Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Post Where I Have Nothing To Say

Well...nothing really important anyways....but....really. Today has been pretty average. No pictures. No new CD covers. No funky shirt to get complimented on....yeah. It's been average. Not even any major tantrums to get on here and gripe about or any dumb moves from the queen of klutz to talk about. But really. I like average. Don't you? Except for the fact that I have to really scrape the bottom of my brain to come up with anything to blog about. And since it's been all of what.....one day now since my last post? Well....I thought I should come at least record the fact that today has been.....well.....you know. Average.

*huge sigh*

Today was a three Dr Pepper day. This is not good. Especially not good is that I was working on two of them at one time. Yes. I had not one, but two cans of half drunk (is that the correct word here....or drank? or whatever!) Dr. Pepper on my desk at 3pm today. And since one was just a tad warmer than the other, I would sip the warm one and then the cooler one.....so it was all good. Ahhh.....precious memories. I think it's probably time to cut back. Probably would be better to quit again. The bad thing? There is a nice lovely cold 2 liter of Dr. Pepper sitting in our fridge. It's been opened for about 2 days. And it is only missing about 2 glasses out of it. Not only that, but I'm the only one around here who drinks it. I'd really hate for it to go bad. *huge sigh/moan* It is totally calling me. My mouth is watering thinking about it. Ya'll, I've got it bad. Will I ever be able to kick this stinkin habit for good? This is like the 5th addiction to the same stupid (but ever so yummmmy....) drink in the last three years....or maybe 2. ARGH!

Next subject.

Um. I don't really know of anything else to talk about. We're supposed to pick up this seven year old (although KC says I told him that the kid was eight....so I don't remember which it is) boy from his ball game tomorrow night and then we'll have him all weekend and take him back to school on Monday. I was thinking of getting a hair cut sometime soon (or I should say "trim" haha) but I think I'm going to wait until after the weekend to find out if I have any left to trim when it's all over. LOL. I really hope he turns out to be a sweet kid and not a problem for us to deal with cuz I'd love to be able to take him. His foster mom said that he is wanting a family to adopt him sooo bad. She says he asks her all the time to PLEEASE adopt him. It's so sad. I wish there were some way we could help all the kids, but since we can't, I guess we'll just help the ones we can.

Tonight the munchkin "scrapbooked" with me. Oh dear me, she was in SEVENTH HEAVEN!!!! We didn't have very long to do it cuz we had a busy evening, but I took about thirty minutes and worked on her lifebook and before I started working, I set her up with the kiddie safety scissors and glue stick and several sheets of construction paper and some of my scraps and a few discard photos in her booster seat at the end of our kitchen table where I was working. I'm not kidding, she had a BALL. She was occupied for the ENTIRE 30 minutes with cutting her paper, glueing it together and then cutting some more. She would have been occupied for way longer b/c she wasn't even close to getting tired but we had to get other things going and I don't want to leave her with scissors unsupervised. Now the creations she was making weren't really very much to look at, but it wasn't super messy (which makes mommy happy) and it was "helping mommy" and doing exactly what mommy is doing (which makes munchkin happy) so it was all good.

I'm tellin ya....this girl loves scrapbooking and star wars. Dear God, please don't let her go back cuz she's perfect in our house!!!!!! And I know that's selfish, but dear God, you know I want her to stay for other reasons that aren't at all selfish...so please?

One thing about this kid that I absolutely adore....is the way she says thank you for EVERYTHING. If she forgets, and if it's something important, like someone else has given her something or if she was begging for something and gets it, then I remind her with a gentle "what do you say?" and she promptly says it, but she rarely forgets. If I put another serving of food on her plate: "ank ooo" if I give her a treat: "ank oouu" if I help her clean up her toys: "ank ouuu" if I pull out something for her to play with or help her up or down or whatever: "ank ouuu." It's just adorable.

Anywhoo.....I gots to go here....I think I might have just heard her start crying...and she's been asleep for 45 minutes, so that is not a good thing.

Later!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I'm Gettin Da Big Head

So between all the compliments on my shirt today, along with tha kudos on my latest bit of creative design for work (the design below -- only I've taken out all the specific references to my job so you freaky people can't stalk me....LOL. I'm kidding), my head has been swelling up.

workcdcover

What d'ya know.....I'm a grafik deeesign'a!!!!! And in an attempt to be less hard on myself, I'll have to say that I don't feel half bad about it. Wahoo!

Now if only they'd pay me the $500 design fee that they paid the graphic designer of last year's cd cover, I'd be in lover-ly shape huh?

Later!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Eesh

I really didn't plan on blogging tonight. But you know. I'm here. So I'll just try to make it short. *grin*

My wonderful hubby took out the two sagging shelves in the pantry tonight that were totally not helpful and replaced them with shelves that are much more efficient, both in size and quantity. And my pantry looks SOOO lovely right about now. I'm tickled pink. Well, maybe I'm just pink cuz I'm wearing pink, not cuz I'm tickled, but you get the picture. I'm happy about it, okay? And I'm tired so I am going to make this a short entry so that I don't say too many crazy things.

Cuz you know....I'm getting a little flipped out over how many people that know me and are my friends in real life are now reading this. Ya'll are getting to know the secret side of me, I guess....maybe a little too well. LOL. Seriously though....I feel a bit exposed. Hehe. Yes, mother, thank you. I know I've done it to myself. I can hear you thinking that. Haha. So, let me think.....there are....one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve....okay at least twelve people (that I know of) reading this blog on a fairly regular basis that are either in my local congregation or related to me. And the really scary part is thinking about the people who visit my blog regularly and know me that aren't telling me. LOL! Anyways, I hope ya'll still like me after you see how nuts I really am. *sigh* =)

Eh....um. What to say now. Uh. No....better not say that. Well, I......uh.....better not say that either. LOL. Hmmm. Bwahahaha.....are you wondering what I was going to say? Well....guess you'll just have to wonder. Or you'll have to wonder if I was just kidding and didn't really have anything to say and was just being stupid. Cuz you know....I'm pretty strange. Tiredness only exaggerates it. So tonight is just extra special. LOL.

Anywhoooo.....I think my office is going to move down the hall at work. I offered it up when I heard that we had acquired a new office down the hall that was previously used for storage. It actually works better that way anyways, b/c my current office is smack in the middle of the programming related area and I really don't need to be there when that office would work out much better for programming than the new office space down the hall which is really out of the way in relation to the other offices. But I'm a bit excited. It's virtually the same as my current office, only down on the quiet end of the hall.....yippee! And it works out better cuz it's right next door to my mom's office and she's the one who I "work" the closest with as far as our job duties are concerned, so it makes much more sense for me to swap offices with the programming crew. Plus....I think I scored brownie points for offering that suggestion since no one even thought of it before I said something and after a few moments to think about it, they jumped on it like they thought I might change my mind. ROFL! I'm not sure who scores the biggest in the end, but I'm thinking it might be me.....cuz it sure does bug me sometimes when the guys on the air start rockin away in the studio and it's right across from my office and I can't hear a single thing cuz the music is so loud. Not that I mind a little loud music, but generally they don't do that on the songs that I like. LOL. Go figure. Anywho. It will be nice to be down the hall where I can shut my door and nobody notice or rag me about it. LOL. I think they got the hint that the music was too loud when I got up and quietly shut my soundproof door. Cuz now when they'll turn the music up and then turn it back down long enough to ask me if it's loud enough to make me shut the door yet? Get a grip.

Okay, so this was going to be short. And it's been 40 minutes since I started typing. No, I don't really type that slow, but I keep erasing things I start to say. I'm gonna have to put the fact that people are reading this to the back of my mind so that I don't feel so paranoid about what I say....LOL.

Alright. Later.

Monday, May 28, 2007

I Got The Droopy Eyes....

I so didn't get a nap today. I didn't really feel that I needed one though....probably b/c I didn't get out of bed until like 8:45. And I probably would have been in bed longer than that except for the fact that KC did an early morning run to the city to exchange the mini fridge we bought the other night. (It was on sale at Target for cheaper than we paid for it at Sam's. Haha)

So I slept until the munchkin got me up. She apparently had been up for a little while. Comforting thought, that. I heard her standing in my doorway asking me if I was awake.....I moaned....she asked again....I moaned again.....that went on for who knows how long. Next thing I know, she's trying to crawl up on the bed. And you know, our bed is like up in the clouds, it's so high, she can't get up without assistance. So I am still trying to get my little blinkers open when I hear the start of the frustrated whine. I don't feel like moving, so I throw my foot out from under the covers and stick it to the edge of the bed, where she latches on and pulls herself up. After which, I promptly returned my foot to the warmth of my cozy comforter.

Bad idea, pulling her up. I had no choice but to wake up then. She bounced all over me, rolled into my face, hugged my head, tried to get under the covers, attacked my feet, tortured the cat......yeah. I figured I should get out of bed.

Then I realized that she was dressed in the clothes I took off of her last night. But being still half asleep, I had to pause for a minute to recollect the events of the previous night. Did I forget to put her jammies on last night? No, I know I took those clothes off of her. So I ask....where did you get those clothes? She says "I found them. My jammies wet. Me poop." LOVE-LY!

