"Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Writing Well"
Cousins are cool.
Especially when you’re best friends with them.
And milestones are that much sweeter when you can go through them together. Like getting your driving permit …
Or carrying your very first wallet and stepping into the manhood arena …
Or growing facial hair.
Cousins give you an excuse to BE you … only better.
… there really isn’t a point. This is just me, trying to make sense of my jumbled thoughts. Bear with me …
Health issues – they’re on my mind. I just recorded my thoughts to put into another barely audible post … and then promptly deleted it because it sounded so pathetic.
The bottom line? I need to go see a doctor. The other bottom line? I loathe doctors. L-O-A-T-HE them.
I’m having a rather large digestive problem. I’ve been having this same problem on and off for the past two years and have assumed it’s simply because I’m getting older and well, a body changes as it gets older. And I can adjust my diet AS LONG AS it doesn’t mean giving up sugar and/or caffeine.
But guess what? I have constant pressure now and I’m thinking it’s because of sugar.
I think I will make an appointment with the family doctor (that I’ve never seen personally – he’s Kevin’s doctor).
And I think a small part of me died just admitting that I might possibly, and I say MIGHT, have a problem that I simply can not control.
Speaking of doctors, I got a notice in the mail Saturday – the school is asking to see Jazz’s booster shot record.
Which I thought I had at one time, but can’t find now.
I took both boys in to have their booster shots two years ago – Dude was 14, Jazz was 12. And I gave the school Dude’s record, but for some idiotic reason, thought I would wait to give Jazz’s school his record and oh look! I can’t seem to find Jazz’s record now.
Do you know what this means?! I’m going to have to make a trip to Jazz’s doctor’s office and get a copy.
Do you know how much I hate jumping through hoops?
Jumping through hoops is as bad as …
Well, it sucks as much as …
The whole thing stinks like …
I just hate it, okay?
I think I just made my mother-in-law mad.
I don’t DO the phone. I don’t talk on it. I don’t answer it. I don’t use it. I figure, if someone wants to talk to me bad enough, they can leave a message. Or better yet, pop me an email, which I’ll see right away and respond to.
But the actual act of talking?
Yuk.
I have no idea why I feel this way. And I get worse as the years go by. I would just rather communicate via email / Twitter. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.
So, when someone *coughMILcough* calls, and calls and calls, over and over and over again, like 50 times in ten minutes, I get annoyed. And when I assume it’s one of the boys’ friends calling to harass us and I make one of them answer it, only to find out it wasn’t a friend but my MIL and I get snappy with her because she wants to drop by, for no apparent reason when we just saw her last weekend so honestly, what else is there to catch up on and I suspect the real reason she’s calling is to ONCE AGAIN try and guilt me into agreeing into going out to eat on Mother’s Day when I haven’t wanted to do that for, oh, the past five years or so …
*takes a breath*
I get cranky.
In case anyone is confused, let me clear something up – I will not be coerced into doing something that
A. I think is a total waste of time
and
B. I don’t want to spend the day, MY special day doing.
Let me explain:
When the boys were little, and by little I mean early grade school little, I felt pressured into going out to eat on Mother’s Day with Kevin’s family. Fine. Whatever.
I did it, and I hated it. Not because of my in-laws, but because Mother’s Day? Is like the busiest day of the year for restaurants because most moms? Don’t like to cook on Mother’s Day.
So, not only was the restaurant noisy? It was packed. And we ended up waiting an hour to be seated. And then, we had to squeeze into our humongous table (because every one HAD to go, and we’re talking 20 of us) and it would take forever for anyone to take our order, and even longer for the food to arrive and this entire time, I’m busy trying to keep two antsy boys busy while trying to hold a conversation with my family members and yeah, it was just not fun for me.
By the time we finished the meal from hell? Half of the day was gone. And I hadn’t even had time to go see my mom, or spend any time with my guys or do what I wanted to do before the day was over.
It got to the point where I HATED Mother’s Day because of the dreaded Mother’s Day lunch thing.
So, about five years ago, I finally got the balls to say, “um, no. Thanks. We’ll skip the dinner and come see you guys later.”
MIL? Not happy.
Me? Was too pissed to care.
Instead, we did what I wanted to do. We loaded up our bikes, packed up a lunch and drinks, rode the bike trails and had fun just spending time together and enjoying nature. No crowded restaurants. No wasted time. Just peace and relaxation.
But every few years, my MIL gets it into her head that suddenly, I’m going to forget my aversion to eating out and do what she wants me to do.
*pointed look* Will the woman never learn?
And so, it has begun. The calls. The guilt trip. The trying to get Kevin to side with her and “persuade” me to go along with her plans.
Kevin is a smart man. He stays out of it. Mother’s Day is my day. I’m more than happy to go visit her and spend some time with her, I’m a fair person, and I’m more than willing to compromise, but I will not waste the entire day JUST doing what she wants to do and forget about seeing my mom or doing something fun with my guys.
Newp. Ain’t gonna happen.
And so, the Mother’s Day saga continues …
Am I total loser because when Jazz’s 8th grade band performs at College of the Ozarks this Thursday I’m more concerned that he takes care of his shiny, new saxophone than I am for him?
I should totally win Mother of the Year, right? *snicker*
College of the Ozarks is only 45 minutes away from Springfield. So, I’m not overly concerned about him being away from me. I mean, if I can handle him traveling to Pittsburgh Kansas, which is 2 1/2 hours away, then I can certainly handle a measly 45 minutes, right?
But this trip will be with the ENTIRE 8th grade band, (last trip was just the jazz band), which is like 100 students. There is going to be a lot going on – and he’ll be with all of his friends. He’s going to be majorly distracted. And he doesn’t have the best track record of keeping track of his stuff. (Lost library books, jackets, money, etc).
