trick or treat

We had lots of trick or treaters this evening. They were cute. I ran out of candy before the children stopped coming. So I gave out pop tarts. I closed the door when the pop tarts were gone.

am i sick?

I called my doctors office today from work. I was told that the doctor wants to see me again in his office.
WTF?
I didn't have the privacy or the time to question the person from his office that I spoke to. I planned on calling them back when I got home from work. But by the time I called them the office was already closed.
I'm back and forth between worrying myself sick and thinking it's probably just a little problem.
I'll call them again in the morning and find out what's going on.....

Tuesday (it is Tuesday isn't it?)

So I went to the doctor last week for a routine check up.
Today I had a message on my phone asking me to call the doctors office. They said they needed to speak to me about my lab results.
I didn't get the message until after office hours.
Now I have the whole night to worry, wonder and guess!

Daughters report card arrived in the mail today.
She passed her English class. Yay! She passed all her other classes too! Yay!

Little kitty (Joplin) is definitely in heat. She's been rolling around on her back..........doing a lot of meowing.......and she lunges for the door when opened.

I believe in innocent until proven guilty but...................................Casey Anthony..........William Balfour and Drew Petterson all belong in prison for the rest of their dirty, rotten lives.

Monday

I decided that I hate my living room.
I like the curtains and the newly painted walls. But that's it.
What to do......

Boyfriend and I are thinking/talking about moving in together.

Work was crazy busy today and I'm tired. So I'm going to bed.

Sunday

It's my weekend off from work. Yay!


I didn't do much yesterday.


I can say that we've fininshed painting the living room.........and boyfriend changed all my electrical outlets. The old ones had paint markings on them from years gone bye.


I threw or gave away some of my furniture. So last evening I shopped for a couple things. I've hung my new curtains & replaced outlet covers. All that's left to do is move around the furniture.

I'm happy with the way it turned out.



This afternoon I went to my sisters house for a baby shower. My nephew and his wife are expecting their first child. It was fun seeing my sisters, mom, and old friends. The baby will be the best dressed little girl for atleast her first year.




Boyfriend says Joplin is in heat and he has volunteered to take her to the vet next weekend to be "fixed."


I think she's too young. But we'll see.




I'm looking forward, already, to the holidays.

I'll probably start my Christmas shopping Thursday. I put a vacation request for the week of Christmas in in August. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's approved.

I work Thanksgiving. But that's ok with me. I like the holiday pay, and boyfriend can put the turkey in the oven while I'm at work.



That's about it.

Joplin

She's wore out from playing outside.
She'll be up all night pouncing on my head, or trying to nurse on my ear lobe.
I love her just the same....

Thursday

I took daughter to the doctor yesterday. She has a cold. I was concerned her ears might be infected too. Turns out though that they're ok.
The doctor preached to me cause daughter hasn't had a physical in his office for several years. I take her to the pediatrician when she's ill. I let the school advanced practiced nurse do her yearly physical. It's free, it's thorough, and I don't have to take time from my schedule to get it done. She has it done while in school.
The doctor didn't like my answer. But that's too bad. He's not paying my bills.

My new kitty, Joplin, is keeping me up at night. She stands on my body and kneads me like i'm a big ball of dough. Or she trys to suckle on different parts of my body.
Makes me feel badly for her cause I bet she misses her mom. So I pet her and tuck her beneath the blankets with me in hopes of curing her loneliness or whatever it is she's feeling.
I hope she gets over it soon. She's sitting on my shoulder right now.

I haven't finished painting my living room. What I do have done looks really good. I'm going shopping tomorrow for new curtains, lighting, outlet covers, and a couple new pieces of furniture.

sunday

I'm preparing the living room walls to be painted. I'm painting them a light brown. It should look pretty.
I considered hiring someone else to do the painting but I'd rather spend the money on stuff for the house.

I cleaned windows this morning.......and then I went to the grocery store.
Some of the time when I'm checking out at the grocery the person bagging my stuff will ask "do you want your laundry detergent in a bag?" Or they will ask if I want some other large item bagged. But today the girl asked "do you want your olives bagged?" Made me laugh.

