Can I have the candy now?

Pretty scary huh? Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch. The kids had a blast and got their faces painted. Katie said she wanted to be Dracula and that's what they gave her. Doesn't strike me as all that Dracula like, but she was happy with it. Mikel requested ladybugs. I swear sometimes I think my children have swapped bodies.


The smoke has finally cleared. Now there's just tons of ash floating around. We really need a good rain storm to wash all this crud away.

Why is it that the kids are completely capable of getting themselves a snack, but ask me to do it any way? Even if it means that they have to wait, they'll ask me to get it. What the heck is up with that?

Mikel think's he's Katie's second dad. The child defines bossy. He's more strict than I am! I turned around just now to see him standing on the kitchen counter with his shoes on. He couldn't understand what the big deal was. Men.

The fire. It still burns.

It's now being called the Esperanza fire and allegedly it was started on purpose. Don't you just love arsonists? Still smoke and ash everywhere. Not as black and ugly as the day before, but still ewwy. The school cancelled the Fall Festival that was supposed to be tonight and they are talking about rescheduling it for two weeks from now. The kids aren't as bummed as I thought they would be. At least Halloween is close at hand. What's really sad is that I was excited that they cancelled the festival because that means that I can eat the candy I bought for it. Whoopee!!! PMS season has begun and I'm working my way through a bag of snack size kitkats as I write. Chocolate is goooooooood!

Dh got a job! It's good because I really like this house and I'd like to keep living in it. He stars on November 6th so I only have one more week until freedom reigns again. I can't believe the man loves to watch Maury and Jerry Springer. Seriously if I had known what I know now before I married him I might have reconsidered. He hates chocolate and pizza and thinks having vanilla ice cream with apple pie is disgusting. The man has ISSUES. But he clearly has awesome taste in women.

Hopefully when the insurance starts up I can go and get myself some glasses. I feel like my eyeballs are about to fall out. I can't sit in front of the computer for more than five minutes without my eyes starting to burn. Am I getting old?

Deja Vu

There's a big fire about 15 miles from where we live. There is smoke and ash everywhere. It reminds me of the wildfires in San Diego a couple of years ago. The sun is completely blocked out and the smoke burns your nose when you go outside. It really sucks. The kids are on rainy day schedule until it clears up. That's a scary thought huh? Hundreds of kids kept inside all day and all night. There could be a mutiny. Already people are walking around with masks on, it looks like a sars outbreak.

I got myself a membership to the aquatic center. A very lovely heated indoor pool. Swimming year round yes indeedy. I used to swim a lot when I was younger. Swim team in high school and all that. It sure is different and a lot harder than I remember. It's funny how you remember how to do something but now that you're older and heavier (well maybe you yourself aren't heavier, but you get what I mean) that your body doesn't exactly work the way you want it too. Not exactly like riding a bike. When I got home from my first workout yesterday dh asked how it went and I told him I thought I was dying. Yikes I'm out of shape. Not that I thought I was in all that great shape anyway, but it seemed a whole lot worse yesterday. I've been walking a mile and a half to sometimes three miles a day and I didn't think the swimming would wear me out the way it has been. I guess it's not really the same huh? Duh.

As I stated in the last post, Katie has decided to be the Little Mermaid for Halloween. She's now launched a campaign for mermaid shoes. Ummmmm, honey, mermaids don't have feet. Thus, they don't wear shoes. She's not buying it. Not that I'm advocating her going barefoot on Halloween, but has anyone seen a pair of shoes with Ariel on them?! Cause all the other princesses that have feet have a pair of shoes with their picture on them. But not Ariel. What's up with the non-mermaid love?

Back to normal, if you want to call it that

My sil moved out last Thursday. I strongly suspect that she wasn't going to say anything until we noticed her moving her stuff out. Last time she just left and then came back a week later to get her stuff. I don't think she even told the school that her daughter would no longer be attending. Nice. Very adult. She said that it was just too hard to live down here. Not hard really, just not as easy as living with mom and dad and having them pay all the bills. I guess the reality was quite a shock. Being a single mom with two kids has to be pretty expensive especially when you're not working and refuse to get a job. Call me crazy, but the welfare system is extremely out of whack when they're not even requiring her to look for a job and the state keeps sending her checks. I thought the whole point of welfare was to help you along until you got back on your feet.

Kids never seem to pick up any good habits from each other do they? Every night at dinner now Katie spends the whole time whining about how she doesn't want to eat her dinner. Mikel takes at least an hour to do his homework. I really hope it doesn't take that long for them to unlearn this stuff. It's really frustrating to see another child behave badly and not be able to say anything and then have to deal with your kids behaving the same way. The lack of discipline is appalling. I never really saw myself as all that strict until I saw someone else that clearly wasn't. I told dh that never again will we have family live with us like that. Unless they really don't have anywhere else to go, and even then there will have to be some sort of time limit. The upheaval it causes in our lives just isn't worth it.

