3 Kids and a Cocktail

Our OCONUS PCS experience.

2011-12-18T22:14:00.002-06:00

As I've stated before, this has been a long journey for us. By the time that we actually touch the ground in Germany, it will be nearly 8 full months since we received orders telling us of the move. So much can change (and did! and will again!) since then, so I wanted to tell you about our experience up until the actual flying date. That is still a wee bit away for us.

1. EFMP I've blogged about being possibly placed on EFMP before (and I eventually was placed on it), so I'll just start from the point of my 1st appointment after finding out that I was being flagged. I went to my PCM but was told that to have them fill out the paper work it would be a $75 form filling out fee unless I had orders. Since I need the EFMP paperwork filled out to even placed on the orders, they let me use my husband's orders for the appointment. I went in and was so nervous that this was an all-or-nothing type of appointment. If she didn't word the orders how I needed them to be ordered, then there was a good chance of my command sponsorship not being granted. Thankfully, the appointment was quick and painless. The hardest part of that was waiting for nearly 10 days for the paperwork to be filled out completely. I then took them straight back to the EFMP office at the hospital and they took care of the rest. About 3 weeks later, we knew all was okay because my husband got a message on his AKO "welcoming" the EFM to Germany". So, yeah. Really anti-climatic.

2. Command Sponsorship (CS) It was approved, as you can see above. However, actually getting it printed on orders for me and the kids was very hard to do. Once we found out that it was approved we called to get our orders printed off. We stupidly assumed that it would be that easy. We were told multiple times that even though it was approved, and was visible in the system that it had been approved, that our orders wouldn't, nee, couldn't be printed off until we were within 30 days of arrival at the new duty station. We explained (multiple times) that we were given the option to arrive early, and we wanted to take advantage of that. "Nope" we were told over and over. Ryan spoke to a woman one time who said that we would be "lucky" to get them printed off in the 3 weeks before we left base on leave because there were 20 or so people in front of us on the list, some of whom were scheduled to arrive to their new bases before us, and we needed to wait our turn. (**This office's only job is to print off orders. That's it. Not to amend orders, or re-write orders, or stop orders. Nope. Their only responsibility was to physically print off the orders and call us to have them come pick them up.**) Ryan went to the actual office (as opposed to calling on the phone) and spoke to a supervisor after all of this run around because he was days away from going on leave at this point and transportation was coming the following week to move our stuff. The supervisor feigned embarrassment and told him to be back there at 1300 when they opened up after lunch and she would have them ready for us. I went with him to that appointment, and though the orders weren't done as promised, they were done within the hour that we were sitting in the waiting room watching her type them up. When she handed over the orders, I hugged her. Hard. For longer than was appropriate. And I don't care. After getting these orders, we immediately walked down the hallway to pick up our No Fee passports and then walked downstairs to Carson Wagonlit to order our plane tickets. Yahoo! We were even able to choose the date and time of the tickets that we wanted, which was great. My husband wanted the ticket with a 40 minute layover in a huge international airport between connecting flights with 3 kids and 6 carry-on bags among us. Um......no. Thankfully I was able to have some input into that decision and picked on with a tad bit longer layover.

3. Passports My first recommendation for the regular passport is to not take your picture at the post office. It was more than double to get it taken there, as opposed to Walgreens or Walmart, and your children may or may not wear a superman shirt to school under their hoodie, and you will then have to try and figure that situation out in the car. Or something. My second recommendation is that you print off all of the paperwork before hand and take it with you. However, you may be stuck in the waiting room like we were for seemingly forever, in which case you may have more than enough time to fill out the paperwork there. There were 5 of us to get passports for but once we got out of the waiting room and into the actual office, it took about 30 minutes to complete all five, including having pictures taken for everyone. The pictures that were taken included 2 pictures (of the same image), and we used the 2nd "extra" one for our No Fee passports. We had to pre-order special birth certificates that are required now--they are the "long" forms and we only had "short" forms for everyone--and all together, including birth certificates, pictures, fees, and copies, the total cost was about $900. O.U.C.H. We got them back in about 10 working days.

The No Fee passports had a little bit of different information needed on the paperwork, and that paperwork HAD to be completed online. They needed a special bar code printed off on the paperwork to be turned in. We turned that paperwork in, along with the passport photos from above, and that office took care of the rest of that. We were able to pick them up physically only once we had orders and they had sent us with specific paperwork to have the travel agency sign off on. They look nearly 100% identical to the regular passport. The only difference is one page has a ginormous SOFA stamp on it, allowing us to be able live in Germany more than 90 days. For the regular passports, each of the children and and Ryan and I had to be there. For the No Fee ones, the children didn't have to be present.

4. Transportation We called them and set a tentative date (after we had already turned in notice to housing of our moving date) based upon when the children could check out of school* for the semester while still getting full credit & how much time we wanted to take before we flew to spend time with the family**, and they sent someone out to do a pre-move inspection. This woman basically walked through the house making a list of everything that we had and if any special crates were needed. They made 2 crates for us - one for a glass curio cabinet and one for a $5 Ikea vase. She said that the moving company wanted to pack on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then move on the Monday after. I put the kibosh on that because I knew that it would take longer to pack then just one day and I didn't want the movers to feel rushed about only having one day to pack before the movers came. They scheduled then to have packers there on Monday & Tuesday, and the crating to be done on Wednesday after Thanksgiving. On Monday, 3 ladies came to pack the house and they were incredibly slow. Painfully slow. Dreadfully slow. It took one woman nearly all day to pack my china hutch. To put that in perspective, we don't own a china set & 2 of the 3 drawers were already empty. Ahem. (Side note- did you know that on an OCONUS move, they take all of the clothes off of the hangers and lay them flat in the box? I didn't know that until they started to pack. It was....odd. Also- they didn't pack our dresser drawers. They just laid a piece of paper over what was in the drawers and called it a day.) Well, at nearly the end of that 1st day, the slowest lady (china hutch lady) started making comments about our belongings that she didn't think that we could hear ("I would never own that!", etc) and I got pissy and verrrry passive-aggressive. The next morning we learned that she was fired (not from us complaining) so then we were down to 2 packers. They got there at about 9 am. That second day they worked till about 6 pm. Both days, the ladies took nearly 2 hour lunch breaks. I tried to be gone nearly all day, both days, because it is so incredibly awkward to stand and watch someone pack up all of your things when I know that I am capable of doing it physically. It's just an odd feeling. We questioned them about some things that hadn't been packed and they said that the craters would pack them for us the next morning. What? Turns out the packers didn't pack our 3rd full bathroom, or the laundry room shelves, OR 2 cabinets in the kitchen. The packers did pack it like we were told that they would, but 6 huge burly men were not pleased to be packing from under the bathroom cabinets. The craters took about 9 hours to crate up everything and it took 12 crates. 12 jam-packed crates. We were underweight, which is nice, seeing how our orders didn't specify an Un-Accompanied Baggage shipment prior to the HHG arrival, so we had to mail ourselves part of that shipment to the tune of nearly $300. We've been told that since we were underweight, what we mailed to ourselves will be reimbursed up to the point of our weight limit. We shall see.

We were also called about 67894793743 times by transportation with them wanting the amended orders. We didn't have them for forever (see #2 above), so that was fun to deal with everyday. I was very happy to turn that packet of paperwork over to them.

5. POV Shipment We financed our vehicle so we had to go to our lender and get some paperwork from them stating that it was okay that we were taking the vehicle to Germany and a certified copy of the title. The closest place to ship the car for us was in Dallas. First, we had to rent a car and transfer everything over to the rental in the parking lot. Then, we had to find the shipment place which is in an obscure location. It had been raining and was FREEZING cold that day. While I took the kids to get something to eat, Ryan took the car to be vacuumed out. However, since it was still spritzing rain, no car washes were open. The 2 (or 3?) places near-by that the shipping place had recommended when we called before we got there were either closed due to weather or had broken vacuums. Awesome. This did not bode well for Ryan's stress or mine and I had a HUGE freak out in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A. It was not my finest moment. Finally he found a place and then I met him at the ship yard. The attendant then required Ryan to go get a full car wash, even though it was still raining. It is standard for them to require a full car wash prior to shipment, but the rain was on and off all day and a car wash in the rain just sounded crazy. Anyway, Ryan went back to the place where he vacuumed it out and then finally was able to in-process the car. It took about an hour after the car wash to get all of the paperwork fully completed. The place had a large room inside with a TV playing kids shows and lots of toys for them to play with and also lots of tables to sit out. We only found this tidbit of nugget of information after I had set outside with the kids in the van for 1.5 hours, and about 15 minutes before Ryan was done. Fun.

6. Money This is a very taboo topic, but I'll be honest with you. I have no idea if we have enough money to move to Germany. I'm sure that we do, and that all will be fine, but no one really talks about financial specifics and there are so many unknowns with a move like this. I would say that we have put in about $4000+ into this move. Passports, and winter clothes and snow boots and things for the car to be ready and moving out of Ft Hood (carpets cleaned, house cleaned, repairs, etc) -- it all just added up quickly. We are moving from a place where we are wearing flip flops 4 days before Christmas, to a place where we will be trekking through the snow routinely in the winter. We have money still in the bank, but truthfully, if we hadn't sold our paid off SUV, I'm not sure how we would have afforded it. We don't routinely have large amounts of money hanging out in our bank account. And by that I mean never. We did get some money from the Army to help with expenses (and we haven't spent that money...yet...) but it's still very stressful to not know about money, especially when switching from Dollars to Euros. It isn't a 1:1 conversion, it's more like a 1:0.73 conversion, which isn't ideal for and OCD-type, such as myself.

*School We have 2 kids in elementary school and 1 kid in middle school. We initially looked at our report date, and agreed upon a 2 week span that we would like to leave base to be able to spend some time with family before we flew. I went to the school and spoke to them about the end-of-semester rules that would apply to us as far as credits go for the kids. The told me the last date that the kids HAD TO attend in order to receive full credit for the 1st semester, and I chose a date based on that. This chosen date then helped to dictate the rest of our move because we scheduled movers and cleared housing based off of this date. I turned in paperwork to the school register to hand carry their records and what their last day would be approximately 1 month ahead of time. To be honest, one of the schools still didn't have their paperwork completed, which was very irritating, but in about 30 minutes they were able to get it all together. I had to specify and PUSH at each school that I would be hand-carrying the records and that I didn't want them sent over. Sure, it's more work for the schools (they have to put all of the paperwork into a manila envelope! AND-sign and seal it! It's amazing they make it through.....), however, I know that when registering them for school over there it will be easier so I "gently" insisted this would be the way that it would happen.

** Family We wanted to see our family before we left, obviously, but I've come to realize that there is a fine line between "seeing you before we leave" VS "how many hours till take-off?" when staying with family for an extended period of time. We left on a Friday from Ft Hood and traveled up north to visit home-bound family and spend a few days with them. On the way back south to our final destination to see our family, we dropped the car off in Dallas. When we got to town where all of our parents live, we dropped off our rental van, thus leaving us without a vehicle for the (considerable) amount of time that we are here. We are at the mercy of family for everything. We split the time that we are here at "home" between staying with my parents and staying with his parents. It's not so much fun. We are getting on our family's nerves, and vice versa. We have to schedule everything we would like to do, or places we want to go, with multiple people. It's a long, drawn out breath of anticipation for the move that makes everyone walk uncomfortably on eggshells. Ryan and I have been arguing more because of the stress. Also? You would think it doesn't cost a lot of money to stay with family, but I would say that we've spent probably $1500 on food and items that were needed that our parents home of 2 didn't have. Also- we have to live out of suitcases for approximately 2 months. TWO. LONG. MONTHS. Also- Germany doesn't have the same weather as South Texas in the winter. Shocker, I know. This has meant lots of laundry and lots of unused items left in the suit-cases that will be better suited for winter in Bavaria, and not Texas. My advice would be to carefully weigh, realistically, the amount of time and money you can (and want) to spend with family before you leave. Don't romanticize the time you will spend with family too much, or you'll surely be let down. Expectations should be lowered and you should just try to survive the time. At this point, our car is shipped, we have plane tickets out of here to a new life, and there isn't really anything to do but "relax". And that is hard to do when you aren't in your own home anymore and the anticipation of the big date looms large for everyone.

WHEW!

If you are here, you are my hero. I know I said I would post this the day after my last post, but holy crap, this is a long post. There is so much more to our move than I am putting in here and much, much more that I am surely forgetting. Also, there is more to this post to be written for us, as we still haven't gotten to our destination yet. I hope that everything is smooth sailing from here on out.

*****Disclaimer -- this has been our experience. This may not be your experience. That is okay. In no way am I speaking badly about Fort Hood, or any of the offices that we worked with. They all had rules and regulations, and that's what makes the world go 'round. We may not have liked what happened with us at every turn, or decisions that they made, but that doesn't mean that any of the people we encountered weren't doing their jobs. *****

Well, Helloooooo!!!

2011-12-15T14:41:00.000-06:00

I had grand plans to start a new blog and keep up with that and update it all of the time but life ran into that plan and frankly, I didn't want to put the effort into it, and so I'm back here. I'm going to try to put some more effort into this one, so bear with me as I try to re-navigate blogging. 349 days since my last post here, so let me update you on some things that have been going on!

1st off, Ryan made it home from the sandbox safely. He's been home for seemingly forever now, but realistically, it's been almost a year. If we weren't preparing for this overseas move to Germany soon, we would be preparing for Ryan to deploy soon.

Speaking of the big PCS move, I plan on writing tomorrow (2 blogs close together?!) about where it is at and what is going on in that situation.

In my last blog (11.5 months ago), I talked about enrolling for school. College Algebra didn't work out for me, however, in August I enrolled in self paced classed to go towards a certificate at the college. the certificate program is for a Medical Secretary, and at the end, all of those courses will be applied towards an AA degree, should I chose to go that route later. I was able to knock out 2 before we left base at the beginning of December, and I will be able to finish the rest of my classes online from Germany. Zip. Zap. Zoom.

Lots more going on right now, but if I told you all of that today, I surly wouldn't come back to update anything because I wouldn't have anything to update. And you wouldn't have anything to come back for! ;)

An update & new blog among other things...

2010-12-31T13:42:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to send a quick update of things that are going on around here...

1) I enrolled in college early this morning! I had planned to step back into school slowly by just taking 2 classes, but one of the classes that I wanted was already closed at the times I could have gone, so I just went for the one class instead. I may not be grammatically correct all of the time, but I am even worse at math. It's awful for me. I'm in the 3rd developmental class that I've taken (out of three) so after this it's off to College Algebra. I seem to be able to take notes in class okay but when I get home it seems as if my book always morphs into Ancient Greek text and I have no clue as to what it is trying to tell me. Studying for me is extremely hard. Ugh. I dread this already but I have to get it done, so onward and upward.

2) Housing. Let me just show you a couple of pics.

So they sent out workers to fix it (whom had already been here and had done this crap job above) to fix it. It was a clusterfuck kind-of a day. 1) They insisted they didn't have to fix the ceiling as nothing was wrong with it. 2) Old man got pissy with me when I insisted that they did have to replace it and we had words. 3) They fixed the ceiling. 4) Even though they already had pulled out the insulation the last time that they were here, *coughcouchbullshitcoughcough**, they "humored" me and "pulled it out again" to replace it with new insulation. I took pictures of the "old-but-just-recently-installed insulation" because it was, in fact, moldy.* 5) The taper/floater came in unannounced & unexpected (read: without knocking and hours after the other 2 had already been there). He asked if he could come the next day to do what he needed to do. I told him a) No, as it was Delanie's birthday and we had plans, and b) you have already been to my house and told me you would show up on the following Monday and never showed. He acted all kinds of sorry and eventually we settled on Monday, the 3rd for him to come back. He then comes to "verify" and tells me the 4th & 5th, and then the 5th & 6th. Grrrr.... THEN he BEGS me repeatedly to let him come the next day -- something about taking his girlfriend to Colorado this weekend and he would have to fly back just for me, blah blah blah -- so I tell him fine. 9 am. Be here or don't ever come back. He shows up without a ladder. Kept calling me pet names like "sugar" and "honey", and then? He walked out the door, presumably to put his stuff in his truck. But he never said a word to me and just left. No, "Hey! I'm done. Wanna take a look?" or "Thanks for letting me come - I'm done and out of your hair now." Nothing. Weird-o. A few hours later, I walked out to my carport/driveway and noticed a HUGE oil leak from their truck.* FUUUUUUUCK. I called housing and told them I would not pay for that when we moved out and someone needed to come clean it up. No one has come yet, surprise, surprise.
* I can't for the life of me find the pics on my computer, but I know they are there. They better be.

3) Delanie turned 8 yesterday. We went and saw "Gulliver's Travels" in 3D, got new shoes for soccer for her and Landry, and went to Applebee's because she wanted them to sing a specific Happy Birthday song to her. We told them 7859475497 times it was her b-day and how excited for the song she was and the waitresses kept saying to hurry up and eat so they could sing to her and then? Some random waitress brought her the ice cream and walked away. No song. I cried. Delanie got sad. Then the waitress saw the mistake and they all came and sang, but still. The moment was ruined (to me anyway). She got Butterscotch the pony, after asking it for the past 4 years. I got it off of Craigslist for about 1/4 the original price and she loves it. She says that she had a great day, so I will take that as a success. Happy Birthday, Baby!!

Delanie at about 10 months old.

Delanie at age 23 months.

Delanie in one of her dad's old uniforms.

4) My Donut of Misery says less then 10% to go of this deployment. I would be happier if Ryan and I weren't constantly arguing. It's our standard MO, I suppose -- always fighting just before a deployment, right before his return, and in the middle. So this tiff wasn't completely unexpected, but they are always still rough none the less. However, I am still looking forward to him being home, please don't be confused about that.

5) I've started a new blog. I've needed to make some changes for a long time and I wanted a place to document the changes I want to make and need to make and hopefully, do make. I do want all of you to come and see it (if you'd like!!)! I've enjoyed interacting with some of you on here so, so much. I'm not sure how I will keep up with this blog. Maybe not at all, maybe at the same pace, maybe more. I suppose if I want to blog about the kids, and whatnot's, I will do it here. There isn't anything posted on the new blog till tomorrow, as that's New Year's Day. I hope you will come along and tell your friends! All the more motivation for me!!!

Introducing...

The Year of Me {Abbey}

You are beautiful.

2010-12-28T00:50:00.000-06:00

**Originally posted on my mySpace account on July 29, 2008 for my dearest daughter, Audree**

Different

Current mood:indescribable

As we walked through the hallways, people popped out of the woodwork to comment on her hair. "What a beautiful color it is! It's so wonderful! I love it!" 3 times you heard these words from three different people today alone. Delanie is beautiful and stunning and different. She is easy to make friends and laugh. The further we walked, the more comments we heard. "Oh my! What fantastic curls your son has!" 2 times today, people's words pierced your heart. People seems to always notice the two of them, you said, but they never notice you. Light skinned, blue eyed beauties your siblings are. Golden curls for one and fiery red hair for the other. Stunning combinations. Landry has a laugh that would melt the Devil himself. But friends are harder for him. He's different in a way that we can't understand. His mind is his own little world. But still he is beautiful.

You don't possibly remember, but once upon a time you were the beauty for which people stopped for. Your thick dark hair, full of ringlets, stopped the staunchest people dead in their tracks. Women felt like they had to touch your beauty, like you were the "Chosen One" here in the flesh. Your skin was the smoothest, creamiest color. Like an iced coffee from Starbucks. Your brown eyes sparkled. Your laughter filled the room with happiness.

And then, one day your eyes didn't have the same sparkle. There was an incident that changed all of our lives, most of all yours. It was like a fog had clouded your shine. Ever since then, 6 years now, you have been changed. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. You have become like an old woman's soul. Your moody, and edgy, and fearful, and scared.

But there's something you don't know. You are JUST AS BEAUTIFUL as Landry and Delanie. When we go in the sun, it is your skin that is tanned to perfection, while they have burned little cheeks. Your hair is like warm chocolate, thick and full of life. Your brother and sister don't have that luxury, and yes it is a luxury. People don't stop you to tell you how beautiful you are because people think at your age you already know it. The younger kids are, the more people stop. But that doesn't diminish how fantastically, wonderfully beautiful you are. Your life will be much different from your sisters. She will stand out because of her red hair. And you may hate her for that, but she will want your hair as much as you want hers. You will think that Landry's curls aren't fair, and maybe they aren't. But on rainy days, he will wish that he had your straight as nails hair. This I can promise you. You are beautiful. You are special. You aren't your hair. Your are so much more then your outsides. I swear to you with everything that I have that it is ok to be you. However that looks, however that sounds, however that feels, it is ok. Because there is only one YOU.

And you're perfect.

My rant about Housing Maintenance.

2010-12-23T23:34:00.000-06:00

Here's a funny little ditty about living on base, if you're so inclined to read it. I just need to vent some of the anger somewhere, since Ryan's still deployed.

Ah, Military housing. My GOD how I hate the housing maintenance department right now.

We have lived in the Ft Hood area on and off since 2000. My hubby got out of the Army for about 18 months in 2004-2006, but basically we have been here the entire time. We have lived multiple places around the area for multiple reasons. Once we had just moved into a home - lived there just barely 2 months - when I got a knock at our door telling me that the home was being sold in a foreclosure set for the following month. Ryan was in the field for that fun little experience. (That incident turned into a nasty mediation (that we WON) because the night before we were supposed to move out, the rental agency called to inform us that the owners had rectified their foreclosure. Since it was no longer preceding forward, we were no longer going to be "let out" of our lease. Good times.) Sometimes we simply just outgrew our home. Anyway..... our lease was up on our previous home just before Ryan left for this deployment, and they were raising the rent to a price we were unwilling to pay. Plus it was quite a little drive for Ryan to work each morning with traffic, and he really hated it. Now we are just a hop, skip & a jump away from his work. So we moved on base 7 days before Ryan deployed. I haven't really had many problems with maintenance since we have been here.

However, they screwed up royally this time. Let me try to make it simple for you because if I don't I will write about it for a month (and you will never come back to visit me because I will bore you to death with the inane details). In early September we had a bad rain storm which = water streaming down our walls and bubbling the paint between the paint and the drywall. 200+ homes affected on base = they will be here when they get here. 3 weeks later = "Oh ... that looks really bad. We really need to get this taken care of immediately."

"Insurance adjusters."

"New roof."

"Replace entire stairwell."

Then nothing for a month. Then appointments where no one shows up or calls. Then another insurance adjuster who had NO idea anyone else had been here and came to the same conclusions (new roof, new siding, new stairwell, new insulation, etc.) Also discovered was the damage in my daughter's room. Housing didn't agree with what that adjuster had to say = another appointment with housing and the community manager for more pictures and his comments. Surprisingly, the same as the adjusters. Then...no call for a month. Then an appointment with the adjuster AND housing to change it up a bit. Then I got pissed. Somewhere along the way I called a supervisor and some workers came (with NO idea anyone had ever been here!!) and who argued with me and ultimately ripped out about 1/4 of the damage and half-assed replaced it and called it a day. I protested. Called the supervisor's supervisor. Got nothing to happen. 1st supervisor came by to "visit" even though I told him I wouldn't be here and yet he came anyway, and he left me a message on my door with a woman's contact number who had no idea who he was.

So yesterday I finally went to the community manager's office and I tried to file a formal complaint. She said she would try to get it fixed that day & she would meet me at my house @ 1130 so please, let's try and work it out first. At 1115 the jackass who came and gave me the wrong number came by, walked in and said "Oh My God. I'm so sorry that you're house looks like this. Blah blah blah... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I get pissy with him, etc, etc. Finally we scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday for 3 workers to come and fix all of the issues. So imagine my surprise when I was awakened this morning by a worker coming to ask if he can see what needed to be fixed (he has already been here!!! and promised me he "best workers" would be there the following day and they NEVER SHOWED!!) and try and set up a time with me to have someone come and work on it. I laid into him and I am embarrassed now that I was yelling at a housing worker at 910 am, but I am soooooo over it. He claimed to have just left a meeting with the supervisor that had come yesterday but that gentleman had passed on no information what-so-ever about what had been done/what needed to be done/what my issues really were. I think they think that I would just roll over and be happy that it is finally getting fixed but that's just not my way. Once I'm pissed, I'm over it and I'm over you.

OOOHHHH!! "Funny" part of the story... last week, we came home from school pick up to see a ladder up to my roof and no one here. I initially thought of calling the MPs because there have been a couple of (attempted and actual) child abductions in the Killeen/Ft Hood area lately, but instead I decided to move the ladder to my back yard and put my dogs in the back yard. Bailey is 7 months old and 80 pounds and Daisy is 5 months old and is about 65 pounds. About 10 minutes after I did this, the doorbell rings and it is 2 contractors working with Ft Hood. One asked if they could come in to look at my water damage, and I declined as I NEVER let people in without prior notice. Ever. If I don't know you're coming, you aren't coming in. He looks shocked that I would say no, and we scheduled for him to come back on Monday the 20th. (Surprise -- he was a no show to the Monday morning appointment.) His helper sheepishly asked me if I had seen his ladder. I said yes, that it was in the back yard with my dogs. I explained to them that I have no clue who they were and why the fuck would you leave a ladder on the side of someone's house, next to their kid's room, and not leave a note saying who you were? They didn't have an explanation. As I walked to get the ladder for him, he casually asks me where exactly the roof needed to be fixed. Hold up. 1) Your ladder was on the side of my home, presumably so that you could go and look at it and you don't have an idea about where it needs to be fixed? 2) I am a housewife and mom, not a roofer. I don't ask you where the parsley is for dinner, you don't ask me about roofing. 3) I had to point the places out that needed to be replaced TWICE and then I just started getting angry and told him to figure it out. There's only so much I can put up with, and that was about my limit.

I explained that I am still going through with my formal complaint because this process has been screwed up way to many times. The supervisor that came by yesterday said that sometimes houses just "fall through the cracks" and unfortunately for me, I was that lucky house. I don't take that as an apology. That's an insult. I explained that even though I am a stay-at-home mom, that doesn't mean that I just sit at home. I have things to do and I am not willing to sit and wait for multiple appointments for people to come and look at the damage that has been there for nearly 4 months and there have been multiple reports/pictures taken about it and then not have them pass that information on to the people who are coming to work on the house.

I can't wait for this to be all done with!!

Aaaaaaaaaannd scene.

Raining but not yet pouring.....

2010-11-22T22:11:00.000-06:00

When it rains, it pours, right??? NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Don't say that. I don't want to hear anything about Murphy's Law either. ***Fingers in ears*** LALALALALALALALALALA** I can't hear you!!!***

The extended warranty on my Yukon is about to be up so I decided to take it to the dealership for one last "once-over" from the ol' diagnostic machine. I knew that if they found something, that it would just be the cost of the diagnostic test and that they in-turn would use that $100 for my deductible should they find anything wrong. Truthfully, I wasn't really expecting them to find something wrong. It had been hesitating lately - sort of like when you have a standard car and you push the clutch in & you feel that slight letting up of the acceleration, but I didn't feel like it was anything too serious. Turns out, my transmission was on it's last leg. Thank the Lord I took it in before our scheduled trip to San Antonio this week for Thanksgiving, and that I had 800 miles to go before my warranty ran out. There's that old saying about how everything goes wrong with your vehicle once you pay it off, and I am here to testify that it is a TRUE saying. We hadn't even gotten the title of the Yukon in the mail before it was in the shop for something. (I should remember, as it was like 7 months ago, but I can't for the life of me remember what the problem was!!) I am sooo thankful that we have Ryan's car here so that I can tootle around in it. I can not however drive it to San Antonio. It is way to small, and it needs some maintenance work done on it before I can drive it for a long distance. My extended warranty covers rental fees of $35 a day with a max of $175 for the repair. It also states in the fine print that I will be provided a "comparable" vehicle. $35 a day doesn't come close to the cost of renting a full sized SUV - that was, if there was any available. It's Thanksgiving week after all, and it's slim pickin's at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Well, everywhere for that matter. Enterprise just happens to be in the dealership's parking lot. When I spoke to my service advisor tonight, she told me that tomorrow they will get me into a rental once they know they full extent of what all is wrong with the car. I told her that we were planning on going to SA for the holidays, and that we would need something big as I also have to take Daisy & Bailey (53 pounds and 67 pounds, respectively, at 4 1/2 months and almost 6 months, respectively) to the boarders on the way there. I told her that I had already looked at the car rental website, and I know that they are out of vans, and SUV's and she basically told me that I would "get what I get". We shall see how this goes tomorrow....

Also fun today....

I woke up to my cell phone being blazing hot.White hot. Hot, hot, hot. Muy Caliente. Anyway... I turned it off thinking that I would let it cool while I got ready for the day and then I would turn it back on and all would be good. It was NOT, in fact, all good. I pressed the power button to have nothing happen. I held down the button for 10, 15, 20, 25 seconds... all to the same result. I tossed it into my purse and took off and eventually got to Verizon. They asked to keep it for an hour to "charge it" and I said fine, whatever. As long as I can have my phone back. I came back 1 1/2 hours later and they met me by telling me all hope was lost, and that they had already ordered me a new one. Something about a charging port is bad, yada yada yada. Amazingly, the phone turned on & it in instantly turned hot again and they advised me to not use it at all because of the BURN RISK. The hell?! They then told me to transfer my contacts to the contact manager program on their website asap and to figure out what to do with my pics, which aren't stored on an SD card. I sat off from there thinking that I had hours, a day maybe, to get this done. The phone died again without warning about 15 minutes later and hasn't turned on since then. It's been charging for 8 hours. I'm very sad about it. I am hoping that I can charge the battery on the new phone, switch the battery over to this old phone, upload the contacts and e-mail out the pics to myself before activating the new phone and sending this one back. I'm hoping beyond hope that it will work out. I also pray that it gets here tomorrow. Verizon said that it was early enough in the morning that the order should be over-nighted out today, but there is a chance that it won't get here until Wednesday. Which is when we are supposed to leave. In our teeny tiny rental car.

EEK!!

A Day To Remember

2010-11-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Memorial Wall at the Fort Hood shooting site.

Today marks the 1 Year Anniversary of the mass shooting here at Fort Hood. It's not a day, in my opinion, to point fingers at the alleged shooter. It's a day to remember the victims that were hurt - both mentally and physically. It is a day to remember the 13 soldiers (14 lives total if you count Pvt. Francheska Valez's unborn child). Yesterday I took my kids out to the site of the shooting so that they could try to understand the meaning of the situation. I want them to really think about what they are taking a moment of silence for today at 1:41 pm. I want them to have a visual to think about when they hear Taps being played just after the moment of silence, and just before Retreat is played for the end of the day. But mostly, I just don't want them to forget.

The site itself reportedly has 1000 mini flags along, and attached to the front of the fence. They were a reminder of the ultimate loss that was heard in the bristling evening wind. There are 13 small memorials to each of the people killed embedded along the fence. Mostly wreaths and crosses. There were hundreds of small, handwritten notes from people written to soldiers - current and deceased. We walked along and read them and talked about them if the kids had questions. Honestly, they didn't have many questions. They just read the notes and looked at the pictures and got a little quieter.

A year ago today, Ryan was at work on base. He was located on the same street as the shootings, but not close in proximity to it. I was at home when the news broke in with the story of a possible shooting at base. I tried to call Ryan but got no answer. Then calls started coming to me. Family and friends from all over were calling to check on me to make sure that we were okay. What seemed like an eternity after the news broke, but probably more like an hour and a half, Ryan eventually called home and said something to the effect of "I'm okay. Can't talk. We're on lock down. No idea when I will be home. I love you." He got home that evening at like 9-ish. We didn't know anyone that was killed or hurt. But since the murders were done at such a typical place for a soldier to be at, it very easily could have been Ryan.

If you feel inclined, Fort Hood is having a base wide moment of silence at 1:41 to last for one minute.

Killed on November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood

Lt. Col Juanita Warman

MAJ Libardo Caraveo

CPT John P Gaffaney

CPT Russell Seager

SSG Justin Decrow

SGT Amy Kruger

SPC Jason Hunt

SPC Frederick Greene

PFC Aaron Nemelka

PFC Michael Pearson

PFC Kham Xiong

PVT Francheska Valez

Michael Cahill - Civilian

Pumpkin' Patchin'

2010-10-22T22:53:00.001-05:00

Why does all of their hair look so weird?

Delanie with the selected pumpkins.

We went to the pumpkin patch today at a local Methodist Church. School got out early and it was a little overcast outside and I thought that it would be perfect to take them today. We got there and it wasn't busy at all and so I thought that it would be so easy! I was wrong. Let's just say that we were practically the only people there, and that at one point of major frustration on my part, I may have said some choice words in the generally direction of the kids (but I surely did NOT think that I was within ear shot of anyone and what I said wasn't really that bad) and then suddenly a man appeared and gave my children bibles. If you look in the picture with the Charlie Brown cutouts, you will see small, orange bibles with the kids. Make of it what you will with that little gem of information.

