs sounds like way more fun though.

I'll pop back in soon.

K

Six Months

2010-12-10T00:36:00.005-06:00

is forever.

was just yesterday.

is just a dream.

is sometimes a nightmare.

has taught me so much.

has made me feel like I don't know enough.

has made me stronger (than I ever thought possible)

has brought me to my knees.

has made me laugh.

has definately made me cry.

is 184 days........and I've thought of YOU every single one of those days.

I love you and miss you mom.

~KJ

Might Just Be on a Roll Here

2010-11-24T23:19:00.002-06:00

with a second blog post in one month.

I know it's not some great big accomplishment to most but for me.....it's huge.

This blog post is even being brought to life on my ever-so-slow desktop while I sit in my very own kitchen. It's been a long wait but finally we are back online at home. I'd forgotten how annoying it is to hear kids bicker over who's turn it is on the computer - but it's worth it (most of the time) and I'm giving them a bit of leeway with 'free' time online but they'd better appreciate it now because they are going to have to start earning time soon enough. My plan is to feed their addiction into a frenzie and then, when I have them where I want them, I'll make 'em work for their fix. It may be the only way to get my house to not be the perfect candidate for one of those hoarding shows.

My plan does have a flaw or two though. The girls should be easy targets - they are both facebook junkies, so trading net time with them will be a piece of cake. The boys might take a little more work and I think I'll need to set up the 'new' computer and get it going so I can get the much coveted itunes up and running (our old computer just can't handle that kind of abuse). I'm avoiding this though. While I pride myself in being technically capable on most fronts, itunes and the kids ipods have proven to be my nemisis.

Getting the new computer going might be a good idea for more than just the itunes factor. I'm hoping that since it's faster and less overloaded (for lack of a better description) than our old one, it might just provide a less frusterating dial-up experience for everyone. Of course, I'm one of those hoping for improved internet use and if not, my laptop and I might just have to do a little more traveling into town for stuff like this because this dial-up stuff is brutal.

I really am out of practice with this and these first few posts will probably be quite dull. (are you bored yet?) I used to actually make little notes during the day when I thought of interesting things to write about or the kids did something totally bizzare that were worth sharing (or venting about). I'll have to start doing that again. Acutally, now that I think about it, for a short time after we lost our phone line I still wrote stuff and just filed in a folder on my computer because it helped me to just write about things but that didn't last long.

Have I mentioned how much I've missed this? How much I've miss you. You - ya, the 2 or 3 of you that actually used to stop by and read my rambling posts about the chaos and confusion that is my world. I just had a good idea for my next post - How my life wasn't full of enough chaos and confusion that I thought it would be a dandy idea to add to it and do something totally crazy like, oh i don't know, Go Back To School! Speaking of school. I have to get up early tomorrow for school so I think I should get to bed. I've missed the last 2 days because I wasn't feeling well - snort - well? that doesn't even begin to describe what I was and wasn't feeling - but that's another post all on it's own. The ongoing medical mischief I've been upto has it's own plot and characters. A story for yet another day.

G'night!
Hugs to you all

~K

Lets See If I Remember How To Do This

2010-11-05T14:57:00.003-05:00

It's been awhile.

Bwahhhahahahah. Now there's an understatement if I've ever written one!

Awhile
According to dictionary.com is defined as an adverb meaning: for a short time or period.

So okay. It's been more than awhile. It's been ages. As in over a year people. That's like 'forever'! It really does seem like forever doesn't it and oh how I've missed this. Just sitting down with my rambling thoughts and letting them flow out my fingertips, across a keyboard and onto a screen.

So Hi. How are ya? What ya been up to?

I'm not so sure at this point I can even begin to express how I am and what I've been up to for the past 16months. Let's just say it's been long and eventful and maybe eventually I'll write about it (but certainly not sitting here in this very public coffee shop using their wi-fi and in plain view of people cuz really, nobody wants to see me cry and blubber and snot all over the place as I remember the things that have brought me to this point.)

Let's just start with the right here, right now and we can eventually work our way back over the past year slowly.

Right here. Right now.

It's 3pm and I've just finished eating a late lunch at a cozy little spot called Kaffe Haus or is it Hus. I dunno. I just know the cook's hot and the food rocks and oh ya....free wi-fi. I'm sitting at a table with my laptop in front of me just chillin and surfin the net....just for fun....cuz I can.

We are still landline-less at home, hence no internet at home but that drought is coming to an end very soon. The phoneline is being installed in 2 weeks and then I will be once again in the land of the 'connected'. Whooohoooo! I can't tell you how excited that makes me.

Wasting time and taking up space. Sounds like a darn fine way to spend a beautiful Friday afternoon (aside from having to dodge flying food the cook keeps tossing at me whenever I make a snooty comment at her while she's "working"). I'm taking a break this afternoon cuz I'm positive that by the time this weekend is over I'll be very thankful that I took a couple hours to just chill. There is much on the agenda for this weekend and I hope I get at least half of it accomplished.

At the top of the priority list is homework. Anatomy and Physiology is my main concern this weekend. I have a couple chapter assignments to finish, review and hand in Monday morning.....right before I write the exam on the first 6 chapters of my A&P text book. Oye! Grade 12 Biology class was a really, really (yes really) long time ago. I also have to work on a few assignments and complete the final exam project for my computer course and review for a test in my Intro to Medical Office Procedures course in the middle of the week. For those that don't already know or haven't clued in...I've finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up and I started school almost a month ago. We'll talk more about this another time.

Wow! The afternoon has flown by and my kiddos will be home from school shortly so I should go home and be there when the get there. I'd say it's cuz I miss them terribly and hate that I don't see them in the morning because I've left for school before they even wake up, and that wouldn't be entirely wrong but honestly.....I just want to get home before they do so I can hide the controller for the tv and the playstation and the xbox and any other electronic form of entertainment because there are at few hundred loads of laundry to do and we've been eating off paperplates for a couple days and the place is starting to look like a frat house. So while I get cozy in my jammies and start studying, there are some much needed chores the kids need to help out with. Doesn't that all sound like FUN?

Gotta run
Love & Hugs
~K

Seriously?!? Here's a stock tip for ya!

2009-07-31T06:49:00.003-05:00

Buy Stock In Benadryl!!!!

My family is single handedly raising the price of that stock I'm sure.

We are at 3 people and counting now who have had some mysterious rash and or hives in just over a month. 3 out of 6! Those odds aren't good....unless you are holding stock in Benadryl and then well, good for you and you can send me a bit of your profits.

June 25..... I wake up with a few hives, itch my way through the day as my hives spread to include a red 'heat rash' on the bottoms of my feet and by the morning of the 26th I'm swollen like a balloon with even more hives and swelling eyes, lips, ears and quite possibly my throat. An ER visit later I'm taking Benadryl, Prednisone and I'm a drooling lump on the couch till the next day.

July 25 (notice that....exactly one month later) Tyler's out with his aunt watching a parade, having a bbq in her yard and he starts itching. 3 hours later he's covered head to toe in a red rash. visit to the walk in clinic (just happened to see the same Dr I saw in the ER) later and he's taking Benadryl, Prednisone and he's a lump on the couch for a few hours and itchy for a few days but at least he wasn't glowing red.

July 28 Owen comes in from playing outside for supper and he's got the beginnings of hives on his face, neck and back. Liquid Benadryl into him and he's asleep for the evening an hour later (man that stuff rocks!) and he seems better the next day - a few stray hive spots but nothing he's itching and scratching over BUT...... July 30 Owen's covered in spots again.

WHAT THE HECK!!!!!

I'm finding it hard to think it's just coincidences that I have a sudden mystery allergy and a month later Ty gets a wicked rash and a few days later Owen's got a weird rash/hive thing going on. I just don't know what to think now....except to wonder who will be next.....and hope this isn't something viral and/or contagious.

For now it's just plain bizzare!

~K

Bet you can't guess what today was.

2009-07-30T17:22:00.005-05:00

If you guessed....

my day off....then we have a winner!

Sorry. No prizes. Just the knowledge that you know me and have come to know that blog posts are rare unless I have a day off.

As 'days off' go this was no prize really. I'm just glad it's over because today's been hanging like dead weight for a week now, knowing that a) i wouldn't get to sleep in on my day off (still bitter about that) and b) Al and I were going into the city to see a bankrupcy trustee and get some edumacated (free) advice.

We ended up sleeping in actually or at least sleeping later than intended but got into the city and found the building - right downtown surrounded by one-way streets and precious little parking. I called the office about 5 after 10 to let them know that no, we weren't bailing on our appointment but we'd been driving round and round looking for a stupid parking spotfor 10 minutes and as soon as we found one we'd be there - only to be informed that while I'd written down 10am , our appointment wasn't until 10:30 so we were actually doing good on time. Bonus! Finally find a spot and decide to heck with street signs that said you could park there if you were visiting a specific place which shall remain nameless....because really, how would they know we weren't visiting 'there' and at that point Al was pretty pale from all the traffic and being so disoriented so I said to heck with it and we parked there.

Our appointment was uneventful. Learned a few key points about what's involved with bankrupcy and what our options are. Since the business has virtually nothing asset wise there's really no point in going the bankrupcy route since it's basically dead in the water already. Personally we could claim bankrupcy for the mountain of debt we've racked up while trying to keep the business going (stupid stupid stupid) and came to the conclusion that while we personally could 'benefit' from it from the standpoint of our families quality of life etc, it would screw over my mom who'd then be on the hook for a huge chunk of money since we both personally guaranteed the business overdraft. That is not even an option so........we have to suck it up and figure things out.

Basically at this point, we've borrowed money to keep the bank from sueing us for the overdraft money and we are just going to have to work, work, work and work somemore to come up with the monthly payment to the bank....ontop of all our personal bills too. We've basically given up on the truck. It's heading to collection at this point and we're looking at a few options to at least sell it cheap to one or two people just as a last ditch effort....and if not, then they can repossess it and I won't loose sleep over it. At least then I won't have to pay the insurance on the truck each month and that money can go to the bank. In hindsight, that's what we should have done in the first place and then we would have had money to make bank payments for 4-5months (stupid stupid stupid!!!)

Other than having to swallow my pride and borrow a huge chunk of money to keep the bank happy for a few more weeks and the little PARKING TICKET we got (stupid stupid stupid) the day wasn't too bad.

I decided if at all possible I was not being the chauffeur tonight so when Ty's done work at 9 he's hanging out at his aunts till Al's off work at midnight and I don't have to go pick either one of them up. Now THAT is a true day off in my books! I'm chilling at home, making supper and playing on the computer. I have some paperwork to sort and file and laundry to do but all that stuff isn't so bad when I don't have to go back and forth to town a couple times a night. If the kids would stop fighting it would be even better.....but I guess we can't have everything we want.

Oh and on a possitive note ----- Al got offered a job yesterday. He stopped to help a guy on the highway who was having vehicle trouble (right outfront of our house actually) and they got to talking and this guy offered Al a job. Nothing in stone at this point and it wouldn't start till September but he's excited at the prospect of making a whole lot more than minimum wage and it's Monday to Friday. It's giving us hope at getting out of this huge mess so right now we are clinging to this hope. He's going to give the guy a call next week and see just how serious the offer was and what the details are. Please let this be a serious offer and worth the commute.

And.....one last thing. Been taking lots of cute pics of cute kids. Here's one from our visit to flooded Moonlight Bay after the storm couple weeks ago.

Is the photo small for you? It looks tiny to me. Oh well. One kick at the cat with photos these days - I don't have the patience to reload it.

TTFN

~Kirsten

oh....and Carrie....since I seem to be able to find things in your house by proxy.....it's your turn. Do you know where the $50 Mark's WorkWarehouse gift card Al got as a thank you for being a YBC coach back in early May is? I can't find that darn thing anywhere and the guys desperately need work pants for work. Argh!

Before and After

2009-07-21T13:27:00.002-05:00

She washed her hair last night and I detangled it one last time and braided it and this was what it looked like this morning.....big THICK braid down her back.

It took almost 2 hours to cut and I'm sure she's about 2.5 lbs lighter now.

And it's a super cute cut and suits her.

She's very happy and keeps twirling around and that grin hasn't left her face.

Totally worth the $20 (well....$15 but I said that wasn't enough for 2hours of detailed cutting and left the whole $20)

Well, more things to see and do today and poor Tyler got called into work so we have to go squeeze in some family time before then.

So much for sleeping in

2009-07-21T08:07:00.005-05:00

This morning's blog post brought to you by an early morning text message that cancelled my plan to sleep in and by sleep in I mean 8ish. I'd set my alarm for 8 with the option for an additional hour of hitting the snooze if I so desired in an effort to top up my sleep quota after the whopping 4 hours I got Sunday night. I guess 6 and a half is better than 4.

So I'm up. Don't have to be anywhere till 10 and the house is almost quiet.....Aarica has repeatedly asked the same questions (just cuz you rephrase it doesn't make it a different question) and I'm enjoying a pot of coffee and taking the photos from last week off my camera and going through my mental list of things I want to do over the next two days of freedom from beige pants, a white shirt and work. Oh the places we could go. Oh the things we could do. Oh the stuff that won't get done.

I'm torn. My house desperately needs my undivided attention BUT honestly.....3 days from now....the house will still be here and who am I kidding, even if I cleaned and organized like a mad woman for 2 days - in a week it's going to look just like it does now anyway. What won't be here 3 days from now is one very special lady who's in town from Hamilton for a visit so really....I'm not torn. Visiting with her as much as possible while I have the chance is definately going to take priority over cleaning the house.

Mmmmm Coffee!

Almost as good as the real, honest to goodness Timmies coffee I had yesterday. Yol drove into town yesterday morning and bless her, she brought a cuppa Timmies to me at work (we won't discuss that I cried or anything). How can I not want to spend as much time as possible with someone who knows exactly what I love.

I do have some items on my todo list today that must be taken care of such as an appointment at 10:30 and dealing with some financial stuff that's hit the fan, but for the most part I think spending time with Yol will be top priority. Everyone in our house today has the day off - a rare thing, so we are going to enjoy every minute of it.

I guess one way to start that would be to wake them all up but I'm enjoying the peace and quiet. I have to wake Emily up soon though. She's the subject of the 10:30 appointment this morning and is beyond excited. She's been wanting her hair cut for a couple months now and even though I'd promised that as soon as dancing was over (ya ya....I know that was way back at the beginning of May) that she could get it cut but aside from having the extra money to actually pay for a hair cut, I've also had some trouble scheduling an appointment on a day that I have off so here we are, nearing the end of July and she's finally getting it chopped off. I figure she's going to be a good 5lbs lighter this afternoon and while I'm going to miss all that beautiful hair

it's just too much for her to take care of herself because of the length and because of it has a unique quality that requires constant attention or all that curl becomes a mass of matted strands down her back no matter what we try to do to tame it.

I'm not going to miss the 40minutes it takes to detangle the mess that's for sure and I can't wait to see her with shorter hair. It's been almost 2 years since she's had it cut and it's going to be quite a change.

I guess it's time to wake her up. I've made my way through an entire pot of coffee and I'm ready to brave the chaos of the day.

I have more pictures to share from last week - like the kids playing in the park and our quick visit to water soaked Moonlight Bay but it took 20minutes to upload those two pictures so don't hold your breath waiting for more pictures - at least today. I don't have enough patience or time on my days off for that nonsense. Carrie you should be thankful for this. I was looking for pictures of Emily's last haircut and found one of the two of you together and you'd probably send me nasty text messages if I posted it.

I'll definately post a before and after of Em's haircut though.

Have a Beautiful Day!

~K

To make plans or not to make plans

2009-07-16T21:53:00.002-05:00

for my precious day off tomorrow.

The kids and I had sort of informally made plans which basically means I may have mentioned an idea in passing thereby making it law-binding and written in stone and of course they remember the aforementioned 'idea' like their life depended on it. This humors me since their ability to remember to do their chores.....a thing that their life really does depend on (quality of life that is - how horrible it would be to live without tv) is less than stellar.

Anyway - last weekend I sort of mentioned that on my day off on Friday it would be fun to take a picnic lunch and go hang out at the beach for a couple hours. As the week progressed, I began easing in the possibility that the weather might not be that great and we might not be able to do this little beach play day afterall but we'd see how things went. It's been one heck of miserable week with high winds, low temperatures and lots of rain, the occasional thunder storm and did i mention high winds.

At this point I don't think our beach day will happen. Even though people keep telling me it's supposed to warm up and be half decent by tomorrow and throughout the weekend I don't believe it (I turned the furnace on tonight people! It's the middle of JULY and I turned the furnace on.) and even it if does warm up significantly, the water's still going to be cold plus.....and it's a big plus.....I don't think Moonlight Bay is going to exist tomorrow. Moonlight Bay is a small little secluded beach just outside of town that is THE beach spot around here. The winds have been so high and coming from just the right direction that the lake water levels are insane and I would bet that the beach is under a whole lot of water right now and for the next couple days for sure.

So instead of a beach picnic with my kids tomorrow, my only plan so far is a lunch date with Carrie (hey Carrie....what time and where?) unless things get crazy (er) at work and she can't get away.

Other than that I'm just going to wing it but I'm leaning towards a bit of cleaning -which I did alot of at work....not just cleaning up but deep in the corners cleaning (slow week) so since I'm on a roll I'm going to go with it. There's also that little thing called scrapbooking that I used to do and I want to clean up and organize my stuff so maybe, now that I'm not so darn exhausted at the end of the day, I might be able to play a little in the evenings once in awhile. *It could happen*

I might also play online a bit.....because.....whoohoo! I'm back online at home. Tech support and I had a little *discussion* and even though they insisted it was my computer with the issue, I'm magically back online 2 hours later so I think they must have pushed the right key or wiggled the right wire on their end cuz here I am.

But for now I'm outta here. Bed time. Zzzzzzzz

~K

I need tech support!!!!

2009-07-14T17:27:00.002-05:00

*sigh*

I just can't like this situation at all.

I'm still offline and I have no clue what's wrong with my dial-up. Mice in the junction box again? I dunno. Going to try reinstalling my modem and if that doesn't work I guess I'll be calling the phone company. How long do you think I'll have to wait for that service call?

Anyway - miss you all.

~K

I'm disconnected from the world

2009-07-10T19:19:00.002-05:00

Darn computer! Darn dial-up! Darn! Darn!Darn!

Don't know why but I've been unable to get online since yesterday morning. The connection dropped out mid morning during a torrential downpour and has been non-existent since.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!

I've just popped into my mom's to pay some bills online this evening and with high speed, the whole process of checking facebook, my blog feeds, posting this on my blog and checking on the cash flow situation took less time combined than any single one of those things would have taken at home with dial-up. Grrrrrr!

~K

I have the day off tomorrow and

2009-07-08T22:24:00.003-05:00

I just can't get excited about it.

Isn't that just plain crazy.

I don't know if it has to do with not wanting to get my hopes up that I will get anything accomplished tomorrow

or that I'm so tired that all I really want to accomplish is sleeping in till 8am -- which won't happen since Aarica has to be at work at 8 and she wants me to wake her early so she can shower and I can braid her hair before work

or that as much as I physically need this day off my brain keeps thinking about the huge order that needs to be done at work tomorrow....which isn't my problem since it's my day off.....but my brain says there's work to be done and it's still coming to terms with the whole 'not self-employed so there are other people to do things when you aren't there' idea. Plus one of the staff in our department called in sick today(and is being tested for that horrible flu....pray it's negative) and we are so very short staffed to begin with so my brain keeps thinking that's it's problem too....which it isn't. Eventually I'll stop thinking like the 'boss lady' right?

Mostly though I keep thinking that I can't afford a day off. I picked up my pay-stub today and realized that even though I feel like I'm working tons of hours in reality they aren't as many as I thought and my cheque is a little smaller than I'd hoped it would be this week. Darn hives cost me a day of work and since I've only been there a little over a month I don't qualify for 'sick days' ..... which I wasn't even expecting to get until someone brought it up at work today. The whole 'sick day' thing is a totally new experience for me....being self-employed for so long I'd forgotten about such luxuries in life as a 'sick day'.

So instead of planning what I will do tomorrow.....things like cleaning the house, having coffee with my mom, playing with scrapbook paper (hahahah....a girl can dream), doing some very much needed paperwork or a million and a half other things I could do, I'm not going to plan anything and just wing it and roll with whatever comes my way --- that way I won't be disapointed when I don't get to do all the things I want to or need to.

Actually I'm just too tired to make any plans tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more excited about my day off but for right now - as long as my day includes a nap at some point then I'll be happy.

~K

Honey I'm home!

2009-07-07T22:35:00.002-05:00

"Hi Dear! Supper's almost ready and there's fresh coffee in the pot."

Those were the sweetest words I heard today...............and they were spoken by the best "wife" I've ever had!

My sweet sister in law Sue has been watching the kids for a couple hours for us during the time when Al and Ty start work and before I finish work. I walked into their place this afternoon to pick up the kids and she invited us to stay for supper - again. I tell ya - she is the bestest. I could get spoiled quickly. Tomorrow I'm taking the crock pot of food meant for supper tonight over there ..... but I think Sue and I need to communicate at little better since we both made huge pork roasts this week. We are all going to be sick of the stuff by the time it's all gone.

The kids love being there. Owen loves that they have a wii and Luke loves having his beloved "Em-a-wee" to play with him and basicly be at his beck and call. Since they live right in town and it's close enough, Aarica is able to walk there after she's done work and she gets to stalk...er help Grant with building the fence and shed and she's also is an extra pair of hands to help with the baby. We've also been hanging out there after supper to wait for Tyler to finish work at 9 and during that time Emily's been great at entertaining Luke and reading him all the books he wants and I get to cuddle (or console) our little drama-girl Sarah and this gives her mommy a chance to do a few things around the house like hang blinds or put together the crib.

It's kind of a win-win-win for everyone and Sue has even offered to watch the kids if Al ends up scheduled for day shifts next week. And on the odd occasion that I'm not working on the weekends when Sue is, I will gladly reverse rolls - because that little drama queen with the high pitched scream doesn't scare Aunty Kirsten.

And guess what time it is......that time again where I have to say g'night because it's time to go pick up Al at work and then it's sleepy time. My goal is more than 6 hours tonight!

~K

Do you feel neglected?

2009-07-05T22:48:00.003-05:00

Well don't take it personally dear blog readers - - - you aren't the only ones.

I'm working on correcting that.

I've actually started a few blog posts in the last couple weeks with such titles as

'They only ate cereal for supper once this week' (see I'm working on correcting the neglect of my children too)

and

' The ants came marching two by two' and maybe if the ants would stop walking across my keyboard and giving me the heebie jeebies I might be more inclined to sit at the computer more often. (I'm working on the neglect of the house too....spent all day today doing just that - for all the progress that excercise in futility got me) not that the ant issue is entirely due to the trail of food crumbs and granola bar wrappers and half eatten hotdogs my children leave behind them but also the house itself. It screams 'hey ants....i'm an old wooden house with nooks and cracks and issues just perfect for your inhabitation' Darn House! Darn Kids! Darn Ants!

and

'Someone Erased My Whiteboard!' which resulted in my almost neglecting to deligate what little inflow of cash into this house there is towards the right bill at the right time.

So see, I'm not singling you out in the neglect department. I'm an equal opportunity neglector.

I'm slowly adjusting to life as a working mom. Now that school's out for the summer it's gotten a bit easier....or harder? I haven't decided which. I think easier because there isn't that frenzied rush to get everyone up and out the door for the bus just minutes before I have to leave for work. I'm also getting the hang of my job so I don't feel so out of my element and that is helping with my mental exhaustion. Physically, with having to pick Al up at midnight during the week, I'm still not getting enough sleep but my body is totally adjusting and I find that even on my days off or on days I get more than 6 hours of sleep I'm waking up automatically anyway. Darn internal clock has been reset and now I'm a morning person. Oh the horror!

I have had a few extra days to catch up on much needed sleep lately too. With the Canada Day holiday this week I somehow managed to have two days off mid-week plus two days off this weekend so I'm feeling a little less tired than I have been. There was also an unscheduled day off a week ago when I was sent home from work 'sick' and the medication I eneded up on knocked me right out so I got plenty of sleep - not that I felt better for it. The whole episode was quite nerve wracking and involved a 'severe allergic reaction' to something. Over the course of two days I developed a wicked case of hives that eventually spread to my ears/face/eyes/lips and were making their way to my throat (scarey!!!!) I ended up spending 3hours in the ER where they injected me with hydrocortisone and sent me home with a prescription and instructions to take benadryl (knocked me on my ass that stuff did!). By the next day I was hive-free, steroid full and back at work and still have no clue what the cause was. I can't say I'm a fan of the unknown in this case and would feel alot better about the whole thing if I knew why it happened in the first place. I have my suspicions (3-4 possible suspects) but without it happening again (not a huge fan of that idea either) the doc says we won't know. Geesh. And ya wanna know what my first thoughts were after the initial scare was over.......that it cost me a day of work and the price of the prescription. Darn Hives!

Money's still tight but we are managing and once we get a few more paycheques (hopefully without anymore unscheduled, hive-induced lost days) into the bank and caught up on some bills things will be even better. We managed to sell off one small piece of equipment at exactly the right time as it bought us a little time with the leasing company (and I was able to make the first monthly payment towards Tyler's trip with 24hours to spare --- whew!)

Tyler's picked up a second job with quite a few more hours so I'm confident he will be able to come up with almost if not all of this months payment. We even got some big news tonight that Aarica is starting a summer job tomorrow morning working at a daycamp with a woman that used to be an EA at her school so I'm confident she will be in good hands and have a wonderful summer. Of course, while it's great both kids have summer jobs, it makes scheduling a bit more tricky for everyone but with the help of family to cover the overlap between when Al and Tyler start work at 4 and I finish work at 5, things seem to be falling into place.

Well. I'm sure there's been more stuff happening around here lately. Visits from family. Family fun. Pictures of everyone. Weird/funny/bizzare stories etc but my phone alarm just went off reminding me it's time to go pick up Al (you fall asleep and forget to pick him up once...okay twice and he gets all snarky) so I guess my blog time is up.

Miss ya'll

Update your blogs too so I know what you are up to.

~K

And the award goes to.....

2009-06-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

Last night Al and I, and his parents too, attended the high school awards night *banquet*.

The End.

No.

Not really the end. I guess I should tell you more - otherwise what would be the point of bring it up in the first place.

Mid last week I received a call from the high school informing me that our eldest daughter was receiving an award and that our presence was requested at this banquet where she would receive said award.

Now being the person that I am, I was slightly annoyed that I was being made to leave the house which I feel I spend precious little time in lately to begin with to attend an academic and sports awards banquet which, lets face it - are not areas which Aarica excels at AND they wouldn't tell me what sort of award she was getting and you all know how much I just LOVE surprises.

