the healing begins

we weren't able to pull out a win, but the game meant more to my son (28) and his friend (55) than anyone really knew. his friend's regular # is 53, his brother wore 55 when he played. so he wore his brothers #, and everyone had a 55 on their helmets. and i cried when they hugged. and i know that they are helping each other in a way i might never understand.

junk

ok here is a quick random, in no order whatsoever of what all has been going on.

I got my car back!!!! YEAHH, of course it was done last friday, they called at 3:45 to tell me it was finished. BUT they closed at 4:30 and i couldn't get there until Monday to get it.

on saturday my oldest claims he had "no brakes" , and hit a guardrail, and then had a tire blowout.

on Sunday my middle guy had the best game of his short football career.

also on saturday my hub took the kids out to buy "a weight set", they came home with 7 boxes of contraptions that looks like it belongs in an NFL weight room.

they decided to put it together in the middle of our living area. not exactly the look i am going for.

we realized our shower has been leaking and now the rug needs to be replaced.

it is officially winter, 3 days of those neverending snow showers. and nary a day above freezing.

tommorrow for our last football game of the season, they are calling for rain turning to snow. same for saturday, which is our trick or treat night. woo hoo a weekend in the rain.

i am taking the month of Novemeber, and getting all those 1/2 projects in my house DONE..once and for all. already got the garage done.

7 weeks until we leave for Orlando...yeah.

this also means 8 weeks until Christmas...just what you needed to see.

ah yes, youngest has a spelling test tommorrow that will most likely be disappointing. not only are the words difficult, but the test is mere minutes before the Halloween party and parade. that is just asking for disaster.

why God? WHY?

have a good weekend.......

a break from the maudlin

my youngest is understandably frustrated by being not just the youngest, but the littlest. he longs to be older, stronger and of course...bigger. i have an archway into the kitchen, where i mark the kids growth. until, as was the case with the oldest...i couldn't reach anymore :).

this morning was probably the 10th day in a row, i have caught the youngest checking himself against his last mark. shoes on, shoes off, hair flat, hair unkempt. he is just too darn cute.

so i told him this morning to stop being in such a hurry to grow up. and he told me he had to get bigger before the oldest moved out so he could kick his butt. sweet brotherly love

still here

actually ALOT has been going on around here lately. however every time i write something it feels frivolous. the person who died on saturday was my oldest sons, best friend's, brother. and my son is having a very hard time dealing with it. the worst thing is, i don't know how to make him feel better.

i can give him hugs and tell him it's ok to feel how he feels, but the timeline of events surrounding this persons death are complicated as well, for both my son and his friend. and my son feels almost guilty sometimes. not that either of them were in any way involved, it's just too much to put down here.

keep my son in your thoughts, and prayers if you are so inclined, as well as his friend's family. we have 2 nights of viewings ahead of us and a funeral on thurs. it's going to be a long week for him.

a woman i know lost one of her children early this morning. he was only 21. the one thing she keeps saying is she wishes she could tell him one more time how much she loves him. hug your kids extra hard tonight, give them one extra kiss, read them one more story. call them and tell them how important they are to you. you won't regret it.

he's a man

so to say...my middle guy turns 13 today. he is the spitting image of his dad, but the rest is just like his mom. he is my peace between the 2 storms i call oldest and youngest. he is so smart, sometimes he freaks me out. and most importantly he taught me that there was enough love in me to split between all the children i would have.

Happy Birthday!!!!

POTTER

remember a week or so ago, when I said i was going to read the Stand? well turns out i never did. when i went to grab it, my eyes wandered to another book that was waiting patiently for me, Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.

when the Harry Potter books first came out, i chuckled over the adults who read them. when the movies came out i took my kids, and i enjoyed them, i really did. but i still couldn't see myself sitting down to read them. after the last movie, The Goblet of Fire, I was hooked. i couldn't wait to find out what happened next. so i waited a month or so for paperback , and grabbed what i thought was the next installment. turns out i grabbed the wrong one. thankfully i figured this out within 30 pages. grabbed the right book and looked at it for about 6 months.