So, I’m just a little concerned he won’t keep track of that new saxophone of his.
But I suppose I need to get over it, right? He’s going to be traveling with his new saxophone a lot next year, I mean, that’s the reason we bought him that saxophone to begin with – we certainly want him to use it.
If he was traveling JUST to perform, I wouldn’t be that worried. But their performance is at 9:00 – they will be spending the rest of the day at Silver Dollar City. This means, that after his performance, he’ll need to change out of his dress clothes, which means, he’ll have those dress clothes to keep track of. PLUS his phone. PLUS money to pay for meals, souvenirs, ON TOP OF his instrument and music.
I’m afraid that might be too much for him to keep track of.
We’ll see.
I wish I could go. I think it would not only be fun to watch his performance, but to hang out with the kids at SDC and take goofy pictures. (Hey! I’m cool enough to hang with a bunch of 14-year olds).
Of course, I think this would be cool. Jazz? Not so much.
One of Jazz’s friends’ dad is planning on going. At first, I thought he was playing chaperone, but Jazz told me that his music teacher said she believed the kids were old enough not to need a chaperone and that there weren’t going to be any.
Jazz said he felt sorry for this friend because his dad just smothers him. He won’t let him out of his sight and in fact, won’t even allow him to have any sort of interaction with friends online (and I can understand that, there is a lot of crap that goes on online, too).
This was a great opportunity to talk to Jazz about the importance of trust and that I could understand this parent’s need to protect his child – we all feel that way. But there comes a point in a child’s life where you simply HAVE to trust him.
BUT, I also pointed out that there is always two sides to a story so maybe Jazz’s friend had given his parents a reason NOT to trust him. One never knows what is going on and we shouldn’t get in the habit of judging a situation, especially when we don’t have all the facts.
I think our talk really showed Jazz how much we trust him. And I hope he continues to understand how precarious that trust is – take care of it.
I’ll be interested in hearing how that whole “hanging out with so-and-so’s dad” goes though.
Our local newspaper publishes school incident reports. And I’ve been rather obsessed with reading them lately.
These incidents relate to alcohol, drugs, weapons and sexual assaults that happen on school grounds. There are terribly sobering, and disturbing, to read. It’s hard to imagine these children get themselves into so much trouble. And it breaks my heart to read them because I can’t help but wonder just what in the world is going on in their family life that they feel like they have to act out like that.
I just pray Dude doesn’t ever feel like he has to do something as drastic to get whatever attention these other kids are craving.
It also makes me wonder just what kind of environment is Dude really in and how much is he NOT telling me?
I refuse to get scared about it though. Reality sucks and shielding our kids from the ugly side of life is only hurting them in the long run. My boys will just have to learn to deal with troublemakers and all sorts of unsavory influences – I’ll just have to trust, and pray, they make the right choices when it’s their time to choose a pathway.
Because they will have to choose – ALL children will have to choose at some point in their lives. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
Information is power. Parents, talk to your kids – they need our guidance.
Lastly: A note to my RSS readers – my apologizes about the Barely Audible article that posted. It wasn’t supposed to. Grr.
… there really isn’t a point. This is just me, trying to make sense of my jumbled thoughts. Bear with me …
I went to bed at 2:00 a.m. this morning. And my alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., jerking me so hard out of a deep sleep it felt like someone had attached my heart to the back of a pick up truck and went from zero to 70 mph in 2.2 seconds – I’m STILL waiting for it to resume a normal beat.
I don’t know. I simply wasn’t tired last night. I spent the majority of my night watching TV and toggling between two shows: Striking Distance (and may I just say Sarah Jessica Parker looked hideous in this movie – sorry Sarah) and The Prince and Me (which I confess, I spent most of my time watching because hello?! Cute, romantic and sweet).
I finally forced myself to turn the TV off at 2:00 – I could have stayed up longer.
I don’t have insomnia. In fact, it’s safe to say, I’m a great sleeper. I think the reason I couldn’t sleep last night was because of two things:
1. I took an iron pill.
2. I drank a Red Bull at around 4:00 in the afternoon.
The Red Bull is pretty self-explanatory (though I shouldn’t have drank it so late in the afternoon, more on that later), but the iron pill?
Yeah, I’m anemic, severely anemic, if you want the truth. So I’m tired pretty much all the time. I take frequent “power” naps (defined as anywhere between 30 minutes to one hour a day) because there are some days I literally can not keep my eyes open. When I worked outside the home, I took naps in my car. I kept a wind-up timer in my glove compartment and took power naps with my seat reclined because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have the energy to work out the rest of my shift.
I’ve accepted this about me. And I take iron supplements as a result. But I don’t take them nearly as often as I should, so when I do, it’s like someone plugged me in to a higher voltage outlet than I’m designed for and I end up walking around with an energy buzz for 24-hours.
Think watching a movie on fast forward – that would be me when my energy levels are high.
And then I drank a Red Bull on top of that – it’s really no wonder I couldn’t sleep last night.
But the crash is coming, mark my words. I just hope I time my crash so that I get this post published, finish the short story I’m planning to post for tomorrow, mop my very dirty kitchen floor, take my husband’s dry cleaning in, go to the bank and withdraw a few thousand in cash, fold laundry and still have enough time to catch a 20-minute snooze before it’s time to pick the boys up from school.
What’s up with the plans to make a cash withdrawal?
I’m glad you asked.
GD has his driving permit now. And I’ve taken it upon myself to teach him to drive, as opposed to Kevin teaching him how to drive. Why? Because believe it or not, (and if you know me, you’re going to roll your eyes), I think I would have more patience with the boy than Kevin would.
I know. Crazy, right?