Katie has decided to be the Little Mermaid for Halloween and Mikel still wants to be an "Army". I'll go out on a limb and assume he means a soldier. Anybody have an army helmet I can borrow? The only costume store in town doesn't have any and the nearest Army surplus store is 40 minutes away. I'm creative and all, but I'm at a complete loss as to creating an army helmet. We used to have dh's, but of course we can't find it now. Perfect timing.

Our dog escaped on October 2nd. He found his way back home about 3 weeks later. He'd been groomed and he had a new collar. Thanks neighbor! Then a day after he found his way home someone left the back gate open and he escaped again. Sunday night while I was watching tv I heard something outside the screen door. I looked, and there he was again! At least we know his sense of direction is good. He's managed to find his way home twice. We've put a lock on the gate so hopefully this will be the last time Charlie goes walkabout.

I'm a Blogging Chick!

Look! I finally got the dang pictures up

Here's my Katie Lou at her birthday party. She was sitting around waiting for her guests to arrive. Well actually only one guest that doesn't live in our house showed up, but it worked out any way. There's a way to guarantee guests at your party, have them move in with you. She had a wonderful time and got tons of new Barbie stuff. My parents got her the collectible Disney Princess bells, they are so pretty. Katie's been very good about not playing with them.




Dh is using the treadmill right now. But it's only because he found out that I used it earlier this morning. What a copycat! Haha. I'm trying to work excercise back into my routine because I did feel a lot better when I was excercising. With the kids being in school it shouldn't be a problem to get something done while they're gone.

I went to the store the other day looking for a bag of the mallowcreme pumpkins. I love those things! The store was sold out so I settled for a bag of harvest mix. Turns out the pumpkins are Katie's favorite too. So now there's two of us digging through all the candy corn and indian corn to find the pumpkins. Disgraceful. You wait and see, out of the whole bag only the indian corn will be left. Nobody loves the brown ended candy corn.

Katie stayed home from school today because of a tummy ache. I told her that's what she gets for eating all the pumpkins. I'm kidding I didn't really tell her that. Now she's languishing on her bed wearing her Belle costume and a Sleeping Beauty tiara.


P.S. Haha Flickr! I have defeated you at last! I've gotten wise to your post eating ways and remembered to copy before clicking publish. Hahaha! You'll never eat another post of mine again.

Holy cow!

I just realized that this is my hundredth post. Wow, those went by pretty quick. 100 posts of absolute nonsense! If you're looking for something meaningful, you're probably not going to find it here.

If celebrities allegedly have stylists, then why do so many of them get photographed wearing outfits that look like they got dressed in the dark? Is there some sort of fashion trend that I'm missing out on? If I were paying someone to make sure that I'm fashionably dressed then I would expect to go about looking like, well a million bucks. Isn't it the stylist's job to stop them at the door and ask if they're really going to wear that? We see far more fashion dont's than fashion do's and that's just sad. They're supposed to have more money than most of us, so why aren't they better dressed?

Dh and I went shopping at Tar-jay a few days ago and something caught my eye. There was a rack in the very front of the accessory section of Dooney and Burke purses. At first I thought that Target was selling knock-offs, but then I realized that holy crap! they're the real thing. Is there anyone out there that actually goes to Target to buy a $179 purse? Isn't Target supposed to be like a bargain? Or at least affordable? It would be like walking into WalMart and seeing Versace, or ordering steak at McDonald's.

I spent all day in my sweat pants and it was wonderful.

Really, you should try this

For the past month or so I've really gotten into freebies. I've signed up for several freebie newsletters and have gotten some awesome stuff. I just love getting stuff for free. I get packages almost every day in the mail. My mailman looks at me funny, but he's the one wearing the funny postal shorts so there! One of my subscriptions is to FreebieFanatic they have tons of categories including free stuff for babies, for weddings, pets, coupons, and even free food! When you're as broke as I am free food is great. Just last week I got a free Senseo coffee maker. Everyone swore I was crazy when I told them that I was getting one. I had to do the "I told you so" dance when it arrived. It even came with free coffee!

I stockpile all my free samples of shampoo and toothpaste for when I travel. That way I don't have to buy the travel size and I don't have to try and take my full size stuff with me. I have so many free samples of deodorant that I haven't had to buy it in months. Sure it does take some time to go through all of the stuff, but you find some really awesome deals that way. So far I've gotten free books, dog treats, a t-shirt, drink mixes, a Kahlua shaker, and way more stuff than I can even begin to tell you about.