i finally finished it last night, i have to say i'm impressed. it was a really good book. God the older i get the more of a hypocrite i turn my old self into. so anyway i'm now real glad i was so brain dead as to buy the wrong book at first, casue now i'm all ready to dig into The Half Blood Prince......and when someone asks me what i'm doing i will still say..."reading that stupid Harry Potter book".

welcome Charlie

During the summer we had a skittish nighttime visitor to our house. he was known simply as "the gray cat". he would sneak in late at night have some cat food, and on occasion doze in a chair. but as soon as he heard anyone come near him, he would scurry out the door. summer turned to fall and we would notice "the gray cat" in the garage, again as soon as anyone came near...away he would run. as the nights grew chillier and i stopped leaving the door cracked for the cats i would put some food out on the deck or in the garage. i was really worried about the poor gray cat, soon winter would come and everything would be shut up tight at night.

i should have known, 2 nights with no house/garage access and "the gray cat" decided maybe he could stand us after all. in he wandered (with some encouragement) one evening. within 24 hours he was snuggled up next to the youngest at bed time. he's still a little skittish, and there is a HUGE turf war going on with the other 2 cats. but he's decided we're worthy of him, so we named him Charlie.

beware the evil germ

has anyone else seen this series on the Today show? for the last few weeks they have been testing everyday places for germs. schools, grocery stores, gyms, airports and hotels...things we use frequently.

every time they bring out these swabs and petri dishes, scream in horror over water stains on ceilings. EVERY thing shows some kind of germ, this could cause the runs, this one could cause the flu, this one could make your head spin, or your arm fall off. ARRRGGGGHHHH

guess what? GERMS ARE EVERYWHERE, this isn't news. germs have always been everywhere. and 99.9% of human beings have the ability to resist these germs and our bodies naturally fight them. just because the stacchioplibicloty (or whatever the hell they find) could cause the runs, doesn't mean it will instantly send you screaming for the nearest germ ridden public toilet, squeezing for dear life.

of course even if you make it to the toilet, the festival of disease waiting for you there will probably land you in ICU. i can't stand it anymore.

things like this series, are turning americans into the most neurotic people on earth. seriously, other cultures are laughing at us. it isn't just the germs, it's everything. our media outlets have become the be all end all of doom sayers. even the freakin weather channel with their "It could happen tommorrow". ok yes a major hurricane could hit NYC and destroy our financial hub. but really what are the chances?

i am not a dirty person, except on the occasional "no shower Sunday" (patent pending), but i am not afraid to flush a public toilet, and i don't freak out if i have to wipe my kids nose before i can completely sanitize my hands. i am not afraid to eat a rare steak, and sometimes the 5 second rule does apply. i do not bring my own blankets to a hotel or wash the sheets that are on the hotel bed before i sleep on them. i go barefoot at every possible opportunity, and i am still alive, after 36 years. wow

do not take a drink

because you will spit it all over your monitor. omg...check out the rest of these 2 guys videos, some of them will make you howl

Nobody's Watching OK Go

did i piss off a gypsie?

i am not an overly lucky person. fortunate? yes. lucky? no. some people wonder the difference, i don't win 50/50's, i am NEVER in the right place at the right time, in order for me to "come out even" requires a series of cosmic events seen less frequently than hailey's comet. but it's ok, i'm used to it. i am not going to win that great vacation, but it's ok because i am fortunate enough to be able to pay for it every couple of years.

so i have accepted this about my life for many years now. lately though, i am thinking i may be jinxed. the other night it was raining ...and getting cold. it was also trash night. so the kids took the trash out in the cold rain and came in. i noticed a few minutes later there was a bag on the back deck. because i am so effn sick of picking up trash that the critters have been throwing across the yard all summer, i decided to just bring it up myself.

threw on my flip flops and a hoodie and went out, recovered the grill, picked up some random socks and sweats that had been left out over the weekend. grabbed the garbage and was oh so happy that the last few minutes had been productive. the air felt good, the rain had let up, i was looking forward to getting my heart pumping for a couple minutes. and.......

