The Boondocks (& I don't mean the comic strip!)
Now Playing: Devils Haircut by Beck
Topic: Rambling on

Over the past few weeks a co-worker's life has been getting steadily worse, she took her mom back to where she was from so her mom's sister could take care of her for awhile & she could get a break (mom has dementia probs etc) her dad's still in the area & so she still has care of him but it's still half the load which was supposed to be a good thing. But as usual when you get one thing 'fixed' a dozen more come crowding in needing attention. So she's having trouble making ends meet & started making comments about living in her car. I have space & though she can be a little tiresome I said look, I'm not going to let you live in your car, if things are that bad come stay at my house, I have a half finished garage which is at least, insulated & has a fridge, we discussed a few things she/we could do to make it more inhabitable etc & tonight after work she wanted to follow me home from work & see the place, meet my kids etc. As I said I did this not with out reservations but: 1) I could not see letting her live in her car while I had spare space & 2) Once I impulsively offered I couldn't very well take it back (it's that Damn Sagitarius birth sign, My Libra rising sign tries & tries to quell it but once in awhile it just busts out & I end up in a rainy 32 degree day in a skirt & suede shoes or something worse) During work tonight I listened as she made plans with annother co-worker who's started a part time business with her husband in repo-ing cars. KS (the first co-worker) likes to ride along with ES while she's repo-ing cars & I'm sure it's a thrill. I tried to get the ex to do that with me for a company in Roanoke during our last year together but he thought he'd get shot. So they made plans for K to meet E at E's house at 6 am. I said to K 'are you sure you want to come to my house to visit tonight when you've got to be at E's house so early?". "oh, no problem" she airily replies. I had already warned her it's a 27 mile drive & mentioned I take the curvier, shorter way in daylight & the 2 miles longer but (Slightly) straighter way home in the dark (I have an aversion to going the same way anywhere twice on the same trip- too boring) So we start out after she warns me not to drive too fast- I didn't but 24 miles into the trip she flashed her headlights & pulled over, I pulled over (never a good idea on curving mountain roads in the dark. What can you do though- I thought her car may have broken down) & the first thing she says to me is "how much further is it?" I told her annother 3 miles or so & she just gapes at me. "well, I told you 27 miles" I say, "I thought you lived in the country in Illinois & Kansas" she assures me country in those states is nothing like country here! when we finally get to my house she said she didn't remember my saying 27 miles & she can not belive I drive 'all that way' to go to work every day, I pointed out why did she think I like working 4-10 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days & why I bitch so much when we're on mandatory overtime & why when there's anything over 3 inches of snow on the ground I don't come to work. She offered to support me when I discuss this with our boss next time as she said she can really see why I would not be able to get there in bad weather. She liked the garage but said her car could not take that kind of abuse even if we only used it 2 days a week to go to work & my car the other 2. On her days off she'd still need to see her dad & could not go that far because he's back near where we work. I can't say I'm disappointed, she's nice enough but kind of an attention grabber & as I said, as soon as I had offered I was sorry just because of thinking of my late nights with the computer & Sirrius music on the tv set! My drive is not unusual either at our work or in the area, I've heard people in the breakroom discussing traveling 77 miles each way to work where I work & having been there less time than me they make even less than I do. there's 2 people who drive by my house at about 530 & 545 who are going somewhere distant monday thru friday too. I'm often on the way to the bathroom or just back from there at that hour & see the cars lights pass my windows. A daily drive, for many people, to Roanoke is not unusual either, that's 50+ miles from here either way you go. Of course no one's commute is easy, if you don't have distance you often have traffic! In Mass from my childhood home it was 20 miles to Boston & from my later home it was 40 miles, either way unless you hit it just right (& in later years we're talking from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm monday thru thursday only-friday saturday & sunday & evenings all bets are off) you were on the road at least an hour often a lot more than that. (I'm a vetran of the North Shore to South Shore run thru Boston & have driven it in all types of weather, all times of day & night & multiple states of awareness - including thru the main part of highway thru the city in borrowed Spencer's halloween masks - of course the stretch I'm refering to has been gone for a few years now but anyone who was there before that will remember it- I annoyed my daughter telling her to take a good look as we drove north to south thru there 2 years ago because I said she'd never see those buildings up close like that again, the whole thing is closed in now & just a tunnel- ugh. oh well it's still better than 128!)
So no roomie for me. Not a problem, sometimes I think if I ever do find annother guy I'd drive him crazy anyway with my independence & disinterest in doing anything but what I want to do & being with the kids (& then there's the other half of me which worries that if I got involved with annother guy I'd go back & make the same mistakes I made with the last one & have no life but him like I did with my ex. Single is easier & much more comfortable I'm sorry to say- Balance again-)
P.S. Happy Birthday Chris-sea! sorry again for being late with my wishes.

