state of me

my complete and utter lack of posting over the last couple weeks may lead you to think i had actually decided to do something, you know, constructive with my time. as if. i can assure you nothing of the sort is going on. i have been in a bit of a funk. and really looking back, it's not been the greatest year. there have been worse, but this one isn't going down as the great and wonderful '06.

in a fit of melancholy i was looking through some old pics, and i found one of my husband and i shortly after we met. we look like a couple of kids, and after the shock wore off, i realized that is exactly what we were. kids. kids who each had such a screwed up childhood (in his case) and young adult hood (as was mine), we thought we knew it all. people our age were still in college, living off mom and dad, spending their money foolishly. we were paying a mortgage and raising a child, soon to be 2 children, and working 60 hours a week. it's a wonder i am a wee bit bitter now.

and it's not that i'm bitter over what other people had, i am bitter over what i didn't even have an opportunity to try. but i look at my hub, and i see in his past, that even i was lucky by his standards. and i realized my oldest is at the age i was when my life changed forever.

i guess the change ahd been in motion for a year or 2 before, but i was young and unaware. if it wasn't on MTV, did it really count? but at the ripe old age of 16 my life was thrown into a tailspin, and my parents true identities surfaced. i and my siblings were tossed into the ugly world that can exist when your parents are more worried about themselves, then they are you. and let me tell you..it can get u g l y .

that moment i was forced into adulthood, ready or not. some of my decisions were bad. i know that now, but i can't go back and change them. i can only move forward and not make the same mistake twice.

and i am moving forward from here one more time. things have been tough around here lately. i am starting to think i have some sort of 8 year curse. every 8 years i am doomed to a year or so hell. but the i look back to 8 years ago, and i realize things aren't so bad this time. i have just gotten a little softer. i should be thankful for that. and i am convinced i have some BAD joo joo following me around. and the only way to shake it, is to stop looking for it.

so this morning when i walked upstairs, i didn't get mad over the pile of shoes, jackets, and bags laying by the door. instead i was thankful my kids are able to walk up those stairs, and go to school, and not be afraid to be careless with their things. children in this country sleep with shoes on, because they fear someone will steal them. that isn't my family, and i am thankful for that. my children will never know the trauma i knew, they will not have to worry if they can make ends meet at 20. and decide which food item they don't need so they can buy diapers.

my husband and i worry that we are doing our kids an injustice by not giving them more responsibility. but then we remember how much that responsibility sucks when you finally do have it, and instead we are proud we have acheived a status in life to have a chance to spoil our kids. and let them be the poeple we weren't at 22, the people they should be. and thats a good thing too.

do you think tom-kat wil have these problems?

You know that scene from Princess Bride....this elegant wedding, dramatic music and the regally dressed priest opens his mouth and out comes "Mawwiage". that is one of the funniest scenes from a movie i have ever seen.

anyway winter is upon us and my marriage turns to mawwiage. when the saying Opposites Attract was created, hubs and i thought we would prove it. now that some of the attratct is gone (cmon its been 16 years), the opposite is still going strong. never is that more obvious than in the winter.

during the rest of the year he is busy with work, so it rears it's little head every once in awhile. the air conditioner debate that will never die, the "I don't care how little the car is it is more comfortable than taking your mommy SUV" lie that he continues to live by. and my favorite, the "But the lady at the bank said we had that much money in the checking account" theory. I have solved that one, I opened another account and put money into it as soon as checks go out, then he can zero us out with no fear.

but now it is winter, that lovely time of year when there is no work, just the 2 of us sitting around ALL freakin day, looking at each other. and it gets UGLY. he is a night owl, i am in bed by 10. he is an internet x box 360 junkie, i prefer a good book. he goes to bed every. damn .night .and leaves the tv up so loud that i wake up at 5 am and think sigourney weaver is sitting next to me fighting aliens. i HATE that. he is eagerly awaiting enough snow to break out the snowmobile. i am wishing it would be 70 and sunny every day, just for once.

and there is nothing to separate us...he NEEDS company every second of the day. my dream is to be deserted on an island for 6 months with nothing but books and water for 100 square miles around. it isn't all bad though, there will come a time mid Jan or so when our hours will never mesh, he will be up until 5 am or so and snooze the day away. wake at 3 play x box with the kids for a bit and head out on his sled (God willing, ok maybe i do wnat some snow), returning at 2 am, at which point i will hopefully be able to sleep through his internet browsing and tv watching.

is it March yet?

i have been on the road ALOT the last week or so, in my travels i overheard this while scanning on the radio....

"The Lord gives us mountains so we may learn to climb"

Lord, thanks for all the climbing lessons, can I learn to sail now?

hail

i am a redskins fan. sometimes it isn't very pretty. some days it seems like it may not be one of the better years. however yesterday's sweet victory was magnified even more by the fact that my husband is a cowboys fan. the look on his face when the flag was thrown for the facemask penalty was priceless. my screams of victory could be heard for miles around .....

the blocked field goal

the facemask

sweet victory

conspiracy theory

this morning on the news, it was reported that Lego expects a shortage of their hottest sets this Christmas season. I don't need to tell any toddler mom how in freaking possible it is to find that Elmo everyone wants this year. I myself fell victim to the XBox 360 craze of last year, umm so why did i feel my kids would simply die if it wasn't under the tree? not sure, but i had people in 3 states looking for it, my sister even almost grabbed one out of someone else cart. ultimately i failed because i could not see paying 3 times over retail on Ebay for the damn thing.

here's what i have to wonder.....who do these toy companies think they are fooling?

