Busy Busy
Now Playing: Even the Losers (Get Lucky Sometimes) Tom Petty
Topic: Family Business


Well at least the garden is thriving, yesterday we went to a local campground (well, next county over, 25 mile ride but who's counting) which has a pool, for $3.50 a person we got to swim, they open at 10 & close at 5, it was pretty much worth it but it caused me to have to jam 2 days worth of errands into 1 day, complicated by the fact that my painful shoulder was eased by a combination of icy hot & a thermal heat pack on it overnight so I had the best nights sleep I've had in about a week....As a result I slept to about 10 am, interestingly enough all the kids did too! All that fresh air & sunshine plus splashing around in the pools really wiped them out. I usualy use Cameron as my alarm clock on non-work days & he showed up after Valerie at about 1015, so we did laundry, washed dishes, funny how everyone has a day to wash dishes during the week(those of us over 15 have 2) But only on the day I wash dishes do the dishes, cups, spoons & forks come down from upstairs! Lois doesn't bring them on her days because then she'd have to wash them all in addition to carry them downstairs.
We ran 42 errands in Town today, running from place to place, when I lived in town it was easier somehow, to plan where I needed to go & get it done in an orderly fashion, nowadays, I run from place to place & back again, everyone was hungry & I know better than to go to either the health food store or the regular grocery with everyone like that. but we had to go right past the health food store on our way to check if the- Guy-who-sells-Strawberries-from-the-back-of-his
-truck-in-the-dollar-store-parking-lot was there. (He wasn't, but we were a little late, we arrived in town at about 1230 & I used to see him between 845 & 1130 last year & the year before.)
Then since I don't like that particular dollar store we had to go across town to the other dollar store to get spoons, (this is a sore point, about 3 weeks ago I realized we were down to 5 spoons so I bought some cheap spoons, they were 3 for a dollar at the dollar store & I figured since they're treating them like they're disposable we might as well buy cheap ones, well like I said, this was 3 weeks ago & I bought 9 - so with the 5 I had we had 14 spoons 3 weeks ago, today while doing the dishes I found we had 2 regular teaspoon sized spoons. 2!! 2 spoons in a house with 6 people, at least 2 of whom, (Chrissie & I) hardly even eat there! so back to the dollar store, I bought a dozen, how many do you suppose I'll have when we leave for vacation July 10th? 4? I wouldn't doubt it.)
Off to Subway for subs the kids insisted they needed, having been in Mass over the weekend the whole Subway roast beef experience was totally lacking in general although except for the square pickles on the sub I had in Rockland the sub was merely so so too, the roast beef was gray instead of bright red & that makes all the difference in the world.
Multiple stops for this that & the other thing ended us up at the grocery store, I'm one of those people I used to hate, when the chain came here I swore I'd never shop there, I would support the local place, no matter what (I do my real shopping -2 weeks worth at a time- in C'Burg because it's cheaper & there's more variety- & I always have.) but for a few things of the milk, bread & snacks variety we shop in town & as I said I didn't touch the chain store for a year or so, then came a Sunday night when I was arriving in town after a busy day visiting Chrissie, with not just my 3 kids but Chrissie's daughter too. it was 945 on sunday night & everyone had decided they were hungry - we'd had a dinner/lunch combo at like 430 that afternoon & it was a choice between the chain store or the convenience store & I entered the chain, I swaped back & forth for awhile but the selection is so much better at the chain (although the milk's a dollar cheaper at the little grocery)I can actualy almost do 2 weeks shopping there instead of going into C'Burg & I have done so when it was snowing or we had other stuff going on during a Saturday which would usually be our shopping excursion day. So swallowing down my guilt we went in & shopped, my kids are not easy to shop with, we get lots of whining, fit throwing, stomping around. Valerie knocked down a whole display of ice cream cones & both her sister & brother who had been egging her on to the stunt that knocked them over, walked off saying 'Whos that kid, boy is she gonna be in trouble' after we got that picked up we got to have a glaring contest with the woman running the service desk, aparently in 7th grade Lois had an altercation with this woman's daughter & the protective instint being what it is the woman wanted to come kick Lois' ass for it. this of course never happened but the woman still has an attitude towards all of us.
As always, every where we go we elicit comments about look at all the redheads, where did you get that red hair ha-ha etc. I like it still but the kids find it old & annoying!
After everyone's favorite Summer dinner, Tuna Fish & salad fixings with chips. during which we watched the first Pirates of the Carribean movie in preperation for the new movie coming out. (Cam's never been to a movie at the theater & Val went when she was 2 or 3 months old- I really wanted to see escape from LA- I was disapointed!) I went out to check the garden, we've had some truly scary thunderstorms but those don't really water the garden & they've been so heavy they're more likely to break plants than help them grow but the garden is doing well, we even have some tomato, pea & 1 cucumber flower on some of the plants.
Back to work tommorow for 20 hours in 2 days, Maybe more, they're trying to decide if they're going to 'require' me to do the 4 hours overtime in spite of my missing Sunday.
Then in here to mess with my stupid Coca cola points, hey I'm drinking it like it's going out of style I might as well collect the points, they're there anyway! Write in here & since I spent Monday evening Loading more songs from cds onto my hard drive- Naming the songs because even when I cause the media player to go search for the cd info (& I only remember on like, 1 in 3 to do so) something about my media player stops it from loading that information!
After a shower we're supposed to play Clue.
All in all a really good 'weekend' for the kids & I. the sort I strive for.

