Not Enough Hours in the Day

It never ends

2006-12-14T00:48:00.000-05:00

I decided to handcraft just about all of Christmas, and let me tell you, not a wise move. I have, thus far, stuck pretty closely to my craft calendar, but tonight I was supposed to get four pages done and I just finished the first one (12:48 am). I just have to remember that these gifts I'm working on now are for my mom and mother in law, so they will hopefully understand if there is some delay.

But after Christmas it doesn't stop either. I have several projects to work on, including an album that has been commissioned, Ian's birthday party invitations, and 5-6 baby books for people I know who are expecting in the spring. Lots of babies on their way.

Ian's birthday party is going to have to be held a full week before his birthday. The gymnastics place booked full a mere hour after I inquired about it. I am disappointed, but we are taking Ian to the monster truck show in Greensboro on his birthday (SO much cognitive dissonance you just don't know) so we can just make a day trip of that and not be hurried.

Then, soon after, I find out my exam results. If I pass everyone in the world will hear me whoop. So don't expect any loud noises that day.

Off

2006-12-11T06:49:00.000-05:00

Ever had days when you feel like you're just misfiring on every cylinder, that everything you do or say misses the mark somehow? That's been my life for the last two or so weeks. I'm not sure why, but it's getting frustrating.

So here are the (brief) highlights:

Ian seems to be sick today, has a bad cough, but I was out sick two days last week so I at lesat need to try to get him to school this morning and hope that they don't call me to come get him. He's not running a fever, if he was I would definitely keep him home.

Finished all of my Christmas shopping yesterday. Also finished all of my dad's shopping for Ian. He gave me his credit card and just told me to pick out stuff for him. So we had a miniature spree last night. I also won my dad a digital picture frame off of ebay. He's notoriously hard to shop for and I think he's really going to be pleasantly surprised by this. He did ask specifically for a portable battery charger for his car, but he drives a relatively new Camry that he takes very good care of, and I don't know when he's ever had need of a jump. I think he just likes gadgets.

My friend Karen came to visit last weekend from Asheville. She's thinking she may want to move here, she's more than welcome. She's lived there her entire life and, unlike most of us other sane people, can't stand it up there. Crazy.

I found out yesterday that my great aunt passed away on Thursday. I don't think I've ever met the woman, but for some reason she bypassed her son, his wife, and all of the grandchildren and other great-grandchildren to leave me her mother's ruby ring. So that makes it my great-grandmother's ring. I'm floored. Evidently my dad was particularly close to her when he was younger and she wanted to leave something to his daughter. I can't wait to see it.

Scott got a new job that requires him to be there at 6:30, so that means getting up super early now so that I can get Ian ready for school. I'm tired all the time.

Alright, speaking of which, time to begin the process.

Crafts out the ass

2006-11-28T01:56:00.000-05:00

Scott has some promising job opportunities in the wings, so hopefully our (nearly) six week dry spell is coming to a close. So far we've managed to do alright, but we're to the point where we're starting to feel the financial pressure. The sooner the better for him.

I've spent every spare minute of the last week working on my Christmas projects. I'm making so many of the gifts I'm giving this year that I've had to make a craft calendar just to make sure that I get everything done by the specific date. I'm making gifts for my mom, my mother-in-law, my Secret Santa recipient, my best friend, my aunt, and Ian's teachers. We're talking calendars, annual planners, Christmas albums ornaments, and jewelry, the whole gamut, not to mention the fact that I'm making 60+ Christmas cards.

After Christmas I need to finish an album for someone who commissioned the work from me. I have also been commissioned to make a coworker a bracelet, and I have five friends due in the spring and they're all getting baby albums from me. My dad also approached me over the weekend about giving me several hundred dollars to do an album for my granny. That one would be a massive undertaking. I don't know when I'm ever going to get to work on my own stuff. At least I enjoy this, though.

I am going to see my general doctor on Wednesday to discuss with him the things I need to be doing to prepare myself for the next baby. On top of the list is losing weight, of course. Next we need to wean me off some of my medications, and I need to find out the best ways to avoid things like hypertension and hemmies, all problems I had when I was pregnant with Ian. I'm very excited at the prospect of having another child, and to be honest if I was at the weight I want to be at I would be trying to get pregnant right now. But as it is we're shooting for next summer. Hopefully I can get a few lbs off by then.

Ian did so well in gymnastics tonight, better than he ever has. We've been on the verge of pulling him out for good so many times, partly b/c he has trouble paying attention and partly b/c we felt like they were short-handed (one teacher for 5-6 kids in a gym). But tonight we hid outside so he couldn't see us and he was SO much better behaved. I really don't understand it, but I'm not knocking it.

That's all the babbling for now. I have cards to work on.

It's over...for now

2006-11-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

The exam is over and I won't speak of it again until I find out my results at the end of January. Suffice it to say that I fully expect to be back testing again later next year, but time will tell.

I spent the remainder of my weekend playing in my new scrapbooking closet, reorganizing all my supplies, and my mom and I took Ian to see Happy Feet today. Damned cute movie, I really enjoyed it. :)

Tomorrow I go back to work after nearly a week off. I know my inbox is going to be packed full, but that will be okay because it will make a short week go by even quicker. This weekend I have no plans (and hope that I will not find myself standing outside in the cold at 5 am waiting for a store to open on Friday morning - we'll have to see what the sales papers give me). I plan to get a good head start on lots of my Christmas present projects - I'm having a crop here the next weekend and hope to finish most of them by then. I take on too damned much. :)

Am almost done with my Christmas shopping, have to talk to my dad and find out what he and my grandmother want then hit the "buy" button on Amazon, then it will be done. We'll be picking up Ian's presents from the walmart layaway (good riddance) on Thanksgiving,a nd except for his stocking we'll be done. Bah.

I'm pretty boring, aren't I? :)

And here we are

2006-11-16T23:22:00.000-05:00

So tomorrow begins the fun. I took this entire week, save Monday, off to study for my exam. I probably studied about 7 hours total everyday, which really technically means that I didn't HAVE to be off work. However, I'm not one of those people who can come home from a full day of work at 6:30 and immediately start studying. I usually don't get started until Ian is in bed, around 9 pm. And then I can't get anything done at work because I just can't concentrate when I'm being interrupted every few minutes with a phone call or other noise.

So what I did this week was stay up till ungodly hours of the night, studying, then slept late every morning. This is how I work best. I am most productive at night, and I am SO not a morning person. I don't feel ready for the test, but I never thought I would. I do, however, feel like I did a good balance of everything to prepare, and hopefully it's enough to get me a passing score. I won't know till January 26th.

In other news, Scott set about working on my scrap closet. That bitch is done, save for me throwing my stuff in there. I'm so excited I can't even stand it. Saturday night we're supposed to be going to Durham for a tree lighting thing, but I plan to stay up very late Saturday night getting that thing organized and put together.

Sunday we are taking Ian to see "Happy Feet", and the rest of the day will be spent playing in my closet, hehehee. Jatana is coming over Sunday night to hang out for a little while. And then it's SHORT WEEK!!!

This is both good and bad. Good because I honestly don't feel like working a full week after the hell I've been put through for this test. Bad because I have a week's worth of work to catch up on in much less time. Oh well, at least it will keep me busy. Busy is good - makes the day go by. But I am well aware that my coworkers have been cutting me slack and not giving me much work to do because of my test, and all that is going to change next week. I damn well better pass this test this time - no mercy after this.

Alright, back to my review and hopefully to bed in an hour. Our instructor in our review course told us that we had better not study on Thursday night, but I knew even then that I would be. Whatever, if reading this material means I get a few more questions right I'm all about it.

Nightynight. I'll report back when the nightmare is over (40 more hours!!!).

Whooo!!!

2006-11-06T03:22:00.000-05:00

Wow! That review class was an absolute riot! Well, not really, but it was a big help. It showed me all the places I am lacking, though, and I have SO much work to do in the next (not even) two weeks.

Still no news on Scott with the job thing. He's trying, but these things take time. I saw an ad in the paper last week: Crabtree mall is hiring elves. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHEEEEEEEHEHEEEEEEE HAHAHAHAHAHAHEEEEHEEEE

I went to my mom's Friday night to get some studying done; I honestly was ready to stay the entire weekend just to get that time away to devote to studying. Unfortunately, I woke up at 1 am with back pain; I thought it was from the bed I was sleeping in at my mom's - not exactly the most comfortable. I got up and took two tylenol and watched some TV, but the pain was getting worse so I took two more and tried to lay on the couch and sleep. I went to take a hot shower around 2:30 am and that helped a little, so I went back to bed but woke up 30 minutes later in more pain. My mom had gotten up by that point (she sometimes does) so I asked her if I could try to crash in her bed. I tossed and turned for about 30 minutes before I finally got up at 4 am to tell her I was heading home to get my stronger pain meds.

So here I am at 4 in the morning driving dark back country roads home, no cell signal. Despite my desire to go 75 mph, I'm glad I restrained myself b/c I saw three deer on the side of the road as I drove through. I still made it home in record time (amazing how light traffic is at that time of day on a Saturday), took a painkiller left over from my surgery and a finnergin (nightynight) and fell asleep in the tub. I had figured out about halfway home that it was NOT back pain from sleeping wrong, but another damned kidney stone. This one bothered me about a month ago at work, so much so I had to go home, but it had not bothered me since so I thought I had just had bad posture that day or something. Nope. And this one has NOT moved either. The last one I had took 3 and a half years to pass, and it wasn't even NEARLY this high up. This one is about as high as they can possibly get without still being IN the kidney.

So anyway, I slept all day Saturday b/c of the no sleep thing from the night before. I managed to get some studying done that afternoon, but it was nowhere near what I would have gotten done if I had been at my mom's. I studied all day today, then took a break at about 9 to watch Desperate Housewives, and that bitch hit again with a vengeance. I drank three cups of coffee with my Oxycontin so that I could stay awake study, and now (3:23 am) I am high and wired.

I'm planning to go to work tomorrow b/c I need to settle something out with my boss first thing, but I'm also calling the doctor b/c I cannot live this way, especially not with this test coming up. I think I could seriously stay up the rest of the night but that would not be good for work tomorrow (that's assuming I can make it the rest of the day; pain is okay right now but you never know when these bitches are going to rear their ugly heads).

But let me tell you - oxycontin - GOOD stuff. For once I can relate to Rush Limbaugh.

Off to my Crappy Vacation

2006-10-25T01:49:00.000-04:00

Not really feeling up to it, but I am leaving tomorrow evening for Charlotte for five days of unadulterated financial planning review!!! Woohoo! Hope I can keep my shirt on for all of that.

I'm still in lots of pain; went back to work today but could only make it half a day before the pain was too much (it was either medicate to the point of not being able to work or hurt so that I could work but just barely). Unfortunately I will have to cope with ibuprofen only tomorrow in order to make the three hour drive. I hope, though, that ibuprofen does the trick b/c I can't afford to be medicated during my review courses.

Anyway, I'll be returning on Monday evening, and hopefully I'll be able to check in online periodically from the internet access at the hotel. No laptop for me. :(

Everyone have a happier weekend than I.

No Kissing the Cute Cheekies!

2006-10-22T23:35:00.000-04:00

So I was doing really good with the healing part of this wisdom tooth extraction - even I was impressing myself with my quick recovery. I have not sucked through a straw, spat, eaten anything but mushy foods, and even stayed away from carbonated soda (that one has almost done me in).

Then this morning Scott decided to take Ian out for a couple of hours so I could rest, and I gave Ian a big ol' kiss on his sweet little cheek like I always do. But this time it hurt; I felt the suction take hold in the back of my mouth and I was in severe pain for a couple of hours. It only stopped after I took enough hydrocodone to knock me out, but then everytime I've tried to eaten, talk, etc since then it has hurt. At this point nothing seems to be helping the pain.

I left a message for my boss and a message for my dentist's office: the first telling I could not come in tomorrow and the next telling them that I really need to come in tomorrow. I leave for Charlotte on Wednesday and I need to be in better shape than this.

Scott will, of course, be home tomorrow, looking for jobs. I have found a couple of state jobs that he would be well qualified for. While they're not ritzy or exciting, they pay, and getting his foot through the door on a state job may be just the answer we're looking for right now. I hope this all has happened for the better. He is going back to school to get a degree he can actually use, but in the meantime we really need a break that will allow him that opportunity.

I haven't gotten much studying done this weekend. The pain meds combined with the boring material has kept me semi-conscious all weekend. I actually am really tired of being medicated; I'm ready to be 100% again, not stumbling around the house in a daze.

Not such a good day

2006-10-21T00:48:00.000-04:00

I'm very fortunate that I have such strong meds that can keep me somewhat detached from the world spinning around me. Scott woke me up from my drug-induced sleep this morning to tell me he was laid off again, for the 2nd time in six months.

Okay, I'm not writing anymore about that for fear of having an outright panic attack.

The surgery went fine. I woke up from my sedation, told the surgeon I loved him, and then actually walked myself back to my mom's car. We went to CVS across the street to pick up my prescriptions, and actually did a little shopping while we were in there.

Came home, slept all day, mom came in hourly to help me change out my decreasingly bloody gauze pads. By midnight last night I didn't feel that they were necessary anymore so I haven't put anymore in since.

Still sore, though. Went to Ian's speech eval paperwork thing today and the simple act of walking caused me to jar my jaw enough that it hurt like a bitch until I could get home and medicate again. And I've got this giant bruise on the bottom of my right jaw, most likely where they had to hold my head and work out the completely embedded tooth from my mouth.

All in all, though, I can't really complain. I'm tired all the time from the medication but sedation is AWESOME. I don't even remember falling asleep, and all of a sudden it was over. AND the hot surgeon called me at home last night to find out how I was doing. :)

Okay, before I start blabbering and getting back onto that topic I mentioned first I'm going to stop writing. Best to just stay detached for the time being.

Pansy Alert!

2006-10-19T00:05:00.001-04:00

In 9 hours I will be settling in to my dentist's chair, getting ready to go under sedation and have my wisdom teeth extracted. Want to know how much of a wuss I am? I can't even go to bed because I know that when I wake up it will be time to have this done. How pathetic am I???

I hope, really hope, that I'm making more of it than it will be.

I had a day of eating badly, since I will probably not feel like eating solids for at least a few days. We had chili day at work and we had Mexican for dinner tonight. Not only will I not be able to do spicy, but I'm thinking tortilla chips are going to be out for some time now. I'm stuffed, but it was good.

My mom will be here with me tomorrow and then Scott is taking Friday off because the tree people (oooh) are coming by to give us an estimate on removing about 10 pine trees from our yard. Then that afternoon we have an appointment with Ian's speech therapist to set up the paperwork for his formal evaluation. I realize I will probably be in no condition to have an intelligent conversation with anyone but my pillow, but I want to meet this lady and see what she has to say about Ian.

We're not sure if he'll be continuing with gymnastics after this month. On Monday he kept acting up and not following directions, and when the instructor tried to put him in time out he refused to stay there. So we had her bring him to us, and when he refused to calm down and listen to us we took him home 20 minutes before class was over. He didn't even get to jump in the big foam block pit, which he adores. He wailed like a banshee the whole way home, but we didn't feel bad about it in the least. I'm hoping we got through to him, because if we have another night like that we won't be taking him back. He knows he has two more classes to shape up and then we're going to call it quits until at least next year. We're hoping he'll have better listening skills then.

I'm literally sitting here trying to think of things to write about so I can postpone bed even longer, but that is just stupid and would only serve to bore my 3 loyal readers. So I'll go clean the kitchen.

Trying not to feel guilty...

2006-10-14T01:16:00.000-04:00

My mother-in-law is in town with her boyfriend. I get along really well with them and was really looking forward to her visit. Scott wanted to take them to Wilmington today to see the battleship and just hang around; I had planned on staying home and studying, but I ended up going anyway and I really had a good time.

Tomorrow they are going to downtown Raleigh to shop and sightsee, and I want to go but I am going to try to resist and stay home. I've got 5 days until my wisdom teeth have to come out and I have to have all of this study material done before that happens. I just don't know if I'm going to be bouncing back from that procedure or not!

Test is one month from Tuesday. Nah, I'm not freaking out. I'm fine. But I cannot for the life of me figure out why my Xanax keep disappearing. Hmm...

My boss really got to me the other day. The credit union is paying for me (and anyone else who wants to) to get this designation, and for me personally it has been 2 and a half years of punishment. But I've gotten this far and I really want to finish. My boss has been very generous about allowing me to have time away from work to attend review classes, but she made it clear to me this week that I have to pass it in November because she's done making concessions. We're a very small department and it is felt when someone is out. But she does want me to finish, because when I do I'll be the only CFP in our department (at least for now, another girl got started on the self-study a month ago).

I really like my boss but that was SO much pressure to put on someone who is already feeling this fragile. I nearly cry everytime I test myself in these reviews that I have to do, because I'm just not testing well. In the 40-60% range every time (the review instructions say that the material is hard and I should not expect to do much better than 50-60%, but still...). I won't tell you what Scott said when I told him about our conversation, or how upset my mom was when I called her crying that afternoon.

I'm so ready to test, if not for the fact that once it's over I get about 6 weeks of peace before I find out my results, so I get to actually enjoy myself. I've invited my friend from Asheville down to visit and we're having a crop on December 2nd with about 3 other people. Scott and I are going to renovate the little closet in our spare room into a scrapbooking nook for me, so I'll have a place of my own that I can close off when I'm done working and not have to worry about little fingers messing with things. I have several albums that I have to work on for Christmas gifts and several that I have been commissioned to make by friends. And finally, I have four girlfriends who are pregnant and all due between January and May. I plan to make all of them baby scrapbooks and I plan to put lots and lots of love into them (love = time).

Anyway, I'll shut up now. I should update more, so that I don't blab on like this when I finally do get on here. :p

Thank you to my loyal readers and commenters. It's nice to know that you care. :)

Last time, I promise

2006-10-01T02:08:00.000-04:00

Last time I talk about how sad I am about my best friend leaving. On Friday she drove down to SC to stay with her parents while her brother and his friend drive the moving truck to Arizona, and then this Friday she is driving her car to Arizona with her son and her parents (for company). I have been in such a funk all weekend; I catch myself crying more often than I could imagine I would. I feel like I'm losing a sister. I can't believe how much this hurts.

And she called me a week after we last saw each other to tell me that she is pregnant. She told me before she told anyone else, even her mom and her husband, and that means so much to me.

This is crazy painful.

In other painful news, I have to go two weeks from this Thursday and have my wisdom teeth removed. I've had two different experts (my dentist and my father-in-law, also an oral surgeon) tell me that I should have done this a decade ago. Well, I didn't. I made a very expensive and, I think, wise decision to do this under complete IV sedation. The mere thought of having it done kept me up for hours the night that I found out I had to go through with it. Obviously I am not going to be able to relax about it. At least this way I will be able to go to sleep and wake up with it over.

My coworker, who had hers out a couple of years ago, said that your mouth will smell like your crotch on a really hot day when you're on your period. I figure that should keep Scott's advances at bay.