But seriously, I know my son. He’s a timid personality who likes to worry in his spare time. He’s scared to death of causing a wreck and though I understand his fear on a basic level – who DIDN’T feel like that when they first started to drive – his fear borders on a phobia, I think.
We’ve had long talks about cutting out the negative comments. Comments like, “I’m going to crash,” or “what if I cause a wreck,” or “what if I hit a pedestrian.” Etc.
First of all, we’re FIRM BELIEVERS in the power of believing. It’s real and it’s powerful. Believing is a combination of trusting God and in sub-consciously/consciously making yourself make whatever it is you’re believing come true.
This can be a good thing – it can be a bad thing – it all depends on where your believing takes you.
For instance, people who SAY, or PREDICT something bad is going to happen in their lives usually have something bad happen in their lives. Don’t believe me? Pay attention. Listen. Observe. Have you ever noticed how many bad things happen to doom and gloom people? It’s partly because they believe it’s going to happen and they’re not taking proactive steps to turn their situation around.
But this post isn’t about that, it’s about teaching my son to be more positive – to trust God and himself.
Because of his fear of driving, I feel like I can be a little more patient with him as opposed to Kevin, who really doesn’t understand where he’s coming from. And though I’m not really like GD in that respect either, I do understand him – he comes from a family of worriers.
GD and I have been out driving twice so far. The first time, I took him to a parking lot and we practiced starting, stopping, turning and parking. We spent about fifteen minutes doing all of that when I instructed him to drive down a side street.
I could actually SEE the boy’s heart beating against his chest.
But we took it slow, and he did it. We drove down a few streets before making our way back to the parking lot. He has a tendency to hug the right side of the road and I found myself gently, but firmly steering him back to the center of the road (we nearly hit a mailbox or two) but overall, he did very well.
The second time I took him out to drive, Kevin sat in the back seat, but with strict instructions not to criticize or yell. (I only had to shush him a few times). We drove down around our neighborhood and again, he did very well, except he keeps wanting to hug that curb.
I surprised myself. We test drove in my car and I thought I would be all freaked out and nervous but honestly? I wasn’t. I trusted him. I KNEW he could do it and I KNEW God would protect us.
And they didn’t let me down.
Now, back to the cash withdrawal.
Kevin has been haunting Craigslist this whole weekend. We went out and looked at a 1999 cherry red Mercury Cougar, complete with sports’ bra, on Saturday. The owners were a bit … creepy, and she had a folder stuffed full of receipts and kept calling Kevin “sir” – “sir, I didn’t put that scratch there. Sir, I had put this much work into the car. Sir, I’m an honest person, I wouldn’t screw you over.”
Etc. She was a nice lady but just a tad too eager … something wasn’t quite right. And her asking price was about $1,500 over the blue book value.
However, the car ran great and we figured she was asking a bit more because of all the work she had had done on it so we could understand her position.
GD liked it. I did not. It was a nice looking car, and as I said, it ran great, but wow, sitting in that thing was like sitting on the road with a steering wheel in your hand – it was that low to the ground. And it was really hard to get in and out of.
But this wasn’t really about me, it was about what GD wanted, so, we put it on our “maybe” list.
Kevin then stumbled across an ad for a car in Clever, Missouri. That’s about 30 minutes from where we live. It was for a ’99 Cavalier, 99,000 miles and in good shape. And that’s about all the ad said. No picture, nothing.
He called the guy. And I was annoyed. We were going to drive 30-minutes out of our way to see a car that may not even meet our initial criteria?
Why yes, yes we were.
We drove out there and got lost. Grr. We finally met the guy at a gas station where he promptly told us to follow him.
Huh?
It was his daughter’s car and he didn’t know the address so he thought it would be easier for us to follow him out to her house. Swell. Now I’m really thinking this is a wild goose chase at this point and we’re going to end up in the boonies somewhere with strangers.
The Blair Witch Project briefly flashes through my mind.
But the daughter didn’t live very far and when we drove up to her house, I was VERY relieved to see it was a black Cavalier – GD had been pretty specific on the color – blue, black or red, no white, silver or anything “girly.”
The car was in surprisingly good shape. The girl had two car seats in the back (it’s a two-door) and I didn’t want her to have to mess with taking one out so I could sit in the back, so I stayed behind while Kevin and GD took it for a test drive.
I stayed in my car and Twittered. 😀
They came back and since I wasn’t with them, I tried to gauge their thoughts by their facial expressions – they were both stone masks. Kevin asked a few more questions about the car, told them we were very interested, we left and I immediately bombarded them with questions as soon as the door was closed.
“Did it run good? The brakes didn’t scrape or squeak when you applied them, did they? I didn’t see any rust, did you? How did it feel? GD, what did you think?”
Both of the guys liked the car. It was exactly what GD wanted and the price was reasonable and in the blue book range.
We called them when we got home and told them we wanted it.
So, I’m making a trip to the bank today to get the cash and a bill of sale and we’re driving back out there to pick it up at 6:30 tonight.
I’d like to say GD is excited, but he’s not. It’s disappointing, but not really surprising. I honestly think the boy thought he was just going to be able to stay a kid his entire life and have nothing more taxing to do than sit in his room and play video games all day. Though I hate to push him too hard, I think he needs to be pushed just a bit.
It’s time to be man, dude. Suck it up.
I’ll post pictures, and more about this driving thing, tomorrow.
I have so much fun tweeting the links I stumble across during the day and responding to other people’s tweets. It’s like I stumbled across this huge conversation and I’m free to come and go as much as I like and I don’t have to worry about appearing rude for leaving early, or over eager for jumping into the middle of it.
In fact, Twitter is taking up too much time. I’m finding myself checking it about a bazillon times every day and I’m not getting anything else done.
