Lord have mercy on me . . . . .

cause nobody else will. Ok, the whole no paragraphs thing is driving me nuts. My fil was released from the hospital yesterday and is resting at home. Dh took the kids and I over there to visit. My sil and her two children just moved to San Jacinto, which is about 5 minutes away from where we live. Some of their stuff is still there at the in-laws house. Mainly my niece's toys and some other stuff. Of course LaKatie wanted to play with the toys. My mil put their old, crotchey dog in my niece's room and said that LaKatie couldn't play in there because that's the dog's room now. There are two other rooms that the dog could have been put into. She was just trying to keep LaKatie out of there so she couldn't play with the toys. What a load of bullshit. Things like this have happened before. When my sil and her daughter were living with us mil would by my niece toys and give my kids grab bags from the 99 cent store. When I say she bought her toys, I'm talking nice Disney toys, not junk. She would send letters and gifts to my niece, and not my kids. Once dh's aunt and uncle were visiting at the same time as my mil and dh's aunt asked my mil if she missed her grandkids. My mil replied with "yes, especially my granddaughter". I asked her which one, because she does have two. It was clear to everyone there that she missed my niece, not my daughter. Or at least she missed my niece more than she missed either of my children. I don't care if my niece was the first grandchild or not, you do not come into my home and insult me and my children that way. If you're looking to piss me off, that would be a good way to go about it. I don't care how much she spoils my niece when she's staying with her, but don't do that in my home. In my home all the grandkids are equal. At one point yesterday I asked my mil if I could go into the room and get LaKatie something to play with as she was bored out of her skull. She said yes, but reluctantly so. I could tell that she didn't really want me to go in there either. I said something to dh later that afternoon about it and he said that he had noticed it too and that he would speak to him mom about it. This morning before dh and the kids left to go back to the in-law's the kids told me that LaKatie couldn't wear my niece's play dress-up clothes because my niece wasn't there. Mikel told me that my niece, "A" doesn't go into Katie's room and play with Katie's toys. Which is not true. I make darn sure that my children share, as they would want other kids to share with them. I mentioned it to dh just before they left and he assured me that as long as dh or my fil were there that the kids would be allowed full access to the toys and the he "chewed her ass out", already. I hope he meant his mother. That may make him feel better about the situation, but I'm still madder than a wet hen about it. Those are my kids and I'll go to the wall for them. They won't be treated like that while I'm around to do something about it, especially by a grown woman that should know better.

Freedom!

I drove my mom to work today so I can actually leave the house. Literally being stuck at home with both kids nearly drove me insane yesterday. I never even got out of my pajamas and it's been a long time since I've done that. Dh took Mikel with him to the hospital for the morning and La Katie is still sleeping. There is peace and quiet through out the land. Shhhh! If you listen really hard you can hear the angels singing. Ok, very weird but I still haven't figured out how to make this computer let me make paragraphs. This is really going against the grain of my high school english teacher's lessons. I'm sorry! I'd make paragraphs if I could. Fil had three stints (sp?) put in Monday. The doctor said the arteries were so badly blocked that it was a wonder fil was even still alive. Today he is having a pace maker put in and hopefully should be out of the hospital by Friday. It's so nice visiting with my parents. I don't have to clean or cook dinner. This is a vacation! I clean up after myself and the kids ofcourse, but I don't have to scrub toilets or anything like that. Lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. The dial up isn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it's faster than our cable modem at home. I may switch. I think it's cheaper too. Cheaper is always nice. I have no idea what LaKatie and I will do today. Probably go to lunch and maybe do some window shopping. I want to find a used book store and hopefully pick up a couple of cheap books. I'm going insane without anything to read. I brought two books with me and finished both of them by Monday. I really miss my laptop. I don't have all my links and I it drives me crazy that I'm missing out on so many blogs. Having to google everything is really getting old. The kids went off the deep end last night and began jumping from the bed onto the matress on the floor. Even after several warnings from both me and my mom. Finally my mom went in there and threatened them with papa's belt, thus ending the jumping for the night. Later I found Mike running and diving onto the matress and doing a somersault. Oy. They just don't get it. I should be glad that they weren't swinging from the ceiling fan. Friday night my brother will be back and he'll have my three nephews with them. I'll need to get some booze before then. Not for me, for the kids. Just kidding. Have a lovely hump day!