Saturday: Just annother day of Work, with out the Headset & the Customers
Now Playing: Audioslave: Doesn't Remind Me of Anything
Topic: Family Business
For a day where I was cleaning for the majority of it, it's been a pretty good day, 6's room was a mess, as usual, so I decided to tackle it today, he did help, which proves he's growing up, he used to just wander off or whine & cry the whole time. For once he was fairly enthusiastic. He seems to have figured out that we find all his missing toys during the cleanup. I don't care one way or the other about the toys but I like to have a clear path to the closet since the only closet in the downstairs is in his room, it has 2 doors but you (or he) can walk between them inside the closet, so one half is mine & the other is his (his sister's rooms upstairs have their own closets which I hear are packed full I would prefer not to go look for myself thank you!) After that lovely mess was finished I changed sheets, nagged other people to change their sheets, washed & dried laundry all day long & ran around picking up & fixing broken things like the drawer in my coffe table that 'someone' broke off the front of I'm not sure who 'Not Me' & 'Ida Know' are but they're no longer welcome in my house because the break stuff every time they stop by! After I was sick of yelling & tired of going from room to room finding more stuff which was broken, filthy or in disaray miss 9 & I pulled out my box full of little bead drawers & I showed her how to make necklaces, I found to my dismay that I had only 1 beading needle so I couldn't do much while she was making her necklace so I sorted beads. which have been a mess for aproximately 6 years, the last time I remember doing much of anything with the beads was the Christmas after 6 was born when I made beaded crystals to hang on car rearview mirrors for everyone for gifts. messing with the beads along with making dinner took up the rest of the day, later the 4 of us looked at ghost pictures, played scrabble online & checked out a site called About which had a bunch of urban legends etc. we took a really neat quiz there which had a bunch of pictures, (some of which I have seen in emails) & you had to guess which were real & which were fake. (everyone liked the giant ant a lot)
It was all in all a pretty good day in spite of the weather. Everyone was a little disappointed because 2 weeks ago today it was over 80 & in anticipation of beautiful weekends in the future I had said we'd go on our first hike of the season today. Then it snowed last night & today, though no accumulation, so no hike, as a matter of fact only 6 went outside today at all, the rest of us pretty much stayed in all day & 16 never even changed out of pajamas,(in her case sweats & a t shirt really) So weather permiting 2 weeks from now we'll be hiking on the parkway or down in Patrick county hiking by the river which is a favorite that I haven't been able to do for a few years due to being ill & then weak from being ill. It's nice to be able to do stuff again with out getting exausted & ending up with shaking knees!
Back to work for Monday 1 of my week on Sunday, as my boss says working 2 days, having 2 off then working 2 & having 1 off means it's always monday or friday! The good thing I didn't mention when writing about my pay raise last night is that they're giving us merit bonuses monthly now. yesterday was the end of the most recent monthly incentive & I'll know Thursday how I did (the info is available Tuesday but I'm not there) so far, after 3 weeks I'm at 'silver' which means if I maintain that I'll walk away with a $90. bonus on my first check in April & a 5% increase in my hourly pay for the next 4 weeks. if I make gold both figures are doubled & platinum would double the gold money but I doubt I'll ever make platinum, they always catch me on quality assurance between 9 & 11 am & I'm just not at my best then so my scores suffer, either way it's more money for my vacation which is what I've earmarked any money I make thru this promotion which is going on all year. Or so they tell us!

Choose Your Future
Now Playing: It's a Beautiful Day, By U2
Topic: Family Business

Being a mom is so challenging, especially when theres a ton of other things I'd like to be doing rather than hearing someones 6 times tables, listening to 'Pickles Helps Out' for the tenth time, but I'm it, so I do these things & hear all about how mean 'courtney' is or whoever it is this week. & then by the time I've got a few minutes to myself I'm so tired I have trouble keeping my head up to type. I know my mother had it worse, since she taught us at home & all she was always right there for everything. but of course with a child teacher ratio of 2 to 1 we got stuff done & over with in 4 or 5 hours & had the rest of the day to ourselves. At least in the early days when I actually did some school work, once I hit 15 or so I just read in my room & went to Piano Lessons, that was pretty much the extent of my schooling from then on. At least I'm not totally useless, I can always serve as a bad example to my kids. Mom is how not to be. They're learning too. 16 wants to go to college & get a job where she can make lots of money- she says. & I tell the little ones the same thing. choose a career & stick with it Don't waste your life in pursuit of fun & happiness, get a career you love, money & stability first then look for the rest, of couse they won't listen, I know this, I remember people telling me the same sort of thing & I thoought they were crazy. You learn these things too late to make any real difference, even if someone gave me the money I have no interest in anything to 'go back to school' for. The only thing I ever have found that looked remotely interesting was real estate but I have a problem with it in that it can end up promoting the ruination of places like where I live, new housing starts are at an alarming high here, I read last summer in the local paper that the county had something like 150 development plans in the works when at the same time last year there were 60. I hate to see the hills & mountaintops becoming dotted with houses, roads being put in where fields were & logging roads being paved for houses to be built along them. This is why I moved here, to get away from the constant ruining of the landscape, tearing down the mountains to bring in a couple more. I would not consider a new house because of this. I wanted an exsisting structure because at least it's less intrusion on the landscape, Someone put it here, (in 1960 in my case) I'm just using it now that they're done with it. So that's one reason I don't feel like I could be a realtor. The other is that it's an effort for me to talk to people, I am horrible at small talk & can very happily pass whole days with out talking to anyone but the cat. (it helps that the cat is not a smartass like my customers on the phone at work) The thing I like about realty is that I love houses, floor plans & decor & love to see what people have done with their places, I still go to realtor.com at least once a week to check out the houses in my area because I love looking at virtual tours & pictures of the inside etc. A friend at work asked me to point him toward some places in my area because he want's to get his wife & kid out of where they live now before it gets worse & at first I was dubious he said to me 'You lucked out with your place, find me something like that.' & so I went home, looked & found him about 6 places online in his price range! he was supposed to go check some out yesterday & I'm looking forward to Sunday when we're both at work together again to see how it went! Annother stressful day at work, made a little better (but only a little) by finding out what my 6 months raise is going to be: (a whopping 26 cents (!!!) the worst I've ever recieved was a dime so I can't complain, hey, in a 80 hour paycheck that's a $20.80 increase, that's enough to keep me in Sobe for the whole 2 weeks til the next paycheck! (See what I mean? If I'd had a calling & become a lawyer or something I'd be drinking 8 Sobe a day & not even thinking about what they cost!)