So, you may remember a few weeks ago when I posted about a certain mom at the kids' school. Well... life played a funny trick on me this week. Audree has been walking home with the sweetest girl for the past few weeks. They are apparently new "BFF"'s. Her name is K-. This particular car had a "K-" sticker on the rear window. Do you see where this is going? Yes... turns out that the mom from the school is K-'s mom. I went up to her today and introduced myself and she was the nicest person ever. She has 7 kids!! Anyway... I thought that it was funny how life turned out in this situation.

I got an Old Navy gift certificate for my birthday and I went there to cash it in the other day. I got 7 pairs of flip flops for the family, ($0.88 each!!) and 5 boxes for Christmas ($0.17 each!) a shirt, 2 sweaters, another pair of shoes for me and my total was $24. It was a total score in my book. All of their clearance items were an additional 40% off the ticketed prices. Things were so dirt cheap. Unfortunately they were out of everything in the kids sizes, save from flip flops in every imaginable color. They also were out of everything in Ryan's size ~~(I think because I didn't technically look there, but I did walk by that section and looked in the general direction and didn't see a thing in his size)~~.

That's about all that's a happenin' in my world these days. School and life just chugging along.

The End Of Another Week

2010-10-08T17:04:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh..... almost nothing sounds as good as a Friday morning alarm clock. Why? Because you get to turn that hussy off tonight and (hopefully) sleep in a little longer in the morning. I mean.... I don't generally sleep in that much longer on the weekends. But the possibility of me sleeping in later still lingers in my head.

I am currently sitting in my bedroom next to one of my bedroom windows. It is about 84 degrees outside and I have the window open and the semi-breeze that is blowing in is refreshing. I love Autumn the most out of all of the seasons. I love the smell of it the most, I think. You know.... when it smells like it feels nice outside? The smell of comfort rustling through the trees. Mmmmm.....

Found out this week that we are missing boxes and boxes of Autumn decorations. Halloween decor is what is specifically missing. Naturally, we settled most of our claim that we had with Transportation 2 weeks ago from our move in February. We are still fighting with Transportation, though, over a computer monitor/t.v. that they broke, and refuse to pay the almost $800 to replace it, so maybe I will just add the missing decorations to the list. I was sad when I realized that the boxes were missing. They had been decorations that we had been collecting for years and years. Some since Audree's 1st Halloween 11 years ago.

My dearest beloved has finally taken the walk on the wild side and joined FaceBook. I knew about a month ago that he was attempting to join because I signed on one morning and it recommended him as a friend. Ha! Way to be sneaky, Babe! He said at the time that he was beyond frustrated with it and didn't "understand' it, but apparently he has given it some more thought and tried it out for a spin. Today he wrote his 1st status update: RYAN P - "I am not allowed to decide on anything. Ask Abbey." Truer words have never been spoken, my love. ((He is clearly kidding.))

I have nothing planned for this weekend. I need to finish up some laundry, which I should just add is on my to-do list every single damn day, and tonight I am going to try mopping the downstairs with a new mop that I just bought. Exciting stuff, really.

Eh...

2010-10-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

I tend to do things for people before they can do them for me. I crack the chubby jokes about myself so that they will know that I am in on the joke as well, even if they don't seem like the kind of person that would crack a fat joke. I "compliment" my cooking so that "they" will know that I know it's probably inedible also. (Realistically, it probably is inedible, but let's not discuss that now mmkay?) I clean the house before the hired cleaning would come to clean when we were moving out of our last house (and past houses, too). I give myself a little mini-pedi before going to go get a regular pedicure. I Google search my list of complaints that I have prepared to give to the doctor so that I have an idea of what I have to be looking at with his sure-to-be awful diagnosis. Though to be honest, I've never ended up anywhere near what the doctor actually says is wrong. I suppose it's kind of a worse case scenario sort of thing. I have complete conversations in my head before I see the intended person I would like to have an actual conversation with. Like... knock down, drag out fights that only occur in my head. It's generally awesome. I hurdle just the right words at said person and they have no response towards me and I feel victorious and since it's a fake conversation, no one's feelings get hurt and I have no amends to make. But by the time that I see the said person, I am generally over what ever the situation was and no longer have a desire to have any conversation with that person anymore. Because I've already had the conversation in my head. ((God, I sound crazy. I'm not. At least I don't think I am. Let me talk it out real quick. I'll be back.....))

Ryan has moved to a different part of the base where he's at and he no longer has access to the Internet in his room that works correctly. Boo to that. I was completely used to talking to him 5-7 times a week on his Magic Jack, but those days are over. His roomie has Internet, but it is constantly breaking down and is choppy and he hasn't been able to make one call on it since he had it installed so Ryan and I decided that was not the best way to spend $70 a month. Ryan is the acting XO right now as his Commander and First Sergeant are both on leave right now. I went to my first FRG luncheon thing of this Unit the other day and it turned out to be kind of not so good. We met at a awful wings place called Pluckers at noon. It was jam packed with soldiers all trying to get their food and get out of there at the same time. We sat down and I ordered a buffalo chicken strip salad that was on the lunch special. 45 minutes later she brought our table our stuff and she put down a plate of buffalo chicken strips and fries. I said that my order was wrong and she said "NO. It's not." I argued that I did in fact know what I ordered and that this wasn't it, and my table mate chimed in to her to say "You have all these tables to remember their orders and she (me) only has one order to remember. She probably remembers what she ordered." The lady got all sorts of pissy and offered to take my stuff back and get me my salad but I have seen Waiting enough to know that you don't send your shit back after complaining. I ate my unwanted food and drank my Diet Dr Pepper and she never came back to check on us. Not even once. FINALLY I went and found her for my check. I found out that even though she had taken separate orders for all of us at the two tables, she had oh-so-kindly added gratuity to all of our checks. Yes, the tip amount she added was only like $1.42, but that wasn't the point. So when she brought me the check she just stood there watching me which generally irritates me anyway. Give me a little space to decide what I'm going to do, and why do you have to stand right here when you haven't been here - at all - for the last hour and a half? (I just looked at the receipt and the tip she included was 17% tip. That was reallllly generous of her!!) I only gave her the $1.42 since she got the order wrong, argued with me about the order, and never came to check on us after taking the initial order and giving me my meal, and still my total for all that nastiness was still nearly $15. Never again.

Last week I deposited a check into the bank via the drive-thru. I used a preprinted deposit slip and used a teller and not an ATM. So when the money still hadn't cleared two days later, I got curious. I checked the deposit slip again and it showed that the last digits of my account had been flipped. For example: I had 7181 she had put 1718. I called the 1-800 number for the bank and the woman on the phone made me jump through hoops to get my money. She was reading me fraud warnings and insisting that I tell her all sorts of information. I told her that I wasn't comfortable with saying my birth date and SS# over the phone and she tried to tell me that my information I was giving her wasn't matching up with the computer's information. We've had this account for 5+ years so I'm pretty sure I know what our information is. And legally if you tell them you don't feel comfortable giving out that type of specific information via the phone, they have to ask you other identifiable questions. Finally she said that we would have our money in like 3-5 business days. Hellz NO. I hung up and called the local branch where it happened and spoke to the manager and I had my money in the account in 5 minutes. This isn't the 1st time that we have had troubles with this bank. I go in there to change our address and order checks as needed because I don't feel comfortable doing that over the phone. And never once has it actually shown up on our accounts correctly the 1st time. I generally have to make at least 2 trips in there to make sure that account information gets handled correctly. When I write that out I realize that it doesn't seem that it makes it easier for me to do that then just ordering checks via the mail and calling to change my contact information, but it makes me feel more comfortable doing it. It's a major national bank and we honestly only use it because my parents bank there too and we just transfer monies between our accounts if need be. For example this weekend I went and bought my step mom some sunflower seeds from that commissary that were on sale and after I called her with the total, she just transferred the money to our account.

I should get off the computer now. I have been procrastinating cleaning my room and living room for a week. More specifically the last 2 days. I love it when it's clean, but hate to clean it. Plus I need to do some laundry and supervise some chores of the kids, and start to make dinner, and shower at some point, and take the dogs out, and ...... well, you know. All those things that we wives/moms/women have to do. Ugh. Plus it's Sunday night which means that I need to make time for Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, The Amazing Race, East Bound & Down, etc. What did we do before DVR's?
(((East Bound & Down is on HBO and is it all about the Awesome. It's a little racy and has lots of crude humor, which made me love it even more. It just started Season 2 last week and all of Season 1 is on HBO OnDemand right now and I definitely recommend watching it if at all possible. It's about a down and out baseball player which doesn't sound like it would be so funny, but he went back to his hometown to become a gym coach & has such an inflated sense of self that it's unintentionally funny. Plus he has a mullet so it's obviously quality television.)))

Thoughts of the morning

2010-09-29T02:15:00.000-05:00

I am battling yet another night of insomnia so I thought that I would just write out a few things here. I have been listening to the sounds of artillery shells and machine guns going off for days from the training fields around us and it is quite frankly driving me a little nutty.

Landry has been doing much, much better at school. He is currently in a state of punishment right now that he doesn't particularly love. When he comes home from school, he does his homework and goes straight to his room. There are no toys in the room, nor any books. All he has is his pillow, blanket and his will to survive. He must stay on his bed while in his room. I don't want him to build forts with the blankets, or to look out the window for entertainment. He may come out for bathroom breaks as needed, drinks as needed, if there is an emergency or he is bleeding, at dinner time and again for bath time. That's it. He had 7 days of this punishment, which sadly (to him) included the weekend. Those were some loooooooong days for him. On the 2nd day he decided to test me to see if I was serious about him being in there. He kept coming out to ask silly questions ("Why are pictures square if the hole you look through to take them is round?") and I told him, repeatedly, that if he continued to come out of his room for nonsense, he would get an extra day added. He ended up with two days added. He told me last night, "Momma... I can't wait till Friday so I can have fun again." Me either, Landry.

I have been making a list of items to buy the kids for Christmas. Audree is a voracious reader and reads through about 2-3 books a week. She read all of Twilight in a month, and it took me a month just to get half-way through the 1st book. (I never finished it.) (I survived.) So I have been thinking about purchasing a Kindle or Nook for Audree for her one large present. I know that she would really enjoy it but I don't know if it is appropriate for an 11 1/2 year old. She loves my iPod touch and really wants one of those, but I don't feel comfortable spending that amount of money on an item that she is sure to take to school and lose within a month. Not that a Nook or Kindle are cheap by any means, but I feel like with an e-reader, it may be easier to spot in the mornings before we walk out the door. I dunno. Guess I will make a decision in the next couple of weeks and set out to purchase whatever it is so that I can beat any Christmas rush that may possibly (not) occur.

There have been so many tragedies this last week at Ft Hood. 2 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, 2 soldiers took their own lives here around base, and there was a murder-suicide in our neighborhood on Post that sadly left 2 small children parent-less. I don't know if it is the stresses of multiple back to back to back deployments that has burdened these soldiers or if it was other personal demons. Add to this the shooting this morning at UT-Austin and it has just been an incredibly sad day for Central Texas.

Last week I faithfully did my ~~2nd~~ 1st week of Couch to 5K and I started back up on the ol' Weight Watchers program. I logged my minutes on the treadmill and counted my points to the WW online site and at the end of the week weigh in my reward was that I had GAINED a pound. I weighed myself twice, but the 2nd time resulted in my gaining another 0.2 pounds so I stepped off real quick so as not to gain any more weight. I was supposed to do my Cto5K yesterday, but I opted instead to go walk and pick up the kids from school. I walked again today. It is about a 15 minute walk there and 15 minutes back so I assume it will all equal out in the end. It is now 1:47 am and I would give my left arm for something fun to snack on from the fridge or to be able to re-fill my water glass with some ice water, but I learned the other night that walking downstairs at night wakes up the dogs and they are not keen on going back into their kennels after a midnight trip outside to do their business.

Speaking of the dogs, Audree got up earlier then usual this morning and let the dogs out of their kennels. She decided to start getting ready for school before anyone else was up to help watch the pups and when I woke up I was met at my door by her. She asked me to please not be mad at her and that she had only been straightening her hair. I walked down stairs to see that the pups had devoured part of the recliner. The part of the seat that pops up and has cushioning in between the seat and foot rest? Yea, that no longer has any cushion. It was a foam/batting mixture and it was everywhere. In the playroom, their kennels, the kitchen, the bathroom, behind the couch. It was awful. Then I noticed where they generally lay in the living room looked whiter then normal and upon further inspection I saw that they had destroyed a new roll of toilet paper. They had access to it in the hall closet when Audree was getting something and forgot to close the door. If there is a bright spot - they at least had the decency to destroy the recliners on the couch that they had already ripped the leather off the back of. It's the little things, you know?

Ok... I am off to try and lay down and get a little bit of sleep. Ryan's commander is home on R & R and wants wives to meet him tomorrow for a lunch thing at a local place and so I told Ryan I would show my face around there. I don't generally do those types of things but I am trying to branch out and meet new people. I have been here for 9 + years and I know only a handful of people here. I think it's about time.

PS........... I have been a SAHM for 8 years. I only worked about 4 1/2 months in 2006, but other then that I haven't worked since 2002. I am starting to look for a part time job to have something to do and meet new people and I am confused as to what to write on job applications. Today on an application it didn't allow me to write that I had been a SAHM. It wanted job addresses and phone numbers and job descriptions only. I was sort of at a loss. I didn't finish the application because I don't know what to put. I don't want to lie and say that I haven't worked, because I have worked, but I also know that it doesn't look so swell when I say I worked 4 1/2 months 4 years ago. What would you put in that spot if it were you? How far back on the ol' resume should I go? 2002? 2000? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. It's sad to say but a potential employer may just look at me and not hire me because of my children. I have no choice but to take off days when school isn't in session - i.e. 2 weeks at Christmas time, and Spring Break, etc. I am trying to avoid placing them in after school care just so I am not working a part-time-barely-above-minimum-wage-job and paying $110 a week for childcare.

My kids and this deployment

2010-09-22T21:23:00.000-05:00

None of the kids has ever displayed major signs of "deployment issues" before. No extra fighting amongst them or at school, no lashing out at others. Nada. So when Ryan deployed a few months back, I had no real reason to believe that the children's behaviors would be any different this time around. I guess that I naively thought that they were just used to the deployment rut since they had just gone through it 11 months earlier. I could not have been more wrong.

Delanie started showing sings of stress first. She began sneaking food out of the kitchen and into other places of the house to eat at another time -- alone. She would offer to eat her siblings plates of food from dinner after she had finished her own plate. (I wouldn't let her.) She was continually saying how positively hungry she always was. She didn't feel like she was ever full. In fact, I have half of our pantry in my bedroom in containers because she was sneaking so much food. Suddenly out spunky athletic red-head had turned into a chunky sloth-like red-head. She is 3 1/2 years younger then her older sister Audree, but she is thisclose to wearing the size above her sister clothes wise. She still gets regular outside activity- climbing the tree in the back multiple times a week, and riding her bike and running around like a normal 7 year old. But suddenly she has "blossomed" into this almost unrecognizable child. The doctor doesn't feel like there is an issue just yet to be overly concerned about. She feels like Delanie will stabilize weight wise and she will hit another growth spurt and "even" out. The doctor just straight doesn't feel like it is a metabolic reason for her to be expanding her waist size. It is strictly a matter of her eating entirely too much food.

Audree showed signs next when school started. It is middle school this year and she was worried about fitting in and making and maintaining friends. A few days before school her "best" friend dropped the bomb that she had been to chicken to tell Audree all summer long - that her parents were not allowing her to go to the zoned (and Audree's current) middle school. They were instead planning on driving her to another (different) middle school. Audree was devastated. She started that 1st week of school knocked a couple of notches down. School actually ended up starting well but a few days into school she admitted that she had made a mistake. She admitted that she had lied to her teacher and her class about what she had done over the summer to make her summer feel like she had actually done something "fun". She said something like "I went to Washington, D.C." when in fact we had done no such thing. Ryan was home at the time and insisted that she go and tell her teacher the following morning that she had lied. He followed up with the teacher to confirm that she had made her the confession to the teacher. Since then, I have caught her in multiple other lies. Lies like she had been texting to her friends about falling off an imaginary skateboard. Imaginary because her "sk8brd" was actually stolen off the front porch the 1st month that we lived here. She lies about homework and brushing her teeth and about cleaning her room and multiple other things. None of the lies that she has told have been major lies, but when added all up together they make her ~~seem~~ ~~like~~ a major liar. Lying is a major part of growing up - and I get that - but I have told her multiple times that it is going to take just one teeny tiny lie to her friends and they find out about it and she will be friendless for a long time. The lie is so totally not worth it in the end. She is testing me on this theory, and I fear that it is going to bite her HARD in the ass.

Landry. My sweet boy. My only son and my last child ever. He has been the most challenging these past 7 months. (Back story - he had some complications at birth. About 2 1/2 years ago, his pediatrician told us to just hope for mediocre with him. That he would never run the fastest or be the strongest or the smartest.) Last year his teacher said that he talked so much. So much that it was a distraction to everyone. He only ever got into trouble for talking. Period. Apparently he would be a little social butterfly if he couldn't be the quarterback. At the end of the school year he was given the end of year testing that Kindergardeners receive. I don't remember what they were, but I think that I blogged about them somewhere. Anyway... turned out that he was reading on a higher level then his sister Delanie. He was reading at a 2nd grade 2nd month level and he was in Kinder. Interesting. A few days before Ryan got home for R & R, Landry was suspended for a day. He threatened another child in an awful manner. We didn't (don't) condone it and he was definitely punished here at home. My husband spoke to the teacher and she said that he was again having issues with talking and that on this particular day he had finished his work earlier then the other children and became restless. She was sitting there at his table and heard the interaction and thought that in no way was Landry actually threatening this other student. But the words that had come out of his mouth formed a sentence that was a threat. He may not have meant what he said - but he said something that he can not ever say. Ever. So he was suspended. At that time I requested counseling from the school for him because this behavior was so NOT like him. His behaviors had become more disruptive since Ryan had deployed but this was clearly stepping over the line. We were warned that if he did this shit again that he could/would be expelled depending on the issue.

Which brings me to today. I got another call from the Assistant Principal who told me that he had Landry in his office. He had again threatened another child. This time the threat only warranted ISS and not expulsion but that it is now officially his 2nd "threat" offense and at 3 offenses they have no other option but to expel him from school. I am facing the real and true possibility that I may have a child who will be expelled in the 1st Grade. I don't even know how to comprehend this information. I don't know how to process. I spoke to the AP this afternoon about how I was still waiting to hear from the school counselor and that I had been reaching out to them for help. He said that he would check into the situation and help me speed things along in that department. I am going to be formally asking the school district for formal TAG (Talented and Gifted) testing for him just to rule out that he isn't acting like an ass because he is completely bored. And just to be honest - he is acting like an ass. A 6 yr old, 50 pound, blonde haired, blue eyed ass. I am assuming that this has been Landry's deployment issue - to act out at school. Nothing else has changed. Well, not that I am overtly aware of. When I try to speak to him about his behavior he just cries and breaks down and says how sorry he is but there may be a time in the very near future where his "I'm sorry"'s don't amount to anything other then wasted breath.

I am officially overwhelmed, and over this deployment. Only 4 1/2 months left to go.

** I was feeling particularly bitchy after this phone conversation and I decided to take my anger out on someone passive aggressively. I did what I had talked myself out of doing - I drove up to the school and parked where the woman from yesterday would have no choice but to park somewhere else. I wanted her to know that I know that she knew that she was wrong. ((Is it my parking lot? My space? My business?? No on all counts.)) As I sat there, angry little drops of rain began to pelt my window and I felt assured in the knowledge that I was parked as close to the kids as I could possibly be and no one else in the lot could say that. The parking lot was extra full today because of the rain. About 5 minutes before let-out I see her pulling into the drive through my window and feel a surge of excitement. She slowly pulled past me with a look of disbelief on her face and then the rolls reversed and I became the one with the look of disbelief on my face. The person in front of me was pulling away from her parking spot and she was able to get a spot just mere feet in front of me. Touche, Universe. Touche.

I think I may be an ass

2010-09-22T00:40:00.000-05:00

I just spent 30 minutes writing out a blog about how I was pissed that a woman at after school pick-up today swooped in and "cut" in front of all of us sitting in our idling cars, patiently waiting in a single lane for the bell to ring and our kids to be released, and how she decided to go up to a break in the front of the line where there were NO PARKING cones placed out and park there anyway. All the rest of us sitting in hot cars would have loved to park there, too, as it is the closest parking spot to the children. BUT WE HAVE COMMON COURTESY AND ABIDE BY THE RULES. Apparently she thought that we are all dumb asses who didn't know that we could park there. You know... where the NO PARKING cones were.

But then..... I read it and decided I didn't like how it was actually me sounding like the asshole in the situation. I am frustrated...over a parking spot? That just sounded so stupid and petty when I wrote it out.

But for those few minutes that I physically wrote out the words and got them out of my system.... I felt instantly better and instantly less vindictive. The chances of me showing up tomorrow early to after school pick up and parking just close enough to the cones as to not allow her a snowball's chance in hell of parking there were greatly diminished. I mean, I'm pretty sure that I won't do that. I probably won't. Maybe not. We'll have to see. Maybe I am an asshole after all.

There was a child today after school - a taller girl who presumably was in the 3rd grade as that is the highest grade at the school - who caught my attention. She walked past my car and instantly I saw it. The unmistakable hump of hair on top of her head. My eyes must have been deceiving me, right? This is elementary school, correct? But then she turned to the side and I saw her profile and my heart jumped. A little from disbelief and ~~mostly~~ a lot from excitement. This precious little child - with long, beautiful, brown, flowing hair - was wearing a mother-effin Bumpit. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. I Facebook'ed my friend Fortune Cookie Junkie and she instantly asked for picture proof. I scoured all of the kids that were there that I could see, but there were also a slew of parents added into the mix by this time and so I had lost her and there was no picture to be had. But I swear with everything I am ... this child was wearing a Bumpit.

**Disclaimer time --- I recently purchased a Bumpit from the clearance rack of Walgreen's. I have been wondering what all the excitement over it was. When I brought it home, Audree asked me if I was going to look like Snookie. I told her that I hoped that I didn't but that we could try it out on her to see how she looked first. SHE looked like a mini-Snookie so we have not touched it since. There would be no way that I would let my child wear that crap to school. It is actually still sitting on the bathroom counter top in it's lonely box with a giant yellow clearance sticker across the front. Eventually, I will move it to the bottom of the linen closet where it will be placed with all of the other snap purchases that I have made but just can't get rid of. (Handy Travel Steam Iron for your clothes, anyone? It apparently did not matter to me AT ALL when I bought it that we rarely travel anywhere other then to our parent's houses in San Antonio and we aren't exactly eating out at the Ritz when we are there, if you know what I'm sayin'.) (And I think you do.)

Army time

2010-09-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

Ryan has been in the Army since August of 1999. Around the 6 year mark, his initial contract ran out and the grass looked greener on the other side and he left the Army. The grass was NOT greener, and he re-entered about 15 months later. So, "technically" we have only been an Army family for about 10 years this November. Since I have last written on here, he has come and gone on his two week vaca to the states from his current deployment. It was wonderful to have him home for a short time.

I was having a moment earlier tonight where I decided to add up all of the time that he has been gone since we have been together. NTC - 3 times at 30 days each, field problems over the course of the relationship- about 180 days. Kuwait deployment immediately after the start of the war - 7 months, 2 deployments to The Iraq - 11 months and 12 months, this deployment (so far) 7 months - and finally, schools - 180 days (Master Gunner school, etc). In my calculations that equals out that he has been gone approximately 4 years and 4 months of our 9 year and 6 month marriage.

Ouch.

I have also been thinking about there being a downside, if you will, to soldier's R&R. I love seeing Ryan so very much when he gets to come home. It is a bright spot to look forward to in this lonely year of deployment. However, he has often said that R&R is hard for him and that if he had the chance that he wouldn't necessarily come home for it each deployment. He has said that it is rough and a bit of a mind fuck to go from fighting a war one day and eating at Chipolte just a few days later. And then to know that you have to go back? Apparently it can be hard. I did get my feelings hurt when he said that to me. Why wouldn't I? But I get it. However, for ME, and these are strictly MY observations on this matter, I have my own little issues with R&R. ((Again... I LOVE to see my husband when he is home and hold him and all of the "good" stuff. It just isn't all "good" stuff. For ME. Not necessarily for you. And that's okay. These are just MY observations.))

It is hard - extremely hard - to have your children think of the other parent that has been deployed as "God" like when they get home, and they all but throw you under the rug, repeatedly, for things that they have perceived that you have done wrong. My children were not shy about telling on me for anything that they think I had done wrong to them over the past 6 months. I made them eat dinner and then take a bath! Astonishing! I didn't let them eat ice cream every day and I have my own private stash of it? Unbelievable.
You may get irritated with them rather quickly. It took me about 30 hours before I was texting ABW to tell her about my irritation(s). You may take longer to become frustrated. Maybe you won't get frustrated at all. It's all okay and normal. It is a re-adjustment to suddenly have another adult in the home again. They may want to actually talk to you and carry on a conversation about something other then Silly Bandz or how they want to dye their hair black at age 11. ("It's totes all the rage, Mom. Everyone is so doing it right now.")("You have lost your ever-loving mind to think that I will allow you to dye your hair - especially black - at the age of 11. It's illegal to do until you are 18 anyway.") Having Ryan here and doing things like helping to cook and do dishes, which are things that he doesn't normally help with when he isn't deployed, was playing with my mind. It was screwing up my balance of things and I was becoming frustrated that he was in my space. Not that he was here, no not at all. Just that he was all up in my grill and wanting to help with every little thing.
I haven't taken the trip from there to here or here to there so I can't really comprehend what 24+ hours traveling feels like. And as bad as this may sound, it's my truth. I was resentful when he would be falling asleep at 6:30 pm and getting up at 3 am for the day. I wanted all of his waking hours to be spent fawning over me and the kids. But they weren't.
Relations with your husband after they have been gone for so long is fun. Exciting. Thrilling. And unrealistic to keep up with the newlywed phase of it for longer then a day or so. When he was home for a few days, I started to think about him being home for a little bit and I had other things to do that I had become used to doing ..... alone. That sometimes meant that our "relations" had to wait or, gasp!, didn't happen at all that day. I mean, Big Brother did not watch it self, am I right? (No, Big Brother was not more important than Ryan. But I was invested in the show and I needed to see who won the POV!!! Don't judge me.)
This one is always a hard one for me to deal with. When he is here - my super secret single behaviors have to take a back seat. I am surly not going to throw those all out to you here, ahem, but let's just say that it took a few days for me to remember that there was another adult in the room with me at night and that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't find that my behavior would be considered sexy.
About a month before he came home I started my Honey Do list for him to complete. It didn't all get finished. I was probably unrealistic in my list making to include such strenuous things as "oil change" and "go to Verizon and USAA" but I was happy that we did get most of the other things out of the way. I am sure that I will be able to get it all done here shortly. I am just a stay at home mom with tons of free time, right?
In my opinion, it is beyond irritating for family to expect you to come and see them where they live when he is here. Why can't they come here? Why, oh why???
Money. When Ryan is home normally, I am used to juggling two debit cards. He hands me receipts and I do my balancing each evening of the bank account. It works (most of the time) for us. When he is deployed, he generally pulls out a set amount of each paycheck and I know (and he knows) that is what he has to work with. Budgeting goes a lot easier if I know I haven't spent any money is 3 days. So it is always a shock to the system when he returns and the other debit card starts to get used again. Those $4 lattes add up quickly. We were also eating out more when he was here and going to new places that had opened up since he had been gone. Add in a new external hard drive and other fun things that we did and suddenly we were left saying "Budget? What budget??"

On a side note.... it drives me utterly crazy when people think that when your soldier is deployed you are suddenly rolling in the dough. Yes, Ryan's pay is not taxable. Yes, Ryan gets combat pay. That is a couple hundred a month. But - he is spending more on dip and cigarettes, he is taking out his money each paycheck which may be more then he would have normally been spending when not deployed, we send boxes and buy things to fill those boxes. Internet over there is $70 a month! Anyway.... it doesn't always equal out to be more money each paycheck and you aren't a failure if when they come home you haven't saved $8,000. Shit happens and you spend money. I indulge in a little retail therapy now and then. So does he. (Hello XBOX 360!) Plus, we paid $350 for a plaque for his 1SG with which he received next to no money from other people over there to help pay for. Deployments are not cheap.

Since Ryan has been gone, we have added two new members to our family. Two full-blooded English Mastiffs. Bailey (who we got 1st) is 16 weeks old now, and we got her when she was 7 weeks old. Daisy (who we got for Bailey to have someone to play with) is 10 weeks old. We got her just last Friday. She is the more feisty of the two - but she is getting better by the day.

Mrs. Daisy Mae

Mrs. Bailey and Ryan

They really are the sweetest dogs. They haven't destroyed too much - really just the back of the couch where they ripped off the leather. But who looks at the back anyway, right?? Bailey weighs in at about 42 pounds right now and Daisy is a small 24 pounds, as of this evening. They should weight about 110 at a year old, and probably closer to 150-190 pounds when full grown. They sleep about 22 hours a day and get all of their energy when it is time for the kiddos to come home from school. Bailey is so lazy that she lays down to dig holes in the back yard. We are working on leash training right now because let me tell you this - Bailey looks sweet but she is the devil incarnate when the leash comes out and carrying her into the vet's office is a bitch. Daisy is right behind her in that behavior and we have to stop that craziness now before they actually weight 100 plus pounds. We are waiting for Daisy to get her 16 week shots before we take them to obedience school so that they can do it together.

**This week's blog was lovingly brought to you by gentle prodding of Fortune Cookie Junkie. Thanks, Ms. A!!**

Rambling on about nothing, again.

2010-08-13T00:34:00.000-05:00

It has been broughten (totally a word) to my attention that my blogs tend to be rambling, long, often wonder off topic and are sometimes hard to follow. To that I would like to add.... that they are all mostly boring, usually look like I haven't ever heard of SpelChek, sound like I am a little... irritated? at the world, and generally not up to any kind of par. And with that.....

I was going to write something about how I just came from visiting my Grannie in Missouri, and how she didn't remember who I was, or that we (me and my step-mom) were coming, or that we took her clothes to wash & she accused the staff from the nursing home she is in of stealing it. But I wrote it all out and it was long, and boring, and rambling so I just scrapped it. I will tell you this. We went. We saw. I hope to not go back and have to see her like that again.

I will be 32 in less then a month (send presents and all monies to: 555 My House Rocks, The Great Place, USA, 12345. No CODs, please.). I am still figuring out things about myself that I didn't necessarily know. For example: the last night of our trip to Missouri, we drove to Tunica, Mississippi to get a little gambling outta the way. I have only been gambling a few times before and by "gambling" I mean playing the slot machines. So while we were there I learned:

I can in fact walk away from a buffet and not get dessert and I-Will-Survive. The buffet at this place we stayed at would deep fry ANYTHING you gave to them - oreos, cheesecake, candy bars, etc - and I got nothing. And I felt victorious. Also? A little sad, too.
I am really, really good at winning at the slots. I had a few personal favorite machines. The Sex and the City one rocked my world. I won over $300 on a $20 input one time on that game. Other machines I won amounts like $150 and $80 and $200. It was great! It felt awesome! I could see how people could become addicted to it.
However, I am really, REALLY good at losing said money. I am even better at that then winning it, I believe. Remember that above mentioned $300 I got on a pull at the SatC slot machine? Well.... I continued to play on it and it dwindled down to like... $35. I cried a little (a lot). Finally I left the machine and the woman who had been waiting behind me to play it won Miranda's "winnings" and it was like $150. Sheesh. I went with about $600 total to gamble on and I came home with $455. BUT!!!!!!!!! I won $50 on a machine and it said I won nothing. I called for service and finally someone showed up who didn't appear to be enjoying their job too much, and she argued with me that had I in fact won, the money would have been given to me in my pot. I said it was obvs a malfunction, and she said something along the lines of "too bad, so sad. Nanner-nanner-boo-boo", and left. I cashed out the machine and left, too.
Sitting on a plane who only seats 100 and going through thunderstorms is horrible. Awful. Atrocious. I will hate it and swear off flying forever.
Getting home and thinking about how wonderful your return will be welcomed and all you are is inundated with what didn't go right while you were gone makes you want to run right back to that 100 passenger plane. Personally, it made me want to take up piloting small planes just to get away.

