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Monday, December 31, 2012

Resolution

I am not big on resolutions.   Why make half-hearted promises when in actuality, you know you aren't going to follow through?  That's me.  I make some every year, and every year....usually by mid January...I'm like "screw it".

However, this year is different.  I have just one resolution:  Be Happy.

I am going to be happy and not let my stress, worries, or anger at situations affect my children.  I'm going to enjoy motherhood, because it is such a wonderful gift to have children.  No more being too busy or stressed to read night-time stories.   I will spend more time listening and doing things than placating her with toys.   For my son, I will get down on the floor more and play with him!  I will also take way more pictures this year.....because my babies are growing up way too fast!

I will make an honest attempt not to sweat the small stuff.  This is hard for me, because I worry and then it eats at me.  However, I will resolve not to make mountains out of molehills and to breathe before I take action.

I guess this one resolution I made has several parts to it.  However, they are all part of me being HAPPY.

Here's to a great 2013.

Friday, December 28, 2012

#26 Acts

  Like many people across the United States, across the World, I am still reeling from the tragedy in Connecticut.  I,  unfortunately, have seen more than one mass shooting in my time.  The Columbine Shooting occurred in.....was it 1999?  That was the year after I graduated high school and that was horrific.  I also remember the VA Tech shooting.  I was really affected by the shooting in the movie theatre that happened in Colorado this past summer.  Each event hurt.  Human beings have the ability to be so, so cruel.

However, the Sandy Hook tragedy has hit me the hardest.  I think there's several reasons for this:  I work in an education setting so I can picture in my mind how horrible it was for the teachers and kids.  My own daughter is the same age as those sweet children.  It really, really bothers me.  There is so much hate and misery in the world, it's depressing to turn on the news.

A few days ago I was watching TV and trying to just veg on the couch.  I was too lazy to find the remote when Brian William's Rock Center came on.  I've never watched it, but for some reason I did that night.  I saw the piece on Ann Curry and the 26 Acts.  In case you missed it, Ann Curry tweeted shortly after the massacre a tweet about doing 26 Acts of Kindness.  One act for each person killed in the school.  I loved the idea.  Evidently it's spreading all around the country on Twitter.  If you look up #26Acts you'll see people tweeting about it.


I've decided to join in on it.  I want to bring some happiness to people.  If I can make 26 people smile, then that's awesome.  I'm also hoping that those 26 people continue to do random acts of kindness to others.  

Please please PLEASE, comment below if you want to join in on the 26 Acts train.  If we all do 26 Acts....think of all the people we can touch!

  

Sunday, December 23, 2012

a man's basement is his castle

Well it wouldn't be Christmas without a few meltdowns, would it?    I'm not talking the kids, either.

Little bit of background:  Our house has a finished basement.  It's not huge by any stretch of the imagination and without the sealed...um....seal that goes over the sump pump pit, the basement occasionally reeks of sewage (we've had it checked out...not toxic and the seal is not in the budget yet). However the finished part was my husband's oasis.  There was just enough room for a large TV, a couch and his amp and guitars.  The other side of the basement was the kid zone filled with toys.

As much as my husband enjoyed being down there, it wasn't just for him.  Slowly our daughter started taking over the basement.  She is very creative and has an art desk.  Her room is a bit small so we put it in the basement.  Well, she is part hoarder I think and the desk turned into one big trash heap full of papers, papers, and more papers mixed in with crayons, markers, empty chip bags, etc etc.   My husband periodically yells at her to go clean up the mess downstairs but her idea of clean and ours vary greatly.

Today, he finally hit his boiling point.  He went down there after telling her to clean and once again, found papers on the floor, toys out, and a new stain on the carpet from nail polish.  He decided that the basement officially is to become a storage room and that's it.  He then proceeded to take down his wall art, pack up his guitars, move the furniture to the center of the room and essentially, close down the basement.

While he was doing this, I was trying to talk to him.  I told him I'd clean it up and why didn't he get all of us down there to clean it up together?  He just kept saying it was storage now.  When I told him that since he didnt want to be down there any more, I'd take it over.  That went over like a lead balloon.  It seemed that since it was ruined for him, then no one would get to enjoy the basement.  Seriously, he can act like such a kid sometimes!  I think that's why he and our daughter sometimes butts heads.  She's like a mini-husband in female form!

I kicked him out of the basement and started vacuuming and cleaning.  I filled a trash bag full of papers and just random crap that had accumulated down there.  While I was doing that, Hubs kept coming downstairs and bitching about the stains on the carpet caused by play dough, spilled Kool-Aid, and nailpolish.  However, when I brought up spills he had done on the carpet, he argued with me that he hadn't caused any stains.  My point was....WHO CARES???  It's a basement.  A little steam cleaning action and the stains will come up.  They aren't that noticeable.