Done & I'm on to the next one!
Now Playing: I wish it would rain by Phil Collins
Topic: General Diatribes

Annother day, annother 'week' at work begins tommorow, the cell phone saga continues, the phone I bought Lois a few weeks ago which she's paying me back for out of her babysitting pay is not compatible with the system we use so I have to box it up & send it back. Lois is furious, adding to her already morose attitude now that her 10 days with the boyfriend from Kentucky has ended, I did like the boyfriend pretty well at least, good thing too since supposedly they're engaged (!) & he's going to come here to live & they'll be married when she gets out of highschool. I haven't agreed to much of anything, I insist she finish high school of course & I'd prefer they go through college before any actual marriage takes place, personaly I'm anti marriage at all, living together seems like more than enough, unless you're actualy having children. I know I wish I hadn't ever gotten married, it would have made it a lot easier to walk away a thousand times before he actualy walked away on me.
I am trying to be more upbeat & cheerful in my posts, I am noticing how grumpy & down Lois seems all the time & that Val is beginning to act similarly & I'm trying to do less of that in the hopes that Val & Cam at least will not follow my family's way like Lois & be all morose & gloomy all the time, I did enough of that 13 through 20 & have striven to not be that way since my brother & then my father's deaths. I admit to a little 'magical thinking' as if I can teach my kids to not be depressive little toads who might eventually want to kill themselve. That they won't kill themselves. Of course I never killed myself, I thought about it a lot though, I just firmly belived that if I did kill myself I'd wind up in exactly the same sort of life I'd killed myself to escape. The idea of suffering through what ever I had to to get to the next thing has definitley stayed with me over the years, also the attitude that the word 'suffering' originaly meant to 'undergo', not neccesarily in a painful way.
All of this is lost on Lois, I get the one eyed glare from behind that mane of hair she has & then, worse, she rolls the eye, as if to say 'mom, you're so simple, you have no idea how complicated my life is- you just don't get it' - see I know what she's saying without her actualy speaking the words because back when she actualy talked to me, like at 14 she'd tell me things like that & I'd press her for details & then regret that I'd done so because either she'd share things I didn't want to hear or she'd shut down completely. (it's a toss up which was worse)