I'm like okay....great. So I go to her room. Shore nuff, her bed is wet, she peed through the pull up. Her jammies are in a pile on the floor but no pull up or poop is in sight. So I ask her what she did with her panties. She points to the trash can. Yep, there's her pullups. Okay, so where's the poop? She points to the pull up and says "in there." Nuh uh! Then I figure she must have thought that the way the pullup feels when it's wet was poop. I guess. Cuz I cleaned the house pretty thoroughly today and didn't find any poop. Anyways, except for her clothes being on backwards, I was pretty impressed with her waking up with an issue and taking care of it herself. Usually she just cries. And I had the monitor on, so I would have heard her crying and she didn't.

Anyways, KC was wonderful again today. As usual. He kept the munchkin out of my hair so I could get the floors cleaned and the house and laundry back into decent shape. And he washed the car, and supervised the munchkin playing in her little pool out back (actually, he got in the kiddie pool with her....which was a funny sight, since it's one of those hard plastic ones that is all of 10 inches deep and maybe 4 feet across....probably looked about as funny as I did when I sat in there with her the other day....LOL). But, it was a much more productive day than Saturday. I was very grateful. I actually felt like I got something accomplished.

Speaking of the bad days, let me pause here for a minute to extend my empathy (and sympathy) to my friend whose day didn't go nearly as well as mine did today. It was just one of those days when, as she so aptly put it, "the mountain is definitely on ME today." (As opposed to her being ON the mountain....which, I'm sure everyone would agree, is a much more enjoyable position to be in). That friend and her family came over for supper tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed it. LOL. And not just cuz she reads this blog either. Speaking of her and blogging, I'm trying to talk her into starting to blog. Cuz she shares the funniest stories about her kids. Teeehehe. Maybe sometime I can talk her into at least doing a guest blog on my blog about her little boy and his "moles" ROFL!!!! Anyways.....she's got the cutest kids (okay, so I guess half the credit for that has to go to her hubby, but you know how it is...LOL) and hopefully soon I'll get to do some pictures of their adorable family. =)

And also speaking of the bad days that seem to have hit me in the last few days....thank you to my wonderful friends who have stopped by to leave encouraging comments. It's much appreciated! It's nice to know that someone (or several) understands.

o-Tay. It's 10:37 now and I'm really feeling the urge to hit the hay. I have to go back to work tomorrow (joy) and I worked hard enough today to deserve some extra rest. Let me just put it this way (as I pat myself on the back), the house currently looks as close to looking like our house "before kids" as it has since the house has been occupied by the munchkin. And not only that, but the laundry is not only very close to being completely caught up, but it's also folded AND put away. AND there's not one last load that never made it out of the dryer that is waiting for mommy to need the dryer for another load before getting removed and folded. WOOHOO!

Okay I feel like I'm not making sense anymore, and it's taking too much effort to try, so I'm going now.

Later!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

The Post Where I Vent To Keep From Killing An Innocent Person

Oh my heavens. I am still hot. And actually, the more time goes by and the more I think about it, the hotter I get.

It doesn't help that I have got a killer headache from taking my medicine late b/c I forgot to take it before we left for church....then on top of that, we didn't have time to stop and get me some caffeine before church.....or like, you know....breakfast, so I was wrestling with the desire to eat the munchkin's snacks during the whole service. Things are somewhat improved now, as I'm enjoying a lovely can of Dr Pepper and took my medicine as soon as we got home, but the headache is taking awhile to go away.

However, in an attempt to be somewhat positive, today has been MARGINALLY better than yesterday. Also, looking over at my wonderful sweet hubby who is currently sandwiched between the very chatty young man who stayed with us last night and the little munchkin who lives with us, I do count my blessings that he is patiently entertaining the two of them without complaint (although when I started to take a picture of the KC sandwich on the loveseat he did stage a loud protest and I immediately gave in, since he is....you know.....entertaining the two of them right now and I'm pretty much home free at this particular moment....LOL).

Okay....I'm going back to my vent now cuz I really need to get this off my chest before I blow up on someone who doesn't deserve it.

I found out around 7 last night that I am teaching the 3-5 year old sunday school class this morning. First off, it is something that I have never done before. I've helped other teachers in the older classes a couple of times, and I regularly work with the pastor's wife to keep the babies-3 entertained during Sunday School (which doesn't involve any kind of lesson except playing kids music and keeping them from killing each other while they play with the baby toys in the nursery), but I've never actually "taught" a Sunday School Class on my own. And we weren't even close to being able to get home so I could pull something together. So I got up this morning and flew around, getting ready, trying to come up with an appropriate lesson for the 3-5 year olds at church, getting the munchkin ready, combing the young man's hair, and trying to keep the two of them out of KC's hair so that he could finish studying for HIS Sunday School lesson which was way more involved (since he teaches the adult sunday school at church).

So I do a desperate, quick yahoo search on sunday school lessons 3-5 year old.

Dear God, thank you, thank you, thank you for making men smart enough to create the wonderful invention called the internet!!! And also, thank you for the incredibly kind people who post sunday school lessons and activities for panicked desperate people like me to use. Amen!

So I found this really interesting lesson on ladybugs. And I love ladybugs. After today, I really love ladybugs. Unfortunately, the lesson plan didn't warn me that it would only take 5 minutes and the coloring page and activity would would bring it up to about 15 minutes, leaving me with 30 minutes to come up with something to do. I could have done the craft, which would have probably taken the rest of the 30 minutes and worked out great, but I didn't have the supplies, I didn't know what the regular teacher kept in the classroom, and I didn't have time to get it all together.

Really, none of that was the problem though. I'm creative. I improvised. We managed.

Here are some of the problems I had with this.

#1 - minor really, but somewhat disturbing: the first thing they wanted was to each have a piece of candy from the candy bucket. Duh? NO!

#2 - another minor, they didn't want to listen to a lesson, they wanted to play with the play doh and raid the prize bucket. Hello! And the aggravating thing is that when I said no, they went ahead and helped themselves. Well, one of them did. The other ones weren't regulars in this class and were clueless like me about the prize bucket. So I took the goodies that the one pulled out of the bucket and divided them between all the kids.

#3 - the most disturbing....and not so much disturbed at the child, but disturbed b/c I know where they're learning these habits. The munchkin was in Sunday School with me this morning. She's three now, so she's going to be in that class, but she's technically not supposed to move until the quarter is up when all the people who have had birthdays that quarter move up to the next class. But I took her with me this Sunday. So we're sitting there in SS and I ask if anyone wants to pray and this one kid says, "can we pray for my brother? Are you her mommy now? Where's her other mommy?"

Ooh I'm getting hot again. She caught me off guard and I wasn't sure how to answer that in front of the munchkin without making it worse. So I look at the munchkin and she has this LOOK on her face. Oh great. She understood the question. I am trying to be nice, so I answer the other kid and say, I'm her mommy, right munchkin? And the munchkin, who normally answers that question with a firm "uh huh!" just looks down at the floor. I look at the other kid and trying to control my frustration, I say okay, let's get back to SS!

Not 15 minutes later after we've talked about ladybugs and how they are helpful and how they save plants by eating the bad bugs and how we should be helpful and nice like ladybugs....we're getting ready to color the ladybug sheets and the kid comes out with the same exact question only more forceful. "Where's her OTHER mommy?" Oh, I was ready to blow! I started to answer nicely and said, "home" and then I decided, no, I'm not taking this. So I said something to the effect of (and still nicely) "That is a rude question. Do you think it's being very ladybug-like to ask questions that hurt other people? That doesn't make people feel very good. We need to be helpful and nice, not rude, and questions like that are rude, okay? It's really none of your business." And then she says "why not?" And I'm like, just color, okay? ARGH!!!!!

Now I realize that children are innocent, but this child's parents are not known for their tact. AND, not only that, but we specifically requested to the entire congregation (including this family) before we ever got any children placed in our home, to please refrain from those exact kind of questions. I should have known. Really. I mean, you can't tell those kids if you're planning a surprise party b/c they will go tell the person who is supposed to be surprised. Yeah, that's happened, too. Some of the other kids have asked us in front of her if she's our FOSTER child, although we specifically requested not to hear THAT question either, but that doesn't bother me QUITE as much b/c she's still too young to understand that term. However, other children who are older that may be placed with us WILL understand that term, so I wish these parents would have this discussion with their kids. If it continues to happen, I will personally talk to the parents myself. It's just SO irritating. UGH!

Okay. The movie that they were watching is over, so I should go now. Oh yeah.....and surprise of all surprises, the munchkin was absolutely enthralled with the movie......which was STAR WARS. AHHHHH.....a girl after daddy's own heart. I must say that I hope this turns into a permanent arrangement!!! And NOT just because she liked Star Wars. Hahaha!

Vent over. I feel better now.

By the way, Public Service Announcement here: if you have children, please have a chat with them about foster children and how much it hurts even the little ones when you ask them painful questions about their REAL moms and dads. Thanks!

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Dear God....

If you don't mind, I'd like to never have to repeat today again....okay? I know it could have been a lot worse, but at the moment, I'm not capable of thinking about that. So if we could just not have any re-runs of this day, that would be just peachy! But I do want you to know that no matter how bad of a day I'm having, I still love you, and you know that, right? Okay, good. That's all I have to say for now. And by the way....thanks for bein' there on my bad days as well as the good!!! I really do appreciate it! PS I know already mentioned this tonight, but while I'm here again, could you please help my friends who have had quite a few bad days lately? I think the devil is fighting all of us very hard right now, and while it's sometimes hard to see past that, please give us all the strength to make it through these rough times. Especially my friends....you know who they are....and thank you again!

So the straw that broke the camel's back? I was about one straw away from that point today. It was one crazy day.

Let me just make note of a few examples.....