I will admit, I was just a wee bit concerned that this award wasn't truely an award but more of a token or gesture. I'm sorry if that sounds completely pessimistic and mean but seriously - the awards handed out tonight were mostly given to the committee heads, student council members, honour roll students and the musically, theatrically, artistically and athletically gifted and I did not want my daughter paraded up there to receive a 'token' award for some sort of unknown accomplishment. Had they just told me what this award was for it would have relieved some of my concern and also some of the annoyance at being made to go out at all this evening.

Of course, I would still have been annoyed with the whole matter anyway because the cost of this lovely banquet was $12 per person and while I assumed the students receiving awards would not be required to pay for their tickets.....I was wrong and oh boy was I ticked when I stopped in the office on Tuesday to purchase tickets for Al and I and found that out. Not that it mattered since there were no more tickets left anyway and only then was I told that we could just show up an hour after the banquet started, once the meal was over and attend the awards portion of the evening without having to pay a dime. If they'd have just mentioned that in the first place....along with the nature of the award she was receiving....I wouldn't have been annoyed at all - or at least as much. Still wasn't pleased I was being made to leave my house.

So I guess after all my annoyance passed (except the slight twinge of not knowing why we were there in the first place) and we got to the banquet and eventually found a place at the back to sit and sat through the many many many awards that were handed out (to the same 10 people I'm sure) they called Aarica's name. And colour me surprised. It wasn't a fluff "good citizen" type award at all. It was indeed an actual academic award from her Travel and Tourism course which is a new course that just started this year.

She is officially the first student at our school to complete the requirements for the 1st level of this course and she received a certificate (and a t-shirt) from the Canadian Association of Travel and Tourism for completing it. The school even went so far as to put the certificate in a frame for her....and while I'm not going to try and kid myself into thinking that she, on her own, was able to complete all the work or have a solid knowledge of most of the information covered in the course but with the help of her educational assistant she did and she also fulfilled her required 25 hours of work experience (she's been going to the local senior's home twice a week and helping out in laundry, housekeeping, the kitchen/dining room as well as visiting with the 'grandmas and grandpas' that live there) and she's received a passing grade and the certificate to prove it.

And that's pretty cool and we are proud of her!

~K

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

2009-06-10T08:58:00.001-05:00

it's been awhile since I wondered aloud although I tried to write one a couple days ago for publishing today but it turns out I shouldn't blog while half asleep so I deleted that and figured there would be no Wonder Why again this week

But

Never Fear

My brain was wondering something this morning and it may not be fabulously brilliant but it's what I'm wondering and thought I'd share.

I wonder why........
.
.
.
.
.
.

I bother buying cookbooks?

I am not a fan of cooking and no cookbook I own makes me feel like cooking and in all honesty unless it's something familiar and as simple as possible with as few ingredients and steps involved as possible I'm not going to make it.....and chance are even if I did, my kids wouldn't eat it anyway.

The problem with this is I'm sick of every single meal that's become our staple lately so I'm even more bored with the whole cooking process because I just don't want what I'm throwing together ---- even more so the last few weeks where I'm dragging my butt into the house after 6pm and am way too tired to try and think of something to make.

Like I've said before...it's a good thing the kids are happy with cereal or hotdogs and even when I go all out and make grilled cheese and instant chicken noodle soup the chances are one of them's going to say....."I'll just have cereal" anyway.

To say the least I'm lacking the motivation to actually cook a real meal lately and also lacking the items in half the cookbooks needed to make anything of any great cullinary interest.

Do you have a favorite cookbook or even a favorite recipe? One you use often to make family (and budget) friendly, hearty, easy to prepare (ie: I have a short attention span, get sidetracked easily and forget I'm cooking so it can't be something I need to 'watch' closely) meals. If so....share. Please. My children will thank you (if vegetables are well disguised they will thank you even more) and I might actually serve something other than Corn Flakes for supper occasionally.

~K

So this is what a day off should be like

2009-06-09T17:24:00.004-05:00

I've had a few of them scattered here and there since I started working a couple weeks ago but as days off go, the ones before this one were anything but relaxing and restful.

Today. Rocked.

Apparently it doesn't take much to make my day off rock because it wasn't like I went all out and did wild and crazy things. It was just a nice relaxing day doing what I'm used to doing. It was comfortable and familiar and that's just the way I like it.

I blogged a bit this morning, had a 15minute nap then took Al to work and went out for lunch with my friend Carrie (hi Carrie!) then lay on my mom's couch watching tv while she had a nap before I took her for bloodwork, popped in to visit a cousin while I was at the hospital with mom, chit-chatted with a couple friends here and there, took mom to buy some more flowers, went to the bank to deposit a couple cheques* and picked up the kids from school before grabbing a few groceries and coming home.

Nice. Boring. Uneventful. Non-dramatic. Plain. Old. Normal. Everyday. Stuff. Awesome!

About those cheques I deposited though. There's a funny story behind one of them. One of those cheques arrived by mail a day or so ago and the envelope was addressed to "original me" with my maiden name - you know, a name I haven't used in almost 18 years. My maiden name was crossed out and my married name written in with a little ooops beside it. It really made me giggle.

When I opened the envelope there was a beautiful handmade card inside from my Sis and included with the card was a cheque for the $99 deposit for Tyler's Normandy Trip. The cheque might have made me cry a little if it hadn't made me laugh out loud first because the cheque was also made out to "original me". When I went to the bank this afternoon to deposit it, instead of putting it into the instant teller like I normall would, I actually went inside to make sure there wouldn't be an issue with cashing it and I was told to just sign the back of it both ways - with my maiden and married names and there wouldn't be a problem. Well, at least there wouldn't be a problem on their end.......on mine it was a little tricky. I honestly had to stop and think about how to sign my maiden name. I'm not kidding. Try it sometime. If you haven't signed anything with your maiden name in a whole lotta years-try to sign something with it. It's not as easy as you might think. Maybe it's just me but my brain resisted the whole time. Too funny!

Thanks again sweet sis for the money. Tyler is very very happy and also very surprised that someone would just send him a little money to help him reach his goal of going on this trip. Now if his mom would just sign the form and stop being such as suck about her baby boy traveling half way across the world for 10 days, he'd be even happier.

Anyone know how to get a passport? That's our next step.

~K

Time, Ticks and Tilt-a-whirls

2009-06-09T09:05:00.002-05:00

I've sort of forgotten how to do this blogging thing.

I've started 3-4 posts now and they just seem to get nowhere fast. Probably because my time is so limited and I'm used to being able to ramble for longer periods of time so getting my thoughts together quickly is taking some effort. If I start a post and then have to leave it and come back to it later the 'feel' is gone and I can't pick up where I left off and I end up starting over. That's exactly what happened with the post I started last night that I'd intended for an *I wonder why?* Wednesday post but when I tried to finish it up this morning it just wasn't working for me. In a nutshell - it sucked.

I'm having a reaction to a wood tick bite (it seems I'm allergic to the little buggers) on the back of my leg so it's swollen and itching and basically driving me crazy. I put a thick layer of this medicated 'goop' that I was told by my doctor to use the last time this happened and while I was waiting for it to dry so I could go pass out, I thought I'd blog a bit. Not a good idea. The combination of being distracted by my leg and being so tired made for a really horrible post attempt. Glad I didn't hit publish because I don't even understand where I was going with the post.

I think the post mostly had to do with the passage of time. Normally I'm all "where did the day/week/month go?" but lately that's absolutely not the case. I swear the past 6 weeks or so have been some of the longest in history. Considering all the big, huge, memorable things that have happened lately I would have expected to be sitting here thinking that it all passed by so quickly in such a blur. 6 weeks ago we were in Dauphin and then it was the weekend at the hall scrapbooking with everyone, then the kids all had their birthdays and there was the long-weekend and then I started my job and I feel like all that stuff happened so very long ago instead of just in the last few weeks.

Time is moving slowly lately for some reason and it just seems so bizzare to me. I would expect that being so crazy-busy would make the time just fly by.

Of course just because the weeks have been creeping slowly by lately doesn't mean the hours in the day don't still get away from me. As usual blogging has sidetracked me. I have plans with my mom this morning and then a lunch date at noon and suddenly I realize that while I'm talking about time moving slowly....it really isn't and I'm going to run out of time to do all the things I want to do on my day off today if I don't get moving.

Later!

~K

when tech support gets a real job

2009-06-08T22:14:00.002-05:00

and is too darn tired and lacking brain function by the end of the day to care........

then we are without internet for 3 days until i was coherent enough to figure out what was going on and fix it.

Not that I fixed it - fixed it. I just figured out where the problem was and by-passed it. Fixing it -fixing it will probably require someone from the phone company coming out to see what's wrong with the phone jack in the kitchen which appears to not be functioning.

Actually my first thought was 'dammit....did i forget to pay the phone bill?' but that's not the problem. We are still connected and the jack at the other end of the house works just fine so it's definately an internal issue with the one jack.

Now I just have to figure out if I'm paying into the phone company's program where any internal 'fixing' needing to be done is covered or if I call a repair man I'm going to get stuck paying for the service call and repair because it's an internal problem. BUT....in the meantime, I'm internet connected....as long as nobody trips over the million foot long phone cord winding it's way through the middle of my house to the one functioning telephone jack.

Oh and speaking of repair men.....or technicians......I noticed on my last satelite bill that there was this notice that 'my recent visit by a technician was not billed on this statement but would be added to my next bill'.

HUH?

When was there a satelite technician at my house, for what purpose and who authorized that?????? Oh and how much are they planning to sucker out of me for this non-existent house call?????

So, I'm back again in the land of the internet connected and I have two whole days off so I'm sure I'll be back to ramble tomorrow. There's so much to catch up on. Highschool awards night, the Normandy Trip, what the kids are up to and all the crazy-buzy stuff that's going on. I won't even mention that today was Monday.....and it rained (and is still raining) all day.....and I didn't have to work in it. heeheeheehee

~K

More Surprises

2009-06-05T00:05:00.002-05:00

My life is just full of them.

Usually I don't like them.....but sometimes they can be unexpectedly sweet.

I've had my fair share of un-sweet ones today and more than one made me cry slightly but the last one made me tear up with tears of joy it was so sweet.

I've covered in my previous post most of the unexpected not-so-nice surprises but there's one more that really frosted my cookies today.

Other than taking mom for a very short and sweet flower shopping trip the only other errand that we managed to squeeze into my day off was going to the pharmacy to pick up her box of prescriptions.

Your read that right. Box. Cardboard. Size - Large. I really wonder some days if I don't need some sort of license to carry that much pharmasuticals but hopefully I don't......I'd forget to renew it for sure.

Now prior to heading to her place I did stop by the post office and pick up her mail which she opened before we headed out on our errands. One of the letters in the mail informed her of how much her annual PharmaCare deductible was ($500 give or take) so she had a pretty good idea how much money she'd have to pay out when we went to the pharmacy to pick up her meds.....and for the record, she's hit her deductible limit already in one day so the rest of the year is covered by provincial health......right? Wrong!

Seems that she's also as of today reached her maximum allowable number for one of her inhailers --- as in the medication that makes it so she can breath. Apparently, according to the pharmasist the provincial medical plan covers 14 of these inhailers annually. There are 25 doses per inhailer so she's covered for one puff per day. Wonderful - except that last fall when she was having so much trouble breathing her dose was increased to 2 puffs, up to twice a day. Now my numbers aren't always the best but that means she's taking up to 4 puffs of this inhailer per day so an inhailer last her between 5 and10 days depending on how she's feeling. That's roughly 3-5 inhailers per month.....and 5 months into the year she's used up her annual amount. I guess breathing is optional the other 7 months of the year! If she 'wants to continue using this medication' she'll need to dish out $115.66 per inhailer. Multiply that by 3-5 per month and that equals way too much math and some serious cash.

So who do I talk to about this because this sucks. My goal here is to keep this lady as healthy as possible to give her some decent quality of life and now she's been denied coverage for one of her meds that allows her to breath. Last I checked that whole breathing thing.....kind of important.

Of course this is also the same health care system that has a friend of mine paying out $800 every two weeks for supplies for her son's insulin pump....a pump she had to pay for with the help of many family, friends, fundraisers and local charities, out of her own pocket since the government refuses to pay for pumps for insulin dependant diabetic children even though a number of other provinces do. ooooop...climbed up on that soap box there for a minute didn't I. Well.....that's because it sucks!

That pretty much coveres the unpleasant surprises for the day although I will say that while I was not happily surprised with not having a nice quiet evening at home, I did enjoy the band concert -which I knew I would - I just didn't feel like going especially because I knew we wouldn't get home till late and that makes getting the kids to bed extra hard.

Once I did get them to bed though, I ignored the dinner dishes and sat down to catch up on some blogs and while doing that I read a comment on my post from earlier in the week. That's when I came across one surprise of the day that made me cry because it was so sweet and kind.

I'd been so worried about making the deposit for a trip my son really wants to take to Normandy next spring and my sis leaves a comment that the cheque is in the mail. Just like that. No questions asked. Talk about a sweet, unexpected surprise......and an unnecessary one since Ty does get a paycheque this week that should be enough to cover his deposit. Now I just have to read the really really fine print of this trip and have the courage to fill it in. Paris, Normandy, Amsterdam....very very far away and in the grand scheme of things the total price tag of this trip is going to be more in the neighbourhood of $4000 by the time we add in passport costs, insurance and spending money and at least one additonal tour that is not included....because there is no way they can go all the way there and not go to Vimy.

Now I have 4 days to decided if it's financially possible to committ to being able to pull together that amount of money.....which is extremely scarey considering I was concerned with just coming up with the dang deposit....but we do have 9months yet so is it do-able?

4 days to sign on the dotted line and committ to letting my son go half way around the world for 10days.

4 days to come to terms with the fact that my son is old enough to take a trip like this.

I guess that's easier to come to terms with than the question I had to answer for my van's insurance regarding if there was anyone other than myself and Al as it's primary users at which point I realized that at this time next year the answer to that question will quite probably be yes....that my son is also a regular user of the vehicle.

I guess that's one more surprise for the day. My kids are growing up.....way too fast. I think that's considered a sweet surprise.....although after listening to my sister-in-laws talk today about potty training Luke and cuddling baby Sarah for a few minutes it's a little bitter-sweet. I miss those days.

Besides - Pre-school field trip permission forms were so much easier to deal with.

~K

PS.... Sis, you didn't need to but thank you. Love you!

Nice Relaxing Day Off....to blog and flower shop and oh wait...

2009-06-04T17:06:00.003-05:00

The day started out beautifully. Even the accidently sleeping in part and the kids missing the bus....because I didn't have to be at work early this morning so it was all good...and that extra hour of sleep rocked!

I had plans to do a little errand running late this morning with my mom, visit with her, be home when the kids got home from school for a change. Al could take the van to work and I could just spend a nice quiet evening at home. No rushing. No fussing. Nothing fancy. Just a pretty basic day.

BLAM!!!!

Did you catch that.

That's the sound of my brain getting sideswiped.

Darn information, thoughts, knowledge. It's all in there. Inside my noggin just begging to be used.....but sadly it gets lost more times than it's useful. Heck even the stuff on the calendar (which still needs to be replaced by something MUCH larger) isn't free from neglect.

It's no wonder I can't remember all those darn product code numbers at work. I can't remember the stuff I already have inside my head nevermind new stuff. *seriously.....that darn special has been on all week and I've probably package at least 75 of them but do you think I can remember it's code for the scale is 40741 (well okay I remember it NOW but not while I'm AT work...I'm serously stupid there. I completely draw a blank)

anyway.....

this morning.....before I'd even finished my 2nd cup of wonderfully hot & delicious coffee or had even taken a bite of the Apple Fritter that Al brought me home from town when he took the kids to school - it hit me.

I was merrily going about my business putting together my budget for the month - you know....cuz now that we have 2 paycheques coming in I can actually do silly things like pay some bills and oh I don't know.....by groceries.

So, I was dividing up the incoming money that appears as if by magic in our bank account each Friday morning for things like Hydro (who so graciously informed me earlier this week that if we continue on with our payment schedule as is....our outstanding balance should be paid off in OCTOBER and could we possibly swing out a little more cash for them each month) and the van payment and the Visa bill and the phone and internet and Autopac (that's the insurance on my van for those not in the know) and that's when it hit me.

AUTOPAC! Dammit! Sideswiped.......by my own van!

I quickly check my online banking and sure enough, there's no money in there which isn't a good thing when there was an automatic payment for my insurance due 2 days ago. So there I am scrambling with this tidbit of info when that darn information truck comes back around to hit me again.

BLAM!

That payment never was scheduled to come out of my account anyway because I needed to go in and renew my insurance 2 days ago. D'oh!

BLAM!

Did you hear that one. That was the truck backing up and running me over again.

It's JUNE! 4 months after my birthday. Which around here means my drivers license expired right along side my insurance...... 2 days ago.

That's right. Not only has my van been uninsured since Midnight on Tuesday but I'm not legal to drive. Dang I hate it when that happens (and yes...it's happened before - at least this time it didn't cost me the price of that speeding ticket AND the ticket for not having a license AND for driving an uninsured vehicle). You'd think I would have learned this lesson. Sadly NO.

So instead of errands and flower shopping with mom this morning I scrambled to borrow $160 since payday isn't until tomorrow so I could register the van and pay for my license (which btw I think it's just disgusting that they make you pay $40 to take such a horrible photo of you) and it kinda threw the rest of my day off.

But once that was all done I was able to salvage some time to take mom to go pick up a couple hanging baskets for her yard - which I have to remember to go take into the garage tonight since there's supposed to be frost tonight. Geesh! And since I will be back in town tonight anyway this isn't a problem.

That's right. No nice relaxing evening at home. No Al taking the van to work.

I had mentioned to Al that I was going to enjoy spending the evening at home tonight and not have to pick him up at midnight because he could take the van since I don't need to be anywhere tonight .

I think he was a little scared to say anything. Actually, I think he was more than a little scared that I'd cry - again with yet another surprise because he very cautiously mentioned that I did in fact need the van tonight.

???? Really ????

BLAM

High School Band Concert tonight. It's even written on the calendar and yet....still a surprise.

Today has just been FULL of surprises.

There were more of them....but they will have to wait till later. I'm going to go make my son prove to me that he can actually play that clarinette I spent the last 3 years paying for. OH and somebody remind me the annual payment for that darn thing will be charged to my credit card in early July. I believe I owe something like $3.00 on it plus the years insurance..... but then again I've been surprised by bigger things lately so I could be wrong.

~K

*** more stuff to blog about.....back later.

Because there's room on my calendar for a meeting

2009-06-01T23:35:00.003-05:00

Well....no....there isn't really, but I'll make time.

It's important.

Very important to my oldest son.

He brought a letter home from school this afternoon announcing a parent meeting to discuss details of a trip he really really wants to take next year.

Permission for this trip to take place has been granted by the powers that be at the school board and now there is officially an information night this Wednesday to go over the finer details of the itinerary, costs and what's all involved......oh and a $99 deposit is required that night to ensure there is serious interest in this whole project. Ouch. Considering we spent the boys last $175 on bills this morning, coming up with that money's going to be tricky but I'll jump through hoops to borrow it. Actually there will be alot of hoop jumping through inorder to scrape together the $3000 (give or take a few bucks here and there) so he can go on this trip. If it kills me I will make sure he doesn't miss out on this chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity.

What is this trip you ask? Are you asking? I can't remember if I've mentioned it or not.

In a nutshell one of the teachers has put together a 10-day trip through Europe visiting a number of battle fields and historic sites commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Victory in Europe campaign and the 66th anniversary of the D-Day landings. In the past few years Tyler has become very interested in anything to do with this subject (even so far as to read the occasional book on it....and books are not his friends at the best of times) and loves watching the History channel so this trip really sparked his interest from the very first mention of it. So it looks like I'm heading to a school meeting re: The Normandy Trip on Wednesday and hopefully there aren't too many surprise costs other than that quoted on the original information sheet and somehow, someway we will get the money together so he can go. Ultimately his father would love to go along too since this is also an area of interest for him...... but for now our goal is to get the boy there.

~K

profile blurb

2009-05-31T22:11:00.002-05:00

ack! wrote this one last night and thought I posted it.....guess I dozed off.

I'm finally ready to update my profile to a more current reflections of life as I know it.

I'm a woman on the verge of falling asleep while attempting to juggle 4 kids, the shattered pieces of 14 years of self-employement, new jobs for hubby and I and an insane schedule. We're adjusting to our new normal but there's no time for scrapbooking.....or napping and the temper tantrums are in greater supply than coffee lately. If I manage to get one whole cup in the morning it's considered a good day.

replaces.........

I'm a woman on the edge of sanity - juggling four kids, three trucks, two businesses and a room full of neglected scrapbook supplies while drinking cup after cup of coffee and not spilling a drop.

*********

This has to get easier - right. Please tell me it will (even if you have to lie).

I'm dead serious about the coffee thing. I am no where near my daily quota - even on a day off like today. What is up with that? The people in charge of Timmies coffee supplies are going to notice at this rate. Stock prices might fall. Sure, at work access to coffee is limited but even at home I find I'm not drinking it as much as I used to. I just don't have the energy to make a darn pot of the stuff. Maybe that's why I'm so darn tired - not enough coffee intake.

I'm way cranky too. I think it has to do with the fact that I haven't had a moment to myself - completely alone (other than in the car) in ages. The kids are increasingly difficult to get to bed at night so there isn't even quiet time in the evenings.

I've been stupidly staying up way too late myself. Once I pick up Al at work, the smart thing to do would be to crawl into bed but most nights I've been sitting up with him while he eats a very late supper (or has cereal....because I confess, I fed the kids hotdogs at least twice last week and they may or may not have had cereal once but I don't remember). While he's unwinding from his 'day' we talk and try to catch up on what's been going on. I give him the rundown on what's going on with the kids (activities/schedules etc for the next day) and any other things I might need for him to take care of while I'm at work the next day. Tonight is his 5th straight day so we haven't seen much of eachother at all and this late night catching up is helping us not just be two people that pass eachother on our way to and from work....but it makes for a very tired me in the morning. Today he even stopped by work and brought me a coffee and we sat outside for my precious 15min break. It was great....although I could have done without him mentioning that he was heading home for a nap. Brat!

The bestest part of my day. The rain. Bwaahhhhaaaaa. Rain on a Monday. Love it. Love being at work and not getting soaking wet and being freezing cold because that's what the weather was like today. Brrrrrrrrr! So ya, my knees are sore and my feet hate me and I'm tired from this crazy schedule but I was working inside, warm and dry and cozy all day.

I completely feel like this post is rambling way more usual so I think it's time for me to post it and get the heck outta here. It's almost time to pick Al up and then I'm going to get some much needed zzzzzzzzzz's.

~K

Recreating Normal

2009-05-28T09:29:00.006-05:00

It's a work in progress and the adjustment period is proving hard on us all but we are surviving.

Last week was a little tricky and we made it through our first schedule conflict with only minor issues.

I worked Thursday, Friday & Saturday all day. Al worked Thursday and Friday evenings and was supposed to have Saturday off. This would have been great --- had it worked out that way especially since Emily had handed out birthday party invitations early in the week for her Saturday afternoon/evening party. Unfortunately, one of the kids that Al works with decided he wasn't working his shift that Saturday so Al was going to have to work it and wouldn't be around for Emily's party. Luckily they were able to switch some things around and Al didn't have to work that day BUT he did have to attend a training course all morning so we had to scramble for a sitter, borrow a car and make a few last minute changes to Emily's party. In the end it all worked out fine - but it was a very long day for both of us.

We have quickly realized that asap we will need a 2nd vehicle because we've both become extremely exhausted purely due to the lack of another car. I'm having to stay up late to pick him up from work and he's having to get up early to drive me to work. Sleep is a rare commodity around here lately.

Since the earliest I'm off work is 5pm and by the time I pick up a few groceries if we need them, walk to get the van, go check on my mom and get home, the kids are on their own for about 2 hours after school. Except for Tuesday when Emily got hurt and Tyler ended up calling his friends mom to come help him stop the bleeding, things have been going fairly well. Unfortunately, by the time I get home and get supper made I'm beyond exhausted. Too exhausted to read any of my fav blogs nevermind write one (or two). Both my blogs, like my house have been extremely neglected lately. Sunday I had the day off, but there was so much else to do and I was so tired that computer time was just not happening either - especially with the kids home and having to share (darn Webkins...Emily got 3 for her birthday and spent her birthday money from Gramma on a 4th)

Monday and Tuesday I barely survived work. I haven't been feeling well and by the time I got home Tuesday and dealt with the aftermath of Emily's injury and got everyone fed (they almost got cereal for supper that night) I ended up falling asleep on the couch before the kids even went to bed. It's a good thing Al thought to send me a text message around 11:30 or I wouldn't have been awake to pick him up at midnight. By Wednesday I was so sick it was a good thing I had the day off because I spent most of the day on the couch watching a Dog the Bounty Hunter marathon. What a waste of a day off - especially one that Al had off too. I'm feeling almost human today, which is good because now Al's asleep on the couch. He's tired and hurting. Last night was the first ball game of the season and those old knees of his are not happy. I'm sure he's not the only one in a little pain today (how's the arm Carrie?)

Today is my 2nd day off in a row, which I'm sure will be rare - having more than one day off at a time. That is another thing that's taking some getting used to. Being self-employed for 14 years we've been spoiled by being able to most of the time schedule work around life. That party's over. I was going to request the Sunday that Tami, James and little Rowan will be out to visit from Hamilton off but when I looked at the request sheet earlier this week, that particular day is full of names. I didn't even bother adding mine. There's just no way I'll win that one. I'm hoping they will be out here for quite awhile that day so I can see them after work. Al's work schedule is even more restrictive than mine in many ways. With him working evenings, he'll be missing out on many things he wants to do - like Kareoke this Saturday or having to leave his cousins birthday bbq early. I just hope he gets to play ball most weeks --- although I'm sure his knees are hoping otherwise.

My Saturday Scrapping Girls are also having to come to terms with the fact that my Saturdays belong to someone else now (no hope of getting any Saturdays off until maybe later in the fall). So, the girls have already booked the hall without me for the end of June. Maybe if I'm still alive at 5 that day I might stop by but can't see being able to stay and play. This working thing also puts an end to the idea of my heading out to Dryden this weekend to scrapbook with Kat. So sad because before I got this job Al had said 'to heck with not being able to afford it - just GO!' *sigh* Another time I guess.