She makes me laugh.

We took Ian to the county fair today, the one I grew up going to in my hometown. We took him last year and he had an okay time. Today he had a blast. He rode nearly every ride for his age group, and even wanted to get on some that he was too small for. He was fearless. :)

Ian also attended his first gymnastics class last Monday. Bloodied another kid's nose. That's my kid, yes, the one that had to be pulled over into time-out and who couldn't follow directions. I actually stayed after class and apologized to his teacher. Fortunately the mom whose kid had the bloody nose is a friend of ours. She had forgotten her camera so we were snapping shots for her of her son to email later; she said that he frequently gets bloody noses; I wonder if she was just trying to make us feel better.

We've decided, though, that if he doesn't start listening better by the end of the month (we're paid up till then), we won't be taking him back.

He had his quickie speech eval last week, too, and they want him to come in for an official scored eval. We're waiting to hear from the evaluator for an appointment. I'm not at all surprised; a little relieved, actually. He's not seriously behind, but I think he could be further along. I actually wonder if his difficulty following directions doesn't somehow stem from his mild difficulty with communication.

Trudging away at my studying; I have to get this review done before my surgery b/c I may not be much for reading boring material while heavily medicated and healing. I leave not even a week after my surgery to stay in Charlotte for five days and attend a review course. Woo-freakin'-hoo.

November 17-18: D-Day.

After my test I plan to spend my time converting the closet in our spare bedroom into a scrapbooking closet. The closet is small, but it will be big enough to put a custom-sized table top in, build vertical shelving, and storage underneath the table. I will be able to open the door, pull up a chair, work, then shut the door when I'm done and not have to worry about putting everything away. I'm so excited about it you just don't even know. Scott's even excited about helping me do it.

Oh yeah, I went to Archiver's, the new scrapbooking store in Raleigh, a couple of weeks ago with my good friend and fellow mental patient Jatana. I have found my version of paradise. I scheme for the next time I can go again. I don't think I should go without a large budget, hence my not returning yet. I will, though; all I want for Christmas are gift cards to Archivers. Tell my family.

That's all; I'll try to update more often, promise.

Heartbroken

2006-09-06T14:19:00.000-04:00

I went to Asheville this weekend, for the first time since we moved a year and a half ago. I went there to see my friend Tara, who is moving to Arizona at the beginning of October. I would like to think that we will see each other again before she moves but we're both so busy and the drive is so long that I just don't see how it's going to happen.

Highlights of the weekend:
(1) I gave her a friendship book that I made that is quite simply the prettiest thing I've ever made. I took pictures of it so I could remember all the different scrapping techniques I employed. I hope to make another book like that again, but hopefully next time it will be for better reasons.
(2) Our boys played together for the first time every. Ben is 2 and Ian is 3 and a half and for the longest time now they've merely co-existed. But by Sunday they were chasing each other around the house having a blast.
(3) Tara and I got tattoos on our ankles. Hurt like a bitch, so so so much more than my back tat did.
(4) Spent $150 on scrapbooking stuff at various stores in the Asheville area. Had I had more time I would have been able to spend oh-so-much more.

We said our goodbyes on Sunday night in Boone; we drove up there that evening to eat dinner at our favorite restaurant there (yes, we drove an hour and a half one way to have sandwiches). We had very little crying, mainly because it really hasn't sunk it for either of us that she is leaving. A month from now I will probably be a mess.

Down one hill, up another

2006-08-21T17:03:00.000-04:00

For my (2) readers, a small bit of background:

The 2 programs I have been working on since I started working for the credit union 4 and a half years ago are the CCUE (Certified Credit Union Executive) and the CFP (Certified Financial Planner). The CCUE is significantly lower on the "Wow" scale, but it still gives an employee the one-up over someone who does not have the designation.

I started working on the CCUE in 2004, and took a break from it in 2005 when I started self-study classes for CFP, which were significantly more difficult than the classroom sessions I had been doing before.

I finally got back into CCUE, being that I had only one more class to complete before getting the designation. I took that last test on August 12th, kicked its ass, and am now one piece of paper away from being a CCUE. So that's finished and I'm so glad I don't have to worry about it anymore.

I got an email today that my review materials for my CFP review in October have been delivered to my porch. 960 pages of great fun. I have to have it all read and worked before going to the review course, which means, well, that life is just going to suck for the next three months. But I'm sitting for the exam in November and I'm so incredibly motivated to be finished. I've just spent so much time working on this and it's time to be done.

Things are going well at home. Ian is starting gymnastics next week. Saturday night we tuned into the US championship girls' gymnastics. I left the room for a second and when I came back in Ian was standing on the coffee table with his arms raised in a "V", preparing to leap.

I think he'll really enjoy the class. Too bad it's only one night a week - I'm convinced my child is sneaking crack when I'm not looking. He has super-human amounts of energy.

We are going to Asheville overLabor Day weekend, something I have been putting off for a year and a half now. I have not wanted to go back b/c I knew it would be too painful for me. I really miss it there. And the reason we're going is quite painful as well - my best friend is moving to Arizona as soon as her house sells and she'll no longer be a day's drive away. :( I'm heartbroken, but I understand why she has to go. Gotta go where the jobs are.

My dad filed for divorce from the shrieking harpie last week and we're on pins and needles to see if she'll just sign the damned papers and be done with it. I can't wait to have her out of our lives.

Overall, though, it's been a really good couple of months lately. (I think my meds are finally kicking in.) Things are starting to look up and I'm feeling better and better about being done with CFP by the end of the year. Go me. :p

Sweet

2006-07-29T07:54:00.000-04:00

Scott always lets me sleep in on the weekends. He's very kind to do it, and in the past he has done it because he knows I've been up late studying the night before. Ian likes to get up at about 6:00 am, so it's no treat for the person delegated to get up with him. So last night, when he knew I had not been studying, he asked me to let him sleep in this morning (well, more like told me). I agreed, under the condition that I would get the same treat on Sunday morning.

Wouldn't you know it, Ian decided to sleep in this morning. I woke up at 7:30 in a mild panic, thinking the worst things about why he hadn't gotten us up yet. But a quick peek in his bed showed me a peaceful, sleeping little man. Shortly after he woke up, but I actually feel rested so that's alright by me.

Scott says this morning doesn't count. Whatever.

We did indeed get our air conditioner fixed. It took a couple of days but we were up and running again soon. And thank goodness, because it has been miserable around here. (Well, not California miserable but miserable nonetheless.) We're still waiting on the part to come in that is supposed to ultimately fix the thing for good, but for now we do have a nice, cool house.

My friend and her husband went to Tucson, no news yet on whether they will be moving there. While I wait to hear from them, I check the internet for jobs around here. ;)

We started doing this meal prep thing a few weeks ago, at the recommendation of a local friend. We went to this website, picked out the dinners we liked, and then Scott (yes, Scott) went 10 minutes from here and prepped all of the food to bring home. He brought home a large laundry basket full of stuff, all for $180. It's enough food for over three weeks, and works out to about $3 a serving. We love it. The food is all so good, and we don't have to plan our menus or go to the grocery store. It's so nice. We're doing it again this month, an entirely new menu. I highly recommend something like this to anyone who has a tight schedule, like us. It has saved us tons of time. The best part is that the owner works out the Weight Watchers points values for most of the meals.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Pant

2006-07-18T12:44:00.000-04:00

I'm beyond thrilled to report that yesterday, at the beginning of a record heat wave that is making the entire country sweat and has killed several people, our air conditioning went out again. We had a very unrestful evening last night, no one slept well at all. Ian, my ever-increasingly odd child, gets angry at us when we run his ceiling fan, so last night despite the fact that he was dripping sweat in his bed we did not turn his fan on. After he fell asleep I snuck in there and turned it on, and I had no sooner climbed back into bed when he started yelling at us to "Turn. It. OFF!" I think I'm going to borrow my cubicle fan and put it in his room tonight. Maybe he'll let that run and not make a sopping wet mess of his bed again tonight.

The repair guy could not make it out last night, but he promised to call Scott first thing this morning and come out to take a look at it. It's coming up on 1:00 pm and we have not heard from him. I'm starting to lose my patience, and I'm also starting to document all of these phone calls and repair visits so that when we have to make our case to the home warranty company that this has gone on too long, we'll have good notes to back us up. I really should have started doing that a long time ago.

My dearest friend in the world may be leaving me. Her husband has a potential job offer in Tucson, and the company is flying both of them out there this weekend for the personal interview. I'm heartbroken, but I know she has to do what is best for her family. I worry about her, though, because they don't know anyone there (at this time) and she will no longer be close to her family. She would be a SAHM, which might further isolate her, and of course I would not be able to visit all that often. I hope that, whatever they decide, it turns out to be the best for them.

So here's to cooler air and better times.

I should be in bed

2006-07-16T00:13:00.000-04:00

I'm sleepy and it's after midnight and I know that Ian will be up much earlier than I want him to be. But one quick entry to update and then I'll sleep.

It will be a quick entry because there's not much of note going on right now, which is a good thing because just lately I find that when life is interesting it's not much fun. I am trying to take stock of things and reevaluate what I'm doing with my life, to make sure that it is truly what I want to do. I've felt unsettled about it for some time now, but I'm so scared to make any changes. I feel trapped in my job because I've been putting years of my life into the training I'm currently undergoing, and a big part of me feels like I need to stick it out and finish it. The worst part is that I don't even know if I want to do that type of work for the rest of my life, so sometimes I think that I just might be wasting my time.

One thing I do know is that my family is the most important thing to me, and nothing else matters but them. But they are why I do the things I do with my job, I want to help provide a good life for them, and if it means a little self-sacrifice right now then I'm willing. It's just so tough to spend so much time studying when I really want to just be with them. I hope that Ian won't remember my absence when he gets older. I'd like to get this stuff out of the way before he starts school, so that I can be there at night to help him with his homework instead of locked away in my room doing my own.

Wow, this turned out to be more depressing than I intended it to be. Sorry about that. Guess I had some pent-up things that needed to come out.

Okay, the short version of everything else:

Ian is doing great at daycare. He is potty training fairly well, although we're still trying to get the pooping thing to work out. He gets up with a dry diaper nearly every day, so hopefully at some point we'll be able to let him sleep without one.

We are going to have him evaluated next month by a speech therapist. He started talking later than most kids his age, and while he's making great strides in his speech now, his late start means that he is still behind. The daycare director told me that every August a speech therapist comes in and evaluates the four year olds. She said to remind her closer to time and she would make sure that he is included that day. I feel certain that they will see a need to work with him. I hope it helps. Now that he is getting closer to school age I worry more and more that he will be behind.

I'm on Weight Watchers again, I've lost nearly 20 pounds so far. It's kind of bittersweet, though, because I've lost all this weight before and then just put it back on again. I can't dwell in the past, though. I hope to be at my goal weight by the end of the year/beginning of next year. We're hoping to have another baby in the next couple of years, and I want to be as healthy as possible when I get pregnant. Pregnancy is difficult enough without being overweight on top of it all.

Scott is doing really well at his new job, they all think he's great. He has to work in sweltering humid conditions every day, but other than that he enjoys it. He got a job offer for a place in Research Triangle Park, but it was so far to drive and he would have been working nights and some weekends. To me, it's worth not making more money if it means that we can't have our time together in the evenings and on the weekends. When you're as unhappy in your job as I am, you live for the weekends and that time with the ones you love.

Sap sap sap. I'm going to bed. 'Night.

Happy 4th?

2006-07-02T19:50:00.000-04:00

Wow the weekend flew by. I guess that happens when you scrapbook for 14 hours straight.

Yeah, that's what I did yesterday. Today has been all about recuperating (I'm sick) and having a cookout with my parents at our house. Ian has been in rare form all day, with more energy than all of us put together times three.

Tomorrow will be much the same, except I will not have anyone else here to take care of him for a few minutes while I take a breather. I have no idea what we'll do tomorrow. I want to take him to do something fun, but it's so miserably hot outside and I don't think any sane person has a right to be out there. I might take him to see a movie. We'll see.

Grandma came over today so Ian has lots of new, loud, annoying toys. I think we're going to need to add on a spare room, completely with soundproofing material.

Coming Out from Under My Rock

2006-06-30T17:20:00.000-04:00

Wow, has it really been that long since I last posted!? Sorry guys, I'm slack.

Let's do the condensed version of things.

1) I passed my fifth and final CFP exam yesterday. It took me three tries to pass that bitch, but it's done now. Now I have to prepare for the monster final, a 2 day long behemoth that threatens to unravel the last few threads of my sanity. That will be in November or March, I haven't decided yet.

2) Ian is doing great at daycare - he moved up to the three year old room a few weeks ago (even though he's 3 1/2) and he's loving it. He is potty training at last! He has had a dry diaper every night for the last five nights, and he goes to pee in the potty nearly every time he needs to. Pooping is a whole other matter. Not as successful at that yet, but I've been reassured that that sometimes takes a good bit longer than the peeing.

3) Went to Seattle the first weekend in June to meet up with some friends. Had a blast. Stayed drunk most of the weekend, fell on my face on the sidewalk (literally), and met some really wonderful women.

4) The day after I got back from Seattle was my second retest for the CFP. I should have known better. Not only was I hung over but I was jet lagged too. I went in to the test, failed it, then came outside to find Scott waiting for me. After I stopped crying about the test I realized that he should be at work; it was then that he told me that he had been laid off. June 5th will now go down in the books as one of my shittiest days. But he has obtained employment with someone else, a better employer who actually appreciates the hard work he does.

5) Our air conditioning keeps going out. We're not pleased. This has been going on for so long. Luckily we have a home warranty that the sellers bought for the house to sweeten the purchase. I know those tight bastards are not going to happily fork out the cash to replace the unit, but I honestly think that's what it's going to take. The A/C guy is coming over this evening for the 6th or 7th time since October. Blech.

That's about it for now. Got to get back to cleaning the house. I have had to seriously let it go while I was studying for this test, but now I can get back on top of things (at least until I have to start studying for the next one!).

Rainy Day

2006-04-22T09:38:00.000-04:00

We were supposed to walk in the March of Dimes walkathon this morning, but it would be a 60 mile round trip at $3 a gallon, and it's supposed to rain. No way do I want to get caught in the middle of a walking trail when the thunderstorms hit with my three year old and my grumpy husband. We're staying in, for now.

However, this afternoon we're taking Ian roller skating for the first time. We told him we were going last night and it's all he has been talking about since. I spent the majority of my teen years at the Round About Roller Rink in Goldsboro. All night skates, birthday parties, everything. I was there. I hope he enjoys it as much as I did - and I hope I can still skate as well as I used to!

So irritated

2006-04-19T13:47:00.000-04:00

Scott recently went through his evaluation at work, and the temp agency that got him into the position called him to tell him the results. Evidently he performs at above average standards, they are very pleased with his hard work, etc etc. When I asked him what that means he said, "Nothing." I said, "Do you get a raise?" and he said no, that it's not in the budget.

He's been on this job for a year now and has not had a single raise. I'm so irritated. I'm off now to look for job opportunities for him online. This is ridiculous. You can't expect to hold on to good employees if you're not willing to pay for them. Bastards.

Quick update

2006-04-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been so slack on updating. I actually typed out a long post the other day but when I tried to post it I got an error message and just did not feel like going through all that again. But here we go, in truncated fashion:

1) Scott did not get the job. Not sure why. It's really frustrating.

2) He's testing with the post office again next week. He did this in Asheville but it took them forever to come up with a position for him, and when they did it was a temp spot with no guaranteed work. I know you have to get your foot in the door somewhere, but we just can't do with a salary like that. Raleigh seems to have its shit much more organized, though.

3) Just returned from a fabulous weekend with 'the girls' in Pigeon Forge, TN. There was much rafting, drinking, and eating to be had. I'm still recovering.

4) Ian is doing great - he will be moving to the 3 year old room in June. We're nervous about that - he loves his room and his teachers so much. I'm sure he'll adjust well, though.

5) We did bedtime boot camp a few weeks ago and I am happy to report that he will now go to sleep on his own. This has been wonderful - bedtime has been greatly shortened and now consists of reading 5-6 books, singing a few songs, and telling him goodnight. Before we did this bedtime could stretch for up to two hours. We're all much happier now. :) Ian is proud to be a 'big boy'.

6) Still no luck on the potty training. We might give it another go this weekend.

7) For Easter weekend we will be sending Ian to his grandma's on Friday after an Easter egg hunt in the neighborhood. Saturday he is going to another Easter egg hunt with his grandma, then we're all going over to her house that evening for Easter dinner (which will probably be Chinese take out). Sunday we're relaxing at home and getting laundry done - prep for yet another long work week.

8) My CFP exam is one month from today and panic has begun to sink in. I've got to get to work. I guess I should be studying rather than typing this, so bye. :)

Changes afoot?

2006-02-28T14:24:00.000-05:00

Scott has a job interview at Talecris this afternoon. I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up; I've done that in the past and it has always backfired on me. I am not a big believer in karma but I feel like it's Scott's turn to finally land a decent job. He has a good job now, it definitely pays better than the one he had in Asheville, but it's time for him to get a job that provides benefits and a retirement plan! Not to mention he's been working his butt off at his current job for nearly a year now, and his supervisor talks about how much they want to keep him on there, but they have not offered him one hint of a raise yet.

So anyway, we'll see how this goes...

Here's hoping...

2006-02-22T14:49:00.000-05:00

I am a little hesitant to say anything about this because I don't want to jinx it, but I'm so excited I want to tell someone!

Scott has been working at the same job for nearly a year now. He was placed there by a temp agency, and despite numerous promises for full-time placement and promotion, nothing has happened yet. I am so tired of Scott working these temp jobs with no benefits. Fortunately he is a veteran so his health insurance is covered, but the man is nearly 37 years old and has no retirement plan!

He got a call today from the temp agency, the supervisor there has been monitoring a job opening at another plant. Evidently they are trying to promote internally so she has been watching it to see if it goes external. Today she spoke to the hiring manager there and told him she had an applicant that they might be interested in, and he asked her to fax Scott's resume over. He called her back almost immediately to get Scott's contact number so he could give him a call.

So far he has not called, but I am very hopeful about this. His temp agency has gotten very good reviews from his current supervisors, so they would be in a good position to speak up for him. Anyone reading this, please think good thoughts.

And on the "I'm Denying My Baby is Growing Up" front - Ian is moving up to the three year old room in May. :( When we placed him at this daycare they told us it would probably be this summer before they had an opening to put him in the threes room, and that was fine with me. He loves his two year old room - they have this cool fort with steps and his teachers are so great. But as it turns out they are preparing a group of about six of them to move up together (so that is good, since he won't be alone). I don't know why I thought that he would stay in the twos room forever.

Everytime something like this happens I hear my uterus knock.

Roller Coaster

2006-02-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

My weight has been all over the place this week, thanks to my monthly visitor. I've been weighing in daily like I always do but I've taken it with a grain of salt and it's paid off - this morning I am officially back to the weight I was at weigh in on Monday. Now to be good over the weekend so I can maintain and/or lose. Hopefully the latter.