The outcome of all this is my basement is cleaner now but there's still furniture stacked up in the middle of the room.  He came down after I had vacuumed and said he'd put it back together later.  I swear, that man drives me bat shit crazy sometimes.  He makes the smallest little issue into such a huge ordeal.  I guess that is maybe the PTSD kicking in.  He did tell our daughter he was really stressed and he shouldn't be so mad.

Today is done, tomorrow is a new day.  Christmas Eve day.....that should bring it's own set of stressors dealing with family and travel and all that.  But, one day at a time!  Off to bed now for me!


Saturday, December 22, 2012

This shit's for the cats

Holy crappage.

About a month ago we brought home our sweet little rescue kitty for the 2nd time.  We brought Whiskers home for the first time back in October but she very soon developed a upper respiratory infection.  The humane society told me it's easier to heal in a home setting, but since it's very contagious and we have another cat, we chose to send her back to the shelter to get better.  She was then put in foster care at an employee's home.  One month later, we got the call that she was all better and right after Thanksgiving, we brought her home to us.

Well, within days after we brought her home, she got the runs.  I figured it was just from new food and thought it would settle down.  It didn't.   Instead it got worse.  I took her in after a week or two and she was tested positive for Giardia.  Evidently, she can have this from the mom.  I was surprised that the humane society hadn't caught it, but looking back, I think she may have gotten it from foster care.  Although it was annoying, we got her on medicine and I thought that that would be that.  Not so fast.  A week later, I woke up and felt pee on my bed.  Then, after getting up and walking out to the kitchen, i stepped in cat shit.  Yuck.

My poor cat was literally leaking out her butt.  Disgusting, I know, and if you're drinking coffee or eating anything while reading this, I apologize.  I quick grabbed her and threw her in the bathroom with the kitten, who had been quarantined at that point.  A vet trip later, and she too is on medicine for Giardia.

I've literally been dealing with poop for over a month now.  The kitten finished her medicine yesterday and she still has loose bowels.  The older cat, I havent' seen a bowel movement from her in awhile.  Then, about a week ago, my toddler developed diarrhea.  I figured it was from teething.  However, it's lasted a freaking week.  THe last straw came this morning.  Our daughter had some GI issues in the toilet she took a shower.  She was getting dressed and it just whooshed out of her.  All over the floor.  Seriously?????

We took both kids to Urgent care and a 90 minute wait led to the diagnosis of......nothing.  We have to bring in stool samples and then they will tell us if they have Giardia.  Sooooo, if we get one turned in tomorrow we won't know til Monday if they have it.  Meanwhile, my husband is ready to shoot the cats because they have infested our home with the poop plague.  I have mixed feelings on this.  I don't want him to hurt the cats, obviously, but I'm about done with these felines.  It's like a never-ending cycle.

I'm so frustrated.  Why is it so hard for us to have something NORMAL?  Thousands of people adopt cats and then adopt a second cat with no issues!  I'm sure hundreds of people have cats that have a parasite and they don't infect their households.  DAMMIT!

We have established we are not a dog household.  Maybe we aren't a cat household either.

Fish anyone?   Pet rock???

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.   I think it may be one of those times in life that looking back, you can remember where you were when you heard about it.  For me, I saw a blip on the internet in the morning before I went to work.   Honestly, and this sounds horrible, but my first thought was not sadness, outrage, or shock.  No, my first thought was "not again".   It seems like there has been so many mass shootings lately.  So many, in fact, that I'm afraid the shock factor is wearing off.

That said, once I got to work (and I work at an elementary school), I didn't think about it again and went about doing my thing.  However, later in the day I had a minute and I opened up a computer and went to CNN.com and saw the headline.   My heart dropped in my chest.  20 dead....all little children?  I remember looking over at the teacher I was with at that time, who happened to be a 3rd grade teacher and I walked over to him and he was at his desk looking at the same headline.  We exchanged looks and both shook our heads in frustration and sadness.

Sadness.   That doesn't begin to cut it.  Heartache.  Disbelief.  Heartbreak for the parents and the siblings left behind.

I don't have an answer to the gun violence in America.  Stricter gun laws are a part of it but that won't fix everything.  If someone really wants to do harm, they'll find a way.  However, now is the time to open the dialogue more about gun control and more so, mental health care.

Please say a prayer for those children and teachers killed on Friday.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Stepped in something this morning.....ew!

Today has not been a good morning, to say the least.  I woke up 10 minutes late and was running around trying to get our daughter ready for school.  I was in the kitchen making her toast and realized my foot was wet.  Looking down I realized I had stepped in cat crap.  Oh yuck!  not just any cat poop, but diarrhea.  Double yuck.    I looked around and saw puddles in the kitchen and then found a wet spot in the living room also on the carpet.  Evidently my older cat, Polly, has the runs as well as the new kitten.  Awesome.