As for me, I'm just going to take it easy until the next thing comes along, now that we're through with the boyfriend visit & the first summer birthday(Valerie on 6/11, party yesterday) It's time to gear up for the Vacation! we're scheduled to leave July 10th after I get out of work & drive all night. Then we'll come home July 26 so I can go back to work on the 27th. Planned stops include Anns house, My Grandmothers & Mothers apartments, Mansfield country store, The school I used to attend in western Mass, Salem Witch museum (someone said it wasn't very good but she's high maintenance & easily bored so I'm not taking her dislike of it to heart) There's been some talk by the kids of going to Whittiers Birthplace for a visit, I'm hoping to distract them from that idea, I loved living there for all those years (1988-1997) off & on. But now that we're done there & there's no going back (everything's changed in how they get curators etc & I wouldn't want the job anyway) I'd just as soon stay far away, too many memories, both good & bad. Funny, going to Rockland where I grew up doesn't bother me & being in Haverhill doesn't bother me but the idea of being at Whittiers is disturbing. Then there's Val & Lois' ideas that they can ask the curator/caretaker if we can see the rest of the house, to me that is just TOO RUDE & never mind that they lived there- it's someone else's house now too & we have no right, the girls just sit & stare at me like I'm nuts when I say this. I'll stick to the beach & the graveyard thank you. This is the first year I've had a credit card with more than $50. available on it for our trip. I hope to not max it out. I only have so much room to bring things back home in after all... I'd like to concentrate more on having a good time & relaxing rather than accumulating things to bring home. (I have a co-worker who's already requested I bring her a seashell & maybe a bottle of ocean water) The Boston trip is often an accumulation trip but really, where else can we get Boston Bruins stuff? not in Roanoke that's for sure! & they do have some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever seen at Quincy Market after all! The most I've ever taken this trip with was almost a thousand dollars in 2004, the last year we went, gas prices were still under 2 bucks then & it did not feel like enough still, this year gas is $2.67 here & I shudder to think what it's costing up there, I haven't called my mother or grandmother in weeks, they're busy, I'm busy, time flies. That's really the purpose of the vacation though, to slow time down for a couple of weeks. Let the kids get to know their family up in Mass, just because we live here & they live there is no reason they can't know & care for their extended family. The most likely reason I might spend too much on vacation because I have it available to spend is that the visiting can get a little intense, we stay with family & friends & the older the kids get the less pleasant that becomes, first we've got Lois sulking & moaning about everything from a zit on the tip of her nose to roaming on the cell phone to the lack of internet at my grandmothers. Then there's Valerie generally bossing everyone around & Cameron getting into everything, I was here at the computer the other day & he came by with a wrench, 'what's that for?' I asked, knowing better than to just let it go, 'oh, the faucet's dripping, I'm going to take it apart & see why' Oh no you're not! (turns out if we turn the faucet all the way off it stops dripping very quickly!) That sort of thing in elderly housing could be a real disaster!
So the #1 thing I'm likely to spend more than I plan on will be a motel room, I've never been able to do so before but I have wanted to... oh, I have wanted to with all my heart. to just get a place lie down & let them run free, you want a shower tonight, then again tommorow before we leave? sure go ahead - just leave enough hot water for me to do the same. The bathroom floor is all wet because you filled the tub too full & splashed it out? & you left the heat lamp on half the night? oh well. (not my well, not my electric bill & not my floor.)
yes, a motel room for a night or 2 in the middle of the family fun would be a welcome relief from the family & the crazyness that being 800+ miles from home gives you! & it might be worth it, after all, I'm still hearing vacation planning is off, that gas prices & problems like the Katrina mess are really screwing up the number of vacationers this year. Then of course there's the concern that the rain of last week etc. could continue & New England might not be a good place to be this summer. It will be for us though, beaches & mountains & sight seeing be damned, we've got family & friends after all!

Time or Money Never Both
Now Playing: I am A Rock, Simon & Garfunkle
Topic: General Diatribes