We are down to less then a paycheck's time until my beloved comes home for his two weeks vacation. I have not started cleaning the house yet. I have a list of what needs to be cleaned, but I imagine that I will wait until the last few days before his return to actually do something on that list. Like I always do. Every, single time. Like he is really going to notice clean baseboards. Right?!! Okay then, it's settled. No baseboards. Thank you Internets, for your help. ; )

Does anyone have advice on getting the dog to stop yelping in her crate at night? It's been almost a month since we got her and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. She has access to chew things, and a blanket. Her crate isn't too big. We've tried lights on and off. Sound and no sound. In the bedroom, in the kids bedrooms, and currently the dining room - the farthest room away from the neighbors bedrooms so that hopefully the yelping doesn't keep them up at night. The vet said to stick it out till she was potty trained and since she crapped on my rug this morning twice just after going outside both times, I'm not exactly comfortable with letting her roam the home at night. Plus she has that ol' puppy vibe going on right now. You know the vibe - chewing on anything within a 10 foot radius that looks the least bit interesting, or licking your face over and over, or trying to eat your hair when she gets close to it. I imagine I wouldn't be my usual chipper self in the morning (ducks for lightening) if I was woken up by her licking my face and chewing my hair. Plus, she can jump off the bed and couch, but she can't jump on them. So if and when she were to get off of them at night, there would be nothing left for her to do then chew stuff on the floors. And I'm not down with that. Also... she has decided that she no longer likes her food and isn't eating that much. We weighed her yesterday and she was 21 pounds at 10 weeks old. She is about 10 pounds underweight. She gets (as per the vet) a 1 cup serving of food, 3 times a day, but she is not eating all of it. She is eating more like 2 cups a day. She needs to be eating closer to about 4 cups of food per day, truthfully, and I can't figure out how to get her to eat any more. We go to the vet in about 10 days so I will obviously talk to them about it then, I was just wondering if you have any suggestions as to the yelping and eating. Thanks in advance for your help!!!

I am loved.

2010-08-03T03:51:00.000-05:00

I am writing this update so that means that I didn't die last night for accidental wasp spray poisoning!!!

Yippee!!! Yay for small miracles!

I got some bleach today and bleached the floors and cabinets. Smells "clean" now. Bailey the dog still can't walk there for a while, as per the vet's recommendation today, so here's hoping that she doesn't get to used to the pampering she's receiving by getting a full ride to the back door to pee. I guess it's a good thing that we threw out Bailey's food and water bowls because the vet told us that she is having an allergic reaction to the plastic (W?T?F?) and that she needed metal ones instead.

I saw on another Ft Hood spouses blog that she too has been having the large spider issues AND she had pictures up on her post about them. Uck. My daughter saw it and got the willy's just from the picture. Audree swears that she saw little baby spidey's running around in the kitchen this evening but I didn't see anything so we will just say spidey was a loner for the sake of my sanity.

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I found some shoes today at Target on a 75% off sale. I am a pretty big bargain shopper, and rarely buy anything that isn't on clearance. Not 'cuz I'm cheap, but rather I've become a asshole about money the older we've become. So these shoes weren't anything that I was looking for, as I wasn't even looking for shoes in the first place. They aren't even really my style of choice for shoes. But they are cute-ish and they were $3.74, so it was hard to pass up. But the more I thought about it, the more I became confused about the entire situation. Were they really cute shoes? OR were they cute shoes because they were $3.74? OR were they really not cute at all, but rather I was lulled in by the price tag? It is all cloudy to me. I don't think I ever came to a real conclusion. I wore them around the house this evening to try and break them in, but they are definitely not the most comfortable shoes in the world. I will have to wear them a lot more around the house before I would feel comfortable wearing them out of the house for an extended period of time. Who among us doesn't clean their bathtubs in gladiator sandals? Am I right or am I right, ladies? Ladies? Ahem. Never mind.

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We took Bailey to the vet today and not one, not two, but every single solitary person there stopped to ask us about her. They all made comments about her paws which at 9 weeks old are as big as the palm of my hand. Or they asked about her breed and the estimated size of her as an adult ( today the vet estimated her to be between 120-150 pounds in about a year). I am not generally a dog person, but I just think that Bailey hangs the moon and stars. (Gawd... I just punched myself in the face for you). I don't know if I told you before what she is but she is a now 9 week old brindle colored full blooded Old English Mastiff. (<---- That's a link and I am to lazy to go and change the color of the link to make it a different color but you know you want to see what a ginormous dog we got.) Why, yes we did in fact know that we were getting a gigantor dog, thankyouverymuch for your "concern". Wait. I'm sorry about that. It's not you I am pissy with. It's the dumb asses who actually ask if we know that she is going to be a very large dog when she grows up that irritates me. Do people really think that I was duped into buying a monster dog while I was out looking for a lap dog? Idiots.

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I have severe insomnia. I have suffered from it for years. I am out of options as far as meds goes, or so the doctors have told me. I have been through, over the years, Lunesta and Ambien & Ambien CR, and melatonin, and Seraquel, and Topomax, and Klonopin, and Xanax, and over the counter everything, and just about everything short of illegal. Last night, or technically this morning, I went to bed at almost 6 am. Right now, it is ~~1:55~~ ~~3:06~~ 3:37 am, and I imagine that it will be close to 5 or 6 when I actually do fall asleep today. I suck at sleeping. Did you know that Nancy Kerrigan is a spokesperson for the Dyson Shark vacuum? I didn't either until just now. Interesting.

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Ryan just e-mailed me. That in and of itself should get it's own post because he never e-mails me other then short burst emails that say things like "Worked long, Hungry and tired. Will talk tomorrow. Love you." (can't you just hear the cave-man like grunting noises that he would make while writing that gem?) Or the e-mail has a specific thing that he needs or wants - like instructions for the plaque that we ordered about 6 weeks ago for his outgoing First Sgt. An actual thought out e-mail is like seeing the Virgin Mary's face on a piece of toast - it rarely happens, and when it does happen it is a true miracle. Anyway... with past deployments we would send each other snail mail. Often times, my letters would out number his 4 to 1, but that was all forgotten when that priceless small white envelope would come in the mailbox from him. It was like Christmas Day to see the little hand scrawled "FREE MAIL" up in the corner, and instantly know who the letter was from. Those letters are kept in boxes - a box from each separate deployment so that we can keep the memories separate. I placed all of his letters in the boxes when he returned, and vise versa. Sometimes we read them to see what we were up too in past deployments. Things that we forgot about the kids are chronicled in those letters - important milestones and dates and mostly useless, yet priceless, information. Those letters were one of the ways that we showed our affection for each other most during a deployment. We are not generally "lovey-dovey" in public. Yes, he will grab my hand (or butt!) while walking into the mall or steal a kiss in the bread aisle at the grocery store, but chances are pretty good that you won't see me all up in his business when we are out in public. So imagine my complete and utter surprise when he just sent me this e-mail. It said exactly:

I just heard a Pearl Jam song and downloaded it. Once I heard it I thought of you.

The song is called Breathe. You should get it and listen to it. It is worth

paying for twice. Love ya babe.

So you know I immediately went over to iTunes and YouTube and listened to it. Honestly it took me off guard. The song is so intimate. So unexpected at 2 am on a random Tuesday morning. Also? Made me fall hopelessly in love with him again. I guess it isn't a typical "love song" per se... it is no Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", and sure, you can read into the lyrics about death and such, but it spoke to him about me and about us, which therefore makes it special to me. (I tried to link to the video and embed it, but blogger apparently doesn't like me at 3 am so I just typed out the lyrics for you. That took me approximately 1 hour to do because I need to spend more time on my Mavis Beacon lessons.) (Aaaaand to add to the excitement! My spell check has decided that it is pissed off at me and isn't recognizing any words being misspelled and we all know that ain't correct.)

Pearl Jam - Just Breathe

Yes I understand,

That every life must end, uh-huh

As we sit alone,

I know someday we must go, uh-huh

Oh, I'm a lucky man

to count on both hands, the ones I love

Some folks just have one

Yeah, others they've got none, uh-huh

Stay with me,

Ah, let's just breathe

Oooooooohh......

Practiced all my sins,

never gonna let me win, uh-huh

Under everything,

just another human being, uh-huh

Yeah, I don't wanna hurt

There's so much in this world to make me bleed,

Stay with me,

You're all I see

Did I say that I need you?

Did I say that I want you?

Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see,

No one knows this more then me

As I come clean

I wonder everyday,

As I look upon your face, uh-huh

Everything you gave

And nothing you would save, oh-no

Nothing you would take

Everything you gave

Did I say that I need you?

Oh, did I say that I want you?

Oh if I didn't I'm a fool you see,

No one knows this more then me

And I come clean, ah.....

Nothing you would take

Everything you gave

Hold me till I die

Meet you on the other side

We are 48% done with this deployment and I can see R&R dates on the near horizon. Even though I may not sleep tonight, I will eventually fall asleep and know that in this world I am truly and deeply loved by my husband.

Spidergate 2010

2010-08-02T02:05:00.000-05:00

I just want to throw this out there in case something happens to me tonight ... I may have inadvertently poisoned myself.

Back up.

About 2 hours ago, Delanie went running into the kitchen to get something and came immediately running back out to the living room screaming something about a Spider! On! The! Floor! She moved to the side and it was then that I saw the largest spider I have ever seen, aside from a book. It was about as large as the palm of my hand, and I have man hands.

I did what I do generally in these situations.... I sat on the couch screaming. Pleading to my girls to take care of it. Landry wants to be (this week anyway) an exterminator when he grows up but he is with his grandparents for the week in San Antonio! Fantastic! Our bug killer(s) are gone. Ryan is generally the go-to bug killer in our household but his sworn enemy is that of the spider, so I fear that had he been here, his 6' 3" frame would have been sitting on the couch screaming right along with me.

A few minutes into the great Spidergate 2010, we blinked and spidey was gone. Poof. Gone. I threw up a little. Audree refused to come downstairs. Delanie was crying on the recliner. Bailey the dog was sleeping, being a general un-helpful lazy ass. I had been thinking about what I could do to kill the spider and end the stand-off. I mean, eventually I was going to need my kitchen back, and the spider could only live off the crumbs on the floor for so long. (Abbey's new to-do list: Sweep more often!!) Delanie snuck around the corner to see where the spider had gone, as I was still on the couch screeching orders to the girls.

The subject was located at the intersection of Delanie's tennis shoes and the dog bowls. I had sent Audree to my room to get the wasp spray - what? You don't keep your wasp spray in YOUR bedroom? Weirdo. She leaped and jumped past the kitchen doorway and down the hallway towards me with the black labeled can in hand. I did not really "read" the back of the bottle, or I would have never used it inside. Or outside for that matter. But, I couldn't take it anymore - the agony of knowing that this ginormous spider was in the house was absolutely killing all of us. I tried to bribe the girls to kill it without me having to be involved. I would give them $10, a new book AND a soda in return for their killing prowess. Sadly, they did not find this to be a sweet deal. The thought of just simply walking over to it and stepping on it did cross our minds. In fact, Delanie ran to my room to get some shoes for the killing spree and she came back wearing my dollar store fake ugg(ly)s. One brown, one black. She obviously handles a stressful situation well.

All of us, we 3 girls, linked hands and slowly walked through the doorway of the kitchen towards spidey. We got about 3 feet away and I just started spraying the wasp spray willy-nilly style in the general direction of the spider, while jumping up and down like there was a mouse at my feet. Delanie was crying and Audree was clawing my arm. I obviously handle stressful situations well, too. While I did spray the bug, I also sprayed Delanie's tennis shoes and one of my most favorite pairs of flip flops and the dog bowls... and the floor, and the message board, and the lower cabinets of the island, and my hand. (We had already barricaded the dog out of the room so she was no where near any of this happenings. Just wanted to throw that out there.)

While God's precious creature was dying on the floor, I happened to read the back of the label which read something in effect of "NEVER, EVER, EVER USE IN THE HOUSE" and, um.... "DEADLY TO PETS AND HUMANS".... oh, and a personal favorite "DO NOT COME INTO CONTACT WITH SKIN OR CLOTHES!!1!"

Shitdamnfuckmotherfucker.

Dishes started flying out of the sink to allow us to clean our hands (Abbey's new to do list: Clean the dishes more often!). I sent to Delanie to the bathroom to start scrubbing her hands and arms with as hot of water as she could handle, just in case she had come into contact with any spray, while she sang the Happy Birthday song twice so she knew how long to scrub. Why that song? Yea... I don't know either. I flung Dree to the kitchen sink and we started scrubbing our own arms while singing. I then realized that this crap is everywhere and someone was going to have to clean it up. Audree suggested calling housing maintenance, but I'm not so sure that they would see cleaning up toxic wasp spray off the kitchen floor and cabinets as something they would like to be involved with. I threw the dog bowls and tennis shoes into the trash, as Delanie was telling me she didn't really like the shoes anyway. I could NOT stand to part from my flip flops, so I took them and scrubbed them off, and then threw them into the washer. They are leather. I am praying as we speak. I found a bucket to help aid me in my cleaning but I found no bleach. All I had on hand was apple cider vinegar. So I used really, really hot water and apple cider vinegar to clean it up. I scrubbed all that I could see on the floor and cabinets by hand with a kitchen scrubber and then added 12" just for good measure. We cleaned it up with two old towels, and then threw them away. Then I went and scrubbed my hands and arms again, and I went upstairs to forget about it.

Fast forward to an hour ago.

I had kind of forgotten about the "incident" and I went about my evening business. Part of which included me eating potato chips. With the spraying hand.

Fast forward to now.

It donned on me that the funny feeling in my tummy may be because I have eaten the deadly wasp spray. I'm sure that I am okay. I mean... I'm pretty sure that I will be okay. Since writing this, my stomach has quieted down. I fairly certain that most of the funny feelings in my stomach are more from stress and anxiety then actual wasp spray induced poisoning. I do not want this written about in my obituary. Died of wasp spray and stupidity? No thank you.

The dog is banned from the kitchen until I can make it to the store tomorrow to buy some bleach. This means that we have to carry her outside to go to the bathroom. Approximately 483 times a day. The kids must wear shoes into the kitchen until I can bleach out the floors and cabinets. And even then, they will probably be required to wear them for a few more days. Or until I forget that this ever happened. Which ever comes first.

**Side story- this reminds me of the time 2 deployments ago when I had just given birth to Landry, Ryan had just returned to his unit from his R & R and Audree and Delanie were 4 years old & 18 months old, respectively. One night in my insomnia induced mania, I heard a faint scratching noise. I continued to hear it for about 10 minutes when something caught my eye on the ceiling fan. I looked up at that moment to see a scorpion fall out of the fan, onto the ornately decorated burgundy rug, and crawl under a chair. I freaked the fuck out and started calling family members at, like, midnight to come and help me. Thankfully, my sister in law drove over to help me. That was not a pretty sight at all. **

**Also.... I may have over-reacted a "tad" bit here tonight, but that is NOTHING like when I see a water bug. True story - once I saw one crawl into my kitchen when Audree was a baby. I was a single mom with no money. I went to the store anyway and bought all new bottles and washed them in the bathroom tub until I saw the bug again. Yes... it was probably a different water bug, as it was, like, 2 weeks later that I saw the new bug. It didn't matter. I was willing to go without food because I had to buy new bottles because it's that bad, ya'll. It's that bad. Add to the matter that we happen to live in South Texas, where the water bug is also known as the state bug. Did you know they fly? They FLY, people. I have been known to not go into a building because they are outside, and I once boycotted going to my in-laws home because there had been one in the bathroom and there was no where for me to go to the bathroom! I have issues apparently. **

I fail at blogging.

2010-07-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

Oh, bloggers of the Ye Old Blogosphere.

How I wish that I were a better blogger.

But I have not been blogging much as of late, but rather just reading your wonderful blogs.

I could blog about the lack of blogging from this particular blogger, but that doesn't seem like it would make a very good blog now does it?

I feel like I have blogged about not blogging too much in my blogging past, so I must blog past this.

I could be blogging about the following things:

We are a just a mere few weeks away from being at the 6 month point in this damned deployment. It has gone by much faster than previous deployments, which has been very welcome.

I have found myself lately having a hard time distinguishing between "then" and "than" when writing things down.

Last week, Ryan was at another palace other then (than?) his usual palace (which sounds so regal, but he assures me it is not) getting some palace-type paperwork signed (a TPS report, perhaps?) and he was talking to some palace-type person about how this and that needed to get signed because this was his 2nd time there for an assured signature that never happened. As he was being assured that the signature from the person who signs palace-type paperwork would in-fact be signing his paperwork soon, the room outside him became a little quieter (which he did not notice). He walked out the door and wasn't really watching where he was walking and when he turned the corner into the now quiet room, he ran smack dab into someone. He looked up and the entire room was at attention. He looked back to this gentleman to quickly realize that he had run into none other then (than?) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Gulp. There was apparently a few awkward moments, eventually a few laughs and Ryan got a bad-ass coin from it all. (I'm in love, BTW, with all of the coins that he has collected over the years. He couldn't care less about them but he gathers them from me anyway whenever they are available. I sure do love him.)

I blogged that I had joined Weight Watchers a few months ago, and that was not a lie. I joined online on the spur of a moment decision on lazy afternoon and I did it diligently for three entire weeks - packed full of sugar free jello and diet drinks and counting point values for foods obsessively online. I lost 10 pounds in those three short weeks. And then... as I so often do with so many other things... I drifted off of the path that was hard (counting all of those stupid points & watching what I actually ate) to the path that was easy (just watching the food that I ate go into my belly). I took "one day" off, which basically meant that when I had amassed my total day's worth of points in a single setting, I just told myself that I would start the next day. But that next day still hasn't come. I have put back on the 10 pounds, plus 3 or 4. I am the heaviest I have ever been - including pregnancy. I am unhappy, and unhealthy and still at this point... unwilling to change it. Each day I stare at the WW site on my computer and I think... Ok, Abbey. Today is the day. Today you will start back up and challenge yourself and actually complete this. You need this for your health and happiness and for your kids and your marriage and..... then I weigh myself and feel defeated again and just don't go past that initial process of starting again. But I have to. I HAVE TO. I mostly want to. I want to lose the weight, but I don't want to have to be responsible for all of my choices.

School starts in just under a month!!!!!!!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christmas comes early each year for me - it's called the 1st day of school. As much as I hate to see my children grow up, I also hate going to the grocery store with a kid who is unwilling to help or who doesn't want to be there and who is complaining the entire time while we are there. Each and every 1st Day of School - which should be a national holiday for SAHMs - I go grocery shopping, alone. I take no list. I go up and down, slowly and methodically, each aisle. I look at the things that I have been glossing over the past 3 months of summer to see about what new and exciting things I have been skimming past to only find things on the list to get out of the store as quickly (and cheaply)as possible. And I love it.

Reason #498 that I am mother of the year, if you are so inclined to keep track:
Delanie, my middle daughter has struggled with ear problems since birth. She had at least 14 ear infections the 1st year alone. Tubes put in at 13 months. More ear infections and multiple problems since then. Problems with late speech and a lisp and she has a hard time hearing things sometimes. Though, we are not ready to rule out "selective" hearing on her part as her last hearing test showed her to be (on the lower end of) normal. Another set of tubes and her adenoids came out about 2 years ago - maybe just a year ago. I forget all the dates (reason #499 right there for you). So when she tells me her ear hurts, I guess I have heard it almost every day from her for the last 7+ years and I am not always the best listener to her needs. We had been swimming a lot and she had been forgetting about wearing her band-it as much as she should, so when she mentioned a while back that he ear hurt I just thought that it was a little case of swimmers ear and it would go away in a few days. Fast forward to last week while we were in San Antonio for a few days. While out to eat at her most favorite restaurant, she pecked away at her food and laid her head down onto the table and cried about her ear hurting & feeling like there was something "floating" around in there. In all fairness, she hadn't mentioned it in about a week so I thought that the swimmers ear had cleaned up. She was scheduled to spend the week alone with her Nana and Pots and we were leaving the next day to come back here to allow her to do so, so my mother in law said that if she was still complaining about the pain in a few days, that she would take her to BAMC there in town. 2 days later, my MIL took her to the ER and they checked her out and said that she has a hole in her ear drum and that the scar tissue was so horrific surrounding the drum that they were unable to see if the tube was still there. We were/are aware of the scar tissue as she still has regular checkups with the local ENT doctor, however I feel sick knowing that she has had a hole in her ear drum for God only knows how long and I was just blowing off her pain as a little swimmers ear. Let me beat you to the punch - yes, this time, I did drop the ball. Lesson learned.

That is about all I have to blog about right now. Nothing earth shattering. Nothing life changing. Nothing exceptionally great. And that's okay, too.

Happy Blogging, Bloggers!!!!

I'm going to write a book about this.

2010-07-20T06:17:00.000-05:00

Let me start off first by saying this. This is very important. If you remember nothing else about me, please remember this. I am not perfect. There. I said it. Let thy weight be lifted! I have ~~many~~ a few faults, as does everyone else, and I am my worst critic. I suppose everyone is their worst critic so I shouldn't really write that, but for now it stays. I want you to remember this later on in this post when it sounds like I am being an asshole towards other people. I do not think that I am better then anyone else. I don't proclaim to be the end-all, be-all expert on blogging and blogs. I am far from it. In reality, we all get dressed and go to the bathroom the same way. (Privately) Keep in mind that my self esteem is about as high as a grass hopper's knee. I have started and quit school approximately 7 times because what would happen if I actually finished it with a degree? Would the world stop spinning on it's axis? The ozone layer correct itself? Would there be money left over at the end of the month? WHO KNOWS!!! The thought is too terrifying to me to actually comprehend. I am just a (almost) 32 year old mommy/wife/friend/kid/cousin/aunt/sister/woman who doesn't always know what I like or want or need. But I have learned a thing or two over the years about the things that I definitely do not like. And this is a post about one particular issue. If you are one of the people that I am talking about on this issue, please understand that I am not personally attacking you. I am just not on board with this particular issue. I am sure that you are a great person. I'm sure I even like reading your blog. You may in fact be the nicest person that I have ever met in my entire life, and we may have been life long friends if given the proper chance. You may have a genuine reason for doing the exact thing that irritates me so. If this is the case.... I'm so sorry. Let's go have some margarita's together and never ever talk about this again. I know for a fact that I am not the only person/blogger who feels the way that I am about to explain. I may very well regret writing this tomorrow evening and just delete this when I have actually slept. I like to keep you guessing.

Here's the thing. This may not be the politically correct thing to say, or even the nicest thing to say but here goes. I am certainly no Hemingway or Walt Whitman - hell I don't know how to properly, use, a, comma, there's a great possibility that this blog doesn't even sound coherent, it took me about 320 hours to write just this post, and I have simple elementary school words misspelled in my last post! - but this issue really bugs me. Like, to the core irritates me. I also understand that I have 27 followers (Hi all!!!) and that in no way makes me an expert on anything other then, well, nothing. But I do love to read blogs. LOVE THEM. I am in the process of making a list of sites that I like to visit to send to a friend, and just in "Military/Mommy Bloggers" and "Gossip"-y sites list, there were 3 pages of links posted into a word document. Yea... that doesn't include shopping links, recipe links, kid links, etc. I in no way read all of those blogs every day. I would have no time to ever do anything if I did! If I took an average of 2 minutes at each site each day, and I have, say, 200 sites to visit, then that is by my calculations 6.66 hours a day just in reading blogs. *Is 6.66 hours technically 7 hours? Anyone? Bueller?* Uh... I'm lazy but not that lazy. Even I have my lazy-limit. My point is that I like to read a lot of different blogs. But I can't for the life of me understand why so many of them want to write a fucking book based upon their blog. I can't even adequately describe how nauseous I get when I read a blog and see "I'm writing a book!", or, "One day, I'm going to write this down and sell it! Just you wait and see!". Yuck.

I get that there are genuine reasons for one to write a book when you originally started a blog. There are a few "famous" bloggers have become more famous off of their blogs. They were/are rock stars in the blogging world and they were able to parlay that into a lucrative career writing books while actually making money off their blogs. I may even own one or two of their books. I would link to two particular blogs that have written multiple, very successful books after they started a blog, but I'm guessing they don't want a schmuck like me linking to them when I am writing about something that they did to make their house payment last month that irritates me. Just a guess........ I'm sure you know who some of the more famous bloggers are who have books. It isn't like I am telling you the secret of life here.

I totally understand that a blog is the 21st Century's answer to a journal. The new age lock on the outside of the journal is your online id. Do you use a fake name so your family can't find you? Change your city that you live in? Use an avatar instead of a picture so no one really knows it's you? Uh-huh. That's what I thought. You can "lock" people out of your journal by omitting identifying information, while still being able to write out what you need to write out and allowing people, strangers who have no real impact on your life unless you get to know them in real life, to read it. You never have to tell a single person in your real life that you even have a blog and they won't know to search for you to see what you are up to online. When I started my own blog I didn't have a picture of us up on it or even used our real names. I hid behind my blog name. But I realized that for me, that wasn't just a viable option for forever. It didn't feel right, to me, and it felt forced when I wrote like that. You may be different and you may like not having your name put out there and no pictures of you on the net. I just didn't like that personally. I tried it both ways and used what worked best FOR ME. Not judging you on that issue at all. Seriously. No judgement if your online moniker is RastafarianMomma69 yet you are really a single, childless, white Mormon woman in Utah who's idea of wild sex is sex with the lights on. Everyone needs to have an "escape" - and maybe yours just happens to be your online identity. Maybe you do actually have a story that is particularly wonderful - or sad - or terrifying - or whatever the case may be. Ok. Great. Chances are there is a market somewhere out there for your particular story and that you will become the next Stephanie Meyers and you will be able to proclaim to the world how you wrote your book in 2.3 weeks with your 68 children running at your feet, while being pregnant and making your own homemade food (all organic or course) while you lived in the middle of the desert with no friends as your husband was deployed with no way to communicate to you for months on end. I get it. You're a superwoman, and I'm just a lazy fat-ass who can't even complete my associates degree or spell simple words correctly. (It took me 2 whole times to spell correctly, correctly. Just FYI.) You probably even think that I am a shitty wife and mom and I don't know shit about shinola. Fine. Great. Whatever. Believe it if you must. I just don't think that everyone needs to know everything about everyone else and I don't really think that everyone's stories are all that interesting to warrant writing a book about it.

I'm sure you're wondering why then do I read their blog if I am so frustrated that they want to write a book. Simple answer? I love a good train wreck blog. You do too. It's okay to admit it. It's like when you eat the cool whip straight out of the container. We all do it and no one talks about it. Hell, I know I write a crazy ass blog with misspelled words, and I have people who read this who I wish didn't even know it existed, and I have crazy ideas about stuff (this post ring a bell?) and I write about the stupidest shit ever and I'm fairly certain that people come here to see me be all self-righteous about whatever soapbox I happen to be on today and see how stupid I sound. However... I'm in on the joke. There's no foolin' me, missy. I know what my grades were in school, and what my writing level is, and I know what my abilities are. Great writing isn't one of them. I technically write this blog for some interaction. Ryan is gone all-the-time. My kids can only give me so much conversation about non-Disney orientated subjects. My parents and in-laws are only good for long talks every now and then, and I can't call everyone I know everyday just so I have an adult to talk to. I use this place to get off all of the mindless stuff on my brain that is taking up precious space and that is just rolling around waiting to get out. It's all word vomit. I embrace that. It's like when Ryan is here and I haven't seen him all day long and he walks in the door at 6 after working all day. I just start spewing words at him in a constant stream of noise. It doesn't all make sense coming out, but I need to just talk to someone about something or about nothing at all. I know that I won't be winning a Pulitzer anytime soon for my grammatically incorrect blogs and I've come to grips with that. I will survive. I won't make making a movie like "Julie and Julia" about my blogging journey and I won't be making a Sex and the City tv show any time soon based upon my non-existent book. I mean... sincerely. Ryan (and probably you too) couldn't care less about my 25 songs from the past that have influenced me. My parent's don't care about Ryan going three days without calling me and how that freaked me out because, honestly, they have never been in that situation before and what's 3 measly days? They can't really understand that type of silence. Going out of town for business for a week is completely different then going away for a year for a deployment to a WAR ZONE. (And yes I understand that Ryan is behind a desk right now as I type this, and that with this deployment he hasn't even seen the "wire", let alone gone out of it. But he has in the past.... his vehicle has been burned down to the ground, he has received a Bronze Star, he has had a book written about battles he has been in. It can be sometimes hard to separate "this" war deployment from "that" war deployment. When he sends home pictures while wearing a 9mm gun on his hip... it's kind of hard to think he isn't in danger while sitting behind his desk. That PowerPoint can really be a bitch sometimes, you know?) I just write to write. Plain and simple. I just write. Good, bad, ugly, misspelled words.

EVERYBODY has a story to tell. In my life alone, here is just a snippet of what has happened so far: crazy childhood including a mother who didn't want me, treated me differently from my sister, abused us, pitted me and my sister against my alcoholic father, lived through their divorce and my father's remarriage (and my mother's multiple remarriages. Some husband's I never met, yet she claimed I was the one who caused their divorce. Weird.), spent almost a year in a mental hospital because said mother said I was suicidal and an alcoholic - at age 12 and never even having had a drink, have a grandmother who loves my sister and "likes" me, was pregnant in the 9th grade, was pregnant again just after high school to a man I had a fling with and with whom I have not spoken to since my child was 3 months old and he has never seen her, been married to a military man and the man of my dreams, have seen those dreams change, have seen him go off more times in our nearly 10 year marriage then he has been home to war and school and trainings, lost my religion, have lost a sister to a low water crossing, had a child that was molested at a day care provider's house, had a miscarriage in a moving van while moving to here, had lawsuits against me and from me towards other people, bought and lost a house to foreclosure in a state that we hated living in, have had and lost multiple jobs, went to college lots of times and dropped out lots of times, been a stay at home mom when I wanted nothing more then to not be a stay at home mom and conversely also loved being a stay at home mom more then anything in the world, have been so depressed I couldn't see 5 minutes into the future let alone being able to actually get out of bed, and ..... you get the picture. I, like many people, have had some rough times in my life. But I don't see that as making me particularly special or that I need to write a book about it. I am honestly thankful that you have taken 2 minutes out of your busy day to look at what crap I have spewed on about here. It boggles my mind. But I don't blog for followers. If I did, I would blog hop all day long (or approximately 6.66 hours a day) and leave comments on everyone else's pages -which is something I rarely do - or I would go to BlogHer to learn how to brand myself on my blog to obtain the most possible followers, or any number of other things. None of those things are wrong IF YOU DO THEM. I am not trying to alienate my 27 followers. However, those things don't work for me. If I wanted tons of followers I would blog more then once a week and I would blog about way more fun stuff other then how bloggers writing a book makes me want to poke my eyes out. I mean, I even kind of hate me right now. I feel all yucky inside. It's no bueno. I would be lying if I said that getting a new follower or a new comment wasn't exciting because both of those things are fantastic. Exhilarating. Thrilling. But they don't define me either.

I have also had tons of wonderful, fulfilling, loving experiences in my life. I don't think that I am that.... special..... to write a book about my life and even be so presumptuous to think that anyone would want to buy it. Who do you know that doesn't have something shady/scandalous/scary in their past? Exactly. Everyone has a shame filled closet in their mind that they only retreat to when times are tough. Those memories to remind us where we were and how far we've come (or have to go). Life is a journey like that.... ups and downs and twists and turns. I just don't want to read your book about it.

Onto something else..... Are you still here? Really? Sweet.

We got a dog. A big dog. An English Mastiff. She is 7 weeks old. She is Ryan's dream dog and she's beautiful. She's a brindle color. She is the laziest dog I have ever seen which makes her perfect for me. She sleeps approximately 22 hours a day. No lie. She thinks that she is too good to go onto the grass to do her business. Her paw at 7 weeks is more then half the size of my hand. She should be about 150-180 pounds when she is full grown. She will be running around chasing the kids and then suddenly just drop to the ground and lay her head down to take a little snooze for a few minutes. She is already eating 1 1/2 cups of food, and when full grown should eat between 8 - 10 cups of food a day. That's a lot of food. The kids named her Bailey and she's wonderful. She yelps all night long so if anyone has a good suggestion for stopping that craziness quickly, it will be much appreciated.

Audree's orthodontist uses Lisa Frank folders for all of their patients. Do you remember Lisa Frank? She has those folders and school accessories for younger girls that feature unicorns floating on rainbows, or sweet looking puppies sitting on a cloud. She's like the Anne Geddes for tweens. It took me by surprise when I noticed Audree's folder featured three apricot colored kittens staring back at us. Audree got braces this past week and it just solidified how quickly kids grow to me. One day they are playing in the Tupperware cabinet and the next day they are brooding in the corner while wearing glasses and braces. Time, you are no friend to me.

And with that..... I am out until next time. Hope I didn't offend you too much and that you will actually come back when there is a next time.

25 songs that helped mold me (LONG POST!!)

2010-07-14T01:39:00.000-05:00

**This is a long, long, lllloooooonnnnnnggg post & if I could figure out a way to adequately shorten it, or post it behind a break, or something I totally would. Sorry in advance!)

I was reading some archives of one of the blogs I like to read, Sweetney, and she was talking about her personal Top 25 Songs from the past 25 years.

Whoa.

25 years back puts me at 6 1/2 years old, and aside from rockin' my Cabbage Patch record on the ol' record player in my room, I don't remember much music from those years gone bye. I remember that my mother would always, each and every single time, play "In-a-godda-da-vida" by Iron Butterfly whenever the cleaning ritual of the house was to commence. It was always the longer version of the record and never the 8-track. I remember the windows being opened in our sunken living room with the curtains flowing in the wind, and doing whatever cleaning it was that littlen's do. (Yes, I have kids. No, they never seem to help with cleaning so I don't really know what a 6 year old would clean.) Yea. So....