13 reasons I love my new house
Topic: Thursday Thirteen

1 It's far away from town
2 It's not in full view of any neighbors
3 It's mine!!!
4 Everyone has their own bedroom here
5 It's affordable
6 I have garden space & I know how to use it
7 I Have more room than I need (well almost- if I got it all organized there'd be plenty of room)
8 Now that I have a washer & dryer there are no unmet needs here.
9 theres room to make a deck off the back of the house
10 It's not on a main road with cars going by all the time
11 The creek at the botom of the hill & the hill which I can landscape someday if I have money & energy
12 A shed & a garage
13 I know it's killing my ex with jealosy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

I link few & late - I apologize for that but Thursday is my second Monday of the week!:

Thirteen Scary things

Thirteen things in a purse

Thirteen Lotions/Creams

Thirteen Overlooked things

thirteen reasons why being older isn't so bad

Thursday Thaw

Thirteen Random things

Decorate?
Topic: Rambling on

When I was younger (like 11) my room was supposed to be done in rainbows, my walls were going to be painted white & we were going to paint a rainbow on the wall. I was going to have rainbow sheets & a comforter etc. & the real reason for this was I was going to keep the room clean once the room was done, of course, I never got the room, my Grandmother sewed a rainbow of bias binding on the edges of a sheet & pillowcase for me & we found one of those paper rolls which unrolls into a rainbow & put that up on top of my red flocked wallpaper & that was about as far as the plans got, soon though the room was papered in rock posters, walls, ceiling, everything. 16 had a room with a rainbow on the wall once when she was 5, we painted the room blue, but the room ended up being a teal which looked more like the inside of a pool & then I made a perfect 5 foot rainbow on one wall, my ex painted a sun & clouds & we did trees in one corner where we hung her stuffed animal hammock. it was beautiful. we got kicked out not 6 months later. As usual, the ex wasn't working & we weren't paying rent, He was supposed to have been working on the apartment for part of our rent but my ex felt that gave him the right to not pay any rent at all! The new place is just about the same as it was on day one, the cupboards I intended to paint white are still brown, the cupboards which are sponge painted in blue & were supposed to have been white now too are still sponged. the dining room has this silly apple basket border around the top, 6's room is half painted blue (thanks to 16 who painted the half which is done & her own room lilac purple the day we bought the house) 6's room was supposed to be a spiderman theme, light blue, red & dark blue trim on doors & frames, & a spiderman movie cutout from my work, the cutout is in there but they've ripped his arm off & he's looking kindof worn. my living room is the same white it was when we moved in & I liked my bedroom the way it was so had no intentions of changing it anyway. 9 has changed her mind so many times about what she wants in her room that my head spins when I think about it, so she still has the paneling which was already up when she moved in. The only things about the trailer which I liked were my room which was a deep dark blue & the bathroom which was yellow with sunflower stencils, the bathroom here is a pale mauve with a rose stencil. all of the rooms here are ok, kind of neutral but ok. I just haven't had time for anything like what it would take to get a room painted or papered. Though I have had plenty of thoughts on what I'd like to do with the rooms. We shall see if I ever acheive what I want to do with them though.

Time, Money & the ultimate time suckage machine! the computer
Now Playing: Funk # 49 by the James Gang
Topic: just letting off steam

So, monday is memory day on many of the blog sites I read, I would so love to have time to write a lot, I could dredge memories from my childhood all day, but so little time, why couldn't we have had a computer when I was a stay at home mom? the answer is clear & obvious, because I was a stay at home mom so there was only 1 income & that was patchy to say the least, work for 6 weeks & stay home for annother 8 or so was his usual way of working. I used to say it didn't bother me because my needs were less than his, I just wanted to have enough food & to keep the electricity & the rent paid up. (& even those small needs were not always so easy back then) Now I have enough, enough to make the ends meet at least, not always enough for new clothes when people are in growth spurts, or when my 3 year old sneakers are falling apart & beginning to stink! but there's always more overtime right? (I have set myself a goal of 4 hours in 2 weeks on the pay period where it's not mandatory & 6 on the pay period where it is mandatory- since I already have to do 4 hours the mandatory week) last night I reneged though because the weather was looking so bad, it was snowing & below 32 but when I left at 8 the roads were fine & at 9 when I would have left if I'd stayed for an extra hour it was still about the same, light snow, wet but not slick roads. so I could have stayed but you never know what the roads are like (unless it's summer) So for money I can do some overtime, but that brings me back to the never enough time thing, it's never an even balance, instead of asking for peace of mind about my life in my going to sleep affirmations (yes, I do this-) maybe I should be asking for balance!
2 hours later, ok so there's a nice diatribe about time & not enough of it & what have I been doing for the past 2 hours? I googled Owls as omens & the majority shows death & change so I have decided to not take the Owl as an omen, only as a guide (especially since nothing but my self esteem died last time I saw an Owl - see last night's entry-) then I read the blogs I read every day that I have time to do so & saw a new link on Open Book Jennifer's blog & clicked on it & that was it! it's a link for scrabble & you play by yourself & have been messing with it ever since!!! played 2 games & am itching to get back to the third, especially now that I have help from my 6 year old! I'm putting this link in the sidebar too but be warned if you like scrabble it's going to be addictive!