Right now my goal is to get things running a little smoother and hopefully after a few more weeks of this new routine things will get easier. My body will adjust to mornings (ugh...I'm so not a morning person) and being on my feet 8.5 hours a day and the kids will realize that chores are not suggestions but requirements because their housekeeping staff (that's me) is way too freakin exhausted to do it all.....and having that paycheque will make paying bills a whole lot easier too. My very first one should be in my bank account at midnight tonight. Whoohoo! It will be small - only 3 days, but oh so very much needed. Hopefully in a couple weeks we won't need to use Tyler's paycheques to help cover the basics. Nothing feels worse than having to use your 15 yr old sons' money to pay bills and buy groceries. It's worse than having to get hampers from the food bank....which reminds me....need to go get dressed and get to town. I have an appointment to pick one up in an hour. I was going to have a nap first but lost this entire post and had to start over. Sometimes blogging takes priority over sleep - at least it did today. Tomorrow it might not though so if I don't 'see' you for a day or two it's because I fell asleep.

Gotta run. Knock at the door - yet another person asking about those trucks. Somebody might just buy one of them one of these days. Keep your fingers crossed....because that would make like even easier on all of us!

~K

I can see clearly now

2009-05-20T17:47:00.003-05:00

Look how sharp and visible you all are to me now that there aren't dozens of wavey lines running across the screen......or a huge grey shadow through the middle. Who'd have thunk it.

Of course I guess I could have walked my little old self into the living room days ago and got the brand new monitor that's been attached to a very rarely used, really, really old, noisey computer that is of little use to me since it has no internet capabilities. Seriously. What good is a computer that doesn't do the net? Dust collector is what it is.

Bet you thought you'd all been replaced by GameCube again.

Nope. Just been lazy and trying to keep from losing my mind.

We had a pretty quiet long weekend. About the only exciting thing that happened was the 2-3 people that stopped by to look at the trucks....which still aren't sold and even with the interest I don't see it happening any time soon. The one guy that is very interested is digging in his heels because of the age of the equipment. *Sigh* He wants to lease it and I'm leary of even trying to make something like that an option. I can understand his position but honestly I'd take 30yr old equipment over something new anyday.....it's built to last not like disposable stuff they make these days. Oh well. We'll see what the rest of the week brings.

In the mean time, I'm way crazy-busy. We've kind of adjusted to this whole 'Al working evenings' thing and thankfully dancing and bowling are both done for the year which is a good thing because we now have a new 'activity' to work into the schedule. ME WORKING.

That's right. Finally. That job is in the bag and I start tomorrow.

So far I think my hours will work pretty well for us.....if you consider my not ever seeing my husband again a bonus. For the next 3 days I work 8:30 to 5 and he works 4-midnight most days. Basically we will have the 10minute ride in the morning when he drives me to work and the 10minute ride home when I pick him up at midnight to 'visit'. Doesn't that sound like a marriage made in heaven. We worked alternating shifts like this for about 6 months many many years ago. I'm a little worried. After those 6 months I was switched to day-shift just like he worked........and we ended up with our oldest child. We won't be making that mistake again. 3 more kids later we figured out what caused them and put a stop to it.

I'm super excited in a 'maybe we won't starve' kind of way. Hopefully in a month or so I'll even be thinking 'maybe we can pay some bills' frame of mind too. That would rock.

I'm kinda nervous but I know a lot of the people I'll be working around and with so that helps.....kinda.....there's this one guy that works there.....I've worked with him before....or rather he worked for me. It was torture. I sure hope I don't run into him very often. Although I've heard he's rather well behaved at his 'real' job and just came to work with me for entertainment. I really think he thought it was sport to try and scare me or freak me out. LOL I will never look at squirels the same ever again. I don't know how his wife puts up with him and his sense of humor.

That's it for now. If I'm alive at the end of my shift tomorrow I might have the energy to post.

Teen Drama Queen Strikes Again - footage at 11

2009-05-16T11:21:00.002-05:00

Okay so there's no actual footage but believe me it would have been hysterical watching her get all hysterical. Is it wrong that I find the trauma in my daughters life so darn giggle-worthy some days. Believe me, a sense of humor is the only way I keep from loosing my mind.

Why was she hysterically pitching a fit you might ask. Well, generally she needs not have a particular reason because she will freak out at the drop of a hat anytime she feels there has been some sort of injustice, real or not, that has been inflicted upon her.

The little darling has been grounded since Monday. All electronic possessions confiscated, all computer, tv and gaming rights revoked (I did leave her with use of her clock/radio...I'm not totally without mercy) plus the first two nights she was confined to her bedroom unless otherwise instructed for matters involving chores or family committments - it's not like I could leave her home alone with free access to fun while I attended a school concert with the other children so she was given a 2-hour pass to socialize and be free while we were there.

To make matters even more unbareable for her I, in my evil, I've-got-all-the-power ways allowed her brother the use of her beloved Ipod. Bwwwaaahhhhhhaaaaahhhhhaaaaa.

Slowly she's been receiving priviledges back. One thing at a time. She was scheduled to receive her Ipod back today (Saturday) only she felt the need to argue that point due to some project she's working on for school and the particular song she needs to practice for this presentation is on her Ipod. She presented her case and wasn't thrilled with my decision that the day was almost over anyway and since she was the one who did stupid things and got herself grounded that she'd just have to wait till the next day and since it's a long weekend she'd have 3 days to practice so I wasn't budging and she wasn't happy.

Of course then I pointed out that it really didn't matter because her brother went to a friends house after school and since he was in possession of the repossessed prized possession she couldn't have it back anyway. This pushed the injustice just a little too far and she was miffed to say the least.

Oh it was fun.

Almost as much fun as why she was grounded in the first place.

Caught the little darling on the front step Monday afternoon smoking a cigarette - apparently not her first either. My mind exploded at that point and I lost the ability to speak for awhile.

It's been a glorious week.

One I hope to not have to repeat anytime soon.

Being grounded was hard on her......harder on the rest of us.

By Monday, if she doesn't push her luck she may just have all rights restored.

~K

Okay - so I threw out his winter boots but

2009-05-15T12:46:00.008-05:00

THIS IS NOT MY FAULT!

Just because, as I was tossing them in the trash yesterday, I said aloud...."watch, we'll get 3ft of snow now" does not make me responsible for what happened overnight.

Honestly, if I thought I had that much control over what goes on around me I'd be buying a lottery ticket and saying something like....."watch, we'll win 3million dollars now".

I'll let you know if that happens and if it does then yes, I will take the blame for the snow but until then, this one ain't on me.

I personally blame the school.

And field trips.

The field trip scheduled for Wednesday was cancelled due to weather - in the form of massive, ark worthy amounts of rain.

It was rescheduled for today and I doubt the grade 1 classes will be heading out to the snake dens to see the red-sided garter snakes today either. I'm pretty sure snakes don't dig the snow anymore than I dig them.

This is my 4th child to make the annual 1st grade trek out to the snake dens and each year they ask "mom, will you be a parent volunteer on the field trip" and each year I pass on the opportunity. Actually it's more like an 'over my dead body' sort of reply. Sorry. Not my thing kids. Go watch Anaconda with your father and leave me alone.

I get the heebie-geebies just thinking about wigglie little snakes. When Emily went on her trip to the dens one of the father's took amazing photos and I was fortunate (?) enough to receive a bunch which I scrapbooked. That was hard enough seeing my little girl holding a snake in a photo. Don't think I could have handled it in person.

Enough about snakes. Ewwww. Ick.

Back to the weather. Ewwww. Ick.

So there's this creek in my backyard. Flooded like crazy this spring. It's been a couple weeks since I'd taken a walk down there so I went wandering Tuesday night and took some updated water level pictures. I'm so glad I did because the sky opened up in the wee hours of that night and it poured buckets for a good portion of the day on Wednesday.

The "before" on the left, taken on Tuesday afternoon and the "after" on the right taken on Wednesday afternoon following about 12hours of heavy rainfall.

Aside from the weather sucking so did pretty much everything else.

I spent a lot of time - just me, myself and my gamecube on the couch this week avoiding everything, everyone and the endless phone calls from 1-800, credit card companies, the dentist, the truck leasing company etc. Adding to my crappy week was Al repeatedly saying things like "Are you going to get dressed today? Are you going to go to town today? Ae you going to call about that job today? Are you going to call back about that job today? ARGH!!!!

I did call. I did talk to someone and things looked good but when she didn't call back the next day or the day after he started again "Are you going to call again about that job today? Maybe you should call so and so about a different job"

Add to that the phone calls from people telling me about all the new people being trained at the store where I've been hoping to get hired or worse yet going into the store and seeing for myself all the trainees. It was depressing and I didn't want to leave my couch......so I didn't unless absolutely necessary. That's right. I admit it. I spent alot of time on the couch looking for spaceship parts and trying not to get all my little alien friends killed in the process. Nintendo Pikmin is WAY addictive. 4:30 in the morning addictive. Opppps. Kinda slept in and the kids missed the bus once ---- okay twice (the 2nd time it wasn't because of the gamecube though) this week.

Anyway. The week was kind of a bust. Laundry. Pikmin. Ignoring phonecalls. Moping around and feeling like crap. Even last night I was in no way thrilled at being forced off my couch to attend a bowling banquet but since Al was working I had no option.

BUT

While picking up a few things at the store for the banquet the week suddenly got a whole lot better. The girl from the store who I'd talked to early in the week and was supposed to hear back from and didn't spotted me and came over to talk. And just like I thought - she'd been really busy and just hadn't had a chance to get back to me (and all Al's fussing and stressing and making me feel 2 inches tall and like I wasn't going to get this job at all was for nothing) and right then and there we made arrangements for me to start probably wednesday of next week.

Whoooo Hoooo!

I'm so excited.

I still don't know what exactly I'll be doing or what sort of hours I'll have but I'm ((((this close)))) to having a job and the relief is just unbelievably wonderful.

And today...... I still spent some time on the couch playing gamecube and I've realized it's not because I've been in a funk and didn't want to get off the couch.....it's because the game is just so damn fun. I can't wait till the kids go to bed so I can have my turn again....and Al works till 2 so I won't even have to share the tv with him. Heeeheeeheee.

Gonna go see if the kids want to go outside and make a snowman now. Anyone know where I packed the mittens?

Have a wonderful long-weekend.

2009-05-09T23:49:00.004-05:00

Spring Concert tonight ........... 70+ dancers entertained over 200 people who came out to see them.

On stage is definately where my kiddos love to be!

Her face says it all

and he had a blast.

I'm proud of them and the whole club. They ALL deserved standing ovations!

A Little More Nature

2009-05-08T08:31:00.002-05:00

Owen and Emily are peering out the kitchen window this morning.

Owen: "Look Emily. Winter is back already!"
Emily: Ewwwwwww!
Mom: Don't worry. I'm sure it will be gone by this afternoon.
Owen: Awwwwwww!

What is wrong with that kid?

Should I have had his head examined when he ran into the car door Sunday morning?

In the grand scheme of head injuries that boy has experienced....a slight shiner is mild but maybe it rattled the insides more than we thought because really? He's disapointed the snow should be gone in a day or so - if that isn't cause for concern I don't know what it. Maybe the dent* on the other side of his head can talk some sense into him because the thought that this snow (which is still stubbornly falling in flakes instead of drops of rain) might hang around for any extended period of time is just not cool with me.

*between the ages of 20months and 24months he fell (or was dropped - long story) 3 times on his head. The first resulted in his eyes rolling into the back of his head and us making a mad dash to the ER (SCAREY!) 4 weeks later he fell off a bed and smacked the side of his face on a table resulting in a still visible dent (which he has named "Dent" and he says it talks to him occasionally...weird kid) and I probably should have taken him in to the ER but geeesh....we'd just been there. They were going to start talking if we kept showing up there with a damaged kid. The third time was Christmas Eve, about 10 minutes before 20 people were set to arrive for dinner. He fell backwards off a toy and smacked his head and cut it open. Thankfully the amount of blood outweighed the severity of the gash and I was able to clean him up and determine no ER trip was necessary. I almost went out and bought him a helmet. I still consider it some days because three 3 head injuries in 4 months when he was 2 was a pretty good indication of what the next 4 years would be like. He's forever got a shiner or a bruise on his face or forehead. The kids head must have some sort of magnetic force that attracts it to hard surfaces.

~K

A little nature

2009-05-08T00:27:00.000-05:00

Reading the blog written by my Sis and hearing about all the birds and flowers she's been taking pictures of all week, I thought I would share a few pictures from a couple weeks ago.

Sadly - no flowers here just yet. We've barely managed to get rid of the snow but hopefully soon......not that I plant any. Gardening isn't my thing, although I learned this weekend why we've had miserable luck in the past with growing pumpkins - who knew you had to get in there and pollinate them - so we may give that another try.

Anyway, Other Sis (Liz) brought mom a bird feeder that attaches to the window and she hung it in mom's kitchen window last time she was out. It sat untouched for a few days but as the weather warmed up so did the action at the feeder. These are pictures of the first wave of visitors - who don't seem to be around much anymore so they must have moved on.

I love the one peeking in through the window.

~K

The Good, The Bad & The Damp

2009-05-07T10:53:00.004-05:00

today is the first day all week that I haven't felt the need to take a nap by 10am. I think that has to do with the fact that I went to bed before 10pm last night and although I woke up at 1am (call of nature) and 6am (call of technology - darn kid's cell phone alarm is set for 6am! wth?!?!) and finally got up at 7:15. I think I've finally recovered from the weekend. Now if I could just get my house to recover from the weekend all would be golden. My scrapbook stuff is still scattered about.

We've had a good week/bad week around here and it seems, with the rain that began falling overnight....the rest of the week shall be a damp one, not to mention loud and muddy. Proof of this was when I opened the back door this morning. Since I'd gone to bed early, nobody thought to let the fat cat or the fatter dog in for the night. One was quite cranky about this fact and told me so. The other just left a trail of paw prints behind him as he brought his overweight self into my kitchen and shook. Point taken oh non-vocal mutt. This is the kind of weather where you just want to stay indoors.....and I haven't decided yet if I'm more inclined to make the kids stay inside and brave the sounds of cooped up kids or kick em outside and deal with the inevitable mud and laundry. Since Owen left his jacket outside last night, I'm already ahead of the game as far as wet clothes go.

I think this rain also puts a brief stop to the walks we've been taking lately. Okay. I admit. Mostly it's been Al and the kids walking but I did take them one night while he was at work. This may sound silly but this is a new activity for us. Not the walking part, but the walking around here part. Living on a busy highway, it's not exactly high on my list of things to encourage the children to do and up until now we've limited our walks to being an 'in town' activity. Now that the kids are older, we're more comfortable (ish....i found it way stressful personally) with taking the 1/4 mile walk along the side of the highway to the gravel road and then letting the kids run wild as we walk a half mile or so before turning around and heading back. Somehow I'm not keen on taking that trek in the rain or even shortly after any rain as the cars go flying past us is sure to make for loads of laundry.

I must say, I'm a little nervous about the start of this rain. A couple of the blogs I read on a daily basis have mentioned lately an abundance of rainfall of biblical proportions and there has been mention of Ark living....or indoor living a time or two as well. We are only on day one of the rain here and I sure hope it doesn't last too long. I don't like boats. Of course, I don't like snow shovels either and I heard rumor of dropping temperatures and the possibilities of this rain going all flakey on me.

Hearing the rain on the roof when I first woke up this morning did bring a slight smile to my face though.....because I am not outside working in it. Hahaha It's funny how perspective changes things. Closing our business was hard (and still is hard at times) but we realize more each day how much of a blessing it has been. Regular readers may remember Al's doctors visit when he was getting that physical for his class 1 license and the concern his doctor had with his blood pressure and weight. Well, he went for a follow-up earlier this week and his blood pressure is almost perfect. That new low-stress, minumum wage job of his seems to be working wonders. The lack of money....and lack of ice cream seems to be helping too. He's dropped 5lbs.

Of course my blood pressure is probably making up for his as I struggle to make ends meet and deal with the mountain of paperwork still left to do for the business. Selling those trucks parked infront of my house - constant reminders of money owed to people that we won't have until they sell - would help too. Seems the guy we thought would for sure buy them is just yanking us around and now he says he doesn't need them.....right now. Ugh! General consensus is he figures since the trucks are so specialized there won't be a huge demand for them so he's got time and by waiting as long as possible till we will be so desperate we have no choice but to let them go for cheap. He doesn't realize that the longer he waits the more money we will need and we've had other people ask about them....although nothing has come of their interest either so far.

On top of this money stuff....... I'm sure I've found those 5lbs Al lost. Maybe I need to go for that walk tonight - rain or not. Naw....think I'll just go make a batch of brownies and stay inside where it's warm and dry and listen to the cat complain. He's asked to go out twice already but then just sits in the doorway looking at me like it's my fault it's still raining.

~K

Suggestion Duely Noted and Taken Into Consideration

2009-05-05T17:02:00.003-05:00

It's another one of those "I'm speechless" moments in my life.

I hate when the school calls and puts me on the spot and I can't think of how to respond without sounding all snarky (although I probably did anyway) and I'm sick of being called about the stupidest things and being made to feel like I've just been scolded like a child and told what to do.

As I've stated before, I'm not the worlds best advocate for my kid. Mostly I think because I just don't have the answers and I'm at a loss for what to do most of the time to begin with so when challenged on things I freeze up.

I've been getting increasingly frusterated by the situation at school with my oldest (who turned 17 yesterday and I'm still dealing with the reality of that....and the grey hair I found even though I just coloured my hair last week. UGH!) and it's come to the point where a couple weeks ago I had a dream that I pulled her out of school completely and decided that I would homeschool her. In my dream it totally worked and we had the most amazing success with the plan. In reality I can't see it working well at all for numerous reasons such as....we don't get along --- at all and we'd probably kill each other. Not to mention the fact I'm totally disorganized and wouldn't know what to do or where to start.

Today is another one of those days were I have the disillusioned idea that I could and should do it.

Today's call from the resource coordinator was about our daughter not bringing a lunch and I guess she was trying to be constructive about the situation but her tone and words were so condescending that it just got me all defensive and I'm completely put off by her attitude. We've actually discussed this issue a few times over the year and really, I don't know what to do about it. I can't force my daughter to take a lunch and I'm not at the school to monitor her and make her eat her lunch if she does take one. She's left on her own during lunch (which I've expressed concern with) so what do they expect me to do. Well I guess they are getting complaints regarding Aarica asking for money or food from students (again....we went through this in the fall too....and then she was even asking teachers/staff for money). So the coordinator offered suggestions such as us sending in money for her to have in her account at the caffeteria - wasn't an option in the fall and it's definately not an option for us now. She seemed a bit annoyed that I couldn't accomodate this and then she suggested we bring in food such as a loaf of bread and lunch meat or cup of soup etc that can be stored there and our daughter can make herself a sandwich or whatever to have for lunch.

Now forgive me if I'm way wrong in my thinking here but my child has special needs but that doesn't make her so special that the rules don't apply to her (even though she likes to think that way) and there is absolutely no reason she cannot take a lunch made at home each morning just like her brothers and sister do. NO reason at all....except that she's a stubborn thing and refuses to take a lunch. Period. If she can't have money for the cafeteria she doesn't want anything at all.

So I told the coordinator I would see what I could do and ended the call as quickly after that as possible. I couldn't figure out a way of telling her I didn't see that suggestion working for me either and I was really tired of having to justify my reasons to her. I'm struggling hard enough to squeeze the basics out of our food budget without having to purchase a seperate loaf and package of meat that will be kept at school on the off chance our daughter might get around to eatting it....which I'm almost positive she wouldn't.

When Aarica got home I pulled her aside and told her I'd gotten a call from the school and asked her what was going on.....who she'd been mooching money and food off of etc....and she lied and said she wasn't and then said her friends 'offered' and I'm not buying it one bit. I told her she doesn't have a choice and would be taking a lunch from now on and her responses were "I'll just forget it here" and I told her I'd duct tape it to her damn forehead if I had to but she was taking a lunch. She says she won't eat it and well...I guess that's the chance I will take - and the food I will waste - but I sure as heck am not treating her any different than the rest of my kids who survive quite fine on the packed lunch made at home that they take to school with them every day.....and sometimes they even eat it.

~K

The best part of my day

2009-05-05T12:34:00.004-05:00

yesterday (besides the long nap I took mid-morning) was hearing about Owen's best part of his day. He came home from school so excited to tell me about his day. From the moment he got off the bus he was in a cheerful mood and I think that was partly due to his declaration that........ "I didn't fall asleep on the bus today mom". I can tell when he's been woken up just seconds before having to get off the bus. He's half asleep and cranky, especially when the older kids bolt down the driveway and leave him behind. Today he was bright-eyed (getting him to sleep at half decent times the last couple nights might be helping too) and ready to tell me the best part of his day.

The conversation twisted and turned and started in the middle so I had to get him to back-track a bit so I could get all the details but the gist of it was that his class got to participate in "Artist in the Classroom" yesterday and this months artist is a young actor that has been sharing the technique of Improv with the classes.

Owen: Hey Mom - Me and Jayden and Aiden and Dane got to be a dryer today.

Mom: A dryer? Like a clothes dryer?

Owen: Ya! It was cool!

Mom: That is cool. You learned to do laundry....so now I don't have to.

Owen: NO!!!! We got to BE the dryer....and I was the door and then we said vroooooooommmmmm (making a sound that in his mind was a dryer running....but would be cause for concern if my real dryer sounded like that ---- it was more on the scale of an airplane preparing for takeoff. Although, that much power would probably dry clothes really fast).

So, while my hopes that laundry duties could be taken over by my 6yr old (a skill they could gladly teach in school thankyouverymuch) have been dashed, it was great that he enjoyed this Improv class so much. His group (which he repeatedly told me included "me, Jayden, Aiden and Dane" which was too cute) also did something with sharks and a third thing which at the moment I can't remember. Apparently though, being a household appliance was the big hit of the day.

Emily threw in her two cents about this particular Artist in the Classroom experience as well and I learned that her group was a lava lamp (she was the lava which btw is entirely more interesting to be than the cord that plugs the lamp into the wall LOL ) and an airplane.

My memories of elementary school (now called Early Years K-4) involved spelling workbooks, creative writing assignments and math homework. There were no Improv classes. No complaints though. This Artist in the School program (which is paid for by fundraising done by parents) is an awesome thing. Over the years they have experienced such a wide variety of activities from writing stories or poems with writers, writing songs with a musician, playing musical instruments from Africa, leaning dances from various countries, done pottery and painted murals and acting and puppetry. So many things I'm thankful they've had the opportunity to experience.

And speaking of the things they learn at school today (as compared to back in my day)

Last week I was helping my High School kids choose their courses for next year I was quite baffled by a number of the course options and I admit a wee bit jealous! One grade 10 option is a full credit little number made up of two half courses in digital filmmaking and digital pictures. Sigh! And the grade 11 component to this course involves website design/interactive websites and broadcast media/interactive media. Geesh. When I was in school that was A/V or photography club and it was an afterschool or lunch time 'extra-curricular'. I tried to convince the boy to take that course just so I could help him with his homework. The one that threw me though is a grade 9 elective called Recreation Studies which according to the handbook, is a course revolving around wilderness survival skills, outdoorsmanship, nature studies and mountainbiking and includes an overnight bike trip which is planned and executed by the students in the class. HUH? Again.....this would have been an 'extra curicular' club. Oh and Drama.....also an extra curicular in my day.....now a full credit course available in grade 10 and grade 11.

and the kids just got home from school and according to Owen the best thing about today is......"Nothing" Seems his teacher was a little "yellie" today....and I've seen the pack of 6yr old boys she has in her class. Some days she looks a wee bit frazzled at the end of the day. Poor girl.

I have to agree with Owen though. So far, there's nothing good about school today. Just before the kids got home I got a call from the high school resource coordinator. I'm somehow 'in trouble' again with this woman but I'll have to fill ya'll in on the details a little later after I've collected my thoughts and no longer feel the need to talk in CAPITAL LETTERS. I'm feeling a little YELLIE myself at the moment. Grrrrrr

~K

A Wonderful....But Long Weekend

2009-05-04T09:13:00.004-05:00

I'm glad it's over but sorry at the same time. One one hand it was so very long and on the other it didn't last nearly long enough.

I celebrated National Scrapbooking Weekend by hosting a weekend long crop and while I'd hoped to have higher attendance, I'm glad now that it was a small, personal event rather than anything else. Just my mother-in-law and two of her sisters, one sister-in-law and one of her friends (a 2nd friend ended up being unable to join us) and another sister-in-law who joined in for a few hours Saturday and Sunday. It was almost perfect. I missed the company of my scrapping buddy (yes....that means you sitting there at your desk at work.... I think we are now owed at least one un-interupted day in my dining room to make up for this weekend....bring the new blender!) and another sister-in-law who had planned to be here but instead is out in Kelowna attempting to sell/rent out her house in an effort to be home (as in HERE) permanently by June 1st! It would have been beyond perfect if a few of my other scrapping family & friends who live too far away (but are always near in my heart) could have been here too. Other than the few missing and missed people, this weekend was wonderful!!! and wonderfully tiring.

By late Friday night there was whispering among the others of plans for doing this again. By Saturday morning they had picked a date. For awhile afterwards, everytime they mentioned "October" I shuddered at the thought of pulling all this together again in a few short months but I do believe it has been decided. We are going to have a small, private scrapbook weekend again the first weekend in October. Everyone who wants to participate will be divided into teams and each team will be responsible to provide, serve and clean up from one meal and everyone will share in the organization of the weekend ---- just a family and friends scrapping weekend deal and we split the costs of hall rental and just have fun. Sounds like a perfect plan to me. I'm not up for organizing the whole event again anytime soon.

I can't say I got a whole lot done this weekend. All together I came home with 6 new pages (and one of them I have to "fix" because I realize that I have the wrong info on it) and 4 partially completed pages and I admit that much of what I did do was either finishing (or working on) pages I'd started previously or pages done as part of demos for the weekend. Nope - not a lot done.....but I still had a great time. For me, personally, the purpose of crop is more about the socializing and fellowship than the number of pages I bring home.......and in that respect I got a lot done this weekend.

and today......I need a nap.

~K

Stop-Payment

2009-05-01T14:11:00.005-05:00

Those are hard words to deal with.

We've had to put a stop-payment on the automatic payment for the lease of the truck this morning. There's no money in the bank account to cover it. It's come to that and I hate it. Al's cousin, who is in the truck sales business, figures we have about three months before things get to the point where the lease company will repossess the truck for non-payment. I hope he's right because there's a whole lot of fine print in that lease agreement and the word immediately pops up quite often regarding this matter. What I really hope is that one of the people who've said they may be interested in buying the damn thing will show up with money in hand already because I hate this feeling of being so totally helpless.

I've been working on a scrapbook page (ya....last minute stuff for crop this weekend.....darn procrastination gene) and it's pictures of my kids taken last summer and I was trying to come up with a title or something to go on it. I had to pop into the city yesterday to get adhesive refills......and birthday presents and I heard a song on the radio that not only made me cry (lots!) but also screamed to be used on this layout. I can't wait to get a chance to finish the page tonight.