I was thinking about how much I love music but the more I thought about it, I seem to be a little....em....uh.... strange? about music. I have certain levels of music that I can take. For example... I can listen to one or two songs, maybe, from Depeche Mode or Hole. I can't however stand Jazz or Radiohead. Give me some Britney Spears and I'm all over it. I don't prefer classical, but I can stomach it now and then. I prefer sad, sappy love songs over thrasher metal. I LIVE for 90s pop ballads, and live even more for 80s hair metal love ballads. "Every rose has it's thorn" anyone?? I love me some soul and some rap music. I vaguely remember the late 80s music movement. We lived in apartments at that time in Kansas and my sister and I were latch key kids. Or something. Maybe the neighbor was paid to watch us but that entailed us just going outside to play until like 5 minutes before my mom got there to pick us up. Whatever. Anyway.. that is where I learned about Cinderella, and Poison, and Metallica. My neighbor's daughter is the one who introduced me to probably one of my most favorite songs of all time, though it is definitely not a 80s love ballad - "Cover of Rolling Stone" by one Ms. Janis Joplin. Amen.

Certain songs take me back to certain memories. I can recall the time that me and my best friend C were sitting in front on Planned Parenthood the summer before we started high school with her brother and his girlfriend in her brother's beater car listening to "Strawberry Wine" by Deana Carter because he was supposed to be watching us, but I guess there were other plans?! Or how I remember how I loved with a thousand fiery kisses LL COOL J in high school and I would blare his "Greatest Hits" cd, while my friends turned towards their door in the passenger seat as if turning away from the speaker would get them further from the music. ("I need a girl with extensions in her hair, Bamboo earrings - at least two pair...") I remember the song that was popular when Audree was new born and I was single and struggling. "Everclear - I will buy you a new life" if you were wondering. Ryan and I have a singer (Lenny Kravitz...long story) and we have a song, "At Last" by Etta James.

I live for music, but not in a musical way. (Does that make sense? Did I just turn into Nietzsche?) I love to always have music on in some form. I have a radio in the kitchen that gets turned on immedietly when I walk in there to start cooking/cleaning. Some of my most favorite memories of the past have also included the memory of a song. I was thinking about my favorite 25 songs and I thought that I would give it a whoorl and see what I came up with. I don't think that these are in any particular order, and most are pretty popular songs. I'm not deep. I'm pretty "pop" if you catch my drift. I don't venture far off the beaten path of popular music. If American Bandstand was on today and was playing the Top 40 of the week, well.... chances are pretty good that you will have been hearing these songs too.

I have divided these songs into little themes. This list was much harder to put together then I originally thought it would be. Narrowing down songs that bring meaning to your life is tough stuff peeps! Let's start and see all about me!!!

"Military" songs
I think that every military spouse has certain songs that will relate to their life in the military.

"Already Home" by Tim McGraw Essentially, this is the worst possible song that you can listen to when your hunny is deployed. It makes those conversations of "what if...?" that happened before they left come to life in your imagination. If you are feeling especially sappy, you will search for this song on YouTube and watch a soldier's final somber homecoming.
"Home" by Michale Buble Typically I will play this on nights when the days have been long and the nights have been harder. It really gets played on rotation right around the actual homecoming.
"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas Ryan had an old Platoon Sargent whom we called "Woody", due to his last name. Ryan and him were in the same unit for like 6-ish years so we became really close with him. He and Ryan would rig their Bradley's sound system to play songs for when they would go out of the wire during their deployment. Think of the blaring sounds of "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC as they were rolling out of the base. They had little mix cd's to go out with depending on their days adventures. For whatever reason, this became a favorite of theirs and they would listen to it all-the-time. When I hear it, it ironically makes me think back to the young, scared woman I was during that first year long deployment. Man... I've come a long way. ; )
"Mama, I'm comin' home" by Ozzy Osbourne Ryan always let's me know that he is on his way home by playing this song for me. 2 deployments ago, the guys would play this on their last trek out of the wire, when going from Iraq to Kuwait, and then especially on the flight home. Ryan has said that he knows when it plays, that he knows that time is getting close for his return.

Reminds me of the kids
No one will ever be caught saying that these songs are tailored for kids tender ears. I know that their little precious widdle ears shouldn't be caught dead listening to anything other then KidsBop! or nursery rhymes for a pre-determined yet unknown number of years, but after about 2 years of listening to that ruckus with Audree MY ears had enough. So, they listened to what we did. Period.

"Love Story" by Taylor Swift Audree loved her some TS a few years back. I could have really put any TS song in there, but I like this one so it stays. We were blessed to be able to go see Miss Swift in San Antonio. This song is special because it reminds me of that night - the night of my girls 1st real concert. How exciting that I got to be there for that! (Landry was to young to go, really, and spending that much money on a ticket for a kid that little is just nonsense. We took him to the fair before hand & got him a hat & he has thankfully forgiven us. Whew!)
"Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas Landry loves to belt out this song in the car and I pray that I never forget what it sounds like to hear him yell out "Gotta get dat!" It's the Awesome.
"Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Steffani Audree got this cd from her Aunt Nat for her 5th birthday because she loved the song so, so much. She didn't really sing it as much as danced to it over and over and over again. Then, she ice skated on the tile floor with the cd & forgot all about the song, but the times were great when we did have you Gwen. Promise.
"I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry Ok, so yes. I know that this song is inapproiate for children. I know. But they don't know that the song is "bad" unless you let them know first. This was Delanie's song of choice a few years back. She sings along to anything she hears, and I think that she just loved the tune of this song. She never really sang any words to it, but she would hum the tune as if her life depended on it.

Love Songs
There were so many different songs to choose from here. I get the most emotion from the love songs I remember from when Ryan and I were dating. Some were older then when we had dated, but I hung onto those precious gems of songs for the hard times. Oh, yes I did.

"Why they call it fallin'" by Lee Ann Womack Ryan and I had a bit of a sordid love tale. Dating on and off for a year, talking and then not talking & then talking & then engaged & married 4 days later(!!) and then..... it's the same song and dance that many of you have had. This song reminds me of the pain of loving someone and them not really responding the way that you need them to.
"Again" by Janet Jackson Again.. crazy love tale, talking and not talking, yada, yada, yada.
"When Can I See You Again?" by Babyface Blah, blah blah. See above.

Chrissy
Chrissy was my step-sister who was killed at a low water crossing almost 3 years ago. It was undoubtedly one of the hardest times in my life. We were only 9 months apart in age. I remember sitting at my parent's kitchen table as we were all trying to put together songs and pictures for her memorial. They (the funeral home) only wanted the memorial to be XX number of minutes long, and we struggled with trying to figure out which songs adequately display your love for the one you have lost in that constraint. These songs take me back to that time and the intense feelings of loss.

"Like An Angel Passing Through My Room" by ABBA ABBA? As a memorial song? I gettcha. But the lyrics really spoke to me.

Half awake and half in dreams Seeing long forgotten scenes
So the present runs into the past
Now and then become entwined, playing games within my mind
Like the embers as they die
Love was one prolonged good-bye
And it all comes back to me tonight
In the gloom
Like an angel passing through my room

Simply. Stunning.

"Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)" by Billy Joel Originally I used to sing this song to my children. I don't recall when or where I first heard this. I think if I remember correctly, Billy Joel originally wrote this song for his daughter. It is just a completely soothing song to your soul.

High School Memories
Some people loathed their high school existence. I loved mine for the most part. I was neither popular, nor unpopular. I had a great mix of people I hung out with. I floated through many cliques during my 4 years of school. The summer before 9th grade, I was a little rebellious and got mixed in with a - how shall I put this - "thuggier" crowd. That time didn't last too long, just about 6 months. It was long enough for me (and my parents). I was a "Cowboy/Kicker" during 9th grade. I wore burgandy boots and a large-sish belt buckle to school each day. Gulp. I was aventually "ousted" from that crowd, and then over the next few years I just drifted in and out of people's lives. I had a steady boyfriend from the end of 9th grade till the summer before senoir year and he was the jealous type who didn't like his woman to go out with out him. He had already graduated from high school, so he couldn't possibly be seen at a high school party! Owh..Maw..Gawd, Abbey!!!!! Conversely, that meant that there were a lot of eveings that I chose to work rather then sit at home waiting for him to stop brushing his hair in the mirror. Ahem.

"I Alone" by Live In the 9th grade, said boyfriend and I were ditching school to go eat lunch one day. We got into a wreck. That song was playing on the radio when the wreck occured. After the wreck, went to a Mr. Gatti's Pizza and watched on their big screen television about the Oklahoma City Bombings that had just happened.
"Faithfully" by Journey Crazy story - my step mom's 1st husband was a childhood friend of Steve Perry, the lead singer of Journey. Another crazy story - I was in Flags (or the Color Guard) during 10th grade to take care of that pesky gym requirement. For our semester final, we were supposed to pick a song, any song, and figure out a routine to it. We were to perform it in front of the class for our grade. I, naturally, did nothing but pick out the song. I showed up to class.... turned on the music.... started throwing the flag into the air whenever the music's tempo increased... swayed along... and then I just stopped during the middle of the song. I kind of tossed the flag to the floor all dramitic like and walked out of Flags and left to go meet with the boyfriend. I failed Flags, ya'll. Flags. FFFLLLLLAAAAGGGGGSSSS. I never went back to that class again. My parents were not enthused.
"Been Caught Stealing" by Janes Addiction My step sister D is 3 years older then me. She was always a moody, depressed, Smith's t-shirt wearing type of girl. Slept all day, up all night. Would get me to watch MTV's 180 Minutes with her on Sunday evenings because it was all of the "Alternative" groups. That was when being "alternative" really meant something. (I still have the video tapes of the videos she would endlessly record to get her fix throughout the week of the videos deemed to alternative to play during the week.) When I was in 8th grade, we lived down the street from a Dunkin Donuts. That place had a cigarette machine in the lobby that would take quarters. I would save my quarters from my lunch money and once our parents had gone to bed, she and I would walk up there, plop the quarters one-by-one into the tiny slot and pull the lever of our beloved smokes.
"Make Em Say Ugh" by Master P After high school, I started a full time job at a car dealership. When I started pulling in a steady paycheck, it burned a perverbial hole in my pocket. I was no longer content to have the car that my parents had chosen for me and were graciously paying for (I was the only one out of 5 girls they did that for and my car was brand new off the lot and I HATED IT with an intense passion. Bitch, party of one??!!) I bought my 1st car and it was a shiny used red Mustang. I would drive that car around and blare this stupid shit out of my car like I was important. Didn't these other people know that I was a working woman now, and I had bought this car all on my very own?? (They didn't.) Look how gangsta I am, I would think. It makes me gag to think about it now.
"Long Day" by Matchbox 20 After high school, I was friends with a group of girls in which we all worked together and we all had gone to school together. We would go to the lake for the weekend, or spend the nights at each others houses, etc. It was a really great time in my life. My friend Michelle introduced me Matchbox 20, and she in particular loved this song. It reminds me of driving with the windows down in her car through her neighborhood after an adventure that we had.
"Closer to Fine" by Indigo Girls In Flags, some of the girls liked to liken themselves as loners. So independent, free spirited, whimsicial, etc. This song in particular reminds me of sitting in a friend from Flags house one weekend and just honestly trying to figure out how in the hell I had gotten there. LOL
"Freshman" by Verve Pipe Quintessientially high school for me. Takes me back to a montoge in my mind of my freshman year. Love it dearly.

****ALMOST DONE!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!****

Songs of the Moment
These 3 songs resonate to me for different reasons. One is spiritual, and one is looking back on how she became lost during the years, and one is just beautiful.

"This is All That I Can Say" by David Crowder Love, love, love this song. Can't say enough goos things about it. It's like someone took a conversation between God and me and worte it down.
"House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert This is the song that currently gets placed on loop during the day. My kids are beginning to hate me. Since I turned 30 almost 2 years ago, I have been struggling internally to connect with the "old" Abbey. We moved a lot growing up and I don't have a certain home to go home to in which I would feel connected too, but it's that feeling of going back and trying to figure it all out - where I went off track - that I connect with.
"Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson I love the simplicity of this song. No deep hidden meaning for me. It's just a lovely song.

Ryan, my Husband
When we were 1st married we were like most every other young couple - stupid and broke. Now, we just happen to be a little less broke. We only had one car which meant that I would drive him to work if I needed the car during the day. We would go to San Antonio nearly every weekend. I thought that Ryan hung the moon. (Now I just think he hung it crooked and I will have to fix it. Bu-dum-dum.) He introduced me to these two songs and they instantly take me back to 2001.

"Call and Answer" by Bare Naked Ladies I loved that he would sng this song while holding my hand. I loved that to a jackass like me it sounded like a "kewl new band!!", even they were hardly new. I just really love the song.
"Accoustic #3" by Goo Goo Dolls Again... I don't know what it is about this particular song that makes me have such a strong reaction, but there's just something about the simplicity of the melody that gets me every single time. I remember the feeling that we could do anything because we were free. Newly married and free.

So..... that about wraps it up for me. I listened to all of these songs while doing this and the road trip in my mind was much needed.

By the way..... what are some songs that have defined you?

What's been up, buttercup?

2010-07-12T13:09:00.000-05:00

I've been in San Antonio for the last 10-ish days. We got back on Saturday afternoon. While there, I met up with some of my high school friends for lunches at new places and evening trips to Chuck E Cheese with all of our kids. Each day I went to the pool with the kids in my parent's neighborhood. Landry suddenly became a boy who could do cannon balls into the deep end of the pool! 3 weeks ago he was struggling to float at swimming lessons, and now he was screaming "CANNON BALL!" as he jumped into the pool. He is such a conundrum. I spent way more money then I wanted to and gained 5 pounds!! In 10 days!! Months ago I said on here that I had started Weight Watchers. I stayed true to it for three whole weeks and lost about 10 pounds before falling off the wagon and eating all willy-nilly again. Ryan has lost close to 50 pounds since being deployed (bastard) and so I need to get back up on the WW train so that we don't weigh the same amount when he comes home. Wouldn't that suck.

Ryan got promoted at the beginning of the month. There were pictures posted of it on the unit's Face Book page. I wrote "Congratulations Babe! We're so proud of you!". It was deleted because of the word "Babe". Seriously? It only angered me because there are women on there who are constantly commenting on their spouses' pictures saying "Honey this" and "Baby that". How is "Babe" worse then that? Whatever. He is currently deployed and doesn't work in his MOS. Since the promotion, his superiors have been trying to decide what to do with him now. This is where the story gets a little strange. Apparently, the job that he is in is "rated" for an E6, but he is now an E7. The higher up's are thinking of switching his job there to one at Battalion level, or leaving him where he is, or sending him home soon, attaching him to another unit that is his MOS, making him a Platoon Sgt, and then he will deploy with the new unit around the beginning of the year. That would mean that in 2 years time, he will have been gone approximately 18 months. Can you tell how thrilled I am at this prospect? I get that he needs to get Plt Sgt time for his MOS and to get promoted in the future. His plan has always been to make Sergeant Major. He jokes that he wants to be CSM of the Army, but we all know that won't happen. ; ) Anyway... he has been in 9 years and is now a SFC so he is on his way to making CSM. I support him and try not to bitch too much about school's he has to attend out of state, or late night field problems. I know that he is the sole provider for this family and that him succeeding at his job means that the family is succeeding. I know that his schooling and long times away from the family are part of the beast that he chose before we married. I know all that. But still sometimes you just want your husband home for longer then a month at a time, you know? (On a side note... he just called and irritated me so much that maybe being home only a month is a good thing after all.)

I started to look at school supplies last week when I stumbled upon a sale at Toys R Us. I ran in there for some toys for Landry's upcoming birthday, but I noticed that when you purchased a backpack, you got a free lunch box. So I went home and schlepped the kids back up there and bought some for the younger two. Audree decided that they were to "young" looking for her. We found her one at Costco that we could agree on. I also purchased some crayons and scissors that were on sale buy one get one free. Last night I hankered down and made a spread sheet of all the supplies needed (30 glue sticks! 100 pencils!) and then I looked at sale papers. It took like 3 hours to do but I have a detailed list of what is cheapest where and where to buy it. (DORK ALERT!!!) Even with the 1 cent sales at Staples and 1 dollar sales at Target, I am still looking at over $250 for supplies alone. That doesn't include new clothes for the kids. Or shoes. Or haircuts. Each year I forget how expensive it is to send the kids back to school. I weep for the days when all the kids are really into clothes and designer brands. Audree told me that she didn't want to get her clothes at Target this year because that is "sooo last year, Mom". Huh. She didn't have any good suggestions as to where we should actually shopped, she just knew that she didn't want to go to Target. I suggested Walmart, but she poo-pooed that also. She threw out Forever 21, and I laughed so hard I pee'd myself a little. There is NO WAY in hell that I would take an 11 year old to shop there. It isn't called Forever 11 for a reason.

Since I didn't make it to the stores this morning for the back to school sales that means only one thing is on the agenda for today. Laundry. Also known as the Achilles Heal of the housewife.

Nothing really

2010-06-26T19:37:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to put in a quick picture of my handsome hubby! He was in a Change of Responsibility ceremony today. In just a few days he is getting his promotion and I am so proud of him! He hates getting his picture taken. Doesn't matter if it is Army related or not. He used to not be as bad about getting it taken, but in the past few years the pictures of him have become less and less frequent. He told me he was frustrated that he had to be in charge of formation today because he knew that he had no control over being in pictures or not. :) In the other pictures posted on the site, he is covering his face with his hand, shying away from the camera. That's what makes this one so funny... that it is so straight on. I just know he was cringing as the photographer was taking the picture.

Nothing really new here. Cleaning the house so my parents can come into town tomorrow and me and my step-mom are going to the Laura Bush book signing here at one of the PX's. My parents are the ones who really wanted to go, but my dad is so tired from all the traveling from my Grannie's house and back that he said he just wanted a day to relax with the kids! I have told the kids to play out in the sprinkler as much as possible tomorrow so that they stay out of his hair. They happily agreed.

"Losing" Landry

2010-06-24T15:22:00.000-05:00

Today was the last day of swimming lessons at the water park, and to celebrate the kids got to have a free day. No lessons, just free pool time to show off their hard work. The front of the park is your standard water park fare. 18" deep pool, multiple water sprayers, small water slide, play set, etc. There is a middle part with pic-nic tables where I was sitting and lounge chairs on the sides of the pool, and then behind that towards the back of the park there are three water slides. Landry is not tall enough to ride the water slides and he knew that. We talked all about it last night. We got there and the kids started playing. The girls were going down the water slides and there was a life guard at the bottom of the slides to help if needed. They kept swimming up to me after sliding down to tell me how awesome it all was. I would occasionally watch them, but most of my attention was focused on Landry. Focusing on three kids while you are alone is hard work. Landry was happily going up and down the kiddie slides and playing with the other smaller kids. The girls' teacher needed me to come and get their completion certificates, so as per his request, I walked over to where he was sitting. He was in an area on the side of the splash pool, but before you got to the lap pool. Landry had never been to the lap pool before as he can't even float correctly and the water is like 12 feet deep. I sat there with the lifeguard for maybe 3 minutes while he filled out what I needed, and the girls were back and forth coming to talk to me. I would talk to CJ the life guard and answer his questions, and then I would look back towards the splash pool. Towards the end, I told Delanie to go and get Landry for me because I couldn't see him anymore. She returned 30 seconds later to report that she couldn't find him. I got up and went to look in the splash pool. He was no where to be seen.

My heart fluttered.

I slowly and methodically walked around the splash area, looking closely at every kid who I saw. Nothing. I called to Audree and Delanie to help me look. Starting to panic, we looked over and over at each kid in the splash pool, and at the bottom of the water slides. I stopped to check the bottom of the pool at one of the slides that weren't being used.

Again... we saw nothing. My heart started pounding now.

I ran towards the bathrooms on the other side of the park, the girls trailing behind me. I saw a lifeguard walk out of the office and called out to him "I can't find my son! Can you please go look in the boys restroom to see if he is maybe in there?" I told him Landry's name and what he was wearing and waited nervously outside the doors while he searched the bathrooms. I kept scanning the pool to no avail. He came out and told me that there was no one in the bathrooms at all. He went left around the splash pool while I went right and when we met in the rear of it with no little boy, I began crying. Heart thumping, sweating, dry mouthed panic set in. I ran towards the parking lot and ran out the gate to search for him there. It was empty, save for cars. When I ran back in the entrance gate a woman who worked there asked me if I needed something and through hard tears I yelled that I couldn't find my son, and I took off to the pool again. The head lifeguard came out the door just then and asked me something about him, but I don't remember what it was. She went back into the entrance office and suddenly you heard an announcement of "EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL NOW! EVERYONE OUT NOW!" Lifeguards starting coming towards the front of the park and parents starting staring in my direction. Children were crying because their fun day had been interrupted. No one said anything to me. No one but life guards offered to help look for Landry. Some random lifeguard asked what his name was and what he was wearing and lifeguards set out yelling his name. Parents were staring hardcore at me, and drying off their questioning children. This was maybe 10 minutes before the end of scheduled class time and was maybe about 2 minutes after I had started searching for him. Maybe. I honestly just stood frozen at this point, paralyzed with fear, in the middle of the pool area. Twirling in circles, looking at every kid that I saw. I yelled to Audree to get Delanie and get to where I was now. She asked "where's Landry" and when I responded "I don't know" she said she was scarred. So was I.

Someone, a lifeguard, yelled "Is that him?" and I looked over to see the head lifeguard walking with Landry over to me. I dropped my purse and held him while crying. Audree and Delanie held him at the same time. All the while, parents were still staring at us and by now they were starting to leave. The water slides and sprayers were turned off, and no one was allowed back into the pool yet. There was possible, maybe if I am stretching it, 5 minutes left before the end of class so it wasn't like these kids were missing out on a whole lot. Landry had been found wearing a life jacket (Thank you God) and jumping off the diving board. My head was reeling. He hates to get his fucking head wet while doing "bobs" and can't float on his back, but he was jumping off the diving board? How did he have time to do all of this? The only time my eyes weren't on him was while I was sitting in the pass-through between the splash pool where he had been and the lap pool where he now was when I was talking to the girls' teacher. I never saw him pass by me. The lifeguard had looked at the lap pool before I went to the parking lot but didn't see him. There was about 40 children standing in lines waiting to get on the diving boards and I guess he just blended in.

As I was hugging him, the head lifeguard who had found him touched my head lovingly, as if to say "It's okay now, mom". I appreciated that. While the rawness of the situation was setting in, and tears still stinging my eyes, a dad walked passed us with his older-ish daughter. This was possibly 15-30 seconds after we had been reunited. As he approached me, he LOUDLY said to his daughter and to no one else in particular "I don't know why we have to leave early, honey. I guess it's because some parents can't watch their kids". He was giving me the strong side eye while doing so. He said it loud enough for all the parents in the vicinity to hear, though at this point it would have been hard to miss that I was the one with the missing kid. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I wanted to scream as loud as I could "FUCK YOU MISTER!" but I was more concerned with holding my now-found son. I wanted to yell something about how fast it all happened, and that I had been watching my kids and not reading a book or sun bathing or leafing through a magazine, and that I wasn't playing on my phone or listening to my ipod, and that I pray to God he never has to deal with losing a kid, but I'm sure it would have landed on deaf ears. My sister drowned almost 3 years ago so I realize all-to-well how fast things can change and how things can go downhill instantly. I have thought over and over in my head about what this man said and about what I wanted to say to him. Really, mister? A time like this is a time to try and act all superior as a parent? Think it all you want... but to say it outloud to a mother who less then 30 seconds ago found her missing son is real fucking smooth. Yes, I had been a parent who had lost their child, and yes, you knew that. You could see it. The signs were obvious. But to try and make me feel worse about the situation to try and make yourself feel better makes you the horrific person, not me.

It has taken me the better part of the day to come off the adrenaline from this morning. As soon as I loosened my grip off Landry and starting asking questions, I sent Audree off to get our things so we could get the hell out of there. By this time, class was over anyway. Through a wad of starring lifeguards and judging parents we made our way to the car. Audree burst into tears when we closed the doors. I asked her what's up and she responded with "We're never coming back, are we?". Tears angrily ran down my face and I turned off the radio and said no more talking until we are home. The situation was really starting to sink in now, especially when I saw the police car that had arrived in the parking lot. I was angry at myself above all else. I was angry that Landry had wondered off, even if it was only his 5 year old curiosity getting the best of him and maybe not so much his fault after all. I was angry that Audree seemed to be more upset that we weren't going to be making a return trip back to the pool in the coming weeks then she was about her brother. I was (irrationally) angry at many, many things. I was angrier, I think, because of that man's stinging words to me when it was painfully obvious that I (we) were in emotional pain at that very monent. he was clearly kicking salt into my open wound. I cried the whole way home. I came home and sunk into my chair, so as to try and wrap my brain around all that could have gone wrong and what all went right. I am so beyond grateful that nothing "bad" happened. I am beyond grateful that Landry thought to put on a life jacket to go off the diving board into 12 feet deep water. I am beyond thankful for the life guards help searching for my son. I am beyond thankful for that life guards small touch of understanding. I am beyond thankful that I will get one more day to fuck up as a parent. (That last statement is I'm pretty positive what the jackass man is thinking.)

Comments

2010-06-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

So, I am still a newbie at this blogging thing, and so I am still figuring out how to comment back to people. So until I figure all of that out here is a follow up some comments:

Lindsey..... please send me a comment with your email address so I can talk to you about my leg pain. I won't publish the comment with your address in it, I swear! :)

fortunecookiejunkie.....

Weeds, does in fact, f-ing rock. It took me about a week, but I watched all 5 seasons on demand, and I am anxiously awaiting the next season in August. I heard Alanis Morrisette is coming back and so is Nancy's sister... so color me intrigued.
Charlie horse is definitely a funny word.
Why did Landry say "that's what she said"? We were in the car and I was talking to Audree. Delanie and Landry were talking in the back seat. I heard Delanie say something to him, although I don't remember exactly what it was. Then Landry busted that out. I wish I could remember what she said to prompt it, but at the time I remember thinking "that's my boy!" for saying it correctly. :)
What are your thoughts on the Gardisil? Both my Gynecologist and Pediatrician seemed to have positive things to say about it, though they also informed me of the negative aspects of it.

I also wanted to say a sincere Thank You to everyone who reads this blog, has read this blog, and who will read this blog in the future. I love the comments and seeing my "followers" go up. Last check I was at 25 followers, FTW!!!! Still no ABW, but she's been doing it for many years before me. Maybe in about 10 years I will be up near where she is today! I do read a lot of your blogs but I am a terrible, horrible commenter. Atrocious. I sincerely apologize. I feel silly about commenting on other people's blogs... like you are thinking "Who is this chick and who is she to comment on my blog?" type of stuff. I am the opposite.. I love love love comments and readers, but get skeeved out commenting on other people's blogs. I will strive for a better commenting future from myself. Swear.

New post coming up soon (today) about losing Landry and asshole parents.

Sadness

2010-06-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

My Grannie turned 90 on June 8th. To celebrate the occasion, my parents took a trip up to where she lives for a week of vacation to see her. Apparently while they were there, my Grannie alluded to the fact that she was "ready to go" and she knew her time was coming. My Grandpa has been dead for 13 years now. She hasn't wanted to leave the house that they built together 50+ years ago, and she didn't want to leave his grave, therefore she has been unwilling to leave their small town to move to south Texas to live near my parents in an assisted living facility. All of her friends have either passed on or gone to live with their own children in different cities. Her sister died a few years back, leaving only my parents and us two grandchildren (me and my biological sister) as her only family. My parents talked to her while they were there and Grannie had finally decided that she would be willing to move near them this coming winter. We thought that she would change her mind, as she has made this type of declaration before and had always changed her mind. However, this is the first time that she has said that she was "ready to go".

On Tuesday, my parents received a hurried, hushed call early in the morning from a lady who comes by to check on my Grannie. Apparently Grannie had fallen on SUNDAY, but had forbidden her friend to call my dad. Grannie's friend snuck outside and called to fill my parents in on the situation. She had been taken to the hospital on Monday, but they had told her that nothing was broken. She wasn't walking, and needed help to take care of her basic needs. Grannie's friend was needing to go to work on Friday, so she told my parents that Grannie was going to need some help soon. My dad took off up there on Tuesday afternoon and arrived there yesterday morning. He had made up an elaborate lie to tell Grannie about how he had arrived so as not to rat out her friend but Grannie's friend had filled her in on the secret early Wednesday morning. Dad took her back to the hospital yesterday, demanding to see the x-rays. Demanding because the small town hospital was being skittish about talking to him about her injuries. Turns out while they were there Dad noticed that the head of Radiology had been his best friend from Kindergarten - College. He was called and the x-rays were looked over again to reveal a broken vertebra in her back. She has been without pain medication for all these days because they just blew her off as "old" and figured there is nothing that they could do anyway to help her, which is sort-of true. There isn't really anything they can do to help her because of her age. If anything, they told my Dad that all that they would do is put her under and place a needle with glue to the vertebra and sort-of super glue the bones back together. Sad. They had an appointment today with an Orthopedic Surgeon today but he cancelled due to sickness and it is rescheduled next week.

Dad has already started selling off her things, as bad as that sounds. Grannie knows what's going on, so it isn't like he is doing it behind her back. Today it was the golf cart. They had three Realtors out to appraise the house. They are seeing a lawyer on Monday to talk about any legal issues they think of - like tax issues, and such. They are making plans to store all of her things here in Texas. There isn't a plan on when to move her here. I mean, I guess it is possible that she could see the Orthopedic Surgeon on Monday and he can tell her she will be fine and walk again, but we find that highly unlikely.

I feel sad that I won't see her house again. I feel sad that she is getting so old. I feel sad that she is in a position where the decision to be moved here is being made for her. In her mind, she would be ready to move here this winter, and now it will probably be much sooner. I feel sad that she fell and that we don't think anyone knew about it until Monday when her friend came over. I feel sad that she said that she is "ready to go". Watching a slow decline on someone you love is hard. I told Ryan today that I was glad that about 3 months ago I had sent her a letter telling her how much I loved her and what she meant to me. I had sent one to my Grandpa when he was dying with cancer, and in return he sent one to me. It is one of my most treasured possessions. I am glad that I sent it to her before she fell so that she doesn't think that the reason I sent it was because she had fallen. I sent it because I just felt like I needed her to know those things that I don't always say. I just hope that she finds a way to be comfortable with the decisions that are being made for her and with her, and that she finds a way to be happy for however long she still has on Earth.

Time for the ER?

2010-06-17T22:46:00.000-05:00

For about the past two months I have had a low, simmering pain in my left calf muscle. Pain isn't really the correct word to use. More like a bad charly horse that just won't go away. The sensation isn't always there, but when I sit down in the evenings in my bed to read blogs, or watch t.v, or whatever the case is, the pain comes back. Each day a little worse then the last. It has been centered in my left calf muscle, directly in the middle, deep, deep down. It feels like it is next to the bone, and when I try and touch it to see if maybe I can work out a kink or something, I feel a little hard spot and I feel the vein wobbling between the tip of my finger and the bone. When I do touch it, whatever it is, the pain gets exponentially worse in my leg and it doesn't subside for quite a while, so I don't touch it very often. In the past week or so, I have felt the pain start to "move" up my leg. It is still in the muscle area but I am also now feeling some of the same sensation behind my knee. Curiosity got the best of me this evening and I Googled it. The Internets told me it is a BLOOD CLOT and to get to the emergency room immediately. Here's the thing, Internet. I don't have time to go. I have 3 kids by myself and no one to help watch them the last thing that I want to do is go to sit in the ER for hours on end with some calf pain. I haven't been stabbed, and I'm not (thankfully) having a heart attack, so I don't know what to do. Tricare has assigned me to a new doctor, because my old doctor left the network, but that was 7 months ago and I haven't seen this new doctor and the last time I tried to get in to see him for some back pain (that ironically, or not, started at about the same time as this leg pain started) I was told he wasn't accepting new patients. Insurance hell, I tell you. Maybe I will swing by BAMC when I am in San Antonio in a few weeks when I will have someone to watch the kids for a while and I can break away by myself.