I hurried up and picked her up and put her in the bathroom with the other one.  She was leaking poo as I walked with her.   I am guessing she must have gotten it from the kitten.  Great.  My husband started complaining about the costs of the cats (which really, our first cat has only cost us food and one shot a year....but this is going to be two vet visits in a week).  I called the vet, and can't get her in til after work.  I wish Hubs would have taken her this morning but there's no way he's dealing with the cat.  In the meantime, they're both locked up in the bathroom sharing germs.

This was all before 8am.  After getting our munchkin off to school, the arguing started.  How we have no money, how he wants to file bankruptcy.  I didn't have anything to say.  I was upset because I used to be good at handling money situations but the toll of dealing with him has made me sloppy.  I didnt want to talk.  Sometimes, when you're that upset, you just don't want to talk about it.  He doesn't get that.  "Why are you mad at me?  Why won't you talk to me?"  

"I have nothing to say"  (because I didn't).


Well after following me around asking me what was wrong we talked.  Anything I say to him he takes personally so that's why I don't talk to him.  Now he's laying in our bed with the covers pulled over him sulking.  God forbid I cry or complain because then all of a sudden "You're just feeling sorry for yourself"

Well, you know what?  Maybe I am!  Why can't I feel sorry for myself?  My life has not gone how I wanted it to at all.  Most of the time I keep a stiff upper lip and carry on but dammit....Life sucks sometimes.  And all I want to do is be able to vent.  Can't complain to him though or he takes it as a personal attack.  I tried talking to my mom on the phone but she goes all Pollyanna on me which annoys the shit out of me.  I don't want to hear how "this too shall pass" or any other stupid sayings.  When I call to complain, I just want to get it all out there, have her say, "i'm sorry, that does suck".  Acknowledge that my life is hard sometimes!!  This is why I don't call my mother often.  She sticks in little sayings and paints it as a fleeting moment and then usually, then she goes into something similar she's going through.  This morning I got to hear about how her dog has a scratched cornea and needs to go to the vet and how "I don't have money either, but animals love you unconditionally and we need to take care of them..."  BARF!

Ok, now I need to go to work.  Let's hope this day turns around!!

Monday, December 10, 2012

just checking in

I'm sitting here watching some recorded Grey's Anatomy.  Another weekend has come and gone.  I really feel like the longer the weekend, the shorter it seems.  The school district had a teacher work day on Friday and the aides didn't have to attend.  We spent the day at the YMCA.  Well, actually, we didn't.  Hubs went early to work out and shoot hoops and I was going to bring in the kids in a little bit.  Well, packing up two kids and myself for the pool at the Y took a lot longer than I thought.  By the time I got there and in the pool, it was 3:30.  Hubs was already in the pool and we were only in there for 30 minutes when he was ready to go.  well, hell no was I going to try and hustle both kids out of the pool by myself and attempt to dress them by myself so we all got out.  Seriously, next time we go it will definitely be for longer than 30 minutes!

The rest of the weekend has gone by quickly.  Took our daughter to the optometrist on Saturday because she failed her vision screening.  I was STUNNED to learn that she is practically blind in her left eye.  We're talking 20/200.  WOW!  Her other eye is practically perfect.  I"m really worried that one lens is going to be coke-bottle thick and the other one thin.  I took her to Walmart because I figured she just needed a slight prescription.  I had no idea how bad her eyesight is.  THen, afterwards, I got home and Googled and they kept talking about eye patches to help with it, which the optometrist did not mention so YIKES.  Her glasses should be in on Wednesday so I'll ask when we pick them up.

I'm feeing antsy lately.  I feel like I should be doing something, that something is going to happen but I don't know what.  At the same time, I'm kind of down.  Christmas used to be my favorite time of the year.  It sucks, however, when money is tight.  I want so badly to make a million cookies with my daughter.  i want to decorate the halls, put up lights everywhere.  I'd love to buy my kids everything they could desire and purchase the largest tree I can find.   However, we're barely scraping by this month.  Go figure that the month of Christmas is also the month we overpay on a car payment and decide to tackle our debt by making a huge-ass payment.  STUPID!    Mental note, start a Christmas Club fund!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Career change

I've been trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.   I'm in my almost mid-30's and I think I finally got it.

It's been a long journey:  in college I thought I wanted to do nursing.  That didn't pan out, so I ended up getting my teaching license.  While I like teaching, I don't LOVE it and I never got around to getting a masters in it.  Even after I moved states and discovered that I HAD to take additional classes to keep my license, I didn't.   I just didn't know if I wanted to go back and get a masters degree in something I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in permanently.