"My Wish" by Rascal Flatts

I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,

But more than anything, more than anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.

But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

This is my wish
I hope you know somebody loves you
May all your dreams stay big

*****

Beautiful Song! It's my wish for my kids....and for everyone!
Have a beautiful weekend. For my scrapping friends -- Happy National Scrapbooking Day tomorrow and know that I miss you all and wish you were here....or I was there with you. I'll be thinking of you!

~K

I can't say I'm crazy

2009-04-29T08:36:00.004-05:00

about this "New Normal" we've got going on here.

I'm not digging it at all. Everything is so backwards and upside down that's it's got me a little off track lately. It's not so much that New Normal is horrible....it's just well.....NEW.....and taking some getting used to.

In Old Normal, Al was the morning person in this house & I was the night person. My happy zone was 2am when everyone was asleep and the house was quiet and I could putter or be creative or just sit and watch tv without interuption. I would sleep through any alarm and wake only when the noise from the chaos of kids scrambling to get ready for the bus would jolt me from my sleep. Coffee would be ready and my entire responsibility was to intervene and difuse sibling tension and supervise last minute efforts to get out the door by 8:10 for the bus.

In New Normal, with Al working 4-midnight (or 2am on weekends) things have changed. After sleeping in at least 4 times in the last couple weeks and missing the school bus, my brain has clued into the fact that it's now up to "us" to hear that alarm and get up.

At 7am. Ack!

Suddenly I'm in charge of making lunches, making sure (almost) everyone eats breakfast, brushes their teeth and keeping the siblings from lashing out at each other and.......I have to make my own coffee. For the most part, mornings have been fairly calm and they haven't been late for school in two whole days but that doesn't mean I'm digging this new morning routine....especially since I'm still not going to bed till almost 1am at which point I'm so darn exhausted I'm asleep before I hit the pillow.

It's also taking some getting used to the New Normal where most evenings I'm on my own with the kids. Not that it's a terrible thing but there is no 3rd party to provide assistance when the siblings are being siblings or someone needs to be taken to/picked up from afterschool activities or to provide backup when my demands to help with dishes/take a shower/go to bed are being ignored......and I have to make my own coffee! This also goes the other way too because while I'm solo with the kids alot, their dad doesn't see them as much as he would like. For a couple days at a time he's at work when the kids get home from school, they are asleep when he gets home from work and still sleeping when they leave for school the next morning.

My days are also all backwards and upside down because I'm NEVER alone! Ever. Al's home during the day when I'm used to having at least a couple days of having the house to myself during the week. I work best when I'm alone with my own thoughts and I can do what I need to do without interuption. In Old Normal, even when he wasn't 'at work' there were still small jobs or errands he'd be out doing during the day. Not in New Normal. I need to find him a hobby. Do you think I could convince him he likes playing golf ? and by golf I mean real golf.....not Tiger Woods on PS2 golf.

On the upside of him being home during the day he was able to attend our son's choral speaking performance at the Festival of the Arts this week and he has plans to go to watch our daughter's orff performance tomorrow......and I'm sending him to the school assembly this afternoon where our son will receive a certificate for being kind and generous at school. These are things he's always missed out on in Old Normal so New Normal does have it's good points. Plus.......when he's home during the day I don't have to make my own coffee.

~K

Silver! Gold! Gold! Gold!

2009-04-27T12:40:00.005-05:00

The kids brought home the hardware this weekend!

I'm so proud of them for dancing with all their heart and determination....medals are just icing.

They ROCKED!

It's great that they are rewarded for a job well done with high marks, praise and medals of any colour from the adjudicators --- but as their instructor says if you're happy with your performance and you had fun that is all that matters.

My reward is seeing them on stage where I know they love to be. I will also admit I love listening to the people around me when they comment about the kids on stage when they just happen to be mine....or ones that I know.

Big proud moments this weekend watching all our kids ROCK IT!

Other highlights of the weekend included me loosing my mind Friday morning before leaving the house....not a proud moment but it happens occasionally. Feeding the kids donuts for supper on Saturday night....again not a mom-o-the-year moment but they didn't seem to mind. Some of the better moments were getting to play with the kids in the pool and taking pics of the kids playing in the pool on Friday night and then managing to squeeze in one more hour of awesome pool time for them Saturday afternoon......and since Owen was miraculously comfortable in this particular pool, we were able to sit on the deck and watch them play....together....without fighting....all 4 of them. Awesome! A rare occasion where teens and young'uns all got along. It lasted all of an hour but I'll take it where I get it.

The weekend wasn't insanely rush-rush which was nice and the hotel being right across the street from the competition site was perfect. We ended up staying the 2nd night afterall and popping over to Al's cousins' hotel so the kids could swim and play together (and I could accidently drink a bottle of wine) and relax. Unfortunately I found out when we checked out that the quoted price for our hotel room wasn't the actual price and we ended up paying more than expected but without having the actual email with the quoted price on it with me what could I do. It was an expensive weekend so that extra $50 doesn't make that much difference...and the huge (and I do mean huge) room and the location made it worth it.

Competition weekend is over for another year. Where will we go next year? Brandon again? Yorkton? Next up - Spring Concert in a couple weeks.....and then we are done till September.

Off to finish up the last of the weekend laundry. Have a good afternoon.

~K

I'm out

2009-04-24T09:25:00.002-05:00

of my mind. Completely.

Not quite yet out of my house.

There's still some last minute packing to do.....but not before I have my morning coffee and blog fix. All work and no play makes me.......cranky and nobody wants a cranky me on a 3 hour road-trip.

We're a little off schedule this morning. A snarky teen....who spent the last 24 hours insisting she was NOT coming with us helped achieve this. Her attitude has been adjusted.

But, since we don't really have to be there till 8am tomorrow morning I guess our schedule is flexible.

That is of course unless the wavepool/waterslide that has been the object of much anticipation has really crappy hours and we'd thought it might be possible to arrive there intime to make use of the 11:30am - 1pm Family swim time this morning. Since that would have required leaving the house over an hour ago that is most definately NOT going to happen so now my children, who have been looking forward to pool time (and our hotel does not have one of it's own....but is directly across the street from said public pool for all the good that does us) will have a wonderful 2 hours all weekend to swim - from 7-9pm tonight. Oh boy!

Saturday's 'pool hours' do not coordinate with out schedule at all as the only public times available are from 1:30-7 and we will be dancing between those times.....so 2 hours is all they get. At least we are lucky enough to not have dances between 7 and 9 tonight....unlike some families. Talk about disapointment.

Anyway, the reason we are going is for the dancing and there will be plenty of that to watch.

Have a great weekend. I'll be back late Saturday night or sometime Sunday - we haven't decided yet if that 2nd night in the hotel at $111 a night is do-able. Either way....I will be back with plenty of pictures to share.

Oh darn. Forgot to empty the card in my camera. Better go do that and pack the extra batteries too.

~K

This is a Public Service Announcement of the Murphey's Law Weather System

2009-04-23T08:20:00.002-05:00

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm packing up all the kids winter coats, snowpants & boots.....well except Owen's because he's still wearing his. It's the only thing he has that fits him and I can't find a pair of shoes in his size anywhere in this town.

It's been quite a few weeks since they've needed snowpants and a week or so that they have been in their spring jackets and sweaters and the ground seems to be drying up fairly well so I'm going to take the chance and pack the winter stuff away. Just don't blame me when 3 ft of snow falls. It's not my fault!

A year ago this weekend the temps soared to almost 30 degrees....you remember....those first few days of the three weeks of Summer we had last year. I don't think we are quite to that point yet but the weather has been fairly decent recently so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

On second thought, I just looked at the Weather Network and they are calling for rain/snow showers and light flurries on Monday/Tuesday next week. Maybe I should wait a little longer before I pack this stuff away. I dunno. What do you think?

~K

At the top of my list today....

2009-04-22T13:28:00.005-05:00

is laundry.

Well it's at the top of most of my lists anyday but today is laundry of a different sort.

Dance costume laundry.

Oh the stress. Do you know how scarey it is to put dance costumes in the washing machine?

VERY SCAREY!

Because what happens if the washing machine eats them (don't laugh...it's happened)

But before I could even get the dance laundry into the washer I had to switch the load that was in the washer into the dryer and before I could do that I had to turn the dryer back on to fluff up and unwrinkle what was sitting in there from yesterday.....because that's just how I roll with laundry. It's one of my quirks. I hate wrinkles...... in my clothes. Not particularly fond of the ones around my eyes either but I don't think tossing myself in the dryer will even those out.

I push the button.

Huh.

Nothing happened.

Huh.

I push the button again.

Again nothing.

Huh.

Well doesn't that just plain suck.

Breaker's fine. Dryer's not.

Huh.

Just so happens, when friends of ours moved last fall they dropped their old dryer off at our place (because my backyard is a graveyard of old appliances....hope the price of metal goes up soon because now that all the snow is gone it's just plain ugly out there).

Next thing I know Al's hauling said old dryer into the house and I'm thinking....Really? You expect a dryer that's been sitting outside for nine months to actually work?

But you know what.

It does......and I'm so damn happy.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am.

Earth Day or not I am just not the kind of person who can live with drying clothes on a laundry line because even if I dry them on the line, they still have to go into the dryer for a few minutes after they come off the line. Another quirk.

So after having visions of line drying pre-road trip laundry.....or more than likely hauling a couple loads to town and either tossing a couple bucks into one of the jumbo dryers at the laundry-mat or using my mom's dryer - crisis averted. Whooo hoo!

And now, the shirts, blouses and slips for dancing are in the washing machine and I'm a nervous wreck.

I did find all the pieces for the new blouse I'd started to make Emily last year and never got a chance to finish. The trim is all attached and the body is together and the sleeves are ready to attach. All it needs is the neck piece pinned on and if I had three functioning brain cells I could probably whip up a finished blouse in about an hour (give or take four) but something tells me, if I haven't finished the damn thing in over a year, I'm not going to get it done in the next day.....so she will wear her old one, that's a touch on the small side, and has a slight tear in one shoulder (where the washing machine tried to eat it).

I also found the shirt I have for Owen that just needs trim....but I don't have any 'boy' trim in the house and I don't think I could get away with 'girl' trim so I guess he will wear Garrett's shirt again this weekend. Eventually though we are going to have to return it because one day this little guy is going be big enough to fit his daddy's old dance shirt.

Time to go check on the items in the washing machine. Oh please let them all be in one piece. I can't take anymore laundry chaos today.

Or any chaos.

When the kids get home they have to try everything on before I pack it up. I sure hope everything fits......but I have a feeling Owen's sash is going to be ifffy.

Note to self.....self.....don't forget to pick up a pack of safety pins.....I think we are going to need them.

~K

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

2009-04-22T07:56:00.000-05:00

Here's an *I Wonder Why?* from last Wednesday. I think I was so stunned that I just couldn't put it into words at the time.

I wonder why......

my almost 17year old daughter is standing behind me

in the grocery store

when she should be on the school bus

on her way home.

Actually, I wonder why wasn't really my first thought.

It was more of a What the hell are you doing here?!?! kind of moment

followed by a What the hell was the bus driver thinking?!?! kind of moment.

I was literally speechless, probably because my jaw was on the floor, and it took a few moments before I'd regained my ability to speak and then ohhhh baby did she get an ear full.....and then her father took her to the van and she continued to get an ear full while I finished picking up a few groceries.

From what I was able to piece together, one of the girls on her bus works at the grocery store and the bus driver was dropping her off at the store. My daughter, convinced that she saw our van in the parking lot and that we were in the store shopping, decided she was going to get off the bus too. Now technically, since she found us in the store, she wasn't wrong in her assumption that we were there BUT considering there are at least 3 steel blue/grey Uplander vans in town (I know because I've almost climbed into at least one of them by mistake) it could have easily not been our van she'd seen in the parking lot.

Her quick thinking brother, armed with his new cell phone sent me a text message asking where I was and I assured him that I was indeed at the store and in the company of his sister and that I was NOT happy with his sister OR the bus driver and thanked him for checking in with me about the situation. At least he realized there was a problem with the whole deal. The bus driver sure as heck didn't.

I was and actually still am quite floored.

Whatever possessed the bus driver to allow our daughter, our 17yr old with the critical thinking skills of a 6 yr old to get off the bus. I'm not one for labels and such but come on! The term "Special Needs Child" has to count for something and in my world it means at all times someone responsible must be watching out for my daughter because she is in many ways incapable of being responsible for herself. And the bus driver KNOWS this! She's 'pulled the wool over his eyes' once before when he first became our driver like two years ago. He knows not to believe her.....and yet he let her get off that bus.

When she was asked what she would have done if we hadn't been at the store she didn't have a clue. What-If questions are way too abstract. She eventually came up with a couple not completely wrong answers but definately not the correct response in that situation. Her ideas involved walking about a mile either in one direction or another to either of her grandparents' houses on the off chance that someone would be home and in all likelihood she would have either become lost along the way or more believable she would have been sidetracked and become totally lost. Never did she consider asking to use the telephone at the store or asking any of the dozen or more people that she knows who work there for help.

AND......she is completely oblivious to the fact that she did anything wrong.

And a week later......I'm still floored!

~K

Income less expenses equals

2009-04-20T01:27:00.004-05:00

one huge headache.

Is there room in my budget for a super-size bottle of Advil?

Help me. I'm so confused.

I'm determined I will fit luxuries like cell phones and satelite for the tv into my budget if it kills me. You'll notice internet isn't considered a 'luxury'. That's right up there with food darlings. You can't get rid of my rambling that easily. haha

Anyway. Last night I went on a quest to lower the cost of ~~keeping the kids busy so I can blog~~ ummm ~~watching Amazing Race~~ having satelite service.

I'm so CONFUSED! What the heck is the difference between digital and HD and don't I need an HD tv for HD service and what exactly am I paying for and do I really need all 900 freaking channels when all we watch are about 12 of them?

Our service providers website is enough to make you wanna pull your hair out. I think their site runs sooooo slow on dial-up in an attempt to make me click the link to see what their internet service would cost. I think it would have been faster to call and sit on hold waiting for a customer service rep.

Two frusterating hours later - it turns out that my 'grandfathered-in' old package provides me with more service than what I would get for the exact same amount of money if I switched to their absolute lowest priced package and got 10 of the 12 channels we watch and to get those other 2 channels would cost me about $5 bucks more each month......so I guess what I'm saying here is I either suck it up and keep what I have or have absolutely nothing.

Darn!

You know what else I've learned with this little 'lets trim expenses' field trip into just what everything is costing me. The sneaky buggers are well.....sneaky. Sure they don't raise the rates of things - they just add on system access fees. For example - my home phone, which is solely for the purpose of providing my dial-up internet a way to well.....dial up. It seems that even though I have not made any long distance phone calls on my home phone in the last month I still have long distance charges. Apparently I don't read my bills closely enough - actually, I find not reading them at all helps me sleep at night but I digress, apparently even though I don't make long distance phone calls I get to pay for the priviledge of having the ability of making them by paying a long distance network charge of $2.95. Hadn't noticed that little gem earlier. Oh but they were kind enough to not charge me for putting a long distance restriction on my phone because it was past due.

I also noticed the phone company has petitioned the government to allow a .98 increase to basic service. I wonder if they would be open to the suggestion of taking that extra $11.98 they will get from me over the course of the next year and come out and ~~put $2 worth of rodent bait in~~ seal up the junction box so the mice don't fill the darn thing with 2lbs of soya beans this fall and disrupt my service....again.

I'm off to see where else I can possibly trim some fat.

The kids like mac n cheese and hotdogs.

For Sale

2009-04-19T08:52:00.001-05:00

A few days ago Al bought a couple For Sale signs to put in the trucks. These signs resulted in a few interesting conversations.

Emily: What are the signs for?

Mom: You kids. We are selling you all.

Emily: Not me! I'm the good one. The smart one. The cute one. The funny one.

Mom: The modest one too......and the biggest sign is for you. You're the one we figure we can get the most money for.

She gave me one of her 'whatever' looks and walked away unconcerned.

Darn. I was hoping to get a couple hours of room cleaning and chores out of them if they believed me even just a little bit.

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

Owen: Dad, what's this big sign for?

Dad: The trucks.

Owen: The little truck right? .....right?

Dad: No. The big sign is for the big truck kiddo.

Owen: MY big truck?

You should have seen his face. I thought he was going to cry.

He took the sign and ran, calling back .....I'm going to hide it and then you can't sell my big truck!

Ouch!

That's going to be a tough day that I'm not looking forward too. Unfortunately it's not up for debate. The trucks have to sell.....and soon. The lease company isn't going to be very happy when I put a stop-payment on their money at the end of the month. Anyone want to buy a truck? Just a truck. The kids aren't really for sale. I've been told I can get into a whole mess of trouble if I put them on ebay.

People have said we shouldn't discuss money or how bad things are infront of the kids but they aren't stupid. They see what's going on. I cry at the drop of a hat these days so it's easier for them to know why then to hide the reality of what's happening. Besides, it's kind of obvious when the businesses that has been run out of their home for their entire lives suddenly stops and their dad goes and gets a new job that something's going on. I'm certainly not about to lie to them about why we picked up a food hamper from the local foodbank last week or why there is no money to get new shoes even though they need them or why there is a good chance they won't have tv next month.....because believe me....there would be no hiding that tidbit of news.

Reality sucks but I'm not about to hide it from my kids and no matter what, they know we are somehow going to come out of this okay.

Somedays I even believe that myself.

~K

It's a good thing he's cute

2009-04-18T09:35:00.005-05:00

Owen: Dad why did you marry Mom?

Dad: Because I thought she was cute.

Owen: I think I'm going to puke.

End of conversation.

I'm speechless.

It's a good thing he's cute.

Is it over yet?

2009-04-17T22:26:00.007-05:00

Friday already. I don't think I've ever been more ready for a week to be over. TGIF!

I can't really say what it was about this week in particular that made it so rough but it just seems to have dragged me down and every time I thought I was feeling a little better, something kicked me again.

I spent quite a bit of time this week down by the creek, camera in hand, watching the amazing forces of nature in the forms of ice jams and massive volumes of violently rushing water.

April 14th - late morning before the heat of the sun broke the ice up completely.

April 16th early afternoon - the water is higher than yesterday and rushing much faster. The sky was cloudy and it was drizzling a bit but no actual rain thankfully. The water is usually on this side of all those trees and the trees are on the far bank. Now the water just flows straight across and barely follows the natural curve of the creek.
Beautiful. Ugly. Terrifying. Amazing.

How can something be all those things at once.

While our creek is technically flooded and looks nothing like the tiny trickle we can normally step across in mid summer but more like a rushing river and in places a small lake, we are in no danger of flooding to our home or actual property unlike some local areas or like the massive destruction and loss in other areas of the province.

In a way I feel bad that I am marveling at the natural disaster that has torn through our backyard but for some reason this week, down by the creek is one of the few places I feel at peace. I can relax there and get away from all the little things that have kicked at me all week.

Maybe it's because being down by the creek, seeing all that water, I know that in a few months it will look completely different. That the water will eventually slow down and things will return to normal and even if it looks a little different than it did last year, it will be okay. Maybe being down by the creek gives me hope that in a few months, even though our lives may be a little different, eventually the chaos will pass and everything will be okay.

June 7, 2008 - after a week of heavy rainfall. This is summer flooding of the creek.

October 23, 2008 This is normal creek levels. Even after a summer of rain there isn't much flow to the creek by late October. No beaver dam this summer to keep water in the far south end of the creek like in the past couple years. Maybe this year though. I caught a couple quick pictures of a beaver (So Cool!) while taking pictures of the flooding on Tuesday evening on the bank of the creek (the bank wasn't visible by Thursday) just to the left of the fallen tree in the top left of the picture.

This is the same tree (photo taken October 23, 2008) as seen in the middle of the 'river' in the 2nd picture. From the looks of things it won't be quite the same once the water receeds.

~K

Well lookie that - I lost a week

2009-04-16T10:08:00.005-05:00

A whole week without a post. It's like I dropped off the planet. Oh how I wish!

I didn't though. I'm still here.

Still here in body -although I did loose myself amongst the clutter of this house for a brief period of time....thanks for sending a search party!

Still here in mind too ........ but not by much.

I noticed I started a couple posts on the weekend but apparently I didn't finish any of them. I just reread one of them and maybe that's a good thing. One should not blog while under the influence of Benadryl All-In-One Cold and Flu....nighttime edition (I skipped the daytime version and went straight for the hard stuff). That post was a bit over the top rambling-wise even for me.

When asked why I hadn't written a new post lately I thought, I don't have much to say.

But really.

I'm not lacking for material to blog about.

How can I be.

So much is going on right now....what with things SUCKING so bad lately. I could surely ramble on about that. Or how badly I'm doing with this whole quitting smoking thing. Then there is the sudden arrival of spring complete with flooding like I've never seen. My camera has been in overdrive the past 3 days as I take picture after picture of the normally tiny creek in my back yard turning into an angry rushing river. The frusterating antics of the teen drama queen who has done some way stupid things the past couple days that made my head spin round would make for good blogging as would the wonderful spring ritual of parent/teacher conferences at school last night.

Oh ya. I do not lack for material. Just the brain power. Evil head cold!

~K

whew...what a day

2009-04-09T17:47:00.003-05:00

I got slightly sidetracked earlier ( surprised? didn't think so)

then got to work. Ugh! Too much math. I couldn't think straight and my books weren't adding up. Took all afternoon but found the errors.

and I had one way huge panic attack (slightly due to lack of having a smoke to smoke but not completely)

and a couple minor meltdowns (complete with tears)

but I made it through my day and finished the government paperwork I had to finish and I made it all the way through all that math without a smoke. My frazzled nerves couldn't take it anymore though and I begged Al to bring me a pack of which he is now in charge of so I won't be able to smoke em cuz I got em.

I'm happy I found where the 'missing' money was.....unfortunately it wasn't in the place I'd hoped it would be (like the other column!) and I underpaid the government a few times over the year and geesh, where am I gonna find that $168.36.

There were a few moments when I thought of putting all the financial stuff through the paper shredder and mailing it all to the Governor General in lieu of a cheque and telling the government where they could stick it all.

It's very hard emotionally and mentally, doing all this stuff for a business that doesn't exist anymore.

Next week........ we do the GST !

I can't freakin wait!

Would u believe me if I said...I was confused?

2009-04-09T09:30:00.004-05:00

Really.

I am.

I could have swore I wrote a new post (or at least started one) for today only I can't find it. Maybe I just imagined I wrote it....but I'm sure I really did. I wonder what it said.....because I can't for the life of me remember now. That's actually why I blog - because I can't remember what I did or thought on any given day and I love writing things down but paper just doesn't work for me.

I have a love hate relationship with paper.

My whole house is cluttered with the stuff. Everything from pretty (neglected) scrapbook papers and notebooks and post-it-notes, kids art projects and stories and song lyrics (oh boy are there pages and pages of half written song lyrics EVERYWHERE!) and bills and accounting files and more bills and junk mail and more bills. The purpose of blogging was to have a place to write, sans paper clutter, where I wouldn't loose things.....and now I've gone and lost a half written blog post.

How ironic.

I'm pretty sure the missing blog post had something to do with money. I have a love hate relationship with that stuff too. I'd love to have some and hate that I don't. Simple as that.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Missing blog post.

It might have had something to do with Al's first paycheque from his new job which was direct deposited overnight and is now sitting in my bank account - briefly....this months van payment will take care of a good chunk of it. Maybe it was about that. I don't really remember....I should write these things down.

Maybe it was about my not smoking.....but probably not because that's not going so well. But I'm working on it.

Doubt it's about my getting a job because as I said before....nobody's beating down my door to hire me ---- although 2 hours after I said that the first time, I did get a call about a possible job that might be available in the next few weeks. I'm not sure I really want the job but if the store I put an application into doesn't pan out in the next 3 weeks (I called yesterday to check on the situation and was told it would be at least 3 weeks before they are hiring) or so and I do get offered this other job I might just have to suck it up and take it.

Whatever it was about. It's gone now - so this one will have to take it's place. I might even come back later and write an afternoon post. But for now, my time is up and I must go. I've got the whole house to myself today and I'm going to make the best of it and tackle my ~~To Do list~~ I-Think-I-Might list.

~K

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

2009-04-08T08:56:00.002-05:00

I wonder why........

it's Wednesday already.

Where does the time go?

And believe me I know all about Mickey's big hand and Mickey's little hand and how time works.....so there is no need to leave me a comment on the concept of the passage of hours, minutes & seconds....although you could if you wanted to. It'll give me something to read later.

My sis posted on her blog yesterday about all the things she thought about doing. She's either wanting to do nothing or wanting to do a million things all at once and feels like she's on an ever spinning wheel.

Oh boy... I can relate to that!

I can think of a million things I want to do and I want to do them all right now but first I have to do a half a million other things before I can get to the ones I want to do. Most days I barely get through the things I have to do (like grocery shopping yesterday ---- it took FOREVER!) and never get to the want part of the list. An extra twist to my spinning wheel is that I get sidetracked....easily....while doing something (like looking for a picture of a Mickey Mouse Watch to add to this post) and end up doing something else (like reading a couple pages of a quirky little blog I came across while looking for said picture).

Focus Woman or you'll never get half of your million and a half things on your I thought of doing list done.

Reading over what I've written so far, I thought of adding a little pic of a calendar to this post too but I'll never get anything done if I try looking for a cool image for that thought. So.....this post shall remain picture-less unless you want to see more cute baby pictures...because I could seriously look at those all day. They make me happy......and sidetracked.

Best to just go get to work on my list.

Have a *Wonder*ful Wednesday everyone!

~K

It was a different kind of Monday

2009-04-07T00:13:00.004-05:00

It was so weird not to have to go to work Monday morning and I realize now I didn't get that tense, anxious 'grrrr...I have so much other stuff to do and don't want to work tomorrow' feeling on Sunday night like I usually do. There was a brief moment when I pulled back into the yard after taking the kids to school (because it was the first day back after a week off and nobody was quite capable of pulling themselves together enough first thing in the morning to be ready for the bus) that I looked at the two trucks parked in my driveway and felt a slight pang. They looked so lonely and forgotten - those two trucks - sitting there - with no place to go and nothing to do. We left them sitting there in their parking spots while we went for breakfast without them.

Breakfast was weird too. Weird to not be sitting there in layers of work clothes (the waitress even commented that we looked so different this morning). Weird not to have a table full of chatter while we ate. Weird not to have to eat and run. After we'd been there over our usual hour and I got fidgety - we don't should be gone already. Weird driving around after breakfast watching someone else do our work but it was slightly enjoyable knowing how much they had left to do yet and how far 'behind' they were.