More rambling
Now Playing: Pop Song 89 by REM
Topic: Rambling on
Owls, Owls, hmm, southern tradition holds hearing an owl means someone is going to die. nothing about seeing one though, that I can find anywhere, I know native american myth goes both ways, some say death like the appalachian tradition. others say good omen. The last time I saw an owl was 1992, my ex & 16 (who was 2 then) & I were driving from where he lived to where I lived (we're talking about 70 miles here folks,) My little one & I had gone to get him & then we took him back to where we lived. He & I were friends then, no one really belived that, everyone thought we were doing it but we weren't. quite, yet. I belive that was a friday night & that sunday night we had our first kiss- so it was close but not quite there. which leaves me feeling like an owl might not be too good a sign in the long run. But in the short run- if 7, 8, 9 years of ok, (some much better than others) times & 2 beautiful kids can be called the short run. I guess in the course of a life that many years could be called a short time. So the point here is I saw an owl on the way home tonight, it flew from one tree across the road to annother tree & was fairly large & very pretty. The one back in 92 was bigger & all white where this one was white & brown but both were impressive. in 2002 we had an owl in the pine trees behind the trailer & I'd hear it hooting in the middle of the night all that summer which I loved, I love wildlife, hawks, owls, I saw a fox a few weeks ago in the field with out the cows & llamas across the road from my house. The most interesting thing I ever saw like that was a hawk carrying a snake in it's talons, it flew over my car (only about 12-15 feet above the car. here in VA back in 1994. considering what that year was like for my ex & I it's no surprise that I would take that type of sight now as a bad omen but of course I'll probably never see anything like that again! (I hope) Deer I like but only when they wander by when I'm out in the yard, on the porch or in the house, (& they'd better not be in the garden!) I do not like to see them while driving & considering out of nearly 5 years at my job I have worked straight days (home at 330 or 530 in the afternoon) for only about 1 year (sept 2004 to sept 2005) & been driving at some time of night all the rest of the time (now is the earliest night time end of day I've had at 8 pm) & I have had plenty of close calls with deer, dogs, cats, opossoms, racoons, drunks & other nocturnal animals. I haven't hit too many considering the odds when you calculate all the nights I drive & have driven compared with my hit rate (2, neither were domestic animals, 1 opossom & 1 rabbit) so I'll be googling Owls tommorow to see what I can come up with!

Glad I'm not the one giving birthday parties for 1 year olds.
Now Playing: Been Awhile by Stained
Topic: Rambling on
The computer is getting funkier not better, I had a draft all ready to go the other night, I'd worked on it off & on for a few days because on work days I don't even walk in the door before 8:45 (this is why I have 3 days off though so it evens out) so I don't have a lot of time to spend online & like to have stuff ready to post with just a little bit left to do & this was looking good, I previewed it, made corrections, added a picture, previewed again, the picture looked good, I hit add & it disappeared. it just never showed up on the blog, I dunno if it was my computers fault or the site was having troubles but I was so annoyed I just shut it off & went to bed!!
It has been a hellish week of billing questions at work, they kept us doing what I described previously for 6 days, not 4 & then an hour before time to leave on Friday night they changed us back to regular calls & I was never so happy in my life! I woke up in the middle of the night Thursday & was all the way in the bathroom still having an argument in my head about a bill with someone I'd been dreaming about before I realized it was all a dream. I am actually looking forward to going to work tommorow because I don't have to struggle through billing calls. I just have to know all about tech.
Earler in the week I got an email invitation to my nieces first birthday party, I have 3 neices, 1 nephew & multiple cousins, step cousins etc. my ex's family is extended & moved here in 1994 because, in part, of my ex & I talking it up. I have had my regrets over the years off & on but they're very entertaining & in small doses (as long as you leave before the alcohol starts flowing or while it's flowing slowly) they're a lot of fun. I see less of them than when my ex was around but I like them better now. Only 1 of my sisters in law has bestirred herself to come see my new house, but in some ways that's better, if they don't know where it is they can't tell the ex. When we walked in Baby had just finished smearing herself with cake & was covered in chocolate. the other cousins were running around & playing & the adults were just standing around watching & quite a sight it was too, chocolate cake smeared everywhere, eyebrows, ears etc- I know it's form to do that, they let me once & all my kids got to do it too but ugh.... & the floor...the high chair. oh lord I don't miss that at all. (though I have my own messes, I bought a lamp for mr 6 because the overhead light doesn't work in his room anymore & the box & packaging are all over the floor & when I call to him to tell him to pick it up I get 'val helped me open it, let her pick it up') 16 doesn't deign to speak to most of the family because a cousin's daughter told lies (at least 16 says they're lies) about her about a year ago. so she sat in the car for awhile. Eventually though she decided to unbend & come say hi to everyone. Though she just glared at the little girl who may or may not have lied (little, well she's 14) Miss 9 was in her element, a 1 year old, a 4 month old & a 2 year old to play with, she's quite a baby person & loves the whole baby dolls, diapers, bottles stuff. Mr 6 was in his element as my only nephew is just 11 months younger than him & they have this amazing connection for kids who see each other on average of 3x a year. My brother & sister in law & I were discussing trying to get them together more though so I hope that will happen for 6's sake at least, though I do like my sister in law very well. Annother day gone completely, more stuff to do than time to do it in as usual, in a way I like the second half of the year better, this part of the year I can't take a day off because I'm saving them all for the summer when we go to Massachusetts, after the vacation's over I can take a day anytime I want to, though I found saving them 'till I had enough for 2 days together is better because that gives me 5 days off in a row. Very restful & the only things I have to save days off for are Halloween & Christmas! Leaving now to take a shower & relax for awhile with the kids before bedtime (for all of us) pic of mr 6 & his cousin::

Thirteen reasons I'm glad I don't live in my old Trailer Anymore
Topic: Thursday Thirteen

1 it was moldy
2 It was cold in winter & hot in summer
3 the neighbors were too close
4 the neighbors were too hateful, crazy, loud
5 the landlord was a jerk & kept raising the rent on the lot
6 the floors were falling through
7 the roof was falling in
8 the roof leaked
9 the kitchen window leaked
10 the tub was backed up most of the time
11 the kids were always fighting with the neighbor kids
12 the state troopers drove right by 2 or 3 times a day to get gas at the Vdot
13 my ex knew where we were & intended to use the place against me.