Bored, bored, bored

I'm sooooo bored. It looks like we'll be here for the week. So far my fil has had two surgeries and will possibly be having another one in a day or two. The outlook is pretty grim and they hope to improve his quality of life while he's still with us. Dh spends pretty much all of his time at the hospital and I stay at my parent's with the kids. The hospital doesn't allow children under 12 into the rooms. For some reason my mom's computer is not letting me use the enter key, so I apologize for the lack of paragraphs. Very weird, hit enter and the cursor dissappears. It's magic! Oooooo, better be careful. I don't want someone calling me an idiot again. My mother and I took my truck to have the tires rotated and balance at WalMart on Sunday. We had quite a wait, so we thought we'd have breakfast at the McDonald's inside. OMG. It was just scary. First, they had no hashbrowns. In place of hashbrowns, they offer two apple pies. Ummmm, wouldn't french fries be a better replacement? You know, stick with the whole potato theme. Second, the soda machine was broken. Am I on Candid Camera? Third and the most amazing, they were completely out of napkins. None. Zero. Zilch. Why even open? Why not just post a sign announcing that due to a lack of hashbrowns, soda, and napkins they would not be opening today. They weren't telling people before they ordered either. "I'd like a medium coke." "The soda machine is broken." They didn't tell anybody they were out of napkins until they were asked. Oy! The agony. That on top of having to spend three and a half hours inside WalMart. It's a wonder I'm even here. I should be in a padded room right now talking to my toe nails. The upside is that I spent less than thirty dollars, not counting the tire stuff. Not bad. But by then I was hating life and almost ready to vow that I would never enter WalMart again. That will never happen. It couldn't get that bad, could it? Another silver lining is that I'm getting to just sit around on my butt and not do a damn thing. It's lovely. No house cleaning. Just imagine. What a concept huh? Outrageous I know.

On the road again

My fil had another heart attack yesterday, so we're heading off to Fresno. I don't know if I'll be posting as my parents are still living in the stone age and only have dial up. Dial up! If being at the hospital 22 hours a day doesn't drive me crazy, then the dial up noise will. I don't know when I'll be back, but the kids start school on the 28th so I know I'll be back before then.

The kids are excited to be going to their grandparents. There will be much spoiling and toy shopping this weekend. I need Starbucks. I had no idea I would be going on a road trip this morning. I've been packing and cleaning all day. Thank you FlyLady. Seriously, if you haven't checked this lady out, you really should.

TTFN. Everybody have a good weekend.

I have the power and I'm gonna use it

Yipee! I got my very first hate comment. I feel so special. I read, thought wtf?, and then deleted it. As this is MY blog and where I post MY opinions, I can do that. If you don't like what you read, then move along. You're not going to hurt my feelings or anything else. This is the only attention you'll get from me. You should know however, that when you leave a comment with your blogger id and then go back and remove it so you can post anonymously, I still get to see your blogger id. So yes, I now know who you are. You can continue to leave negative, hateful comments I'm sure Jesus will think really highly of that, and I will continue to delete them.

See I do believe in God and I'm not about insulting or dishonoring him by going around being mean to people who's beliefs and opinions don't match mine. Love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I remember those, do you?

It's witchcraft

I took the ankle biters to the free family movie festival at our local movie theater on Tuesday. While sitting there waiting for the movie to start I could hear the girl behind me explaining to her caregiver what the movie was about. They were showing Zathura which is basically Jumanji in outerspace. Same concept. It is a good movie, very cute and kept the kids interested. So anywho, the girl is explaining and says that it's just like Jumanji. Her caregiver responds with, "Jumanji has a lot of witchcraft in it! Should you be watching this?" I had to roll my eyes.

Are we in Salem yet? Puh-lease. It's called fiction. That means it's not real. You know make-believe, pretend, or imaginary. I know, using your imagination is probably a strain what with all the time you spend at fund raisers for Republicans and pro-Bush rallys. It truly must be exhausting. Being so closed minded must take a lot out of you. It reminds me of when people were sayingthat the spells and incantations in the Harry Potter novels were real. That is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. If that were true do you have any idea of how many people would be vomiting slugs right now?

I could really drive myself insane ranting about this. But before I get all fired up and pull out my soapbox I'll content myself with saying that I thought it was utterly ridiculous. Turns out that the girl had already seen the movie any way.