Al did much better with his first monday off than I thought he would. He didn't pace at all and didn't really stress about it like I thought he would. I'm liking this 'New Al'. He's much more easy-going lately and I like it. I like that he's enjoying going into work at his new job and I'm loving all the hours he's been getting - although a few more would be nice and it would make my budget a little less tight.

All in all the day was good - except for the not smoking part....which isn't going terribly well but not horrible either. I finished off my last pack early in the day and put on a patch and only had a couple anxious moments. I did pick up another pack and admit I had one or two throughout the evening but I didn't have an urge to scratch anyone's eyes out ---- much.

Today hasn't been quite as good. I am a stress smoker and there's definately a little bit of stress round these parts but I'm doing better than I thought I would. Blog posts will probably be fewer this week just because sitting at the computer is when I find I want a smoke the most so I'm avoiding sitting here very much. I have some other projects to occupy my time, including installing the flooring we picked up last night.

~K

Monday Afternoon Comic Strip

2009-04-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Last Monday afternoon I shared a link to a comic strip that hit close to home for us.

I find quite often that I can relate to the idea presented in various comics I read and here is another one that made me chuckle.....and then I cut it out of the paper and it is sitting on my desk beside the computer.....and then I got an email with this exact comic attached to it.

Click to see Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse strip from last weekend.

Oh how I can relate!

I am IN LOVE

2009-04-05T21:06:00.004-05:00

and you would be too if you spent the whole afternoon cuddling this adorable bundle of sweetness.

Sarah is now 7 weeks old and I'd only held her once prior to today. Today I cuddled with her lots....and I really needed some baby cuddles today. It's been a rough week and my spirits were low and cuddles are the best therapy ever. I'm so glad we got to spend this time together because they are leaving in a few days and going back to BC for a couple months. I hope their house there sells quickly and they are back in a few weeks. If not it could be late June before they are back. June! That's like forever away.

Thankfully the low-battery warning on my camera gave me a break and I was able to sneak away with the little darling for a quick photo shoot. Oh my what a great time that was. Usually a sleepy little girl, she perked up quickly and was 'talking' to me and making the sweetest faces. I loved every minute of it. I'm hoping I can squeeze in another quick round of pictures of her and her big brother Luke before they leave.

And you have to admit it......you went awwwwwww when you saw that cute little smile didn't you. I could seriously take pictures like these all day long. Pure Sweetness!

Second guessing my brilliance

2009-04-04T19:07:00.004-05:00

Moving the kids to the 2nd floor seemed like a brilliant idea and in the long run it probably will be because when they are up there.....they aren't down here and that makes for a more peaceful down here.

BUT

I didn't take into consideration that being up there means that they now need to bounce back and forth between up there and down here

and up there and down here

and up there and down here

and up there and down here

and down here and up there.

All I've heard all day are feet up and down the stairs.

But when they aren't down here, they are up there - so it's working for me.

And with all that up and down I'm hoping they are exhausted by bedtime....I know I will be.

~K

Anyone seen the dust pan?

2009-04-04T12:56:00.002-05:00

Who's idea was this whole 'lets rearrange the house' thing anyway?

Oh wait.....that would be me.

Silly me.

Yet again, not one of my more well thought out plans. Well thought of because I've been planning this for months now but well thought out - not so much.

There are boxes of kids toys and personal effects in what is now my bedroom including a closet full of their clothes and all of our clothes and stuff are still in what is now temporarily a bedroom to be shared by 3 children upstairs.

A friend recently offered me packages of those large foam puzzle pieces that are used as flooring so until I can go retrieve them this project is at a hault since I'm not moving the beds upstairs until the flooring is installed - which will be Monday at the earliest. In the mean time there are pieces of furniture stacked up in my dining room that are definately not of the dining room variety including mates beds - heavy, large, bulky mates beds and all the drawers that go underneath them. Cluttered doesn't even come close to describing the house right now.

Plus I have a house full of kids today with the addition of two cousins who are here for a sleepover. Where exactly everyone is going to sleep is a mystery. I think I'll try and convince Emily to rebuild her blanket fort in what little space is left in the dining room and at least a couple kids can sleep on the floor in there.

I think all this work might be worth it though. There are 2 - 8yr olds and 2 - 6yr olds in the house and you'd never know it. They are all upstairs in their 'new room' and the main floor of my house is quiet......but for the poor old dog who's pacing back and forth trying to find an empty patch of floor on which to have a nap.

I can put up with mislocated furniture for this kind of peace any day.... now if I could just find that sneaky dustpan. It seems to have gotten lost in the clutter somewhere.

~K

A Little Friday Fun

2009-04-03T09:52:00.004-05:00

My blog posts this week have been a little on the cranky side.

Heavy on the tears some days, a wee bit of complaining others (stupid house), a tiny bit of stress with the whole employment, crazy-busy-life & quitting smoking stuff so today I'm going in a different direction.

With a little bit of fun.

I've been tagged by my friend Kat who has instructed me to complete the following task.

Go to the photos folder on your computer.
Go to the seventh folder of photos.
Go to the seventh photo.
Put the seventh photo on your blog along with a description.
Invite seven friends to join.

My computer is just about as full of chaos and confusion as my life is so there are photos in various places but this is what I came up with. I'm terrible at following directions too and really didn't want to post this picture because it's so aweful but then I thought - what the heck, it has a story behind it so post it anyway.

Judging by the other photos in the folder, I'm assuming this picture was taken sometime during the Canada Day long weekend in '07. We'd gone to watch the fireworks from the hill by the harbour and afterwards, as we were walking back to the van the kids stopped to climb on the Viking Statue. I'm guessing the batteries in my camera were coming to the end of their life and add to that the cool weather and a pretty good chance I had the camera on the wrong 'setting' and you get really poor picture quality.

I'd tag 7 friends but I don't have 7 friends (that blog) so I'm going to tag Carrie and because I just found out my sis has a brand new blog I'm tagging Yo and then anyone else who wants to play along...consider yourself tagged too.

And that's my fun post for this beautiful Friday morning.
Have a great Friday. I'm off to clean the house and torture children by making them help....because isn't that what all children want to do on their spring break?

~K

I quit - NOT

2009-04-02T13:24:00.002-05:00

There are a bunch of us who planned to quit smoking on the 1st of April.

I wonder how everyone else is doing because I totally quit quitting before I even started.

What was I thinking? Quitting smoking the week the kids are on spring break. That's got to be the stupid idea ever thought of.

Seriously didn't think that one through AT ALL.

For everyone's safety I decided I wasn't even going to make the attempt until they went back to school next week. I'm fairly certain at least 1 if not more of them wouldn't make it out of here alive.

I'd love to pay $200 and go through a laser treatment / detox program. A friend of mine did it 8 weeks ago and said it was a great way to do it and worth every penny. Unfortunately I will be once again trying the patch. I've had a box for a couple weeks already and I was planning on April 1st as my quit day but they will sit in the cupboard for a few more days and on Monday morning I will slap on a patch and I will quit! I will do it!

The last time I tried this, I went about 6 days before I ~~lost my mind~~ couldn't take it anymore. My hubby did way better than I did and he hasn't smoked since the 3rd of October '07. I'm so jealous. I want to quit so bad and yet part of me is hanging onto this one thing in my life that keeps me sane in all this insanity.

But it's time.

And I WILL DO IT THIS TIME!

I will.

I have to.

I can.

But I'm scared!

~K

I need to go buy a new calendar....mine's broken!

2009-04-02T06:45:00.001-05:00

Wow - talk about a reality check.

I received an email from one of my *not really a sister but the closest thing I've got* sisters last night. She invited me into the city for a 'sleep-over so we can catch up' night and I said to myself..... "Self. That sounds like damn good idea."

So I checked the calendar

and I discovered that the calendar hanging in my kitchen is obviously broken because there doesn't seem to be a single day

except maybe one

that might work

if I really try hard

in the next two weeks and the two after that don't hold much promise either.

Geesh! This working around two guys working different shifts at different gas stations and only having one vehicle is way tricky. Add to that various bowling and dancing committments and a weekend dance competition and then a weekend crop and my month is booked SOLID.

I don't have time to get a job.

Unfortunately that's not an option (not that people are beating down my door to hire me or anthing) but when the heck am I gonna squeeze a job into my crazy-busy life.

Besides.

I have all this blogging to do.

Seriously though....my calendar. It's broken. I think I need to go get me one of those really big wall size calendars because it's going to be insane trying to keep track of who needs to be where and when on the one I've got now.

And the kids wanted to sign up for soccer and baseball this spring. Snort. Ya....like I have the room on my calendar to write all that down, let alone the cash to pay for it. I think we'll pass on that for this year. Sorry guys.

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

2009-04-01T12:46:00.005-05:00

I wonder why.......

I hear water running?

My first thought was that someone....probably a child of mine, left a tap on in the bathroom but upon inspection I found the taps securely in their off position.

But I can still hear water running.

I follow the sound.

It's coming from the basement.

I don't go into the basement....it's icky!

But I figure I should check it out so I venture down the stairs.

The sound is getting louder.

I have visions of a leaking pipe or hose in my head.

I turn on the light.

Well look at that. Not a pipe or hose at all.........

Just all the melting snow outside leaking into the basement.

And not just seeping in through the cracks....no, it's an actual stream of water in places.

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaa!

Why does this house torment me so? Why?

What's even better is all that snow that melted last week and made it's way inside my basement will soon be joined by even more because we woke up to another yard full of snow this morning. Oh goodie!

I really believe Mike Holmes would have a heart attack if he ever saw my house. I don't think even Mike could

One last time

2009-03-30T21:26:00.005-05:00

We went in late(er) than normal. No rush today. It'll get done when it gets done.

Five stops in "I will NOT get stuck on my last day!" she said....and she was right. She rocks!

Just us girls doing our route till breakfast. Gettin' 'er done.

Beautiful weather! Perfect weather!

Breakfast. Our last one. G and Andy joined us. Andy's working midnight shift at his 'real' job so he left after breakfast. G stayed.

We laughed, threw snowballs, G threw us both in the snow, "I won't miss this stop", " I won't miss this stop more", "I won't miss naked-guy...dude...put a shirt on!"

G accomplished all he wanted to on our last day...except mooning the new guys....but not for lack of trying. Truck-skiing anyone? He's happy.

Left a half a box of dog cookies for Shaddow and gave Tundra extra too.

And then it was over....

Contract obligation complete.

We waved goodbye and went to the dump one last time.

Parked the truck in the yard.....she paused a little longer than normal before turning the engine off but neither of us said a word.

An email. The trucks are for sale. "I am on it" our salesman said. He'll get them sold.

We drank whiskey and wine.

We laughed, talked trash (and trash-talked...a bit) remembering good times and bad times. Remembered the old ford & buying the new truck. Truck fires and blown hoses. Crazy people and stupid stunts. Remembering.

No-longer co-workers, employees and employers but always family and friends.

We toasted a job well done.

Everyone's gone.

Hugs goodbye.

And now it's really over.

After 14 years.

Tomorrow's a new day

~K

The Grand Finale

2009-03-30T07:30:00.001-05:00

It seems so fitting that since today is our very last day and our doors will be closed at the end of our run today..... to be immediately followed by the consumption of copious amounts of wine and whisky..... that this weekends Winnipeg Free Press colour comics included this comic strip of The Wizard of ID by Parker and Hart. We worked hard and did everything right and today we close the doors on 14 years of self-employment.

It's bittersweet. We are enjoying the whole experience of moving on to new things - aside from the whole 'how the heck do we pay the bills this month' thing. That's a wee bit scarey.

Some of the stress has been lifted by the news that Al's new minimum wage job, where initially he was told he would be guaranteed 'part-time' status which we figure would be about 20hours a week, is looking more and more promising with talk that he will be full-time with 40hours in the very near future. He trained in record time and they are all very happy with him. Life is good! Al's already looking and feeling so much better. He enjoys going to work. Life is good!

I figured out recently that with 40hours a week, even at minimum wage, the amount of money he will bring home at the end of 4 weeks is only slightly less than we he was bringing home in a month from our own business......and with a whole lot less stress. Life is good! It will be better once I find a job but we aren't in imminent danger of having to choose between satelite service or internet service.....or dinner service for that matter.

Hasn't this post been all cheery and positive. Life is good and all. Believe me, it's not all roses and champaign because there is still the pending doom of business debt and the desperate need to sell off equipment as quick as possible. Closing our doors is an emotional thing for us from a customer service perspective too. Sure our contract customers still have service through someone else but our private customers from all the free-lance work we did are left hanging. There is no one else providing this service to them and each time someone calls about a job and we have to turn them down it's a reminder of just what's been lost - for us and them. We'd been planning to expand the free-lance stuff more this year because the demand for it is there but without the contracts to support us, it just isn't possible. That's a hard thing to swallow, knowing a viable business has shut down at the hands of politicians for some unknown reason - be it political agenda or budget cuts. The only part of this that makes it a little easier to swallow is knowing that the local politicians are now taking the flack for putting us out of business....and yes....I do blame them and so do A LOT of other people. Political Suicide? I hope so!

Tomorrow's a new day.

~K

One of life's big mysteries - answered

2009-03-29T11:48:00.007-05:00

I popped over to one of my fav blogs this morning while sucking back yet another cup of coffee and listening to my oldest butcher a song from the confines of the bathroom (the only accoustically good room in the house?) that she was listening to via her mp3. I can't decide what's worse, having the music blasting on the CD player while she does this or having relative quiet while she listens on her mp3? At least if the CD was playing I'd know what song she was attempting singing. With the mp3, I've no clue at all. For the record she HATES it when we've had enough and we say things like....hey kiddo....the neighbours called and asked if you could take a break for awhile. She doesn't find us funny. Teens!

So, where was I. Oh ya.

I popped over to visit Suburban Correspondent. She totally 'gets' living with teens and I love her techniques for cohabitating with these wonderful creatures. A sense of humor is a must.

She's also very insightful when it comes to some some of life's big mysteries such as WHY there are 3 half eaten jars of jam in my kitchen and ketchup....oh she knows about ketchup too. She's figured out why and I would have never imagined it in a million years that it was all for the sake of art. I thought for sure it had more to do with the kids just messing with me and my food budget.....or laziness. I guess I'm just not deep enough to see the bigger picture.

I wonder if she knows why there are dishtowels in the girls' bedroom. That one still remains a mystery.

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

and.....the boy did awesome reffing yesterday but he's way sore today. He said the games were "a little faster paced than Squirts" (the 5-6 yr olds he usually refs) I'd say they were a lot faster. Feedback has been good. We heard comments around the arena from some of the parents and they were all positive ones. So proud of him!

~K

Is He White With Black Stripes or Black with White Stripes

2009-03-28T01:30:00.002-05:00

It's almost midnight Friday night and I've given up on the scrapping thing. I just wasn't feeling it. I've started a 3page (give or take) spread but it'll have to keep for another time.

I'm tired.

Is it 2am yet?

I have to pick the Mr up from work at 2. What are the chances I could have a nap and actually wake up in time to go get him?

Slim huh.

Fine then. I'll just sit here and write.

But really I could use a nap. Tomorrow's shaping up to be a crazy-busy one..... aren't they all?

I bet I know who else is ready for a nap? Working 6pm to 2am has got to be tough on my not-so-night-owl Mr. Tomorrow's going to be really long for him too. He just found out he's scheduled to work tomorrow night from 4 to 10pm which wouldn't be so bad but he coaches the Youth Bowling and Special Olympics Bowling programs from 9am to about 3pm on Saturdays. That gives him about an hour break before he has to go to work. Poor guy.

You know who else is busy tomorrow.

This kid right here.
Doesn't he look cool in stripes?

That's my boy and I'm so proud of him.

He's been asked to attend a skills clinic tomorrow evening (after he finishes his 8-4 shift at work) and line a couple games. Not such a big deal except he's technically not old enough to officiate this level of hockey. His supervisor insists 'he can handle it' and he's going to be evaluating Ty on how he does. We didn't tell the boy that part....didn't want him to be nervous. Not that I think he would be. On the ice is probably one of the places Ty is most confident in himself. I personally think Ty's just super excited (Carrie don't spit your coffee on your monitor when you read this next part) that he's going to be lining a couple games with his idol. (I know...I don't understand it either but he seems to think G's the greatest thing since sliced bread.)

Unfortunately, poor Dad is going to miss seeing these games because he'll be at work. I'm going to be sure and take lots of pictures and maybe some video with my camera. It's times like these I wish I had a video camera.

and now that I've re-written most of this post (and it's no where near as good as the first one was) because my dial-up hates me and that effectively took an extra 30minutes of time, there's less than an hour before I have to go pick up the Mr at work. Definately no time for a nap now.....but I'd still sure like one.

Why is it I can stay up all night puttering around the house or watching tv or surfing the net when I should be sleeping but when I can't go to bed early, it's all I want to do.

~ K

2009-03-27T16:08:00.003-05:00

So my loyal readers are requesting something to read this afternoon. Well, it's a little late in the afternoon but here ya go. A 2nd post for today. I'm squeezing this into my very busy afternoon of MAKING HAM. Oh you should smell it. It's devine. Yes SIS .....it's just like Mom makes. Hee hee. (was that too evil) Actually it's not just like mom makes and I'm a little upset. I thought there was a can of pineapple in the pantry and there wasn't so I improvised with a StarFruit juicebox out of bottom of the fridge. It's a little more on the citrus side and doesn't quite have the tang of pineapple juice but it still smells yumm-o! I'd say I'm make cheesie scalloped potatoes too (just to tease you there sitting at your desk) but I don't have any in the house so it'll just be plain ol' mashed potatoes.

And in the morning.....I'm making waffles!

I don't think Donkey from Shrek quite had Chocolate Chip Eggos on his mind when he said that....but it's the closest thing to waffles in this house.

Speaking of tomorrow. Do you have plans for Earth Hour tomorrow night? I hadn't really thought about it much until a day or two ago and I'm not sure we will actually be home to 'participate' at that particular time as some things have recently come up in our schedule but I think at the very least I will turn off the computer while we aren't home (this poor dinosaur is running constantly so I'm sure both my electric bill and the computer will apprecitate the time out) and make a more consious effort to cut our power use - and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was for more economical purposes than environmental.....not that I have anything against the environment. I kinda like it.

Here's a bit of information I pulled off the net this afternoon at http://wwf.ca/earthhour/

Earth Hour is a global WWF climate change initiative. Individuals, businesses, governments and communities are invited to turn out their lights for one hour on Saturday March 28, 2009 at 8:30 PM to show their support for action on climate change.

Here are some ideas for how to spend the hour:
Attend local Earth Hour events - or organize one. Add your event, or get details on events near you at Events.EarthHourCanada.org.
Go outside and look at the stars.
Find a great viewing spot to see your town or city go dark at 8:30 p.m.
Take pictures and post them to the Earth Hour Facebook page.
Go for a lantern walk through a park.
Patronize local restaurants and businesses taking part in Earth Hour.
Gather your family or friends for a candle-lit dinner.
Meet your neighbours at a street or block party.
Have an acoustic music jam.
Talk to your children about how much electricity your family uses. Brainstorm ways to reduce it.

Tell ghost stories.
Listen to the birds, bats or other wildlife.
Play flashlight tag.
Turn your thermostat down by 1 degree. And leave it there.
Play Pictionary with glow-in-the-dark markers.
Change all your light bulbs to energy-efficient versions.
Have a night game of shinny with a glow-in-the-dark puck or ball (wear reflective vests).
Take a walk in the moonlight.
Have a candlelit bath.
Put a glow stick on your dog's collar or leash and go for a walk.
Toast marshmallows over a tea light candle.
Get out your Ouija board.
Have a wine or scotch tasting in the dark.
Get out the sleeping bags and camp out on the living room floor.
Make a list of ways you could reduce your energy consumption every hour of every day.

A couple of those make me laugh. Stick a glow stick on the dog's collar and go for a walk....bwahhhh Ya Fat Dog would so go for THAT idea - NOT and I've been told I'm not allowed to sit in the dark and drink wine by myself anymore but if the writer of this list says I should...who am I to argue.

Well. Gotta go baste a ham.

~K

About Me

2009-03-27T05:38:00.001-05:00

You see that About Me section.

The one over there.

<------------------

On the ~~right~~ I mean left....and yes I really had to think if it was right or left cuz I'm directionally challenged like that.

It's been bothering me lately. Well not really bothering me but it just keeps staring at me. Mocking me. Saying things like. "Liar" and "I'm inaccurate you know." and "You should update me." And I know I should but it's hard. That's been my About Me since I started this blog and I'm not sure what to change it to. Change is hard. Change is scarey. I'm not changing it today. Maybe tomorrow, or next week but not today.

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

My public is being very demanding these days. Very demanding. I'm no longer getting text messages saying things like. What's new? You know what's not new....your blog. Update it so I have something to read. Oh no. No messages like that anymore.

I've been trying to write a new post each day and it's getting easier to do. If I know I'll be busy on a certain day I'll even go so far as to write one and schedule it to post the next day. Only I've learned that blog posts are like anything else....you give em what they want and they just want more.

and she says to me........" You need to write TWO posts per day. One in the morning and then another one so I have something new to read in the afternoon."

Ya. Getting right on that.

~K

The first week of spring has been just LOVELY!

2009-03-26T12:24:00.004-05:00

Remember a couple days ago I was reveling in the peace and quiet of being home solo. The kids at school. The Mr. working day-shift.

If I'd only known then what I know now, I'd have enjoyed it way more than I did - if that was at all possible, because I had a great day.

Yesterday was shaping up to be crazy-busy. Get kids on the bus at 8:15. Drive Mr to work for 9. Check on Mom. Home for a bit. School assembly at 12:45. Grocery shopping and home again. Kids home at 4. Kids to dance class before 5. Pick Mr up at work at 5. Pick kids up at dancing at 6. Soccer/baseball registration. Home again, home again jiggity-jig. Exhausting just thinking about it.

And then the phone rang at 7:56 - No Buses. No Classes. "Snow Day!" and all after school activities were cancelled too. A reprieve from the Crazy-Busy.

I ended up driving the Mr to work in the morning, visiting Mom for a bit and then spending a leisurely half hour walking the quiet aisles of the grocery store picking up a few necessities. I was thinking to myself, I should shop at 9am more often because the store is so quiet but now that I think about it, the fact that the roads around town were horribly packed with snow and the highways were covered with icy patches and the visibility was really poor may have had more to do with the emptiness of the store rather than the time of day.

Today is Day 2 of our weather induced holiday. The novelty has worn off and the kids are driving ~~each other~~ me batty.

Actually, the boys are loving it (cartoons and playstation galore) and surprisingly Em isn't all ticked (she loves school and a closed school to her is a fate worse than chores) although if she doesn't stop talking endlessly, I'm going to scream. I don't know how her teacher keeps her quiet in school. Aarica though, is having a hard time with the change in routine and all. She's sentenced to spend time with the people who annoy her the most - us. She's bored so she's picking fights with everyone and being snarky. It's very hard to keep someone who's got a limited interest in anything busy while housebound. The Mr took a drive out to pick up our final pay cheque this afternoon and I'm so happy he agreed to take her with him (like he had a choice...she asked and asked and asked and finally just put her jacket on and got in the van and I think the pleading look on my face may have helped). She needed a break from everyone and everyone needed a break from her.

So while I miss the peace and quiet of a house with everyone at work/school, I'm enjoying the laid back feel of the past 2 days. I'm scared though. If school isn't open tomorrow I've realized that by the time I have an empty house again it will have been 12 straight days of this. Spring Break is next week.

HELP!!!!!

~K

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

2009-03-25T08:50:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the first edition of a little game called *I Wonder Why?*

It's a new game. I made it up yesterday while doing a little house-maintenance....aka cleaning.

Actually, it's not really new because it's something I play quite often. It usually involves some bizzare activity my children have done or something I've found that doesn't quite belong. Optional names were What would possess you to do that Wednesday and WTF Wednesday - the first was too wordy, the second well.... I'm trying to control my temper these days so I went with *I Wonder Why?*

Now on with the game.

I wonder why........

there is an open jar of jam on the kitchen table?

Now you might not find this something to wonder about. After all it is accompanied by it's friend the PB and at first glance it appears quite normal.

And you wouldn't be wrong.

If it weren't for the fact that this particular open jar of jam also has other friends

That's right. Not ONE but TWO other jars of jam ---- the exact same jam even, both open and both half empty in the cupboard.

WHY? Why can't the children see them? They are right there. They aren't a figment of my imagination are they? You can see them right?

This is also a common theme of other items in the kitchen such as

I just threw out an empty bottle a couple days ago and there's another one that still has a tiny bit left in it and yet this bottle of ketchup is 2/3 gone so it's not like it was opened yesterday.....even if it is a major foodgroup they don't go through a bottle THAT fast.

Why open a new bottle or jar or box or container if there is one already open?

Other wonders of the day included.....Why are there 4 dishtowels in my daughters' room? Do they do dishes in their sleep? Highly unlikely. They don't particularly care for doing them when they are awake.

Why you should google things before you commit

2009-03-24T09:36:00.007-05:00

Some thought and planning while trying to come up with a name for my 'other blog', my scrapbooking one devoted to the occasional bursts of creativity and my scrapbooking/stamping biz, would have gone a long way.

Seems I overlooked the function of google (or other platforms) searches and didn't really test out different versions of the blog's name prior to it's creation.

I have a stat tracker on the blog so I can see who's ~~stalking me~~ reading my blog (hi sis...and you there sitting at your desk at work) and I can see what searches lead people to my blog.

Well it seems my scrap blog's name has a slight similarity to another site and half the people who end up there are looking for P*rn. Bet they are disapointed when they don't get what they are looking for huh. It will take a bit of work but I'm thinking I may relaunch the blog under another name and transfer the archives over. Really, I'd much rather not be attracting that kind of attention to myself .......plus it's a little disapointing to log into my stats and see I have 16 new visitors and then realize that only 3 of them were actually there to see me.

I'm thinking I could rename this one to Chaos & Confusion and I'll make the other one An Occasional Burst of Creativity.......and I have NO IDEA why I didn't think of THAT little bit of brilliance to begin with. Probably because my bursts of creativity are only occasional in nature.

Well, I'm off to enjoy the entire day of having the house to myself. Kids at school. The Mr. working dayshift. I'm on my own till 4pm and LOVE IT!!!! Mucho neglected house lately so I'm actually looking forward to cleaning it.

I'd say I'm in a Spring Cleaning mood but take a look out my front door this morning........does THIS look like spring to you?

The rain has turned to snow and we are supposed to get lots of it.

Do you think I should bundle up and go get that shovel? We might need it.

and then there was one

2009-03-23T15:59:00.003-05:00

Only one day left. Today is officially done (well the work part of it) and there is only one more day left of our contract.