We're taking Ian to see Curious George tomorrow if the weather is not bad. It will be his first movie since the Pooh Heffalump movie. His attention span is much better than it used to be, so hopefully between the movie and a big bag of popcorn he'll be good to go for the entirety. It just so happens that the theater we're going to is next to a big outlet store area so we'll be hitting those for Ian's spring/summer clothes afterwards.

Scott leaves for Vegas next Friday to visit his sister and new niece. I'm excited for him; I wish we could all go but the tickets were just too expensive. Plus I had my priorities and want to go to Tennessee and Seattle to visit my friends this year too. Everybody's happy. :)

Calzone Diet

2006-02-13T13:01:00.000-05:00

Last week I cut back on exercising, and I treated myself to a big steak and cheese calzone and a piece of red devil cake with cream cheese frosting for my birthday party at work. I thought sure I would gain again this past week, but instead I had a 6 pound loss this morning when I weighed in! I could not believe it. I have been getting increasingly frustrated with the fact that I have seen very little change in the numbers on the scale and the looseness of the clothes, but this has rekindled my spark and I hit the elliptical machine a little happier this morning.

I wish I could lose weight like that eating a calzone every day.

I'm at work and I'm very sleepy. I think I'm going to try to nap. Cause I look super professional with arm marks in my forehead.

I'm here, another year older

2006-02-07T13:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since I updated. There really has not been that much going on to speak of, just trying to get my rest and prepare for my next class, Retirement Planning. Should be better than Income Tax, that's for sure.

I turned 29 on Sunday. I'm the age Scott was when we met. I told him then that I could not date him because he was too old for me. I was a very knowledgeable 21 at the time. Go me.

I've decided to cut back on my grueling exercise schedule. I'm still going to go 5-6 days a week, but when I'm there I won't be doing quite so much so it won't take me that long to get home in the evenings. Hopefully it will help me keep my motivation up to cut back a bit. I think I would have eventually burned out.

That's about all for now. Told you, nothing too exciting. But with the way the last few weeks have been I welcome blandness.

Catching up on me

2006-01-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

Lo and behold, that squeaking sound heard round the world yesterday was me passing my test.

By one point.

So now that the fun is done on THAT module I get to take a break until I am reimbursed and can order my next set of materials for the fifth and final module. This week will be all about catching up on the things that had to go to the backburner while I concentrated on income taxes.

The first thing I did was start reading a book I received from Amazon last week. I have been dying to read this, and had to force myself to put it down last week because I knew if I got into it I would not be able to stop. So I started that last night and so far so great.

Then today I wrote out Ian's thank you cards from his birthday party, which was 3 weeks ago. It has killed me to not have those things out by now, especially since there were so many people who sent stuff who we could not thank personally when he got it. But they are ready to go out first thing tomorrow!

I just got off the phone with a mechanic who quoted us about $500 less for more car repairs than we were originally quoted.

I got some paperwork housekeeping done today so I can get reimbursed from Ian's Dependent Care Reimbursement account. That will be a nice little windfall to have come in, despite the fact that I wanted to hold off collecting that money for emergency purposes/vacations in the future. But with all these car expenses I think the time is now.

This week will be all about getting the house cleaned up. It's kind of gone to pot since I was so busy last week, and since I am married to someone who can't seem to self-motivate and do it of his own volition rather than just stepping over it.

Hopefully this week will continue to get better and better. So far so good!

Today was a day when I...

2006-01-30T01:49:00.000-05:00

...drank 4 cans of Diet Sunkist, all to keep my mind at the ready while I studied.

...read for 12 hours straight, took a TV break, then read for the next 6 hours straight.

...stayed up all night to cram for a test.

...unfortunately expect to flunk said test.

...realized I had not spent quality time with my son in 3 days.

...had to justify it with the idea that I am doing all this for him.

...stayed in my pajamas for 36 hours straight.

...did not work out for the first time in 6 days.

...ate a bunch of crap in order to feel like I was sitting, reading, and eating and not just sitting and reading, and now feel like the last month of working out is all for nothing.

...evidently gained 5 pounds (in said 24 hour period).

...found out what a compassionate and generous man my husband is.

...thought of my ex-boyfriend and realized this would have been our 12th or something anniversary. Whatever.

...laughed at my husband for turning "Robots" back on after putting our son to bed because 'it was interesting'.

...cried during "Grey's Anatomy"; I'm such a scmuck.

...craved human contact. I talked to my mother for over an hour today about nothing at all, because I was so tired of not talking to anyone.

...panicked.

...felt totally out of my zone of comfort (and no, my zone of comfort is not my pajamas, they're plenty comfy).

...could not wait for tomorrow to be over.

...'prayed' to pass this test.

Today sucked, I hope tomorrow is better.

Monday already?

2006-01-22T16:13:00.000-05:00

It's been quite the week, and I can hardly believe that tomorrow is Monday all over again. The problems I spoke of in my last post, which have mostly to do with a $3500 car repair bill, are still there but we've gotten a good grasp of our sanities and realize that shit does happen and we're just going to have to roll with this one. It'll be okay. We have some money coming in from our tax return, if we can ever get our W2s in, and even though it's not what we wanted to do with the money, at least we'll have it to where we can pay down some of the cost of this new engine (which, unfortunately, is having to go on our credit card).

I've kept to my workout, though, despite the fact that I have had to rearrange my schedule and rely on Scott a lot more to keep Ian while I do it. He knows it's important to me that I go, that I feel like crap if I don't get by there, and he's willing to help out. He's also been keeping Ian for me this weekend while I have studied, and has agreed to do bedtime duty all this week and next weekend so that I can get ready for my exam on the 30th. I just hope I pass this time.

I am finally starting to see some results from all of my working out, though. I bought some workout pants, four pair of them, to use at the gym, and for some reason 2 of them were tighter than the others. It was kind of irritating at first. Last weekend I washed them all and got ready to cycle through them this week. Monday, the pair I chose weren't tight, and neither were the ones I wore on Tuesday. But come Wednesday and Thursday I still had not come across a single tight pair, which tells me I don't OWN a tight pair of pants now. That's nice. :)

I bought Scott's plane ticket to Vegas on Friday, despite our money concerns with the car problems I know he's been looking forward to going to visit his sister and meeting his new niece so I didn't want to deprive him of that. He will be going the last weekend in February, and it just happens that his mom will be visiting her then too. So space will be tight but they will get a nice visit together.

I also bought my ticket to my Seattle meeting in June. A bunch of my online girlfriends are descending on the city for much sight-seeing, shopping, and drinking. I'm really looking forward to this one because I've only met a couple fo the people who are coming. Most of the time our meetings get separated out by coast, so the east coast one in Tennessee in April is going to be great because I know most of them. The June meeting in Seattle is going to be more of an adventure for me. I am going to be hanging out with so many incredible women between the two meetings, I'm beyond excited. If I had not bought that ticket to Seattle I probably would have stayed home all weekend and cried.

It seems so far away, but I know the time will fly...

Perspective

2006-01-18T00:45:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days where I just have to keep in mind that it could totally be so much worse than it really is. That we have our health and our happiness, a roof over our heads and a beautiful son. One of those days where I have to kick myself in the head and remind myself not only that money is not the center of my life, but also that there are just some things in the past I cannot change.

I have a hard time with regret. An unbelievably, abnormally, gut-wrenchingly hard time with regret. It eats away at me until I can do nothing but stew in my misery. Not one of my more attractive attributes.

I made myself go to yoga tonight because I needed, so badly, a different focus point. Yoga is oh-so-thankfully designed to make you focus on other things, whether they be your heart center or the string on the person's butt in front of you. I'm so glad I went, too, because I got to experience my first yoga fart. The poor woman, I know she was mortified. And this was the fullest the class has been in weeks, too. But it made me smile to know that someone else in the room was having a human day too. Mine involved crying and near vomiting, but no flatulence, at least.

Such a nice day

2006-01-13T22:15:00.000-05:00

Today is my little man's 3rd birthday! He has gotten so big, and is growing so fast. I'm so proud of him and love him more than I ever thought possible.

I got off work early today and had a little party for him at his daycare. My mom came to help out, which was great since I was up to my elbows in Cheetos and juice boxes. But it went really well, and I left a room full of kids covered in icing whose parents are no doubt going to curse me later when their child is hanging from the ceiling of the car.

Afterwards we took Ian to a place called Bullwinkles in Cary. They have a Bullwinkle-themed show every 8 minutes or so, and they alternate that with a water show set to lights and music. They also have arcade games and a giant climbing slide thing. Ian loved it. He even ATE. Unbelievable. They came out with ice cream and a whole group of employees sang happy birthday to him. The little boy at the table next to us turned 1 today, so immediately after he got ice cream and a song too. :)

After that Grandma took Ian to her house for the night so we could clean and get ready for the other party tomorrow. Nessie went with them, since Ian didn't want to say goodbye to her when he left, and only after my mom had gotten 30 minutes down the road did I remember that she has her annual checkup in the morning. We're such morons.

But nothing like a kid's birthday to totally transform your idea of Friday the 13th. :)

I'm beat down tired. I've gone to the gym every day this week and I think it's time for a mini-break, despite the cupcake I had today. :P I'll be back at the gym on Monday, and more likely Sunday, but tomorrow I will let my body rest. I'm dragging...

Everyone have a nice weekend!

Unintended 3 day weekend

2006-01-10T01:06:00.000-05:00

So I got up at 5 am to go to the gym this morning, and told Scott to call me if Ian was running a fever when he got him up. They showed up at 7:15 for me to take him to daycare, so I just assumed he was fine. When we got there he seemed more lethargic than normal, so I checked him and he had a low-grade temp. I knew the daycare would not take him with any temp (and I don't want to make my sick kid go to daycare anyway), so I drove him over to see the doctor hoping there would be a sick child clinic. There was, he was seen, and he has a double ear infection. Surprise to me.

So today was a day at home with Ian for me, which was not bad except he refused to take his medicine and I ended up having to call Scott to come home a little early when Ian's fever spiked to what had to have been 103 and I could not get him to take the Motrin to bring it down. (I've had enough friends whose kids have had seizures brought about by high fevers; I did not want that to happen to me.)

He's sleeping pretty good now, the Motrin made him pretty loopy. My mom is coming up tomorrow to take care of him and I only hope he will be able to go back to school on Wednesday. I hate missing this much work.

It was nice spending the day with him though, despite the fussiness of a sick toddler. I wish we could have more days at home together...

Picking fights

2006-01-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

You know, some days you're just not at your best. Some days you just feel off and want to make everyone around you feel off. You want to pick and needle and be unbelievably petty and immature. And sometimes, if you're around the right person, you can get them to be that way too.

Which is the reason why I just had a throw-down fight with my husband about a can opener. And why said can opener is in the trash now.

It's also the reason why I was able to somehow turn it from an argument about a can opener into a silly argument about the state of our relationship and the way he treats me in general. How he makes me feel like less of a person when he says some things to me and when he says them in certain ways. And it's why I'm in no hurry to go to bed now, since he is there, and why I think there is a good possibility that I could be certifiable.

Mission accomplished. Woo-fucking-hoo.

Sad day

2006-01-04T15:50:00.000-05:00

I'm really sad today. The story about the miners who did not survive in West Virginia has really hit me hard for some reason. I am not a praying person but I really was hoping against hope that these men would all be found safe and alive. I am far away from this problem, physically, but emotionally it really takes its toll on anyone with a heart. I grew up in a small town and I know what it would be like if 12 of our men were to be gone forever; it would forever leave a rift in the community. I think of the families that this will tear apart. Most of the miners who perished were in their 50's, which meant they probably had wives, children, extended families who loved them. The one miner who survived has a four year old and a one year old child, and I am just so glad that they will get to grow up knowing who their daddy is, and how brave he had to have been to survive such an ordeal.

I wish them peace.

Drunken New Years

2006-01-02T00:36:00.000-05:00

Well, they say that whatever you're doing when the clock changes to midnight on New Years is what you'll spend most of that new year doing.

So this year I can look forward to lots of laying on the couch drinking champagne watching movies. Alright.

We've had a great weekend so far. Friday I got off work early because I was not feeling well, and ended up having to spend an hour and a half at Sam's waiting for them to replace my tire so that I could get home and crawl into bed. It was not pretty. But I felt better that evening, well enough in fact that I was able to get out and run some errands.

Saturday morning I got up and went to the gym, then over to Jatana's house to do scrapbooking stuff. While there I found out I was having unexpected guests that afternoon from out of town, so I raced home to clean. I felt bad, because I had promised Scott that, in exchange for him watching Ian and letting me go to the gym and over to Jatana's, I would mark the afternoon for blowing our gift cards in Raleigh. Instead we had to do a quick cleanup, since the house was still pretty massacred from Christmas. But that was done, we had a nice visit with Beth and Matthew and Calvin, and they actually were on their way back to Asheville in time for us to make it to Bed Bath and Beyond, Barnes and Noble, and AC Moore and totally blow about $150 in gift cards before the stores closed at 6. Woohoo!

We put Ian to bed at about 10:00, then watched "The 40 Year Old Virgin" (made me laugh till my face hurt), and uncorked a bottle of champagne at midnight. That was gone within 15 minutes, woot.

This morning we moped about the house. We took Ian to meet Grandma for the night in Smithfield, hit Walmart, then came home to change clothes and back off to Raleigh we went. We went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, and I know this sounds dorky, but I will totally go there to drink next time I'm in the mood to get shit-faced. Cause I did. That bartender pours very very good drinks. I was plastered by the third one. :)

That place serves monster amounts of food. We both ordered a cup of soup and when it came out in a bowl I thought there had been a mistake. No no, the bowl, our waiter informed us, is 2 and a half times that size. Our appetizer was huge too, and I won't even tell you about the entree except that most of it did not get eaten. Since we were at the Cheesecake Factory (and since my diet officially begins tomorrow), we ate cheesecake too. It was wonderful, but I only got halfway through mine. For some reason I ordered a fourth drink, which just about proved to be my undoing, and I very wisely left it half-finished on the table and staggered out with Scott.

We went to Barnes and Noble so I could sit in a chair and read through "Post Secret", but not only did they not have it in stock, but people much more sober than me thought it wise to sit in all the chairs. I fortunately found Scott and asked him to take me home, and slept all the way back. :)

Now I'm up and sober and he's asleep. Blah. At least I know there will be no hangover. Not the most drunk I've ever been (props to Shannon's wedding) but definitely close.

New Toy

2005-12-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that I got an MP3 player for Christmas from my darling husband? I am in love with it. Not much besides fire and full bladder can get me out of bed early, but this morning I got up 45 minutes before I normally do in order to rip music from my favorite CDs to listen to on my commute. So this morning I was put into a very good morning mood by strains of Poe and Ani Difranco. It helped my mood also that traffic has been light this week due to so many people taking vacations this week. I'm sure next week will suck heartily on I-40.

I am laughing my ass off at this guy's blog: http://badnewshughes.blogspot.com/2005/12/diary-of-indignities-christmas-2005-i.html (Sorry, haven't quite figured out how to rename the link.) We should all have families this drunk and disorderly.

That is all for today. I will spare you the boring details.

What am I still doing up?!?!

2005-12-27T02:34:00.000-05:00

Laundry, that's what. Sunday is usually my laundry day, but of course yesterday was not your typical Sunday. I started laundry when I got up this morning (too late, of course, since I did a little drinking last night), and then we went shopping for storage containers for all of Ian's train parts. Of course, by the time we got to the stores all of the 'good' storage containers were gone; all that was left were the cheapy thin plastic with the lids that don't fit well. So we resigned ourselves to step on train bits for the next few days until the stores restock.

Of course, this put my laundry-doing back a few hours, and now here I am waiting on the last load to wash so it can be thrown in the dryer and I can go to bed!

I did accomplish some things tonight, though. I did laundry (as stated), got a friend's Christmas present together to mail tomorrow (I ordered her gift and it arrived on Friday), prepared some thank you cards for various people, completed and mailed Ian's birthday party invitations, and completed my Continuing Education for my insurance license. I have to do this every year by December 31st, and I'm particularly proud because when I told my supervisor that I was going to work on it over the holiday weekend she said, "You know you won't!" I'll take particular joy out of telling her that I finished it when I come in tomorrow morning.

Now for some drama: my dad has been married to a woman I despise for five years now. We are all civil to one another, but only because it is expected. I know that she does not like me and she knows that I don't like her, and I know she knows that Scott hates her with a burning hot passion. I won't go into why this is the way it is, just suffice to say that it has all been going on since before they were married, to the point where Scott refused to even attend their wedding. We're all just keeping up appearances, though, when it comes to spending time with one another.

She has a son and a daughter-in-law, whom I adore by the way. That is the one really sad bit in all this; Chris and I were both only children and we kind of latched onto the idea of finally sort of having a sibling, even though we're both adults.

My dad and his wife are FINALLY splitting up. He moved out months ago and is trying to move on with his life. He plans to file for divorce in August, when their separation is one year out and he can file without her contestation. My understanding is that he has cut off most communications with her, and that the conversations that have occurred with her have been very unpleasant and full of insults and threats. I think it is very understandable that I would assume that a Christmas exchange of gifts was not in order this year.

Imagine my surprise when my dad showed up on Christmas day with presents from her for Ian, Scott, and me. Granted, they were gifts we didn't like, but they were gifts nonetheless. I felt like shit. (Scott, for the record, did not.) Being as it was Christmas day there was no way I could put together anything for her, but I figured I would send her a thank you note anyway.

However, my dad, who supposedly has cut off communication with her, went to her house after he left here. (And it did occur to me later that he would have had to have gone to her house that day earlier to pick up the gifts he brought.) She evidently was very disappointed that we did not get her anything, especially since Chris and Brooke got my dad a couple of gifts. My dad called to tell me that I should send her a thank you note telling her that we appreciated the gift and that money had been very tight since we moved to the new house, since that is what he told her.

I am so angry about this. I don't think I made an incorrect assumption, that gift exchange should be off between us since there is a DIVORCE looming. But evidently my dad has been having more contact with her than he is willing to admit, because she felt it necessary to send us a frying pan and Ian a teddy bear. So now my extension of gratitude will be met with skepticism on her part.

Scott thinks I should not even send the thank you card, and he laughed when he heard that she had cried to my dad about this being the worst Christmas of her life. (I know we sound horrible, but if you knew the stories you would know why we can't stand her.) I'm sending it, all handmade and everything. It seems like a pointless gesture now, though, since she has already made it clear that she was expecting something from us.

It has occurred to me, though, that her gift to us was a test to see if we would reciprocate. I think she expected for us not to, and when we didn't her suspicions were confirmed. We don't like her, and we're not going to try as hard to hide it anymore.

Well, I'm not going to try as hard. Scott is not going to try at all.

Santa's tired

2005-12-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

Happy holidays everyone. We were up till 2 last night preparing for this morning's festivities, and lo and behold Ian would not even get up when we wanted him to. We actually had to pry him out of bed with a present. After he opened his first one we told him there were more in the living room and he was all about getting up then.