6:30 am: I come to semi-consciousness to hear munchkin crying, so with my eyes only half open, I shuffle into the kitchen and grope around for her cup and pour milk in and shuffle back down the hall and into her room and toss the cup on the bed next to her as I say something along the lines of "it's okay, go back to sleep, it's not time to get up yet." and then shuffle back to my bed and pass out again. At least I think that's what happened, I wasn't really awake enough to remember much....

7:45 am: I start waking up to hear KC talking to the munchkin in the living room about her being wet because she wet clear through her pull up and all over her jammies and bed. I check the clock and then try to start convincing myself that I should try to get out of bed to take care of the problem and not fall back asleep. So I sit up and think about it for a few minutes while I try to keep my eyes open for longer than 3 seconds at a time. I'm still thinking about it when I hear KC and munchkin coming down the hall. Okay. Done thinking. I decide that if I lay back down and pretend to be asleep, maybe KC will take her to the bathroom and find her some dry clothes. LOL. It didn't work and somehow I didn't really figure it would. KC walked in and although I don't know how, he knew I was faking. At which point I decide that I'll just go ahead and get up cuz he is obviously not going to let me stay in bed.

7:45-11:30 am:
Strip the munchkin. Strip the bed. Start the washer. Dress the munchkin in dry play clothes. Take out the load of her sheets that were still in the dryer from the last bedwetting and dump them in an empty basket until I can get them back on her bed. Put the now clean, wet bedding into the dryer. Start the washer again for the load of her clothes. Get dressed myself. Fix us an egg for breakfast. Try to convince her to eat it and finally give up. Turn dora dvd on. Take clean sheets out of dryer. Go get clean bedding out of basket and start making the bed. Realize that the clean bedding from the basket is still wet (huh? it was dry when I took it out of the dryer?) and then smell a very strong pee smell and THEN realize that the wet was yellow wet and the cats had urinated in the basket of clean bedding (oh sick!). Remove the bedding and dump it back in the washer again and put the clean bedding that I just took out of the dryer in a safe place where the cats couldn't get to it until I could get the rest of the bedding clean again and put the bed back together. Help KC start cutting coupons. Put munchkin in her room when she starts throwing a fit and screaming b/c I told her to go play with her babies. Take turns with KC being the "bad guy" while she continues throwing her screaming fit and alternating with hitting the door and crying....and cutting coupons throughout the fit. Finally end that battle and peace reigns again and she is playing next to the cat food and water bowls while we finish clipping coupons. Suddenly hear this SNAP! glug, glug glug......she knocked the gallon jug of water which supplies the cat bowl OFF of the cat bowl and it is rapidly pouring all over the floor. KC flies out of the chair and grabs the jug in one hand and a towel in the other and hurriedly starts wiping up the puddle. He wasn't mad at her, but she got all upset and started her crying again and when I told her it was okay, that daddy wasn't mad at her, she kept crying and I told her to stop and then she threw another fit and was back in her room. In the middle of this drama, and back to clipping coupons when we hear this AWK, HACK HACK HACK.......URGHLE sound in the living room. I am thinking, okay what is she doing now when I start to go check, I see the white cat right smack in the middle of having a hairball on KC's computer's battery pack. Oh JOY. I thought KC was going to flip out after this happening back to back with the cat water drama. Clean that up, finish the coupons, end the battle over who knows what and peace once again ensues. She's alternating playing in her room and "helping" me with laundry when suddenly hear munchkin say, "me pee pee." Okay, so I say, "okay, go to the potty." Nope. No can do. Because seconds later, she says "me pee pee in my pants." Do WHAT? Uh nooo. This is after she had gone to the bathroom less than two hours before. And I hurry to her room to find her standing in the hall and her play pants are soaked, it's ran all down into her socks and sneakers, and not only that, it's puddled in the floor at her feet. HELLO? She's not drinking that much, where is she getting all this pee? So I strip her for the second time this morning, put a pullup on top of her underwear and put dry shorts on her. Clean up the puddle in the floor, throw her clothes and sneakers into the washing machine that is in the middle of washing the sheets that the cats peed on and go back to changing the sheets on my bed. Noted that there is a pile of cat poop in the office floor and KC is working on cleaning the litter box which was obviously full. (Oops) Then KC goes outside to work on the lawn and run some water into the little plastic pool he picked up this morning and the munchkin nearly throws a fit wanting to be out there with him. She can't because he's weed-eating and it's dangerous, so I am racking my brain to distract her....

11:30 am: AHHHH.....a stroke of brilliance. I rig up some blankets on the bunkbed and create a tent out of the bottom bunk. She played happily, crawling in and out, taking her babies in and out, opening and shutting the "flap door" for a good 45 minutes, after which I threw a couple of piece of bread in the toaster and made toasted cheese bread for her lunch. The tent idea worked until Daddy came in the house and then she lost interest.

12:30 pm: stuck her in the plastic pool to play. She had another screaming fit b/c I splashed her, then finally when I said if she didn't stop then we would go in the house and take a nap, she played (mostly) happily for about an hour and then said she needed to pee. So I took her inside (after some drama cuz she didn't want to go) and then put her down for a nap around 2 (with some more drama).

2-4 pm: mommy nap, peace and quiet, mommy shower, peace and quiet. BEAUTIFUL peace and quiet.

5-9:30 pm: gone to big town for the monthly grocery trip and to use all our lovely money-saving coupons. Some drama but a mostly better evening. Until she was riding on the bottom of the buggy in the grocery store and stuck her finger in the wheel while the cart was rolling (after Daddy had told her not to). Then she had a mashed finger and boohoo-ed and had major drama over that one.

9:30 pm: KC talks to one of our friends....some kind of troubles in the house, although I'm not sure what, so he offers to go get their youngest boy and keep him tonight, so he goes to get him while I put the munchkin in the bath and then in bed.

10:30 pm: well....here I am. And I'm about ready to go to sleep so that the rest of the household will go to sleep. *sigh* What a day. And I didn't get all the laundry done. It was just one of those days. Lots of running and getting nowhere. I washed like 5 loads of laundry.....and I still didn't get to the two loads that I was aiming to get finished. *sigh*

Count it all joy. Count it all joy. Count it all joy..........
Sleep. Now THAT's a joyful thought!!!!

Friday, May 25, 2007

Friday Is Over....

Unfortunately there will be no yardsale-ing for me tomorrow. Not until I can collect some of the junk out of the house and have a yard sale of our own. Bummer. I really just like getting out with friends and finding cool bargains. It's really addictive. So what if the house is getting full?! LOL.

Anyways. Today was pretty un-eventful. I took my camera today and took the photos to work with for the cd cover project. We'll see how that goes. I had to leave work early this afternoon to get part two of the project shots. I got those shots from this old house which isn't too far off my normal drive home.

oldhouse

We drive by it several times a week on our way to church and I've always looked at it and thought....wow, that place looks like it's about ready to be condemned. It's a cool looking old place, but it looks abandoned. Well....except for the yard around it is always mowed (although I'm assuming it is just part of someone's property and they don't want it to get all grown up, so they keep it cleared). Well....

I drove up to it today to get these pictures. It's a little bit off the road, so I couldn't just stop on the road to get the pictures and since the little driveway (although faint) looked pretty clean, I pulled up into the yard and turned off the engine. As I'm pulling in, I'm thinking....hmm.....this doesn't look as abandoned as I thought from the quick glances in passing. Particularly since the front door is open and I can faintly hear voices.

Now I'm thinking. Um. I guess it would probably be a bad idea to just walk around the house and snap pictures without asking permission first, since evidently there are folks occupying it. My second thought is....uhhh....what kind of "folks" exactly would occupy a house like this. And you know, it was back off the road a bit, and there weren't really any houses close by and I'm all by my lonesome. But the picture opportunity won out and I grabbed my camera and hopped out of the car before I could lose my nerve.

I started to lock the car but then changed my mind and unlocked it in case I needed to make a quick escape. (LOL....yes, I'm a paranoid freak!)

So I march up to the front door and knock. As I'm standing there, I hear voices.....it sounds like a bunch of rough guys playing cards or something. I'm beginning to get concerned and wonder if I shouldn't just go ahead and leave when I hear shuffling getting closer to the door. I'm crossing my fingers that this is a sweet old lady watching some old western on tv. Well....I got the old part right....and probably the old western part right, too.

Anyways, this guy comes to the door and you can tell that he's not interested in whatever I'm selling (or handing out...LOL) and he just stands on the other side of the door without opening it. So I start in...."good afternoon! I'm a photographer and I really like the old wood siding on your house and I was wondering if you'd mind if I take a few pictures really quick?"

He cocks his head to the side and says (very gruffly), "EH? I can't understand you! What's that?" And then he opens the door a bit as I gesture with my camera and repeat myself a little louder (although with a bit less confidence as I stumble trying to get my words out). This time, to my relief, he understands. And while he wasn't exactly overly happy to oblige, he said he didn't care, to go ahead. So I thank him profusely and tell him I won't take very long and he disappears back inside the house.

I back away from the house and start framing it in my camera to find the best angle. As I'm taking a full shot of the house, he appears in the door again. I think he might have felt bad for being gruff b/c he is quite a bit more friendly (even if a little awkward) as he says that the siding should look old b/c the house is about 300 years old. So I compliment him on the beautiful house again (hey, I think old houses ARE beautiful!) and again he disappears.