I'm COLD. Not a damn it's freaking cold out cold but a soaked to the skin, stepped in a ditch full of water up past my ankle, spent the day wearing dripping wet gloves/mitts x3 kind of cold.
Temperature wise it wasn't too bad. There were times it got a little nippy and I could see my breath but then it would warm up a bit and be okay. Somebody remembered to turn the rain making machine way down to it's lowest settting and I spent most of the day in a fine mist to slight drizzle which was just fine....would have preferred NONE at all but I am really really glad it didn't actually rain big fat drops like it was in the wee hours of the morning. Of course everything is covered in water so I got soaked anyway but at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And I know from experience it could have been way way worse and I'm glad it's over.

A funny thing happened today. I didn't see it personally, but I've been told that the crew that won the contract were following each of our trucks around for an hour or so today. Now I'm just gonna get up on my soapbox here for a quick minute and say...... hey dumb ass, you've undercut me and taken one of my contracts forcing me to give up my 2nd contract and go out of business and now you have the nerve to follow us around and see how we do it. Figure things out your own damn self and stop watching us. No wait. On second thought, I hope you did learn something by watching us. It's called customer service and your record isn't that great in that department so I hope you were paying close attention. My customers are used to top notch service and you'd better not give them anything less.

I really am glad there's only one day left - cuz I'm tired of it but I am going to miss it and all the people we've met over the years.

Aren't ya all gonna be so happy when I stop talking about garbage? LOL One more week.

~K

2 days left and it keeps just getting better and better

2009-03-23T00:50:00.004-05:00

.
.
.
.
.
warning!

I'm about to rant.

Here's your chance to hit the back button

or hit that little red X in the top right corner

or click a link and get the heck outta here. I'm sure one of the blogs listed on the left there has something new and uplifting written on it. Cuz you won't find that here. Not today.

Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here goes.

WTH is that crap falling out of the sky?!?!

Seriously. There's only 2 Mondays left in my life of hauling away other people's garbage (recycling people....try it....you might like it!) and this is what I have to deal with today. RAIN!

Oh sure,

I moan and complain about -40.... like you don't.

I grumble and whine about being cold and having no feeling in bits and pieces of me that shouldn't ever be that cold.

I shudder at the phrase....'with the windchill'

but I can deal with it.

I can put on layers and stuff hot-hands packs in my boots and bundle up to the point where I'm sweating and freezing at the same time - it's an odd experience. Not one I recommend.

but....but....but.....but come on! RAIN?

It is impossible to stay dry.

It is impossible 'get' dry once you are soaked right through to the skin.

It's impossible.

Take my word for it. Because I've been there. Done that. Didn't like it then. Not keen on doing it now.

I still remember that time a couple years ago, it was late fall. Started out a nice day....and then it drizzled a little around noon.....and then it rained a bit and a little bit more and then the temps dropped and by 3 the rain turned to snow and my clothes turned to ice....and I didn't like it. It's very hard to move when the legs of your jeans are frozen stiff. I'm just saying - in case you were wondering....it's very difficult to do.

I tried calling in stupid but my boss just doesn't care that I'm his wife and I'm going to make his life a living misery if he makes me go to work in this. He'll be sorry. I might even make him make supper every night this week. Oh.....wait. Maybe that's not such a good idea. But I'll come up with something.

I guess I should take it easy on him though. He will be working in the rain too, but he's in and out of the truck all day long while I'm hanging on the back and for some reason he just doesn't get as soaked as I do.

It's 1am and the weather network says it's +2 right and overcast. Well I don't know where they are looking but out my backdoor it raining buckets and windy.

Forecast for morning is 'light rain'.....which in my books is still rain and if they think it's only overcast right now, what's their definition of light rain.

Scattered showers throughout the day. Oh goodie.

Guess I should go get some sleep and dream of warm, dry, happy places while I can and hope this is all a nightmare that I'll wake up from in the morning. Doubt it.

2 more Mondays.

That cat Garfield has the right idea. I Hate Mondays.

*edit: It's now 8am and the new forecast according to the radio is for *drizzle* off and on all day today. I'll believe it when the day is over but for now nothings falling from the sky. Still don't wanna go though. Well - better get the kids ready for the bus and get my day started.

~K

He's doing his part but REALLY?

2009-03-22T21:24:00.005-05:00

Let's just take a quick look at how Al's helping out with our financial woes shall we.

He's working his second shift pumping gas (I noticed today the price of gas went up AGAIN btw) tonight and it's a full 8hour shift. He's working 4-12 which means I get to go back to town AGAIN (fuel prices people) after just having picked up the teen-boy who worked 4-9 at the competors gas station. Heehee. That just seems so funny to me for some reason, that father and son are working at competing stations. What's not so funny is they both get paid the same wage.

Sidetracked. Where was I?

Oh ya. Al's food-budget boosting techniques.

Well tonight, after picking Em up at a birthday party (for which Al will have to work an extra 3 hours this week to pay for the present and the fuel to take her to and from), the remaining children in my possession and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few necessities. Inbetween my whining that I shouldn't always be the one to think of something for supper and my vetoing their odd (icecream for supper?) and/or unaffordable (ordering pizza...while a nice idea - not budget friendly)ideas , the children and I were discussing what food was currently in the house.

We'd decided on Tacos. Not our usual fare but they'd been asking for them and I thought why not. It's been one heck of a busy weekend and that sounds quick and easy and something the late-working men-folk could heat up and eat when they got home from work. So we began picking up the few things we needed for the weeks lunches and some of the missing items for supper like taco shells and the fillings.

Is there cheese left?
No.
NO? Why not! I bought two large packages at the beginning of the month. If I buy more and get home and find a full block in the fridge you guys are gonna get it....and be eatting it for lunch for a week.

Is there any salsa sauce left?
No.
I'm sure there is...since I also just bought some and it's not something everyone likes so I'm sure there is. We'll take our chances on that one. Not buying it.

Is there hamburger?
I dunno?
Well, um....I know there was at least one package in the freezer left. What did dad make for supper last night while I was at "work" aka scrapbook day (making NO money I might add - I didn't even break even. Grrrr!) but I digress. Back to the issue at hand.

What did dad make for supper?
Nothing.
What do you mean nothing. I know damn well he fed you. There's no way my kitchen looks like that and he didn't feed you.
We went to bed when we got home and we ate at the bowling fundraiser.
Ya - I know that but you went home BEFORE the fundraiser and he fed you.....RIGHT?
Oh ya. We had spaghetti.

Okay cool. Now we are getting somewhere.
Did he put meat in the sauce or was it just plain sauce?
One kid says Yes.
One kid says No.
One kid has no opinion and is quietly sitting in the cart playing his DS - smart kid!

Ugh! So which is it? I turn to the 'reliable source' and ask...Was there meat in the sauce or not?
No there wasn't.
Okay so then by my mental picture there should still be hamburger in the freezer.
No, I mean there was no sauce.

Silence
.
.
.
.
.
.
Dead Silence
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.
.

What do you mean there was no sauce?
There was no sauce. Just spaghetti.

What do you mean just spaghetti??????
Just plain spaghetti with nothing on it. No sauce.....unless you wanted ketchup on it.

YUCK!!!!

I'm speechless.....

But at least there was still a package of hamburger in the freezer for tacos.

~K

Well Damn!

2009-03-20T13:20:00.003-05:00

That wasn't supposed to happen.

I finally heard from 'the job' last night.....via email.

The subject of the email said.....

Thank You

I didn't even need to open it to know what it said.

No job for me.

$12 bucks an hour plus benifits and 3 weeks holiday after a year would have been nice.

A cool job with a sport related non-profit would have been sweet.

*sigh*

So the search continues.

I put in an application at a local grocery store. Keeping my fingers crossed that it works out. We are getting down to the wire on the whole cash-flow thing.

~K

school sucks.....the money right out of me!

2009-03-19T09:48:00.004-05:00

Spring Casual Pictures? HUH? What the heck! As if school picture day in the fall isn't hell enough, now we get spring pictures too. Of course they TOOK the pictures unless you sent back the notice saying you didn't want your child photographed. I must have overlooked that part (it was on the BACK of the paper) and since only one child actually brought the paper home I would have ended up with one set of pics anyway - the high school did not partake in this little venture so I guess I should be lucky I don't have four sets right. Now the pictures are beautiful and I'm completely impressed that both Emily and Owen were a) clean, b) well groomed and c) almost appropriately dressed.....Emily's wearing one of her fav t'shirts that says "I wanna drive the zamboni" which made me laugh in a 'really....THAT's what you were wearing' kind of way. Owen is wearing a shirt that I have him photographed in a zillion times (I think he was wearing it for Kindergarden picture day actually) but WOW has he ever grown up.

So now I'm holding 12 sheets of pictures in my hands valued at $80 and I'm thinking I should just revolt and return them all.....but they are sooooo good. Genius marketing plan Lifetouch. Take cute pics and THEN ask for money. Ugh! So I've picked out 3 sheets of each kid and I will bite my tongue and pay $48 for them(out of my photo budget for the month)......because I'm a scrapbooker and there's nothing more tempting to me than dang cute pictures.

It's not just these pictures either. Every week it's something. School is sucking the money right out of me. Yesterday Emily wanted $10 to buy daffodils at school. Request denied. Granted this is a fundraiser (I believe for CancerCare) but jimmineycrickets. Today it was money for pizza lunch - the kids get one hot ? meal served a month at school - also a fundraiser for the parent council. Again- request denied. I'm tapped out people. Tapped out!

Too bad I'm not going to be able to deny a couple other recent requests....for things like shoes or jeans. Who needs the government to stimulate the economy.....my growning kids are doing a darn fine job of it all on their own. Next thing you know they are going to want to eat too.

Somehow I managed to trim the food budget enough to actually make the first payment on our van this week. The extra $290 I didn't spend in groceries on the first Tuesday of the month has been missed though. We are scraping the bottom of the pantry for anything edible. It's a good thing I can go shopping tomorrow for groceries because if there isn't a box of granola bars in the house soon there might be a coup.

~K

Dude Got A Job!!!

2009-03-17T12:53:00.003-05:00

It's minimum wage but minimum wage is better than no wage (and really.....contrary to what everyone thinks about us as self-employed people....we've been living on minimum wage for a long time.)

He starts training on Friday and has 4 shifts in the next week - whew! Those 29hours he's already scheduled for are money in the bank and will cover April's van payment and then some.

Feeling slightly less stressed this afternoon.

Next....... it's my turn. Please oh please oh please!!! Let it be my turn soon!

Tough Love - Living With Teens

2009-03-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

In my world - parenting two teens (one mostly typical...he has his moments, and one who lives on her own curve) and two young-uns (both typical...although one out-thinks us all on a daily basis) there is never a dull moment under this leaky old roof. *By typical I mean a person who is not learning challenged or developmentally delayed.

I'm more than familiar with the day to day snarky-ness of the teen drama queen. Being non-typical doesn't change the fact that she's a teen.....it just changes how we go about dealing with it.

I'm not so familiar with the mostly-typical boy's teen-ness. He's a farily "new" teen being 14, almost 15 so it's relatively unfamiliar ground for us. He's also easing his way into the whole teen thing. Most days I accuse him of being 12. Then again, I believe I've also accused his father of being 12 a few times lately too. He's doing pretty well in school (for a change) and not giving me much grief over missed assignments and such which is a complete shock. For the most part he's a good spirited child but occasionally can be sullen and moody.

Teens are so sweet aren't they? I'm beginning to ' get' the joke about mothers of teens understanding why in the animal world, mother's sometimes eat their young. Last week would be one of those times I considered it a good idea.

Ty's a pretty busy kid. School and after-school activities etc plus working 2 jobs on the weekends refing hockey and working at a gas station. It's a lot of responsibility for a young kid but he wants to work - the almighty dollar is a powerful thing.

A week ago I got a call for Ty to do a couple games on Saturday. I wasn't sure what his work schedule was like but I told Doug that if there was a problem I'd let him know. On Monday when Tyler got his new work schedule I told him there was a conflict and he'd need to either switch his shift at work or call Doug and let him know he couldn't do the games. I've been putting my foot down on this whole mom as secretary thing. I'll take your phone messages and I'll book your games but if there's a problem you have to work it out. Well he didn't. I, as a good mom/secretary reminded him a few times Monday and again Tuesday about the schedule conflict and that he needed to work it out. Only problem is....he didn't.

On Friday I ditched the secretary hat and went into full-on mom mode and when he didn't immediately jump to find the phone and try to reschedule things he got one heck of a lecture. Tough Love takes no prisoners and I kept on him about it and in return I was glared at and there was an occasional snarky tone in his voice - cuz remember, teens are "sweet" - not! I was as helpful as possible, offering suggestions of who to call, even going so far as to find phone numbers for him but I refused to fix this. He'd been aware of the problem and reminded of it numerous times during the week and I'm pretty strong in my position on this one. The mom of one of the other kids that works at the gas station often calls me to switch shift for her son with my son. My opinion is....it's your job. You get the pay cheque. You deal with the schedule conflicts yourself.

Unfortunately, his communication skills are still developing so in all his phone calls to co-workers (also teen boys who's communication skills are still developing) key information may not have been presented in the best way - but I digress. In the end he couldn't find someone to switch shifts with him at the gas station and he ended up having to call his Ref Coordinator and apologize and tell him he wouldn't be able to ref the games Saturday afternoon, which left Doug scrambling at the last minute to find refs - not fair to him at all and Ty knows it. It was a good lesson for him to learn and had I 'fixed' it (because I found out later I could have fixed it had I called one kids parents.....d'oh! darn me and my stand on the situation!) it wouldn't have inconvenienced anyone....but he wouldn't have learned anything.

Just Keep Swimming

2009-03-16T15:22:00.006-05:00

Less than 24 hours from now the deadline closes for bids on our contract tender.

It's been an emotional few days.

People are conspiring against me and trying to convince my husband to bid. They are all going the right way for a smack bottom ( Shrek reference - disney/pixar makes them for all occasions) if they keep that up. Different people keep coming up with different reasons why we should bid and they are all valid but it would be financial & emotional suicide if we did....not that it isn't even if we don't. I so want off this roller coaster!

I told Al that if he does bid on it he'd better make the amount high - really, really high - because he's going to need a damn good divorce lawyer - and those ain't cheap!

I think we've both come to terms with the loss of a business we've worked damn hard to build and keep alive and that has supported our family for 14 years. It's a part of us. It's who we are and we take a lot of pride in it. I think we've both been feeling just slightly like we've failed. That we are giving up too easily - but we know deep down, it's time for a change. We've accepted that but it's still hard and emotional at times - like the past few days, as the tender deadline gets closer and closer. Tomorrow it's over .....and then we only have 2 more Mondays to finish up our obligation on our contract and then it's really over....at least the 'work' part is over. The financial mess will last for years to come I'm sure.

What we've yet to figure out is how we will dig ourselves out of this massive pile of debt the business has acquired over the years and we just aren't in a place to think about what to do about that at this point. We are focusing on the here and now - the day to day operating expenses and providing for our family but the looming loss of income is starting to take it's toll. Once one - or preferably both of us, finds jobs then I hope some of the pressure and stress will subside.

Our last pay cheque on the contract will be coming in at the end of the month. If we don't have personal income coming in before then, we will be facing some serious decisions. Our family's survival vs business expenses. I'd prefer to not have to take a personal pay cheque from the last contract cheque if at all possible so that we will have a bit of money in the bank to cover monthly truck payments & its' insurance until it's sold.....actually I'm terrified just thinking about how to cover those payments should the truck not sell quickly.

Find-a-happy-place! Find-a-happy-place! Find-a-happy-place!

On a positive spin - today rocked. The weather was PERFECT for working in. Not so cold I had to bundle up( t-shirt and a light sweater all day!) but for almost all of the day it was cool enough that the snow wasn't melty and slushy so I didn't get soaked PLUS I remembered to take Al's ipod so I got to listen to music all day which is a lot more fun than being alone on the back of the truck with nothing but the music in my head and my own thoughts to keep me company. I actually had fun....but not so much fun that I'd want to do keep doing it. 2 more Mondays!

What to do. What to do. It's quite a pickle I'm in.

2009-03-14T00:08:00.004-05:00

It's funny how things I read on other people's blogs jog my memory....my poor poor sad excuse of a memory and I remember either things I forgot to do or things I forgot I had wanted to write a post about - or both.

This is one of those posts. It's a post where I rant about our social worker.

Occasionally I have this fear that because I haven't changed the names of my children or that because I've posted too much information about us and some whack-a-doodle will track us down but I'm not really worried about that. I'm more worried someone I know will find this blog and tell our social worker I think she's a shmuck.....not that it's not a popular opinion around here with anyone who has the thrilling fortune to be on her case load but still, it's an opinion I'm occasionally not sure I'd want her to know. But on the other hand. I don't give a damn. The woman is a shmuck.

General consensus from a few people I've talked to about her is that we only hear from her in April. You know. Budget month. Well, it's almost April darlings and that means she should be making her annual telephone call to me any time now to let me know how little of my respite budget money I spent last year (lack of suitable respite workers will do that to a budget.....see how she's saving the govt' money) and I'll bet anyone a buck she asks if Aarica wants to go to camp this summer (easy way to spend my entire respite budget in one lump sum making much less work for her) and she might even get around to asking what grade Aarica's in and how she's is doing in school....only she will pronounce Aarica's name wrong - no wait, it's MY name she pronounces wrong or is it both. I dont' know. It's been almost a year.

As you can tell, she's not my favorite person and since Aarica is getting very very close to being turfed out of the Childrens Special Services department and handed over like the name on a file folder that she is to the Adult Services department, I'd kind of planned on just riding out the next year of our sentence...I mean time with CSS and this social worker until we were assigned someone from Adult Services.

I actually received a letter in early February from someone higher up in the social worker food chain (who just happens to have been our social worker for about a year, many many years ago) regarding Adult Services. I really should find that letter. I know it's around here in this mess somewhere. The letter states that Aarica has been "approved" (because what...they were expecting her to miraculously not need services overnight) and her case has been assigned to Adult Services for intake and our new social worker would be contacting us within 10 days of the date of the letter which was January 30th.

It's almost the middle of March and I've suddenly realized, I still haven't heard from anyone regarding this letter and I should really call about it. After-all, I am supposed to be an advocate for my daughter and keep on top of these things. Our "new" social worker is getting off to a wonderful start. She's right on top of her paperwork/follow-up telephone calls in much the same manner as our "old" social worker. Amazing. It's like they are the same person.

And do you want to know why?

Here comes the kicker.

It's Un-freaking-believable.

Because it's the same damn woman!!!! ARGH!!!!!! Somebody just kill me now!

What to do. What to do. Do I call the social worker or go over her head and contact her supervisor who'd sent the letter in the first place? It's quite the pickle.

~K

can you feel the love

2009-03-12T23:16:00.003-05:00

What would I do without those closest to me?

Well for starters I probably wouldn't have this twitch in my left eye.

Let's examine their "love" for me shall we.

So I applied for a job. I touched up my resume and I look pretty good on paper. What I lack in experience I make up for in experiences. What I lack in employment I make up for in self-employment.

I get a call for an interview with a request to bring in references. D'oh!

The "references" thing is something I was lacking. Face it. I'm an office of one. I don't have alot of contact with people through work - all people know is they put their garbage out and it's magically disappears. Not something "reference worthy". Who could I use as references? Think Think Think.

I finally came up with 3 people who I thought - okay - theses people know me (some more than others) and after asking permission from the three I got reactions ranging from "absolutely" to "okay but it will cost you" (cuz my friends love me like that).

After the interview I'm feeling okay. A little shell-shocked with the whole ordeal but pretty good about how it went.

This past week I've been torn between waiting for the phone to ring and afraid to pick up the mail fearing a letter saying I've been cut from the pack.

Then I get a text message (which wasn't supposed to come to my phone - it was meant for Al's phone) saying "if she gets the job she's going to owe me" and I become a nervous wreck. A little while later I get another text message from another of my 3 references saying she'd just got off the phone with the woman from The Job. Okay. Now I'm a complete nervous wreck. It appears my references are being contacted. People are talking about me. That's not stressful AT ALL. I saw my 3rd reference today and she's been playing telephone tag with the woman from The Job. Oye. I'm beyond nervous, but it's a good sign so I'm happy happy happy.

Still no word from The Job but I did get a glimps into one of the conversations regarding my reference. I didn't ask what was asked or what was said. I just don't want to know at this point but my ever funny, sarcastic friend did fill me in on a few tid-bits from her conversation with the woman from The Job. It just so happens she went to school with her so after they'd finished talking this woman asked if there was anything else my reference wanted to say and what did she come up with as a reply.....

.
.
.
.
.
she makes a funny and says..... (remember she knows the woman who interviewed me)
.
.
.
.
. "so I guess this isn't the part where I tell you about her pound a day crack habit huh?"

Great! Make jokes about me. Cuz that's what I'm here for. Your entertainment pleasure.

and for the record she was JOKING. Pack a day cigarette habit - yes. Epicure Belgum Chocolate Canadian Maple chips addiction - yes. Crack - NOT! She was just being her witty self. Hope witty works. Personally I'm thinking she just doesn't want me to get this job so I'll sit at home and blog all day so that she has something to read at work.
.
.
.
.
. *hey you...yes you......i know you are there reading this.....get back to work!*

I wonder what other things (witty or not) the other 2 said about me.

I'm feeling the love I tell ya.

Then tonight, as I'm watching the latest episode of ER (only 3 more left.....*sigh*) and for anyone that hasn't seen it yet and doesn't want to know what happens I won't go into too much detail but during the episode a grandmother is faced with the decission to give permission to donate her grandson's organs. The producers/writers etc did an awesome job with this story line in my opinion.

Anyway. I turned to Al at one point and said.....

"YES! Given that situation......your answer to the doctors is YES! "

and I'm thinking - profound, deep moment here. Making my wishes known to my next of kin (not that I'm not sure he knew them without this conversation anyway but it's always good to clarify things once inawhile)

and he looks at me - with absolute seriousness in his voice (should have known some smartass comment would come out of his mouth....but I didn't)

in a pretend conversation with a doctor my husband says......
.
.

.
.
.

"But Sir, are you absolutely certain this is what you want. She only has a cold"

to which he replys

"YES!"

UGH! Jackass!

Now you will excuse me. I need to go take some Advil for my migraine and get a warm cloth for this twitch in my eye. It's good to be loved.

~K

a bit of rambling

2009-03-12T09:10:00.006-05:00

Thursday.

Already.

So much on the go today.

Aarica's at home this morning. Obsessing. Asking the same questions over and over.

Her routine has been compromised so she's got a little anxiety going on.

She's stressing (rightfully so) about the blood test she has to take this morning. She hasn't had blood drawn in many many years - and she sure doesn't remember the last time - even though I do. It's vivid in my memory (which isn't that good so it really is a strong memory). The one and only time she's had blood drawn was for a series of genetic tests done way back when she was about 3. I remember holding this screaming, non-verbal child who was terrified and had no clue what all these people were doing to her.

She's even more stressed though by the fact that she can't eat. This blood work is a 12 hour fasting blood sugar test and even though she's normally in bed before 10:30pm (the time her 12 hour fast started) she was repeatedly asking about it last night before bed and then again this morning she's going through the same questions....."no milk?" no. "no toast?" no. "no coffee?" no....and you can't have that anyway so why ask about that one.

The crazy thing is our usual morning conversations are more in the opposite direction with us telling her she needs to eat something, anything. Most times she won't and other than drinking milk she rarely has anything at all except the occasional granola bar (and absolutely refuses to take a lunch....cuz she's in highschool you know and that's just not cool. If she can't buy it at the cafeteria she doesn't want it).

One more hour and then we can get this blood work done and then for sure she will want to eat - just for the sake of eatting - because this is the kid that won't eat breakfast and refuses to take a lunch unless it's in the form of money.

She also has an EKG scheduled. She's not too concerned about that one. I've explained about all the sticky tape they will place on her chest and arms and legs (i've been through enough of them with my mom in the last 8 months to know exactly how this test goes) and the tricky part will be her lying completely still for the entire minute and a half it takes for the machine to do its' thing. Being quiet and still is not what Aarica does best.

Thinking of this takes me back to the time Aarica had her hearing tests done (funny how the traumatic things stick in your mind) and oh was it traumatic. She was about 7 years old and still pretty much non-verbal and incapable of sitting still for 30 seconds and they wanted her to lay perfectly still and quiet for approximately 20minutes (as if!) while the computer recorded how her brain reacted to noises fed into her ears. Add to this the tech doing the test totally stuck his foot in his mouth and she panicked. Really panicked (is that spelled correctly?).

He said " I'm just going to glue these leads to your head."

That's it.

Simple sentence....well aside from the fact that he'd also been trying to explain what he would be doing to her in technical lingo that went over MY head but that's besides the point.

That one sentence, to a child with limited (very limited) verbal skills, and took everything so literally back then (still does to an extent....sarcasm is totally lost on her) thought he was going to permanently stick those wires to her head. OH the tears and trauma that resulted.

So we have this terrified, crying child that now has to lay still for 20 minutes. It didn't happen and 2 hours later we rescheduled for a couple weeks later. 2 - 60minute trips into the city and 3.5hours of testing later we had the results of this test. Moderate/severe hearing loss in one ear - congenital in nature - the nerves between her ear & brain didn't quite connect from the get-go.

Oddly enough, the same guy tested Emily's hearing a couple weeks after she was born and Owen when he was two and the tests were easy peasy and took 20 minutes tops and he didnt' freak any of my other children out. Of course Emily was only 2 weeks old and alseep in her carseat the whole time and didn't even flinch. Technology rocks. If only this hearing screening was routine for all newborns - imagine how few would slip through the cracks like Aarica did almost 17 yrs ago (yes...THAT's how old she's going to be in May!)

oppps......got way off track there didn't I.

Back to today.

Thursday. (and btw - this was supposed to have posted while I was at Aarica's appointment but dial-up was being snarky and it didn't go through.....so now I'm back and finishing up this post.)

How did it go?

Easy Peasy-ish.

The hardest parts of the whole thing was the waiting.

"I don't want to do this" but you have to.

"why do I have to have tests" to make sure the meds you are taking aren't doing funky things to your body.

"but i don't want to" sorry but you have to.

"it's going to hurt & i'm not doing it" it's going to be fine and yes you are.

"when can i eat?" when we are done here

"i don't want to do this" (even as she's sitting in the chair in the lab)

"you aren't going to jab my arm are you?" no but you can't move your arm at all

"i don't want to do this"

And in 20 seconds it was over and the most painful part was answering all the questions before, during and after.

And then we waited for the EKG.....and waited.....and guess what....answered more questions.