He got a huge Geotrax train set that is at this time causing him both joy and grief anytime it won't do what he wants it to. I gave Scott a huge new toolbox, a razor and trimmer set, and a CD and book he wanted. He got me (wait for it...) an MP3 player!!! I'm so happy, I'm ripping music as I type. :D He did good, better than he ever has.

The living room is wrecked right now and the grandparents are due over in about two hours to give him even more stuff. We haven't even given him his gifts from us yet; we figured this morning would be all about Santa, then later we'll do the exchange. We've had fun so far, though.

In other news, I did not pass my test earlier this week. I'm okay with it, though. I wasn't ready for it and I really need to know the material so I can not only pass this test, but the two day long board exam that I will be taking next summer. That is going to rock my world.

Ian and I both had the day off from work and daycare on Friday. I stayed up most of the night wrapping presents so I was pretty wiped all day that day. But that night we all went out to finish up the last minute Christmas stuff, and then we drove through Alltel to see the Christmas lights. Ian loved it. I don't know if it was worth the $15, but it was nice to get out of the house as a family.

Yesterday we went to Goldsboro to see my dad's family. I got to see my cousin Paula, who spent most of her childhood torturing me in some way, shape, or form. She once pushed me out of a treehouse, causing me to sprain my ankle. She also pushed me on some ice one time, causing me to fall and my face to go through and get shredded all to hell. Let's not forget the time we were on her trampoline; I fell and could not regain my footing because she and her sister kept jumping. I ended up getting caught in the springs. And when I was 10 she dared me to dive into the shallow end of the swimming pool. Well,l let's just say that I ended up with a smashed nose and my braces came through my upper lip. That was fun. I still have a scar from that.

No wonder I dread seeing her. Luckily we're both grown now, but I still expect her to rail back and shove me at any moment.

Keep in mind that this is the redneck incestuous side of my family; there was much pig-picking and tea-drinking to be had. It was nice to see everyone, though. Afterwards Ian went home with my mom and Scott and I went to see Harry Potter. That movie kicked ass. And I must say, the scene with Daniel Radcliffe in the bathtub - well, let me just say that Harry's been working out. :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. :)

I give up

2005-12-21T02:12:00.000-05:00

It is 2:12 am. I have a little less than 8 hours until my exam. I studied HARD today, but it just wasn't enough. I just tried to figure out someone's adjusted gross income and could not do it, nor do I have the energy to research the reason why. So I think it's just best if I go to bed and let this go for the next few hours. I may get lucky, but I doubt it, and I just need to move on. Yick.

After work tomorrow Scott and Ian and I get to go shopping for Christmas dinner fixins'. That will be fun! Then we get to come home and bake about 10 dozen batches of cookie to give as gifts to Ian's daycare teachers. I'm really looking forward to that. Oh yeah, and first priority tomorrow after Ian goes to bed is to watch Nip/Tuck to find out who the carver is. A bunch of my friends have seen it and are teasing me because they know and I don't. If it weren't so late I'd sit up and watch it.

So tomorrow: cookies and guilty tv. I can't think of a better way to celebrate being finished with a test (well, until I have to retake it, that is).

Still not done?!?!

2005-12-19T01:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I stayed up a little too late last night with Scott, you know, since Ian was away at Grandma's.

Ahem.

I DID get studying in, though, as can be evidenced in my last post! As a result, instead of getting up around 8 like I had planned to to get more studying in, I was awakened by the streaming sunlight of 11 am. Yick. It was like college all over again, except now I have daycare expenses and a mortgage.

Oh, and a bear of a test to study for.

I got a little more studying in in the two hours it took for my dad to pick up Ian and make his way to the house. We went to PetsMart and had Ian and Nessie's pictures taken with Santa. Despite my having to sit with Ian (instead of the elf) and the picture including a squeaky turtle dog toy that the photographer let Ian hold, the picture turned out great (and I am mostly out of the picture, but, so is Santa). :p Voila! We have a Christmas card! Unfortunately Walmart is backed up and I won't be able to pick them up until Tuesday night, and with my test looming Wednesday morning I think it will be Scott who finds himself stuffing and stamping envelopes to go out Wednesday morning. Oh well, I guess I should have had those "Happy New Years" cards made instead of the "Happy Holidays".

After that we all went to the mall in Cary, and Ian had a nervous breakdown after a while so Scott took him home. Unfortunately for Scott, all of Ian's DVDs, his binkie, his favorite toys, and his TurTur were still in my dad's car, so he had to put up with the unholy terror who also did not have his comfort items. Blech.

My dad bought Ian $180 worth of books at Barnes and Noble. I could not believe it, but I love him to death for it. Childrens' books are freaking expensive, and I want to foster Ian's love of reading. Even still, I think I'm going to call daddy tomorrow and make sure he's not having buyer's remorse. I would be okay with returning some of them. I know he feels some years like he's being one-upped by my mom (even though that's not what she tries to do), so I don't want him to feel like he has to spend that kind of money on Ian. He just started a new job after months of retirement, and he's trying to get a divorce and get on his feet again.

Then we went to the worst bottom of the pit of hell Toys R Us in the world. No one would help us, the store was in total chaos, and it took forever to check out and there was one woman in front of us who caused all of it. We finally made our way to the car and back to the house, where we gave a very grumpy boy his toys back and made him happy again.

Daddy left and I headed to Target and Best Buy to pick up stuff that my dad had pointed out that he wanted but I could not, of course, buy because he had been standing right there. Unfortunately Target and Best Buy did not have the things I needed, so despite 5 hours of shopping today I am STILL NOT FINISHED. And I'm pissed about it, as I have so much else going on this week.

You know what, I'm just going to relax about this test. I know the friends who read this blog have been very supportive, telling me I'll pass it, that I'm underestimating myself, but I really WILL NOT PASS and I'm pretty much okay with that. You see, in the last post I said that I hated to fail, but that's only when I have put so much time and effort into something. If I have not put in the necessary time and effort and I fail, well, I deserved it and I suck for it but I did it to myself. I will have a chance to retest, and I will pass then. This time, though, I will fail the test, go back to work, then stop on the way home to pick up massive amounts of cookie dough so that Ian and Scott and I can bake obscene amounts of Christmas cookies for gifts Wednesday night.

I'm looking forward to it. And who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. On the practice tests that I've taken, "B" seems to be a very common correct answer. ;)

Seriously Bummed

2005-12-18T01:00:00.000-05:00

I just sat down and took an 86-question comprehensive test over the eight books of material I'm supposed to know by Wednesday. I got a 33. Go me. I have to make a 70 on the test to pass, not too difficult for a magna cum laude, but I was magna cum laude in a subject I actually liked and understood, not this boring crap. I hate hate hate this. I am not ready for this test. I doubt I'll pass. If I take it before December 30th I don't have to pay to re-enroll into the course. You see, I have a full year to pass the test but I have to test every six months minimum. So I have to take this Wednesday to avoid having to pay the fee, but then I'll retake it in January (hopefully) and really get it out of the way. I'm just going to be depressed if I fail. I hate to fail.

Friday night was my office Christmas party. Scott got to come by to pick me up after work and finally see my work cube. Very exciting stuff. Then he got to meet all of the people I bitch/gripe about everyday. We sat across from my manager and her husband, and conversation between Scott and her husband was obviously awkward, which made me feel bad for both of them. And Scott was drinking a little so he was acting silly and talkative; I had to elbow-jab him a few times.

Had a nice day today. Got up this morning and did some Christmas-related errands. Got home and had to help Scott with the last of the house prep before my mom's family descended upon the house. I thought I had it all together but then I find out that the family decided to celebrate my mom's birthday today and she decided not to tell me so that I "wouldn't have that added pressure of getting her something". Whatever, like I'm not going to get my mom something for her birthday. What made it worse is that I know what I'm getting her for her birthday but I had not bought it yet, so I had to give her presents that were supposed to be for Christmas, wrapped in Christmas wrap because I also had not had time to go out and get birthday paper. I spent 30 minutes of the party racing around wrapping presents and griping to Scott. I guess it could have been worse, and I definitely appreciate her sentiment. But now I have to go out and get nicer gifts because I gave her the really nice stuff I had set aside for Christmas for her to her today for her birthday. Yick. Whatever.

Anyway, despite that, nice day. Everyone, including Ian, was gone by 5:00. He is staying with Grandma tonight so I can study. Hmmph. Scott and I drove to Raleigh to pick up his car from my parking garage at work (he left it there last night so we could ride to the office Christmas party last night, and he was a little drunk when we left so we had to come back tonight to get it). I think I'm going to take a break from studying now and watch a little tv and wrap some of Ian's multiple Christmas presents. I also need to decide what I am going to hold out for him for his birthday.

I'm thinking that there must have been thousands of Christmas parties around the country/world tonight. My chatboard was dead slow tonight, and I'm thinking it's because all of the mommies are out getting drunk on eggnog. Heh, even my vegetarian coworker had a Christmas dinner scheduled at the Angus Barn tonight. Hee hee.

Go App!!!!!

2005-12-15T00:26:00.001-05:00

Like I said in my previous posts, my attempt at being more positive was only a temporary one. And how can I expect any different when my days are as shitty as today was? But I won't go into details on that one again, suffice it to say that I felt run over by two very important people in my life, and it really can bring a girl down.

I have spent the last three evenings sitting in front of my computer reading income tax law, fighting the urge to gouge my eyes out. I will be so glad when this test is over, and even more glad if I have passed it when it is over.

I did find out some good news this week, although it does not directly affect me. My alma mater, Appalachian State, is in the 1-AA national championship in Chatanooga this Saturday, playing against Northern Iowa. If I had known about it sooner and did not already have Christmas gathering plans for Saturday I would totally hop the fan bus and go. I was not a huge football fan, but I dated a guy who played trumpet in marching band in college so I went to all the home games to see him perform. Over the course of the season I actually started understanding the sport, and even though I'm rusty now I will try to catch it on ESPN2 this weekend. Hell, I'll even go against the red and green trend this weekend and wear my good old black and gold.

Tomorrow night we are meeting Jatana down the road for a tree lighting festival and free Santa pictures for our cute little community here. I am excited about that, and I love me some free Santa pictures. They are even putting them on discs so they are in digital, internet friendly format. You can believe that if that picture is Christmas-card worthy then that shit will be uploaded this time tomorrow night and I will be picking up the completed Christmas cards at Walmart on Friday night to mail out Saturday. I've already picked out the card style I want - now i just have to be sure I dress Ian in something that will match the border. ;)

Very temporary change of pace

2005-12-13T11:16:00.000-05:00

I've been re-reading through a lot of my previous posts and noticed a stream of negativity running throughout a good many of them. So in an attempt to not be so cynical and depressing I figured I would do a more uplifting blog entry. Or I'll try. It seems to seep in despite my attempts...

Next Wednesday I am taking my income tax exam. Although I probably will not pass it the first time through it will give me some experience in the testing format that I can use when I study more.

Ian had a good morning this morning. He woke up in a good mood, and sang all the way to daycare. He did cry when I left, but I think it's more for show than anything else.

My mom is planning to come up on Friday night and keep Ian for us so we can go to my office's Christmas party in downtown Raleigh. It will be nice to have an adult evening out.

My dad is coming up on Sunday to take us Christmas shopping and to go with us to take Ian to see Santa. I hope he does well and that we get a good shot of him with Mr. Claus.

Christmas is next weekend and I am mostly done with my shopping. I need to pick up one more thing for my mom, get stocking stuffers for everyone, and bake cookies for Ian's teachers. I am still waiting on several things to arrive in the mail so that I can prepare them to ship out. I know that sounds silly, but I had several picture frames that I ordered and I have to put the pictures in them to personalize!

Ok, the positivity is making me nauseous. Back to your standard cynical day. :)

Pile of crap

2005-12-12T16:27:00.000-05:00

Shipping those damned boxes cost nearly as much as the gifts in them.

40 minutes and $70 later I'm back at work. Gah.

I love how the woman at the counter decided to expound on the virtues on taping my box better than it was, then gave me a hard time when I asked her if I could borrow her damned tape. Come on, it's not like I asked to borrow your stupid little stamp or something.

Happy holidays.

Beeyotch

2005-12-11T18:12:00.000-05:00

I have been the biggest bitch this weekend. I have no excuse. I'm not set to start my period this week. I'm not pregnant. I'm just irritable and I've been snapping at Scott all weekend. I would put money on him being excited about going back to work tomorrow.

I think I'm just stressed. The holidays are always a stressful time for me, and I chose to make them even more stressful by scheduling my income tax exam on December 21st. AND I stupidly volunteered about a month ago to host Christmas at our house, since it's a convenient place for everyone to meet mid-way and they all wanted to see the new place anyway. So that festival will be next weekend.

There's just so much to do and I am nowhere near ready for my exam. I want it to be over before Christmas but I have a feeling I will just have to retake it.

Ian is on viewing #87 of this Benji Christmas movie my mom bought him. It's this bizarre story of Benji and his movie star chickie going to Switzerland to be grand marshalls of the Christmas parade and meeting a Santa with a broken leg. Except he's lying about the leg so he won't have to 'do' Christmas this year. It's really weird, and involves Russian dancing and random inserts of Benji for no good reason. I don't know, I'm pretty sick of it. Things like that can drive a girl to drink.

In other news, most of my Christmas presents have shipped and should be arriving by the end of this week. So that's good; I might have to pay more for shipping but I should be able to get them to their destinations by Christmas.

Also, I'm feeling much better now, as is everyone in my household. I took Friday off and went to the doctor. I felt bad but was still able to finish up a little Christmas shopping at Target while I waited for them to fill my prescription. I hope we all maintain our health. It's gotten pretty tiring to be sick all the time.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Christmass

2005-12-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

I just can't get better. Scott, Ian, and I have been rotating sick for weeks now. Yesterday Ian's doctor diagnosed him with having a sinus infection, and I'm just about to the point of diagnosing myself with simple assedness. Because I feel like ass.

I trudged through the day, but it was hard, and I honestly don't know if I'll be coming to work tomorrow because the coughing, hacking, snotting, headache, etc., makes my job not only miserable, but it also probably grosses out everyone who has to listen to me on the phone. And my cubicle mate, bless her heart, has been forced to listen to me hack and phlegm all day long. I fell at CVS last night, took a chunk of skin off my knee and am just generally sore all over, so maybe a day in bed would do me good and would keep me vertical and not rolling about on the floors of the local drugstore.

I have almost finished my Christmas shopping. I ordered a shitload of stuff online on Sunday, and then got online again and ordered two more things after I went to Walmart and they did not have it (even though it is on their website and not listed as "Online Only"). Unfortunately all of the stuff I ordered is not coming in in a timely manner, so Christmas may be delayed a bit for some. I very stupidly opted to have things shipped to me so I could wrap them cutely and put them all in one big box for each recipient, but now I'm thinking it would have been better had I just paid $4-5 more to have Amazon or whomever wrap it for me and then ship it directly to the recipient, then I would not have this big freaking hassle. Oh well, live and learn.

What I DIDN'T want to see at Christmas

2005-12-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

The housewarming party was really nice. We had a good turnout, but not too much that we really felt pulled every which way. We worked SO HARD to get ready for the party, I even went to Walmart at 1:00 in the morning on Friday night to get some stuff for the party because I knew we would be so busy the day of.

Sunday we took Scott's mom out for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, then later that night we drove to Meadow to see the "Christmas lights" we had heard so much about. We were all expecting a nice neighborhood with tastefully decorated homes. The first thing we saw was a nativity scene with full-sized mannequins, which is fine. We all know that Christmas surrounds itself in the story of not only Santa Claus, but Jesus as well.

But then we see the Last Supper diorama in the sunroom of a rancher. They had used mannequins again, but they had put really bad wigs and beards on them and the beards were right under their eyes. Scott and I agreed that it looked like ZZ Top clones having dinner.

The worst part came next, though. A full-scale replica of the crucifixion, except Jesus's right hand was missing and the one on the right (sorry, I'm bad with Bible history) looked more as though he were waving than dying.

Then came the light park. You were supposed to park your car and get out to see HUGE lit up candles, Christmas trees, bears, dogs, etc. The most random assortment of junk, and I think you had to pay to go in. We kept driving, and headed on over to Smithfield to eat mediocre Japanese.

The worst part is that Ian, for whom we went all the way to the light show, slept through the whole thing.

It was just a really bizarre night.

The Quick and Dirty

2005-12-02T10:21:00.000-05:00

I was up entirely too late last night cleaning, and there is still a lot to do. Beverly arrives at 2:40ish today and I'm sending she, Scott, and Ian out this evening to grocery shop while I finish up the tidying.

My dad is filing for separation from his wife next week and I'm way too happy about it.

Our kitchen island is arriving three weeks later than they told us it would. :(

Ian is hooked on "Madagascar" and I think we've watched it 47 times since Grandma gave it to him last week.

My dog is going to lose her mind tonight when Beverly shows up with Scooter, her long-distance puppy buddy. They will play non-stop all weekend.

My roots are showing badly. I hope we have time to fix it tonight ("we" being Scott and me; I can never do it right alone). I actually look like I'm going gray, as is the nature of dirty blonde roots near red hair.

I have not even begun to study for my income tax exam. It's on December 21st and I have 8 books to read. :(

My coworker gave me a housewarming gift yesterday. She bought two sets of our towels and a kitchen timer we had registered for. She probably spent $60 on us. I always feel bad when things are lavished on me like that. She and her husband are buying a new house so I will have to reciprocate when they move in!

The phones are so slow at work. Maybe I should take advantage and study...

Everyone have a great weekend!

Losers

2005-12-01T09:22:00.000-05:00

Evidently no one but my parents and aunts and uncles are coming to my housewarming party. I invited my coworkers, knowing most of them would not come, but no one has asked me for directions so I guess none of them will make it. My friend Brandy is coming up from Goldsboro if her sick kids allow it, so that will be nice. I haven't heard back from anyone else, though, so whatever. More fruit and veggie platter for me. :)

It's okay, I'm not really upset. I have had to skip out on events that were a big deal to other people in the past, plus it's a busy time of year so I can understand people having prior engagements. Oh well.

Tired and stupid, the whole lot of us

2005-11-29T13:04:00.000-05:00

I can tell I need more sleep. I made a stupid careless mistake last night that I'm feeling badly about today, and I probably would not have made it had I been more 'with it'. As uncomfortable as it might be, I think I might take a little doze on my desk. I only hope I don't fart in my sleep.

Scott and I spent the morning arguing. He made a stupid mistake too, but this is one that could have been avoided if he had done what I said and made a simple phone call. Instead, he showed up to court this morning 3+ hours from where we live to take care of a stupid traffic ticket, and ended up not having the proper documentation to get the thing taken care of with a Prayer for Judgment. So now he has to go back in January to take care of it. I'm beyond irritated, because he went once before and messed up and didn't have the wherewithall to ASK SOMEONE how he could get this taken care of. He's like a little child sometimes, I swear. And he wonders why I don't trust him to do anything anymore.

So tonight, I will watch the Biggest Loser finale and then crash hard. That's the plan at least, I hope I can put off working on the house for one more day...