I walk around the house and get a few shots of the siding (these two, I think, are the keepers)

oldwood2 oldwood3

and then I'm ready to leave. I start to walk to the car, and then decide that it would be courteous to go back to the door and let him know that I'm finished and leaving now. So I go back to the door and knock again, and I hear him trying to get up, so I just poke my head in the door so he won't have to get up.

Bless his heart. I told him that I was finished and I appreciated him letting me take some pictures, and you could just tell that he was so lonely. He was even less gruff and was attempting to make conversation like he didn't want me to leave. So I stood on the doorstep with my head poking in and chatted with him for a few minutes before leaving. Bless him. He asked me if I was going to make any money on the pictures and I told him I doubted it, they were just for a work project and he said, well maybe you'll get lucky. I said that would be nice. Then he told me that he was 90 years old.

I didn't know what else to say, so I said "Wow! Congratulations!"

Then he kinda got gruff again and said, (something to the effect of:) "Oh no, missy, it's no fun being 90. I'd give anything to be your age again. Nobody wants to stay with you, you cain't get around, cain't hear, cain't even walk, and there ain't nothin to do 'cept sit here and watch tv all day and there ain't nothin on that's any good, less'n you buy the tapes. You better appreciate being young."

Geesh....what do you say to that? So I said, "I'm sorry, sir, I bet that is rough." (Awkward silence) "So have you lived here your whole life?"

To which he responds with, "No, I'm from Avery county...I been down here fifty years." (Which is almost longer than my MOM has been alive.) "I've lived here for a long time."

So I say again (for lack of more appropriate words coming to mind), "Wow! That IS a long time!" (Another awkward silence) "Well, I appreciate you letting me take a few pictures. Would you like me to send you some copies of what I took?"

"NO......Well, my girls have loaded the walls with photographs, I don't need more pictures....but thank you."

I'm like....well, okay. Thank you again! I hope you have a good day. (Which in case anyone else reads that and bangs their head with the palm of their hand, don't worry, I knew that sounded stupid to say to someone who just told me that all they did was sit and watch tv and basically just wait for death and as I was saying it for lack of something better coming to mind, I was mentally doing the head banging thing. DUMB! DUMB! DUMB, Faith!!!!)

Anyways so then I left. And as I was leaving, I looked at this old building and thought while I was there, I'd just get a picture of it, too. It was pretty cool old wood, too! =)

oldbuilding

It was a lovely and productive afternoon. So then I got the munchkin from daycare and got home and together we watered the flowers. Some flowers got more water than others. LOL.

And tonight we went up to the church for a girl at church's (who also happens to be my coworker that rides with me to work) graduation party. That was pretty fun....

Then we got home and put the munchkin to bed (which went smoother than the last few nights....thank God) and now.....well....here I am! =)

I considered doing a "journal jar" entry tonight but as it's 11:38, I think I'm going to pass. Anything I say at this point will probably not make much sense and could possibly be incriminating, since I'm too tired to care what I say right now. I do believe that the posts I made which included the hand drawn illustrations of my illegal driving habits was made after 11:30.

Alright. I'm already feeling like I'm just blathering now and I know it's probably b/c I am, so bye for now!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Journal Jar #1 - If You Were A Tree....

If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

So my first thought was: ohh....let's start by "googling" types of trees and seeing what each of the trees does and so on.....

I clicked on this one and started doing a little reading.

I learned from this page that there is no way I could be a redbud, since "It is a graceful and small tree" and you know I don't fit that. And after looking at each of the specimen trees (which create increased interest and beauty in your yard), I unfortunately don't think I could be anywhere in that category.

Next pick would be the Fruit Trees category b/c who wouldn't want to be described as "bringing more than just beauty to your landscape -- you'll be able to harvest a sweet crop of home-grown fruit, too." I'd like to think of myself as useful and sweet. Beauty would be nice, but I try to be realistic. And from what I'm reading so far ("Sweet, ripe fruit can attract yellow jackets and other critters.") this could very well be my spot if I were a tree. (ROFL!) Unfortunately, I'm not seeing any particular tree that could be a match for me.

So back to google. Okay....from the arbor day website....I think I'm going to choose this one since I don't really think any of the fruit trees fit.

Willow, Pussy
Salix caprea
The pussy willow has long been admired for its strong, spreading, upright stems, colorful autumn leaves, and the purplish-brown catkins that appear in March.

I chose this one b/c I have always liked the little pussy willows. They're generally straight up and down, just like me, and they're March babies. Just like me. Ah yes, and from time to time, I'm a little pussy cat. Which means (and I just googled that term as well to make sure there wasn't some terrible slang meaning to that phrase and in case you wondered, here's what I found) "Informal. One who is regarded as easygoing, mild-mannered, or amiable."

Yeah. I think it fits me. Oh and in one place it said pussy willows have long glossy brown hair. That could occasionally be a description of my legs. ROFL! JUST KIDDING! (mostly....HAHA!)

Thrifty? (not hardly!)

So my most darling hubby emails me at work today after looking at our bank statement. Take a little guess at how much we spent in thrift stores this month? LOL. No really.

Okay....give up yet? A hundred and SEVENTY FIVE dollars! yowza! Oops. So just think about this for a second. I thought about it and I have decided we should probably have a yardsale sometime soon. Because really. A hundred and seventy five dollars buys a LOT of STUFF in a thrift store. Stuff that is now in our house. Which means that we should get rid of stuff in our house that we don't use anymore. So that we'll have more money to go spend in thrift stores.....LOL. I'm seeing a vicious cycle here. Haha.

Oh and six hundred in gas and the month isn't over yet. OUCH! We drive a lot. The pathetic thing is that we haven't even been out of town this month....I mean like on vacation or anything like that. Yeah.....I'm thinking I don't really like it when KC uses his amazing Excel skills on things like our checkbook.....eh eh eh. =)

So it seems like I thought of all kinds of things that I wanted to blog about earlier today, but they seem to have done what all blog topics do when I finally get a chance to get on here.....DISAPPEAR. But let me tell you about this great shirt I found at the thrift store today. ROFL! Okay maybe I'll save that for another post since I have already ruined that subject for this post. Hahaha!

Oh, it was suggested to me that I design the cover art of the new compilation cd of live music recorded at work that we produce every year. Have I mentioned this already? It seems like I might have, so I'll skip the rest of the explanation and go straight into the part where I say that I'm actually coming up with a few ideas and have started sketching them down and running them by the staff to understand which direction I need to start in.....and I think we've found a direction. WOoHoo! Now we'll see if I can pull it off. I'll keep ya posted (in case you care). =)

So we are now entering the "munchkin doesn't want to stay in her bed when she's supposed to be sleeping" phase. Tonight we did the rocking to sleep routine as usual and on time and all that stuff....everything went just fine. She fell asleep, I carried her to her bed.....and as I'm laying her down, I look at her eyes and she shuts them really fast cuz I caught her looking. OH POO. Not good. So I go ahead and lay her down (cuz I'm stubborn enough not to take her back to the rocker once I've gotten her to the bed part) and then kneel down next to the bed with my hand on her back. Usually if she does wake up in moving, if I do that, she'll go right back to sleep. Oh no....not tonight. She's quiet for a bit so I remove my hand and wait to see if she's really sleeping. Nope. She waits a minute and then rolls her head around to see if I'm still in there. Of course I am, so I put my hand on her head and roll her head back on straight and sit there a little while.....and the process repeats. Several times. Finally I just slip out. Fine....until the next time she rolls her head around and realizes I'm not there anymore. Then the wahh-ing starts. *sigh* And then there's a pause while she listens to see if I'm rushing to comfort her. Of course I'm not. I'm sitting here blogging. And we all know that's much more important. (HAHA....JUST KIDDING). Anyways, I'm not rushing to comfort b/c she's playing me and I'm fully aware of it and I can be more stubborn than she can. Thank you very much. So the cry...pause.....cry.....pause.....thing goes on for a few minutes. Then I hear the cry and it's getting closer. Uh huh. I know what's coming next. This terribly sad little girl comes boohooing into the living room dragging her teddy by one arm. Classic scene, that. Am I sympathetic? You better believe I'm not. I lift her up under the arms and carry her and teddy-o back to bed, lay her gently in bed, tuck the covers back around her, and calmly leave the room, returning to my blogging. Oh and as I'm laying her back in bed the boohooing is worse than ever. I never said a word, just carried her in and tucked her back in and left. She did about two more rounds of the cry....pause....cry....thing (during which I had to stop KC from going in there and getting her and rocking her again b/c that would totally let her win) and then it's been silent for about 20 minutes now. I'm guessing she's gone by now since it's been quiet this long. And even if she's not? Well....I'm not going to go find out.....I'm going to pretend like I'm blissfully ignorant. Oh wait....the blissfully ignorant part isn't pretending. Haha. *sigh* Poor child. I feel so bad for her....I never let her win any of the important battles. It's such a rough life being a kid in our house. She's got more toys than she knows what to do with, gets more food in a day than she's probably gotten in a week, and has so many clothes that she's got two different wardrobes. One for good stuff and one for play clothes. And she's about spoiled rotten between the two of us (except when we don't let her win battles in an attempt to keep her from being discustingly rotten) and then let's not talk about the grandparents spoiling her. Yeah. We won't go there. LOL. (Love you guys! Heehe)

So I guess I could go get one of those journal topic things and write about one of those. I should probably start doing one in each post. Or maybe I should do a separate post for those. Probably should do that.....that way if I ever need to go back and find one for a scrapbook page, they'll be easier to locate. But the question is, do I want to start one of those tonight? Hmm. Maybe I'll go find an easy one.