It’s time to put the brakes on this latest obsession and only allow myself to check it three (four, five?) times a day – max.
Have you heard of Reliv?
My in-laws are ALL about Reliv and they take every opportunity to talk about it whenever we see them.
*SIGH*
I like my in-laws, I honestly do, but it drives me crazy when they get involved in this sort of thing – they were HEAVY into Amway for years and years and then later into something else, but the name escapes me.
Now, it’s Reliv. They’re sellers, or whatever the buzzword is (I think the site calls them ambassadors?) So, we hear about the wonders of Reliv every time we get near them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s a great product, but it sounds just a bit too good to be true to me. And besides, who’s to say that the main reason this product is so successful, to have “healed” so many people is because people are believing it to work?
See? Back to that believing thing again.
But honestly? Who knows. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. The thing I can’t get past is … it’s so FREAKING EXPENSIVE!
Case in point: When my in-laws found out Kevin hasn’t been sleeping well (remember the whole going to the doctor for his sleep problem thing?), they jumped all over it.
“Oh. You really must try this product. It’ll change your life. You’ll start to feel so much better and you’ll be sleeping like a baby!”
Pardon my skepticism, but I’m a pretty hard-core critic of stuff like this.
However, because it’s his parents, and he loathes disappointing them, AND he’s willing to try nearly anything at this point to get a good night’s sleep, he said okay, he’d try some.
They came over last night with FOUR cans of this stuff. Each serves a different purpose and you mix various scoopfuls into your very own life-changing concoction.
Can you note the sarcasm?
I don’t mean to be a butt about this, and if I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to eat my words, but honestly? I think this whole thing is a scam. And when my MIL told me the price we needed to pay her (she was selling it to us at cost, you understand) that sort of solidified the whole scam thing for me.
We ended up keeping three of the cans and it cost us a whopping $73.00. For a month’s supply.
Kevin nearly had a cow.
This stuff, this vitamin cocktail that is supposed to change your life, is supposed to be mixed with water, or milk, and drank three times a day. You use a heaping scoopful from two of the cans and you gradually increase the scoopage from the third can over the course of four weeks.
My MIL said that results vary (of course), but that he should start noticing a difference in how he feels in about a week.
I have to tell you, for $73.00 a pop, it better be a significant difference and not something that simply changes his pee from yellow to say, green, for instance.
But again, we’ll see how it goes. And if it really does help him sleep, then by God, we’ll fork over the money because the man NEEDS to get a decent night’s sleep.
I guess it can’t hurt to try it. Unless you count it hurting our wallet.
Uh oh. I can feel sleep tapping me on the shoulder. I better get up and move around or I’m going to ….. ZzZZzZzZZZzzzzZZZzZZZ
Morning. Er. Afternoon.
It’s Monday. Already. Where did the weekend go again?
From The Simple Woman’s Daybook:
Outside my window… it’s windy. Spring winds are blowing in and I see our Maple trees are starting to bloom. I have mixed feelings about this – one on hand, spring is nearly here and it’ll be nice to hear the soft rustle of the leaves once again. But on the other hand, this means the four huge oak trees in our neighbor’s yard, just across the street, will also be blooming soon. And that means severe allergies for MK. 😦
I am thinking… that I have finally figured out why I’ve been so … brain-dead these past several weeks when it comes to blogging. I’m way too invested in the social networking time wasters. Don’t get me wrong, I ENJOY Twitter and I LOVE Google Reader, but that’s my problem, I love these programs too much. I’m spending way too much time on them and not enough time documenting my thoughts and life here on this blog.
And of course, THAT is way more important than building online friendships. (I’m kidding in case you didn’t catch that note of sarcasm).
I’m also thinking I probably shouldn’t share this video with you, but dang it, it’s funny AND true. In fact, I finally had to unfollow one gal on Twitter because her updates came every five seconds and were the most mundane tweets in the history of mundane tweets.
Tweet in moderation, folks. Please.
From the learning rooms… I’m really excited about this new blog design:
Dale, my buddy and pal over at Write Anything, graciously spent his Friday working on this re-design. Ain’t it da bomb?? LOVE it. I wanted something gender-neutral because we have both men and women writing for the Write Anything blog and I think the orange figures are perfect for that. I also love the orange guy mopping at the very bottom of the template: how fitting!
I’m looking forward to dissecting his code to find out how he configured the sidebar. I’m thinking I might have to use the same WordPress theme (Vigilance) here at Write From Karen in future designs. It’s very clean and easy to read.
I am thankful for… Kevin is finally going to the doctor. He’s a very poor sleeper and is tired all the time as a result. He’s had sleeping problems his entire life and has tried just about everything you can possibly think of to try and get a good night’s sleep.
Nothing has worked.
He’s going to his general doctor today, because the sleep clinic requires a doctor’s referral (don’t you hate all of the health care hoops you have to jump through?), but I’m thinking that when he gets to the crux of the problem, it’ll be sleep apnea. The man stops breathing – it’s so scary.
From the kitchen… Kevin made us BBQ fajitas for dinner last night. Oh. My. Gosh. They were so delicious. My husband is such a fabulous cook. He truly is! I wish I had half his patience when it comes to putting meals together. We’re having crockpot chicken tonight. Making crockpot meals is about as creative as I get when it comes to cooking.
I am reading… Nothing, at the moment. Which is another reason I think I’ve been spending way too much time on Twitter and Google Reader. I miss reading.
I’m getting ready to read a Harlequin romance on my Kindle. I haven’t read anything from Harlequin in quite some time. And the only reason I’m doing so now is because they had a promotion a while back giving free e-books away.