For awhile I thought I wanted to do nursing again, but I think I like the idea of wearing scrubs all day as opposed to actually working as a nurse.  The long hours, sticking people for IV's and shots, and the gross body fluids just aren't my thing.  So then I started contemplating going for my masters in Occupational Therapy.  I think if I had discovered this career back when I was first in college, it would have rocked it.  However, while the career sounds really interesting and fun, I have next to no classes in sciences and the prereqs for an OT degree have a bunch of science and math courses.  Ug.

Recently I started looking at how to get into a program that has full funding.  A high school friend of mine is now an oceanographer in New Orleans after getting a full ride at Oregon State.  However, most of the programs are science or math related and pretty much all of them are PhD.  I started looking around and thought hard about Counseling Psychology.  Unfortunately, the deadline to apply was today and I discovered this fact 2 weeks ago......Not near enough time to get all my crap in.

My husband has really been pushing me to look at gaining a masters in Social Work.  Hmmmm.  I won't get rich doing social work, but it is something I have thought about for a long time.  I remember way back when I was in college, I went to see the advisor in the school of social work.  I was struggling in college because I just didn't know what route to take and I thought that if I could switch majors I would be able to turn it around.  The douche-bag of an advisor, however, was very quick to point out that I was struggling and pretty much told me that I would never be good enough to enter the School of Social Work.  She wouldn't even let me explain myself.  I was in her office less than 5 minutes.

Bitch.

I went on, might I add, to gain a degree in Education and I got high honors.  So yes, I was able to turn my shit around.

I just think that this may be my calling.  I don't really want to work in Child services though.  I think if I saw abused children I would not be able to leave it at work.  It would eat at me.  That part freaks me out.  I think I'd like to work in a hospital setting perhaps, discharge planner?  Eventually go back after 2 years and get my Licensed Clinical Social Worker and do mental health with the VA.

It's a scary thought, going back to school.   I'm not sure the Hubs fully understands how much our life would change.  I'd be gone during the day at class and nighttime would be studying at the kitchen table (or a library, or Sbux, etc).  He'd have to step up and do more housework and he'd definitely have more time with the kids.  I'm scared.  What if I suck?  What if i regret going back because my kids miss me and I miss them?

I'm not getting any younger though and I think if I don't get on it and apply soon, then I'll just have to hang up the idea of going back to school.

Kitty issues

I wish I could start today over.  Yuck.

I woke up this morning on my own.  Wondering what woke me up, I stretched out in my bed and then I realized what must have woke me up......When I was stretching, my foot hit a cold, west spot on my bed.   Some animal, one of the cats, peed on my bed.  This really ticked me off because last night my new kitten had some nasty diarrhea behind my curio cabinet.

After stripping the bed, and loading some of the bedding into my washer I took the kitten and her litter box and dumped her in the half bathroom.  I don't know what to do with her.  She hadn't had any accidents in the week we'd had her.  The only thing I can think of, is that yesterday morning before work, I moved her litter box downstairs to the basement with my other cat's litterbox.  I put them side by side in the laundry room.  I showed both cats where they were and left it at that.

This morning I realized, after the whole pee in the bed incident, that neither of my cats had gone since yesterday.  WTF???   So I don't know if they didn't like the basement laundry room, or if one of the cats was bullying the other out of the litter box.  I figured I will just separate the cats and see if any more accidents occur within the next few days.  THen maybe I'll try again and put the boxes downstairs in another part of the basement.  She keeps this up though, and she's out of here!   It's a bummer.  I just want a nice kitty to play with my other cat.  Why isn't ANYTHING easy?

After that whole debacle, I was happy to get out of the house.  I went with my neighbor to a local church for their cookie walk.  We are talking wall-to-wall cookies.  You walk in, they give you a box and a plastic glove and let you go and fill up your box.  It was 8.00 a pound and i ended up spending $14.00 in cookies.  I thought it was a lot, but they're not going to last long in this house!

Hubs has been blah today.  Last night he was feeling good and invited the neighbors over to play board games.  We ended up just watching our babies play together, but it was still fun!  THis morning, however, he is grumpy.   I mentioned a parade today and that our nighbors invited us to go and he got all cranky.   He wants to do his own thing on the weekends because he is so bored on the weekdays.   I get that, but the weekends are family time....least in my eyes.  We're all home, we can go do stuff together.    He'd rather go ride his motorcycle and do things he likes to do.

It's just frustrating.  I totally get out he is bored during the week.  He has no job, no hobbies, and he is afraid of losing his rating so he won't go volunteer somewhere or do anything.  PTSD is holding him hostage!