In the meantime, I can't think of anything else that I had on my mind from today, so I guess I'll get moving here. Okay, so in all honesty, I CAN think of other things that were on my mind today, I'm just not feeling like posting them on here....or at least not on the public blog. And at this point I'm starting to get tired, so I probably won't get around to posting on the private blog tonight. Actually, I'll be doing good if I get to that journal jar topic thing-a-ma-jig.

So I'm going now because I'm just blathering and I heard a thump down the hall that I should probably go check out. Fingers crossed that it was one of the cats, cuz I'm ready to be done with the battle of the beds for tonight.

*big cheesing smiley face here while holding up two fingers in a V* (and you know what that stands for, right? NO, NOT PEACE....the OTHER thing)

Later!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Have I Ever Mentioned

How much I dislike the munchkin's bedtime? Actually, I don't dislike it being time for her to sleep, but I enormously dislike the process of getting there.

And it's not really that bad on an average night when everything stays on schedule, but if you throw a wrench of any kind into that schedule, it just throws EVERYTHING out of whack.

Like tonight.

Normally, once I can get her to lay still and close her eyes for about 3 minutes, she'll be out.....now getting to that "laying still" point takes approximately 10-15 minutes, give or take a few, but generally once I get her in the rocker, she'll be asleep in about 25 minutes and I can typically have her in bed by around 30 and all is well. That's if we get that routine started by 9:25 at the latest. Any later and you have to start adding 10 minutes to the process for every 5 minutes that you're late. Don't ask me why that is....I'm assuming that after that point she is overtired and can't just conk out like normal.

So tonight I didn't get that process started until 10:15. Bad. Very bad. We didn't get home from church (which always throws off the routine) until 9:15 and I didn't realize it when I washed the peed on sheets this evening that I had the protection pad on backwards, so it didn't protect the second layer of extra sheets, so they were still wet from this morning and EW.....stinky. SO. Lucky thing I had washed the Dora sheets before church and had the foresight to hang them up before we left so when we got home they were almost dry. However, I had the still wet extra sheets that I had to peel off the bed and dump in the washer, in addition to tossing the Dora sheets and jammies in the dryer to finish drying.....then making up the bed and getting her jammies on before I could actually start the sleepytime process.

Thankfully, KC helped (as usual) by doing the brushing teeth and bedtime story routine with her while I worked on the other stuff. Generally though, on late nights, we don't do the drawn out bedtime story, we just shorten it all so that we can get her to the sleepytime part before she gets to the overtired part. So that whole wet sheet thing after church really messed things up.

She laid perfectly still for like 10 minutes and I was sure she was out...then she rolled over and her eyes weren't even droopy. She did that like three times....finally I got discusted with that and just put her in bed. Where that was repeated like two more times. I finally snuck out with my fingers crossed that she wouldn't roll over and see that I wasn't in the room anymore. I think it worked (knock on wood) cuz it's been about 20 minutes since I left and I haven't heard any wailing yet.

It just drives me nuts when she takes forever to go to sleep. I know I should enjoy the cuddle time while I can, but with all the lights out and rocking her, I get SOOO sleepy and I try to stay awake cuz I hate to go to bed that early when I have so much that needs to be done and so little un-interrupted time to do it. *sigh*

One good thing though, she had excellent behavior all night....which I wasn't expecting after she started whining as soon as I picked her up from school. Usually if she is already whining before I can even get out of the preschool parking lot, it's going to be a rough night.....but she did good tonight. I gave her lots of praise for that.

Her school picture proofs turned out good. I will probably just get the smallest package and maybe one additional sheet of a different pose, simply b/c I believe social services pays about $20 on them. I just have a seriously difficult time paying those prices when I know I can take a picture of her out in my garage that I'll probably like just as well and will be able to get as many as I want in any sizes I want....for a lot less money!

Anyways. Since this is turning into a post all about the munchkin, let's move on.

At work today, one of my coworkers suggested that I design the cover for the next CD that we put together (we do a compilation disc every year). Last year I coordinated the design (basically played the middle man between the graphic designers and the staff's wishes and preferences) and I don't see how designing it myself could be any more difficult than that. I'm thinking about it.

In other foster news, I mentioned to our social worker that we might be interested in more kids if needed (yeah, i know....we're nuts, but anyways) so she comes back to me and says....funny you should mention it, but we've got this kid that is currently in foster care but his foster mom is having trouble and would like us to find somewhere else for him. He's a great kid and really smart, but he's hyper. Like HYPER. As in, he will wear you out QUICK! He's between 6 and 8 and if you might be interested, we can arrange for you to meet him and you can decide about it after you meet him.

So I email her back and ask her if it is ____. B/c at the foster care meeting last week, we heard some MAJOR horror stories about this one kid called ____ (from one couple that had kept him for a weekend, AND from the licensing worker who kept him for two hours and -in her words- nearly left her in tears) and if this is that kid, I'm not really sure we can handle him. So she writes back and YEP. It's that kid. Oooh. I'm just so not sure I can deal with that. KC and I talked about it, and I may email her and tell her we'll take him for a weekend to give the mom a break but that will probably be it. I'm just not sure my nerves can deal with that type of kid. I'd love to help any kid I can, but I just don't know that I could with this one. Who knows. Guess we'll see. LOL.

What can I say? Our life is getting boring and I need more stuff to write about. LOL....and isn't that a great reason to take a wild child? ROFL. I'm kidding. Honest.

Speaking of things to write about, I found some really cool questions to jumpstart journalling. I may use some of them on here.....it's nice to have all this stuff recorded. I wish there were some way to make sure it is backed up, but I don't really feel like going back over all the entries and printing or saving them to files. Too much work. Much easier just to cross my fingers and hope for the best. Haha.

Well.....it's kind of interesting to hear my non-blogging (or as far as I know non-blogging) friends from church say that they are checking in regularly to keep up with what's going on in my life. I'm totally honored! It's so sweet that ya'll (you know who you are) care enough to keep track of me. Seriously though, either ya'll need to start blogging (or let me know where to find it) or just let me know what's up with your lives, too, cuz it feels a little onesided to know that ya'll are up to date on my life but I have no clue what's going on in yours. Kay? *big grins* And I love you guys. Lots! I have great friends.

Okay. It's now like 11:30 and I'm getting really sleepy. So I'm going away now. I'm feeling very loving right now, so take your right arm and grab your left shoulder and then take your left arm and grab your right shoulder and squeeze really tight.....and consider yourself hugged. Have a wonderful evening. I'm going to go to bed and hope that this blissfully sweet (albeit slightly unusual) mood that I'm in will translate well into my dreams.....since last night's dreams were almost as weird as the last ones I posted.......*sigh*

Night ya'll.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Today's Forecast

As seen on a church sign this morning:
FORECAST: THE SON WILL SHINE FOREVER!

My personal forecast for today:
Sonshine today with a few clouds expected. Possibly some short thunderstorms later this evening clearing up around 9:30.

As I was driving I got to thinking (yeah I know, that's about as dangerous as me reading while I'm driving...LOL)....anyways, so I was thinking about how cloudy days are best for photography b/c it shows a more balanced and even subject as it diffuses the strong light and shadows created by the sun. And if you think about it, if the clouds are the trials or rough moments in your day, they diffuse the light of the son (which could almost be a bad thing) but if someone was taking a portrait of your life, they would get the best picture on a day that had clouds b/c it would show a more balanced and true image. And even the rainy days are beautiful in their own way. I don't know. Just some random thoughts. I suppose whoever put up that church sign would be glad to know it is provoking thought processes in random folks who happen by.

So I had some REALLY weird dreams last night. I mean like, STRANGE. I haven't had a whole lot of dreams that I have remembered enough to talk about lately, but last night. EESH. I don't remember all, but there are fragments of a couple of dreams that stuck with me.

In one little fragment I remember holding up my cell phone and discovering that it was a cell phone with an eyelash curler built into it and I was so psyched b/c I'd had it for awhile and never realized it. Must have been b/c I went into the verizon store yesterday with KC when he was inquiring about the cost of a new phone. LOL. Although I'm not sure where the eyelash curler part came from. ROFL!

Then the other dream was grossly weird. Like I said fragments. I and some other people were in my grandma's old front yard where I grew up at.....there were puppies running around the yard....one of my friends picked up this piece of puppy poo and broke it open and there was a gross little worm inside it and she said yep, they have worms......i looked around the yard and see lots of poo that is squirmy.....i'm really discusted at this point. Scene changes....I'm in some sort of room giving birth to pit bull puppies for a girl at work (like I'm some sort of surrogate mom) and after about 7 puppies are born, I realize that there are worms coming out with them and I'm super discusted....there were eight puppies in all.....the girl at work who raises puppies takes me to her vet to find out why I'm giving birth to puppies and worms.....the vet has no clue and I'm trying to figure out why I'm seeing a vet in the first place since I'm not a dog.....I guess somehow everything must have worked out okay b/c next thing I remember is being fine and being with the puppies and the girl at work being ecstatic over having 8 puppies b/c they were the really expensive kind (worth 2000 each) and she tried to give me one as payment for having them, but I didn't want a pit bull even though they were cute as puppies, so I told her she could sell them and then just give me the profit from one of them.

Okay....so yeah. REALLY weird. And gross. And I have no clue what all that was about. Yuck. I remember sort of waking up a little and thinking....ew this has to be a dream! Oh well. I'm really glad it was a dream. I don't really want to think about the logistics involved in the process of getting 8 puppies inside me, much less HAVING 8 puppies and ones with worms, no less. EW! I'll laugh about this later....at this point I'm still too grossed out.