I thought, at one time, I’d like to write for Harlequin, but I think I would get bored with the formulaic approach to that market. I prefer to insert some twists and turns in my story and sometimes, life doesn’t always end happily ever after.
I am hoping… That I have finally figured out my digestive problems.
For those just tuning in, I’ve discovered, in just the past few years, that I’m not able to eat the same foods anymore. They affect me differently and well … let’s just leave it at that because for me to go further would push that information into the “too much information” category.
Suffice it to say, I’ve been taking Digestive Advantage and that stuff seems to really be helping me. I’ve been watching my diet, I’ve been walking on a regular basis and I haven’t had any problems for the past few weeks.
This has been such a huge blessing, and a relief, I can’t even begin to tell you. There are a few … unpleasant side effects from my adjustments, but again, let’s just say I’m dealing with them in the most natural way I know how.
I refuse to go to the doctor. I have no desire to be put on synthetic drugs – not when I can find a more natural alternative. If it gets any worse, I promise I’ll go to the doctor.
*fingers crossed*
I am creating… A week-long story to post for when we go on our cruise. I’d like to post a steamy romance story. My problem? Trying to make it PG-13 and not R-rated. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone, but I hate to put too many restrictions on the story, either.
I am hearing… Kevin mowing our lawn for the first time this season. He’s also flattening mole hills. Our neighborhood moles LOVED us this year. Our yard looks like someone planted landmines all over it. In fact, I just went outside to ask Kevin a question and I nearly twisted my ankle because our yard is so uneven.
Picture the dude from Caddy Shack chasing the gopher – that’s my husband chasing our moles exactly.
Around the house… Kevin put a sump pump under our house last weekend. It’s sort of a pet peeve of his having water under the house. Because then it’s moist and we start breathing mold spores. So he put a sump pump in to help alleviate that problem.
He went back under the house earlier today (he has today and tomorrow off from work), and in the process of plugging any leaks in our duct system, he stumbled across a gas leak.
Yeah. Not good.
He says it’s not very severe and there is enough ventilation under the house to disperse the fumes, but he’s very glad he found it before he sealed it up, that could have been very dangerous.
We’ve got a guy coming at 3:00 to fix it. It’s always something, isn’t it?
One of my favorite things… Dried pancakes.
I know, weird right? But honestly, it’s low-fat and it fills me up. I make a batch about every two days and between me and MK munching on them, they’re usually gone in 24-hours.
If you go that route, don’t dip them in syrup then you’re sort of defeating the whole low-fat portion of this equation. 🙂
A few plans for the rest of the week… The kids are on Spring Break this week. So, we don’t really have any plans, per se – just whatever we feel like doing.
But there are three things I’d like to get done this week:
1. Take GD to the DMV and have him take his learner’s permit test.
2. Find a new, better quality, saxophone for MK.
3. Replenish GD’s t-shirt supply. (They are getting too small and he says he feels “gay” in them. LOL)
I’d also like to get some writing done … but how many times have you heard that one?
Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you…
MK is the blonde boy in the front holding his saxophone up over his head like it weighs a 100 pounds. And he’s such a scrawny thing, it probably does! 😀
Weekend Top 5 is hosted by Kristi at The Wheelz are Rolling
Hot showers have really never been my thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a hot shower, but overall, I prefer my water to be a little more on the lukewarm side. My body tends to run hot much of the time, so honestly, a lukewarm shower is more comfortable for me.
But this weekend, my showers have been so hot that my skin is actually starting to bubble in protest.
Okay, my skin is not really developing blisters, but our water is now so hot that it could!
The plumbers paid us a visit Friday. They replaced our 33 year old water heater with a slightly bigger, more energy-efficient tank and let me tell ya, that baby CRANKS out the hot water! In the past, we would have to alternate when we took showers because if we ever made the mistake of taking showers at the same time (you know, one person in the front bathroom, another person in the back bathroom), then we inevitably ended up stumbling out of the stalls shivering and blue because the hot water ran out after about five minutes.
But now. Wow. We can run both showers, the dishwasher AND the washing machine and STILL have a ton of hot water to spare!
The guys are in heaven, they love it. But me? Well, this sucker is SO hot that I have to nearly turn it all the way down to “C” just to get something a little more lukewarm. I’m not complaining; I just don’t care for sweaty showers because to me, that defeats the purpose of taking a shower! HA!
The guys’ passports came in the mail Saturday.
Mine did not.
*blink*
Should I be worried about this?
Kevin was forced asked to volunteer for the annual Sertoma Chili Cookoff. Sertoma stands for, “Service to Mankind” and it’s an event sponsored by area businesses to raise money for the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of Springfield.
Businesses cook up batches of chili and customers can pay a fee to get in the door and sample these chilies. They then vote for their favorite and the winning company receives a trophy.
In addition to the cookoff, the event coincides with the downtown Mardi Gras pub crawl which means there are a lot of drunk, crazy people running around with tons of beads around their necks and sporting risque costumes.
Not exactly an event for children, but surprisingly, there are always a lot of children that show up.
Kevin was stationed at the back door to dissuade people from trying to get in without paying. He had to stand at the door for nearly four hours and turn away quite a few drunk people.
I didn’t go with him. I wasn’t about to pay $12.00 to fight these crowds:
Ugh. I don’t do crowds very well. I was really glad I wasn’t invited to volunteer. (Though I would have, if asked).
You can watch a video of the event, if you’re interested.
And here we go …
I’ve been watching the pollen counts steadily creeping up in our area. Kevin and I have noticed a difference just in how our sinuses have been acting up, but I’ve been keeping a watch on this chart via weather.com:
Right now, Cedar and Elm are high. When Oak appears on that list, I’ll have to dig out the Singular and Zyrtec and drug MK up.