I will say though that I thought it was pretty funny when the words "dick" and "be-otch" were used and the whole audience gasped. I know it's supposed to be the family movie festival, but they're going to hear it sometime, if they haven't heard it already. That's your job as a parent to teach them that they aren't supposed to say things like that. Done right kids won't see it a so forbidden and not really think much about it. Hopefully. This from a woman who's cute little four year old daughter recently called her brother a f**ker. Uh huh, that's right. When she saw the look on my face she ran to her bed and buried her face and started crying. I didn't even have to say anything. She punished herself. That was pretty cool.

They've got his number

Dh needs to have "Impulse Shopper" tattooed on his forehead. You know all the tricks stores use to get you to buy all the useless stuff you don't need? Every single one of them works on my husband. End caps, anything marked "special buy", and fugedaboudit if it's on sale. The man loves to shop. I know, you think I'm crazy for complaining about it, but you're not the one shopping with him. If we're at the mall it's great. Especially because he usually spends money on me! But at the grocery store, where we're on a budget and I just want to get what we need and get out of there, he goes through EVERY SINGLE aisle. Every. Single. Aisle.

What's so bad about that you ask. Well, let me enlighten you. Even when he's not hungry he will throw whatever looks good into the cart. See I'm trying this thing where I plan dinner menus and get only what I'll need to make dinners for the next two weeks, and then shop for snacks and other meals. The first week I did it I cut my grocery bill in half. That was awesome. I was stoked because I actually had money left over. This week dh and the kids went with me. I overspent by about $70. Yeah. There went the fun money. Buh-bye. He better enjoy that food and none of it better go bad either. I swear I'll shove it up his nose.

La Katie has eaten a bowl of cereal, a popsicle, and is now on her second bowl of cereal. In the last hour. You think that they only eat like that when they're babies or teenagers, but really, they eat like wild animals all the damn time. She asked for some pirate cereal. I could figure out what in the hell she was talking about. She couldn't tell me what it looked like or where in the cabinet she thought it was. So I'm pulling every single cereal we have out of the cupboard and she points at the Captain Crunch. Ah! The light bulb goes on. Dur, d-dur, dur!

We bought some No More Tangles to help with brush La Katie's hair. It's all the way down to her butt and it is a bitch to brush and keep looking nice. She screams and hides any time I suggest cutting it. I'm not saying I'm going to cut it short, but jeez it takes forever to dry and she insists on wearing it down all the time. She never wants to put it back. Do you have any idea how tangled her hair gets? Any who, back to the No More Tangles spray. Apparently it's addicting. She's carried it around since we got home and she hasn't stopped spraying her hair. "But mom, I don't want my hair to get tangled!" Oy the vanity. Can you see me surviving her teenage years? I don't think I'm going to make it.

What I meant to say was . . . . . . . .

I was going to write a post about how I was kissing my husband and he asked me to move so he could see the tv. He's such a romantic. I know. I'm the luckiest woman alive.

But then I got up to blow my nose. I have pretty severe allergies. Sometimes my nose takes a pretty good beating. All beatings are good in case you were wondering. Some are just better than others. My point is I blew my nose and my nose started bleeding. Badly. Like for longer than five minutes badly. I had to put ice on my nose to get it to stop. Of course the kids were stuck like glue to me because wow, mom's nose is bleeding. Suddenly I'm a science experiment. They wanted to put me under a microscope.

Why is it that when something happens to you that the kids have never seen before, instead of just leaving you alone, they invite their friends over to watch? On the 4th of July I made the mistake of taking my birth control pill in the morning on an empty stomach. Not a good idea. We had stopped to get some ice when suddenly I began to hurl right there in the parking lot. I'm sure the people driving past thought I had started the party early. While I'm hanging half out of the truck clutching the seatbelt like a lifeline and puking my guts up in public. My son climbs over the seat to watch me and asks me what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Then once I've gained control over my stomach he announces the keen observation of "wow mom, that was a lot of puke!" I can always count on him for help.