So yesterday I feel like I didn't get anything done although I barely sat down to breathe even once. I did oodles of laundry. I washed up all those old clothes from the munchkin's first home (if you can call it a home), folded them, and packed them in bags to donate to the consignment shop for foster parents in town, then loaded them in the car and headed off to meet KC for lunch (just for the fun of it, since I was off). Ate lunch with him, ran some errands, headed back toward our town and went by the consignment shop.......it was closed. Go figure. SO I go back home and unload the clothes back into the garage. Then I did the other laundry and tidied up the house stuff. Paid the bills, spot mopped the sticky spots on the floor, washed the bath rugs and shower curtains, put away the few things I bought at walmart (like the new "over the door" shoe hanger for the munchkin's room) and then reorganized all her stuff so it's not such a crazy mess, cleaned up that play stove and put it away, re hung the shower curtains, watered the flowers......etc. By that time, it was getting close to time to pick her up from school.....so I still didn't get any scrapping done (although I was able to get pictures printed, so now I have them ready to put in her book....that's SOME progress I guess).

Then, as you already saw from my previous vent....errr....post, we went to the friends' boys' ball game and then back home to get the munchkin in bed.

And today it's back at work. Ahhhhh. When's my next day "off"?????

Oh yeah, and I don't know how it happened, but somehow I've gotten back hooked on the Doctor Pepper! Hey......what can I say? I'm a pepper for life! *sigh* It just tastes sooooo good.......

Monday, May 21, 2007

A Day Off

Only I think today was pretty much as busy as I've ever been on a day "off" (LOL). Oh well.

I'd tell ya all about it, but KC is already falling asleep in the recliner next to me and it's late, so I need to get on to bed. Tomorrow I get to go back to work so I can get some rest. Hahah.

Anyways, I just got on here to put these pictures from today up.....

Maybe I'll come back tomorrow with the boring details of my day.

Oh yeah....and blonde moment of the day.....referring to the hindcatcher as the shortstop while watching from the bleachers as our friends' boys played ball. Ooops. I thought....oh well. Never mind.

The pictures now.....
First ones are the before and after's of that play "stove" we picked up for the munchkin at the yard sale on Saturday. I cleaned it up and used a nice, big, fat sharpie to redraw the "eyes" on the stove.


projectbefore1


projectbefore2


projectafter1


projectafter2

Then the pictures from tonight when we went to watch the boys' ball game. I just have one thing to say about that. I don't think I'll ever be able to let my kids play ball in those little league things. Those coaches were so obviously playing favorites and calling plays that were so obviously wrong it wasn't even funny. And I'm not saying that because the team we were rooting for lost. They made bad calls in our favor a couple of times, and I still thought that was just WRONG. It's absolutely discusting. I'm sorry, that is just pathetic. It is pathetic that I was able to figure out who the coach's kid was, simply by how much he got to play and what position he was in and how often he was put at the head of the lineup. Sick. And it's pathetic that the same two kids had to rotate in the sitting out position every inning. Ugh. Anyways, other than that, it was fun. Can you tell it was my first time to watch a little league game? It IS called little league, right? LOL.

okay...nuff already....here's a couple of pics from that:

baseball1


baseball2

And this one wins my picture of the day.....I might actually frame this one. It's just tooo adorable!

baseball3

Kay. That's it for now. I'm off to bed. It's 11:04. 6:15 comes way too early. *sigh*

Oh. Yeah. And the munchkin came home from today's visit with ten fuschia fingernails.....and it's not just on the nails....several of her fingers are smeared with it as well. Ugh. I'm sorry. That's just not cool. I'm wondering if she'd wake up if I took some polish remover to her fingers while she's sleeping?!?! Not only that, but she apparently had a rough afternoon after the visit this morning AND since she got off school this afternoon, has pinched me a grand total of 5 times. She got time out and lost her bedtime story as a result. Argh. I really do hate Mondays.

Okay. I'm gone for real this time.

Later!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Pictures from Saturday (and other fun stuff)

shpatrol

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....no.....unless I have a CDL license and started driving a truck recently without knowing it, that wasn't me pulled over there in front of that cop. *grin* I just saw them pulled over and had to take a picture. Ya know, these guys are like my favorite people and all. Haha. I thought about just posting that picture and nothing else, but then decided that given my driving habits, ya'll might get worried that I was trying to say something really bad had happened. Speaking of my driving habits, I'm thinkin I might oughta start posting those stories over on my private insanity, too......since I was in the choir room before church this morning and at least three people mentioned my blog and self acknowledged terrible driving habits. LOL. Yikes. Seriously though, I'm not that bad....there's lots of folks that drive just as bad, they just won't admit it. Haha.

Anyways.....I didn't get that many spectacular pictures on Saturday....actually, nothing spectacular......except maybe this picture of KC....and that's only cuz he's spectacular. LOL. Oh well....some days it's just not there for me. No biggie. So I did at least pull my camera out....that's something!

kc507

Then there was the pizza place where we picked up the pizza and took it back down the hill to KC's parents house when we picked up the munchkin. We ate and got changed for church and then went to church after that.....


franks

So these are kinda in weird order, but who cares. This is coming down the hill from the big town......we had a great time.


downthemtn

Let's see.....what else is there to say? KC and I (and the munchkin, of course) stopped at a few yard sales yesterday morning on the way to maw-maw and paw-paw's house. We found this one yard sale that was really nice.....they had lots of clothes that were in great shape and although a lot of them were too small, there were a few that fit and I also found this wooden play stove for her. It needs cleaning but it will be cute when I get it fixed up. I'll take before and after pictures. The cool thing is that I got a whole bag full of clothes plus that little play stove for 10 bucks. Sweet! We went to two yard sales, then stopped at the flea market and that one yard sale was the only pay dirt we hit. Oh well. So then we took the munchkin to maw-maw and paw-paw's and left her there and took off up the hill. Found some nice shirts at the goodwill for me and one for munchkin....did a little shopping and hanging out. It was really nice. We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves with it being just us, and I think we've decided that one kid is getting too easy and we need at least 5 more.

ROFL. Yeah right.

Okay, so we did say we might be ready to consider other kids for the two openings in our house that we currently have, but it just depends. Who knows when social services might call....or how frustrated we might be at the time they call. Haha.

Yeah. We're nuts. We know.

Well....I'm going to get moving here...it's about time to get changed and ready to head back to church for the evening service.

Later!

Friday, May 18, 2007

I'm All Out Of Fun Titles

I was looking at some of my old posts today and I thought....wow....I actually used unique titles for my posts back then! The longer I blog, the more I find myself going to titles like: "Another Monday" or "Well" or "Long Day" and etc. *sigh* Back then I was using titles like "Caffeine Buzzed".

Anywhoooo....in case you haven't noticed, I've been trying to work on my sidebar that dummy me messed up. I have changed a few things and decided to add a few things over there. Some of the things I'm adding take up too much room to fit in the sidebar, so I'm creating posts and linking to the posts in the sidebar. So if you see weird posts showing up for previously unknown reasons....well....now they're known! *GRIN*

Tonight was really interesting. They're having revival again at church but I stayed home with the munchkin b/c I had to get the church newsletter printed out so they can reprint it on the copier at church. KC went on to church. I also needed laundry really bad. So bad in fact, that the day before yesterday, I actually went out and bought some "unmentionables" because I didn't have any that were clean and didn't have anywhere in the schedule to fit in a load. And I really did try! LOL. Anyways, tonight I worked on laundry, watched the munchkin, rounded up food for the two of us, changed both beds (cuz they were getting yucky), gave the munchkin a bath, got the munchkin ready for bed, did the editing on the newsletter, emptied the trash, printed the newsletter, folded the laundry, put the munchkin in bed, and tidied up the house a bit. Let me tell ya, I am wore OUT!

Things that made the night more interesting: (three guesses on the common denominator in each of the interesting situations....and the first two don't count! LOL)
- Munchkin had a problem in her pants in the middle of eating supper. I'll say no more. Well, actually, I will say one more thing about that: Yuck. Okay one more....it coulda' been worse. LOL.
- Munchkin decided to brush her teeth on her own before mommy could come help her, even though I told her to wait. I should have known that the quietness was signalling a problem. I got in the bathroom after I finished throwing the next load into the dryer to find red toothpaste smeared from one side of the sink to the other and a bathroom that smelled like strawberries. She was trying to scrape up the toothpaste with her brush.....and.....it wasn't working. *rolling eyes*
- Finding Munchkin's leftover food smeared on the floor looking partially chewed. Actually, I'm not sure who was to blame for this one, since I didn't throw it away right away, and it may have been the "giant flyin kitty" who created this mess. Anyways, it was discusting.

Well.....I'm going to put one last load into the dryer (hopefully it won't wake the munchkin) and then head off to bed. I'm really tired.....it's like 11:30 now and it's been a long day. Tomorrow the Mawmaw is keeping munchkin for the day and KC and I are heading up the hill for a day in the big town. I'm excited....it's been awhile since it's just been me and him for more than 30 minutes before bed. LOL Maybe I'll take pictures.

Later.