Have I mentioned I hate this time of year? Yes? Then I’ll shut up about it. Suffice it to say, I’ll be GLAD when April is over. (Typically the time Oak trees bloom around here).
GD and I spent nearly three hours making out his schedule for next year. Not because it was terribly complicated or confusing but because the boy simply wouldn’t pick any classes!! ARGH!
GD is the type of boy who will take the easy way out, each and every time. He doesn’t like to use his brain very much unless it involves some sort of game strategy that will increase his ranking status among his peers. And then? Watch out – the boy is sharp as a tack and BITES.
But the whole “this is important because this is your future” thing? Not so much.
I was proud of myself though. I patiently sat next to him as he asked about possibilities and I read the class descriptions to him. I absolutely did not give him my input, well, not MUCH input, anyway. I gently guided him in the direction that he needed to go, but ultimately, I didn’t make any suggestions or pick any classes out for him.
And this is why it took so long for him to make any decisions. Because in the past, he would ask me what I thought, I would tell him, and that’s what he would settle for. This go-around, he would say, “What do you think, mom?” And I would come back with, “Actually son, the question is, what do YOU think? You’ll be taking the class after all. Is this something you think you might be interested in?”
In which he would reply, “I don’t know.”
And so, we sat around while we tossed nearly every class listed on the form until he finally made some decisions. He got very frustrated but I think it was good for him to actually THINK about what sort of future path he would like to explore. The only time the boy perked up was when we talked about the computer programming classes the school offered.
Only, one of the prerequisites was Algebra II. Which he hasn’t taken yet, but is scheduled for next year.
He got very frustrated with the prerequisites. But it was an opportune moment to teach him the importance of careful planning.
Here’s what we ended up scheduling him for next year:
English III (required), Liberty and Law (required), Civil War (he actually picked this one and acted interested in it), Japanese II (he picked it, but is nervous because it’ll be more challenging), Algebra II (required), Intro to Computer Programming (this is contingent on if he passes Algebra II with a C or better), Biology (required), Computer Applications (elective), Personal Finance (required – and a good idea, IMO), P.E. (required – he’s just retaking the weight class again), and an ACT Prep course (elective).
It was recommended that we go ahead and look at some possible courses for senior year – which was fun because by the time he is in 12th grade, the only thing he HAS to take is one more English class. So, for senior year, he’s what he has tentatively picked out:
English IV, Technical Writing (which is basically business writing and yes, I suggested this one *ahem*), Psychology, Economics, Advanced Computer Programming, Accounting I (I thought this might be fun for him since Kevin is an accountant and though a busy class, it’s not a terribly hard class), Earth Science, Relationships (which he rolled his eyes at, but honestly, his choices were pretty slim by this time) and Contemporary Living (which teaches kids to be smart shoppers).
I have no idea if he’ll stick with those classes come senior year, but I feel pretty good about his choices as those are pretty well-rounded and yet practical at the same time.
They gave us a copy of his transcript so we wouldn’t accidentally schedule him for a class he’s already taken and I was very proud of his grades, so far. It looks pretty decent, if I say so myself. I hope he can maintain the momentum.
Two years. My baby will graduate from high school in two, short years. *sigh*
Weekend Top 5 is hosted by Kristi at The Wheelz are Rolling
The big story at our house this weekend was – our credit card number was stolen.
Again.
This makes like the third time. AAARGH! *mumbles very unladylike language*
My husband signed onto our credit card account Saturday. He does this several times a week, just to make sure I’m not spending money on inconsequential things, er, I mean, he checks to make sure all of our purchases are legit. *ahem*
And I’m very glad he does this because when he signed on, he saw our account had been flagged. So, he called the company and they asked if we had purchased $100 worth of lumber in New Mexico.
*blinkblink*
Uh, no. So, they shut our account down immediately and we have new cards coming – we’ll hopefully receive them today.
This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but the ONLY thing we ever use to pay for anything anymore, is our credit card. I seldom have the checkbook on me and I never carry cash – ever. We use our card because it’s incredibly convenient and efficient, and we build Advantage points through AA for all of our purchases. Hence the reason our flight to Washington D.C. last year only cost us $40. Advantage points ROCK.
So, to suddenly not have a means to pay for anything was … weird. We have a backup card through our bank that we never use. So, we pulled that sucker out and noticed the expiration date was 3/09.
We promptly cut them both up and tossed them in the trash.
Only to realize, ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, that those cards, HADN’T expired yet and why the HECK did we cut them up?????
Because we’re both idiots, that’s why. I think we both thought – old cards – must be expired. *sigh* We’re a pair, aren’t we?
So now, we do not have ONE credit card to use. And it’s freaking us out.
We went grocery shopping on Saturday and had to use our debit card. For the first time. Ever. It was so strange to actually check our account to make sure we had enough money to cover our groceries. Because normally, we use our card and when the husband gets paid, he pays off the card and puts the excess in savings – we rarely keep much in our checking account because we don’t use our checking account very often.
This latest robbery was especially annoying because we are always very careful who we give our real number to. Most of the time, if I purchase something online, I get a virtual number. Which works great, because it’s good for the purchase only and after that, it no longer works.
But as someone pointed out to me on Twitter, credit card numbers don’t necessarily get stolen through an Internet purchase – some random dude at the bank, who is maybe having a hard time making ends meet, especially right now, was desperate and took a chance by stealing our number.
All I can say is? I hope that lumber was worth having charges filed against you, Mr. Thief.
I learned something about myself this past weekend: I’m apathetic.
Apathetic means: 1 : having or showing little or no feeling or emotion 2 : having little or no interest or concern. And I’m sharing these definitions with you because I had to look it up myself.