100 things about me
Topic: 100 things about me

39- My favorite Ice cream is chocolate, But if you have warm brownies or warm chocolate chip brownies vanilla ice cream melted over them is really good too.

38- when I was a kid I loved to cook, at 3 or 4 I'd follow my grandmother around the house with a bottle of vanilla just begging to 'make something'
by the time I was 11 I made dinner at least 1 night a week. when I was a housewife & my ex was working (or not working & we were on foodstamps- boy I do NOT miss those days!) I made lovely meals, now I hate to cook, a big mess, a big waste of time, I only cook the 3 nights a week I don't work & I usually have something heat & serve at least 1 of those nights.

37- My oldest likes to cook so on my work nights she usually prepares a reasonably good meal for the three of them, she tends to do things like hamburgers & french fries, roast chicken (one of my better recipies)

36- My youngest is the pickiest eater I have seen since my uncle who takes his family to lovely seafood restraunts & orders hot dogs for himself.

35- I've never broken a bone at all, though I have sprained an ankle a few times, always the same one, the right one.

34- As a teenager I had a black eye liner fetish (I still maintain I was the original goth child) now if I put on mascara (the only make up I can see the point of because my eyelashes are invisible with out it) it's usually because I'm bored at work on the phone & it's often at least 1/2 way thru the day.

33- I just found an old friend, she's been on my mind for about a month now & I thought of her about 10 times today, so I googled her & located what may be her phone & address & is almost definitley her work email & phone #. I'm so excited, I chose the email becuase it's been almost 5 years since I've talked to her & I'm shy. Calling someone who might be the person I haven't talked to in so long or might not be them makes me feel sick to my stomach.

32- I was especially thinking of my friend in the context of my oldest daughters birth, this friend was there for that, she was my lamaze partner & held my daughter right away after she was born. She came along because she had a fear of childbirth & thought seeing a birth would allay her fears, she almost fainted because she wasn't aware there would be blood.

31- I am definitely a nocturnal creature, I can just run on about any subject at 1 am but at 1 pm I feel constrained to type anything at all.

30- I have had many different shifts at my work & have pestered them to put on a third shift for nearly 5 years now, I would love to work from 11 or so right thru the night (though people who do so tell me I would not like it at all) My favorite was 4:30 to 1 am. (not counting my current shift which is 9 am to 8 pm & I never work more than 2 days in a row which I love) I especially liked it on weekends because I could spend the whole day with the kids & then when it was going on time for dinner I went to work.

Reading
Now Playing: Cold (but I'm Still here) Evan's Blue

I have been a reader for as long as I can remember, if it's written I'll be reading it, I know the names of every street name between here & work & every street name between my old trailer & work & also between the trailer & here. I can't not read most of the time, I have read & know the name of every attraction & resturant between here & Massachusetts. I'm actually considering going there by a different route this summer so I'll have something new to read & look at.
Acording to my mother I taught myself to read, I went to a very loose alternative school the teacher thought my mother was teaching me to read & my mother thought the teacher was teaching me (didn't you just love the 70's?) & no one supposedly actually taught me I just started reading. I remember 1 book they had there. It was full of optical illusions. Like where you look at a grid & if you stare long enough, dots show up in the boxes in the grid.
That was where I learned the life lesson that if the male of the species leaves the seat up & you don't look first you're going to be sorry. I also heard the phrase 'mind your own beeswax' there first. we were all scandalized that Linda had said it too As I remember. The next Free School that I went to I didn't do much but read & play. I read a LOT of books there as they had extensive collections of them & if I wasn't reading I was outside in their extensive fields, woods & water. (about the only thing I learned there was how to make chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread houses & to add long numbers)When my mother took me out of school & taught my brother & I at home little changed for me, I read nearly constantly & if I wasn't reading I was outside a lot of the time (though my mother did at least teach me math & I disected a frog & a worm once!)
At home I had lots of books, my father read Dr seuss & little golden books to me, my grandmother shared her Tasha Tudor collection with me (still many of my favorites) as I got older my father read me the Little House on the Prarie series & then I went on to read on my own, I re-read that series & then took on the Hobbit & the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I started at age 8 & read them cover to cover, over the next 5 or so years I was always reading them, I'd finish The Return of the King & start the Hobbit back over. unlike some people I like to have multiple books going at the same time. I will read something for awhile & then take a break & go on to something else then come back to the first one, I also like to have fiction & non going at the same time. (though my non fiction is usually on the occult or ghosts or divination, I know many people would consider those subjects fiction too!)
My mother despaired of me when I was younger, she felt I was reading beneath my level, because along with Tolkien I was reading Beverly Cleary's Ramona books (There were less back then)Trixie Belden mysteries, Half Magic by Edward Eager, The Witch Family (both of these last I have copies of for my kids) Finnaly (in my mothers opinion at least) I discovered adult books, I read the Thorn Birds at 10 & I remember my Grandmother being horrified that I was reading it because it was 'racy' (the racy parts were my favorites) I really loved Stephen King & I read the Clan of the Cave Bear series & so many other books I can't even begin to list them all. Annother favorite in recent years is Stephen Kings Wife Tabitha King, Pearl, One on One & Survivor rank as some of my favorite books. Last week I finished a series of 6 books, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon & it was almost like ending a love affair - there is supposed to be at least 1 more, maybe 2 more in the series but I think -from reading the website- that I'll have to wait for her to WRITE them!! In order to get the last book cheap I joined a book club & so got to pick a few other books, I got a few nonfiction & a cookbook but I also picked up Stephen King's newest book Cell & I've already finished it. It was small by King's standards & was very intense & had a typical King ending in which you don't really know how it ends. Left me wanting more shall we say. I loaned it to a co-worker immediately after finishing it & now am on the prowl for more books, I find it hard to read certain books after other books, after Outlander I wanted anything but historical fiction because nothing else could measure up to what I'd been immersed in for almost 6 months. After a Stephen King everything else I have available & waiting to be read either seems tame (Lee Smith. a very entertaining southern writer who writes about the area I live in most of the time. or Douglas Coupland's new one which I have to be in just the right mood to read. he's tough for me to take unless I'm in the right mood.) Oh well, tommorows a day off from work, maybe I'll find something for $.50 at goodwill! Seriously though I'd love some suggestions!