"How many tests again?" two - the blood which you've already done and the heart which is next

"And then I can eat?" yes

"but I don't want to do anymore tests." you are almost done and the next one is easy

" how many more?" only one more and it's easy. You just have to lay there and be quiet (if that's remotely possible) and not ask questions.

"but this is stupid. i don't need these tests" yes you do

"what will they do again" put little stickers on you and clip wires to them and the computer does all the work. you just have to lay STILL and NOT TALK.

"when can I eat" ugh...when we are done. where the heck is that tech?

and then.....to mortify her even more she had to put on a gown.

"why do i have to wear this" so they can put the stickers on you.

"do i really have to take my bra off too?" oh for pete's sake yes!

"how long is this going to take" 5 mintues if you cooperate. longer if you don't.

"i don't really want to do this" so i've heard.

and then it was over.

easy peasy....except for the questions.
oh and i did sneak a peek at the printout - *normal sinus rythmn; borderline left axis deviation* and i don't have a clue what that means, but it sure would have been nice to have a baseline EKG done before starting these meds to compare to this one huh.....but what do i know.

I need a drink now and they should probably hook me up to one of those EKG machines cuz I'm sure the print out would be freakin amazing!

"can we go to Subway now?" yes

dont' even get me started on the questions THAT involved.

"what kind of bread would you like that on?" ...............ARGH!!!!

Aarica could SO work at Subway. She LOVES to ask questions!

~K

Something Else I'd Spend My Lottery Winnings On

2009-03-11T09:18:00.004-05:00

My spending spree continues.

I was thinking a whole new wardrobe complete with new shoes that don't hurt my feet was next on my shopping list but alas.....

That will have to wait.

There are other more pressing things that need my lottery winnings attention.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

You ready?

Bowling. That's what I'd spend money on. Now ultimately Al would like to buy the bowling centre but really....how much does he think we are winning here. I've already spent a fortune on a new house and furnishings...... and a book..... and a trip to Chicago.

Seriously though, it would be sweet to win this Friday's Super7 because oh how we would love to pay for an upcoming trip to Toronto (although it's scrapbook weekend so how could I possibly go) but there are 4 boys and their families that I would so love to foot the bill for.

Last weekend one of the teams that Al's been coaching at bowling were in the Provincial 4 player scratch team tournament.......and the little brats WON!!!

Being low coach on the totem pole, Al wasn't with them at the Provincials (he stayed home to run regular house-league while the other coaches took the 4 player team and 3 of our other bowlers who were in Provincial Singles tournaments that day as well) but he's so proud of 'his boys'.

They are off to Nationals in Toronto May 2, 3 & 4!

Them winning is awesome and we are so proud of them but.....

it's sure stirred up some issues. Money issues.

This trip is going to cost huge huge bucks baby and the families of these boys are scrambling. Some more than others but all of them are scrambling in some way because this isn't going to be a cheap weekend.

The flight costs for the 4 boys are covered by YouthBowlingCanada but that's it. Hotel rooms for 4-5 days, plus food and transportation is all the responsibility of the parents. Have I mentioned this isn't going to be cheap?

So, winning the lottery this weekend is a long shot and in the mean time it looks like we as a bowling league will be scrambling in the next few weeks to pull together some fundraising event(s) to help these families with the costs associated with this trip. Anyone have any ideas?

~K

Another Thing I'd Do If I Won the Lottery

2009-03-10T09:08:00.001-05:00

Awhile back someone sent me an email with a link to an ebay auction.

It was the funniest thing I'd read in ages....given that at the time the extent of my reading involved Blues Clues board books and Junie B Jones chapter books.

I've since graduated to listening to Grade 1 home reading books (tonight it was True or False - Finding Out About Newfoundland Dogs) or the latest FlyGuy or Frog and Toad book, listening to play-by-play chapter updates of Clarice Bean or any number of books with a newspaper reporter mouse that I can't for the life of me remember the name of at the moment plus I've been reading grown-up books too.....Jodi Picoult being my author of choice at the moment.

Mostly though I read blogs - because the "chapters" are ever evolving and I get glimps into the lives and thoughts of other mom-blogger's (and dad-blogger's too) and my world doesn't seem so bizzare....or at least I don't feel so alone in my bizzare-ness.

One of the first blogs I became addicted to is Because I Said So by mom-blogger Dawn and she was also the owner of the extremely funny ebay auction that I read awhile back. The reaction to that auction was incredible - so much so that it resulted in her blog becoming a huge hit and she began writing a book.

I've been waiting for the release of that book for ages - and then some because the release date was pushed back a few months....to this spring! Finally the book is getting ready to launch and as Dawn writes in this post on her blog , she is auctioning off the first copy of her first book on ebay with half of the proceeds of the auction going to charity.

I'm not an ebay buyer (unlike some people I know) but if I won the lottery I would so bid on that ebay auction.....and since this is my little dream world and I can pretty much do what I wish with my imaginary lottery winnings, I'd also hop on a plane and attend the launch of her book in Chicago -well....probably not since I'm pretty sure I lack the necessary paperwork to actually cross the border into the US, but it's not like I'm winning the lottery and making this at all possible anyway.

This is fun. Wonder what other things I can come up with to spend my pretend winnings on.

When I Win the Lottery

2009-03-09T00:14:00.009-05:00

One of the 'free-lance' jobs Al & I have been doing for almost a year now started out as construction clean up of debris around the building site of a new condo development. From there it moved to hauling away the construction garbage from inside the houses and also cleaning up after the trades and doing things like preping the subfloor so the flooring installers could come in and lay the carpet,vinyl and hardwood (take my advice - do not EVER install dark walnut hardwood flooring or cabinetry no matter how pretty it looks. It is evil to clean!) Lately we have been cleaning up the finished or almost finished units before open house events.

We've watched these 4 condo units grow from the ground up and we love them all. The floor plans are all awesome and Al loves the 8 ft ceilings in the basements (he hasn't hit his head on a light fixture yet....and I counted - in each house there are a minimum of 4 teleposts per basement ---- FOUR!)

I am particularly in love with the floor plan of the 3 bedroom show-home unit including the wall colours, cabinetry, flooring and all the staging fixtures. I'm seriously head over heels in love!

I love the kitchen!

The living/dining room!

The master bedroom and bath!

I seriously love everything about it....except cleaning it! Actually, cleaning the one unit isn't so bad. It's having to clean all 4 and having to clean up after the trades (who are messier than my kids in some ways). It took me 10+ hours not including the time it took to haul hot water and Al spent 6 hours cleaning the garages and basements and hauling away all the garbage.

Even with all that work though, I still love them and I want one so bad!

Some day. Some way. We will have one built on our property.

I hope.

The more we think about it the more and more it's what our goal is. The house we currently live in won't live forever - no question about that. How much longer is anybody's guess. These particular 'condo' houses seem to be the best option. They are duplex houses and the one we like has a 3bedroom unit on one side and a 2 bedroom unit on the other. We are fairly certain that Aarica will never live truely independantly but we are hopefull that one day she would be able to live with some supervision in one side of the house while we live in the other - then we would be close by but we would each have our own space. I don't know if this is a realistic goal but for now it's an idea - a hope - a dream. I think it's going to have to involve a lottery ticket or two too so I'd better start buying them.

Saved by the Midnight-Blogger

2009-03-08T23:49:00.000-05:00

Don't ever let anyone tell you being a night owl (or having one in the family.... Owen would stay up ALL night if we let him) or sitting up past midnight doing something as silly as blogging or reading blogs can't be a good thing. O was being all night-owl-ish on Friday night and I was sitting up playing online so we were both awake and in or near the living room and we were able to save the life of the newest member of this household....which would be Nibblet or Nibble-It.

Once upon a time, Al and I had a hamster. We were living in an apartment in the city with two cats and something possessed us to get one. As hamsters go - Houdini ROCKED. He really was cool. We could let him out of his cage (supervised) and he would wander on the floor between us....no need for one of those hamster ball things plus and he terrified our pathetic excuses for cats. One couldn't care less that there was a rodent loose in the apartment and the other was...well....quite frankly he was afraid of the little thing - especially if it dared touch his paws. Too Funny! Anyway he got his name Houdini because a) Al picked it and b) he always looked like he was doing death defying hanging tricks off the top rungs of his cage and looked like he was attempting to escape. Well let me tell you Houdini had nothing on Nibble-It. That little bugger has figured out how to escape!

I'm serious. Around 12:30 Saturday morning, Owen calls to me from his perch on the couch and says....."He's opening the door of the cage mom! " I'm thinking "Ya Right" but went in to see what Nibble-It was doing and just as I got close to his cage "pop" there went the latch and sure enough he'd gotten it open and was in the process of pushing his fat little body (he's gained some serious weight in the last two weeks I'm sure) past the hatch. I quickly pushed him back into the cage and O stood guard, holding the door closed while I frantically tried to think think think of something, anything to keep the door shut - something he couldn't nibble through. I ended up putting a binder ring through the door and around the wire bars of his cage and now he is effectively padlocked inside the cage....for now.

I don't even want to think what Saturday morning would have been like if we'd both been in bed and hadn't caught on to his little trick when we did. Princess Em would have been very upset to find an empty cage and if the cats hadn't found Nibble-It, I'm not sure we ever would have. This house has way too many hiding spots a little critter like that could get into.

I'm still jumpy that he will find yet another escape route though and I'm thinking we may need to get a different cage. Maybe we should be re-naming him too because Houdini seems a more fitting name for this little escape artist.

Automated Messages - a commentary

2009-03-06T08:37:00.004-06:00

Caller ID is a wonderful thing. It allows me to know, to a certain degree, who's calling me.

I answer those I know and those with local numbers. I'll even answer a long distance call should the caller be so kind as to not block their ID. Actually, I'll even answer a blocked ID occasionally since there are a few people who call from their places of work and their ID is automatically blocked but we have a system for answering these. It's a secret. If you don't know it, then you aren't one of the ones that calls from a blocked ID that we really want to talk too. Oh - wait. Maybe you are and you just don't know 'the system'.

Calls I prefer not to answer come from the 800/866 long distance calls. You know, the ones.

The telemarketer who insists I absolutely want to save money on my long-distance bill and then heckles me when I say no. Really, I'm fine with my phone company thankyouverymuch!

The charity I've never heard of and quite frankly couldn't afford to donate to if I truely trusted the stranger on the other end of the phone and wanted to anyway and then heckles me for not wanting to help some poor school kids get the breakfast they need in order to have a productive day of learning - yes, really, she heckled me for saying no.

The marketing survey dude pretending he really wants my opinion for his stupid survey.....really - my opinion doesn't matter enough for you to call me at 8am or 10pm....or any other time of day.

Then there are the customer service (loose use of the term here folks) representative who is either calling to ask when they can expect a payment on my account *snort* or just making a courtesy call which is most likely on an account 'not in my name' so they sure as heck don't want to talk to l'il-ol'-me.

The calls that really, really, REALLY bug me though are any of the above that don't actually have a LIVE person on the other end IF by some miracle I'm in the mood to speak to them or IF by their misfortune I'm in a mood and want to tell them where to stick their phone and my phone number. If you can't be bothered to dial that number and be ON THE LINE when I answer then why the heck should I waste my time listening to your automated message asking me to either hold for the next available representative or worse yet run me through a whole damn marketing message that last a minute and a half before I'm given the option of having my number removed from your list so that "my captain" will stop calling me to tell me I've won some stupid trip - as IF!

Yesterday's phone call takes the cake on all of these automated messages though. It was a local number even. One recognizable. It's even on my calling list on my cell phone. If was from....

my kids' highschool

at 6pm

Seriously!

The highschool computer system called me with an automated voice message ( I also received an email message too).

Hello *pause* a child in your household *pause* in grade
10*pause* was absent on March 5th during *pause*period 3. Please
contact the school or send a written note explaining this absense. To hear
this message again press 1

which I had to do about 5 times to really 'get' the full extent of what the heck the message was about and then figure out which of the kids was 'in grade 10'...cuz we're smrt like that.

Boy what grade are you in again? 9

okay, so that leaves.....The Girl.

Boy, when exactly is "period 3?" Uh, well, if you count EP then well um, but it's not really a full time slot so I guess um, it's the first class after lunch - maybe - uh, well. Ya. I guess the first class after lunch. cuz he's smrt like that.

GIRL! What class did you have right after lunch today? Uh, Uh, rattles off some letters of which I have NO CLUE what they stand for - I think it's a travel and tourism course but can't swear to it.

Ya Sure. Okay. So who's the teacher in that class? Audrey.

Ya okay, I know you are with Audrey (her EA) but who's the TEACHER of the class. Uh - Mr. F

And did you go to Mr. F's class today? Well, no. I was with Audrey in the resource room doing 'hygiene stuff' (don't ask....i'm just going to move right along and not even go there. it's 'programming i'm trying to be supportive of but think is well....nevermind. my bloodpressure can't handle that topic today)

So The Girl was "absent" from a class that in all honesty is probably above her head on so many levels anyway working with her EA on resourse/life skills things that the school has initiated and the school is calling ME to ask ME why she wasn't in class? PLUS.... this is a special needs student who's whereabouts should be monitored at all times. If she's not in a class that she should be in I would hope that the teacher would attempt to find out why - at that time - not 2.5 hours after school with an automated message.

I don't know how this automated system really works but I'm assuming that someone (a live person) has to enter the information of who "skipped" what classes into the system and then the system does it's thing. It's feeling rather impersonal to me, especially since my children are directly involved with these teachers on a daily basis. Couldn't these teachers, then in turn, have some direct involvement with parents when an issue such as this one comes about - not that this particular instance should be an issue at all since it's clearly a lack of communication between the resource dept and the classroom teacher on this one. Wonder if I could set up an automated call system.

Resource Dept phone rings 2.5 hours after school.

Hello *pause* this is an automated system calling to inform you
that *pause* a child in your program in *pause* Grade 10, was
absent on March 5th from *pause* Period 3. Please contact the
teacher tomorrow and explain why this child was absent from class.

***anyway, now that i'm done ranting....I called the school - as did apparently a whole lot of parents today. It's a new system and they are working out 'The Bugs'. The teacher inputs their info into the system (when they do this i'm not exactly sure - during class when they take attendance? after school?) and they are only given the option of absent, late or present. There is no "excused" option that the teacher can choose which would eliminate this type of call. So yes, The Girl wasn't IN class so even though she was in school and pulled out of class (or in her case, just didn't go to the class in the first place because of other programming done during that time slot?) she was marked as absent and the system doesn't take anything else into account and makes the automated call. Like I said. Kind of impersonal.

I foresee many of these calls in my future unless they work out these bugs quickly. The Boy takes a "pull out option course" so each time he has Band so he's effectively absent from a couple of his regular classes each week.

More Bordom Buster Rambling

2009-03-06T08:00:00.002-06:00

What else has been going on around here?

Job Hunting. Fun Stuff Baby!

As I've mentioned Al's working on getting his Class 1 license. He wrote the first part of the written tests last week and passed with flying colours. People he's talked to have said that the first test is the harder of the two written tests so he's feeling pretty good. He writes the 2nd part next Thursday.

So far the total cost of him getting his class one is $10 each for the two written tests and $95 for the medical (someone else recently had this same form filled out with a different doctor who charged $125 so I'm not as ticked about the $95). The medical form still needs the eyesight portion filled in and since he'd have had to have an eye test for this medical I'll add the $65 charge from last months surprise at the optomitrist to the total. I'm sure there will be an added charge for filling in the medical form too. Once he's got his written tests done there is the road test to do which I believe is another $50.

That brings us to a grand total of $230 (minimum) that this license is going to cost and that's providing there are no more surprise 'fees' for forms and that he doesn't need an additional re-tests...which I'm sure he won't. He definately lacks some confidence that he knows what he's doing.... but he really does know what he's doing. I have faith that he will be the proud bearer of a Class 1 (with airbrakes) license very soon....and after spending all that money on this - it better result in a damn good paying job!

As for my road to employment. It feels more like a little dirt path at the moment but I'm hoping the path is leading to a sunny spot. I sent in a resume a couple weeks ago for a job that was advertised in the local paper and went on an interview for the job on Wednesday. I must have answered a zillion questions and probably took too much time to complete the computer tasks assigned to me but I think I did fairly well. I'm feeling over qualified for the job and yet seriously lacking experience for the job all at the same time. It's an odd feeling. I hope to hear soon if I get the job or not. I really really need it because this whole unemployment thing is way hard on the budget and I really really want it because the job itself sounds like it would be so awesome and honestly I think I'd love it and be pretty darn good at it. As jobs go, I don't think I could find one that would suit me more.

I recently found a card that one of our former customers sent us. We quite often get cards at Christmas time (along with treats of the baked or liquid kind) and this one had an added note written into it wishing us well in the New Year and hoping that as that door of our lives closes a new and better window will open up for us. We could both really use a boost to climb through that open window right about now and my getting this job could be just that boost.

(At Work) Boredom Buster Blog Post - Part Dos

2009-03-05T08:07:00.002-06:00

Another recent text message

" 140/90 isn't that bad is it?"

"Ummmmm. Well it's not perfect but I don't think your heart is going
to explode.....today. What did the doctor say about it?"

"Well he asked if there as a history of high bloodpressure in the family
which i guess would be a yes."

"He also asked if there was any stress in my life."

*SNORT*

I'm guessing since he asked, our doctor doesn't read my blog. If he did, he would have known the answer.

So Al's got a follow-up in a couple months and he's supposed to go to the pharmacy occasionally and check his bp on their machine in the mean time.

I believe there was also some mention of loosing a wee bit o' weight which I'm pretty involves cutting down on the PAILS of icecream consumed on a regular basis and while the work we do is pretty darn physical, I'm thinking a little cardio could be helpful.

Now the reason Al was at the Dr's office to begin with wasn't that he wasn't feeling well. Honestly, that man never gets sick. It acually makes me sick cuz I just have to hear the word strep and it infects me (Al's nephew just tested positive so it should be any day now for me - ohjoy) and yet I can share a drink with Al and he would be just fine. Grrrrr (doh..sidetracked rant)

Anyway, the reason for the Dr's visit was that as part of getting his Class 1 license, he had to have a "medical check-up". Now they (the licensing people) say this is a "physical" but in retrospect ---- it so isn't! The entire "check-up" involved being weighed and having his bp taken and answering a handful of questions.

Do you have a drinking problem? No.
Do you have an icecream problem? Yes....oh wait...that wasn't one of the questions - but it should have been.
Do you abuse drugs? No.
Have you ever abused drugs? No.
Have you have a history of kidney or heart problems? No and No.

And.....

That's it.

The entire "check-up" in a nut-shell.

The Dr marked off the appropriate boxes, noted his weight and bloodpressure and they were done.

No blood work or nothing.

And for that we got to write a glorious cheque in the amount of $95.

He can't be very concerned about Al's blood pressure if that's what he's charging to fill out paperwork. I know it shot mine up a couple points.

Come on!

For that kind of cash dammit I expected the man to put on a pair of gloves and make Al cough!

A few hours later I was at the same Dr's office too. Aarica had an appointment for her prescription refill. Seriously, there were more questions asked and more tests ordered at Aarica's appointment. He asked how things are going on the meds (GOOD!) and how things were in general (it is what it is). He asked if we had any counciling help - which is a big negative since our phychologist guy took another job. *sigh* and he talked to Aarica about her boyfriend situation and gasp even asked her about sex. It was quite the chitchat.

After he handed us another 3 months prescription PLUS a lab requisition for some tests, I shoo'd her out of the room (and she actually went to the lab on her own and made the appointments for her tests...all on her own...how cool) and I talked to the Dr briefly about Aarica and boys and the possibility that birthcontrol might be an option in the near future - just for safety sake more than anything. She's so unaware of life and could so easily be taken advantage of so it's something that is on our minds these days.

In the mean time, he's ordered fasting blood sugar and a EKG to check her sugars and her heart function - things that need to be kept an eye on with long term use of the meds she's taking and we will talk some more about the results and everything else next time.

And for all that Manitoba Health picks up the tab, but not to fill out a simple form for a class 1 drivers license application.

Go Figure - Not that I'm complaining.

My blood pressure probably wouldn't have been too stellar if I'd been given a bill for Aarica's appointment. Wonder what that would have cost me in the US?

(At Work) Boredom Buster Blog Post - Part Uno

2009-03-04T19:13:00.008-06:00

via text message ---- "You should update your blog. I need something to read."

Getting right on that.

Cuz I aim to please.

Actually I've been trying to get to it for days now but that whole mountain of paperwork/laundry/errand running/financial crisis thing just keeps getting in the way.

I know. I know.

Some peoples' priorities are just not in the right place. I'll try to do better.

So tonight, I'm cozy in my jammies after a long and stressful couple days and I'm going to update both of my blogs. (i hope)

What's new? Hmmmm

Couple new additions to the family.

Al's niece.....Baby Sarah - who slept in a laundry basket for 2 days. LOVE IT! Made me remember the weeks after Aarica was born. We spent alot of time at gramma's ceramic shop and didn't have a stroller yet so Aarica would nap in a banana box. I should dig up those pics.

Of significantly less importance is the addition of a new pet to our household. We aquired a hamster cage many months ago and finally went to the city to get a critter to put in it.

He's cute and has only been briefly lost once behind the couch but I wasn't even sure he was going to make it home from the city.

Honestly. What kind of idiot thinks a small thin box is going to contain something with teeth like that? We'd picked out the critter and made a quick stop at two stores so Ty could get a playstation game and Al could get a pair of jeans with his birthday gift card - 20mins tops. Well in those 20 minutes the chewing was of epic proportion and I knew there was no way that box would last another hour ride home so I did what any good mom would do and made a sacrifice.I dumped the contents of my beloved purse into a bag and put the box with the ever growing sunroof into it and zipped it up. 5minutes later the little $10 critter was merrily munching on the INSIDE of my $50 purse. *sigh* Nothing a needle and thread can't fix and Emily is thrilled to bits with Nibblet.

What was lost....is now found!

2009-02-20T22:16:00.002-06:00

Unbelievable. We looked and looked for those glasses and finally gave up. I was going to go in today and order the new ones --- and dish out the $204 for them. (yes carrie...i know about the website to get glasses for $15bucks from Japan)

Well, last night I couldn't sleep. I just KNEW those glasses were somewhere in this house. Well wouldn't you know it. I found the little buggers. When I told Em this morning where I'd found them she was excited (i was worried she'd be upset since she LOVES the new Jalopenos - Bananarama frames she'd picked out last week) and she said....'oh ya! i remember now!' Ugh! She couldn't have remembered that a week or two or three ago?

Anyway, so she's got her glasses back and I didn't have to order the Jalopenos ones after all....but I still plan to - in a couple weeks when I have the cash to spare. It definately won't hurt to have a 2nd pair. Since her prescription changed slightly too, I guess I'll have to get new lenses for these ones as well. And again I say...she couldn't have remembered a week or two or three ago?

The Circle of Consumer Life

2009-02-19T10:10:00.003-06:00

Okay so we are going to take a left turn here and I'm going to pretend I know a damn thing about politics, economics and consumerism. My experience with these 3 things is strictly from a personal perspective.

I admit, the announcement by the Federal Government on the tax credit for home renovations sparked my interest. I was briefly excited about the program for 'damn this house needs a whole lot of work' reasons and this program is totally user-friendly unlike the the Natural Resources ecoENERGY program and Manitoba Hydro's PowerSmart program. No pre-retrofit assessments (that cost money). No post-retrofit assessments (that cost more money). No taking your chances on just how much of a refund you would get based on how well those assessment show you improved your energy efficiency. With this tax credit program you just keep your receipts. Easy-Peasy! Ya except just like the other two programs I've been foiled again. Squatters don't count. Homeownership is key. There isn't even the option of having the homeowner (my father-in-law) apply on our behalf like with the other two programs - Not that THAT plan panned out anyway. Heck, we still can't even convince him to get us a freakin $50 building permit do you really think if I gave him the paperwork for an incentive program he'd help us out. *sigh* Of course, with our limited income (limited.....bordering on none) we don't have the money to do much in the way of renos right now anyway but that's besides the point.

That being said, I want to talk about some comments I've read recently about this tax credit. Boy people are critical just for the sake of being critical. Maybe I'm just not politically savy but I don't see how this tax credit program is anything but good. Sure it's definately going to benifit the middle/high income earners that can afford to renovate more than it will the low income earners who are just trying to make ends meet nevermind renovate. You can't please (or give tax credits) to everyone. It's a diverse world. Not everyone fits into the same catagory. Sucks but it's true. And face it, many many tax breaks do target lower income people over those with a higher income. So this one doesn't. Oh well.

Some critics are complaining that this is just a make-work, band-aid solution. I'm not seeing a problem with this. Is giving people an incentive to start projects that they were on the fence about doing because of the state of the economy and thereby making work (manufacturing of products, retail sales of said products, labour to install said products) a bad thing? Seems to me a band-aid placed over a cut, temporarily protects the cut while the body has a chance to heal itself. Again, not seeing a problem with providing temporary help while the economy heals.

Consumerism is a circle of life and if it takes some incentive to help those with the financial means to spend some money at a time when the economy is weak then how can that be a bad thing. When people spend money, that inturn helps businesses thrive which keeps more people employed. Employed people are more likely to turn around and spend money than unemployed people (funny how that works) which inturn helps other businesses thrive . This increases the demand for more product keeping even more people employed and able to contribute to the circle of consumerism. Profound thoughts huh.

Lets explore this in a story shall we.

Mary Middle Income earner is on the fence about renovating her
bathroom. She's been wanting to but geesh....the economy sucks so maybe
she shouldn't. But wait. The government is willing to give her
a tax break if she does it now. So she hires Craig the
Contractor to come and pretty-up her bathroom.

Craig the Contractor is stoked. He doesn't have to lay off Andy his
Assistant and together the two of them get to work on Mary's "make-work"
reno project.

Craig goes to Harry's Hardware store and orders his supplies.
Harry's thrilled to see him (and all the other contractors and do-it-yourselfers
who've been in shopping lately too). Harry's employees are still employees
(guess what they do with their paycheques....they BUY STUFF is what they
do) and his suppliers will be happy to hear from him when he
needs to restock his shelves (because guess what...they have employees
too).

Craig the Contractor finishes up Mary's bathroom
reno. Mary gladly pays him for his time and supplies and
receives her receipts.

Craig cashes Mary's cheque and pays Andy the Assistant for all his
hard work. Craig the Contractor is still in
business. Andy's wife is thrilled Andy still has a job.
They both have money to put back into the circle of consumerism
thereby keeping other people employed in the process.

When Mary does her taxes next year she'll get a sweet little tax credit and
maybe just maybe she'll get a bit of a tax refund and go shopping (maybe she'll
buy some scrapbooking supplies from me as a treat....it could happen....it's my
story dammit and I can make Mary buy whatever I want!)

What a great story!