i mean it's not like Christmas jumps up and surprises them. hmm nope it's Dec 25th again this year.

nothing pisses me off more than when they do this, i remember my mom, myself and one of her friends, lining up at 5 am one Saturday in Dec 1984 or so, for Cabbage Patch. and women fighting over them at toys r us. i was scarred for a long time over that one. we walked out with one, and paid some guy in the parking lot $75 for another one.

and I swear they do it on purpose, "let's not release enough for demand, and tell everyone we expect a shortage. woohoo they'll sell like hotcakes until Easter" meanwhile some poor inventory clerk is falling over Elmos somewhere.

attn toy people I AM ON TO YOU

I myself only fell victim one other year, Power Rangers back in 93 or so, my oldest LOVED the power rangers. i was "new" to Christmas and got suckered. this was before Ebay ( gar was there ever such a time?). i was forced to wait and pray and hope, and i got lucky..i hit up an Ames one morning and hit the motherload. i felt like i had won the lottery. Ames will forever hold a special place in my heart for that.

but i gotta go for now...i need to buy some Legos.....

the game

we have a winter ritual around this house. unfortunately it seems to be starting early this year. i like to call this the "You Cannot Touch the Thermostat Without Me Knowing" game. Ok so the name kinda sucks, but I never said i was creative.

my house, being the structural and architectual wonder that is, is actually a mobile home (shoot it's a double wide!) place atop a foundation. we have un upstairs and a downstairs, we just thought it would be cheaper to buy the top half..( an untruth my hubs will hear about until the end of his days). so here's what he did, he built this foundation with the plan of using it for a bedroom and a playroom with a foyer heading into the garage. so far so good, then it came time to bust a hole in the upstairs and put in some stairs, directly under the thermostat.

aannddd the garage is still "not quite finished". does anyone else see where this is going? i mean HELLO??!! we live in the effn frozen tundra. it's COLD here in the winter, and our garage gets cold, and the cold seeps into the house through the door and wanders up the stairs to (you knew all along) The Thermostat.

so the game begins, i, being ever frugal, keep that thermostat down low. if i didn't the heat would kick on incessantly, what with the gale force wind blowing up the stairs. the oldest and my husband seem to feel it needs to be at least 100 degrees in the house at all times, and noone should ever be expected to you know, maybe PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON, i mean it is winter, we all should wander around in shorts and t shirts.

i just can't do it, i can't just run the heat all the time. plus for as much as i like the warm weather, i can't stand when it's hot from the heat. if it's 80 in here in the summer, it's all good. but that is a natural heat, i don't like that icky fake heat.

anyway after i go to bed, without fail, someone will turn the heat up. and at some point in the night, i will wake up, realize the heat is running and come upstairs to turn it down. same thing during the day, if the heat kicks on, i go over and turn it down. it really is a never ending cycle.

but i chuckle at their determination, silly boys will never learn.

she's a looker

because our government tells me that after jan 1, i need to have a passport to go to the bathroom, we took the kids today to get pics done so we can apply for passports.

promise me here and now, if i am ever lost or captured, or whatever it is that happens to nice mommies who , in an effort to remain sane wander off in some strange place in search of quiet, you will NOT let them use the passport pic for the news.

use my drivers license pic, it's much nicer. well at least it doesn't make me look like a very chubby uni bomber..with eddie munster eyebrows.

Happy Birthday

My baby sister today, turns 26. TWENTY SIX, for those of you doing the math, that makes her 10 1/2 years younger than me.

I still have a hard time thinking of her as an adult, even though at her age I was a married mom of 2. I can't think that way. she, thank God, has gained enough wisdom through my mistakes, to remain both single and child free.

I always feel a little guilty, when i think of her. I was horrified when my parents told me she was on the way. Ugh, my firends were going to know my parents had sex???!!!??? ewwwww And there were times during her toddler days when I wanted to throw her at any passing adult, just because at 12, thats how you feel sometimes. But now I'm glad she's around.

I kind of think of her sometimes as my first child, with 3 other kids around, I was her babysitter...constantly. But I learned early on this was my shot, one of my sibs would be cool as hell. The girl knew all the members of Duran Duran before she knew the abc's. And she was my little princess, she wanted the pink fur jacket, and the tea sets, and the pretty dresses. Unlike my other sister, who spent her tween years pretending she was a boy.

One of my best memories was taking her to see New Kids on The Block. She was so excited, she screamed through the entire show, and made me proud by not lowering decibels, not even once.

She amazes me, she has her faults. We all do, but she turned out pretty damn great considering what her life was like. She had been through more at 7, than I ever could have imangined at her age. She never knew the normal family I had when I was her age, and she survived. My other sister and I had each other. My brothers and her had a lot of shiznit to deal with, and they all turned out to be so great...I'd like to think I am to thank, but really I'm not.

I am sometimes in awe of her abilities, she is so confident and sure of herself. I wish I had a 10th of her hutzpah. I really do. Whatever that girl attempts, gets DONE, it's amazing. So Nance..here's to ya....even if I forget to call you later, because someone has too much homeowrk or something...Happy Birthday, I love you!

1 of 2

I have a longer post I want to try to squeeze in later. It is my baby sister's birthday after all. But I just heard a commercial that made me laugh.

Because I am a freak, I listen to Hawaiian radio channels sometimes (i swear only 1 or 2 days a week, SWEAR) on the internet. So anyway, I just heard a commercial for affordable 3 and 4 bedroom homes starting in the low......400's.

Garr, gives me a whole new respect for property values round here....