Worked to the Bone

2005-11-27T19:15:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's already Sunday.

Thanksgiving ended up being really nice, once I got Scott to pull the turkey leg out of his ass. We spent the morning cleaning up the yard a bit, then all afternoon Scott cooked and I cleaned the house. My mom, my dad, and my grandmother came over for dinner. My mom stayed the night so we could get up early Friday morning to shop.

I woke up Friday morning at 4:20 when my cell phone started ringing. I had planned on getting up at 4:30 anyway, so no big deal. It was my friend Tara who lives in Asheville, calling me to see if I was out and about yet (she was already on her way to Kohl's). I woke my mom, and we were on our way out at 4:45.

We hit Kohl's first, it was a packed madhouse. They were already out of carts at 3 minutes after they had opened, but they are notorious for not having enough carts at that particular Kohl's anyway. We raided the toy section and ended up with so much stuff there was no way we could carry it and continue to shop. So I went back outside and grabbed a Ross cart I had seen in the parking lot. A manager tried to give me a hard time about bringing it in, but when I told him that I was done shopping if he didn't let me bring it in he grudgingly allowed it.

My mom stood in line for an hour at Kohl's to check out while I went to Michael's to get artwork for the house on sale. It took me forever to go through all their prints, but I got some pretty nice stuff, I think. A guy in line behind me liked it all. ;)

After that I picked up my mom and we hit Target. Left there, went to Home Depot, then to AC Moore, then to Old Navy, then to Super Target, then back to AC Moore because my mom had been overcharged, then to CVS to get tylenol. Then I drove by Jatana's house to pick up my Creative Memories photo organizer that had been delivered that day.

We were home by 3:00, exhausted. Unfortunately, Scott was curled up in a flannel blanket on the couch with chills and a high fever. I gave him the tylenol, and pretty soon he was ok. While he was recovering I went to Lowe's to get paint, and my mom left with Ian to take him to her house for the night.

For the next 24 hours we painted and painted and painted. We had to repaint the living room, dining room, hallway, and kitchen (they all flow into each other so we had to do it all). We got it done, and then some, but we are both so tired. Scott spent all last night puking, so he's been out of commission all day while I've been prepping for the week ahead. Dammit, another full work week. I hate five day work weeks. I haven't been to work for a full work week in over three weeks, partly because of holidays and partly because of a sick little boy and sick little me.

We're tired of leftovers so we're waiting for our pizza to be delivered as I type. There's really not that much left over anyway, as we hosted a pack of wild dogs. ;)

Next weekend is the housewarming party. Scott's mom is flying in from El Paso to visit and she has not seen Ian in a year and a half. I can't wait to see them interact again.

Pizza's here! Have a good night everyone!

Happy Effin Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T09:32:00.000-05:00

So last night I was up till 2:30 in the morning with an upset tummy, then when I finally did get to sleep, I was plagued with bad dreams and a Charlie horse in my left leg. I get up this morning and Chef Scott is in a pissy mood, telling me to stay out of his way when he's cooking because "you know how I get when I cook," and Ian has spent 99% of the morning so far whining. I tried to turn on the Macy's Christmas parade instead of his Baby Einstein DVD and I thought his head was going to spin around on his neck. And sometime yesterday I started my period and have no more tampons, so Scott is currently off running a feminine product errand, since I refuse to get dressed until I can plug up.

No wonder he's in a bad mood. All men love tampon shopping, especially when they're on the hunt for the 'Pearl, Regular.'

Once he's back, though, Ian and I will be getting dressed and going out to the front yard to pick up pinecones. We've been working so hard on the house itself that we've let the yard go a bit, and now there's more than enough pinecones and straw to go around for all the mulching in the world. I think (hope) Ian will enjoy the picking up of pinecones. Later we'll try to rake. I wish I had a little rake for him.

Anyway, everyone have a good day. I think I'll start drinking around noon.

Thanksgiving Eve

2005-11-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

We have so much to do this weekend. Originally we had a whole day's worth of landscaping to do, in addition to refinishing two large dressers, reupholstering Ian's ugly little chair that he insists be in the living room at all times, and just general odds and ends that needed to be tied up. Due to a paint mishap the other night now we get to add on "Paint living room, kitchen, and hallway" to that list. I'm not pleased, especially since our ceilings are 20 feet tall in some places and we have no ladder. Oh, and because I'm not married to Spider Man.

My online buddies and I are planning our big spring meeting in Gatlinburg. We'll be staying in a kick ass cabin, all 30 or so of us (there are lots more of us but unfortunately not all can make it). There will be much drinking, cooking, talking, sharing, hanging out, revelry, etc. I'm too excited about it. I missed the most recent meeting in Philly, which is a shame because a ball was had by all.

So for Thanksgiving we will be hosting my mom, my dad, and my grandmother. Small crowd, which is fine by me since the bigger crowd comes next weekend for the housewarming.

Everyone have a great Turkey day!

My mom, the spaz

2005-11-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

My mother had to come up to watch Ian for us today because he was in no shape to return to daycare. Her generosity is more than appreciated, and I don't know what we would do without her, but sometimes I just wish she would settle down.

I called the pediatrician's office to find out if they could see him today, after she called to tell me that his diapers were still yucky and his fever was still up. I figured they would fit him in in their evening hours, which meant that Scott or myself could have taken him. However, they said that he could come in in 45 minutes, which was great, except that it meant my mom driving in the rain to an unfamiliar place and dealing with a sick child in the process.

I called her and gave her directions (it's really VERY simple, a left turn and a right turn and just watch the street numbers), but she was of course hesitant. She called me three times on the way there, and finally when she seemed really lost I told her to pull off and tell me where she was. She did as I told her, and after 2 minutes of back and forth about street numbers I finally realized that she had pulled off into the parking lot of the ped's office.

She was worried about what to tell the doctor, since she had not been around him much and I knew more about his symptoms. I told her to call me when the doctor got there and I would let them know what had been going on. Unfortunately when she tried to call I was on a work-related phone call and could not answer immediately. I called her back the minute I got off the phone and she seemed completely overwraught. She was out of breath, snippy, told me that she couldn't get me on the phone so she had told the nurse that he had "diarrhea and a fever and that's it," and when I asked her if she wanted to write down his symptoms she said, "No, she's already gone so it doesn't matter." Then she burst into tears and told me that it was so hard because he was crying and upset.

I love my mom and like I said before, I am beyond grateful to her for helping us out with Ian today. But when she started crying I was ready to put on my coat and head out the door to find them, no longer sure that my mom could handle her charge. Ian started wanting to play with the buttons on the phone so she hung up on me at that point. (Honestly, from what I was hearing in the background, he didn't seem all that upset and even wanted to talk to me, something he never likes to do over the phone if he's in a bad mood.)

When they were checking out, the billing office made a mistake and told her to pay $71 instead of my $15 copay, and instead of asking them to look into it more closely she just paid it in cash and was off. When I found this out I called the billing office immediately and they admitted that they had made a mistake. So tomorrow I have to go by their office on my way to work to pick up her cash.

The really bad part is that Ian cannot go back to daycare until Wednesday, probably more likely next week (with the holidays). So she has offered to stay with him tomorrow, and I hate to take her up on it because it means her missing more work, but I feel so guilty being out even more! I feel totally unreliable and I know that it's looked down upon here to some extent, being a working mom. I do work with some really understanding women, and I do appreciate that sympathy I get. But I know it gets old, especially when you're in a small office and everyone is needed so much.

I feel just awful today about all of this. I hate that my mom got so upset, I hate that she is taking another day off tomorrow, I hate that my little boy feels bad, I hate that I can't be the go-to person at my job.

Early Christmas

2005-11-20T20:07:00.000-05:00

Scott and I bought a trash can a few weeks before we closed on the house. It's one of those silver ones with the foot pedal and the 'removable liner'. I guess I didn't think about it too much before purchasing, because this thing does not hold a trash bag well and, as Scott has pointed out to me, it is not meant to. The removable liner is actually the inside of the trash can. So everytime I need to take out the trash (which is often, since it is also relatively small), I either have to have Scott help me or I have to lift everything out by hand and into a trash bag. I also don't allow table scraps to be thrown away in it because I just don't want to have to rinse that out too.

Scott has been longing for an island for our kitchen since we moved in. We have a pretty large kitchen, and everyone who has visited has commented on how nice it is that we have room for said island. Scott and I both really wanted to get something custom-made to match our existing cabinetry, but the words "custom-made" usually tend to involve lots of $$$ too. So we decided to wait and put it on our long-term list of things we want to accomplish with the house, right alongside the removal of 6 very tall pine trees in the backyard and the paving of our driveway.

But then the other day I started griping about our trash can, and how I liked the one we had picked out because it looked nice but it was a pain in the ass to manage. Scott mentioned that if we got said island we could get one of those slide-out trash cans to go underneath, and then do away with the sight of trash in our kitchen altogether. I was sold.

We went to Lowe's today and found out that we can get our custom-made, butcher block Kraftmaid cabinet island for the slam-dunk price of $325. We probably could have gotten the trash can installed by the company but we found it for $50 on the storage aisle and decided to do it ourselves for probably much cheaper. It will be here in 3-4 weeks, and both of us are beyond excited.

Now if I could just get Scott to stop talking about the damned pot rack.

Ian busted a 104.4 temp tonight. He's never had a temp like that, and of course I panicked. The on-call nurse called me back immediately and told me what to give him, and within 15 minutes his temp was down to manageable levels. Now he's virtually fever-free, but we're still keeping him out of daycare tomorrow (my mom will be watching him) and keeping a close eye on him tonight. Between the kidney stone and Ian's fever we didn't get a thing done this weekend. I'm going to be up till 1 am doing laundry tonight, and that's if I'm lucky. Oh well, at least it's a short week at work.

It's only 2:30

2005-11-19T14:39:00.000-05:00

and it's already been a markedly better day than all of yesterday was.

Granted, this time yesterday I was laying on a hard table with an IV in my arm and an x-ray machine beeping above me.

I think I passed my stone last night. Without going into too much detail, while peeing last night I felt a quick "pop" (only way I can think of to explain it) and saw a tiny bit of blood on my tissue, and since then I've had almost no pain. I was looking forward to trying the Percocet, oh well. ;)

I took Ian to the Christmas Parade in Raleigh this morning. We went with my friend Karla who happens to work on the third floor of one of the downtown buildings, so we were able to stand in the warm office upstairs and watch everything down below. Good thing, too, because it was pretty cold this morning. That parade went on forever; we left after two and a half hours and it was still going.

AND while I was gone the heat guy came out and we are now toasty warm in our house, as it should be.

To top things off, my good friends are pulling together to send stuff to my friend who lost her house. She will feel so touched when she starts receiving all of these donations. I hope it helps them to get back on their feet.

Karla is bringing her son over tonight for dinner. They hauled a bunch of boxes off to the dump for us last weekend so we made them promise to let us make them dinner tonight. Scott is off at the store getting ingredients for goulash. Yum yum yum. I haven't had that stuff in over a year!

So yes, a much better day so far today!

Not a winner of a day

2005-11-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with pain so severe even 3 and a half Vicodin didn't touch it. I called my doctor's office and they were able to bump up my x-ray for this morning, so I dragged myself to Cary to get the x-rays done. 6 hours later they tell me that I have a small kidney stone that is just about ready to pass, but that I also have a birth defect that is causing me to have problems passing it. My left kidney has two ureters instead of the normal one, evidently, and one of them has a ureterocele at the end of it, which is a balloon-like spot that tends to block urine passage and, for that matter, passage of other things. The doctor gave me a script for Percocet, sent me home, and told me to try to pass it on my own this week before we go in and do surgery. He was fascinated by me, though, he said that only 1 in 500 people have this, and when I looked it up online while ago I read that it is more like 1 in 4000. Wow, I am unique.

Then I get home and notice that despite the fact that the heat has been set on 72 since this morning, the house is still 56 degrees. Fortunately the sellers purchased a warranty for the house for the first year, so all we have to do is pay $45 and the warranty company fixes anything to do with the systems of the house. Bad thing is they can't get anyone here till tomorrow morning. So we plugged up the space heater in our bedroom, and all three of us will camp out in there tonight. I'm taking Ian to the Christmas parade tomorrow morning if my body allows it, so hopefully once we get back we'll have heat.

But then I checked my email tonight and got the worst news of the day; my friend in SC was vacationing in Gatlinburg this weekend. She got a call tonight that her house had burned to the ground, something to do with faulty wiring in their computer room. Their dog was in the house and it's not looking too good for her, poor thing. I'm glad that she and her husband and son are ok, but I can't imagine losing everything like that. My heart breaks for her.

Here's to a better day for everyone tomorrow...

Yay yay it's Friday.

2005-11-18T01:27:00.000-05:00

My younger cousin broke off his engagement with his girlfriend yesterday. I'm sad because he was going to be one of the few family members I have in that area who would have gotten married and moved away from his parents more than 3 miles and had a life of his own. But he's still young and cute, hopefully he'll meet someone else. Pickings are slim when you've lived in the same place all your life.

Scott went for his physical today and I won't comment on it too much because there's too much opportunity to jinx it, but it looks like the payout could increase pretty significantly. I'm not writing checks yet, but if things work out I would *love* to have those six pine trees in our back yard removed and a play set put in for Ian.

Ian did not poop once all day at daycare, so he is either healed or constipated. He did, however, poop nasty tonight, but nothing too bad.

I have my x-ray tomorrow. I dread it, but I look forward to eating again afterwards. I wish I had not scheduled it for so late in the day. I was honestly hoping I could schedule it late enough that going back to work would be pointless, but the only opening they had was at 2:30 and I should be done by 3:30, so back to work I go. After hitting some place for lunch, of course.

I'm kicking around the idea of taking Ian to the Raleigh Christmas parade this weekend. My friend's husband is going to be in it and she has invited us to ride with her and her son. I have SO MUCH to do around the house, though, and our housewarming is in two weeks, but I feel like I should not let the housework get in the way of doing stuff that Ian would enjoy. It also, however, means getting up stupid early to stand out in the cold with thousands of other people. Not sure if I'm too keen on that right now.

Powwow

2005-11-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

I talked to the director this afternoon and explained to her that Ian gets overheated when he cries a lot, she said she would be sure to make a note of it in his file and tell his teachers so that next time he won't be sent home automatically.

And I will admit that he has had some foul diapers this evening, since I wrote my last entry, so it's good that he stayed home. However, he seems to be better so he will go back in tomorrow and my mom is on call to pick him up if they need him to leave again.

Scott has to go to Winston-Salem tomorrow for a physical with the VA. He seriously hurt his back and knees when he was in the military, and his hearing is worsening due to all of the booms and bangs he was in proximity to during the Gulf War. He is currently considered to be 10% disabled, but I personally have noticed his hearing getting worse over the years (that damned TV seems to be louder and louder every few months), and his knees and back seem to give him more trouble than they should for someone his age. We sent off his request to be reevaluated for more compensation about a year and a half ago, and never heard anything. Finally we called them and they said they had never received it, so we re-sent it in September of this year.

He got his letter last night that he has to go to Winston-Salem for his physical. They said he should expect to be there for several hours. I hope it goes well. If his hearing and other problems are bad enough they will be able to help him with them, and if anything they may just increase his compansability rating and that would mean more coming to us each month. Every little bit helps!

Back to work tomorrow, to catch up on all that I missed today. Have a good Thursday everyone!

Sick day

2005-11-16T12:24:00.000-05:00

Ian's daycare called late yesterday afternoon to tell us that he had had three loose BMs and that he would not be allowed to come back to the center until tomorrow. That is evidently their policy. I'm getting a little tired of their policies, although I know they are for everyone's good (in most cases). The first week he was there, on his third day, when I dropped him off he was really upset. He cried and cried and cried, which always tends to make him feel very feverish. They took his temp after his crying spell and he was at 101, so they called me to bring him home and told me he could not come back for two days. Once I got him home and he settled down, his temp went back to normal and did not rise again. He was just upset.

He's had more loose than solid poops lately, he goes in cycles. Part of it is because he still wears diapers, and once the poo is in the diaper it does tend to spread out and look more loose than usual. (Sorry, TMI.) But I still had to take a sick day today so that he could stay home with me. Despite a particularly stinky diaper this morning, he is fine. No temp, no nausea, no vomiting, and the diapers are standard for him.

I don't know if I should sit down with the director about this or not. I mean, he is fine, and I fear that I am putting my job at risk by taking sick days for him all the time for stupid pointless crap like this. I mean, if he is truly sick, fine, I'll gladly stay home with him. But this is such a waste of my time.

I'm just frustrated because I have to be out a lot this week for doctor's appointments for my kidney stone. I feel like they are getting irritated with me for taking so much time. Fortunately many people in my office (including my immediate supervisors) have children so they know how it is.

Drugged

2005-11-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

I'm so medicated now I'm not functioning well. I have been suffering through a kidney stone since last Thursday. It wasn't so bad until Friday, when I called my doctor. They got me an appt with a urologist for tomorrow, and luckily I had some hydrocodone to get me through most of the weekend. When I ran out of that my dad hooked me up with some of his stuff, of which I am currently drugged to my toenails with and I can't seem to hear well and the world is fuzzy and when I sit still for too long I immediately fall into a deep sleep.

I have to drive across town to Wake Forest Rd. in about two hours to get a flu shot. I'm a little concerned about this falling asleep thing. Hmm.

A little over three years ago, when I was about 5 months pregnant, I started experiencing some twinges of pain in my nether regions. I thought nothing of it, since I had been experiencing twinges of all kinds of things since I had gotten pregnant. It was the day before my 20 week ultrasound, the one where we were to find out whether Ian was a boy or a girl. My mom was on her way up that day so that she could be there for the big ultrasound the next day. (This, too, was Sept. 11, 2002, so it was not a happy day for anyone.) That morning I found a small amount of blood on my toilet paper when I peed, which of course scared me. I rushed to the ob's office in extreme pain and scared to death that I was miscarrying. They did the ultrasound early and told me it was a boy ("Who cares, I just want to know if he's ok."). They could not find anything wrong with him, thank goodness. Finally, the kind nurse practitioner who came in to check on me post-ultrasound listened to my symptoms and told me she would bet money that I had a kidney stone. I think I was the first person in history who was happy to hear this news.

And they also told me it was the closest pain to labor that I would experience prior to labor, so it would be a good time to practice my breathing exercises. Thanks.

But I think this is the same stone. I know that sounds crazy, but every time I have had problems with it I can tell that it has progressed slightly further south. Now it feels like it's right there where it could pass, but it just won't.

Sorry if this is TMI. Like I said I'm feeling kinda fuzzy right now so the thought processes are fuzzy as well.

Hope everyone else is having a pain-free Monday!

Nasty MoFos

2005-11-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. I have been swamped with unpacking and then we discovered mid-move that our computer was on the fritz again.