I am not proud of this discovery, in fact, it’s safe to say, I’m a bit alarmed by this discovery. I am not trying to make myself out to be some hard-nosed badass by telling you this; I’m telling you this because I’m being honest. If the circumstances are right, if I’ve taken all I’m going to take, if my boundaries have been pushed to the limit, and I pride myself on taking crap for a while before those limits are reached, if my patience has been rubbed so hard it starts to unravel, I-simply-do-not-care-about-the-situation-anymore.
And that scares me a little.
People who do not say what they mean, or mean what they say irritate me to no end. People who argue moot points, just for the sake of arguing, turn me completely off. People who can’t stick with the program, who are wishy-washy, who thrive on strife, and who aren’t even logical or reasonable in their arguments, affect me in a strange, and unpleasant way. It’s like someone simply flipped a switch inside my heart and *poof*, I’m done dealing with it, thinking about it and I’m moving on with my life.
Here’s a mirror, please argue with yourself. I’m outta here. I am who I am. I’m sorry if that disappoints some people but I’m a WYSIWYG sort of person – what you see is what you get. No head games. No false pretenses.
I don’t know why I felt compelled to tell you all this, but, there you have it.
We looked at a dog this weekend.
Quite by accident.
The husband noticed a new pet store. Well, it was new to us, before this whole dog issue I honestly never noticed any pet stores. So, we went to check it out.
It ended up being a dog store, slash, dog boarding place. They didn’t sell dogs. But while we were there talking to the guy he said, “Hey. The owner has a dog she’s looking to give away, would you like to see her?”
I nervously laughed and said “no.”
The husband perked right up and said, “yes.”
*sigh*
He brought the dog out. The guy couldn’t tell us what she was, she was a mixed … something. But if I were to guess, I’d say she definitely had some greyhound in her. Her body had that long, sleek, runner’s look to it and she had a long snout.
And she was hyper.
And very, very friendly. And very, very sweet. And when the husband leaned down to pet her and he looked up at me, his eyes brimming with happy tears, I nearly lost it.
In fact, I have tears in my eyes typing this. He wanted her. I did not.
I know. I’m such a heartless b*tch. But she was big folks. When she jumped on me, her paws came to my boobs. And I’m a tall person, as in a 5’9 inches tall person. I would go nuts if we had her in the house. And remember, I will be this dog’s primary caretaker. Since I work from home and am home all day, that’s just the way it works out.
Quite honestly, we are not ready for a dog. We don’t have anything. Not even a dog dish. And I know, you’re thinking, so buy a dog dish. But the biggest reason we didn’t bring her home? Our backyard is not fenced in yet. And this lovely, sweet dog REQUIRES a nice big back yard to jump, play and burn off energy. It would honestly be cruel to keep this dog pinned up in the house all day – she’s simply too active for that.
And I did mention I would never be intentionally cruel to an animal, right?
But the husband’s face. Good lord, his face nearly gave me a heart attack. He WANTS a dog so badly. I can honestly see that now. I can’t deny this any longer. I can’t be selfish – we will be getting a dog. I’m not just sure when yet.
Thank God the boys didn’t know anything about this, I honestly could not have handled all three of their boo-boo faces at once. I may be apathetic with other people at times, but when it comes to my family, I’m anything but.
We looked through the shore excursions for our summer cruise this weekend. In case you don’t know this, we’re going to these islands. And out of curiosity, more than anything, we wanted to see what was available.
Here are the packages we are considering:
Grand Cayman Islands: Shipwreck and Reef Snorkeling
Isla Rotan: Semi-Submarine / Shop Excursion
Belize: Explore the Mayan Site
Cozumel, Mexico:Rent scooters and revisit places we went to on our honeymoon.
Of course, all of these things cost money and wow, I’m not sure this vacation is any cheaper than Disney World would have been now, but this is what we really want to do and we’ll probably never do this with the kids again, so we may just tighten our belts and go for it.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
Can you get headaches if you don’t eat?
Today is the first day in about three days I haven’t had a headache. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been drinking more caffeine in the afternoons, or because I haven’t been eating nearly as much as I used to, but wow. They hurt.
And I can’t think.
But what else is new. 🙂
I’m proud of myself for sticking to my workout schedule these past two weeks – walk 5.75 miles four times a week and do Turbo Jam three times a week. I’m losing weight, but I’m hungry all the time (and I’m just toughing it out because my stomach will shrink eventually) and I’m enduring headaches.
But whatever. A small price to pay to look good for those vacation pictures, right? Who’s up for another bag of 100 calorie popcorn?
Weekend Top 5 is hosted by Kristi at The Wheelz are Rolling
We had a really busy weekend, where do I start … ?
It all began with the Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster from Sonic Drive-In. In order to fully appreciate what I’m saying here, you really must click on that link.
Did you see the size of that thing?! I ate that puppy, nearly all of it (I left some of the toast, but the meat and trimmings? Gone).
I made a deal with myself: after I ate that sandwich, I would then start the summer stretch, which is what I call the time period between now and the moment I put on summer clothing.
It’s time to get back into shape. And now that we’re going on our cruise (more on that in a moment), I really MUST do something about this flab. It’s all about the vacation pictures my friends, let me tell you. Because I never really realize how bad I look until we examine the vacation pictures and I notice the gut, or the flabby arms or geez, could I WEAR anything more ugly?? And I don’t want to be immortalized like that so …
Here’s my plan: From now until we go on our cruise, I will walk four times a week. I will do Turbo Jam three times a week. I will not eat junk food, of any kind, except once a week (because if I cut them out entirely I’ll crave them so bad that I’ll binge and eat a whole bag of candy before I’ve come to my senses). I plan on eating an apple or yogurt at around 11ish (no food before then, because truly, I’m never hungry until that time), eat a late lunch, eat a small salad before dinner and then eat only half of my normal portion for dinner.