And I thought things were bad before!!!
Now Playing: Where it's At By Beck
Topic: just letting off steam

For today & the past 2 days I worked before that. My co-workers (on our 'team' all 13 of us)Have been on a special call path, they're trying a new voice response setup & so when you call in & 'tell' the machine what you want to do it then sends you to me so I can ask you again what you're calling for & track it on a computer form & resolve your problem- if I'm able, I don't speak spanish after all!. This makes for aggravated people, a lot of people who don't speak english or follow instructions well & a LOT of billing calls. On my average day as a 'normal' advanced tech agent I take 55+ calls & maybe have 1 call where they ask for my supervisor in a week or 2, I & everyone on my team is getting 4 or 5 calls a day where they want our supervisor. It's telling on everyone & I for one, would much rather explain how to wire 10 decoder boxes than explain why we're charging what we're charging for 'that crap you call programing' which is what I hear all day now. The original rumor was that we'd be doing this for 2 weeks, my Boss told me yesterday late in the day - when I went to get him for my 5th escalated call of the day- that it's looking like monday may be the last day- The plus side of this is that we're waiting aprox. 5 minutes between calls most of the time & sometimes a lot longer than that.
Stupidest thing I heard today: Me: ok, press the menu button on the remote, do you see the main menu?
C:yeah
Me: now press 6, 1 & 5.
C: my tv's not interactive yet. I guess I can't do this.
Me: no, sir, on the remote, use the remote.
(he thought I meant on the tv screen, not on the remote. now most people use the number pad on their remote daily to enter channel numbers don't they?)
The other striking thing, which I had forgotten since most of my callers normally have been transferred to me by someone who couldn't help them, is how little respect people have for you when they think you might just be the operator & will need to direct their call to someone else. I had a couple people assert that I must be lying to them about my credentials & say essentially, that because I answered the phone I couldn't possibly know enough to help them.
One of my co-workers put this whole (ugly) experience in this context: On one hand it's nice that the company thinks so much of us that they assume we can handle anything callers throw at us. On annother it's upsetting to think they had to pull level 2 & 3 agents off their normal splits to take these calls because we're the only ones they can be sure can handle getting every possible kind of call under the sun & filling out a computer form on every single call without taking 3 calls an hour!
The whole thing takes me back, my first year & 1/2 there I took calls like this all the time, just whatever was thrown at me. since then we got away from the all purpose agent (the people who handle billing all the time were terrible at tech- though those of us who learned tech first don't have all that much trouble with billing- go figure!)
ok, that's enough diatribe about my boring Job! I should know better than to write on work days!

Good Day Sunshine
Now Playing: More than a feeling By Boston
Topic: Rambling on

***Disclaimer: this is not 2 in one day, I wrote what I wrote late last night & I just happened to get it posted right after midnight, really the post below should have been for friday***