It's been pretty dramatic all the way around. The day before the move, after having spent two weeks trying to get Uhaul to verify my pick up date and time ("Someone will contact you the day before your move to verify that information, if you don't hear from them call us back here") I finally get someone to tell me at 5:50 pm that my truck will be waiting for me in Roseboro. Roseboro? What? Where the hell is Roseboro??? Turns out Roseboro is about 2 and a half hours from where I was, south of Fayetteville. I spent 2 hours on the phone with Uhaul trying to find a truck closer. We finally located one in Smithfield, a mere 30 minutes away, same size as the one in Roseboro (and why, you ask, didn't they assign us that one in the first place!?!? I don't know.)

My dad and Scott left the next morning to pick it up, only to discover that it would not start. The incapable woman running the business there could not make anything happen with Uhaul; it took Scott calling the regional office (at my insistence) and demanding someone come out to fix it before someone actually did show up. All it needed was a little squirt of starting fluid and we were ready to go. Unfortunately we had been held back a good three hours, which is why we were still unloading boxes into the new house at 11:30 that night.

The next day we were all so very sore. Scott and I limped out the front door to take the blasted truck back and found that it did not want to start again. Luckily the gas station down the road had a bottle of starting fluid, and Scott was able to get the cursed thing up and running again without calling the dumbasses at Uhaul. So we returned it to the "TransIMssion Store" (yes, that was the professionally done sign by the road) in Clayton and headed back home.

I'll tell you, those previous owners put on a good damned show when we came through for the first time. That house was spotless when we put in our offer. After that they brought in a band of apes to live there, I'm thinking. I guess we should have opened up the drawers and cabinets during the closing inspection to see the condition there, but we were so wound up about making sure all the major repairs had been completed that we didn't think to do that (this purchase, if nothing else, has made us MUCH smarter, we'll do much better next time). So our moving in was delayed three or so days by the fact that we had to clean up after the louts. There was a full beard in one of the bathroom drawers. The kitchen cabinets and drawers have horrible awful ugly contact paper that is rotting and peeling up, not to mention leftover utensils and crumbs. The paint in the bathroom was scuffed and dirty. Not to mention all the places where their paint rollers hit the ceiling and left bit paint marks that they did not bother to paint over.

So we spent the better part of that first week just cleaning. I still have not removed the nasty contact paper because it was such a big job and I had a toddler hanging around for a good bit of the time. That is the Veteran's Day weekend project. Ian will be going to Grandma's house tomorrow and we are going to use the time to pull all that shit out of the cabinets and start fresh. I am hoping we can just remove the stuff completely and not have to lay down new paper, because the shelves were in great shape before they put that stuff down, but I have purchased new liners just in case.

We repainted Ian's room the day before we moved in, a bright beautiful yellow to match the comforter set I bought for his new twin bed a few months ago. He LOVES his room. I couldn't be more pleased with his reaction. Hell, he loves the house. He calls it "Ian's new house" and he just seems to really enjoy having his new big bed and a room he can call his own.

We repainted the master bathroom one night last week, and we still have to finish up on the trim. It was a matte slate blue, a color that picked up every nick and scuff and it was just really ugly. It bothered me so much that I used the guest bathroom for the first few days because I couldn't even stand looking at it without getting extremely anxiety-ridden. We picked a similar blue, much prettier IMO, but it was a semi-gloss so it doesn't pick up scuffs and stains nearly as bad. That is the other project we have to finish this weekend.

And then Scott knocks our computer tower over while it is sitting on the living room floor. When the Time Warner guy showed up last week to set up the high speed internet, cable, and digital phone, the computer would not boot. So we took the thing to my friend Jatana, whose wonderful husband agreed to take a peek at it and see if he could get it running. His prognosis? He thinks the hard drive has gone bad (so the fall did not break it). This is the second time this year that this has happened and Scott just decided that it was time to get a new computer. (Gulp) And then we find that the huge monitor is too huge on our new (smaller) computer desk, so he just "picks up" a 19 inch flat screen monitor on his way out of the store. Bastard. But I have to say, I love it. Too bad we actually have to pay for it all.

So we're in the house, all the boxes are out, the place is starting to look liveable, and we have high speed internet again. My commute has been shaved down to half an hour, which is so wonderful.

And how is Ian adjusting? Well, it's been somewhat traumatic, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. He took right away to his new room. He still seems to be mildly interested in potty training (more so, actually, than he was before we moved), so that's a relief. Daycare is another story entirely. The first week and a half he sobbed and screamed the minute we turned onto the road that the daycare is on. He was usually a wreck by the time we actually pulled into the place, and leaving him there involved a teacher literally prying him off of me some days. I went back to the house that morning (I had taken the week off to unpack) and tried to work out a budget so I could afford to keep him at home. But there's no way, especially not now with our shiny new mortgage (and computer, and computer desk, and furniture, and and and).

But I am happy to say that this morning he only whined a little when we turned onto the road. He cried when we turned into the parking lot but I think it was mainly because he had not finished his breakfast at that point. So I sat with him in the car and let him finish eating, and then he was good to go. He did cry when we got to the room and I had to go, but the teacher assured me that it never lasts long. I think we'll have our good and bad days, but today definitely gave me hope.

So I'm very excited about this weekend, getting more projects done and making the home look even more like ours.

D Day

2005-10-27T12:18:00.000-04:00

So we're here. And my excitement has been tempered somewhat by a mistake I made two months ago during the inspection process. The inspector noted that a minor repair needed to be made, and when the sellers sent over their written documentation of what they would repair that tiny detail was not noted. I, however, agreed to their offer and they fixed what they said they would.

Last night we saw that the minor thing had not been fixed, but the sellers won't fix it now because we already agreed in writing to their other offer for repairs. And I can't blame them. They specifically wanted a written agreement with us so that things like this wouldn't come up at the last minute.

So oh well. We'll have to pay to repair the problem ourselves, but it's not something that is threatening the structure or anything. And to be honest, if the sellers had paid us to have it repaired we would have most likely used the money for something else that will invariably come up with the move.

But the good news is that we overpaid our closing costs so we're getting back $300 today! Woohoo! We celebrated last night by going out and buying a new computer desk after realizing all the stuff we plan to fit into our extra bedroom is not going to fit if we keep our huge corner computer desk unit. Anyone local need a nice corner computer desk??? You've got till Saturday morning to let me know, then it's going to Goodwill. :)

I probably won't update for a few days after today, but the next time I do it will probably be from my new high speed connection! No more dial-up! I can actually upload pictures again and it not take three hours!!!

Going through the motions

2005-10-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

This week is tough. I don't think I've been this anxious about something since right before I got married and, then again, right before I gave birth. I can hear the minutes ticking away, but they seem to be going by so slowly. The process begins tomorrow night, with our closing inspection at the house after work. Then I have to come here and pretend to concentrate for 7 hours on Thursday, before picking Scott up from work and heading to the attorney's office to sign the paperwork for the closing. COME.ON.ALREADY.

Ian said something this weekend that made me laugh till I cried. Scott is both an atheist and a fried fish lover. Sunday afternoon while we were running errands (for the house, gasp) Scott insisted that we take him to Captain D's to get his fried fish lunch. The drive thru intercom person never acknowledged our presence, so we pulled in to one of the front spots so Scott could run in and get his heart attack in a bag. While we waited Ian pondered the existence of the big red fish building in front of him, and promptly stated it to be "Daddy's church". Because, yeah, it does look like a church. But it's red and gives out one helping of coronary artery disease with the purchase of every combo meal. I started laughing, and Ian realized he had done something funny, so he continued to talk about "Daddy's church" and I continued to laugh until I had tears streaming down my face.

I guess you had to be there.

We've been spending mass quantities of money again. We dropped $250 at Walmart Sunday on basics for the house, a Swiffer, cleaning supplies, storage containers, odds and ends. Then we ordered a replacement frame for our futon yesterday, there goes another $200. We have even more expenses coming up with the closing, and I hope like hell that the house we bought has a money tree growing in the backyard.

Trick or Treat

2005-10-19T16:35:00.000-04:00

So Ian's Halloween costume arrived on Monday. He hates it. He screams when it is shown to him. He demands that we "Put it back".

So now we're at a loss as to what to dress our little man up as for Halloween. He hates wearing hats. He doesn't like to be messed with to wear something unusual. I think I'll dress him up as a petulant toddler.

T minus 7 days till closing. Next Wednesday we are meeting our realtor at the house for the closing inspection. Next Thursday I am leaving work early to pick up Scott and go to our attorney's office for the closing at 4 pm. After that we are going to go to our new house and dance around a bit, then head off for a celebratory dinner that we cannot afford. I'm thinking sushi. Friday we don our best crapwear and head off to the house to paint Ian's room yellow, not the shade of lavendar that currently festoons the walls (not to mention the unicorn and dragonfly stencils). Saturday we pick up our big-ass moving truck and bring all of our belongings to their new home.

So. Damned. Excited. Trying to breathe normally. Let's just hope the damned strongest hurricane ever in history in the Atlantic basin doesn't rain on my parade, literally.

Ragged

2005-10-14T18:23:00.000-04:00

I am so wasted and tired. I was on the phone with a very close friend last night until 1:30, then climbed into bed thinking that I would be okay with only 4 and a half hours of sleep. Who knew that I was to have so much less???

Ian woke up at 2:00, and then continued to wake up and whine every fifteen minutes thereafter. In sheer desperation we brought him into our bed and Scott went to sleep on the couch. Our bed is bigger but not THAT much bigger. He woke me up constantly. He finally let me sleep at 4:00, but woke me up at 5:20 asking for me to "Read books." Hell no. I slept for 40 more minutes, then climbed out of bed and started my great day.

Ian, on the other hand, got to go to Grandma's room and sleep in. He didn't have daycare today because they are having a teacher workday, so he slept in till shortly before 8:00. Let's see, where was I at that time? Oh yeah, fighting my way through I-440 traffic, Dunkin' Donuts latte IV inserted into my vein. I most certainly was NOT in bed.

I had made it through the day at a pretty respectable pace, I thought, until just a few minutes ago. I was sitting here on hold with one of our insurance companies, staring at my computer screen, and the overwhelming urge to crawl under my desk into the darkness overwhelmed me. So here I am, typing while on hold, trying to not pass out.

This weekend we are taking Ian to Ken's Korny Corn Maze. I had never heard of it, but evidently it has been taking place in Garner for years now. It's a 10 or so acre maze made out of corn. Crazy shit. Our friend Karla and her three year old son Luke are meeting us there, so the boys will hopefully have a great time together. It's supposed to take a little over an hour to get through the whole thing. We'll see. I'll update with my time next week. :)

So everyone have a great weekend, and let's celebrate: Fall is making an appearance (sort of).

Decisions of a 2 year old

2005-10-10T11:23:00.000-04:00

So here, we are, back to the grind for yet another Monday. But that's ok, and do you know why? Because everyday I work for the next three weeks gets me this much closer to moving to the new house.

Scott and I are getting very excited. Every once in a while it hits us that very soon, we will have our own living space again, and we just get all giddy. We got word from the realtor this morning that the sellers are having a termite treatment done, so that obstacle has been surmounted. I know there are so many fine little details to take care of in the next couple of weeks, but at least the bulk of the big stuff is done.

We ordered Ian's halloween costume yesterday. Scott and I had been planning on attempting to make him an Oswald the Octopus costume (because we have been totally unable to find one pre-made), but with all that we will be doing the next couple of weeks I just did not see how we were going to fit that in too. We are already planning to use the sewing machine to make Ian's curtains this weekend, so I don't want to bog us down with too many projects.

So we tried to get Ian involved in the costume-picking process. The last two years I have chosen his costumes for him. When he was 8 months old he was the cutest Eeyore that ever was. Last year we bought him the Tom Arma turtle costume, which he loved and wore for days before Halloween. This year, though, I thought I would let him pick it out since he is the one who has to (refuse to) wear it.

At first it looked like the bumble bee was the winner, but then he decided he liked the Darth Vader (Scott was thrilled). Then he saw the fire truck and liked it. But then he saw the airplane and liked it too. THEN he was fixated on being Santa Claus. Our little test went something like this:

"Ian, do you want to be a fire truck for Halloween?"
"Fire truck."
"Ian, do you want to be a fire truck for Halloween?"
"Fire truck. Not yet."
"Ian, do you want to be Darth Vader for Halloween?"
"Dar Ader."
"Ian, do you want to be Darth Vader for Halloween?"
"No. Not yet."
"Ian, do you want to be Santa Claus for Halloween?"
"Sanna Cause!"
"Ian, do you want to be Santa Claus for Halloween?"
"Sanna Cause, not yet."

You get the point.

Finally, we found a police motorcycle costume. We performed the above test, never got a "No" answer, and hours after we ordered it he was still talking about the motorcycle. So hopefully when it gets here he will love it and, most importantly, wear it.

Minutiae

2005-10-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here at my mom's slow-assed computer, printing out 66 change of address announcements. I have been working on these cards announcing out new home move since August, slowly but surely. I found the design I wanted to use back in January, bought the design book just to have it on hand for when our inevitable home purchase occurred. If I keep working the way I have been they should be ready to go by next weekend. I'm not mailing them out until we move, though; we still haven't heard back regarding the termite thing.

Ian is taking his nap right now. Once he's up we will venture out to get the last few things for the house: a trash can for the kitchen, curtains for Ian's room, bedside tables for our room, and new phones. We also have to order a new futon frame but we'll wait till we get to the new house so we won't have yet another thing to move.

I helped my friend Tara get a job at Gymboree in Asheville this week. She recently quit her job at the credit union branch I used to work at to stay home with her one-year-old son Ben. She decided that she wanted some part-time work, and having worked at Gymboree in the past I told her that they would give her better pay than most and the very very decent 40% discount. Hopefully she'll still have a paycheck when the time comes; I know how hard it can be to resist those adorable clothes. I might just have to ask her to hook me up with the discount. :)

I made it

2005-10-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

I wasn't sure if I was going to make it to Friday this week. It's been one of THOSE weeks, where the days seem to creep by. I've also been somewhat sick for most of the week, so that has made the drudgery all the more intolerable.

It's raining, and I really want to go back home and crawl into bed. We got stuck in a traffic jam on I40 this morning, so it set us back about 25 minutes on our commute.

Three weeks from today we will be standing in our new house with paint rollers ready. Three weeks from yesterday is our closing date, and I celebrated by calling all of the utility companies to set up power, water, garbage collection, etc. The water company is archaic: turns out I have to GO to the Land Use Company or something building in downtown Smithfield between 8 and 5 Monday through Friday (totally DOES NOT work with my schedule) and fill out an application. I have to pay a $20 app fee and a $50 deposit (because I can't provide a letter of credit from another utility company since we stopped all utilities in our names when we moved from Asheville six months ago, drat). Even the fucking garbage collector had a website where you could register for service and pay your down payment. Stupid. So now I have to work out some comp time at work so I can get this water thing done. Gotta have water.

We took Ian to the Wayne County fair last weekend. He had a ball. He rode so many rides all by himself, like a big boy. I was so surprised that he was so brave. We also took turns taking him on the big slides, the ones you ride down on the burlap sack. The pictures are really funny - he is crying in the first ones but by the time he has made his way down the slide he's grinning like an idiot. I got one of the worst sunburns in my life because, well, I'm an idiot from the mountains who, even though I'm used to spending a great deal of time in the out of doors during the fall months, I'm not accustomed to having to wear sunscreen in freaking October. Dumbass hot part of the state. But it's healing. And it's raining this weekend so it's not likely we'll be out getting sunburns again.

Turns out we do own critters in our house. The sellers are shopping around for quotes on termite treatments. Everyone is so concerned that they won't fix it and the deal will fall through. The way I see it, they can't sell the house to ANYONE until they get rid of the bugs, so it's something they'll have to do. I don't care if they drag their feet, just so it's done by the time we close on the 27th. Plus I'm sure that by now they have purchased their own home that they need to move into, so they would be stupid not to just finish this deal out. But hey, if it falls through it falls through and we'll move on.

I spoke with the director of the daycare I wanted Ian to get into yesterday and she finally was able to promise me a spot. I tried to get over there yesterday after work to put down his deposit and pick up his paperwork but some guy called me four minutes till closing to purchase life insurance on he and his wife, so I left here 25 minutes late and we couldn't make it on time before they closed. So that's first order of the day this afternoon.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

MUST.UPDATE.BLOG.

2005-09-28T17:13:00.000-04:00

Can we please talk about how much I suck? I just cannot seem to get around to updating this thing. So here is my sworn oath to do everything in my power to update on a more regular basis. Promise!

But really, nothing too exciting is happening. We are now T minus 29 days till closing. Gas prices are killing us. I wish we could move in sooner and cut out this god awful commute, but we've already got a schedule for everything and we don't even have all of our furniture yet!

Termite inspection is today - hopefully we don't own any critters.

Scott may be getting hired on full time permanent at his job. He is being trained on stuff that they only train permanent employees on, so it's very likely he'll be brought on soon. That means higher pay, benefits, and more job stability. Yay, yay, and yay. It also means that I would be able to put Ian on his insurance and therefore have more take-home pay myself. Yay! I'm trying not to get too wound up about it, but man, we sure could use that increase right about the time that mortgage payment thing starts!

And then there's that crazy expensive thing called Christmas right around the corner (and don't even get me started on the idiocy of having a child 19 days after Christmas - more gifts, anyone?!?!). Ian has started pointing out and saying "Santa Clause" when he sees him in books and on TV, so I think this year might be the first year that he 'gets' this Christmas thing!!! I'm so excited about that. The last two Christmases were exciting because he got up and had all these new things to play with, but there was no excitement from him surrounding it. I'm so thrilled at the prospect of teaching him about Christmas Eve, and seeing my excited little boy go to bed that night unable to get to sleep for the thrill of it all.

And a tip for all of you out there who are having your child's first Christmas or who plan to have your own children involved in Christmas at some time in the future: BUY WIRE CUTTERS. Times have changed, my friends. Toys no longer fall out of the packaging when you break open the plastic seal. Now these 5 cent plastic figurines must be secured in place by 3 dozen twisted wires. I spent 20 minutes last week getting a toy car out of its packaging. You'd need hours for the train set we're getting him. So Christmas Eve, we will put him to bed and then proceed to begin assembly of the toys. Never again will we wrap them and give them to him. They will be ready to run when he pads in there first thing Christmas morning. Because I, my friends, am no sadist. I do not wish to have a screaming child on one arm, yelling "Open It!" while I cut my hands with the bone cutters I'm using to madly ply into the packaging. No no, not this year.

So here's to a saner holiday season. Hmm, that sounds like a good Christmas card...

Yes, I've been slack

2005-09-13T11:23:00.000-04:00

And I really have no particularly good excuse as to why. I just go weeks sometimes not really wanting to be online much, and thinking (probably accurately) that my life is not exciting enough to blog about it. But I was chastised by a good friend (Hi Mindy!) last night for not updating recently, so I'll give it a good try.

We have about 44 days until we move. The sooner the better. My mom is starting to get more and more religious on us and it's getting pseudo-creepy. Even if it wasn't creepy it makes us both really uncomfortable. But we just try to smile and move on.