I'm watching the news. They keep showing a clip of Mccain at one of his rallys. In the background to his right is one of my best friends from high school. She cheers for and then takes a picture of him.

I need to quit procrastinating.

plumbing

After my husband and I divorced, my middle son was extremely angry. Most of his anger was directed at me. He needed someone to blame for the break-up I guess, and maybe he was afraid I'd leave him too. He treated me with contempt. He constantly said hurtful things to me and he had fits of angry outbursts.


What he maybe didn't know was the way a mothers mind and heart works. Or atleast my mind and heart.


I wasn't going to give up on him the way I gave up on my marriage. I knew he thought I would, or maybe he was afraid I would. I guess he thought that if I'd give up on the marriage then why wouldn't I give up on him. He was testing me. He was acting out in grand fashion. And he was protesting the divorce.


His behaviors esculated. He put his head through the dining room window while throwing a temper tantrum. He was brought home by the cops for smoking pot in the parking lot of his dads apartment at the time............and while staying the night at a friends house, he ran from the cops when they tried to question him about being out after curfew. ( he ran to a creek in the woods and his boots/feet sunk and stuck in the mud....they caught him) :O)


We tried therapy. We'd go to the therapists office and my son absolutley refused to speak to her. He acknowledged her once, and that was to tell her he wouldn't be speaking to her, ever. The next 5 visits he sat in silence. (I can almost laugh about it now......Almost.)


I involved the school counselor. My son told me he hated my guts for doing that.....


I tried tough love. I tried manipulating him. I tried being patient, and I tried indulging him with love. Nothing seemed to work.


While all of this was going on, I had one plumbing problem after another in our house. The last estimate I had gotten was over 8 grand for a clogged bathroom sink. There was talk of having to remove a bathroom wall & replace well over 12 feet of pipe, ect. I intuitively knew the guy was a liar, and so I had 2 other companies come and give estimates. The 2nd guy said the same thing as guy #1. 3rd guy said he could do it for 1200-3000 bucks. I was overwhelmed, and feeling a little defeated.


I wasn't going to spend thousands of dollars fixing a clogged sink. I'd do without the sink if I had to..................Tantrum fit throwing son decided that with my help, he could probably fix the problem. I didn't have much faith in him at that point, but I went along with him anyway. So together he and I banged with a wrench on all of the exposed pipes in the garage, bathroom sink, and bathroom closet....................Son found the spot where he was certain the clog was....I couldn't hear a difference when we hit that area with the wrench. And I was pretty sure he was just copying something he'd seen on TV. But son insisted it's where the clog would be. Again I went along with him thinking what did I have to lose at this point. My life had fallen apart, and now so was my house. We went to Sears and bought a 5 dollar saw. For hours we sawed through a maybe 3 inch pipe. It was a son-of-a-bitch to cut through..........doesn't seem like it would be, but it was.........and then he moved up about 12 inches and cut through where he thought the clog ended. When that portion of the pipe was removed we noted that that 12 inch of pipe was impacted with dirt. It was as solid as a rock.


We bought a section of rubber pipe and 2 clamps. It cost 10 bucks. We connected the rubber pipe to the existing pipe that hung from the garage ceiling and clamped it at both ends. When we turned on the water it flowed freely and the pipe didn't leak. The several thousand dollar job ended up costing 15 bucks and it only took us 5 or 6 hours to do it.


But here's the thing...............as we were getting closer and closer to fixing the problem, I was secretly wishing it wouldn't end. Because son and I were connecting on a level that we hadn't been able to do for months and months. Even though son thought I was his enemy, he joined forces with me to fight an even bigger enemy...... the clogged pipe, and the rip off plumbers that threatened our family budget.





After we finished the job we high fived each other in a genuine display of affection and victory. We lingered in the garage for awhile talking to each other small talk, neither of us wanting the moment to end, and neither of us wanting to move on.