proceeded to slip down about 7 of my hard wood front stairs. luckily, my back broke my fall. it seems wearing flip flops on slippy stairs in the dark, maybe wasn't the greatest idea. here's the worst part, the garbage bag i was carrying smacked me in the head. it wasn't enough i was laying unable to catch my breath, pain searing up my spine and arms, a bag of garbage has to whack me in the head?!!? come on

i sat there for a minute catching my breath, wiggling my toes, water seeping into my jeans and hoodie, and throwing the dam trash off myself. walked up the traitor stairs back into the living room....where all 3 of my kids look at me and say "What was that noise?" (!!!!!!!!!) lucky for them it was an effort just to breathe at the minute.

i STILL managed to find a ray of light in all this, yesterday i woke up, anticipating pain in every limb. shockingly enough only my back hurts, and only on the outside where it's bruised. which means i am in pretty damn good shape ...thankyouverymuch, AND i had had a kink in my neck for a couple days before, seems the tumble worked the kink out. of course so would a massage, but i gotta take it where i can get it.

I loved this song long before it became the rice krispies tune. and the pics are nice too.....


Somewhere Over the Rainbow

old and crazy

as fates would have it, we never made it up to see the baby this weekend. middle guy got sick on the way up. i didn't want a) him yakking in the car or needing to stop every 20 seconds or b) the baby being exposed to anything, so we headed home, after just 90 minutes of travel. and my skins lost, there are 4 games i desperately want them to win every year, the 2 games v. dallas, and the 2 v. the giants. so far they are 0 for 2 against both teams now. i am bummed.

during my tavel on Sat night, my little mind got to working. being saturday night, the radio was chock full o hair metal. a few years ago it was 80's flashback, and before that super 70's. when i was young and oh so naive, i remember sitting on the porch with my mom, who was listening to Wolfgang Jack spin some golden oldies, and what did i say? i said what all the rest of us said. I will NEVER listen to oldies.

now i know they aren't labeled as "oldies" any longer, but really where's the difference? and whose idea was it to make those of us past the age of 25 be reminded of just how long ago it was when this was in the top 10? am i not feeling crappy enough that my saturday nights now consist of running my kids, doing laundry, and falling into bed exhausted after a day of errands that cannot be done during the week. i need to be reminded i am now older than dirt because Bon Jovi's Shot through the heart was "their break out hit 20 years ago"? do i need that? really

i didn't think so either.

you will have to excuse me if i am MIA a bit this week. i was browsing an Amazon thing yesterday and saw what i need to do. i need to read The Stand. i have already read it at least 15 times, but it's one of those books, when i feel the urge i gotta do it, and i will not rest until i fall comfortably into that familiar story i love so much. nor will i sleep, or cook, or probably even shower at least 2 of the days. it's how i get once i start that book. and i cannot bring myself to buy a new one, i replaced my first copy when the complete uncut version came out, and that is the one i have to read. even though the pages are most likely going to fall out this time around, i just have to read MY copy. (don't ask, cause i have no clue what is wrong with me)

so enjoy if you have the same glorious weather i do today and tommorow, sorry if you don't, and la di da for you if you always have it. cause they are calling for snow this weekend in my neck of the woods. so i will be on the deck reading today, because i wasn't supposed to be here anyway.

hi ho, hi ho

ok, so i've been a little down in the dumps lately. (ya think?) but really you know how sometimes you cruise through and everything is going sweet, than BAM. you hit the brick wall. i guess the past few months of headache are payback for my hawaiian summer of bliss last year. which at the time i was enjoying mai tais at sunset, i thought i was finally reaping reward for years of hard work. guess i was wrong. either way life moves forward.

soo problems are hoping to be resolved, a new accountant is on the way. (oh yeah, THOSE kind of problems) and i have made a decision. i am taking the boys to orlando for Christmas. that i will enjoy, and am looking forward to. the youngest was only 4 the last time i was there, and i wanted one more trip with him, before he gets too old. so instead of overloading on gifts, that will inevitably end up in the trash by next years spring cleanup, we are taking a trip. plus when we went last time youngest couldn't swim with the dolphins at Discovery Cove, so now it's his time.