Could just be that I'm crazy, but free stuff is always a good thing.

What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?

While out and about today I saw a mechanic's shop. It was called Certified Automotive, but certified was spelled CERDAFIDE. I don't know about you, but that doesn't really inspire a whole lot of confidence for me. Kinda sounds like a place where you'd drop off a mercedes and pick up a metro.

My son just asked me what being gay means. Next he'll be asking where babies come from. He's only 6! He shouldn't be asking these questions. I explained as best I could without giving too many details, but when he asked me I almost swallowed my tongue.

Dh and I were having a "discussion" earlier. He said that all people that have tattoos are ghetto. He thinks that people are disrespecting themselves by defacing their bodies. I don't see it that way. It's their body, if they want to get tattoos all over themselves, then why not? I don't judge people based on the fact that they have a or several tattoos. That just seemed sooo judgemental and snobbish to me. We must have "discussed" the subject for 45 minutes before I finally gave up. I seriously wanted to take off his hat and smack him with it.

The in-laws are talking about coming to visit for Thanksgiving. Isn't that great? Can you feel my joy radiating through the screen? I'm sure you can. That light on the horizon? That's my smile! I'm beginning to feel like my house is a VW bug and we're going to see just how many people we can cram in.

I hate the surround sound

Dh traded something and got himself a surround sound set up. What does this mean? It means that everything now must be watched at window rattling volume. Our entire living room had to be rearranged and speakers had to be stuck to the walls. I've had a headache since he installed it and I'm pretty sure it's because all the fillings in my mouth have been vibrating for four days straight. Now he's talking about building all sorts of racks for the equipment. How exciting.

I should not be allowed near Target. That is dangerous. I can go to Costco and spend less than $100 no problem. I can't go to Target without spending at least $50, if not more. That's a problem because I get things we actually NEED at Costco. At Target I get all the goodies we don't need. But I want them, and their on sale! So buy them I must. They call to me, I swear they do.

Dh just told me that his dad is talking about coming to visit for Thanksgiving. I think I need to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. My sil and her two kids, plus my in-laws. That is a recipe for disaster my friends that no one should prepare. That's like put me in the psych ward kinda good.

Mikel asked me this morning if his girlfriend could move in with us. I barely managed to restrain myself from shrieking, "oh helllllllllllllll no!" I replied with a much more sedate, "you're way to young to even be thinking about that sort of think. When you're older and you have your own place, then you can do that". I think I did ok, considering he's six.

Weekend recap

Why is it that weekends go by so fast? I mean I know they're only two days long and all that, but the days go by slower during the week. Friday my sil went grocery shopping and got all of the basics. We came to the conclusion that it's impossible to feed 8 people for a month for less than $600. It doesn't help that she refuses to buy anything other than name brand stuff. I, on the other hand have a hard time paying for a name.

Saturday we all suffered another shopping trip to Wally World. All 7 of us. I still contend that shopping with children is hazadarous to their health. I don't know why but my husband seems to think that it's ok to let our children run about the store as though their hair were on fire. I was never allowed to behave that way in public. Not sticking by my parents and touching anything earned me a trip out to the car. We all know what happens at the car. That was a trip that I only took once. It took us about three hours to go through just the grocery side of the store. About 5 minutes into the trip I had a screaming headache. Dh just couldn't seem to grasp why I insist on shopping without the kids.

Sunday we just lazed around and didn't do much of anything. The kids spent most of the day playing outside. Here's where the ranting starts, so fasten your seat belts. I don't know why. I cannot for the life of me find a good reason, but my niece just drives me up the wall. Well, it's not just her. It's my sil and her kids. Don't get me wrong, their nice enough and for the most part we all get along rather well. The problem comes in where our parenting styles differ. My sil has lived with my in-laws pretty much the whole time before she moved in with us. My mil doesn't believe in really discipling a child. No spanking, no time outs. She thinks children should be happy all the time and that you should just give them what they want. So you can imagine what my niece is like. Spoiled rotten and thinks everyone should pay sole attention to her. Also, being an only child she's not really used to sharing. Now I know that I can't expect her to understand and it's not really her fault, but when she doesn't want to share her stuff, but expects my kids to share with her, it drives me nuts.