I ordered a plaque a few weeks ago for my husband's First Sergeant for his upcoming promotion from probably the most reputable plaque making place here in town. To say I was underwhelmed with the customer service has been an understatement. They sort of act like you are invading their space when you are in there. The wife who works there, and is the owner's wife, is 9 months pregnant and is clearly miserable and frustrated with her job. Not exactly sure why they are considered the best in town, seeing's how I paid $348 for this particular plaque/Guidon showcase thing and there isn't really anything great or particularly special about it.   It isn't really even that big. (Side notes... why did I go there? Ryan said too, because that's where he was told to go. Also, he got money from the soldiers over there to help combat the expense on our end, although we never seem to get *all* the money back, ahem.) Anyway, I had been in there, like, 5 times talking with them and then with Ryan and then back with them and then finally one day they miraculously talked to Ryan on the phone and the order was placed. The took copious amounts of notes, as did I, although they kept the drawings that we had made to show what it would look like. I picked it up the other day after waiting like 20 minutes in the front area with one other customer and I (mistakenly) didn't really look at it all that much.  When I got home, I e-mailed Ryan a picture of what it looked like. He e-mailed back that one of the Guidon's in the plaque was wrong. I called this place back and told them it was wrong and what was wrong with it. The wife took my information and said that she would call back yesterday to see what we could do about the situation, but never apologized. No call came in yesterday, so today I called back and mid-sentence she stopped me and placed me on hold. The husband picked up and said basically they go off of what we tell them to do and it is all my fault and it's just a mis-communication, blah blah blah. I stopped him mid-sentence and said that while I did agree that it was a mis-communication, I felt like it was on their side as I remember talking about this particular Guidon. This particular Guidon in question didn't exist and they had to make one from scratch, which was why there were so many conversations about it. I said that I had to get it fixed, regardless, so please tell me what to do. He said that wife was due to give birth on Tuesday and that he is working on Sunday's to get all the work done and that he can't take any new work now, yada yada yada, but if I can bring it in in a few weeks that he would split the cost with me on it, which is going to cost me another $30. I have a problem with that. If *I* was truly in the wrong, why is he willing to split the cost with me? I think he knows that they were wrong, but that they don't want to admit it, which is why he is willing to eat half of the cost. I want to go in there and ask to see the notes that we made and the drawings that were done. I will probably be asked not to come back when all is done, which is fine seeing's how there is another banner place across the parking lot with whom I am sure would love the business. These three little letters - HHC - are causing me such a damn headache.

Landry is failing at floating. Clarification: he is basically failing at swimming. I enrolled all the kids in swimming lessons for the 1st time ever this year through the YMCA at the local water park. Delanie has taken off and was swimming underwater on the 2nd day. Audree got moved from Level 3 down to Level 2 on the 2nd day because she refused to let go of the wall to go swimming in the deep end. She was really embarrassed by that but she is thriving in Level 2. In fact, today she dove off the side wall of the pool into deep-ish water. I think it helps that she has a little school-girl crush on her instructor. He reminds me of that sea turtle Crush in Finding Nemo. You know, the one who was into "surfing" the East Australian Current? Anyway... if Crush were a human, CJ would be him. Long-ish blond hair, surfer dude talk/voice, tan body, etc. Audree is timid around him and always touching her hair and shifting uncomfortably around him. It's pretty funny to watch. Landry is..... a slower learner. Since about birth he hasn't wanted to get his head/face wet. He used to freak out about it - like BIG TIME FREAK OUT - but he has gotten a lot better about the horror known as of getting his face wet.  His therapist's worked with him a lot with it when he was in Occupational Therapy last year. (A story for another time.) There are maybe 10 or so classes going on all at the same time in the water park. The deepest part of the splash area is 3ft 6in, and that is where Landry is at. The girls are in the lap pool which goes from 3ft 6in to 12 ft deep. There are between 5 and 10 kids in each little class, with between 1 and 2 lifeguards/instructors per class. Yesterday Landry's teacher had the kids holding onto the side of the pool doing "bobs". Basically, you hold onto the pool and jump up and down while in the water. The entire point of it is to get the kids comfortable with getting their face in the water. All of the kids in his class (4 others) were bobbing up and down excitedly, over and over, and though Landry did go down, as soon as his little head popped up he pulled himself onto the side of the pool - gasped dramatically for air while coughing - and furiously wiped off his face. He called to me to bring him a towel so he could wipe his face. I said no, and he looked angrily at me, and slowly dipped into the pool to repeat the scene. He was on number 2 of 10 as the others were nearing finishing.   Today the teacher was trying to get them to float on their backs. All of the kids did it, and did great, and then it was his turn. She put him on his back and slowly took her hands away from his back, and his butt would sink into the water and his head would start to go under the water. Of course she was standing right there to get him so he was never in any danger. No matter how hard they tried, he could not grasp how to float. He can't float on his belly or his back. He has very low muscle tone in his body, so I like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the reason he is not thriving at swimming is because he has a hard time holding up his belly. But I'm beginning to think he's just bad at it. Two of the kids in his class were swimming so well after these first 4 days that they were moved up to Level 2! And my kid can't float? Awesome.

I applied for a job the other day to work here on post. It is a part-time Administrative Assistant through CYS. I'm sure I won't get it. I haven't worked steadily in 8 years. The only time I worked in those 8 years was for 4 months in 2005 when we lived in Tennessee. I'm am sure that they are not looking at my application and drooling over the fact that I haven't worked in so long, and for such little money. However... the time has come for me to either go back to school (again, for the 187th time) or to get a job. I applied for jobs first, to see what happens off of that. I am planning on applying for a school secretary job and see where that takes me. I will not hold my breath on that one at all, as the school district and I go waaaaayyyy back. Mediation, anyone? Anyone? I am not against going back to school again. The thing is this.... the deadline for financial aid was June 1. I don't know that we would even qualify for it, but the option isn't there now. I don't want to shell out $1000 for classes for the semester, each semester, and I don't want to take out a student loan either for community college if I don't have to.   I don't know. I have to decide soon, although if my stellar resume doesn't get me some work somewhere then I guess the decision will be made for me and back to school I will be. I still have the Red Cross dental assistant school to think about also. It's free (!!) but being a dental assistant is sooo not my dream job. My sister was a dental assistant and after she died, I have kind of felt like it was wrong for me to do the same thing that she did. But..... the school is free (!!) and my family has given me their blessing for the school, should I decide to proceed in that direction.

I am off to put up my leg and take some more Tylenol. I am watching the end of the NBA Finals, though I really don't care who wins. I should be watching the rest of "Weeds" on demand to catch up to where the series is now so that when season 6 starts in about a month I will know what's up. I am on season 2, episode 6 and there are 5 seasons with approximately 10 episodes in each season. I have a ways to go!!!

Re-do please

2010-06-15T03:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay Universe. I get it. I tempted you by saying that life was going great and that everything was as it should be.

Please, PLEASE forgive me and make it all better now, mmkay?

Can't we please just go back like 5 days? You know..... like how you do a system restore on your computer when it is acting all crazy like? Well, life is acting all crazy like right now and I want to go back and reset life.

Please. I beg on your mercy. I would be ever-so grateful.

Thanks alot,
Abbey

Good days

2010-06-13T01:38:00.000-05:00

I casually looked at my Donut of Misery the other day to joyfully realize that we are 33% of the way done with this deployment!! What-what!! It has thankfully flown by pretty fast and without any major incidents, save from calling the police twice in one week, and the hit and run at Target, and some other not so fun things. I have mentioned this before but with this deployment Ryan has a different job then deployments in the past. This time he is behind a desk for his job. The other times he was deployed, he was on "the line" so to say. Anyway, with this deployment there is more of a predictable schedule for him and his communication with me. Sure, there are days when he is working late, just like when he was here, but for the most part he is generally out of work by 5:30, eating dinner by 6:00 in the DFAC and in his room by 7:00 pm each day. I generally will get a call from him most days in the morning my time, and generally it is usually at about the same time. As wonderful as that sounds, sometimes the calls are 1) short because he is tired/has other things he wants to do (like play the thing I hate most in the world - Lord of the Rings online), 2) received at the "wrong" time, or 3) short because there is really nothing to say. I hate to say that his calls are being received at the wrong time, because there really isn't a "wrong" time when they are over there. However, I tend to try and get up and get things done in the morning like grocery shopping and chores that need to be done. I am more likely to actually get things done in the morning. I am the type of person who if I don't get up and start doing things FIRST THING, and I mean immediately after waking up -no sitting at all - then I will do absolutely nothing all-day-long. I will sit and do mindless hours of nothing. Watching recorded tv, looking at blogs for hours on end, etc. Sure I will do other things now that it is summer like take the kids to the pool or the play ground across the street, but generally if I don't start going about 4.5 seconds after hitting the floor, then it ain't gonna happen that day. So sometimes he will call when I am in the midst of scrubbing the lovely housing linoleum floors, or folding the thousands of loads of laundry that need to be done. Sometimes there isn't enough space between phone calls and nothing has happened since yesterday when he called and we basically sit on the phone and twiddle out metaphorical thumbs. I know that with this deployment I have a false sense of security about him being over there. In my mind, he didn't get hurt the last few deployments when he was on the line, even when in major battles or when his Bradley burned to the ground from a truck running into it while being filled with explosives. This time he's behind a desk? Easy-peasy! I am sure that I will get my world rocked by something happening sooner or later, but until then I will happily keep my head in the clouds, thankyouverymuch.

My kids are with their grandparents in another state for the annual family reunion, and I have been kid-less since Friday afternoon. They will be back tomorrow afternoon and so today I was left with a whole day by myself to be filled by one of two choices: 1) clean the house, as it needs it in a bad way or 2) sleep and do nothing. Unfortunately, I chose to do nothing. I really had my heart set on cleaning all day but unfortunately I slept later then I wanted to and I started catching up on Facebook and blogs and then it turned into early afternoon and as I stated above, if I don't start doing things just after waking up then ain't nothing gonna happen. On a good note, I have gloriously discovered the Showtime show that is showing on demand today called "Weeds". How did no one tell me how wonderful this show is? I am on the last episode of Season One right now, however it is well after midnight and I am not tired as I slept on and off all day long, so I imagine I will watch at least Season Two tonight. Ahhh.... sometimes it is wonderful not to have kids!

Delanie went to the Cardiologist Friday for a follow-up appointment from a few months ago. We were there to follow-up from a 30 day monitor that she had to wear after experiencing some heart fluttering and pounding. The doctor thought that she maybe had a condition called SVT he wanted to rule it out. So, she wore an event monitor for 30 days and would push the button when ever she felt the racing. Then each day we would call a 1-800 number and transmit the recordings over the phone. Yesterday, the doctor looked over everything and said that she is, in fact, perfect! No SVT and has a great looking heart. He said that it could be anxiety or the fact that she is slightly over-weight, but there isn't a condition that is causing the racing heart. He told her to stay away from boys and she gleefully perked up and said "Yay! No Landry?!" I explained that Landry was her brother and he laughed and said that unfortunately she still had to be around him. Lol. Little stinker.

Landry successfully used "That's what she said", ala Michael Scott from The Office, in a sentence the other day. I was so proud. HA! I didn't even know that he was in the room when we would watch that show, or that he even paid attention to the show if he was in the room as it certainly doesn't have Ben 10 in it, or any Star Wars characters any where in the plot. Audree is 11 now, and all that it entails. She is moody and grumpy and wants to sleep all the time. She is feisty and fiery and frustrated. I took her to the Pediatrician for her check-up and immunizations two days before school ended. I had to make the choice as to get her Gardasil. You know, the vaccine for cervical cancer? Anyway, I had spoken to my Gynecologist about it when I was there a few weeks ago, and then I spoke to her doctor about it and we, er, I, decided to give it to her. It was the best choice for us. Audree was none to pleased to learn that it is a series of three shots given over a six month period. She also got a tetanus shot this time around, and said that the Gardasil shot was sooo much more painful then the tetanus. I remember how painful that particular shot is, so I can only imagine how painful the Gardasil shot actually was. With all of her caustic attitude going on, she does have her share of lovely moments also. She wants to cuddle at night and talk about her day. She wants me to cut up her pancakes for her still. She wants to read out loud to me from her books that she thinks are fantastic and new!exciting!wonderful!. (Anne of Green Grables, anyone?) So she is just drifting between the kid stage and tween years. I hate having the conversations with her that I didn't think I would be having with her for a while. Sex, and menstruation, and sex, and boys, and sex, and school, and of course sex. Those inevitable conversations are so much harder then I ever thought possible. They are so incredibly uncomfortable for everyone involved. I don't exactly know what to say, or how to say it. Am I saying to much? Giving too much detail? Not saying the right things? It's all so confusing. She hasn't kissed a boy yet (unlike her sister!) and so I am thinking that what we are talking about on a regular basis is seemingly helping. God help me next year when she is in middle school. High school? FORGET-IT!!!!

All is all..... life is very, very good right now and very, very peaceful. Yay for the small things.

How to Proceed

2010-06-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

Ugh.

I just wrote a long ass blog, that took me over an hour to write, and then promptly erased it. I needed to get the words out, but I didn't think in the end that I needed every one to see what I had written.

Basically, my daughter in involved in a situation with a Colonel's daughter. (I think) I need to let this girls parent's know about a situation that has come up, but I don't know how to go about doing it. For one, this father is much much MUCH higher ranking then my husband, and I don't know if there will be any ramifications for the parties involved. Meaning my husband and his career, my daughter, me, and this family's daughter and father. Also, this situation could potentially involve the authorities. For the possible detriment of my daughter, or their's. It is right on the cusp of being illegal. But technically, I don't think it is illegal, otherwise this would be a lot easier to determine what to do. I wouldn't even think twice about it. But this situation is new and not really defined. I can't find any information about this situation online that suggests one way or the other. I also don't know who to believe in the situation - my daughter or her friend. Of course, you always want to believe what your child is saying to you is the truth, but at this point, my child's story doesn't add up or make much sense. But I can't believe that my child would do what was done. It also now involves another person in my immediate family. None of this situation is really good, and as much as I want to just ignore it and let it go "away", I know that it won't do that.   By doing just ignoring it, it could ultimately come back and bite me in the ass big time. It was done innocently by two 11 year olds, who probably didn't think that they were doing anything wrong and that they were just being funny. Realistically, I could never say anything about this situation to anyone and no one - besides from me and the people I have told - would know anything about it. That would probably be what would happen if I chose that route. I have only told two people about this situation. One of them told me that under no circumstance should I say anything to this other girl's family because her dad is so much more higher ranking then my husband, and it is so uncertain about what could happen, if anything, to us. But the tricky part is this; it doesn't even really involve anything military related. But I am not sure how this military community would become involved, if at all. Her dad is a high ranking officer and my husband is a mid-ranking enlisted soldier, and never the two shall meet if you catch my drift. It is protocol that Officer and Enlisted service members shouldn't affiliate with each other outside of work, but when their children go to the same school and become best friends, it's hard to stop the connection.

Who's to say if I am not just overreacting? I am pretty over protective of the kids. This is the first year, no lie, in 11, 7 and 5 years of being alive that my children have been allowed to go outside to play. Ever. Even in the back yard. This is a completely new experience for them, and for me. I have a fear that at any moment they will be gone forever. Kidnapped or they will run away, or get lost, or whatever it is that you think that kids do when they are instantly gone. Delanie once got lost on a busy Florida beach on the 4th of July while with her grandparents and not with me. Not that me being there would have made any difference - she just ran away and got lost in the crowds. It is one of the most terrifying situations ever to be in as a parent. Now that I think about it, all of my children have been "lost" at one point or another, like at SeaWorld, or the zoo, but they were always found. But the thought that they very easily could have NOT been found is overwhelming and I struggle with that fear. I am struggling to let go and let them experience life. I am trying to loosen my hold while trying to keep them young. I am wavering between babes in diapers and high school diplomas. That is partially what makes this situation difficult for me. I am just beginning to navigate my children having relationships with people other then direct family members. Yes, at age 11 my child has been to a friends house less times then I can count on one hand. The thought of it terrifies me. Strangles me at night. I don't invite people over for various reasons, which need no mention here. I just don't know if it truly was just kids being kids in 2010, or if it was something bigger.

I am just so confused about the whole situation. I feel like I owe it to this parent to tell them what their child was possibly doing, or at least probably involved in. I have never been in this situation before - but isn't that like most parenting? You've never had a child before, you've never had a walking child before, you've never had a child in school before, etc. You will always be at a point in which you "never" did/experienced/felt something.   It will always be new, and scary, and unnerving, and..... I don't even know what all. It seems to be too much to comprehend sometimes. While you are trying to shape your children to become well rounded, and polite, and courteous, and honest, and loving, and caring, and sharing, and studious, and thousands of other things, you also have to simultaneously worry about those things for which you have limited or absolutely no control over. Friends and their behaviors and actions, and what your child chooses to do (as opposed to what you want them to do), and technologies, and other circumstances above and beyond your control as a parent. It is easy to sit from your perch and preach what you would and would never do, what you would and wouldn't allow your children to do/say/experience, and how you would react to certain situations. Making those types of statements just makes God laugh at you, often at your expense, in my experience. I am just doing the best that I can. I am trudging along in this crazy military life, being a single parent most of the time while simultaneously being married. We have gone through 4 deployments in 9 years, roughly one every two years, save for the one year that he got completely out of the Army. I am fairly comfortable with playing the single parent role. Sure, there are things that I don't do because of the single parenting. All three kids want to be in after school sports, but I can't trudge all the kids to three different places at the same times for games and practices. Would we meet someone while enrolled that could help share that burden with me? Probably. But I can't count on that, and I don't want to be put in the situation of having to tell my children that I will be going to one of their games instead of the other's. I don't want them to think that the other one is more important then themselves.  I just try and love my children and parent them the best that I can, while struggling with my own internal issues. My personal issues don't stop because the kids emotional needs are so great. Life is fucked up and really overwhelming some days. Most days. Always.

I am just at a crossroads of sorts. I don't know how to navigate from here. I don't know how to proceed in this situation - both in the civilian world, and the Army world.   I don't want Audree to lose her best friend, even if that is probably the right thing to happen. I don't want next year to be uncomfortable for her. Being in middle school is already a tough few years for tweens, without having to to deal with the ramifications of something your mother said to someones parents about something that may or may not have happened.

I wish that I could be less vague about this whole situation so that I could get some help from someone - anyone. I have scoured the net looking for any help in this situation and I am coming up empty handed. I am split as to what I think I should do. I want a clear example of this situation and the possible outcomes and what can/did happen. I'm not going to find that anywhere, and that is almost equally as hard as trying to figure out how to proceed with this situation. I'm on my own..... yet again.

My time is limited.

2010-05-26T21:29:00.000-05:00

I rushed around cleaning the house this morning before I had to get ready to go to the doctor's office. Dishes and laundry and toys were strewn about the house and as I cleaned became irritated. Irritated that these things were not put in their proper place in the first place. Irritated that things were left out, seemingly for me to pick them up for I seem to be the only one who knows how to pick ~~anything~~ them up. Irritated because I too was a cause for some of these things being left about the house, messing it up. I finished a load of dishes, 90% of them dirtied by my children the previous evening because God forbid you use the same glass twice, and I walked up the newly cleaned stairs to the upstairs, trying to get to my room to take a shower. When I got to the top landing, I stepped over a Transformer, a hairbrush, a purse, a My Little Pony, papers with random drawings from Delanie, and many other trinkets. And as I did, my blood pressure grew higher. Grumpily, I picked up those things too and sat off to my bathroom to shave my legs. As the water ran in the tub, I looked down to see an army of little green men floating in the water. Landry had taken a bath in there the night before and had requested to take some of his treasures into there with him. As I watched them float, I realized that these days are numbered. There will only be a few more years of days like these. There will come a time in the near future where I will wish for toys to trip over, socks to pick up, bandages to put on, and hair to be brushed. My days are numbered. I have just 5 years left until Landry is out of elementary school. 5 years until Audree is 16 and driving.  5 years until my babies will need me less, and I will need them more. 5 years seems like a lot, but to be honest I can't remember the past 5 years. Landry was just born yesterday, correct? No? That was almost 6 years ago? Huh. Don't know how this is possible for time to fly by this fast. It isn't fair and it isn't nice and it sucks and I hate it, and as I am writing this right this very instant, I am crying. My chest feels tight and my breath feel hard to get out.

I remember when the kids were very young babies, and I was so impatient to get to the next stage, because each phase seemed to be so freakin' hard!. Sure, I cried and lamented about them going onto the next phase - I still wanted my crawler, not a walker!! But, then as each phase came along I learned to enjoy it and nearly forgot about the past phase. But the older that they get, and the more chance I have to look back on what all has transpired these past 11 years, I realize how much I am truly missing about the past. How much I wish I could get it all back. The good and the bad.

Today while I was getting out of my car at the doctor's office, I noticed a younger man pacing by the front entrance to the office I needed to go into. As I walked closer I could hear him saying something excitedly. "Yea. We just found out. I told them I didn't believe them, and I made them give her a stick test and it was positive! I am going to take a picture of it and post it online today! Man, I'm so excited!!" My heart fluttered. I remember the day I learned I was pregnant with each of my children. Some were happy days, some were more emotional days. But each one had somethings in common - I loved my children instantly. Longed for them even if I didn't know before then that I was ready to be a mom, either for the first time or for an additional time. Hope for their future, and for mine. I walked inside the office building, and the man followed me into the waiting room. His presence was filling the room with his excitement. He was jumping around from wall to wall, pacing and wringing his hands. He was staring at the small kids that were playing in the waiting room. His significant other was in a state of shock. While he kept talking out loud to no one in particular about he knew they were going to have a boy because the line on the stick had turned so quickly to positive, she just stared at this small child in a stroller. Maybe she was thinking about her future, or her past. Maybe she was scared, or too happy to know what to do. The lady at the front desk called them over and told them that their due date was January 1, and the man practically shit his pants right there. "Yeaaaaaa, boy! I'mma have a New Year's Baby!" I wanted to run to them and tell them to enjoy it all. Enjoy this exact moment. Enjoy the moments of telling your loved ones that you are pregnant. Enjoy those first few weeks of having a newborn, because while you are so tired that you can't see straight, when you can see straight your newborn will have turned into a baby. I wanted to tell her to write it all down - the good and the bad. You will forget all about the mundane, seemingly "unimprtant" details. But those details are what will mean the most the older they get. You will want to forget about how you thought you could never sing another Barney song, but when you suddenly hear it years from now you will be brought back instantly to those random mornings - just the two of you- and how you felt when you heard them singing. You will forget that each morning they had to have a cracker and grapes, and not just any grapes, but just green ones and ones that have been cut and washed and placed just so on the plate. You will forget what a small miricle it is to make it out of the house with a newborn, and possibly a toddler in tow. You will forget the smell of their hair, and their favorite baby food, and the clumsy way that they walked through the house. You may forget where the scar on their arm came from, and you won't possibly remember all the harrowing trips you have to make to the grocery store during a missed nap time. You will remember things like words to a favorite book that you read over and over and over, and the words to your special song, but you will forget the little details that shaped them into being who they are today. You will probably forget the gory details of late night sick fests, and vomit covered sheets 3 nights in a row, and how it took all you could to just take those sheets to the washer, and how sometimes they didn't even make it there until the next morning. You will forget about the endless medications you gave for the random illnesses, and rashes, God the rashes. There is so much to remember, and sadly to also forget.

5 years ago I had a Hysterectomy due to severe Endometriosis. It is no secret that enlisted men in the military don't make the big bucks. We were young and had three children by age 24. We were stretched as far as we could go financially. I had to quit working when I was pregnant with Delanie due to an incident with Audree and her childcare provider, but to be honest, with no education past high school I was mearly working to cover daycare anyway. I haven't really been back to work since then, so we have been a one income family for the past 8 years. When Landry was born, we knew that we were done having children. At the time it felt like it was the right decision to make for our family. We couldn't keep adding to the family if we couldn't afford them. But almost instantly after my hysterectomy, I wanted another baby. I don't think that Ryan has ever wavered in his belief that we were done after three kids. I think he was pretty set at that.  Maybe it was purely from the fact that I knew that I couldn't ever have the choice to have another child if we wanted to that was weighing so heavily on my heart. That decision was made for us for forever on that late-July day. Although I desperately needed that surgery, I would be lying if I didn't say that I did regret having it done all-the-time. Not that we would have ever had another baby! I'm just saying that when that opportunity was taken from me to even be able to make the decision to have another baby, my world was deeply changed.

I was making a calendar last night of the summers activities and the last two weeks of school. Each day for the next six weeks has something on it. Somethings seem little - each lunch with Delanie and Landry, take the car to the dealership for the alignment, go grocery shopping. But somethings seem big - Audree's graduation, Landry's graduation, eat lunch with Audree at her school. Why are those days so big? Well... Landry's graduation from Kindergarten will signify that each of my kids is "officially" a big kid. Next year they will be 1st grade, 2nd grade and 6th grade. I have no more toddler clothes to look forward to, no more "T" will proceed their clothing sizes. I have no more bottles, and late night feedings.  They all know how to ride their bikes, and play independently. My time is fading fast that they will even want to be near me.  Audree's graduation will signify that this is the last year that all of my kids are in elementary school. I will have a middle-schooler. Years have gone by and I don't know where they went. I go and nestle their necks at night especially after the really hard days where I have been ugly to them or hard on them, or vise versa, and I deeply breathe in their smell. The unmistakable smell of children's shampoo, and sweat, and innocence. The smell of time flying by. Eating lunch with Audree is probably the thing in the next two weeks that I am looking forward to the most. It is the most significant in a way. This is her last year in elementary school. Next year, in middle school, nobody's parent comes to eat with them at lunch. As she is waffling between adolescence and becoming a tween, this may be one of the very last times that I have to share this part of her life with her. Seeing her being goofy and weird in front of her friends, and still choosing between strawberry and chocolate milk.

I am so incredibly sad tonight. Terribly sad that days are slipping away so fast, and for the life of me I can't turn over this hour glass filled with life's sand. I want a do-over. I want to start again with what I know now and do it all differently. I want to love them harder, and hold them tighter, and laugh louder and more often, and I want to change so many things.

Tomorrow will be better. But tonight? I need my sadness and my memories and my family as I try to figure out this future, and the past.

Ikea pencils

2010-05-25T03:21:00.001-05:00

This will bore most of you, and that's okay. Sometimes, most times, I just write things for the memory factor. This is one of those times.

A few months ago, my sister and I went with all of our children to Ikea. After an hour, some openings opened up in the play room, so I dropped off Delanie and Landry, and my sister dropped off her daughter. We were left with just Audree and my sister's son. We slowly walked through the aisles, getting lost in all the cheap crap. Although Audree was with me, I wasn't paying that close of attention to what she was doing. I mean, I was watching her, obviously, but I wasn't really seeing the little things that she was doing. This may have been the 1st time that she has ever walked the store all the way through with me. Usually she goes to the play area also, but 1) there wasn't enough spots open for all the kids, and 2) she was about 2" too tall to go in. (She was so pissed at me for pointing it out to the lady who worked there. She was sure that the Ikea worker would have never noticed, and she's right. The lady would have never noticed, and I should have never said anything.) Anyway, so we get finished with our purchases, and leave. It is about a 45 minute drive from here, and as we took off towards home, Audree and I talked about the fun-ness that is Ikea. I payed more attention to the road, and less attention to what she was doing in the passenger's seat. After a while, she called for me to look at her pencils. It didn't register with me what she was talking about, so I just glanced over to see a tree sitting in the middle of the Yukon. She had taken SIXTY THREE pencils from the store, had stuffed them along the way into her bag, and now they were all sitting in nice rows in the middle of the mutual arm rest between us. After I picked my jaw up off the floor board, I ~~calmly~~ asked what in the ever-lovin hell was I looking at?! She said that they were free and that she just took one whenever she saw them at the little stations that they have placed all around the store. I guess it was my fault for not properly explaining to her that "free" doesn't mean "take all you want". Silly me thought that she would have learned that by now.

Later on that day, I called my sister and was telling her about those 63 pencils and she laughed and laughed. A few minutes later she called back to the house and in her best "Ikea" accent (Swedish? German? Foreign?) asked for Audree. I decided to play along, and called out to Audree. When she got to the room, I told her that Ikea was on the phone and they didn't seem happy. It was then that I started to smell the crap she was leaking into her pants. She weakly took the phone and mustered the smallest "Hello?" in history. I'm not sure what exactly was said, but Audree's eyes were darting all around the room, while pulling at her shirt coyly, muttering "Yes Ma'am's" and "I'm so sorry" over and over. They ended the phone call and Audree informed me that "they" had VIDEO PROOF that she had taken the pencils that were meant for others also and that "they" wanted their 4" pencils back, thankyouverymuch. "They" said that if Audree were to write a letter and send it along with all the pencils, that all would be forgiven. A few minutes later, Audree came into my room with all of the pencils and a neatly folded letter that she begged me to send immediately. On the front of it, the letters I-K-E-A are neatly outlined by a small drawing of an almost perfectly sized Ikea pencil. "To Ikea, From Audree P*****" is nicely printed on the outside. Here is what the letter says (written in the most perfect 5th grade cursive you have ever seen):

dear ikea,

i am so, so sorry that i took all of those pencils. i thought it would be cool to have a lot of those cool pencils, but i thought they were free but i know you only kneed like one. i promise to never take that much pencils again. and i am returning every one of them.

Sincerly,

Audree

P*****

Is that not the sweetest, most awesome apology letter ever? I have wavered on actually sending these pencils back to Ikea for a few months now, or just keeping it locked away for a time when she would be able to look back on it and laugh at what my sister had done. I didn't really want to send them back to Ikea, and briefly thought about sending them to someone in the family just to get them out of the house. She saw them sitting on my dresser the other day, and reminded me that "they" have her "on video" and that she doesn't want to be in trouble from "them", so if possible, could I please send them back already? I am going to the post office tomorrow and I think that I will do it. I will send them off into the world. What is the worst thing that will happen? She will get a letter back from Ikea saying "Thanks for the pencils back"? That the people at Ikea will think I'm a nut for sending it and never write back? Who cares? (But please, oh Ikea Gods, please don't banish me from your stores of cheap organizational wonders. Amen.) What matters is that she thinks that something happened and that she believes in the process. She may never forget this lesson, to just take one of something when offered, or she may forget it just as soon as I lick the stamps on the envelope. I am fairly sure though that she will just take one of something that says "free" and will leave the rest for other people going forward in the future. Are Ikea pencils the end-all, be all? Absolutely not. It is not lost on me that I have been trying to teach her a lesson, while thinking back to the .0002 cent pencil from Ikea that sparked this whole situation. But, I'll take a learning experience where I can get it, ya know?

My Landry

2010-05-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

My son, Landry, came into the world with a bang. Ryan was deployed for most of the pregnancy, and I was home alone with a 4 year old and a 1 year old. I began to have problems with the pregnancy, the same problems that had persisted during my previous two pregnancies. My doctor drew up a letter for Ryan's command to request that he be there for a scheduled induction. At the time that he was deployed, some of the roughest fighting in Iraq had been going on and it didn't look promising for him to be able to come home early for his 2 weeks R & R, or if he would be able to come home at all for his 2 weeks. Miraculously, his commander allowed him to take his 2 weeks rest for when the doctor suggested. Ryan came home on a Wednesday afternoon. That night I began to go into labor spontaneously 5 weeks early, and was up all night long with contractions. I went in on Thursday morning for a regular doctors visit to the OB's. My regular doctor happened to be out of town this particular day, so I got to see someone in his office. (Interestingly, he was also absent from the delivery of my oldest daughter, too! Seems he really likes his vacations.) I was determined to already be at 4 cm dialated and having regular contractions, so we were told to go to the hospital across town ASAP to deliver. My oldest daughter Audree had a 15 minute delivery from the time my water broke until she was born, and Delanie was only 20 minutes, so we were all expecting this delivery to be quick after my water broke. Landry had other thoughts about the situation.
I got to the hospital in the early afternoon of Thursday, and labored all day, and deep into the night. I went from being 4cm dilated to 2cm to 5cm to 2cm. Back and forth. The next morning during rounds, another associate from the OB's office came in and said that she was just going to break my water. About 10 mins before she had gotten there, Ryan had left to drive home and take a shower. Remember, he stepped off the plane from Iraq and a few hours later I had gone into labor. He hadn't really decompressed yet. I begged her to hold off on doing that, knowing that Ryan wasn't there and that I had a good chance of delivering quickly. She refused to listen and while I was calling Ryan to tell him to get back fast, she quickly broke my water. That was at about 10 am. I started to heavily contract, but each time they checked me, I wasn't far enough along to get an epidural. So they stated giving me i.v. drugs. I still felt it. More drugs. More pain. More drugs. More pain. Finally, about 3 pm, some nurses came in and said they needed to insert an internal monitor because Landry was showing signs of decelerating. After a few minutes of watching that, more nurses and doctors came in. Then more came in and my family was ushered out. I don't remember the rest. From what was told to me, here's what happened. One of the nurses called the doctor and said that there was trouble and what should they do? Mentions something about a c-section on the phone, but no one says anything about it to Ryan. I drugged out of there somewhere in this time, and they kept trying to feverishly wake me from my stupor. Because of the amount of drugs that I had been given over the hours, and them hitting me all at nearly the same time, I was in no condition to do anything but sleep. Suddenly there were lots more doctors and nurses, me getting a spinal block while passed out, my family waiting in the hallway because no one was telling them what was going on. Seems like all the medication I had been given hit Landry at the same time, too. Suddenly, the door opened and I was whisked down the hallway towards a surgery suite for an emergency c-section. I do remember this one teeny part. As they were wheeling me FAST down the hallway, past my family, and past people standing out in the hallway who were trying to see what all the commotion was about, I kept thinking that my boobs seemed to be flopping around quite a bit, and wasn't that embarrassing? Do they see it too? Are they going to flop out of my shirt?? (They didn't.) Into surgery I went and I kept pulling the nasal cannula out of my nose, irritating the doctors. Finally about 7 minutes after they started, Landry Stockton was born. I promptly fell asleep for a few hours. Later when Ryan and I were talking about all that had gone on, he asked me if I had smelt that gross smell in the delivery room. I asked in all seriousness if it had been my breath and he laughed and said that it had in fact been my stomach being burned open. Huh.   2 weeks later I had emergency abdominal surgery from complications from the c-section, and 1 week after that Ryan left to go back and left me alone with the three kids. Looking back, I don't know how I made it through those next 7-ish months by myself. It was some of the most physically painful, darkest, loneliest months of my life.