And of course, drink plenty of water. I plan on eating lots of tuna, whole grains, low-fat popcorn, animal crackers, and cheese sticks. Anything that will fill me up but doesn’t have a lot of calories.
It’s time to get back on the fitness wagon once again. I’m gonna look HOT in this summer’s vacation pictures.
If you didn’t catch it on Twitter – we booked the cruise. It’s a done deal.
The husband and I spent close to an hour running totals and different scenarios through the American Airline website until we finally settled on a cruise.
We’re sailing to the Caribbean. Here’s our route:
We’ll be leaving the Port of Miami and sailing to Grand Cayman Islands, Isla Roatan off the coast of Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel, Mexico. I’m really looking forward to going to Cozumel because that’s where we honeymooned and I’m looking forward to going back to see how it changed and to show the boys where their parents’ lives really began.
The first and last day we’ll be at sea, which we really like because it will give us time to sort of come down from our beach high.
Our ship is the Carnival Valor:
After deciding on our cruise, we nearly booked it online but we hesitated because we weren’t sure how big the rooms were and if they would accommodate four people. And we really thought the boys would be more comfortable in their own room but we didn’t see that sort of option online, so we called Carnival.
And I’m glad we did because the guy ended up booking us two rooms, side-by-side, and I’m ecstatic because now we won’t be falling all over each other. It cost a few extra hundred dollars, but we figured it’ll be worth the money to have our space.
We also ended up buying the insurance, which I was surprised the husband agreed to – he doesn’t normally buy into that sort of thing, but we did this time in case we have to cancel for some reason or something comes up and we can’t go, or we have a medical situation on board (like we get sea sick, which will likely happen with me and GD), or our baggage is lost, etc.
The Carnival guy couldn’t book our flight, so after we finally got off the phone with him, we went back to AA.com and looked at flights. Again, we ran several scenarios through the calculator but in the end, we decided to drive to St. Louis and take a non-stop flight out of St. Louis and into Miami the night before we are scheduled to sail. We’ll spend the night in Miami (because it will stress me out if we fly ON the day we go to sea and there’s some delay and we don’t get there in time to go through the RIGOROUS customs routine, more on that in a minute).
We’ll do the whole trip in reverse when we get back. We decided to fly from St. Louis instead of Springfield because to fly from Springfield would have cost us an additional $1,800. ZOINK! So we figured even with the cost of the gas to drive up there and the parking lot fee to park it for a week AND the cost of the hotel in Miami, we were still coming out ahead in the end.
Eighteen hundred EXTRA dollars to fly out of Springfield! Isn’t that insane!?
We’re not able to cash in any of our Advantage points BUT, we’re getting quite a few points from the cruise and charging our trip is earning us more points so next year we should have enough Advantage points to fly all four of us somewhere we wouldn’t normally go because the flight would cost too much if we had to pay full price.
We’ve already been throwing some places around *cough-Hawaii-cough*
Carnival told us we would have to have passports. Apparently, beginning June 1, 2009, the government is demanding a passport from all US citizens on this type of trip now. When the husband and I took our last cruise, in 2000, all we had to show was our birth certificates and our driver’s licenses, but now, that won’t fly – or sail, as the case may be. 🙂
But we understand. Things are different now and really, we’re certainly proud to prove that we’re Americans so it’s really not a big deal …
Only it is. In order to get a passport we have to:
1. Get passport pictures taken. (Which cost $13.00 per person! ZOINK!)
2. Fill out applications online, but not sign them, and print them off.
3. Make an appt. with our main postal office to submit the applications.
4. Show our birth certificates and a picture ID, along with our applications and passport pictures.
5. Pay $45 per person to get our passport cards, ouch. (The books are like, over $100!!)
6. Wait 8+ weeks to get them back. (So if you’re planning anything like this, you might plan WELL in advance!!
So now I’m sweating, do I even HAVE our birth certificates? I plan on making a trip to our safety deposit box after I publish this to check. I’m thinking mine might not be in there, and if it’s not, then I’ll have to get a copy, which takes even more time … *breaks into a cold sweat*
Here’s our passport pictures. The lady told us we couldn’t smile which is the reason we all look so pissed off. Or like a serial killing Brady Bunch family. (I don’t know why mine turned out so much lighter than the guys – I can’t even look good for a lousy passport picture – *sigh*)
Not smiling is harder than it looks! I kept giggling and the poor girl taking my picture had to take several shots before this one. The boys? Had no trouble not smiling. 🙂
The husband dragged me out shopping Saturday. *shudder* We had to go out anyway to get our grocery shopping done, but while we were out, he really wanted to try and find himself a leather jacket. And being the end of the season he figured we would find a good deal.
Boy howdy, did we find a good deal:
See these bad boys? The coats, not the boys, though they’re bad, too. *grin* Guess how much we paid for those two coats. No really, guess.
Give up?
One hundred dollars. For both. It was a buy one, get one free deal and though we only went in to buy the husband a jacket, HELLO?! we couldn’t pass up the chance to buy a real leather coat for $50.00! These coats are regular … are you ready for this?
These coats are regular $225.00!!!!! I nearly fainted when the sales girl rang us up and the husband was so excited about not only the coat, but the great deal, that he was actually shaking when we left the store.
I think I’m beginning to understand the whole shopping appeal thing. *grin*
One more thing and then I’ll shut up …
I finally figured out how to text on my phone. I know. I’m a major dork but I just never took the time to really learn it before. But now, I know. And not only do I know how to text on my phone, I now know how to text to Twitter via my phone. So this means, I can take ya’ll with me during the day!
Aren’t you excited!?
If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me over here.
Write From Karen 