My dad and his wife are getting ready to divorce (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!) I spent a good part of the weekend talking up his ex-girlfriend Kathie, whom I adore, and who is still in love with him (and he with her). Her daughter and I are good friends and we are trying desperately to finally get our parents to get it together and admit what we've known for years: that they are perfect for each other. The only problem I can see in this whole situation is that Kathie was the woman my dad had an affair with when he was married to my mother. Hmmm. But any of you out there who have met Kathie know what a sweetie she is. I hope this works out. It would be nice to not dread going to my dad's house for fear of running into the Redneck Horror that is his current wife. (And to be fair, my dad has not lived with her for 2 months.)

Ian found one of my Mardi Gras necklaces from my last trip to New Orleans 10 years ago, a small green beaded necklace. The other night we caught him breaking off the beads and putting them, one by one, up his nose. We managed to stop him at 3, but he was still going full force when we snatched them from him. We got the first two out pretty easily, but the third one required three adults, a flashlight, a set of tweezers and very nearly a straight jacket.

Stories that have been related to me from various people since this happened:

1) My friend used to babysit this little girl whose mother noticed one night that there was a stench coming from her nose. She thought the little girl had a horrid sinus infection. She took her to the doctor, who proceeded to remove a rotten pea from her nasal cavity.

2) My friend had a friend whose 16 year old sister, for some reason, decided to stick a green bean in her ear. She was so embarrassed when she could not get it out that she did not tell anyone. When she finally went to see a doctor about it he found that the bean had taken root and started growing.

3) And the winner: My mother's coworker's daughter loved to snuggle at night with her mom when she was a toddler. One night they were snuggling and the mother noticed that her daughter had a rotten odor about her. She checked her all over, then saw something hanging inside of her nose. She proceeded to pull out AN ENTIRE KLEENEX that the little girl had crammed in there which had begun to rot. She had no idea how long this thing had been up there.

Please, feel free to add your stories for my archives.

New Orleans

2005-08-29T20:10:00.000-04:00

I'm really sad about the hurricane ass-raping that the gulf is taking today. I made two incredible trips to the French Quarter while in college, and I think it is just the most amazing place. Magical, really. Yes, I know it's really dangerous and all that, but what fun it is! How much of those trips do I remember? Well, that depends on how much I had had to drink at any given time.

I cultivated one long-term romance in the French Quarter. Things were on the rocks with Tim and I, and through several no-fault-of-our-own variables, I ended up rooming with a friend named Ben. Yes, we slept in the same bed together, but nothing physical happened. We had lunch and dinner together at a restaurant (we went back twice because it was so good), went to Preservation Hall together (he was a trumpet major at ASU so he had a ball there), and just hung out all week. The seeds for a future romance were laid that week, and months later, when Tim and I made our momentous break, Ben was there to help me back to my feet again. He came to my dorm room and gathered me up, took me to his room and force-fed me spaghetti (back in those days stress and grief actually caused me to NOT eat). I don't even remember at what point we actually solidified the relationship and made it official, but I will never forget those happy times in the Quarter with him.

On that trip I also sat in Jackson Square and paid a hippy to put a braid in my hair, complete with a little jingly trinket in the end. At 4:20 she and her friends took a break from the hair-styling to retreat behind a bush, to do god knows what. Well, I didn't know what then, but I certainly know what now!

A couple of years later, I returned to the Quarter as a sort-of tour guide for a group of select honor students. We were there to 'present our various talents and works at a conference', but we really were all there for the party. Many of the innocent girls I tooled around with, and myself, earned lots and lots of beads. (I saved those beads for years, and years later my son found the bag and made them his own, wearing them around the house like a 2 foot tall trannie in footed pajamas. Now all that remains of them are several loose, large balls in gold, green, and purple. He likes to put these in the smoke stack of his locomotive.) I will never forget one of the girls saying to me, as we staggered through the Quarter trying to find our hotel, "I was not going to flash but then I saw Amy do it and thought, 'Well if she can do it I can too!'" What a great role model I was.

No regrets.

Even though the four of us flashing all at once probably earned us a spot in many peoples' photo albums.

We arrived in New Orleans at about noon that first day. Check-in at the conference was not until 3 pm, so I let everyone loose in the Quarter until about 2:30. I was buzzing by 1:00. I tried desperately to attend all of the presentations given that week while we were at the conference. I really tried since I was the president of this club and felt that I needed to be there for my guys. I did great the first full day of conference. The second day, not so good. I was lucky to be able to get up in time for my presentation at 9:00 am, only to crawl back to my room afterwards to sleep off my hangover. Most of us were in the same boat. I don't think a single one of us did not get absolutely hammered at least once while there. I spent most of the time there in a blur. Me and Heather and Dawson at Pat O'Brien's with the giant fire fountain behind us. I do remember that, but mainly because there are very blurry photos to prove it happened. I remember Frank getting drugs off some guy in an alley. That's really all I'm remembering right now. I know there was ever so much more.

I hope the city is able to recover. I fear it will never be the same. I realize this post may sound callous in that I am not citing the potentially devastating loss of life as what is making me sad, but I am simply going on what I know of the city. I'm sure the numbers dead will be very sobering, and I will deal with that then. For now, I comfort myself with the memories of the city and hope that one day I will be able to return and still see a glimmer of what it once was.

On the mend

2005-08-28T01:04:00.000-04:00

It's been a sickly week here. Ian got an ear infection and passed it on to everyone in our little house. I got it the worst, with an ear infection and a bronchial infection at the same time. So between staying at home with Ian, staying at home because I was too sick to work, and taking the day off for my home inspection, I worked two days this past week. It spoiled me, despite the fact that I felt like ass for most of it.

Our home inspection went okay. There are some repairs that are going to have to be made, and we have yet to hear back from the sellers as to whether or not they are going to do them. I don't expect them not to, but I am also not sending my change of address form to the post office quite yet. There's so much in the air when you buy a house, at least until the paperwork is signed. From what the inspector said, it doesn't sound as though any of it is going to be extremely expensive to repair, but what the hell do I know about it? Not much, that's for sure. Either way, I'm not stressing about it.

My dad's cousin called the police last weekend to report his wife missing, then shot himself. The next day they found her body in the Neuse River, by a bridge that we drive over every day. Really really sad, especially since they had three kids. They had been together for thirty years and were having marital problems (no shit). As is common with my dad's family, there's been nothing but Jerry-Springer-style drama surrounding it.

Anyway, quick update on my life. I'll try to do better. :)

Motivation Anyone?

2005-08-19T20:20:00.000-04:00

Wow, just got an email from Tracy Edwards, an old high school friend of mine, that our 10th high school reunion is coming up in less than two months. Got.To.Work.Out.Now.

I've long been dreading this moment, holding up myself against all those others I competed against in high school. Truth be told, yes, I am living with my mother, and the address where they will send my tickets for the dinner will tell my little secret. But, but! In two weeks from the time I stand in a depressing hall with a name tag reading Amy Glenn (was Amy Jones) I will move out of my mother's house and to my first home!!! Therefore, anyone who asks where I live will be told, "Clayton". Not that that is thrilling by any means. I would much rather say, "Asheville." Oh well.

Also, I was going somewhere when I graduated from high school! I was pegged to be a music genius! But nooooooo, I dropped out of that in my first semester of college, and went on to get my psychology degree. But wait! I was supposed to go on to become a Ph.D., doing research on undergrads everywhere! But nooooooo, I hated the graduate program I was in so I dropped out with a 4.0 and went on to become, well, THIS.

Not that THIS is so bad. It's not what I saw myself doing and it certainly challenges me more than the other stuff did because the main reason that I did that stuff was because it came so naturally to me. But hey, I had to pay the bills so pursuing the things I love didn't pay as well.

Oh well, time to climb the stairs again.

Delusion

2005-08-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

Scott was making fun of me last night, something that happens quite often as I have many odd quirks that he loves to tease me about. He hates ants, he squashes them first before they can bite him later. Ian likes to lay down on the front porch or the sidewalk at my mom's house and roll his cars back and forth, all while the ants crawl around him and bite his yummy little legs and arms. Scott takes particular care in squashing the ants that threaten his offspring.

Ian has learned this trick. He will stand on the sidewalk and say, "Bad ants," and squash them with his foot, or roll over them with his little car wheels.

I have a problem with this. For those of you who have known me a while, you know that I have a goose-down soft place in my heart for animals. And even bugs, to a certain extent. I was explaining to Scott last night on the eternal drive home that I didn't like when he mashed ants, nor did I like that Ian had picked up the habit from his daddy. I told him that everytime I see him do it I think of this huge ant family, trekking their way back home after an outing, and each ant having to watch his entire extended family crushed to death under the hand or foot of some giant person. They die in pain, agony, terror, and despair. Scott laughed his ass off at me, telling me that ants are not sentient beings, that they don't have 'ant families', they don't go to Ant University or have ant jobs or go to the ant grocery store.

I know, I know, it's odd of me to think that way, and most of it was said tongue-in-cheek. I just hope Ian stops at bugs.
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My friend is reading the newest Harry Potter book. She just started it the other day (what's HER hold up?). Anyway, she also is a fan of the site, tshirthell.com. Funny site, I love it too. However, she went to the site and saw this shirt, (SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT):http://www.tshirthell.com/dumbledore.htmShe was so pissed, but we laughed for hours at her. :) Can you imagine showing up at the premiere night wearing that shirt?
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Started off the day in a bad mood, have not really shaken it yet, nor have I really tried. I drank a Pepsi for breakfast, not my normal diet repertoire but it felt right at the time, what with the Zombie-like trance I got out of bed with. Then I stopped on the way to work and bought a hazelnut iced latte. I should be hanging from the ceiling tiles in, oh, about 30 minutes.
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We're leaving for the beach tomorrow. I'm taking with me an income tax book, Jack Daniels, and the knowledge that we might be evacuated early due to that bitch Irene. We were scheduled to return to Goldsboro on Tuesday anyway, but my hosts are scheduled to be there the whole week and it would be a shame if their long-awaited vacation was shortened due to some irritating hurricane. I am actually looking forward to a little bad weather, though. I think choppy, stormy water looks really cool and could provide for some great photo opps for Scott, and hopefully we'll get to see some of that before, if ever, they evacuate us.

Everyone have a nice weekend, and Becca, have a WONDERFUL trip to Scotland. I'm beside myself with envy.

I have a good excuse for not updating more

2005-08-06T22:58:00.000-04:00

Really, I do.

We've been busy BUYING A HOUSE.

http://trianglelistings.marketlinx.com/SearchDetail/Scripts/PrtBuyFul/PrtBuyFul.asp?prp=mls&AgentId=R24910&EmailKey=5019526

I found the house online Wednesday, we looked at it and made an offer on Thursday, and we spent all day Friday counteroffering. We got the call last night that they accepted our offer. We close at the end of October, which gives us plenty of time to look for daycares for Ian, save up for furniture, etc. We're so excited! And our commute will drop to 20-30 minutes rather than 75 minutes. Gad, I can't wait!

I can certainly think of better ways to start my weekend

2005-07-29T11:17:00.000-04:00

We had a ginormous storm last night. I was awakened at about 2 am by this loud-ass thunder, and the power subsequently went out. Scott and I laid there for a few minutes and debated what to do about the alarm clock situation. Finally we figured out how to rig up his cell phone as an alarm clock. That thing went off at 6 am, still no power. I took a shower by candlelight while Scott went outside to call the power company. He came back in and informed me that everyone around us, including our next door neighbors, has power. Great. So it looks as though we were hit directly.

I don't like putting makeup on in the car, but I did it while Scott drove. (I hate when I see people driving and applying makeup at the same time, makes me just wish that eyeliner would poke their eye out.) I'm feeling all ragged and unprepared today as a result of our crappy morning. Ian spent the entire time complaining because he did not understand why his cartoons were not on and why none of the ceiling fans worked (he loves ceiling fans - when we were shopping for modular homes he made us turn every single one on in each model we visited).

So hopefully the problem will be remedied by the time we get home this evening, because the thought of a Little House on the Prairie scenario does nothing for me. Nothing at all.

Nose in many books

2005-07-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

I am under strain. As of last week I was reading 5 books at once. Not all of them are exciting reads, either. I was reading Harry Potter (of course), the final Dark Tower book, a homebuying book, a mortgage book, and last but certainly not least, my Income Tax book. You see, I'm studying through the Credit Union to become a Certified Financial Planner. I am on class 4 of 5, Income Tax Planning, and let me tell you it's a doozy. I finished Harry Potter on Sunday, am about halfway through Dark Tower, am on the last chapter of the homebuying book, and have a ways to go on the mortgage book. Income taxes, well, I just finished chapter 1, book 1, of 9 books. Gah. My life sucks. And I want to finish all the classes by December, so I've got to buckle down. Once I'm done with my pleasure reading (cause I HAVE to finish Dark Tower, I can't just put it down after 6 of these monsters) I'm mired in taxes for a while. Pity me. :)

A house in Walnut Creek, a rich subdivision/city in Goldsboro, was broken into on Friday. The thieves somehow managed to make off with about $350,000 worth of guns, computers, TVs, electronics, and cash. Plus a 900 POUND SAFE. It occurred sometime on Friday between morning and evening. I wonder if the doctor who owns the home had an alarm system. If not, stupid on him. This was obviously a well-thought-out robbery. It's the biggest one in Goldsboro's history, which is not at all surprising because most people are poor there. You know, comparably.

Had my first physical in about 14 years with a male doctor yesterday. Yick. I might change, that was awkward. When he asked me how I had lost all the weight I almost told him, "Heroin". But he seemed too straight-laced for that. I love shaking people up, but not when they are administering my tetanus shot. Man, my arm hurts like a bitch today.

Tsk Tsk

2005-07-20T12:28:00.000-04:00

Why is it that my mom thinks it horrifically bad parenting when Scott and I teach Ian to say, "Mommy stinks," and "Daddy stinks." We think it's hysterical.

Good for Nothing

2005-07-18T11:44:00.000-04:00

Wow, I didn't do a damned thing this weekend. I literally got home from work on Friday, changed into my jammies, and did not leave the house at all until this morning when I had to return to work.

I'm not usually this lazy. I used to love doing things on the weekends. But that was when I was living in Asheville and there was actually something to do that did not involve pigs and grease. That's what my life seems to revolve around these days, unfortunately, in some way shape or form. Oh, and then there's the heat, the primary reason why I don't want to go out. We had two really good thunderstorms this weekend and after they were over the steam rose in Grantham and I could barely breathe when I went out. So instead of going out I spent the weekend playing with Ian, watching movies from our Blockbuster Online queue, and just in general relaxing. At one point we even had Grandpa pick Ian up and take him to the park and to his great-grandmother's house, therefore avoiding that trip to the outdoors ourselves. Scott went to Walmart on Saturday and actually asked me if I wanted to go. He got a big fat resounding 'no' on that one.

I rarely get very caught up in TV shows, I like to watch them but they do not become a huge part of my life. The one exception to that rule is "Queer as Folk", which I have mentioned before. Last night something happened on the show that I have been waiting four years for, and it made me so happy. :) I know it's all fake, but the producers have done such a great job at making me and anyone really who watches this show fall in love with the characters, it's just something I look forward to every night. Then they succeeded in totally trashing my high by announcing that the next three episodes are the last. Not the last of the season, the last of the series. I knew that this was the final season, and I literally held my breath every week hoping that the big announcement would not come. So now I'm down to 135 more minutes of the guys (since the show is 45 minutes long each week). I'm seriously going to need a support group. I will have to hunt down the British version so I'll have something else to distract me. :(

Hope everyone had a great weekend. The next two weekends will be much more eventful for me, thank goodness.

Cooling our Heels

2005-07-15T13:34:00.000-04:00

Scott and I were feeling very rushed this week, like a snowball effect had taken hold. You see, the housing market is such around here that if you find the perfect house you need to go ahead and put in an offer, as they go quickly. We have our letter that SAYS we can have $100,000+, but we're not feeling all that ready to take the plunge just yet. I have been offered three different types of mortgages in the past two days alone, and I need some time to sift through the various offers and possibilities to determine what is right for us.

So hopefully by the fall we'll continue the process again, but for now it's nice to take a breather.So for now I get to continue this hellish commute. Gah.

Shopping

2005-07-12T11:32:00.001-04:00

We decided to try for the house. I called around the Credit Union yesterday and got us prequalified for a mortgage loan, which is great because now we can show up and make an offer on the house we want if we see one we want. Especially important in the Clayton market; good houses get snatched up FAST.

Alas, the little house we loved was bought before we could even go look at it last night. We looked at a different one that the realtor thought we would like, but it was not for us. The guy who lives there had threatening notes up all over about not stealing from him, don't go through his dresser, don't touch his safe, etc. His closets were filled with hunting gear, and his living room had no furniture save a TV turned to wrestling and two dead deer heads on the wall. Definitely not my vibe. The folks from "Sell This House" seriously need to intervene here.

So now we have our golden ticket, our prequal letter, which gives us a lot more buying power. I think this process will be fun, if not tiring, looking around for our future home. We'll just take our time, be picky, and hopefully our other dream home is out there somewhere.

Shopping

2005-07-12T11:32:00.000-04:00

Big mistake

2005-07-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

Friday on my lunch hour I decided to peek at houses on realtor.com. I don't know why I looked; we're nowhere near ready to buy. We want to pay down some bills first, then take our time finding a mortgage lender that will meet our needs. We're shooting for the fall to start this whole process of getting a pre-approval letter.

However, I found a house that looked cute online, so I thought Scott and I could drive by it on Friday on our way home from work.

It was perfect. It had everything we wanted and then some. Not only did it have a nice, good sized green yard, in a quiet subdivision, lots of trees, nice front porch, right size and price, and interesting facade, but it had two bonuses we weren't counting on: a garden tub and a screened in porch with a deck. We didn't actually go in it; we saw the 360 degree tour online and some other pictures the owners had posted as well. We probably could have gone back yesterday for the open house and seen the interior, and if we had tried real hard we probably could have taken today off work to rush through a mortgage application process. But honestly, I'm looking forward to the home shopping experience. I don't want to rush into anything too quickly and then end up regretting a rash decision or wishing we had shopped around more. And I hope that I'm right when I say that if there's one perfect house there will be others.

We're not looking anymore until we are ready to buy. It hurt too badly to drive away and say goodbye to that house. I doubt it will be on the market long, with the way the Clayton market is right now. Oh well.

I really don't want to go to the doctor

2005-07-05T15:05:00.000-04:00

Mainly because I don't really have one yet. Okay, I don't have one at all. I have an ophthamologist, but that was only because my eyes were bothering me from all this computer work so I got myself some contact lenses.

Ian jumped on my head last night while we were playing. I was lying on the floor so he successfully smashed my head pretty good. I heard some cracking/popping noises and my vision went bright white for a few seconds. After that I had the worst headache in the history of my headaches. Scott checked my pupils and said they were reacting fine, I took some tylenol and went to bed and felt fine this morning when I got up.