The only sad part of this story is that Craig the Contrator made
one heck of a mess while doing the reno and he had to haul the debris to the
dump himself because he couldn't find anywhere to rent a garbage bin.

Why?

Because - Al the Garbage Man was put out of business by his own local
politicians. Their inability to see the big picture of the circle of
consumerism ended up screwing him....(and hopefully themselves in the process -
they are going to have to try and be re-elected eventually...good luck with
that!) Al the Garbage Man is struggling. Guess who can't
afford to renovate his house? Guess who isn't contributing much
to the circle of consumerism? Sometimes the circle of life...and
consumerism.....sucks!

The purpose of this post was originally as a whine about how I was not going to be able to benifit from this program because of not owning the house. Then it became a commentary about all the critisim I'd read about the program while I was looking for clarification on whether we had to be the homeowner or not. Some where along the way I realized that I'm a little bummed that I won't be benifiting from this program in a totally different way. After receiving a phonecall from a customer yesterday, looking to rent a bin for their contruction debris, it dawned on me. We potentially could have seen some spin off from this program by providing debris removal services for those people who so decide to renovate this year. This program could have been a big 'make-work band-aid' for us. Too bad somebody grabbed the edge of that band-aid and gave it a good pull. It stings a little.....but we'll survive.

the post where my head spins around and then explodes

2009-02-14T22:47:00.004-06:00

I'm literally vibrating right now. I'm dizzy my head is spinning so fast and I think my blood pressure just sky-rocketed and blew the top of my head right off.

That Girl! That Girl! She just exasperates me to the end of my sanity!

I'm feeling entirely embarassed right now and feel the need to phone my friend (hope she's still my friend) Joy in the morning and appologize repeately for the actions of my 16 year old daughter tonight.......who might not make it to 17 if she makes me any more crazy! Heck she might not make it to see the light of day.

Now I get that parenting a teen is in no way easy but seriously I'm at a loss. Parenting a teen is one thing. Parenting a teen who lives on a totally different wave length and learning curve is an entirely different bag of marbles. I think I dropped my marbles. Excuse me while I go round them up.

Ok
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I'm sure I missed a few but I'm back.

Let's talk about telephone ettiquette and more importantly a lack thereof, shall we.

Last year the school resource coordinator suggested providing instruction on basic skills such as how to look up numbers in the phone book. I used my Power of Veto on that suggestion and I had my reasons.

I'll put this bluntly and it probably wont' be 'politically correct' but my daughter has stalker tendancies with no concept of ettiquette. Just because you know someone and somehow have their phone number doesn't mean you have to call them - especially without a reason. Yes, learning to properly use a phone book is a good skill to have....but not before you've mastered the ettiquette of using a telephone properly or any ettiquette really- stalking people makes them uncomfortable. We were still working on face to face social ettiquette never-mind over the phone. Baby Steps!

Up until recently, the telephone is.....well..... it's been off limits. As in don't touch it. Ever. Without permission. And since asking for permission to do things is not what The Girl does best.....we took to hiding the phones *don't judge me.....the need for survival (of one's sanity) leads you to ideas that might not be great but get you through. We were picking our battles at that time and learning phone ettiquette wasn't high on the battle plan. The past 6 months though she'd matured a bit and now has a few friends and a *gasp, choke* The Boyfriend so using the telephone is something that, as a teenager, shouldn't be denied to her - that and since she has free access to the phone at school (don't even ask. that's a battle in itself) we've had no choice but to address the situation and meet it head on. Besides - the girl can sniff out a hidden phone (2 cordless and 3 cell phones in our house) with the determination of a bloodhound on a hot trail and if you let your guard down for a minute she'll scoop up a phone and disappear.

Oh look

.the cat found another marble

.and is batting it around the dining room.

Now where were we. Oh yes. Telephone Ettiquette and My Blood Pressure.

In hindsight I wish we'd stuck to the original battle plan and veto'd the whole damn idea because I think we've taught her telephone skills in the wrong order. Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. The HOW is last on that list.....for a very good reason. Dang. Too late to unlearn the How now. It's the one skill she picked up easily. The rest is a crap-shoot.

These are some of the things we have been working on.

WHO: Who do you call.? You can't just call anyone. Just because you know them and have their number doesn't mean you can or should call them (other kids from school that I know don't really want to talk to her). Don't call other people looking for mom or dad. If they didn't answer when you called them - too bad!
WHAT & WHERE: What phone are you using to call from and where is the person you are calling? Cell phone minutes cost money. Long distance is SO not an option except with parental supervision (one of her friends moved away so it's an
occasional treat...and that phone number is well hidden - bloodhounds couldn't even find it) and for a brief amount of time. Don't call someone at work - mom & dad are busy working and other people's boss might not like them getting calls at work so don't do it.
WHEN: (Similar to where) When do you call someone?- Don't call mom & dad while they are at work. They are WORKING! You may call home from school while on a break or at lunch but not during class time. You may call mom when she is out to ask permission to do something - I'd rather you ask permission than do something you aren't allowed (but DON'T call to ask me something I've already told you that you can't do)
WHY: Why are you calling? You need a reason to call someone. Think about what you are going to ask or tell the person BEFORE you dial. Is this something important that cannot wait until you see them?
HOW: Knowing what number you are dialing and the basic skills of dialing properly.

I thought it was a pretty good list of the Do's and Do NOT's. I was wrong. Way Wrong. This past week has proven that I've missed some key points and there is much work to do to reinforce the ones I've thought of. Some examples that lead me to this ephiphany:

We need to reinforce all the rules about calling mom & dad (and
others) at work. You don't call mom and dad at work while you are at home
because schools are closed due to an ice storm to ask (repeatedly) when
they will be home because I don't know when we will be home and I told you
that the FIRST time you called. Also, don't call any of the other
staff members when mom or dad stop answering their phones to ask them why
we aren't answering our phones.
We need to reinforce the "one phone call" rule and add what to
do if there is no answer and when it is appropriate to call
back later. When someone (The Boyfriend) doesn't
answer their cell phone after you've called over and over and over
again 8 times in under a minute and then call his parents house
and when he answers yell at him for not answering his cell (that's
just plain rude and has nothing to do with phone ettiquette) AND to begin with
you shouldn't be calling repeatedly over and over and over.

And that leads us to what made my head spin around and explode tonight

We definately need to expand the "when to call" rules to include time of
day because..
.
.
.
you DO NOT EVER call someone such as The Boyfriend at his parents house or on
his cell at 10:45 at night!!!!! I thought she'd gone to bed but infact she was sitting in the living room watching the hockey game (which was fine). Then I heard her voice asking if The Boyfriend was there. I'm not lying when I say my head spun around and my blood pressure spiked dangerously high. I'm sure whoever answered the phone could hear me screaming at her from across the house --- and I'll bet the
neighbours 1/4 mile away heard me too.

If you call me in the next little while and I don't answer - it's not because I'm screening calls (unless of course I owe you ooodles of money...in which case I probably am screening your call) it's because both cordless phones and all three cell phones are locked in the safety deposit box and I can't get it unlocked fast enough to answer.

As for what to do about The Girl. You got me, cuz she doesn't seem to have a clue why my blood pressure is so high I'm dizzy.

Hey

another marble!

Just kick me already. I know you wanna

2009-02-13T10:57:00.003-06:00

From Rodney Atkins song - If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)

Well you know those times
When you feel like there's a sign there on your back
Say's I don't mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You'd think they can't get worse than that
And then they do

If you're going through hell
Keep on going, Don't slow down
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there

This song was on the radio yesterday and I felt like hey....they're playing my song .
I'm trying damn hard to move fast and get outta hell before someone else kicks me in the ass. Yesterday, I didn't move fast enough.

With Emily loosing her glasses a few weeks ago, I had to call and make an appointment to have her eyes checked and new glasses ordered. I just couldn't put it off any longer. Well, since Al & I received 'friendly reminders' in the mail at the end of the year that 'it had been awhile' (2004 to be exact) since we'd had our eyes check I figured might as well make appointments for everyone. Yesterday Emily, Al and I went for our appointments. Good news - Al and I are still just as eye-glass dependant as always but don't need any changes to our prescriptions. Score! His glasses are still in good shape and I managed to get replacement frames for my beloved yet discontinued frames last year when I broke them so we were good to go.

Emily's tests showed that in fact her eyes are improving a bit and her new prescription will actually be a little weaker than her old one so it's not like I'm buying the exact same thing that we'd lost so again - not a bad thing. She's kind of in that inbetween stage - doesn't fit kids sized frames but adult ones are still a bit big on her face so it took some work (although not as much as it did 2yrs ago) to find frames that looked good on her. I actually cringed when I saw the ones she fell in love with but in all honesty they are cute and funky and suit her face shape so perfectly. I can't even being to describe them so a picture will be necessary when she gets them.....and I'm hoping we eventually find her old ones (in one piece) and I can just get new lenses put in them so she'll have a not-so-funky pair as a spare. I also cringed at the amount of money these little beauties are going to cost me. $204 buckeroos. Ouch. We still have insurance for a little while longer so at least I'll get a good portion of that back but still we have to dish out the money first and then submit the bill to the insurance company. Won't be able to do that till next week so my poor girl is suffering with sore eyes for a little longer than she should have to. I feel like a bad mom for that!

So with that sting fresh in my mind I am then presented with the bill for the cost of the eye exams for Al and I. HUH? Dang am I an idiot. Never once did I think there was a charge for this. In my mind Manitoba Health still covered eye exams every 2 years and on this I was sadly mistaken (it was changed in 1996....i know because i've been looking for this information all day because it was bugging me. apparently i paid for eye exams in '04 and just forgot. doh!) They only cover exams for children under 19 and people over 65 - of which Al and I are neither. So I maintain my composure at the charge of $65 EACH and quickly walk across the street to the bank where I am forced to borrow money from my son's bank account. And again I feel like a bad mom! I return to the office and pay the bill, still maintaining my composure, then walk out to the van where I sit and have a really good cry.

I'm feeling *Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!* for my extremely poor timing of an extremely un-necessary expense.

In 2 weeks I take the other 3 kids in for their appointment and I'm happy to report they are all still in that under 19 age bracket so at least I won't have to pay for them. Now, these 3 are not previously diagnosed as being optically challenged (if you don't count the elder boys' issues with the colours of the crayons in the box) but with my luck, the kick me sign will still be taped to my back and one or more of the little darlings will require glasses. Oh I hope not!

It's Baby Day! It's Baby Day!

2009-02-12T09:40:00.006-06:00

We are waiting by the phone to hear the news. The newest member of the family is arriving today and that phone call can't come soon enough.

Al's sister Sue and her hubby Grant were to be at the hospital at 6am this morning for their scheduled C-Section at 7:30... or 7:45 depending on who you ask. It's now 9:45 and we are waiting by the phone to hear that their sweet little girl has arrived safe and sound and healthy.

Al called his mom this morning to ask her a question and she yelled at him "You're NOT Grant!" . He called back a little later to ask another question. I think at this point I'm going to hide the phone from him so he stops teasing his poor mother.

***Edited to excitedly add we got the call just after 10am***

She's here! She's here! *edited baby's name....i was misinformed about her middle names*

Sarah Christine Janet Hjorleifson
sweet daughter of Susan & Grant
baby sister of Luke

is finally HERE!

No pictures or other details yet (and I hope i spelled her name right) but you know when I have em I will post em.

On a side note - here's a little "on the day you were born / this day in history" trivia.

21 years ago today, on Friday February 12, 1988...... Baby Sarah's Uncle Alan
asked Baby Sarah's Aunty Kirsten out on their very first date. And now Aunty
Kirsten feels really really OLD cuz that was a really really long time ago!

And the rain came falling down --- in February!

2009-02-10T11:07:00.004-06:00

and on a Monday of course - cuz that's the way Murphy's Law works in my world. Crap happens on garbage day.

Now I know this whole 'school's closed because of freezing rain' happens to a lot of people quite often but here in our part of Manitoba where the roads are relatively flat - it just isn't that common. The occasional 'snow-day' causes closures and more often we have a 'wind-chill' days but even those are rare. That magic 'wind-chill' number seems to have quite a variable and most of the time we miss it by a degree and really the wind-chill doesn't make you housebound, just cautious. You can still get to the store or appointments or to work - you just have to bundle up. Ice - totally not something we are that familiar with so it's been a wild ride baby.

So Monday the kids stayed home and stupidly we took the trucks out and made our way to Winnipeg Beach and stupidly spent nerve-wracking hours doing our job. At one point early in the day we really thought of calling the whole thing off but a) we were already there and b) things weren't going to get any better over the next few days and more likely would get worse, so we sucked it up and finished the day And we got it done I'm proud to say. And we didn't damage anyone (like me...I was so scared I'd fall - again - and hurt my wrists - again) or put any trucks in the ditch (like 'the other guys' did....which made us laugh in a cosmic, karma is a bitch kind of way) and we all made it safely back to the yard in pretty decent time too. For the record 3-ton trucks don't like to only go 20km/h on ice and the back end kept trying to get ahead of the front end and fishtailing that much truck sure ain't fun but I'm so proud of Shelley for keeping things together and getting us there and back safely. That girl is amazing!

And now that we've been there/done that, once is enough and we now have a new policy in place " Freezing Rain=Not leaving the Yard". We safely made it home from work without incident once but are not willing to temp fate a second time.

Watching the news Monday night also brought about a 'what were we thinking' moment when they showed that all garbage service in the city was suspended and if your pick up day was yesterday then you had to wait till next week. Geesh - why didn't we think of that. Al says when he talked to the foreman in the beach Monday morning he seemed surprised to see us there at all so maybe we could have just not gone....but being a contractor you just don't know where you stand in making decissions like that. 7 more weeks.

It's now Tuesday and again the schools are closed due to icy highway/road conditions. Wondering how long this will last. I don't see that ice disappearing by tomorrow morning. This could get old - fast. Oh wait. It already has. Not that I mind having the kids home in theory but they are getting sick of spending so much time with eachother and the nattering and bickering is getting to me. Aarica's routine has been messed with and she's obsessing about everything and Emily's sulking cuz...well....school is where Emily likes to be and she had things to do and people to see. The boys - well - they coudn't care less. Ty's in his glory watching all the shows on the History Channel that he never gets to see and Owen's never going to want to go back to school at this rate since he's on his 2nd week home (spent last week home sick). Al took off to town (slowly) this morning for a dentist appointment and to get us some much needed milk and bread - oh and cream for my coffee and smokes. The last thing any of these people want is to be locked in a house for a couple days with me out of smokes. Nobody'd make it out alive.

The proof is in the 'ah-ha' moment

2009-02-09T00:31:00.003-06:00

For those of you (like the 3 whole people that actually stop by and read this neglected little ramble-factory I call my blog) that have been around awhile, you might remember this little post from July about little red magic beans. Well it's been 6 months since The Girl started on these little darlings and while there's never been any question that they help....oh baby do they help, I've found myself wondering lately just how much they help. You see time has a way of making you forget things. *Stop snickering! I know I can't remember a damn thing at the best of times to begin with but seriously. After a few months, the 'new norm' kind of took over and we'd pretty much put the past behind us (or more likely blocked the horrific memories from all consious thought to save our sanity).

Anyway...I'm rambling...see aren't you glad you stopped by.

Anyway the new norm ain't all sugar and spice. The Girl is still a teenager and oh boy she's doing that with flair but we've been wondering just how different life was back then. Well. I have to tell you. We got a decent dose of just what life used to be recently and I can't believe it took me almost a full day to have that ah-ha moment and realize what was going on. While I was on pox-induced quarentine with Miss Em a couple weeks ago, Al took the rest of the herd...I mean family, out to Malanka (Ukrainain New Year Celebration for those not in the know) and they did not get home until sometime around 1am. Now normally The Girl is absolutely obsessive (it can be a good thing) about taking her meds. She's got this internal alarm clock and she knows when it's 9:00 and each night she responsibly takes her little red magic bean. It's really become such routine that I rarely double check that she's taken it and only need to monitor her pill box a couple times a week, refill it once a week and keep tabs on when to refill the prescription etc. *Note to self....hey self....you better get that prescription refill from the pharmacy this week. Even when we've been out in the evenings, the first thing she does when we get home and she's getting ready for bed is take her meds. So.....you can already figure out where this is going and really, if I was reading it like you are now I'd have seen it too. But that's not the way things work so it took till 9pm the NEXT night - a full 24hours past due for her meds for me to have my light-bulb, ah-ha, how could I be so stupid moment.

That Sunday was by far the most aggrivating day we've had in a long time. Sheer misery was had by all that day. Nobody was immune. Everyone at some point got a taste of it. Short-temper. Impulsive. Crash and burn mood swings and flat out mean-ness. She couldnt' keep her hands to herself or her mouth from getting her into trouble. It was brutal. To the point where Miss Em, who was starting to feel the 'crash and burn' of the pox and had little patience and lots of tears, packed up her personal belongings and moved out of the room she's been sharing with her sister and moved in with her brothers. "It was worth the risk" she told me later (if you could see the boys' room you'd understand the huge risk she was taking -especially not having a HazMat suit).

We'd assumed Em's lack of patience & tears were more from the pox and itching and Em herself not feeling well but in hindsight, I think she'd have bailed anyway because the day was just THAT BAD. And it just didn't click until later than night, while I was out having coffee with Carrie and was able to decompress and actually string a few thoughts together and talk to another adult without the stress of everything going on a home around me that I thought.....I'll bet she didn't take her meds last night. Sure enough - I got home and went straight to her pill box and the Saturday compartment still had that tiny little red bean in it. So while this little impromptu experiment wasn't exactly scientifically well executed, it sure does reinforce just how much those little beans help not only The Girl...but everyone who comes within striking distance of her. Been along while since we had a 'Duck and Cover' day in our house and I truely don't miss them. Now if only there was a magical cure for teenagers. I have two of them and there ain't enough Merlot in the cupboard some days baby!

*** Oh...and we haven't seen Em's glasses since that Sunday she 'moved out'. It's been over 2 weeks and I just don't hold much hope for finding the glasses (in one piece at least) so it looks like I'll need to buy The Princess a new pair. Grrrrr Pretty expensive 'science experiment' if you ask me.

New Year - New Chaos and Confusion

2009-01-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

*Sigh*

Never a dull moment I tell ya.

The cold weather continues but at least there have been a few warm days thrown into the mix to keep our spirits up. There is hope of spring arriving.....eventually.

Mom continues to struggle with her health and I've spent a night or two at her house just to provide her the comfort of knowing she isn't alone while she feels so poorly. She's had some more tests done with still no answers as to what's going on with her stomach - but on the bright side, having the procedures done seems to have disrupted the cycle of pain and queasiness which is a bonus. She is still battling the sinus cold from hell - and to some extent so am I. You'd think after 2 months it would get the hint that it is unwanted and move on.

As if trying to get her to a healthier state isn't fun enough, my own children are giving me a run for my sanity too. The younger two have become walking plague-monkeys and we have been doing our very best to contain the spread of their Chicken Pox to the unsuspecting of the world. I sure hope we succeeded. Mr O fell victim first and in huge dramatic fashion he wasted no time in being totally covered in spots. Just as quickly as they came, they crusted over and he was on the road to recovery. The true drama didn't begin until a few days later when Miss Em began to show signs of spots - tiny little spots that showed up one at a time, with the worst possible timing --- the day of Malanka. This princess LIVES to dance, to perform, to get up infront of people. Her universe revolves around it and there she was - quarentined and unable to go. Adding insult to this was the fact that her little brother who 'has the chicken pox too!' was already into the non-contagious stage of the pox and he was allowed to go and dance. How Unfair! She took it like a trooper though and her and I spent the evening at home. Since she'd just started breaking out, she wasn't uncomfortable and we had alot of fun spending time together. The fun didn't last long though. While Owen wasted no time in breaking out and healing without much discomfort, she has taken the opposite route and it has been a long week with alot of tears and advil and calamine lotion and benadryl and the last day or two has also included her breaking out in huge patches of hives whenever the benadryl wears off. My Poor Princess!

In other health news - my van is ill too. Very ill. Expensively ill. Well, not really expensively ill, just too expensive to want to deal with, considering all the other issues that tired old piece of crap has. Is it really worth it to soak that much money into a vehicle that really isn't worth it. So what does Al do? He drags me to a dealership and has me fall in love with a new(er) van with some cool bells and whistles...including dual sliding doors - a dream of mine! Our financial health is in even poorer health - to the point where I'm almost ready to put it on the DNR list. Pending unemployment kinda has that effect on ones bank account. How the heck we are even considering that we will get financing for this new van is beyond me - but we don't have many other options so keep your fingers crossed.

And then there were 12

2009-01-05T18:10:00.003-06:00

12 more Mondays that is. I sure do hope that none of them are as stinking cold as this one was. Working on the truck is hard enough when you are warm. It's pure hell when you aren't. It started out at -32 and got up to a toasty -26 this afternoon with NO wind at all which was a treat I tell ya. I can't imagine what today would have been like if last nights forecast of -48 with the windchill had actually happened.

The only thing that kept me going was the pack of HotHands I found in the storage compartment in the big truck this morning. My toes were SO cold I couldn't move them and every step hurt. A pack of those hand warmers in each of my boots and in no time my toes had thawed out. By mid afternoon my fingers were hurting too so I opened a couple more packages and into my gloves they went.

Aside from the cold - another reason I'm counting down the days.....the little truck broke down at 9am. Ugh! Somehow we managed to get the work done and with only one contract, we have a whole week to fix the truck instead of the usual one day. It's kind of nice. I mean, kinda nice in a 'no pressure to get the truck fixed in a hurry before we need it wednesday' kind of way. Kinda nice in the 'whoo-hoo...only have to work one day a week' kind of way. I'm looking on the bright side of the whole pending unemployment thing here of course. I could totally spin this a whole other way and say Oh no...only 12 more weeks and then what do we do with our lives kind of way but I'm not. Not after working in -31 weather and almost freezing my fingers and toes off and having a truck break down at 9am. Nope. I'm completely looking at the next 12 weeks as a count down to bigger and better....and WARMER things.

And they all sat in the kitchen

2009-01-01T12:09:00.000-06:00

The 'open house' in my newly designed open-floor-plan house went well.....
except the part where nobody left the dang kitchen and actually made use of the recently opened up dining/living rooms. I mean seriously. I spent 5 days on that reno, insisting it be relatively done by the 31st and for what? So everyone could spend the evening in my tiny not-so-eat-in kitchen? Oh the humor of it all.

Honestly the reno project had very little to do with the open house - the open house just gave me a deadline to have it done by (you know - to prevent a doh-dee-doh attitude of getting to it one day).

The reno was 100% for my sanity.

The reno project worked. My sanity is intact (more or less) and for the first time in quite awhile my relateionship with this house isn't teetering on the edge of me going out and renting a bulldozer.

At least the added space gave the kids room to run about while friends came and went. At times up to 16 people crowded into every conceivable space in my kitchen. We had a great time laughing and telling stories and jokes, talking about the future of our business and drinking and eatting our way though the evening. By 9:30 everyone had cleared out, leaving behind a scattered array of almost empty food trays, empty bottles and for some reason there were a whole lot of grapes on my floor.

Aarica went to bed shortly after everyone left and Alan, Tyler, Emily, Owen and I curled up in the living room to watch Shrek2 on TV. I fell asleep on the couch but they woke me up a few minutes before midnight and we counted down to the New Year together.

It really couldn't have been a more perfect night. Having a great time with friends and ending the night with those who matter most. Family.

Twas the days after Christmas and all through the house

2008-12-29T08:37:00.003-06:00

Twas the days after Christmas
and all through the house
wrapping paper was scattered,
being chased like a mouse

by kittens so excited
to play in the mess
while 4 children sat nestled
happily playing their DS.

My story could go on
I could make it rhyme
but really I'm exhausted
and don't have the time.

The New Year is coming and
resolutions are mounting
I got a giftcard from HomeHardware
and my purchases I'm counting

New Drywall. New Paint.
A light fixture or two
I'm going to make this house
look almost as good as new (i said ALMOST)

The reno did start
a day or so ago
beginning with that wall
that really had to go

So now I am cleaning
and purging and fretting
Do I have room for this airhockey table?
On this I'm not betting.

There's laundry to do
and some shelves that need clearing
I'm enjoying my space
but the end of the year is nearing.

As our contract is finished
an openhouse we are hosting
as we tell stories with old friends
and to a new future we are toasting.

I wish you all a sweet end
to the year 2008.
My wish for you all is
that next year is GREAT!

Happy Holidays! See you in 2009!

Chaos & Confusion

What A Difference A Year Makes

Huh - She was right (she usually is)

Oh Ya....I have a blog.

Happy New-ish Year

Six Months

Might Just Be on a Roll Here

Lets See If I Remember How To Do This

Seriously?!? Here's a stock tip for ya!

Bet you can't guess what today was.

Before and After

So much for sleeping in

To make plans or not to make plans

I need tech support!!!!

I'm disconnected from the world

I have the day off tomorrow and

Honey I'm home!

Do you feel neglected?

And the award goes to.....

*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

So this is what a day off should be like

Time, Ticks and Tilt-a-whirls

when tech support gets a real job

More Surprises

Nice Relaxing Day Off....to blog and flower shop and oh wait...

Because there's room on my calendar for a meeting

profile blurb

Recreating Normal

I can see clearly now

Teen Drama Queen Strikes Again - footage at 11

Okay - so I threw out his winter boots but

A Little More Nature

A little nature

The Good, The Bad & The Damp

Suggestion Duely Noted and Taken Into Consideration

The best part of my day

A Wonderful....But Long Weekend

Stop-Payment

I can't say I'm crazy

Silver! Gold! Gold! Gold!

I'm out

This is a Public Service Announcement of the Murphey's Law Weather System

At the top of my list today....

*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

Income less expenses equals

For Sale

It's a good thing he's cute

Is it over yet?

Well lookie that - I lost a week

whew...what a day

Would u believe me if I said...I was confused?

*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

It was a different kind of Monday

Monday Afternoon Comic Strip

I am IN LOVE

Second guessing my brilliance

Anyone seen the dust pan?

A Little Friday Fun

I quit - NOT

I need to go buy a new calendar....mine's broken!

*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

One last time

The Grand Finale

One of life's big mysteries - answered

Is He White With Black Stripes or Black with White Stripes

About Me

The first week of spring has been just LOVELY!

*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

Why you should google things before you commit

and then there was one

2 days left and it keeps just getting better and better

He's doing his part but REALLY?

Well Damn!

school sucks.....the money right out of me!

Dude Got A Job!!!

Tough Love - Living With Teens

Just Keep Swimming

What to do. What to do. It's quite a pickle I'm in.

can you feel the love

a bit of rambling

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

I Wonder Why? Wednesday

I Wonder Why? Wednesday