Landry had some trouble with his breathing when born, and with regulating his temp's, but other then that he was a healthy 7 pounds, albeit 5 weeks early. He got to go home when I did, and we were blessed. He seemed to be developing normally. At around 18 months old, we moved across country to Tennessee. While we were there, I started to notice some "differences" in him that I hadn't seen in my girls. I can't really honestly pin point those differences now, although I know that they are written on a piece of paper in my office somewhere. I do remember that at his 2 year check up, he only had a handful of words. Maybe 5. 10 if we were stretching it. Those words he did speak were not clear to anyone but me. I was with him 99% of the time and I learned what most of the jumbled words meant. Around age 2 1/2, I was beginning to become increasingly frustrated with his lack of words. He was equally as frustrated with me. He would mumble something and point in the general direction of his wanted object, and I would search and pull and offer things to him until I got it "right". Which sometimes meant pulling out every cup in the cupboard until I found the exact one that he was looking for. Sometimes it meant that I was too tired/frustrated to figure it out, so he got what he got and I got the hours of crying that ensued. He started obsessing over toys, and the set-ups of his toys, and the order in which they were touched. He had to go to bed each night in a certain order and with certain objects in certain places on his bed and on the floor and on and on. He was referred to Tennessee Early Intervention on the recommendation of his doctor. She gave me the information to call them on his 2 year check up. I called them when he was 2 years 8 months old because I was convinced that there was nothing wrong with him and that I was imagining all of it. He was about to graduate out from the program (Early Intervention) at age 3. When he was finally tested a few months later, way close to the time of him graduating out, it was determined that he was 20% deficient in some skills and 40% deficient in other areas. He did have a problem.  I didn't want to face the reality. I turned down services at that time, because I knew that we would soon be moving back to Texas.  After we got here, it took a few months, but he was eventually enrolled into Speech Therapy, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy. We were going something like 3 hours a day, every T/Th. He started to wear feet orthotics for his inward turned feet, and to help him with his overall weak muscular strength.   At first, he wouldn't even talk to the therapists. He would tune them out and cry the entire time. He was unable to do therapy with other kids because of the stimulation. He didn't engage you in your eyes unless he knew you. Even then, it was a crap shoot as to if he would interact with you. He couldn't kick a ball, he couldn't run, he couldn't play games. There was a lot that he couldn't do, but also a lot that he could do.  Slowly....very slowly.... he started to change. He would take his therapist's hand to walk to his therapy. He wouldn't cry when it was time to go, or leave for that matter.  He would let me get his head wet when taking a bath, with out freaking the hell out. He would say hello to a friend at therapy. The one year mark at therapy passed. He was re-tested but was still needing some more help. We went to therapy for close to 2 years. By the end of his time there, he was walking so much better. You could understand what he was saying. He would interact with you. Everything didn't have to be scheduled out. It was like a totally different child, in a good way.

Fast forward to these past few weeks. Last week his teacher had taken me aside and said that they had been doing the required end of the year testing for the students. Landry's reading has exploded in the past 2 months since going to this new school , so I was thinking that they were going to tell me that he was doing great on his reading. He's doing better then that!   She told me that she had only copied papers up to a level 9 on the Rigby scale to test the kids on, but that he had breezed through it, so if it was okay with me did I mind if she tested him further? No, I said, but then forgot all about it honestly. Yesterday at pickup, she and the student teacher pulled me aside and neither of them could really get the words out fast enough. Not only was he reading great, but he read up until level 17 with out any trouble. A level 16 is what you need to be reading at to move up from the 1st grade. My 1st grader, Delanie, is only reading at a level 14, and she regularly reads Junie B. Jones book and the such. His teacher said that she didn't believe it so she had another teacher test him, and she came up with the same results. I am so proud of him! This coming from the same boy where just 1 year ago I had to take the school district to mediation because they were not following his IEP, and now he is leaping beyond his sister in school work! He doesn't have an IEP here at the new school, and he has a teacher that pushes him. He is doing so wonderfully great and we are so proud of him! Of course, to put it in perspective, I am proud when more then half his underwear for the week doesn't have skid marks, so maybe the bar isn't really that high. But to see how far he has come in less then a year since he stopped going to his regular therapy is breathtaking.

Love/Hate

2010-05-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I yelled at my kids over a lost soccer ball. A soccer ball. After I yelled at them crazily, I realized that our back windows were wide open and that the neighbors all heard me losing my shit over a fucking soccer ball. I am not feeling fabulous about myself right about now so I figured instead of a post about what exactly has gone wrong over the past few days, I will instead give you a list of somethings that I Hate/Love.

HATE

How some months are money hungry bitches. Some months, you can pinch pennies and clip coupons, and no matter what you do, there just isn't enough money at the end of the month.
Having to pay for things military related for Ryan's job, with the promise of being paid back by the guys. Ryan asked for a custom made plaque of two Guidon's and matting and framing and on and on for someone over there... and then says that "we may have to pay for it upfront, but I will collect money from the guys over here to pay for it". Uh-huh. Haven't heard that one anywhere before. **Side note - I also hate it when he pays for things that the Army has issued but say, for example, supply happens to be out of. He never asks to be reimbursed and that chaps my hide because it all adds up. **
How fast tax returns seem to be spent. And not even on really big fun things. At least we paid off the car, right? RIGHT??!
HATE HATE HATE how when you are waiting somewhere, say the doctors office, and you see a soldier there asleep. It pisses me off so much to see their precious little heads cupped ever so softly in their hands, elbow resting gently on the arm of the chair, and they are snoozing away. I don't know why this one bothers me so much but it really does. I want to yell at them that they are in uniform and not to be doing that crazy shit, but alas, I never say anything. My husband on the other hand does, lol.
I hate when wives/former soldiers wear old (or new) PT's in public. It's one thing for a soldier to be wearing them when running into the Shopette, but it is something entirely different to see a woman wearing a PT shirt in Walmart when grocery shopping. Sure, I have slept in one or two shirts in my time, and I have probably even gone outside of my house in one. But I don't go in "public" with it on.
People waiting until the last possible moment in traffic to merge over into my lane. For example, the other day someone came over from the right hand lane, across the middle, to the turn lane. Two cars in front of me let him in. They were nicer then me. It gives me such joy to not let them in. Such great joy. Also in this category is people who see that traffic is merging due to, say, construction. Yet they are "special" enough to drive up the side of the road until the last possible moment and then squeeze in as far front as they can. So frustrating.
When free service equals bad service. I get my lawn mowed by housing for free because Ryan is deployed. I just spent a butt load of money on potted plants for the front porch area. When they came to mow last time, they knocked over the plants and left them there all knocked over. I understand that they would have to get off the riding lawn mower to pick them up, but c'mon. Really?
That my kids aren't appreciative enough. That's my problem I guess, since Ryan has been gone for so long and I have really raised them myself. I should have taught them better. Something to work on.
Weekend trips. You go all day about your day on Friday, then get the kids situated and ready to go and drive to your destination hours away. Get there late-ish, get dinner and baths, etc, and go to bed. On Saturday, it's go-go-go from the start, and you never really wake up early enough to fit it all in. Sunday is packing and saying goodbyes and gassing up the vehicle and driving hours home only to have to cook dinner, and clean up and do bed time routines, etc. It's never relaxing. Ever.
Parents who act superior in public to a 2 or 3 year old. Example - at the car dealership the other day, while waiting for my car to be fixed I watched this woman and child - - interact -- and it was the most interesting thing that I have seen in a while. 1st off, the daughter was 2, as the mother said so to someone and the daughter didn't walk, or even crawl. However, mom put her on the ground and let her "scoot" around everywhere. I can only explain it like this: Natalie (baby) was sitting upright, with her legs in front of her. She would sort of pull her legs into her body and pull her butt forward. Does that make sense? Anyway... as Natalie was doing this, mom would talk on her cell phone loudly about the woe's of her life. Finally mom puts Natalie down at the kid's lego table. Natalie starts throwing legos at people. Mom says "Natalie! You know we don't throw those! We would never throw legos at our house." I was kind of expecting her to ask Natalie if she had finished her college thesis yet, with the tone of voice that she was speaking to her with. It was like she was willing us all to know that she is a great mother, or something. I mean I get that we all want to put our best foot forward in public, and we don't want our kids throwing lego's at people, but the way in which some moms talk sometimes in public to their children for the benefit of other mother's approval is appalling. Just my personal opinion. With that said....... I know for a fact that I have acted like that and said all sorts of crazy things in my (almost) 11 years of parenting. I have said that we "never" do certain things, knowing full well that we were in fact laughing about said child doing the exact same thing at the house a few weeks earlier. I'm saying it's annoying, and therefore I am also annoying. I get it. I just don't "get" it.

LOVE

Hearing Landry and Delanie sing loudly in the car. Especially to "I Got A Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. It makes my heart smile. Audree doesn't sing loudly anymore, and it makes me sort of sad.
Great customer service. At the car dealership the other day, the rep walked out when she saw me pull up and called me by name and said that the tech knew I was there and he was ready for my car. It was really nice. I wasn't even a bitch the last time so I know that wasn't why they were talking to me like that! Ha!!
Unexpected blessings. I had been expecting a long wait at the car dealership, as they had told me as much. It was meaning that I wasn't going to get everything done that I needed to get done that day, and that I would be missing Landry and Delanie's field day at school. Since they were waiting for me when I got there, and all the stars all aligned in the right way, they were able to get me out in half the time expected. That meant I was able to get it all done and make it to field day. Sadly, by the time I made it, the kids were all hot from all the heat and humidity and they were making their way inside 1 1/2 hours early. However, the kids remember that I made it to field day, not that I didn't make it to see everything.
the happiness that comes from a new friendship when the relationship is evolving into something wonderful.
Reading "train wreck" blogs. They always seem to make my life feel happier, fuller, etc. No matter how bad the blogs are, I can't seem to look away and I keep reading. I know I'm not the only one, right? Wait..... is this your train wreck blog? Never mind, don't answer that.
When someone else does the laundry. As this hasn't happened in approximately 8 years since the great "Pants Debacle of 2002" when Ryan shrunk my newest, most favorite pair of blue pants, I only sort of remember what this feeling is like. These perfect pants were the perfect fit, and they were the perfect shade of navy blue with this perfect toile pattern on them. They sound hideously ugly, but they were the AWESOME! And I wore them approximately 2 times before they were washed and promptly fit our 3 year old.
People watching is one of my most favorite past times.
My Blackberry. I love it. It's purple and fast and does lots of fantastical things. Playing on my iPod sometimes makes me think that I wish that I had a iPhone, but my cell phone carrier doesn't carry them..... yet. ;)
Real Housewives of Whatever. I love them all. I am watching RHoNew Jersey right now, and it's such trash! Such wonderful, wonderful trash.

ABW just told me that I will have to post pictures of my daughter's birthday party next weekend. Why? Because we have invited 40+ people, and only ONE of her friends has RSVP'd, including the ones who were invited to spend the freakin' night, and about 13 family members are coming. Plus, I let my daughter design her own birthday cake and we had it professionally made and it feeds 53 people. If you're keeping track, we have about 15 people confirmed to show up to eat a cake that feeds 3 times that many people so that will make for a lot of leftover cake don't you think? AND it is all Twilight themed so it looks like the movie threw up in here. Good times people, good times.

Why I hate Best Buy, reason #4897569 1/2

2010-05-05T00:29:00.000-05:00

A few posts back I mentioned that my wonderful hubby Ryan told me that I could get a Flip camera for my Mother's day present. I decided to get it today ,more for the recording of the debauchery that will be happening in about 11 days when my daughter has her 11th birthday party here at the house, then because Mother's Day is this weekend. I sat up in bed this morning and said that this was the biggest, baddest, funnest party that we have ever thrown, and I wanted to make sure that Ryan would be able to see it all. I had already looked for the specific Flip Slide camera that I wanted. Target and Walmart were sold out of it. Ordering online may take too long because if I got it on there I would have personalized it. So, off to Best Buy I went to today. I looked for probably close to 10 minutes total in their camera department. I saw all the other types of Flip Cameras, but didn't see the exact one I wanted. Since I was really just wanting to get this over, I started looking at DSLR (?) cameras. Basically I wanted a camera and video capabilities together. Under a certain price, of course. Ryan's "7" hasn't kicked in officially yet, so we aren't rolling in the money as of now. But just wait a few months...... we will sooooooo be taking baths in tubs full of money. Bwah-hahahah!!!! (not!!) Ahem. I had rounded a corner in the camera section, and met Mr. Grumps. Mr. Grumps was on the computer, taking his job very seriously. Chicken pecking hard away at the keys. Still... I didn't want to be there all day long so I asked him if they had any Slides in stock. He looked sideways at me, and then said "Sure. They are here somewhere." No enthusiasm. No customer service. Barely breathing. "Great! I'd love to see one of them please, as you don't have one out on display." He meanders around to the other side and slides open a drawer and there are about 5 of the Slides sitting there in large clear plastic protective cases. He hands me that package and I stare at it. I ask him, while looking in his face, "Does this camera also take still pictures?" He perked up a bit..... "Yeah. That's the only one of the Flip's that does that. But yes, it definitely takes pictures AND video. " Great! I still haven't touched it because it's in that huge plastic contraption around the actual box, but I tell him that we can now talk about coverage for the unit and then I would take it. He looked dumbfounded. He showed me what BB offers in terms of protection plans and their prices. A 2 year standard plan was an additional $60. A 4 year plan was $90. I protested and said that if you order it directly from theflip.com, that their protection plan was like $19.99. He pulled it up on his cpu and we looked and compared and BB had a better valued (and much longer) plan so I went with it. Thinking I was getting a handheld camcorder, AND a point and shoot camera. I paid the lady the bill up front while silently crying inside about the price and left. I ended up spending $100 more then I wanted too. (((Did I mention that 11th Birthday party coming up next weekend? And it's Twilight themed? And these girls know their Twilight??? Plus the Yukon is going into the shop tomorrow for major-ish repairs? That are't all covered by out warranty?? ))) I went about my day for a few more hours and did what I had to do looking for party supplies. I got home about 3 hours later and sat down to look at my new Flip Slide before I picked up the kids. I pulled it out of it's impressive packaging and opened it slowly. I picked up the directions and read them to see about the point and shoot camera. There are no directions for this feature because it doesn't exist. No where can you take anything other then a video. Come to find out, you can take a "snapshot" while you are editing the videos and that creates a picture.

So here's my conundrum. I think he lied to me about what this camera's capabilities were and sold it to me under false pretense. However, other people think that because you are able to create a picture from video, that he isn't technically lying. Who do you think is right? It was time to pick up my kids and I didn't want to call the manager and chew his ass out in front of the kids - I save that for the really important fights. So I am thinking that I will call him tomorrow to let him know how displeased that I walked out of there with a $400 camera that doesn't do what was promised to me that it does. Sure, the camera works fine and it's what I wanted before. I can absolutely go into the editing software and "pull" off an image from one of the videos to make a picture from, but that wasn't what I wanted - I wanted a Flip that could also take pictures with the click of a button. I was earlier going to purchase a point and shoot AND a flip but this guy up sold me to this ($100) higher Flip Slide camera because it was BOTH. And that's a lie. I doubt they can do anything good for me. I have played with the camera this evening. I actually like the slide. I guess I am just upset about the lie that was told to me by their employee. I am talking over myself and not making sense, lol. I will call the manager tomorrow and tell him what's up and how disappointed I am and see what happens. Probably nothing, honestly, but maybe they will train their people better for the future.

Cleaning House

2010-05-03T22:05:00.000-05:00

To my three readers...... I just wanted you to know that I've made a few changes 'round here. First, I made a new playlist with 82 songs, which took me forever to do. Looking up each song and seeing if it actually played and then adding it to the list is not as much fun as it sounds. The songs have no order, other then I have been keeping a list of songs that I want to put on the ol' iPod, and this happens to be part of that list. Feel free to start at number 67 if you like, or don't lisiten at all. I'll never know! I also made it not start upon page load because I realized that it sometimes irritates me to go to someone's page and hear the same song each and every time, so I didn't want to put you through it too. You're welcome. ;)

Also, I added a picture of me and my hubby on the side. Nothing too exciting about it. It is 2 years old, taken the day that he left for his last deployment. We still look the same, sadly. But hey! Seeing pictures like that is what is motivating me to go to WW and I'm down 6.5 pounds! Only 294869 more to go!

Hear a Birdie?

2010-05-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

I want to talk about how my daughter has found this website (and didn't tell me) and how that freaks me out a little bit. But I won't talk about it because it freaks me out a little bit.

I want to talk about how I was innocently looking at my child's computer and found things on it that should not be on there, especially at this child's age.   Said child tried to blame the other siblings and said that it wasn't them looking at these sites (multiple times on multiple days). But I won't talk about it, or name the child, because I don't want it to ever come back to them that I talked about it on here.

I want to talk about the absolutely wonderful love letter that my husband wrote to me today. But I won't because he wouldn't like that.

So I will instead talk about the wild birds that are living in our home. On our back porch, there are some pipes and tubing that go into the back of the house. Where they meet the house, there is some mesh that covers the hole.   There is a little gap in that mesh, a hole in the mesh if you will. Last week, the girls came running to me from out back telling me about the birds nest. I went to look and saw the nest just beyond the mesh and heard the babies squeaking, but didn't think twice about it since I could see the nest from the outside. I figured that momma bird just wanted a safe place for them to hatch and that when they were big enough, they would fly the coop and I wouldn't have to worry about anymore.

I was wrong.

Instead of flying OUT into the world, the stupid asses decided to fly the other way into the a/c venting in the house. That venting goes over the ceiling of my breakfast room, and lands up just above the hot water heater in the main hallway. I heard a faint noise a few days ago and couldn't figure out what the sound was. I turned off the a/c to get a better listen, and because I was standing right next to the door of the hot water heater, I could hear it clearly. Chirping. Of small birds. In my house. I opened the door, and instantly saw on the floor, by the bottom of the water heater, dead grass and leaves. Strange, as I know I didn't put that there. Then I noticed that there was the piece of tin foil beside that. Also odd. I looked up towards the noise and see a mesh covered space on the top of the wall, next to the ceiling. What do I also see? Uh-huh. A little birdie's nest just beyond the mesh. This mesh has no hole to get to it, it is just flush with the wall. It is so refreshing to wake up to 5-ish little birdies chirping early in the morning. NOT. I called maintenance this morning to tell them about the problem, as we live on base. They told me that they earliest they could get out here was the 20th to but up a bird block outside. I asked what should I do with the birds that are currently inside my house and she said that she would call pest control but didn't think that they would get here earlier then that for something like that. I.e.... it isn't an emergency so deal. Imagine my surprise when I came home an hour ago from getting the kids hair cut and there was a message on my machine telling me that pest control could be here Thursday. Yay! No more birds!!

Speaking of hair cuts, Landry's is as cute as ever. Boys hair is easy to cut and style so there isn't much to that. Audree's hair is normally just one length, just past the shoulder. I told her she could get what ever she wanted style wise, besides blunt bangs as from experience they don't look good on either of the girls. She said that she wanted layers, 3 of them to be exact, and side bangs. I told the woman what we wanted. This poor woman styled Audree's hair and cut layers - more then three - and did her bangs. She motioned for me to come and see what I thought. I asked Audree if she liked it and she said "No". Um... awkward! She said she wanted it shorter and the lady showed her what it would be like shorter and Dree said never mind. However, her side bangs are too long and just look like a short layer and I tried to point this out and they both were dismissive about it. Hope she likes it in a few days! Delanie's hair............... well, it, um............does not look good.   And I totally mean that in the most loving, mothering way. I just want her to look her best and she just doesn't. She, too, wanted layers and side bangs. I agreed, as her hair is usually just one long length and it could use a little something "different".   She asked that her layers be more noticeable then Audree's.  The hair dresser complied. I asked that her bangs be thicker and shorter then Audree's to make them stand out a little more. But there's just something about the way that it is styled that doesn't look good on her.   I don't think that the cut is bad, per se, but this just solidifies that the girls don't need bangs. Ever. Thankfully they are learning this message now while they are fairly young, instead of in high school.

What did you do today?

2010-04-30T17:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks so much for the comments on the last post about my daughter telling her teacher that she sees my boobs at home. They made me feel better about the situation. I'll be sure to only show the kids some upper thigh in a pair of shorts or maybe I will be really daring and even show a shoulder ever now and then. I'm thinking it's time to start to live life on the edge.

Wanna hear about my boring day? Since I'm bored and I have time to write it out, here you go.

Last night, I didn't sleep too well. That meant that this morning was a rough start. When I went to wake up Landry, I slowly crawled up next to him in bed while wrapping my arms around him to gently wake him up. He didn't wake up immediately so I closed my eyes to snuggle up to the back of his head and softly whispered his name. That was at 7:02 am. I awoke, like, an hour later. By then Delanie had gotten them both cereal and they were watching t.v from my bed, something that they aren't normally allowed to do. (They can totally eat cereal, they just can't watch t.v in the bedroom, just so we're clear on that!) They were already late to school, so I decided to let them play hookie from school today. We weren't even out of the drive way when Landry started with "I'm thirsty. Mom.... I'm thirsty. Mom, I'm really really REALLY thirsty." On and on. I should have just pulled back into the drive way and gone inside and gotten something. It would have made today a lot more enjoyable. I kept saying that we would get something in just a minute, fully thinking that he would forget about it. He didn't, surprisingly. We go to the bank drive thru, and the teller sends them both suckers. I think to myself, "this will make him not so thirsty anymore", but it didn't work. Next we went to Compass Trading Co, because I had a coupon, woot-woot!!, and the entire time we were there, he was practically rolling around on the floor squealing for a drink. He started pulling necklaces off the wall, and when I got on to him he told me he would start behaving when I got him something to drink. At the same time, Delanie is running around hiding something behind her back, telling me it is my Mother's Day gift and that I can't look and that she must -must-must buy this. It's perfect for me. In fact, it's even my favorite color (that she just asked what it was)! Nothing in the store is really over, say, $20 or so, so it wasn't that we couldn't afford whatever it is that she wanted to get. It was just that I don't go there for jewelry because I don't wear costume jewelry. Ever. I go there for the cheap luggage. I got a brown hanging toiletry bag, with pink polka-dots today for $3.49. I know!! I also got the girls some koozies there the last time that I was there and Landry was pissed off that he didn't have one, so we went in also looking for a "boys" koozie. We found one (in camouflage) with a big, tan "L" across the front. He carried it like it was a baby. But he kept saying that koozies were for drinks and he could really use one, IF YOU GET MY DRIFT MOM! It was slightly annoying. ** When we got to the counter to pay, Delanie told me to turn around and hid my present in between some things I was buying. She asked the lady not to please not show me. When it came time for her to ring it up, the sales lady told me that it was time for me to turn around so that I wouldn't see, and then she wrapped it up for Delanie and put it in a special bag just for her. I think I may call the manager to thank her for that because it really made Delanie's day.** Anyway, I told them that we just had to go to Ulta to get some lipstick and then I would stop to get them some lunch at Burger King. We went to the next place, 4 stores down from where we currently were, a place that I have wanted to go to since I heard that they were building one here. I had heard about it in Knoxville, TN, but I never went to it. It's called Kirklands. Anyway, when I saw that they had balloons outside and a huge Grand Opening sign out front, I was all over it. I told the kids that we were going to go there 1st before the makeup store, and to make it fun, I told them they could help me pick out something new for the house. Fun, right? It was fun until about 2.6 inches into the store when Landry started whining again about needing something to drink. I asked for a water fountain, since they didn't have one at the last store, and turns out this place didn't have one either. Great. So I quickly try and herd them through the store, and we find some things that I had seen on their web page that I had wanted, so we picked them up and while standing in the long ass line, I got the side-eye from an ol' biddy. She leaned down and asked Delanie "Don't you have school today?" What. The. Fuck. Who are you and why do you care? What if we home school? Delanie says "We aren't in school today" and the lady looks at me with a snarl in her eyes. I swear she was silently cussing me. I say to her, "I took them out of school today and we are just having a good day together." The old bag says "Well, think about all the learning they are missing out on. Maybe they aren't learning too much today though, seeing's how the TAKS* test is over this week." I instantly got all flustered inside. "They'll be just fine, thank you" is what I responded with and then it was our turn to check out. Irritated, we go up to the front and pile all of our crap on the counter and Delanie starts to push all the buttons on the debit card machine at the same time while I'm not looking, which in turn clogs the whole system. Sweet! Then Landry starts again -loudly- with the "Mom, I'm thirsty. I need a drink. I need a drink NOW, mom. Mom... are you listening? Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom, I need a drink" and all I am thinking is I need to get out of here, and I need to get this stuff paid for, and why is this lady taking so long, and no, I don't really feel like I want that free Pashmina that goes with my purchase, but sure, I'll play your game and take a black one, and LET'S GO ALREADY!!!!! We get to the car and I tell them that they had better behave in Ulta or there will just be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, NO BURGER KING!!!!!!! (Not only do I walk around exposing my boobs to my unsuspecting kids, but I also threaten to not take them to Burger King for lunch when they are skipping school!!! Oooooohh.. I'm bad.) We go to Ulta and I get my lipstick, which has apparently changed colors now because my old tube and the new tube do not match. Like, not even a little bit close, but the numbers and name match up, so I'll just hope for the best. We get back on base where the Burger King is, I pull into the long, long line in the wait for Burger King. It is about 12:15 pm, and so every soldier within a 17 block radius is there because it is 1) pay day, 2) Friday, and 3) just about the only thing to eat on base. I see a little sign on the Burger King sign in the drive thru, but I can't read it yet. We sit for about 8 minutes waiting for our turn and when I get up close enough to the sign to read it, it says "Cash Only. Machines broken. 3 ATMs inside!". I have no cash. I have to tell them, as I'm slowly making a huge u-turn in the drive thru, that we can't go today because I don't have any cash. I feel like the mother of the year again this week. We end up going home to, in fact, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

Landry finally got his drink though, however they were not amused at all about the selection for lunch.

The End.

*TAKS testing is the standardized testing that they do in our state for the kids in certain grades. Delanie and Landry didn't even have TAKS testing this week, as they aren't in a grade that requires it. **

Total. Complete. Embarrassment. (and shame)

2010-04-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

About a month ago, my daughter's 1st grade teacher pulled me aside after school one day to talk quietly to me. We waltzed off to a corner of the foyer, and she turned to me with the saddest looking eyes known to man. She took her arm and lightly rested it on my arm, and said that she was a "Christian" and that (paused look and pursed lips towards me) felt like she just needed to let me know "as a Christian" about what had happened that day. Had Delanie killed someone? Maimed another kid? Eaten someone else's lunch?? The possibilities were endless with my little red-head. I boldly said "Ok, tell me what happened". To which she replied that they were talking that day in class about St. Patrick for St. Patrick's Day, and that the subject had turned a little religious. When the teacher said "Jesus Christ" my Delanie said "Who's that?".   Take that in for a second..... my daughter asked who Jesus Christ was. I began to tremble inside. I didn't honestly know what to say. The teacher then began to say other things to me about the situation... I don't honestly remember now what it was..... but I was sickened. I mean, we don't go to church that often, but we actually have been to church and we do (sometimes) pray at dinner, and she has books about God, so I was perplexed about this situation. I called Delanie over and asked her about it and she ever so calmly said, 'Yeah Mom! Who's Jesus Christ? I have heard of Jesus before and I have heard of Christ before, but I have never heard of Jesus Christ."
******************blink, blink ********************
She had never heard of Him in those terms before. I felt vindicated!! She knew who He was!!!! I giggled. The teacher didn't. Apparently, I learned later, that this teacher takes her religion very, very seriously.

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

Today, this same teacher comes to me after school and tells me what a wonderful child I have. I knew it what was coming. I knew the buttering up was for something terrible my daughter had done/said.   We share some laughs with each other and then she asks to speak to me....... alone. So off we go down the hallway to talk, while my three children play wildly at the end of the hall.   She starts off with the flattery - "Delanie has a wonderful vocabulary and says lots of big words for her age. However, today she said something a little disturbing and I am in NO WAY passing judgement on you, (sure you aren't ) but you need to know what she said and what I told her."   I'm thinking she has said something about sex or periods or something showing her huge lack of religion. No. Worse. Much much worse. This is what the teacher said. (hangs head in shame):

"Delanie was patting her chest today and said that at home she sees her "mommy's croach". (This is where I started to die just a little bit) I asked her about it, because she was patting her chest but her word sounded like crotch. (She whispers the word crotch and looked around to make sure no one was listening, thus adding to my shame.) Delanie said that in your nightgown, she can see your chest. I told her that the correct word is cleavage, not croach. So if she comes to you and says that word, it came from me. I just wanted her to be informed about the correct term."

As she is saying all of this to me, my throat begins to swell up. I unintentionally begin to sweat. The room starts spinning and I have tunnel vision to her mouth as the words "B-A-D-M-O-T-H-E-R" spew out.   (She didn't really say that, it just felt like it.) I profusely apologize, and said that for the record I don't show boob, OR crotch to my children, and got the hell out of there as quick as possible. I was as fast as Edward is in Twilight. I was practically running out the door. We get home and I obviously ask Delanie about it because  I am DYING to know what I was possibly wearing that would show some boob. She says that it is a nightgown from a long time ago (what the hell??? I don't even remember the last time that I wore a nightgown) and that sometimes when I would bend over, she could see down it. I said "thanks for telling ME about it then!"   I asked her why she told her teacher. She said, exact quote here, "I don't like having bad thoughts in my mind, and that was a bad thought, so when I have a bad thought I have to get it to go away. To get it to go away I have to tell someone, and I couldn't tell you because it was about you, so I told her." I started doing the only thing plausible....... laughing. The thought of seeing me with partial boob is so terrifying-ly horrible to my 7 year old that she had to get the thought (image?) out of her little head. AND!!!!! This teacher thinks I'm a shit mom because Delanie doesn't know about Jesus Christ (except that she totally does) and now the teacher thinks that I am at home showing boob (crotch?) to my kids. Fan-freakin-tastic. My life is full of roses these days. Sincerely. Roses.   Can't wait for the next few weeks to fly by so that I can just be done with this school year. (Did I mention that my son, who has never misbehaved before, has decided to act an ass every other day at school since Daddy deployed? No, I didn't?? Huh. Can't imagine why I didn't spray that out into the universe.)

On top of all this wonderfulness (is that even a word?), I have been diligent about my foods for the past few days. I log onto the WW site even before I eat to see how many points I have left to use for the day, to see how many points the specific food I want to eat has, etc. Hell, I went to Walmart this morning and spent over $200 on groceries for things like fat-free this and that so that I could make healthy meals for myself for the week. Tonight, while the kids had (yummy looking) burritos, I made myself 3 point broccoli cheese soup. With a 2.5 point turkey sandwich. And a diet pepsi.   I hop on the scale tonight and I have gained 3 pounds. I am down 1 point total, but still!!! All this hard work (and it is very tedious) and nothing is happening. What a bummer. So frustrating. I know that in time it will come off, it's only been a week, but those burritos were looking really good beside my (dry) turkey sandwich.

Me and customer service in the morning.... a non-love story.

2010-04-26T09:18:00.000-05:00

I woke my kids up this morning, like I do every other week day, and as we walked down stairs to greet the day, I heard a humming noise from the t.v. that my older daughter had left on when she went to school 30 minutes earlier. Odd, I thought, as I know that I should have been hearing the news on it. As I rounded the corner into the living room, I noticed that it said "Your Explorer set top box in UNAUTHORIZED. Call 555-555-5555". Um... wha? I know I paid the bill because I went in into the cable place to pay it a few weeks ago, and the box upstairs in our bedroom was working. I went about the morning's business, dressing and feeding Delanie and Landry and then I took them to school. When I returned, I sat down and called Time Warner. Here's a little snippet of what followed.