Even when I am sick and would like nothing more than to stay in bed, the kids continue to come to me for their needs instead of their father. I am the master of the run-on sentence. Fear my wrath! I don't need rest. I'm mom. Knower of all things. Doer of all things. Is "doer" a word? But you get my point. Even on my death bed, they will still be asking for sandwiches and lemonade. A mother's work never EVER ends. You think that when your sweet little baby grows up and moves out that you'll be done. HA! Ha, I say. It is never over. While that thought might not be a shock to you, there was one moment when my son was a baby that I thought "I can't wait until he's 18." Then I realized, even then it will not be "over". It's not like the minute he becomes an adult I'll never worry about him again. You think that you can cut or untie your apron strings, but the truth is they are unbreakable.

Wow, this went from something funny to really depressing. I'm not even drinking! Maybe I should be. That's not a bad idea.

How could you not know that?

I had to go to the Post Office today and ship a book that I sold on Ebay. Of course I made sure to have it packaged and labeled beforeI got there. I suspect that the reason Post Office employees go postal, is because of the idiocy they have to put up with on a daily basis. They will package and label your stuff for you, IF you are paying for Express Mail. My point? This lady brought in two boxes that weren't taped shut. I should also mention that one was a box from Milk that you buy at Costco and the other one was a box from Fruit Punch. When you use boxes like that, they have to be wrapped in brown wrap. You can't have someone thinking that you're shipping milk, that would just be wrong.

Not only did this lady not know about having to wrap the boxes, but she just couldn't seem to understand why the postal employee wouldn't tape her boxes shut and print out a label for them. Then she got really upset when the postal employee showed her the display of tape and package wrap and what not for sale. She was actually pissed of that she was expected to wrap and label her own packages! The nerve of those damn postal employees. Good help is hard to find these days.

I realize that many people may not have the shipping experience that I do. In my previous job I did a lot of shipping with UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office. So I guess I am more familiar with shipping procedures that your average person, possibly or possbily not. But, it just seems like common sense to me that you go to the post office to buy postage and have the package delievered. It's the Post Office. Not the Package and Post Office.

Aunt Flo has left the building. Now I get the joy of paying for my birth control pills without insurance! Yipee. Since dh switched jobs we have to wait 90 days before we can get medical insurance. Which means we'll be paying for meds out of pocket. Dh's blood pressure medication isn't too expensive, it's the antidepressants that have me in a cold sweat. I can't go without them and there is no generic brand of Wellbutrin yet. So we'll be paying full price. Yikes. That's a depressing thought right there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that none of us gets sick or hurt. Oy! One thing ends and another begins.

Two and half weeks until school begins. I've started making lists of the things I'm going to do when the kids are gone. Like sleep, paint my toes, sleep, read, sleep, watch tv, and sleep.

I can't stand Jessica Simpson's new song. It's just the same thing over and over again. Sad that someone with such talent puts out such fluff. I still think poor Nick never should have married her. What a waste of a good looking man. Now he's a man whore.

Today's post brought to you by . . . . . . .

Caffeine and sugar, mother's little helpers. To hell with the swiffer, bring me a coke.

I felt so crappy last week. Aunt flo was visiting and she brought all her friends. Crampy, Bloaty, Grouchy, Munchy, Migraine, Hysterical, and Super Bitch. It was seven days and seven nights of pure unadulterated hell. At least that's what the kids are saying. The week passed for me in a sort of haze. It's hard to see when you've got a carton of Ben & Jerry's plastered to your face.

Now I'm back to my regular perky self. Well, not so much perky as my usual low level raving, psychotic bitchiness. Aren't you glad you don't live with me? The house next door to me is for sale, do I have any takers? I'm lots of fun three weeks out of the month! I'm a really good dancer and I make one heck of a fruit salad.

I must be going through some sort of manic phase cause I am bouncing off the walls already. Of course it could have something to do with the fact that I had a Coke and two Pepsis before lunch. I usually drink diet caffeine free soda, but I ran out so I dug into Dh's stash. Wow, this stuff is great. I cleaned my whole house this morning and I'm on my third load of laundry.

I so didn't feel like blogging last week. I didn't even read blogs last week. I checked in on a few, but my love affair with the computer fizzled a little. I spent most of my time holding down the couch. What in the heck are the Doodlebops supposed to be? Seriously, what are they? The question has been bugging for a very long time.

To prove just how insane I really am, whenever someone spends the night at our house, the minute they leave I strip all the beds and wash all the sheets. I think about washing the pillows, but that's too much even for me. I don't know what it is, but I get the creepy crawlies. I think I need a third medication. I'm just getting scary now.