Once again, it's happend, I had everything nearly set to go on a lovely little thing about reading & my relationship with it, (let's just say reading should be having me arrested as a stalker) & the Damn Computer went out again, Y'know, when I started typing on my blog I thought, 'you should type it on notebook first' & I shrugged it off, typical of me I thought it would be a short thing, just a few lines about reading. Sure enough though, I ran on at some length & then when moving between one screen & my email which I'm reading intermitently I got an error & mozilla shut down entirely, leaving me looking at notebook which I had up because I was also working intermitently on some other things. so, if I'd been on notebook I would not have lost my writings, oh well.
I did have a good day though, it was beeaaauutiful outside today 72 & sunny with a nice breeze, I hung a clothesline & hung clothes on it (I was motivated to do this because I thought the dryer was not drying, it turns out the washer is not spinning the clothes so the dryer could not get them dry because they were so wet & the local appliance repair guy had his answering machine turned off so now it's going to be at least Tuesday before I can get anything done about the washer- oops trying to focus on the GOOD here Becky!) I was aided by 16 & her friend who was over & with all of us pulling on it I think we got the tension right on the line so it won't sag too bad (can't tell right now because the clothes out there currently are so soaked they're three times as heavy as they'd normaly be.) Then the girls went with the weed whacker to the garden & took down some of the old dead weeds which choked my garden out at the end of the year last year. They didn't have much luck though because they said they needed a rake to do much so I have to get a rake next week... We surveyd my creek area to see how/where I'd like to landscape it into a garden/rest spot, I found there's a large rock outcroping there which forms (or may have been formed into) a natural seat. Man, it's nice that I'm in slightly better shape this year & can go down there & come back up with out too much huffing & puffing. I was going to get a bench to put down there in a mail order catalog but I may hold off because theres a lot to be done before I could even put in a bench, the trees are all pines & the branches stick out all over them & are dead because someone just let the trees grow up there & they're very tall so the top branches are all green but the first 10 feet up is broken, bare dead branches just sticking out all over, someone cleared some of it maybe 2 or 3 years ago but left the sticks they cut where they lay so that's all got to be picked up. & then closer to the water I'd have to do more cutting & I don't have a chainsaw or anything like that (yet) I can hear people who know how clumsy I am shuddering at the thought of a chain saw in my hands! trust me, I've gotten a lot steadier- I've noticed I'm a lot less clumsy when I'm around people who just accept me & don't judge me at all (my ex, my parents, certain friends) I first discovered this when my friend Jennie from Haverhill came with me to the south shore for a weekend at my parents house because we were going to do a craft show & she was shocked at how clumsy I was all weekend. I thought about how she kept remarking on it when it was just business as usual for me & I decided that it was being in my home (from age 2 to 17 with occasional sojurns back at 18, 19 & 20) & feeling my parents disaproval of me in general. Jennie had known me for about 7 years at that point but had only known me in Haverhill where I lived with my uncle & aunt or with my grandmother all of whom are a lot more accepting of me than my parents ever were & so she aparently never saw me as clumsy. So back to my day, we went to get mail at the p.o. box & then to town because the little store by the post office didn't have salsa or sour cream. we had quesadillias for lunch out on the porch & then the girls went back to the garden to whack some more weeds & the little ones & I straightened out the shed a little. I hung my collection of liscence plates. thanks to my ex's family I have Florida & North Carolina thanks to R&J I have Missouri & Nebraska (a few of each thanks) & thanks to my ex & myself I have tons of Virginia & Massachusetts & New Hampshire. I also have a ton more VA plates from the previous tennants.
I did not fold to repeated requests to show everyone the bears head in the freezer, though I may do it next week & take a picture for my picture albums online. The brother of the guy who owned this house before me (The brother lived here with mom more than the owner did) shot this bear near Buffalo Mtn a few years ago & has kept it wrapped in a trash bag in the big chest freezer out in the shed - this freezer is big enough that if my ex comes around I could store him in it if things went poorly....lol- & he has not come back to claim the bear head yet (may 26 it will be a year) I know he was saving to pay to have it professionally stuffed so I don't mind, I don't think my electric bill is all that much higher due to the freezer & it's nice to know if I ever have a bunch of extra money I could stock up on groceries & store them out there. (I have yet to even fill the freezer in the spare fridge in my garage. though I've come close a few times.) So then I made a nice beef roast for dinner with souper rice & green beans & have been online ever since.
I'll finish up with a funny thing someone sent me as an email:

Things to say to telemarketers
The police photographer is still here, and the county medical examiner
hasn't released the body to the coroner yet. Can you call back a little later?
What's that you say? Speak up, please, will you? The battery has run down
on my hearing aid.
Louder, please, louder. Is that the best you can do? I'm afraid we're just
not communicating.I'm gonna have to put you on hold. The baby is due any minute now. Quick someone, get some hot water. Lots of it. Sorry, gotta
hurry now, don't go away.
Oh, it's you again. I was hoping you'd call back. The better business people
said I need more positive identification to file my complaint.Now first
let me have your name and telephone number...

100 things about me
Now Playing: Incubus: Wish you were here
Topic: 100 things about me
49- I have a very vivid dream life- many of my dreams are of annother place which looks like real places I know but subtly different. I've been having dreams like this for as long as I can remember & so imagine my surprise when I was reading a book on mysteries of the world last summer & found someone who had documented a similar dream world, his name was Robert Monroe & there's a whole institute (in Virginia) dedicated to dreams & brain waves & astral travel (some of the stuff is a little extreme) He documented 3 different 'Locales' in which our dreams take place.

48- Part of my plan at this point in my life is to live here untill my kids are all grown up & have their own lives (I have hope that this happens someday- though I know there's lots of kids who never leave) & then sell the house (at a profit of course), get a small rv & see the country. I'll be too old to be a groupie by then but at least I can see the sights.

47- My parenting style is very laid back- untill the house is a mess. The kids always look shocked when after 3 or 4 reminders in a perfectly calm tone of voice that the living room needs to be cleaned up & they're still messing around or chasing each other from 1 room to annother, when I lose it & start yelling that the living room needs to be cleaned up now or they'll lose their tv privleges for the next week. Sometimes I wonder if I'd get them to do stuff sooner if I started with the yelling instead of starting with the calm, reasoned stuff. (that's how the ex got things done- he calls my style of parenting 'letting the kids walk all over you')

46- I find it hard to belive I am as old as I am, I still don't feel too far away from 19, of course I was old for my age as a teenager, so I've been the same for a long time.

45- I always wanted to birth at least one of my kids at home, my first I had no support for that, the other 2 their father was against it because he was premature he thought his kids would be premature (they weren't) I did get consent from a friend of his who was an emt to have my youngest at home & she was going to help & then we'd just have said the baby came too fast & when they came to get me in the ambulance it had been too late etc. but we moved to the other end of the county & it just wasn't going to be convenient.

44- a little over a year ago I wrote in a notebook, which I keep at work & just found today, a list of things I wanted to have in my house, (this was before I started looking for a house, I just wanted some guidelines, ) I wrote, a bedroom for everyone, garden space, some sort of hill that I can landscape on (I know a semi public garden built on a hill which I'd love to pay homage to) A porch or deck, either attic, basement or shed storage, & not too far off a main road. I managed to get all of these in my home & I only looked at this house. I never set foot in annother house when I went shopping (there weren't that many & I had been looking online for months before- I knew before I even stepped on the property that I wanted the place!)

43- Spring flowers are my favorite, & my new bulbs are sprouting as we speak, (or as I type?)I never thought 50 crocuses would be enough & I was right, but even sparse as they are they're nice to see, the hyacinth & the tulips will be along presently. This fall I'll have to get more bulbs to plant to increase the flowers beside our walkway.