i came to this decision once and for all in a fit of delirium yesterday, because it wasn't enough my financial life was spiralling to nether land, God saw fit to strike me with a bout of 36 hr stomach bug that almost killed me. and the unfortunate decison to eat taco bell a couple short hours before it hit. you can only imagine, or maybe you choose not to.

so off i go to use my credit from the missed wedding to book me some airfare, and clean my house. you can picture what a house that was left to my 4 men looks like, after just one short day of incapacitation on my part. it's BAD, haven't they lived with me long enough to know once the garbage starts to spill over it's time to put it out? and they all know how to do laundry, i guess it's just easier to find something "kinda" clean. oh well. ready for a weekend of football, and going to see my nephew on Sunday....CAN"T WAIT!!!

have a good weekend

how to deal....

whoa, seems i hit bottom yesterday. i spent the day detailing my son's car (read avoiding everything), and cursing my MIL who had used it for the last 6 months, it seems she never got around to getting an oil change, ever vacuuming it, and i believe may have smoked a pack a day in the car, and must have opened 458736 packs of smokes in it, because i could have rolled an entire carton with all the loose stuff i found, in between spilling coffee...EVERYWHERE.

plus i ate about 35 jillion calories, because i figured why the hell am i trying to live longer? bring on the heart attack... and without going into too much detail, i can assure you when i retrieved the mail last night at 8 pm, it spiraled even lower. i am hoping it cannot get any worse. soooo..

one issue will be resolved today, one way or another. the rest i can handle. i am going to the gym to beat up some stuff and coming home to deal with my crap.

i quit

this is how i try to envision my life













this is my reality



















now if i were an optimist i would say "be thankful you have had the gifts you have been given". given the last 2 months i am way more inclined to say "for this i work my ass off?" some days i just wish wish wish wish wish i would wake up and have things sorted out. i wish i had a me to call when things aren't going well and let them figure it out for me. you know, like i do for half the freakin world? my damn husband included. so anyway the tale behind the pictures..the first is my la la land, there's diamond head in the background, and there i am standing on my lanai taking a pic at sunset. only i NEVER have to leave. the second is what my car looks like after some ass drove into the back of me because i did not get out of his way quick enough, then didn't even stop until he was cornered at a construction site. who told the cops he had a diabetic shock. i am gonna diabetic shock him.

enter the insurance company, first they try to tell me they aren't sure if it can be covered because i was driving home from "work". i explained i do NOT use the vehicle for work, we merely took it to the place where work was being done that day. finally i said well you have my commercial policy too, so which one are we putting it on. then they ask why was my husband in the car? ummm because he was. (long story behind that but i guess you are not allowed to carry unlicensed people in your vehicle?!!?) am i sure i was driving? yeah i'm pretty damn sure, but let's check with the flagger the other guy almost hit when he tried to storm through the construction site. she had a great view of me when she jumped out of his way toward me. $500 deductible? i have to pay it, if i want i can sue the guy personally for it (umm and probably never see it), but they can't ask his insurance for it. oh yeah and we have this great deal for you all you need to do is bring your vehicle to one of our authorized repair places leave it with them and you don't need to be bothered again until the car is done. sounds reasonable, only they forgot to tell me said repair shop will be closed next week, they are moving. so my car probably won't be back for 3 weeks.

however before i went to the repair shop this morning, my MIL called. now i haven't filled you in on her lately. 2 weeks ago she decided she did not want to be here anymore. so she, her hub and my neice moved away. she had this big plan, and basically told my hub "thanks for nothing" when he wasn't able to lend her the amount of $$ she needed right that minute. so she packed up and left, left us with her trailer to clean out, left 3 broken vehicles in the back for us to get rid of, left a ton of crap in our barn for us to get rid of. stuck us for an employee, becuase her hub worked for us, stuck us with $700 in unpaid electric bills. AND took one of our vehicles she was supposed to pay for. she called this morning to ask if her hub could collect unemployment "just for 2 weeks" until they find work. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH she is 4 hours away and STILL asking for money.

oh yeah and i got home yesterday between the accidnet and the insurance there is an IRS letter sent certified waiting for me to pick up.

i need a drink