(said in the most chipper voice ever known to man) "Goooood Morning, This is Asher, how can I help you on this lovely morning?"
(me, thinking it is 740 am and too early for this foolishness) "Yea, hi, my set top box says it isn't authorized."
(him) "Hum. No problem! That's weird. Let's take a little look. Ok... Yes, I see... Ok. Ah yes, I see here that it should be saying that it's not authorized. Let's take care of that."
(me, thinking the obvious WTF because I just told him that) "Okay."
(Asher) "Can you verify the next following 384 questions so that I can verify who you are? 1st, with whom am I speaking to on this great morning, and then the address, phone # and last 4 of the primary driver's license on the account?"
(me, getting a wee bit annoyed) "Abbey, 123 Elm Street, 444-444-4444, and I don't know the last 4 of the DL, it's my husbands, and he is deployed, but I can tell you that it is a TN license."
(him, oh so chipper) "No problem! Hum. Ok. I will still help you, but only this time. You really need to have all of the correct account information so that we can correctly verify who you are. Let's go ahead and get started."
(me, getting more annoyed, thinking I gave you everything except my 1st born just now, but sure, I'll memorize another random # from my husband for reference) "Great."
(him) "No problem! Here's what you need to do. You need to put your left leg in, then take your left leg out, then put your left leg in, and shake it all about." **That may not be the correct terms that he used, but you get the gist. There was a lot of push this button in tandem with that button, and unplug that, and on and on. **
(me, really getting annoyed) "Okay. The box is counting backwards. It says 50f, 50e, 50d, 50c, 50b, 50a, 509, etc."
(him, a little annoyed now) "No problem! Ooooooh. It looks like it needed to do a little update also, so that will take 5-7 minutes and then we will be able to work on the actual problem."
(me) "......."
**after a few minutes of me watching the slowest countdown known to man**
(him, randomly, out of the blue) "No problem! Ok, Abbey, let me give you a little trick or two for you to use in the future if this happens again. Well, not exactly this exact problem, because if this exact problem happens again you do have to actually call us. However, if a problem like this occurs again, let me give you some hints to bypass having to call us."
(me, thinking that silence is bliss and that we don't really have to talk) "Ok, sure. Lay it on me."
(him, getting a little too chipper again) "No problem! Do you have a pen and paper handy?"
(ggggrrrrrrrr) "No, let me get some. Hold on a second." (I then opened and shut the junk drawer door without finding a pen, and rustled around some papers to sound like I was finding some paper.) "Ok, I have some."
(him) "No problem! Ok... here's what you'll do in the future if a problem that is similar, but not exactly like this, occurs. You're going to press Info, Vol up and Vol down all at the same time. Blah blah blah, blah blah..........blah. " (At that moment I realized that Audree had left some dishes out and the milk was still out so I went about tidying up the kitchen a bit.)
(me) "Uh, huh.... okay.... yes... okay. Thanks"
(Chipper McChipperson) "No problem, what so ever."
** more glorious minutes of silence. Just the sound of me playing on the blackberry, and him seeming to type something very, very fast into his computer. What exactly was he typing? Did he know that I had lied about the paper and he was noting that for future reference???? Now my nerves were on high**
(me) "Okay.. the time is back on."
(him) "GREAT!!! Now, if you will just check to make sure that the Vol up, Vol down, and changing of the channels all work."
(me, actually doing what he requested this time) "Yes, they all working just fine. Thank you for the help."
(chippy) "No problem! You may be receiving a call about my service and we really do want you feedback so, again, my name is Asher and it was a pleasure to serve you this morning!!!! "
(me, aka Grumpy) "Uh, okay, yea. I'll answer it if I get a call. Have a good morning."
CLICK.
********* end scene at 8 am exactly, 22 minutes on the dot, as my phone alerted me to. ***********

I wasn't exactly rude to him with my tone of voice, but I am not a morning person. All I really wanted to do (but couldn't do) was come home and go back to bed for awhile. When I encounter someone so chipper so early in the morning, it rustles me a bit. Like, how is that even humanly possible? Am I speaking to a robot? Is this person on something? Is this stuff legal and where can I get some? And, the fact that he kept saying over and over again "No Problem!!!" , like it really wasn't a problem that my box randomly decides to shut down and tell me I am not AUTHORIZED. Like I am a cable thief and I stole the box or something.

Landry lost another tooth last night, his third. All 4 of us were sitting in the kitchen, cooking dinner, when suddenly he says something about his tooth bleeding. I tell him it's time to pull it out, but then I chickened out and couldn't pull it out. So, I made him do it at age 5 3/4. He did it without complaint. I think that he preferred to have all of the control over the situation, instead of me yanking on it. (Or so I will continue to tell myself.) You can send my Mom of the Year plaque to the above referenced address, if you please.

The 1st weigh-in

2010-04-25T15:26:00.000-05:00

When you sign up for WW, you have to put in a day that you will weigh yourself each week and record it on the website. I chose Sunday, partially because that was the pre-set day, and partially because it's a good way to end the week (start the week?). So, this morning was my 1st weigh-in. I went to the bathroom before hand to lose as much weight as possible, (TMI Abbey, TMI) and then I went to get on the scale. As I stepped on, I sucked in my stomach, as if that was going to help anything. Subconsciously, I think that I figured if all the air was out of me then I would totally weigh a pound or two less. I watched the red dots flashing, telling me that it was weighing me. I stood as still as possible, as if that somehow mattered also. (I'm so dumb sometimes!) I wasn't expecting much - I had only started really adhering to the plan on Thursday, so imagine my utter and complete surprise when it said I was down 4 pounds!!! Who-hoo!! I guess that feeling of wanting to chew off my arm is totally normal and exactly what you want to feel if you want to lose weight.   I am pretty sure that it is all water weight, but please don't rain on my parade and tell me that. I want to believe that obsessively logging food into the on-line counter is helping. I like a little bit of denial every now and then. So I am starting (ending?) the week on a high note. I have been doing cleaning and laundry all day, so I get to put that on my log as "moderate activity" which will give me more points to eat this week. Maybe, I will even take the kids for a walk this week. I don't want to commit right now, as I don't want to over extend myself. (Insert sarcastic sneer here.)

Ryan called this afternoon. Yippee!!! He has been very busy. They are organizing a "spur ride" for the guys over there. They have been doing it each of the past 3 weekends, which requires him to go to bed late on Saturdays after a full work day and to get up at 2 am on Sunday to be there by 3 am to finish getting things ready for the ride, sticking around for the ride, and then feeding the people after it, and on and on, which is about 18 hours total on Sunday's. Yadda yadda. Blah-blah-blah. I wasn't overly concerned with the actual details of the ride, I was more concerned about why he hadn't been calling and returning my e-mails!  He apologized and all is forgiven.

Ryan told me to go ahead and buy a Flip Camera. Does anyone have one? Can you recommend a model? The video camera that we have we bought new 9 years ago and weighs as much as Landry, our 5 year old. It is big and bulky and quite frankly doesn't even work if you don't have it plugged into the wall. (Which isn't all that helpful to record things when the kids are outside learning to ride their bikes without training wheels like Delanie did just 3 weeks ago!!)   I was telling him how sad it makes me that we have missed all of the things that the kids do and say since we don't use the camera anymore, so he stopped me mid-sentence and told me "Happy Mother's Day - go pick out the one you want".   I didn't hesitate to say "Ok! Thanks, love!" and he laughed. He always knows the perfect gift to get me. ;)

When Ryan gets back from a deployment, my parents always buy him a "thank you" present. Last time it was a new laptop. With this deployment, Ryan had decided that he wanted an e-reader, like a Kindle, or something like it so that he could put all of the Army manuals onto it and have it with him at work. For fun, he likes to memorize them and then quiz guys on the correct procedures for AR-?? and also likes to call people out when they are wrong on something.  He's a real gem sometimes. Then the iPad came out, and someone over there got one. Today he told me that he MUST.HAVE.ONE. as soon as possible. They are the "greatest things ever". I told him that they were just over-sized iPod touches, and he corrected me and told me all of the ways they were so NOT like the iPod touch. They are an iPod, a computer AND an e-reader that just happens to have a giant touch screen. See the difference? All things rolled into one! Silly me. So I guess we are going to become one of those families with an iPad. (Secretly, I am a *little* excited because I really want to play with one! Shhhh...... don't tell him, please!)

The dryer ding just went off, so it's off to folding for me! Hope that you are having a wonderful Sunday!

3 days? Whatever.

2010-04-24T16:57:00.000-05:00

With this deployment, I think that Ryan has really lucked out. The last 2 deployments, he was in a combat unit and his phone and internet times were limited. The calls were spaced out and the e-mails were non-existent. I grew used to not hearing from him alot, and just going with the flow of communication. After his last deployment, he went through a bit of a shuffle with units and he ended up at one where he now works behind a desk. (His last year long deployment ended March of 2009 and he deployed with a different unit in February of 2010 for another year.) He says (sarcastically) that every Infantry-man should do a little time behind the desk, to get the feel of things, and he is doing his time now. He hopes (and prays) that when they return from this deployment that he will return to being a "front line" soldier, back to knowing and doing what he knows and does best. It was quite a learning curve for him to have been trained in Infantry type stuff only to be sitting behind the computer all day long typing memos and such. He isn't really a HOOAH type of soldier, but bring in the Infanrty, he knows his job, and loves his job and wants to do his job. He is still technically Infantry, as his MOS didn't change, he is just in a "non-combat" unit now. Sometimes, in his new job, he even has to do things for female soldiers. That was also something completely new to him. Working for & with female soldiers, I think, has been his biggest learning curve. But I digress. This deployment, he took a MagicJack with him, and he is in a room by himself. Meaning, that most everyday he has been able to call at night time for him, morning for us. For a while there I could set my clock by the time that he would call. If he didn't call one day, he made sure to call the next day. The last time that I talked to him was 3 days ago. It was a normal day and he said that he would call the next day. But he didn't. We have called his number but it is just going to voice mail, which he doesn't know how to check on the MagicJack. I have e-mailed him, but haven't heard from him. Which isn't exactly earth shattering news. I used to go sometimes weeks without hearing from him. But since I had grown accustomed to hearing from him more frequently, my mind is wondering what could have happened. Why no phone calls or return e-mails? Were there a lot of memo's to write? Maybe a Power Point or two that needed to be completed? And then after the joking subsides, I think the "other" things. Did something happen? Is this a blackout? Is he okay? Does he still love me? My mind always dwells on the negative. The door bell rang a few hours ago asking if my children could go out to play, but when it rang, it donned on me that it could ring for another reason. Since then, I haven't been able to shake the feelings. I'm sure that they are just super busy. In fact, I know that they are. But I hadn't even thought about the lack on phone calls and emails until the door bell rang, and then it was like a flash, all of that information came flooding to me in a wave of emotion. Now I find myself looking out the peephole when walking past the door, looking for something out of the ordinary. Obsessively checking the crackberry to see if I have gotten an e-mail and I just didn't hear the ding of the announcement telling me of it's arrival. I have literally done nothing today. I had such great plans but now they all seem trivial, in a silly way, until I hear from him. Dishes have gone unwashed, and laundry hasn't been done. I haven't gotten off this spot from the couch if I want to be completely honest. Now that I see time is creaking up to dinner time, I know that I will have to get up an cook. Normally, in my depressed state, I would just go and pick up something fast food-ish. But seeing's how I JUST paid for WW and I HATE wasting money, I will go and cook something. If I have to. But I don't want to.

I just re-read this to see how it sounded. It sounded like I am being a little bitch. I need to man-up and stop thinking about this stuff. I need to get on with my day and being present here with my kids. 3 days??? Really???!!! I'm being such a complete fool about all of this. Lots of people, including me, have gone a lot longer without hearing from their spouse. Wah-wah-wah. I need to stop crying a river and go make tater tot casserole for dinner. (Totally on WW, btw.)

I think I just got the perspective I needed. Landry was just in trouble for kicking another boy (that we don't even fucking know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) after that boy kicked him (WTF??) and Delanie was just sent to her room for wiping boogers on Landry. Life doesn't wait, and neither should I.

Except that I completely do.

Day 1 of my weight loss is not so fun.

2010-04-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

Early this morning, after taking Delanie and Landry to school, I schlepped myself to Walmart to do a little grocery shopping. Good times, right? I got there around 745-ish, and I left at like 10, if you must know. I was a shoppin' fool. Side note - did you know that Walmart stores (at least mine) don't sell little girl's diaries? You know, with the little locks on them so 7 year olds can keep all of the world's mysteries hidden away?? Yea, those. I looked forever and finally asked someone and she told me the bad news. I had wasted 15 minutes searching for two diaries that did not exist. On to bigger and better things I said. I took a list but I didn't put it in any kind of order so I would, for example, go get some sugar free pudding and then walk away only to realize 7 minutes later that I needed the cream cheese that was practically touching the pudding and was now in the back of the store. Back and forth, back and forth I went.   They did have 24 packs of Diet Pepsi on sale for $5. Not my preferred drink, but I will deal. Last week they had 24 packs of Diet Dr Pepper on sale for $5 with a $1 coupon so they only cost $4. SWEET VICTORY! I should have really stocked up then, but I'm a dumbass sometimes.

Last night, I had set out on a recipe search for WW (Weight Watchers) "approved" recipes. I didn't really find anything that will work for me. I like your standard fare of veggies - onions, lettuce, carrots, mushrooms, etc - but I don't like things like zucchini and egg plant. You know, not standard veggies? Anyway, I don't think that a recipe for egg plant parm would taste even half as good as my all beloved chicken parm. Since I didn't really find anything that sounded appealing, I just settled on things like the frozen WW meals for dinner, salad for lunch, Grape Nuts and skim milk (puke!!!!!!!) for breakfast. Nothing frilly. Something simple just to get me started on this program. Here's my problem, because with me there always is a problem. It is 210 pm. I, so far, have eaten 1/2 cup Grape Nuts, 1/2 cup skim milk, a salad with lettuce, shredded carrots,  tomatoes, bell pepper, and Caesar Vinaigrette, 2, yes two, Diet Dr Peppers, and a Skinny Cow chocolate bar. AND... I feel like I could chew off my left arm and still have room. Maybe that's how I got to be where I am today - fat and out of shape - by eating all-day-long. Who knows. My 3 month subscription to WW Online didn't come with an analysis.   I *see* that I have eaten enough food to to sustain myself and not die, but I *feel* like I haven't eaten since 1974. And I wasn't even born then.

Last night's episode of RHONY was a little boring to me. I mean, I get the whole Jill / Bethenny drama going on, and crazy eyes Ramona is still crazy, but I want some more dra-muh. A little razzle-dazzle. I don't know if I even like the new housewife that they have on there, so much so that I can't remember her name right now and I definitely don't care enough to Google it.   Bravo's new show 9 By Design is very foreign and crazy to me. The life style, the house flipping, the kids names, it's all a little much. Their kids names are (I did use Google here): Wolfgang, Bellamy, Tellulah, Breaker, FIVE!!!, Holleder, and Major. Kid #5 is named FIVE!!!!!!! AHHHKLOGH(EHGnjaspergh90er4yuwvjs9y849OJKHEIFH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So freakin' cu-ray-zee.

I had to contact my daughter's teacher again about some bullying that she is getting at school and on the bus. This "little" boy, who is in the 5th grade, mere months away from being in 6th grade and Middle School, isn't really so little, but his actions are. Yesterday, he sat where he wasn't supposed to on the bus and stuck his middle finger all up in her face and hit her with his backpack. All while yelling profanities at her. It isn't just her that he is doing it to, he is doing it to all of the other little girls. Maybe a boy or two, I'm not sure. What makes this story complicated is that 1) he is in her class and has already called her a snitch, 2) he lives on our street and frequents the play ground across the street. One day Audree was walking to go over to the park to see some friends, and when she saw him, she decided that she no longer wanted to go over there, and that makes it sad and hard for me. Why shouldn't she be able to enjoy her friends? Why shouldn't she be able to go to the play ground to play? Why should she have to be a prisoner to our back yard so that she doesn't run into this punk? So frustrating.

** I ran spell check on this, but it is telling me that Walmart is spelled wrong so I don't know if I believe it anymore. **

Side Note

2010-04-22T17:20:00.000-05:00

After I just posted that last blog, I went and re-read all of my other blogs that I had written.

Yikes. Sorry about that guys. Really, truly I am.

Please dont' pass judgement on me. I'm not really as stupid as I sound in those. I write better then that, I swear, and I have found the spell check button now. So...... hopefully only bigger and better things to come!!! With correctly spelled words!!! And about something other then me seeming to whine all the time!!!

Y'all come back now, ya hear! (Bu-dum-dum)

What?

2010-04-22T16:28:00.003-05:00

So I haven't been on here since December 13th. Yow-sa. I honestly thought about giving up the blog because I never do it but I have decided in the past few days to give this ol' thing another try and see how it goes.

So here goes.

Ryan has deployed. He left on Valentine's Day. So far, it hasn't been too terrible. Except for: having to call the police twice in one week (hit & run at Target and a stolen skate board from our home), my son completely acting a fool at school all-the-time, one pre-teen and all that it entails, one daughter with a newly diagnosed probable heart condition, me spending money like it's going out of style tomorrow, fighting with our old property managers over money (NEVER EVER EVER RENT FROM FOLKERSON PROPERTY MANAGEMENT IN KILLEEN. EVER. NOT EVEN IF IT IS THE MOST PERFECT HOUSE IN THE WORLD. YOU WILL GET SCREWED. YOU'RE WELCOME.), arguing with TXU over an electric bill, etc, etc. Just life, really, but still a lot. I'm sure that there's more. Isn't there always?

I started Weight Watchers today. For the 1st time ever. I am not telling my husband so that hopefully I can surprise him when he comes home for R&R in a few months with some weight being gone. I need to lose about 80 pounds, give or take 10 pounds, to be considered "healthy" . If he is gone for a year that leaves about 10 +/- months left until he gets home. If I lose the recommended 2 pounds a week, that will take about 10 months to lose. It's a win-win all around, no? I'm brilliant sometimes, I tell ya! Now I just have to stick to it. Maybe I should post my weight and losses on here as an accountability sort of thing, but I may have to work up to that. I was all excited to sign up and then I started to log in what I had eaten today. Breakfast and lunch. Two meals. AND? I was already at my point limit for the day. Maybe I shall start tomorrow. Or definitely after I go grocery shopping. Probably one of those two. I also tried to order some stuff from their store - like a point counting book and something else that I don't remember - and it wouldn't let me get past the shopping cart. Even their site didn't want me to start today. Bastards. Or am I the bastard for paying for 3 months worth of WW (with free registration!!) only to stop doing it approximately .5 hours after buying the online package. Huh... I will have to think about that one and I will totally get back to you on that.

Any one still there? 'Cuz I'm even boring myself.

What else, what else.....

Today, Landry went on his 1st field trip. They went to the zoo. He, at age 5 1/2, had never been to the zoo before. I know, that makes me mom of the century, but I hate doing those types of things. Loathe them. But, I told him this morning when we figured that out, that I would take him and his sisters this summer to the zoo. Anyway, so last night he comes to me, and starts saying over and over, sort of mumbling really, "God, please don't let it rain tomorrow." Over and over and over. Then he starts to cry about the possibility of rain. he even calls his Nana to tell her to pray that it doesn't rain! I felt so bad for him. But, it didn't rain!!! It started sprinkling at pickup, and the teacher said that it sprinkled in the morning on the way to the zoo, but it was great the rest of the day. I told him that God heard his prayers and he was so happy! It was great until his teacher told me that although he was good at the zoo, he had gotten into trouble for name calling to another child. A girl no less. We have been working with him on his behavior at school. I told him that if he could go 10 school days without getting into trouble, that I would take him to get a present. A toy, whatever he wanted. That was like 6 weeks ago. We haven't made it yet. We made it to 9 days once, but he got into trouble for something. Today his teacher and I joked that by the time he earned his toy, it would be discontinued. Sad, but probably true.

Until next time... hopefully not another 4 months.

Red Cross

2009-12-13T21:46:00.002-06:00

The RED CROSS here offers a volunteer program - completely free - and you will become a dental assistant after it. You volunteer for 40 hours and then you are qualified for the schooling.

I have known about this program since about April 2001. Before 9/11 and before things got hard. I also only had one child at that time. Anyway, this program keeps falling back into my lap, so to say. When I think I am depressed and worthless and yada yada, I find this program again and it somehow pulls me out of the dark.

I am going to go this week while Ryan is off so he can go to and get some more in depth information from them about the classes. What time are classes? When do they let out? I can't get excited about something that will require me to get child care for the kiddos for before and after school. Audree starts middle school next year so I imagine that she would really love to go to a daycare. (She isn't anywhere near mature enough to come home on her own. )

So, today, I am excited about this. It is a way out. It is something to do while Ryan is gone. It is something to do for my self esteem. It is something to do for the kids, if they do go to daycare. I don't think that the training is very long. I could *maybe* have a job by the time Ryan gets back.

So much to think about........

Biggest Loser

2009-12-08T18:58:00.003-06:00

I am a reality tv whore. I watch it all. My new favorites are "Jersey Shore" and "16 and Pregnant - now that they are moms" , both of which are on MTV. A little under my demographic of age 31 but who cares? I will probably watch the Bachelor, depending on how douche-y he is on the first show. I love the Amazing Race and Big Brother. I love Design Star and all those design shows on HGTV. I love A&E Hoarders and sometimes Intervention. But mostly I love the trash that comes out. Survivor, Food network competitions, etc. Anything, really, on MTV/VH1/Bravo.

And right now I am watching the "Biggest Loser" finale. I love the finales the best. But the BL one irritates and excites me. The way that they cut to commercials just at the critical weigh in. DRIVES ME INSANE. I get why they do it. So you stick around and watch it. I wish that Amanda would win but I think that Danny will win it. He lost the most amount of weight at home last episode. I don't really care who wins the at home prize of $100,000.

Amanda looks Fantastic!!!! Liz looks like she doesn't really want to be there. I hope Amanda goes into the final three.
There goes a darn commercial break!!!!!!

Back on.... And the winner picked by America is......Amanda!!!!! Woot woot!!!

Antoine..... Alexandra......Sean.....Julio.....
Alexandra looks like she could have used some more time on the ranch. Sean and his new baby Jillian!!!!! Awww....Antoine and Alex are dating! So is Daniel and Rebecca.

More silly commercials for cars I won't ever be able to afford and Ashton Kutcher's camera commercial. Oh, and a Britta one. Can't leave that out.

Back on.... the first weigh ins.
Bob and Jillian are on. I love them both.
Bob talking about Shay. . . sad.

Out of this first group of four, the winner and current at home leader is: Julio with a weight loss of 180 pounds!!! I'm am so jealous.

Four more players - Coach Mo, Dina, Abby, Tracey. Yay for Abby. LOVE HER. Hate Tracey. Well Dislike a lot.

The second group of people to weigh in and the winner is: Tracy and she took the lead over Julio. (( ABBY LOOKS GREAT!))

They next four are Shay, Daniel, Rebecca, and Allen. Rebecca's hair is awful. Just awful blond. Shay looks good but still big.

The Doctor is talking to them about doing weight loss. Inspirational. Weep weep, lets move on.

Commercial break for Christmas stuff.

The next winner from that home players to win is: a commercial break! However, Rebecca's body is banging!!! I still don't like her hair. Rebecca took the lead from Tracy and now it is between Rebecca and Liz. The winner is::::::::: REBECCA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She won the at home prize and she looks beautiful. Shay gets hooked up from subway!!!!! $1000 for each pound that she loses between now and the next finale in May 2010. Can't wait to see her.

Now it is time to get to the big prize and see who is going to win it all.

First up: Rudy before we get to see him they take us off to commercial world. and we're back and look a marriage proposal! How sweet!
Second up: Danny OMG!!!! HE looks amazing.
Third up: Amanda so pretty now.

Sorry got a phone call...... la da dah da dah da dah.......

Amanda is in 1st place after the 1st final weigh in . She won't be there long. Dan is going to win this all.

Rudy is next - he looks better bigger I think. But I don't mind a little meat in the seat. lol

Danny looks too skinny in the face. I don't like it.

AND THE WINNER IS..........

danny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here

2009-12-07T21:19:00.003-06:00

As I said yesterday I was planning on staying here when Ryan deploys. And then..... then...... then I get a whiff of loneliness and depression again and I can't imagine staying here. I can't imagine 12+ months ALONE.

What do I do? Why do I feel like my prayers for answers are going unanswered? Why if there is an answer, am I unable to figure it out? My heart says go - my mind says stay. I should have decided by now. I think that I have decided and then the next day rolls around and I decide that I couldn't have possibly made the FINAL decision.

I feel like my mind has all sorts of stories that need to get out and I don't know where to write all of them. I used to write on myspace - my original blog :) - and I wrote a lot but somehow the stigma of actually having a "real" blog blocks my mind. Maybe it is because I accidentally told my family about this blog and I feel like I can't really be 'free'. Maybe it's because I think you will judge me and not come back. Maybe it is any number of 100000 things. I have been trying to write here more often and am trying to get into the habit of writing here more often. I read and appreciate everything that you guys have said to me in comments and I honestly do appreciate it.

OK... enough of the jumbled mess that are my thoughts. I don't know that I will ever be a blogger that has a certain topic to stay on. You never know though!!!

2009-12-06T18:57:00.003-06:00

I think that I have decided to stay here when Ryan deploys again. It seemed to be to daunting to move all by myself and this place we are in wouldn't extend one lousy month so that we would be able to move easier. Oh well... guess that it was already worked out for me from up above.

Christmas is going well around here. Only part of the lights on the pre lit tree were out and only one strand of my favorite LED colored bulbs was broken so I was pretty happy with the outcome. Hope Christmas goes well for you.

I went to a couple's baby shower after Thanksgiving with Ryan. And it was odd. I knew most of the people there and I was a chatty Cathy. He sat in a corner, making sure that his back was in that corner and that he was able to see everyone who was there. He changed in Iraq and now he can't handle crowds, whereas before he went to concerts and we went to the fair. Just yesterday we went to his company's Christmas get together. The roles were switched there. I didn't know anyone so I just followed my children around making sure that they weren't into stuff, which didn't make me in the best of moods. He was jovial, (a little TOO jovial with a certain redheaded beauty there in his platoon but that is another story) he was tipsy, and he said that people thought that I was a bitch. I didn't want my kids to run amuck in some-one's house so I made sure to stay up their asses. Makes me a Bitch, I suppose.

Nothing else going on around here. Laundry and more laundry. The story of my life.

2009-11-22T19:39:00.002-06:00

I am thinking of heading back to San Antonio when my husband deploys in a few months. I need the emotional support. But the thought of moving 3 times in 2 years (we have only been here a yr) is sooooo overwhelming. SO I need your help. I will tell you the pro/con's of each one and you can help me out if you so choose.

Moving to San Antonio

PROS
Near Family and Friends
If there is an emergency there is 2 set of grandparents there to help.
babysitters!!!
church i love
CONS
move by self - Ryan said he wouldn't help to move at all
12 months only
kids switching school two more times.
money money money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Staying here

PROS
NO moving!
can save more money (wont have to spend money moving)
No switching schools
CONS
only know 1 PERSON and we are just acquaintances
(Everyone we know pcs'd with 4id to Colorado a few months ago)
If there is an emergency I am screwed.*
Night times
No church that we have found that we like

* Last deployment there was a medical emergency and my friend at the time took an hour to get to my house and my dad had to drive 2 1/2 hours here to watch my kids. I was taken by ambulance to Darnall and still waited another 3 hours before what happened just went away. It was scary and I don't want to have to go through another emergency alone.

Any help or thoughts that you can give on this is greatly appreciated. I have been so stressed about it that not even the Ambien can get me to sleep. I have to decide this week so that I can start to pack and whatnot. My heart says go and my head says stay. But then tomorrow they will flip flop.

Ramblings

2009-11-10T20:34:00.002-06:00

So these past few weeks have been up and down.

First off, my breast is "normal". Still have all the problems but no more an idea of what it was. The doctor who say me was a meeny mcmean pants and I think, from what I heard, he did a lot of surgical staple removals and sucking puss out of peoples infected areas.

Next I want to get off my medication and my doctor keeps telling me no. So I continue to take it and it sucks. I want to get off of it so I can do things like enjoy a glass of wine occassionally. Or a Margarita with dinner. To Try to not be tied to 10 pills a night for forever.

I have been thinking of moving to San Antonio where my parents live while my hubby deploys in early next year. I don't know but 1 person here, and if there was an emergency I don't know what I would do. The thought terrifies me. Ryan was gone last time and I had a reaction to my medication and needed to go via ambulance to Darnall Army Hiospital, my dad had to drive 3 hours to here so that he could watch my kids for me. Plus with the shootings here at Fort Hood and hearing stories of kids getting home when their parents were stuck on base. I can't imagine! I would need help in that situation. Ryan is refusing to help with the move and said it is unnecessary but that if I want to go then I coulod go, he just wasn't going to help pack, with moving trucks, and when he comes home he wants me to be back here waiting for him. Hopefully it will all work out.

We have two cats to get rid of. They pee and poo on everything. IT is all behavioral but it makes the house smell like..... cat pee., And that doesn't come out of anything. I have thrown away more clothes because of the smell. Any takers?

2009-10-06T21:01:00.002-05:00

Nothing new to report on... about anything... nada....blank.

LOL.....

I still don't know the details from my ultrasound of my breast. I won't know until the end of the month due to the face that my doctor went and QUIT and didn't leave a forwarding address. I just called to set up an appointment with him, and they informed me that "Tomorrow is his last day and we can't tell you where." I explained the situation and was told that they understand that but they can't help me. AHHHAHHHHHDHHDSHHSJSLD:D:JIJIOhjodihHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kids are well. I am well. Ryan is well. Life is blessed. Hope you are blessed too.

Sorry 'bout that!

2009-09-26T17:47:00.002-05:00

Sorry it has taken me so long to re-post. Life gets in the way sometimes, you know?

Anyway - about that mammogram. It showed nothing however the doctor didn't feel comfortable with that so he sent me to a general surgeon who then sent me to get an ultrasound. I have had that done but I don't have the results. I doubt it is anything big but at this point, who knows.

I am loving the fall weather! It was 66 and raining the other day and I was in Heaven. It was fabulous. I am also loving that all of the fall shows have come back on. I wish Korin were still here so that I could call her and talk to her about The Biggest Loser or whatever it is that we are into. I do love me some college football too. I love that they have all the passion still that sometimes professional players seem to lose. Anyway, we are big Texas Tech fans and I like the Texas Longhorns so if they are playing, we are watching.

The kids are all doing well. Audree has tried out for the school play but I think that she will be disappointed when she doesn't get the lead. It is for a production of Hairspray and she doesn't sing out loud in public so I am thinking that she will get another part. lol. Delanie is looking forward to her birthday - in a couple of months - and Landry has been acting up in school but nothing to write home about. Talking and whatnot. Normal Kindergarten stuff.

Ryan and I worked in the yard today. I pulled weeds until he finished mowing. Good times.

My most hated of ALL holidays is approaching. None of the kids know yet what they want to be for Halloween but I loathe the holiday. It is expensive and I hate walking around asking for candy. My kids hate doing it after, oh, 2 blocks or so. So, yes, I hate Halloween. Ha!

Hope all is well with all of you and your families!!

Passage into womanhood

2009-08-11T21:13:00.001-05:00

I has a mammogram today.

It felt weird as a strange woman, who couldn't look me in the face and was wearing too much blue eyeliner and hairspray, coldly picked each breast up and commented on them. "They are very heavy and dense, you know" she voiced to me as she softly placed my left breast between two plates and pressed the button to flatten it. On the right one she commented how "lumpy" they felt,. but that I was still young and that it was "probably just fibroids". But I was there for a lump. I was there for the discharge. I was there for the painfully inverted nipple that I have. I wasn't there for her kind words. I understand why she did it. She said that she is there to help ease my discomfort. And I guess that she did. In a perverse way. Some stranger who just 5 minutes ago was touching another woman's breast to give her a mammogram is now touching me. Intimately. Not seductively. Not lovingly. But still intimate nonetheless.

I read her paperwork as she wrote on it. "Patient and doctor feel lump" as she circled the drawing of a breast on her form sheet of insurance paperwork. "Inverted nipple." "Discharge." "Pain." These words are crippling to me and just another form of paperwork for her. I am number 10 or her work schedule of 20 for the day. I am just after lunch, while her mind is still thinking elsewhere. Maybe of the chicken sandwich that she had or the conversation that she had with her signifigant other while on her 60 minutes. Meanwhile all I can think about is "Is this the beginning of the end?" She informs me that there are deoderant wipes in the dressing room if I would like to put some on after we are done, as you aren't permitted to wear it to the proceedure. Cold and medicinally. The robe that was provided was warm and comforting. Soft and supple. Like breasts should be, although this was a piece of cloth and not my breast. I guess they won't ever be that way, according to Mrs. Mammogram's comments earlier about their density. I have to wait for the doctor to tell me in a few days that all will be okay.

Remblings os a SAHM.....

2009-08-11T19:15:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow will be a big day in this household. I am letting the girls pick their own hairstyle and get it done that way. Audree wants it like teen super girl Selen@ Gomez. It is a bob with some bangs. Delanie wants it chin length and one layer. We will see how it goes. I am anticipating that Audree will hate hers and Delanie will love hers.