Eventually we did though...................



Something in our relationship with each other changed that afternoon. We both felt it.......and things have only continued to improve from there.... We both still brag to this day about how we fixed that clog. We even take friends and family downstairs and show them our fancy work. We're proud of it....... We both know we fixed much more than a pipe that day....







PS...............the next day I called all 3 companies that gave me an estimate on the job. I told them son and I did it ourselves for 15 bucks.......and fuck you, but no thanks!


PSS.................the dirt in the pipe was exacly like dirt on a baseball field. Son was playing for the high school baseball team at the time. I'm pretty sure he'd been washing his cleats in the bathroom sink.

monday

I fell alseep today after work. I felt guilty because daughter had cheerleading practice after school and from there she had a soccer game. I told her I'd have a warm supper waiting for her when she got home. But I didn't because I fell asleep. I woke up at 10pm, about half an hour after she got home. She'd already showered and had gone to bed. I went upstairs to check on her. She was in bed text messaging. We talked about her soccer game and her day at school.........and I apologized to her for not having a supper ready..........she's a good person....and I love her.

Work is going pretty good. I like the new owners. They've done a lot to improve the appearance of the building and continue to do so. Our health insurance benefits are better than what they used to be, and they let us keep our senority........the old company didn't contribute to our 401k.......the new owners do..........the new owners provide us with a free lunch........now I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but several of my co-workers went without because they didn't have food at home to pack a lunch and they couldn't afford to eat out.......so for some people a free lunch is a big deal................since i'm a frugal person, and with the economy being what it is......a free lunch is a great thing.

I'm seriously thinking about taking my money out of the bank and hiding it in my house. This economic crisis really has me scared.........and even though the money is insured, I just don't trut that it's safe.
The Wall Street bailout pisses me off. I was dead set against it. There had to be a dozen better solutions.....Washington (mother fuckers) chose to sell us out.

My middle son works at a huge car lot selling cars while going to college. He said banks and finance companies are turning down people with credit scores in the 700's for car loans. He sold 16 cars last month. So far he hasn't sold any cars this month.
The only good news I've heard in regards to the terrible state of our economy is that college tuition prices will plummet..........of course with everything else going up in cost, and the value of a buck being practically nothing, it still may not be affordable.

homecoming

It was a day of drama from the get go and it just continued on and on....I'm too spent to even talk about it................but by the time the kids were ready for the dance, everything had calmed down....and then things went ok......................daughters date is the guy in the white shirt with the gold tie. He was a very polite, well mannered young guy................and his mother was a delight (sounds corny. but it's true.)

It was a fun evening, and hopefully daughter and her friends are having a blast

PS.........daughters in the tan/gold dress

friday

Daughter was in the homecoming day parade this evening.
my sister called me on the phone while i was watching the parade.
she says she can't stand her husband. she said she wishes he'd just "shut the fuck up for a couple of minutes. he never shuts the fuck up!"

my other sister called to tell me that dad told her that mom isn't doing so well. so i called mom to see what's up. she asked if i was calling to check up on her. so i told her what dad told my sister. mom says "i'm feeling fine. the problem is that your dad is an ass. he's a real ASS and i'm not speaking to him. i havent talked to him for 3 days. i'm not sick. i'm just not speaking to your dad."

the parade was sweet. daughter ran over to the side of the street to give me a hug. her cheeks were pink from the cool air and she had a beautiful smile on her face. she seemed so happy. made me feel good.

i told my sister to stick with her marriage.......but only because she asked me if she should......and it's really what i think she should do. plus i think she's just pms.
i told my mom that maybe she should consider getting a divorce. They've been married 52 or 53 years....... and I was hoping she'd see how absurd my advise was and it would make her laugh. it didn't make her laugh but hopefully she felt better just by being able to tell someone how pissed off she is at dad.

my house

Seventeen years ago yesterday I bought my house. Of course I bought it with my husband....who is now my exhusband.......and so I bought the house again 7 years ago from him.
Happy anniversary, house!