42- When I was a kid we had a little 2 room cottage behind our house, with no electricity or running water, my mothers great uncle had lived there by himself when she was young, when I first started going out there all his stuff was out there still on built in shelves & stuff. The thing I remember most on those shelves was a birds skull. Later my Mother cleaned it out & when she started teaching us at home it was our school house, I could not stand to stay in there alone though, I just felt like someone was glaring at me & did not want me there

41- I used to have an entire collection of 'truly tasteless jokes' books. I loaned them to someone who promptly disappeared out of my life & took the books with her. I had read them over enough times that I really didn't need them anyway, I have an odd memory, if you ask me to tell a joke I'll have trouble coming up with one, if something jogs my memory in general life I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut & NOT telling the joke regardless of company etc. this used to drive my ex nuts; we'd be in bed at night & I'd think of a tasteless joke & just reel it off.. He would rarely actually laugh & always say 'what the hell made you think of that?' This has made me rather popular with my oldest's friends.

40- A friend once asked me when I listened to music did I pay more attention to the music itself or the lyrics, she, herself heard lyrics, her boyfriend at the time heard the music & didn't pay as much attention to the lyrics- (I'm sure he must have paid SOME attention to the lyrics) I had never really thought about it at that time, I just took it all as a package deal but now I find some songs I like the music more & some I like the lyrics more.

oooh weird
Now Playing: I'll stop the world & melt with you by Modern English, I love Sirrius alternative!
Topic: Rambling on

Weird things keep happening, I changed the picture to the left on here because It was hard to read the links over it, with dark lettering the bottom half blended in, with light lettering the top half blended, so I just changed the image. When I went to preview it, the computer showed my blog page with the writing & all but the writing seemed to be in latin! how odd! The cat got herself stuck between the screen door & the front door this morning, I was out on the porch reading in the sun. A good thing too because it's gone overcast this afternoon & if I'd waited 'til later which is my usual impulse when it comes to taking time out & reading I would have missed out on the sun & warmth, I mostly did it becuase I had only about 30 pages left in the book I'm reading & wanted to finish it up so I didn't have to drag it to work tommorow (big book & I hate to finish a book at work, especially if I finish during lunch or heaven forbid, first break, then I have nothing to do all the rest of the day) so I left the door part way open to let some air into the house & all of a sudden the cat's clinging to the screen & miaowing like mad. I opened the screendoor & pried her off of it & found she'd managed to shut the actual door tight behind her! she left mildly affronted at my request to know exactly what she thought she was doing. I think someone was here this morning too. I woke up to hear a car accelerating away from the house, since I live on a curve it could have just been someone accelerating aroung the curve, but it sounded like someone pulling out from in front of my house, nothing on my door though, if it were Jehovas witnesses they'd have left a tract, & it wasn't the sheriffs office with a summons, they'd have knocked until I woke up & answered -they know if the cars there so am I. Or they'd have left it on the door- they've done it before (I expect one will be coming eventually, I've been telling the ex to go to court to request visitation because I'm not going to agree to send the kids to Wisconsin for multiple days or even weeks & while he's supposed to be in Kuwait or Iraq he's also said he was going to go to court to have custody/visitation changed & has said he would have a leave in April or May or August or November- you can see why I don't take a lot of what he says very seriously- it's never the same story twice) The custody/visitation thing worries me but I have sat in court for hours on family court day -waiting my turn- & heard enough other people in front of the judge to know VA (or at least the judge here) does not allow non-custodial parents to take kids out of state & that they very seldom reverse a custody decsision once it's been done (& mine's been a done deal since December of 2001) so while I know, if I have to go to court for this eventually I will be sick as a dog over the whole thing but that other than allowing a schedule of visits supervised by my ex's Mother, Brother or other family - rather than the haphazard arangement of the same supervised visits which is what I have allowed previously- nothing much should change. Or maybe I'm just whistling in the dark?
So if someone was here, who? & why? Could have been the farmer who has a right of way on 1 corner of my land but it dosent look like he's been here, since the house was locked up tight I don't have to worry about anyone who might come take stuff (& I know a few people who might try) Then miss 16 has been text messaging me all day asking to come home, not because she's sick or anything, because she 'hates this school' is what she keeps saying & keeps saying- this has been going on for a few weeks, but she won't tell me why & I have to have a reason to deliberately subject myself to the emotional stress of going to the high school office & signing her out of school. I know, it shouldn't be that big a deal, but it is for me, I never went to high school, I was homeschooled & being in the prescence of so many teenagers & the people who try to keep them in line all day is weird for me. I like the elementary school better but only because of more exposure to it than the highschool, 16 spent all but 6 months of her education from 2nd grade to 7th grade at that school & the other 2 little ones coming up in the same school give me a certain clout although they don't like me too much there because I refuse to attend PTA (I've been known to choose work schedules which required me to work on Thursday nights so as not to be able to go & have a better excuse than 'I hate PTA) Most of the problem with PTA is that most everyone has known each other since highschool themselves & are remarkably clique-ey. combine that with a heavy sense of insular attitude- I'm not from here thus bad, odd, a hippie, out to change everything to my liking etc. The couple times I was forced into it by a teacher looking for 100% parental attendance for a special event I sat alone the whole time & I don't even have a little baby to attend to while I'm there for something to do anymore- which gives you an idea of how long it's been since I attended any PTA function! My 16 year old had a friend who moved here from somewhere else & HER mother became president of the PTA so as to get involved with the comunity- but I'm not an extrovert & I'm not about to do anything of the kind. Much to my little one's dismay (my oldest learned this long ago about me)I think the reason my kids don't have the same teachers back to back is an attempt to keep any teacher from losing the possibillity of 100 % parental PTA attendance for more than 1 year! (It does happen down here- though I know I'm not the only one who doesn't go)but enough rambling. it's just been a weird day so far!