Blog Statement of Intent & A Little Disclaimer

My Reasons for blogging:
1. This blog is for my own personal pleasure and amusement. I love a good laugh, and living with myself, I never cease to be amused!
2. As someone has already said....it's cheap therapy, and heaven knows I can use it!
3. Protecting the memories of the little moments of my life from being forgotten.
4. Keeping my friends updated on my life (in case any of them care).
5. A place to keep journalling for future scrapbook pages (since as I just mentioned, I have a poor memory and if I wait until I actually scrap the pages, I probably won't remember what happened.

So there it is....my reasons this blog is in existence. And if YOU, whoever you are, that might happen to be reading this, catch a bit of my quirky sense of humor and get some enjoyment out of it, too, well, thats just twice the fun.

I just have to tell ya though, I hate deadlines and pressure, which makes blogging feel a little too much like work, (and this is strictly casual and not professional) so I don't guarantee a post every single day, but I do end up posting fairly regularly, so check back often for more random, slightly (okay....mostly) nutty, very fun, and generally pointless ramblings. But really....that's entirely up to you. No pressure. And thanks for stopping by!

But hang on. Don't stop reading yet. Here's a LITTLE disclaimer....

I sometimes use this blog to vent so that I (hopefully) don’t blow up on anyone in real life, so please pardon my occasional whining and complaining. Not only does it cool some of my anger and aggravation, it is also a lot easier to laugh about frustrating issues when you are blogging them.

Next, this is where I come to be me….the "real" me…mostly. Actually, this is the "somewhat censored, hopefully unoffensive" me. The "uncensored and possibly slightly offensive" me is only available in real life where I bare my soul to only a few rare individuals. So if you're reading this, please try not to be offended by the things I might say here, and I'll try to keep from writing offensive things. Also, please understand that I'm not a generally offensive person and I don't have anything that I'm hiding, it's just that some people offend easily and I try to avoid that at all costs, which is why I try to refrain from mentioning things that I feel might possibly offend.

Finally, if you’re looking for normal, you probably won’t find it here. But then again, it all depends on your definition of normal. After all….normal is really just a setting on my dryer!

Friday Funny

You can find today's Friday Funny from FiddleDeeDee over at It Coulda' Been Worse. My stomach is still hurting from laughing so hard at her most recent post.

See the small excerpt below if you don't believe me and then go read the whole post for yourself!!

Shopping for feminine products can be so embarrassing. Even for women. My mother loved to tell a story of an incident that happened to a woman in front of her in the grocery line, many years ago.

Read the whole post here. *WARNING* Make sure you don't take a huge sip of liquid while you're reading this, or you might end up giving your computer screen a bath.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Another long day

Shooooo. I am beat. And I also don't feel like making the repairs to my blog that dummy me messed up. Oh well.

I also don't really feel like blogging right this minute, so I'll just leave you with a few pictures from today....on the way home from work (we had to go a different way to drop off some mailers for work) we stopped at this cool little old train/gas station.....and CV wouldn't let me take any pictures of her, so I didn't really have a choice. *sigh* I love this setting though, and I wanted to record it in case I decide to go there to do a portrait session with anyone!


caboose1



station1



station2



caboose2

close up....me with glasses against the awesome red boxcar
caboose3
and then me withOUT glasses against the boxcar. I'm not sure which I like better. Somebody help me out here?
Obviously the sun was a little harsh, but I loved the red background....it SO rocked! And the gas station or whatever it was, was really neat!

Had a Foster Parent meeting tonight....it was fun....I liked just getting to meet up with the other foster parents and exchange stories and tips and all kinds of other stuff....plus they provided childcare, so we just showed up and didn't have to worry about the munchkin for two hours. Nice. Also cool, when we were leaving, a car was going out of the parking lot and saw us and stopped and it was the social worker who actually removed munchkin from the bad situation (not our current foster care caseworker) and she was just amazed at how well the munchkin is doing. She actually started crying. It was really sweet. She just kept saying over and over.....she looks so good! She's really grown! Wow! She looks so good! Anyways. that was nice.

Well....I'm off for now.
Later!

Dummy Me

I totally goofed my blog and lost all the last changes I had made in the last like 5 months. I thought I had a backup and when I uploaded it, it was an OLD backup. ARGH. So now I've lost all my cool sidebar stuff that I had put in there.....except my song....it's still there. *sigh*

I'm such an idiot sometimes. Well....at least I still had the header saved and was just able to reload that in the html. *sigh*

So a screenshot of the now needing work blog:



screenshot

Aww sheesh....*edited to add* and I couldn't leave well enough alone, and decided to try to copy the html from my private insanity which is (I thought) identical to this one.....I should have looked first. Now I've erased all the rest of the sidebar stuff and I'm going to have to start from scratch. Pppphhhhhhtttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

It's Been A Long Day

*Incredibly huge sigh here* I don't need to be on here. I need to be going and getting ready for bed. I had to get up at 5 this morning and I'm feeling it. It was really nice to be able to go to work and come home without having to worry about the munchkin. *grin* KC took her and then picked her up cuz my day was really long. I worked 6am-6pm.

I got a call a minute before 6pm from KC....he had picked up the munchkin, gone and got some supper and then got back to the house and realized he was locked out. And I hadn't left work yet. So I flew home (no tickets, thank God) and let him and munchkin in the house. He said just before I got there, she started saying she needed to potty and he had to try all kinds of things to distract her. LOL. Kinda funny. Anyways, she wasn't too hard on him, so he didn't have too terrible of a time with her today. He said when he got her up, she was like, "my mommy at work?" and then, "my daddy take me." and what is strange is that I had just briefly mentioned it the night before that daddy was going to get her ready the next morning cuz mommy had to go to work early....I only mentioned it one time and then the next morning she gets up and remembers that. She is one sharp little cookie!

Speaking of munchkin and her talking skills, she is really coming along on her speech. Just the last few weeks, she is talking in full sentences and learning to pronounce the words so that she's more understandable. It's pretty amazing. I am ready for someone that knew her before to see her so that we'll know how much progress she's really making b/c we live with her, so sometimes it's hard to be objective. But anyways.

Well. I'm off to get ready for bed now. I'm really tired.

Another Make-over

So I got bored with my blog again and decided to play around. Back to a header involving photos instead of scrapbook elements. Ehhh....it's nice for a change. Besides, I had fun playing with my pictures until I got an image I liked. =) All photography is mine.


screenshot

Monday, May 14, 2007

Monday Update

Well......the rest of my day didn't get any better. Had I known how this Monday would turn out as I was writing last night's post, I might have curbed the sarcasm just a bit as I seem to have jinxed myself. I might have also stayed in bed this morning.

So for those of you who commented on the post from this morning inquiring as to the nature of my "Other Hazardous Violations" warning ticket....

I was almost to work this morning, coming up the four-lane about a mile from work when I had to stop at a red light. So I stopped and b/c it had just turned red, I decided to pick up the foster parent newsletter (just a two page little brochure) and glance at it while I was waiting. So I'm glancing and the light turns green so I go, but a couple of things that were in the brochure had caught my attention, so I continued to skim the article, glancing up frequently as I drove. Apparently I got a little too far over the white line before I realized it and straightened up....then continued skimming. Apparently I didn't notice the cop behind me when I did that. Apparently I didn't notice the cop until he had pulled even in the lane next to me and out of the corner of my eye I realize that there is a car that is not passing me. So I glance over to figure out why and I realize it's a cop....as he's dropping back behind me and flipping on his lights. Fiddlesticks and snapdragons. I drop the newsletter like I've been burnt as I promptly flip on my signal and pull over.

He comes up to the window and let me tell you, as my friend/coworker who was with me said, he sure had HIS underwear all bunched up in a wad. Man, was he HOT. And I'm not talking about goodlooking kind of hot. I'm talking I got a lecture!

My side of the converstation consisted of me saying very timidly:
Yes, sir.
No, sir.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.....
.....well you get the picture.

He informed me of the reason he pulled me (the white line issue and then he saw me reading).
He let me know that driving consisted of both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road. Complete with hand gestures to help him make his point.
He lectured me on the reasons reading while driving was a bad idea (b/c I had a passenger. b/c I had a passenger who could read to me while I drove if neccessary, b/c if he'd had someone pulled and I swerved like that over the white line then I would put his life in "peril".....and so on)

Then he wanted to know what I was reading. So I said in a very small voice, the foster parent newsletter, and then he said, the what? And I said it again and then I just handed it to him. He looked over it and asked if I was going to class for it, and I said no, I'm a foster mom.

What was really funny here is that as he's looking over the newsletter, he is visibly cooling down. So when he asked me why I was reading it in the car, I said b/c I didn't have time at home and he didn't respond so I added, "but I'll make time." Then he handed it back to me and said in a much calmer voice, "I'm going back to my car, and I'm going to write you a warning ticket, but you need to pay attention when you drive. It's not going to cost you anything, and it won't make you do anything except be more careful when you're driving. So I said, yes, sir! And when he brought back the warning ticket, I said THANK YOU! And I very carefully drove between the white lines five miles below the speed limit for the last mile into work.

And don't you know that after we turned into the road for work and he went on down the road, me and CV looked at each other and busted out laughing?!? Mine was more out of nerves than anything. Oh my heavens. That was not exactly how I wanted to start my morning. I was just glad that I was able to contain my nerves until after he was out of sight. I don't think it would have gone over very well if I'd laughed when he said "you could put my life in peril" and believe me, I had to control myself on that one!!!! PERIL. Who says peril in normal conversations? ROFL!