I think part of it is that I'm not used to being around a baby 24/7 any more. Every time he starts crying, and he's been doing a lot of that lately, I have the overwhelming urge to snatch him out of her arms. After dropping off Katie at school today I came home to hearing the baby screaming his lungs out while my sil took a shower. At first I thought he was in his crib, but then I realized that he was in the bathroom with her. I offered to take him for a few minutes while she finished up, but she declined and the baby continued to scream for at least a good 10 minutes. I find it hard to believe that doesn't bother her. I could never just stand there and listen to one of my babies scream like that. The poor baby is totally off of his schedule, he's not eating like he normaly does and the naps are non-exsistent. I mostly just feel bad for the baby. I find it frustrating because I know she doesn't know much, but I don't want her to feel like I'm telling her what to do. I would really like to help and give her a break if she needs it. Being a single mom can't be easy.

Over all the weekend wasn't too bad. Not long enough as usual. For some reason I still keep trying to do more stuff on the weekend instead of during the week. I need to get back to my routines and FlyLady. I really fell off the wagon. I was a good girl today and got up early and got myself put together and had the house cleaned before taking Katie to school. That felt really great and I felt like I could relax for the rest of the day.

Convo in the kitchen

Whilst in the kitchen this fine October evening Mikel and Katie joined me to help prepare dinner. Doesn't that sound nice? What actually happened is that while I was trying to chop vegetables with a wickedly sharp knife Mikel and Katie came in to drive me screaming up the wall. I've completely strayed from my point. Brace yourself, here we go.

Mikel to Katie: Did I just hit you in the head?

Katie: No

Mikel: Good. Because if I did I'd have to beat my own butt.

Note: I do not beat my children. The wooden spoon does all the beating, I just hold it still.

Say what?

I had an appointment to get me some drugs last night, out of town of course. Not too far out, just far enough so no one would recognize me. The place was dark and hard to find but the people sure were friendly. Lest you think this blog has suddenly gone a very bizarre direction, I was at my psychiatrist's office. She moved darn her. Darn her all to heck! For some odd reason she only does evening appointments so I was out of the house all by my lonesome after dark. Of course I missed dinner and got home after Grey's Anatomy. I forgot to set the DVR!!!!! I missed it!!!! Now we know why I need medication. When I did finally get home all I wanted to do was go to bed. It's exhausting being crazy. I believe I've said that before. Any way, to get to the point, dh accused me of using the doctor's appointment as an excuse to go out to eat by myself. Say what? Why would I do something like that? The thought has occured to me, but why would I feel the need to sneak off. Nope, not me. If I'm gonna bail he'll know it. LOUD AND CLEAR.

I had to sit down and write about this in the middle of clipping coupons. Whoever that chick is that's guest hosting on The View just said that Halloween is a "devilsh" holiday. That it celebrates the occult and the devil. Ummmmm, ok. You know I think there probably are some people that celebrate it that way, but the vast majority of us just think it's a time to dress our adorable kids up in painfully cute costumes and gather as much chocolate as we can. For my family it's about having fun. Nothing else. My dh and I remember going trick or treating as children and how much fun it was and we want our children to experience that. It's all about what sort of meaning you place on it. It's that way with any holiday. I have to wonder how people's children feel that don't get to go trick or treating. What does that do to them?

This post has taken me all day to write. A minute here, 30 seconds there. Having four kids in the house is a lot of work! Sil and I did some grocery shopping today. I seriously do not know how people with large families do it. Not only the cost, but where to put the stuff once you get it home! Holy cow what a workout. I have a HUGE pot of chicken soup on the stove simmering for dinner later. I have to learn to shop and cook for 8 people. Major brownie points to the families that have more than 2 kids. I have all I can handle with just my 2, I don't know what I would do with more!

I just love using the exclamation point. Really I do. I'm not shouting. Just making a point. Haha.

Someone Please Shoot Me

I've been trying for the past hour and a half to post an entry about Katie's birthday. But there's been an attack by a screaming baby and Flickr hates me. I'm now emotionally drained. I need a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake STAT.

My sil and niece and nephew have moved in and have been living with us for almost two weeks. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. It's not that I don't like her, but I feel like my home has been invaded. My poor son had to give up his room and our lives are being turned upside down. Not only that, but her fiance is here every single night for dinner. She is helping a lot with food and cleaning. But I feel like my house is just a total disaster area. Here I was finally getting things in order and under control and now my kitchen looks like a bomb went off in there.

My niece is really acting up. I'm sure it's due to all of the moving around and new environment, but I can't just sit here and let her set a bad example for my kids. Already Mikel has picked up the smartmouth. She keeps the kids awake for at least half an hour after bed time with her antics. It's already hard to get them to go to bed as it is. Really, I've never wanted to spank a child so bad in my whole life. My sil is just letting her get away with stuff or is letting my niece wear her down until she gives in. I don't want to overstep my boundaries, but at what point do I say something to keep it from affecting my kids?

Gah! I thought last month was bad. Perhaps I need to double my medication.