I had my mammogram today. It wasn't so bad. They didn't call me back for a sonogram so that is a positive. They said everything looked good - as far as they could see without the Radiologist seeing it.

We are going to go to Corpus Christi this weekend and the drive is causing me to have anxiety. It is only a 3 hour drive from where we will be, however I have major panic attacks at the thought that our car may have a blowout or break down. I guess that's what you have the breakdown and roadside policies for, huh?

Our electric bill was an outstanding $445 this month. Ryan flipped his lid. He lost his shit (understandably) but he sort of lost it on me. Like it was somehow MY fault. We will pay it and call the electric company to complain again. I think the fact that the a/c units are 298 years old (approximate) and they keep freezing up on us. That makes them run so much harder. We call the a/c guy when it is frozen and he says that there isn't anything he can do and we call him when we UN-freeze it for him and he said that it is working fine. Ggrrrr....

Please someone tell me that I am not the only one addicted to Big Brother this year. I normally love the show but this year I am abnormally in love with it. I can't wait for Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday to come. Wait. that sounds sad and like I have no life. What I mean is... I love that hour each night when it comes on. It takes me out of my reality to their crazy ass antics and scheming. AND I LOVE IT.

Clearing my heart out.

2009-08-08T21:49:00.003-05:00

I have been dealing with this for a while now and I think that I am jsut going to out and do it.
JA is my husband Ryan. A10 is our daughter Audree, D6 is our daughter Delanie and L5 is our son Landry. It was hurting my heart to call my husband JA (short for jackass) when I wanted to speak about him. It wasn't fair to him or me. So I am going to clear my heart and conscience and call us all by names. Now maybe there will be more posts because I feel like I can be more open with the world. Or my 5 followeres!! (Thank you thank you thank, btw!!!)

Ryan is currently working 24 hours on being the NCOIC and then he has 48 hours to "recover" which basically means that he is grumpy the entire first day and then it is a toss up as to what we will get on the 2nd day. He has that until the end of the month, then school, then a new job. He has recently (reluctantly) switched from being an Infantryman to being a "paper pusher" as he calls it. He is just lashing out at the fact that he is a Soldier's Soldier, and he doesn't feel like that can happen behind a desk.

My sister tried to commit suicide the other day. This sister and I don't talk. Apparently she has bi-polar (as I do) and anxiety (same here) and somewhere out of the fucks of Hell she got them convinced that she has PTSD (not I) . ...... From where did she get it?? No one can quite figure it out. We think it is because my Grannie told her just before she did it that she was being cut off money wise from the family and Grannie had been paying her rent. She is in the midst of a divorce from a great guy (from what we know of him) and so her life is in a whirlwind. And that makes me sad. Not sad enough to talk to her because that just opens a large can of stupid on both of our parts. But it makes me sad to know that she is hurting that way.

We are going to be taking the kiddos to the beach on day next weekend and I am sooo excited!!! I have been wanting to go to the beach all summer long. The last time I wanted to go was 2 summers ago when my sister Chrissy was still alive. I had begged her to go with me but she could never go when I could so we didn't get to have those memories.

Busy busy busy.....

2009-07-31T19:11:00.002-05:00

So... nothing new going on here. I am gearing up for college to start. I realized today, after doing about 2 hours worth of work that the school bookstore had picked the wrong books for me. Instead of POFI they selected POFT. Grrr... so back to them I go on Monday.

L5 has shingles. He didn't get the chicken pox earlier this year when the girls did, so I guess this is his time now. I registered him for school today. For some reason, the school from last year didn't transfer over him actually attending the school. The bus will pick them up at 6:41 am!!!! I couldn't believe that! I am betting that there will be more then once that I will have to take them becuase they missed the bus. lol....

I have baby fever and I can't do anything about it. Although I am only 30, I had a complete hysterectomy 4 years ago last week, so having children is completely out of the picture. But man I wish I had a newborn around... :)

I just realized that we are going to San Antonio each month from now until December at least one weekend a month. Glad that gas prices are going down. This month it is a housewarming shower, next month is JAs and I's joint 30th Again birthday party, the following month my Grannie will be in town, then it will be Thanksgiving, then we aren't (hopefully) going to go anywhere in December! Whew!

The beginning of the end?

2009-07-20T15:10:00.003-05:00

I have a lump. I have had it for about two months now. I haven't gone to the doctor because, well, 1) I'm lazy and 2) I don't really want to know. There is thickening around it, discharge, and other problems that are going on with that breast also. So it isn't just a "lump". I mean, I don't know if it is just a lump or not.... I won't know anything for awhile now. My mammogram isn't for 3 more weeks, and then they have to read it and on and on... so I imagine in about 2 1/2 months I will know what is happening. Unless it's cancer, then I'm sure it will only be about 2 months until I know something. The doc doesn't think it is cancer, but I have this feeling that it is different. I have had "lumps" before. This one is different from those. This is painful up into my armpit. I have heard that cancer lumps aren't painful, and maybe painful is to strong of a word for what it feels like. It is like a sore muscle. A tender muscle. Ahh well... nothing I can do about it now. Just wait and see.

I start school again this semester. Yay!!! I was going to take 5 classes but two of them are already filled up so I am just taking three. They are all computer classes. Like learning to format letters and what not for a business degree. They are basically like three of the same classes. Hope I do well! I get nervous about passing. These classes are all online. That is maybe what makes me most nervous.... being online. In the past I have not done well with online classes so I am not sure how I will do with this.

I have a terrible headache today. I am soooo tired. It isn't' depression, it is just a tired that is so bad that I can't explain. I could literally sleep for the days on end and not feel caught up.

2009-07-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

Missing. Aching. Longing. Forgiving. Longing. Greiving.

These sound like words for long lost lovers. I only wish.

I miss her. Christina Marie French. My stepsister for longer then she wasn't my sister and therefore, she was my sister. My blood. We were only 9 months apart. Were we perfect? Nope. We fought like sisters. We sometimes went long periods without talking. She was closer to other people in the family, and although I know that she loved me I know that I wasn't her top person to call when there was trouble. But I was insanely jealous of her. She was skinny and pretty and not tied down by three kids. (NOT that I don't love my kids, but sometimes a little space in the bathroom is nice, ya know?) She was friendly and outgoing and took control of her life, no matter how hard it was. I can't seem to do that and I find myself even now, nearly 2 years after the unthinkable, becoming jealous of her. That seems so fucked up. She is in a place where that shit doesn't matter anymore - there is no competition. Only God's love and here I am - as jealous as the grass is green. I am not jealous that she died. Lord knows I would bring her back in a heartbeat if I could and change everything if I could and my biggest fear in life is death. I would make it different and better and I wouldn't be such a shrew. I am jealous of ... I can't even verbalize what it is that I get green over. The more that I learn about her, the sadder I am that I didn't know it all when she was here. Maybe that is a better way to put it ---- I am jealous of the relationship that we didn't have. That she got to have with other people, including people in the family, and we were just starting to get close when she was called home. How unfair is that?

On a side note, I am starting flylady.net again. Let's hope that it works this time. Maybe it will. But I'm guessing that it will just get my house cleaned really well once and then nada. lol. I won't keep up with it.

I have decided that I will be going back to college this semester. For my Associates. I have been to college on and off for years but when I look at my credits it looks as if I just started because of all the of remedial things. Funny thing is I know deep down that I am not doing this college degree for me. I am doing it for my family who so badly want me to have it. For years I was going to be a Nurse, but I figured out that I was just going to be doing it for the money. I don't want to be tied to something just for the money so I have been flip-flopping over what to do next. I was going to take the free dental assisting program from the Red Cross (which Chrissy did too) but I just want to do that because I want a job where I can wear scrubs. And as much as the family told me that it was okay to do that program, I just don't think that I can do it while she is gone. So back to college it is for me. I will be concentrating on the Executive Assistant program which basically means I will be taking a lot of computer classes and word processing and keyboarding classes. Since I already know how to type by touch I don't imagine it will be too terribly hard. In the past I have always like being a secretary so I imagine that I should just stick to what I know. I don't know if I will continue onto the 4 yr degree or just stay with my measly 2 year degree, but I do know that when I get it, I will be happy. I will finally feel accomplished and like I "matter" in the family. If that makes sense. Of course I matter, but I mean..... ah well , never mind. lol.

4th of July

2009-07-04T22:50:00.002-05:00

We went shopping today. Tried to help out the economy by spending hard earned money on the most Patriotic of days. We got some good deals and the mall was so not busy. JC P*nny's looked like a fucking goat function in the swim suit area, however I had to find one so I functioned amongst the goats. I also got a pair of jeans on clearance for $6.50 and and maxi-dress that is a little "too" maxi. Meaning it is so long that I have to pick it up to carry it but the fabric feels like it was made from God's hands himself.. so soft and supple. Yummy.

We played by the neighborhood pool for a few hours and I got really sunburned. I think that by tomorrow, the bulk of the redness will be gone. I have yet to hurt from it either - knock on wood. D6 also got a little burned but not too badly. We had the pool at one point all to ourselves. Strange, but sooooo nice, since earlier there was a little jackass kid who hit D6 on purpose in the head with the (wet) volleyball, and continually jumped into the pool, hitting her three times, even though there were clearly NO DIVING signs all around. Ggrrrr... I never know how to handle those situations. Say something to the kid? The parents? Keep giving the kid dirty looks and saying passive aggressive things loudly? (I chose number three. Oops. )

Tomorrow I am going to meet up with two of my best-y's. Besties? Whatevs - my two best friends. Well one best friend and one good friend. That and going back to the pool will be the highlight of my day. I know that you are thrilled to know that.

I am sure that you noticed a play list down at the bottom. Please play all of the songs. Some (most - shut it) are oldies but goodies. They just happen to be the songs I am thinking about now or that I just love so much I like to hear them whenever. I accidentially hit "shuffle" when I made it, so the same songs keep playing over and over while the others aren't playing so if you see something that you haven't heard in awhile or there is something that catches your ears, play it up. ( I REALLY LOVE LILY ALLEN TALIKING ABOUT GIVING HEAD AND HOW GREAT THE GUY IS BUT HOW HORRIBLE IN BED HE IS SO SHE HAS TO LEAVE. I MEAN, WHO HASN'T BEEN THERE?) I hope that you like them too. If not, well then you have poor taste. Just kidding. Maybe it's me not you.

3 kids and a funeral.

2009-06-23T19:10:00.004-05:00

This past weekend was quite adventurous. We has originally planned on going to San Antonio for the weekend but things changed when we had to go to a funeral.

We went to the funeral in a little po-dunk town named Linden Texas. It was JA's Grannie's funeral. I didn't really know her all that well. She was old, 94, and she had been sick for a while. Still, it was sad to see her go. I don't like funerals at all. Especially since my sister Chrissy died. But I guess that it is retarded thing to say because who really says on Monday to their co-workers "Hey Johnny, I went to the best funeral this weekend!" No one enjoys them. JA and I have talked about what I want when I go. I want over the top- and feather boas - and the "wedding party" that I never had. If that makes sense. I never had a wedding so I damn sure am going to have a great funeral.

The ride up there and back there were fairly good. JA did me a favor and went the speed limit and I did him a favor and didn't ride his ass about the speed.

On the way to the funeral, the actual day of the funeral, like on the way to the actual funeral, we popped a tire. So in a small town in the middle of no where, where we are all dressed in our Sunday best, and JA is a pallbearer in a suit, we, (and by we I mean JA) had to change a flat. Thankfully, it was a small town and people were willing to help us when they saw us struggling. Thank God, thank God, thank God it happened while we were getting gas and not while we were driving. We put on the spare which was low, but there was no where to fill up with air. So we drove on a low spare for a few hours until we could get to a W*lmart where it cost us $200 for a new tire. Yea. $200. Nothing special on the tire, it wasn't made for racing. lol. However we do have a Yukon so the tire is big so maybe that is why. The tire itself was $130 and then insurance on the tire and then we got an oil change and then labor. Yikes. Tyler Texas was the next biggest town to go to and that was 1 1/2 hours aways and back roads at best. So you do what you have to do.

Our hotel. Our hotel was .... special. I don't ever want to look a gift horse in the mouth and this hotel room was paid for by our in-laws, to which we were grateful. However.....
My father in law himself said that it was so bad that even he wouldn't have stayed there. It was your typical road side no tell motel, and had it had a "we rent rooms by the hour" sign out front, I wouldn't have been surprised. Imagine what that looks like in your mind and then you can think of what this place looks like. Then inside there were two DOUBLE beds for the five of us to sleep on. That was fun. And trying to make them be quiet. I had known that we were going to be staying "somewhere". I just thought that it would be like at the Holiday Inn, where we normally stay. Why my FIL picked this place, I will never know because I will never bring this up to him again. I didn't take shampoo with me, thinking that the place that we stayed would have it. I was wrong. I had to bribe the kids to get into the bath tub - ick - and then I had to use a bar of soap to wash their hair. It was just all and all not good.

We went up on Sunday morning and came back on Monday evening. It is a 5 hour drive. It was a long 5 house drive. I had been planning on going to San Antonio for a week this summer, but we spent nearly $500 this weekend on gas for the Yukon and food and whatnot's here and there. So I don't know if I will go now.

On other news.....

D6 has a ENT follow up appointment this Thursday with a hearing specialist for a hearing test. There is apparently alot of calcium and scaring behind where her 2ND set of tubes were placed in her ear, thus causing her to 1) talk loudly all of the time 2) listen to the t.v. at a blaring level and 3) have a little bit of a speech impediment. I am not worried about the speech like I was with L4, as he has gone thru 2 years of speech and just finished. He went from not talking to having full conversations so I think that she just has a little lisp that she will out grow. Or maybe I am in denial that two of my kids would have speech trouble like moi.

Ramblings.....

2009-06-18T11:08:00.003-05:00

Someone broke into my email account and applied for a job in Memphis TN via FedEx.com. Seems FedEx likes them. Who does that??? Guess someone with no life. The email that alerted me to the scam also told me that the job that they had applied for was accidentally posted in TN instead of Idaho where it was supposed to go to, so Oops to that also!

Nothing else really going on. JA starts a new assignment tomorrow as his unit is going to Colorado and we (sadly) are not. The kids are enjoying summer. I am enjoying sleeping in. :) We have been making lots of trips to where our parents live, which is about 3 hours from here, and we also went to our family reunion in Arkansas last weekend. That was hot and boring, but nice to see family.

And with that.... I am off to take a shower and do more laundry!

I won't, but I will.

2009-06-14T19:37:00.004-05:00

I May not.....

I may never own a $150,000, $250,000 or $350,000 house - hell I may never own another house other then the mold infested, run down, broken one that we do actually own in Knoxville TN. Any takers? I may never live in a page of Martha Stewart Living. I may never be able to open the door -fully - to someone who rings the doorbell due to the mess on the floor. I may never quit know what is for dinner before 4:30 when I walk into the pantry to see what I have to throw together that will be somewhat edible. I may never be on Oprah. I may never have the wedding of my dreams. I may never be the "ME" of my dreams. I may never have it all together. I may never get it all together. I may never be on the PTA (and quite frankly that is A -Okay!). I may never really be done with laundry. I may never really be done with the housework. I may never really be able to call someone my "best" friend. I may never own another dog. I may never be on the news as the 5 o'clock story (praise GOD). I may never attend Church all the time.

But I will....

Always be a Christian. I will always be a good person at heart. I will always have three beautiful kids who I adore, I will try. I will succeed more times then not. I will be reminded that I have a family and friends who don't always give me what I want but they do give me what I need. I will (hopefully) always have food and shelter and clothing, and if I don't I will have the above mentioned family and friends to help me out. I may have my own kind of cleaning and my own kind laundry loving. I will be reminded that being chunky means that you have enuf to eat - or I will just tell myself that to make myself that to make myself happier. I will always realize that it is not a wedding that will make me happy - it is going to be me that will make me happy (even though that is a tough pill to swallow). I will always own cats or nothing at all. and and last but not least, I will always and forever own that damn house in Knoxville, TN.

Belle of the Ball

2009-05-28T19:42:00.003-05:00

So about a week ago was the ball here for JA's unit. I woke up and knew that my dress was probably a size too small and so that made me a tad uncomfortable to start with. What was I going to do? It was the day of the dance and I am not really a size where I can just go to a store a pick off the rack. Plus - who the hell has the money to just do that? Thankfully it was a wrap dress, however it wrapped in the back and that made me uncomfortable. Who wants to think about their ass maybe coming out all night? Cuz I did. I kept holding onto the dress, thinking that it was going to come open at any moment and show my goodies to everyone! It also made me think that my ass was hanging out all the time. So I walked around like a jackass holding my size to small dress on my size to large ass dress for the two hours that we were there. Fun times. The actual ball started with pictures and cocktails at 4 freaking 30! I made him get there at like 4:32 so we could be the 1st to get there to get pictures because Lord knows I hate standing in line waiting to take them, however when we get there, he realized that the money that I had given him earlier in the day, to actually take the pictures, was still sitting at home. A quick trip to the bank by us was made and back we came and we were still the 1st people to get to take pictures!!! Boo-yah!!! $25 - a little steep but still worth the memory, right? I saw my friend Korin and finally met her hubby and then we met up with my hubby's friends from his unit. Everyone else was drinking, of course, which meant that they were having fun. Ryan had one double Bourbon and coke which was very very strong. They were trying to get all of the guys drunk, which worked very, very well. At one point (after we left) they were honoring the fallen soldiers, one guy lost his cool, started to sob, the alcohol got to him and mixed with his emotions, and he had to be escorted out. Sad.

They didn't have assigned seating like the balls that we had been to in the past had, but rather you just found a table wherever. We sat with the people that we normally hang out with, which was nice. They are the guys in Ryan's unit that we know and hang out with on a semi-normal basis. They provided us with good conversation and laughs. The wives looked beautiful and there wasn't any awkwardness to have to deal with when you meet new wives/girlfriends of men you don't know. The ceremony was supposed to start with the "formalities" of the ball - the toasts and what not at approximately 650 pm. Well they were running like 45 minutes behind and they didn't care - cuz everyone was toasted. Normally it wouldn't have bothered us, as JA wouldn't have had work the next day, however this isn't the case. JA is in school right now so he didn't even want to go to this shindig. The entire night he was like a Debbie Downer - are you ready to go? Hoe about now? Or he would just give me that knowing look that partners have after so many years of marriage that say "Let's get the Fuck out of here". Good times.

As this shenanigan got started the people were already so drunk that the ceremony of it all, which is part of what makes the balls, in my opinion and my hubby's opinion, so much fun was lost. For example; the punch bowl ceremony, or the grog. You couldn't even understand what they were saying - i.e. why they were adding the tequila or the French wine. It was lost on all of the hooting and hollering. Of COURSE there is supposed to be hollering when your commander is up there chugging down his pride, but when they are talking about why they are adding O'Douls, etc, people should really listen. Especially for people who have never been there. In my opinion. Our friend, who was talking shit about how he wasn't going to drink it because he doesn't drink hard liquor, got called up there as acting First Sergeant. LOL. So he got to drink it after all. We finally ate dinner and I finally told my hubby that we could leave. It was almost 8pm. We are 30 and act like we are 80. Felt sort of like a bit of a bust- thankfully I didn't spend too much money on the whole night. Otherwise, I would have stayed until much much later. : )

D6 graduated from Kindergarten today. I didn't get emotional. I rarely do at those things. A10 didn't have a ceremony for that sort of thing, so maybe that is why. The whole cap and gown thing on a 6 yr old just looks strange to me, not really cute.

Everything's gunna be okay....

2009-05-20T10:19:00.004-05:00

Today is a better day. I have good friends, and a good husband who both want me to be happy. I know what I need to do, but I probably won't do it. I will let it eat at me as so save face for the family, and that is okay. I will work through it. Maybe that will change and I will say something to someone, but probably not. And really... that is okay. No, really it isn't. But if I tell that myself enough times, it will make it okay and I will believe it. But today is a good day and so I will tell myself that it never happened and that I don't need to think about it and all will be good. MMmmmkay? Great. :)

I finally got around to folding the mound of laundry today that has been weighing me down for the past two weeks. It was like a weight was lifted off of me by just doing that. By getting the house cleaner, it made me feel lighter. Sweet! Now if it really could lift some weight off these thighs, that would be fabulous.

A10 lost another tooth last night, which makes her one tooth closer to braces. She is now, according to the dentist, 3 teeth away from the dreaded mouth metal. I had them and loved them. I loved the fact that you could change the colors of the rubber bands all of the time and that they were so personal to me. However, A10 has trouble making friends so I imagine that she will not feel the same way about them. She just got glasses this past week that she must wear all of the time, and couple that with the braces and puberty any day now spells F-U-N this summer if you ask me.

Off to do some more cleaning. Why stop when you are on a roll I say. I am going to try and finish all the laundry today. Maybe. I don't want to over do it. lol.

2009-05-08T11:50:00.002-05:00

We are making a trip this weekend to San Antonio this weekend so that I can go talk to my sister's grave.

Let me clarify.

There is a big decision that I need to make that if she were still alive, wouldn't be a big decision. But since she isn't here and some people in the family have gone their separate ways, it has become a big deal. So I feel like I need to "talk" to her directly. It isn't the same to sit here in my room and talk to her as it is to sit at her grave and speak the words that I need to say. I am not so much asking for forgiveness as I am asking for her permission. She hasn't been gone very long - Sept 5, 2007 - so it still stings like a knife to think that she isn't here. I am trying to make a big decision about my future, about my family's future and about money and about a lot of things that I feel that I need to "talk" to her about.

Of course, it is Mom's day also this weekend, so we will also see our mom's this weekend. :)

Finding my Religion

2009-05-02T18:43:00.002-05:00

I struggle everyday with my religion, although I pray multiple times a day. At the stop sign, I mutter under my breath. While cooking at night, I jumble words incoherently to those around me. At night, I pause the t.v. to say my prayers, silently of course. I would never ever dream of saying them out loud. I think that I can count the number of times that I have prayed out loud where someone else could hear me, besides dinner prayers.

The day my sister was killed I cried out in the dentist's parking lot without regard to whoever was around. Please Lord, let her be okay. Just before my best friend walked down the aisle and she had me help her to "laugh", literally, just before she walked down the aisle, I took her hand and I could sense her tensing up. So much for me helping her. So I said "Yvette, do you want to pray?" We did, and having had that moment together has made our relationship so much closer.

I feel the Lord telling me to go to Church, yet I don't do it. I feel that pull of needing to have religion for my children, yet I stay in bed on Sunday mornings, lazy to the obvious. So I pray extra hard on Sunday's, thinking in my head that it somehow makes it better in God's eyes that he is telling me to do something that I am disobeying. I pray for salvation even if I am not worthy because I know that I am not doing what is being asked of me. And I am being a hypocritical Christian to boot. I want to be good and I want to do good, honestly deep down I do, yet here on my own website I call my husband JA - short for Jack Ass. **he did pick out Jackass himself ** And I know in my heart that it is wrong to do, yet I cuss like a sailor in real life. I have tried churches here in town but they don't have what I am looking for, or maybe I am looking for what I can't have. The church that isn't here, but is in San Antonio, with the pastor that is in SA, who can't be here. I have been to the "mega" church here, with the Starbucks inside that once it started the service it scared me to see people running and screaming. I've been to the smaller churches where it seemed like they didn't have their stuff together.

I know what I need to do. I need to get my lazy ass out of bed, do what God is telling me to do and show my children that God is more then just someone that we pray to. That he really is life. Good, bad, glorious, fabulous, fantastic, ugly, rough life.

Swine Flu & You

2009-04-29T18:53:00.003-05:00

They say that the "swine flu" hasn't come to Central Texas, but I will have to disagree. The "swine flu" has totally disrupted my plans. We were supposed to go to my parents and in-laws this weekend, however it is where the 1st confirmed case of "swine flu" was in the US was. My parents informed us that the CDC has closed down the entire school district around them, that there are federal agents everywhere scoping it out, and closing stuff left and right. So the swine flu has disrupted my plans, therefore by default it has come to the Great Place.

I keep putting it is quotations because it has another newer, more official, name like M1N2 Flu, or something like that, but "swine flu" sounds so much better.

My friend told me today that she for sure has orders to leave out of here and I know that the nature of the ARMY is to leave and PCS but hell, we just became good friends. I know that it is something that she wanted and that it is something that she is welcoming and so I am happy for her, however I am not happy for me. I will miss her. I will miss our talks and miss knowing that I have someone that is there should I need to go get a coffee with someone who understands. I met her on the 'net so maybe, just maybe, I will meet someone else on here from here who I will be able to connect with. I'll miss you, K!!!!! We still have 2 1/2 months so you better not spend it all at the gym or at the damn school with those damn kids you teach! Sheesh!!!!

The Car

2009-04-25T11:53:00.003-05:00

I took my FIL's car in for the cleaning this morning and it was brutal. I wish that I wasn't there for it.

After about 1/2 an hour of sitting there and reading my boring book, William the tech calls me to the back and says "Can you leave it till Monday? There is A LOT of soap."...... "Um, no?!" is my response and I explain the situation, again, that they are camping. That my FIL doesn't know that this has happened to his brand new 2009 Mazda with black interior, and that I have to get it done today. Then he holds up a seat that had been laying on the floor. My FILs seat to be exact. They have extracted it from his one month old car like carnivores with meat, and my heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. OMFG, I thought. I just came in for a $40 steam clean, not this. He shows me the amount of soap that will not come out even after they have saturated the seats with water for the past 30 minutes. SHIIT!!!! I didn't think in my wildest dreams that it would be this... this... involved. I thought a little water, a shop vac, you know. Something I could do, but pay someone else to do who does it all the time to make myself feel better about it??? Yoiu know? But this was just beyond compare. I finish my talk with him, he is clearly now irritated that I can't leave it, and I leave feeling physically ill. I go back to my seat and realized that I don't have enough money in my wallet to pay this guy, and there isn't an ATM there. The service department is closed so they won't take my debit card so that means that I get to take a little walk down a busy street to the nearest gas station and go pay the ATM god's fee's for this atrocity that I brought upon myself. I come back and listen to the sales people whine a little more about the receptionist not being there today - she hurt her knee last night - and then out of no where William comes back to tell me that my car is done. It was supposed to take until 1pm at the earliest and it is just 11 so I am a little concerned but it looks ok so whatever. I'll take it. I just don't want to have to look at my father in law tomorrow in the face and explain to him what happened. At least it wasn't bleach right?? RIGHT??!!

Tonight is my last night that I have to sleep alone. Yay me!!!! SO excited about that. Today I am doing all of the laundry and cleaning that needs to get done so that tomorrow I can just relax and wait for everyone to get here!! Yay family!

Waiting...

2009-04-24T15:31:00.002-05:00

I don't want to jinx myself but I have made it through the night by-my-self for the last TWO nights. It wasn't easy. There was a lot of medication involved and lights being left turned on. Tonight, GOD really wants to test me so he is sending us severe thunderstorms. I have put all of my faith into him in (and Ambien CR) and believe that all will be A-Okay. Only two nights to go.

I was supposed to have a friend come stay with me tonight but she cancelled at the last moment so here I am all alone when I really truly need someone. Here's why. I was driving in my father in law's brand new car and some dish soap (!!) spilled all over his new seats. Shitdamnfuckmuthafucka. So tomorrow I needed her to drive me to the car dealership to drop me off because they said that it could take up to SIX HOURS to steam it out of the black upholstery. I can't sit there for that long, well I mean I guess I can but I don't really read that much so what am I going to do for that long?? I suppose I will take cabs back and forth between the house and the dealership.

It is supposed to rain bad this afternoon. I keep waiting for the weather breakin's on the t.v. with the violent BEEP-BEEP-BEEP (pause) BEEP-BEEP-BEEP but they haven't started as of yet. But I'm waiting.

Cleaning for the Cleaning Ladies

2009-04-23T10:42:00.002-05:00

I cleaned for the cleaning ladies. They were coming to clean out our old house for the move out inspection but I still felt the need to clean it before they came to clean it. I mean I am paying them lots of money to clean it. LOTS of money. Of course, we have to have it done, so that point is moot, but whatever. Is that normal? I know my friend Korin has cleaned before her cleaning person has come over but do other people do that too??

Last night I had to sleep all alone, as the kids and JA are all off camping. And it was torture. I slept about 4 hours total. On and off. Up and down. I slept with the t.v. and lights on, and a knife on the bed. I am tortured about someone coming into the house while being alone or being here and the lights going off and me being here all by myself and not being able to find the light switches. I have a bit of an anxiety problem, lol. Tonight will be another night by myself and then my friend is coming to stay with me for a few days so sweet sweet sleep will be mine again. Hopefully.

Scared

2009-04-22T11:40:00.002-05:00

I am scared of the dark. Mortified. I keep all the lights on and t.v.s on and I sedate myself so that I don't know what's going on. When I was young, probably A10's age, I was asleep one night in my mom's bed. My sister was 12 0r 13 and had a much older boyfriend who was stalking her at the time. This one night, it had rained, and I had gotten scared of the storm, which is why I had gone into her room to sleep with her. We lived in a duplex, and we lived downstairs, with the bedroom window being at ground level. So the 1st storm rolled through, and all was well with the world. Another storm began and my mom awoke and thought that the storm seemed a little loud. She awoke and found the window above our heads open. She placed her hand above her head to pull herself up and to turn herself around to close it, and when she did, she placed her hand directly upon his hand as he was breaking into our home. This was not the 1st time that he had broken into the house, he had done it over the 4th of July weekend while we were away. However, we were laying right there!!! My mom screamed and I startled awake, terrified, and he ran. The next day is when the neighbor found that the boyfriend had been living in the neighbor's backyard, stalking my sister. Back to me... scared of the dark. I am scared someone will ring the doorbell when I am here alone. What will I do? I am scared someone will try and break in. (Someone tried to break in to our home while Ryan was 1st deployed to Kuwait just after 9/11 -- the maintenance guy from the apartment place!!) I am just scared of the dark.

Dancing with the Regular Folk?

2009-04-20T19:15:00.004-05:00

Dancing with the Stars -- I watch this show each week. Each week, I see these people wear garish clothes, be overly-dramatic, dance to songs sung by off-off OFF Broadway singers (who by the way are 30943984 times better then me).

And I love it.

I want to be one of the people dancing away on the show to the overly dramatic songs in ugly dresses and shoes to millions of people each week. It must be hard work though, as everyone always gets hurt on there. And I am not one for working out (shut your mouth) so maybe, not so much then. I could-not-handle though being voted off. My self esteem would go south too fast for that crap. I would feel like "why don't they like me?" or "why wasn't I good enough?" or "could they smell my breath?" You know, normal stuff.

I also want to be on, but don't want to work for; The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Survivor, Trading Spouses, Wife Swap, Top Chef ::need to learn to cook::, Project Runway (sew anyone?) etc, etc. Doesn't ABC, TLC, Lifetime, and all the other networks know what ratings gold I would be??? Of course, I am not radical enough one way or the other to be on the wife shows -- not quite white trash enough or at least I don't think so!! The others I would be the one bitching the entire time, and would be voted off like within the 1st week. (you know it's true. it's ok, just don't say it to my face. )

Ahh..... so I guess I will just have to stay with my regular life.

Things I'm pondering....

2009-04-19T11:18:00.002-05:00

...why dark laundry piles up 5 times quicker then whites.

...why kids making a fort with a blanket is just as entertaining to them sometimes as an episode as Spongebob Squarepants

...why there isn't anything on t.v. to pass the time during the weekend days while doing all those piles of dark laundry

...why Facebook is great for getting back in touch with friends but isn't necessarily great for staying in touch with them. Meaning the initial "meet - n - greet Hello's" and "OMG! How have you been for the past 11 years?" are wonderful, but then maintaining those relationships is sortof ..... rough. At least for me.

...why can't I write a book in the style of Carrie from SATC but for mommies. Or can I? Maybe I shall write this blog that way..... or maybe that will get pretentious to talk like that and I will get annoyed.

...why twitter is like a mini blog for me. I like it. I like to see what other people are doing but then I see that I twitter that we are eating chicken for dinner and I think "What the fuck does that matter to anyone?"

...why I am still scared of the dark. Still.

1st time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-18T23:34:00.003-05:00

In many ways this feels like my 1st night of having a baby at the house. Excitement, nervousness, fearfulness. This blog CAN bring so many wonderful things that CAN happen, just like a new baby CAN be the start of such a wonderful new life. Maybe I CAN become a writer. Maybe I CAN finally write down all those things that the kids say that are so funny that I mean to write down but constantly forget. Maybe I CAN become a better mother. OR... maybe it will just shine a light on what sucks about our lives and will make me run like a bat outta hell and hope that you all forget that I ever said anything. Basically, I am writing this for family and friends to see what we are going through and to see how we live and to watch our babies grow. I will try and post each day, or at least every other day at the beginning. So keep checking back, and if you like what you see, tell your friends so that they can come enjoys some cocktails with me!!! (Virtual, of course. I don't really drink in the "real world".)