As the day has progressed I have been feeling a dull ache along with some short bursts of pain, and some achy feelings around where I heard the cracking and popping noises. I seriously don't want to bother with going to a doctor, especially since I'm in Raleigh and it really would be easier for me to go to my parents' doctor but that would mean going to Goldsboro blah blah blah. HOWEVER, I am not interested in having a concussion that gives me problems either. Hmm, okay, the 3 or so of you who look at this, make my decision for me. Gah.

Skewed Logic

2005-07-01T11:38:00.000-04:00

My husband, Scott, has this strange way of approaching his workday. When he gets up on, say, a Monday, in his mind his Monday workday is already over. He compares it to firing a gun, once you've pulled the trigger there's no stopping the bullet so you may as well call it a day. I can't subscribe to his ideas as easily. Cause, you know, there's that whole MONDAY to get through. I guess whatever gets him through the day, and if it makes his cynical ass a little more positive I'm all for it.

A few friends of mine on my mommy chatboard found out that pictures of their children had been ganked from their personal websites and had been posted on a diaper fetish board. The police have been involved in this now and evidently they have found that pictures of kids, diapered, clothed, eating, etc., have been stolen and put up on various fetish websites. (And unfortunately nothing can be done as nothing but copyright laws have been broken.) They said that any picture hosting site, like Snapfish and Shutterfly (I use both) are susceptible to this. Makes me sick. I don't want to remove my pictures but I feel like I should. :(

Day is finally starting

2005-06-29T16:33:00.000-04:00

Our computers have been down statewide all morning, they just came back up while I was on my lunch hour so I thought I'd post real quick before I get started on the pile of work I have to do!

The meeting with the daycare director went well; we found out that Ian evidently is not the little angel my mother has led us to believe. She is the one who picks him up and gets all the details of the incident. Either they are not telling her everything or she glossed it over. Regardless, it turns out that most every time Ian was getting bitten it was when he was trying to take a toy away from another child (and it turns out that his little girlfriend is the one doing the biting! :) ) So whatever, it happens. We'll work with him on the sharing if her parents will work with her on the biting.

I am so ready for this commute crap to be over with. I know we have to bide our time until we can move closer to Raleigh, but god it kills me to wake up every morning and think about the long day I have ahead of me, 3 hours of which will be spend in the car. I'm having more and more trouble getting motivated to leave in the morning. But I'll stick it out and look forward to moving by the end of the year.

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday. I won't bore you with anymore details today!

Blah

2005-06-27T17:37:00.000-04:00

That's how I'm feeling now. I had a nice weekend that rushed by way too quickly, and now I'm faced with Monday. Blech. Scott and I are reaching a milestone today, if you will, our first pseudo parent/teacher conference. Ian has been bitten by other children in daycare, I think it's four times in two weeks now. At first I was willing to let it go. I even contacted the daycare director and she informed me that Ian was not doing anything to cause the child to bite him, and that their policy is to inform the parents of the other child if it becomes a recurrent problem. Last Thursday he was bitten again by the same child, and the teacher told my mom (she picks him up) that they were not planning on telling the other parents. I'm tired of this run-around, getting different information from different sources. If it was my kid doing the biting I sure as hellfire would want to know about it. So instead of making yet another lame and (obviously) ineffective phone call we are getting off work to drive the hour and a half to meet with the director. I don't plan to be rude, but I want to know what, if anything, they plan to do about this situation. I know that this can and would happen at any daycare; my main problem is the fact that they are not talking to the other child's parents.

And so many other things are going wrong. I feel myself sinking back into depression, something I thought I had beaten a year and a half ago. I certainly hope I'm not. I don't have time to exercise and take vitamins like my medical professional, Dr. Cruise, has advised me and the rest of the world to do.

Just Add Tears

2005-06-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

Grandmother.

Car.

Tricycle.

Reverse.

These are the ingredients for the worst moment of my weekend. I don't know who cried harder, Ian or my mother. And no, Ian was not on the tricycle.

Hat full of happy memories

2005-06-16T13:30:00.000-04:00

This weekend, while cleaning, I came across a certain little blue curdoroy hat, made by someone very special to me whose name starts with Bec and ends in ca. Said hat is designed like a newsboy or golfer's cap, but is oh-so-much more. There is a short little brim and a button bringing it all together up top. Along the inside hem is a strip of material with little blue and green whales on it. And my favorite part of it are the little pieces of fabric sewn into the inside of the hat, one of a brown plaid and the other a brilliant green. The green fabric, I believe, belongs to the hat she created for herself (or for Dr. Seagroves, I could not remember). The brown plaid belongs to the hat created for Mr. Tim Pratt, writer extraordinaire, whom I dated throughout most of high school and college. I don't really remember him NOT wearing his hat while we dated. He was rarely seen without it. This small little thing, a cute blue hat, brought back so many memories from a decade ago, when things were much simpler and I was getting ready to head off to college. I loved those years, savored them, but I wish there could be more. I didn't know what I had, I didn't know how lucky I had it. It actually hurts my heart to think back to my college days because they were SO DAMN GOOD. I can't really think about them too much because it makes me sad, sad about losing touch with so many fabulous people, sad that things are no longer that carefree, sad that I'm an 'adult' now, sad that I will never be able to get that back, and sad that I got what turned out to be a useless degree.

So Becca (and the Wall de Assholios), Crystal and Kelli (and all the laundry room talks and Shoney's breakfasts and torturing Crystal's poor touchy roommate and post-it-noting Russian all over the place and sparkling grape juice), Tim, Scott, Perrin, Amy B., Bitch Lori, Summer, Bitch Rhonda, Ben, Kat, Eugene, Deetz, Chris, Tim's Cool Roommate Who Loved Dave Matthews (why can't I remember his name when I can see him so clearly in my head???), Tim's Freaky Roommate Justin (cows, Becca, think of the cows), and nameless others, thank you for making my days so sweet. Hope you're loving yours now.

Weekend in the Land of Smokes

2005-06-13T12:08:00.000-04:00

Had a fairly decent weekend. Except for one or two things. I had to endure guilt trips and hand-wringing from my mother all last week about taking her two year old grandson on an extended road trip by myself. She was worried that he would be too difficult, that I would get distracted by him, that I would fall asleep, that he would drop a toy and not be able to get it, etc. etc. etc., ad nauseum. I spent all week comforting her and trying to make her have a wee bit more confidence in me, her grown daughter who commutes 2 and a half hours on a daily basis.

So Saturday, on the way to Winston, I hit a traffic jam on I-40. And we sat and sat and sat. I handed Ian his pop-up books, which he proceeded to destroy, but that was ok because it kept him happy and that's why they make Scotch tape. Turns out that someone decided it would be a good idea to one lane I-40, which in turn caused a four mile traffic jam that took us two hours to get through. I was THRILLED. I got out of the traffic jam and called my mom to gripe about it, and that woman, the one who gave me such a guilt trip all week about taking Ian, the one who lost sleep thinking of us in a ditch on the side of the road, said, "Oh yeah, I saw they were doing that on the news last night!"

I.COULD.HAVE.COME.THROUGH.THE.PHONE.

Ian was no more difficult than he usually is, he just was difficult and it was just me there, not Scott to help. We went to eat Japanese Saturday night at a restaurant with no changing tables. He decided to shit his pants at the table so I had to take him to the car to change him, at which point he threw a temper tantrum and got said shit all over our backseat. After fussing at him to for the love of god lay still, he stopped moving and looked up at me and said, "I sorry mama." Oh. Break my heart please.

Afterwards we went to the mall to walk off what turned out to be a terrible meal. On the way in to the mall the wheel on his stroller got turned and came off the track. I bent down to fix it, uttering the s-bomb on my way down. Not a second later Ian repeated me, and Karen nearly wet her pants. His first cuss word. Aww, that's one for the baby books.

We hit Food Lion on the way back to the hotel so I could pick up some things for the room. Ian decided to throw a tantrum in the check out line (which, by the way, was backed up into the aisles because there were only two registers open and both of them were servicing WICs very very slowly). Ian was screaming because, no, he can't have sugar donuts at 9:00 at night, over my dead body. Tara and Karen offered to stand in line so I could take Ian out to the car. Everyone in line was looking at me and either glaring (they don't have kids) or giving me pitiful sympathetic smiles (been here, done that). I started out to the parking lot where Ian did my new favorite trick, plopped down on the concrete in the middle of the lot so that I either had to pick him up, leave him there, or drag him by one arm. Since I didn't want to dislocate his shoulder I hoisted him underneath my armpit and dragged him to the car, football-style. He fought me on the strapping in of the car seat, and by the time I finished I was exhausted and angry. I got in the front seat and waited for my friends, all the while listening to him bleat from the backseat.

All of a sudden my car jerks violently, and I see the guy next to me getting in to his car and checking the spot where his car door just hit my car. He sheepishly ducked in to his driver's seat, but being out for blood as I was I honked my horn and yelled at him to wait. I'm sure he was terrified of me, as he had seen me sliding off the mental edge in the grocery store line and knew that things were not going well on my side of the straight jacket. He timidly told me that he didn't think he had done any damage, that the car door would have hit <<>> here. As he opened the door he hit me in the head with it, which now to me is the most hysterical thing ever. At the time I'm sure he thought I was going to rip out his jugular with my teeth.

The rest of the trip was not too bad, and Ian was really just his typical self - I was just a little unhinged because it was me and me only tackling him the entire time. Hopefully it gets easier. Highlights of the trip - he rode his first carousel and LOVED it. He was so excited his teeth were chattering in his cute little head. He slept in the big "mama bed" with me Saturday night, luckily it was a king size since he spent the night completely sideways. He rode the luggage cart up and down the elevator with me several times, and learned which buttons to press in the elevator. He got to his his sugar donuts finally, but at breakfast Sunday morning. And he was very good on the way back. (I got to see the glory of the traffic jam coming from the east-bound, moving side of I-40 on Sunday.

This weekend is Father's Day, and I think Scott should take Ian somewhere so I can relax. He slept till 11-freakin'-30 yesterday. I call that early Father's Day and we're done.

"I did not realize how far up my ass my head was."

2005-06-13T11:13:00.000-04:00

An update to one of my 'favorite' news stories of late, excerpts from Sunday's Goldsboro News Argus:

Church that Displayed Anti-Quran Message Quits Southern Baptists

A church whose pastor was criticized last month for displaying a sign calling for the Quran to be "flushed" has withdrawn from the Southern Baptist Convention.

Pastor Creighton Lovelace did not immediately return calls Friday, but in a phone message left at his church in Forest City, about 65 miles west of Charlotte, he identified it as "Danieltown Independent Baptist Church" rather than Danieltown Baptist Church.

Lovelace last week told the Biblical Recorder, the journal of the Baptist State Convention of NC, that criticism from fellow Baptists over the Quran sign was part of the reason the 55-member church voted to withdraw from the state and Southern conventions.

Lovelace psted a sign reading "The Koran needs to be flushed" in late May, following media reports that interrogators at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, desecrated the Quran, including by flushing one down a toilet. Newsweek magazine later apologized for errors in the story that contained the allegation.

After being criticized from many sides - including Muslim-American groups, Southern Baptists, and other religious experts - Lovelace changed the sign on May 25, saying he did not realize how offensive the statement would be to Muslims.

"It was certainly not my intent to insult any people of faith, but instead to remind the people in this community of the pre-eminence of God's word," he said. "I apologize and deeply regret that it offended so many in the Muslim community."
--------------------------------------
I wonder what didn't clue him in about the fact that allegations of the desecration caused rioting and demonstrations that resulted in 17 or so deaths. Methinks he's just afraid his church will be burned down.

Missing my mountains

2005-06-10T11:29:00.000-04:00

My friend emailed this link to me yesterday with the message, "Looks like you moved out of Asheville a little too soon."

http://www.homestore.com/RealEstateNews/General/TopCities.asp?gate=ral&source=a9990&poe=homestore

My point is, there never would have been a good time to move out of Asheville because I never wanted to leave it. I just had to pursue other opportunities near family, which unfortunately brought me here.

Oh well, that's why they make air conditioning.

I'm just glad I made it to Friday. This has been a seriously challenging week. I get to head to Winston tomorrow to see friends, so that is keeping me afloat today.

Blind

2005-06-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

I had an eye appointment this morning. I haven't had my eyes checked in probably a decade, which is shameful. I have always had a 'lazy eye' - my right eye - and my ophthamologist used to scare me with stories of how my eye would eventually get so lazy that it would just stick in one place and I would look funny. As a teenager, these stories were more than enough to send my vain ass to the ophthamologist once a year for glasses. I hated the glasses, and as soon as possible I got my mom to approve a contact lens purchase. Problem was, the kind I needed was not available in a disposable version, so I had to continue to use the same old tired lens month after month. Despite my vigilant daily cleanings, it eventually developed calcium deposits that got so bad that oxygen could not reach my eye when I wore the lens (or so my doctor said). This caused my eye to turn red, get puffy, ooze, all kinds of good things. After that I just gave up on eye care and maintenance in general.

So here I am, nearly a decade later, with a new position in my company that requires me to stare at a computer screen for 10 hours a day. I could tell within a few weeks that my vision was getting worse, so I went to the doctor this morning. My, how times have changed. No more waiting days for your glasses to be ready. They had a contact lens there for me to try on and wear out! Wonder of wonders. So here I am, two hours later, with fuzzy dilated vision but a freakin' lens on. Hopefully this will help.

Everyone have a grand day.

Slow-But-Sure Death Town

2005-06-08T16:26:00.000-04:00

So I'm going to Winston-Salem this weekend to meet up with some friends from Asheville. I haven't seen them since we moved in March, and we're all pathetically beside ourselves about being in the same room together again. It's only a Saturday to Sunday thing, but it's gonna be fun nevertheless. Two of us have small children, who will be in attendance. Hopefully they will behave and not keep everyone up all night crying (them, not us).

Speaking of which, it was a horrible time, the last time we saw each other. I said my goodbyes to everyone else at work that day, but I held off saying goodbye to these two (also coworkers) because I had made dinner plans with them later. All during dinner I was so depressed at the prospect of having to actually say goodbye. At the end of dinner my husband took a picture of the three of us, and in nearly all of them it is obvious I am on the verge of tears. Afterwards we stood outside of Texas Roadhouse and all just sobbed hysterically. God, I felt like a shitty friend that night.

I don't know why it had never occurred to me before that the name "Winston-Salem" has names of two major cigarette companies in it. I wonder if that's who the town was named for and, if so, how sad.

90 Freakin' Degrees

2005-06-07T14:57:00.000-04:00

That was the temperature in our pool when we got home from work yesterday. After we got Ian to bed last night Scott and I went to lounge in our hot tub. It was actually warmer in the water than it was out. I half expect the pool to be boiling when I get home today.

Tell me why I'm so cranky. I have been in a funk the last few days and I am trying desperately to keep my mouth shut and stop complaining to anyone and everyone who will listen about anything and everything that's bugging me.

Bugger

2005-06-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

The special kind of hell that I am currently experiencing is this phenomenon of mosquito bites all over my feet. Inside of my hose. Inside of my uncomfortable dress shoes. Under the desk of my cubicle. WHY do I think I am allowed to go outside for more than 45 seconds without mosquito repellent? Do I think I'm special? Untouchable? Holier than thou? Because obviously I've forgotten those important life lessons, those Darwinian touches, that kept me alive through most of my young life in eastern North Carolina.

You know, some days, more often now than ever, I feel like we've made an enormous mistake coming here. Yesterday was one of those days. As we stepped out of the house at 10 am and were greeted by the sweaty wet blanket that is the air of Goldsboro in the summer, my lungs closed up on me and I found it difficult to take in a breath. You know, kind of like when you are trapped underwater and DROWN. We went to WalMart to buy a cover for our pool to keep out the many species of bugs that have decided to hold their 2005 conference in the cool blue conines. Going to WalMart in itself is usually a very sobering and depressing experience. The longer we stayed there the more bummed I became. As we left, trudging so much more slowly than we had when we had walked through the doors, it occurred to me what was bothering me.

I turned to Scott as we crossed the parking lot and said, "You know, in Asheville when we went to WalMart we were greeted by the dregs of society. I always hated going there because every person you never want to see was in the Asheville WalMart. In Goldsboro, those people are EVERYWHERE." We discussed this at length, how badly we miss the mountains, the milder climate, the lack of bugs and mosquitos, the mountains, our friends, the mountains, and the mountains. I was so very relieved to hear Scott say that he does not think we made a huge mistake, because as much as he hates it around here he knows that ultimately it is going to be the best thing career-wise for us. And it's so nice having family nearby, even though I don't even want to see them because it usually involves stepping out of doors.

I'm having an especially foul morning, if you haven't guessed yet. I did not sleep well last night because I was up late watching Queer As Folk, my favorite show that is on its last season. I can only watch it late at night because my mother HATES it. I relish every episode, knowing that this is the final season. I was also up late scratching my feet. And waking up every few minutes last night to continue the scratching of the feet. I woke up at 5:50 needing to pee badly, but made myself stay put because I despise getting out of bed that close to time to get up and then not being able to crawl back into my comfy bed (that seems pointless when you only have 7 more minutes to be there). I did not feel motivated to even get dressed, so I sat at the kitchen counter and read some article in the Goldsboro News Argus about a goat cheese farm. Those people start their day at 4:45, milking goats for crying out loud. What the hell is my problem???

Rush

2005-06-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

We overslept this morning, up at 6:30 and we have to be out of the house by 6:45. Egads. But I managed to fly through the house like a bat outta hell and we were driving out of the driveway at 6:48. Not too shabby. And the funny thing is that that extra half an hour of sleep really seemed to work miracles. Neither of us were tired this morning, we had that early morning fog but I actually felt rested. Another thing I noticed is that I did not have to slather on my touch-up foundation/paint under my eyes to hide the dark circles because there were none! Crazy.

No big plans this weekend except to try to get in sleep when possible. And my forelorn father might need company (he is currently in the process of splitting with his wife, and likes to come over and mope on our porch a lot). I don't mind that he comes over, I just wish he was in better spirits when he did. He comes over to spend time with Ian but frequently it turns into this brooding silence thing. He plans to move out by July 1st, but right now he has no idea where to go. And the horrible woman is not going to let him take the dog with him, a dog that has obviously latched onto my dad as her alpha male and goes into near fits of depression when he leaves even for a couple of hours. It's struck me as funny that, the other night when we were talking about him leaving his wife, he only cried when he spoke of leaving the dog.

Everyone have a great Friday. I think I'll have a drink when I get home.

Landslides

2005-06-03T00:36:00.000-04:00

So I'm hearing rumors that these people in California whose houses slid down the canyon-side did not have homeowners insurance. As an insurance agent I will say that most companies would be very panicky about insuring a home in a known landslide area, and even if they could get coverage they would pay a ton of money for their coverage. Sucks to be them. Sucks to wake up to the sound of you house cracking open too.

Speaking of which, Scott and I are getting very antsy to buy a house. I think it has less to do with the idea of home ownership and more to do with the fact that we would REALLY like to eliminate this 2 and a half hour daily commute. We blow at least $250 a month in gas. So much for saving money by staying with my mom for a while. Gah