But seriously, he was a very nice cop and I was super thankful that he was nice enough to just give me a warning cuz he definitely had me red-handed. But I told CV, if I'd been reading anything besides that foster parent newsletter, I can almost guarantee you that I'd have been scraping up some money to pay a ticket right about now, b/c you could see his attitude change as he took a look at what I was reading. I'm sure being in his line of duty, he knows a little about the whole foster parent thing and decided that deserved a favor. And I'm also sure that I'm very grateful for that huge favor. Whew.

Now the fact that I only got a warning was about the one good thing that happened all day. I got to work, started checking my mail and stuff and then called to check on the things that need to be wrapped up for tomorrow's contest to run smoothly. Could everything work out right? NOOOOooooo. The phones were messed up and off schedule, due to a misunderstanding/miscommunication, so I spent a good hour or so back and forth on the phone trying to get that straightened out. At the same time, another coworker and I were trying to get the computers updated and set up for each of the phone stations, only they were having serious issues due to the antivirus program which kept trying to update and locking the system down. Finally I deleted the program and went back in to download it fresh, only the antivirus download site wouldn't let me. Then we called IT (who I'd already called several times and couldn't get anyone) so they came up and gave me a blessing out for removing a program without asking their permission. They worked on them for a few minutes and we got the program re-installed, which solved one of the problems, but they were still crashing and locking down for whatever other reasons. I ran out and grabbed lunch and got back just in time for the meeting which lasted two hours and accomplished little more than officially announce things that we already knew. Then tried to work on the computers some more before giving up. Had to give up on the phone thing, too....also had another e-blast that needed to be posted before I left and I couldn't reach KC to get him to leave early to get the munchkin since it wasn't looking like I was going to be able to make it. Ended up calling my friend "Nik-ni" to take her home and having KC pick her up from there since we couldn't make it to the daycare before they closed. Then found out that BioM didn't show up for her visit with munchkin again. This is the second one she's missed, and this time she didn't call, so they picked up munchkin and mom never showed, so they took her back. When KC picked her up tonight, she was apparently telling him that her mommy was gone. And I'm just thinking she might have been referring to hearing the SW's say that her mommy didn't make it and being confused about that. Which really is sad. Although it makes me hope that somehow it will work out that I'll get to keep her. And that makes me feel a little sad about the situation, too. It's just sad.

Oh, and to top it all off......I had the luvly bellyache that comes with being a girl. YUCK. Like I needed anything else. Sorry, I know, TMI, but I'm having a pity party here, so get over it. LOL!

The evening has been good though. When I got home, KC was oh, so sympathetic, and said we could go out and grab fast food for supper, then when we got back, he worked in the garage and I worked on cleaning up the jogging stroller while munchkin played and then while I was getting her bath and ready for bed, he tidied up the house and did the dishes and all sorts of nice things like that. It was lovely. And he wasn't mad after he saw my warning ticket posted on my blog this morning either. *grin* That was lovely, too. =)

So all in all, at the end of the day, things did look up a bit. Now tomorrow will be interesting. I have to be at work at six. So KC is getting the munchkin dressed and to daycare before he goes to work. This is a first for him. I hope the munchkin doesn't give him too hard of a time. But then again, I hope she's not too easy on him either, so he'll understand a little of what I have gone through almost every morning for the last 2 months. *grin* Love you, honey! =)

Okay. So that's it for now. 5:05 is going to come awfully early in the am and I want to take my shower and lay out my clothes tonight so all I have to do is roll out of bed and hop in the car by 5:15 in the morn. *huge sigh*

Later!

WAIT! How did I KNOW today was Monday?

warning

Sunday, May 13, 2007

To My Moms....

For all the Moms in my life.....(as I seem to have something in me that cries out to be mothered)

My biological mom first:
For raising me right, not spoiling me, for loving me regardless of my driving skills, putting up with my teenage attitude, occasionally "telling me like it is", not letting me get by with murder (even when I wanted to kill my little brother), being a sympathetic ear when I need some reassurance, for babying me when I'm sick even now after I'm all grown up, for treating me like an adult, being a best friend, and constantly nagging me to eat healthier....THANK YOU! I love you!

My mother-in-law:
For raising my husband to know how to treat a girl....me in particular, not spoiling him, loving him and me regardless of my driving skills and housecleaning habits, for checking in to see how my week is going from time to time, for coming over to watch munchkin while I went to scrapbook with my friends and then cleaning my house while you were there, for the yummy recipes you pass along, the wisdom you never hesitate to impart, and for your blessing for me to be your son's wife.....THANK YOU! I love you!

My co-worker, Susan:
For all the conversations that make the days less boring, Friday lunches, being my walking buddy (although we kinda got sidetracked from that....we need to get back to it), listening to me vent, being a good friend, and nagging me about being too skinny.........Thank you! You rock!

My ex-supervisor, Karen:
For consistently nagging me to stay healthy in place of my mom who I saw less often at the time, always reminding me to take my vitamins, insisting that I try to get some rest so the circles under my eyes would go away, being sympathetic when I complained about the rough time I was getting on my second job....she doesn't read this blog, but I'll always appreciate her for that.

Everyone else that I don't have time to mention b/c it's really late and there is only ten minutes left of mothers day....and tomorrow is like....you know....MONDAY. And I have to get up early. Yuck.

So anyways. Ya'll. Happy Mother's Day. I love you. Thank you!

And all the other wonderful mom's out there. Even if your kids are too oblivious to let you know, they appreciate you and so do I. Now, more than ever.....mommy-ing is hard work. But it's important work. And it has a life-long effect.

First Mother's Day

Well.....it wasn't too bad. I still wasn't comfortable going to church this morning.....last year we skipped church on Mother's Day just cuz it's awkward and for myself, I hate being included as a mother with no children (see this post -- paragraphs 4, 5, & 6....although that incident did not happen on mother's day, similar ones have been known to happen on days like that.) And I know it's good intentions, but it doesn't make it easier....hence the reason I skipped last year. Just make it easier on everyone. So this year we went.

In a way it wasn't easier b/c I still feel the hurt of not being a biological mother, but in another way, it was very touching when Punkin lined up with all the other kids and got a carnation and then started walking back to me and then saw me and started running and squealing, "mommy! Look! Here, mommy!!!"

Course by the time she got to me, the stem had broke in three places from the running....and then she decided that she really didn't want to give me the flower, she'd rather keep it herself. LOL. I didn't mind. She also didn't want to give me the card she made in sunday school for mother's day. She wanted to give it to daddy. The little rascal. Guess that means that I get the Father's day card. LOL! Poor mommy. Got slighted twice. Oh well. It's the thought that counts. And by the time we arrived at Mawmaw & Pawpaw's for lunch, this is what it looked like:

mutilatedflower

So speaking of how cute she was today....I HAVE to share this picture that I took while we were waiting at Mawmaw's for Mawmaw and Pawpaw to get back from church. I blurred her face, but I may remove this picture in a couple of days anyways. But she was just adorable in this skirt that I got during my bargain hunting on Saturday. Two bucks. Can't beat that! Nuff said. Here's the picture:

cuteoutfit

PS The funny shape of the blur that is her head is b/c of the pigtails, not cuz she has a weird shaped head. LOL. I wish I could show her head cuz she had cute little butterflies on her pigtails and everything. She was just adorable this morning. But.....*huge sigh*......if I bend the rules any further, they will break and I can't do that. So catch this pic while it's here....I'll probably go back and delete these in a few days, just to be safe. Cuz you know....I'm a paranoid freak. About mostly everything.

Some things, of course, are excluded.....like breaking the rules of driving. ROFL. Ask "Nik-ni" how many times she nearly had a heart attack from my driving on Saturday. LOL. I mean, there is my usual driving, and then there is my "oops, I saw a yardsale sign back that way....let's just ______ (insert appropriate illegal maneuver here)" style of driving. Now mind you, I wasn't careless while doing this, I made sure not to, like, you know.....do any of the unsafe "slam on my brakes and cause the car behind me to crash into me just so I could turn into the yard-sale" type of illegal maneuvers, but I did do a couple of U-ies, ran a few red lights, etc. At one point, I actually did two illegal moves in order to avoid making one illegal turn. ROFL.

See, there is this one light in town that says no left turn at this intersection, but I needed to go down that road and it wasn't one way or anything, so I turned right and did a quick U-ey so I could go straight through and not do the illegal left turn, only by the time I finished that quick U-ey, the light had turned red....so I took a right again and did another U-ey and then turned right again at the light which was green. Let me see if I can draw a quick illustration in Photoshop.....

Okay...pardon the crude drawing....as you can see, this no left turn makes no sense, as all the other lanes can turn...... so here we were coming up to the intersection and I need to go down that way.

quickdrivingillus1

So here is how I did it.....hey. There were no signs that said no U-turns. And I was careful. There was traffic, but I waited until it was clear.

quickdrivingillus2

In case you couldn't figure it out, the red dotted line is how we went. And the red and green dots in the intersection stand for lights. Okay, so I won't sign up to illustrate the textbooks for driver's ed already. Sheesh....with my driving skills, I probably wouldn't even be allowed within 100 yards of potential drivers. LOL. Or their textbooks. Hahaha!

And now that I've ensured that no one will ever willingly ride with me again, (although I promise I will try to curb my bad driving habits for the faint of heart that might ride with me), that's about all I have to say for tonight. Tomorrow is Monday. Joy of all joys. Wait, wait, wait.....let me try to get a grip on my excitement here.....I'm having a tough time containing it. (please note, that was sarcastic....LOL!)

Here's hoping it will be a good week....
Later!