Time Time Time, there's never enough time, I've been run ragged this week trying to get everything done, my lack of time (even with 2 sick days off last week- friday & sunday)has cost me at least 2 zuchinni plants & maybe a couple of summer squash- it took me so long to plant them that a bunch just wilted & died from having their roots cramped up in the starter boxes. I've got to put together a birthday party for 9 turning 10 tommorow & get she & her brother to their cousin's birthday party the next day somehow. I've had about 6 hours of sleep every night for 2 weeks (except for last night- got more last night & the silence was beautiful- only got up 2x because of my cough & inabillity to breathe because my lungs were full & I was wheezing) If it wasn't for Chrissie I would have grass 2 feet tall in my yard. I have baskets of laundry which need to be folded & more which still has not been put away (I have to stand over mr 6 to get him to put his away - not really a problem because his closet is also my closet so I put my laundry away at the same time & keep him focused (this is commonly known as nagging)
& yet here I sit, reading other peoples blogs, discusted that out of 55 emails I only was interested in reading 5 & just basically doing anything but writing here or getting off the computer & doing some of the other things which need to be done around here tonight. Now on the plus side, things are quiet around here, schools out, first full week off was this week & we're still adjusting, me to what it takes to feed 3 people just sitting around the house (well, 5 this week really) & the kids to not having to get up early or do any homework (like THAT takes adjustment) I enjoy being able to talk to them longer at night & see them on my days off more, I resent even more every minute over 40 hours that I'm forced to spend in my workplace. As I mentioned I missed 2 days, last Friday & last Sunday & on Monday my boss asked me what days I thought I'd be coming in to make up the time I missed plus the 4 hours of overtime I'm supposed to do. I laughed in his face. Then I pointed out that I had to drag myself in on Monday to work & that I still only had half a voice, 'if you think coming in here on Tuesday & Wednesday is going to improve my voice & not take me back out of work on Thursday or Friday then you've gone crazy & it's time for retirement' He laughed, my boss has a thick skin to say the least! & said he'd tell our manager that he was lucky I was there at all & doing any overtime would be too much right now. we went on to discuss how illness & absenteeisim always goes up when we're in mandatory overtime like this (I know I always get sick when I have to be there extra- even if I'm doing it because I need the money- it's just the extra stress & strain.)The whole computer mess is getting worse not better, today they told us to take the program down & put it back up, when we put it back up we couldn't authorize set top boxes any longer, just a LITTLE glitch in the system (we do that all day long in case you were wondering) But I paid my bills this week & even missing Friday didn't dent my paycheck too much (The memorial day holiday pay helped a lot- the 2nd paycheck in June won't be as pretty) so I don't feel like I should complain, they keep me well & I'm greatful in many ways (they can't teach their customers better manners, that's the world these days not my company & all I can really do is be as nice as possible when I have to deal with someone doing their job on the other end of the phone or across the counter from me. Unless they give me poor customer service- then watch out!)
I would love to be able to just do stuff like the kids & I did on Wednesday, hike around & look at pretty views, hanging out & enjoying nature. Of course, back when I was a stay at home mom & my ex worked I never even had the money for gas to go up on the parkway & hike or anything, its always time or money, never both.

We always wished for money....
Now Playing: Change by John Waite

What does it say about the nature of business today that I am going to get written up at work when I go back on Sunday- probably Monday really, my boss is on vacation. All because I can't talk. I developed a cold over the past week & it has a sore throat with it, I gargled with salt water & drank enough water to float away but the sore throat stayed (along with a stuffy nose & a cough which won't quit.) I went to work yesterday with the hope that with enough water & enough cough drops I could get through the day, about 2 hours into my 11 hour day it was obvious it wasn't working. I was coughing about every 10 words I spoke & I talk for a living, I tell people how to fix their satellite programing over the phone & I had to mute the phone constantly to cough, my co-workers were annoyed with me, a) because my coughing was coming through over their phones & b) because I'm sure they were worried about getting what ever I have. I had to log out (meaning I'm not being paid) about every half hour in order to go to the bathroom because all the water I was drinking was going right through me. I'm sure if my boss had been there he'd have been bitching at me or if he was in a good mood he'd have tried to get permission to send me home. As it was I thought, at about the half way point in my day that I should go home, when I went to talk to annother supervisor who I know pretty well as he was my supervisor for about a year & a half, he told me that my holiday pay for memorial day would be lost if I left early beacause yesterday was my next scheduled day to work after the holiday. I can stand to lose 5 or 6 hours of pay but not 15 or 16, (they just started paying us for the full amount of our holiday pay, I've worked 4 10 hour days for 3 out of 5 years at my job & we've always gotten 8 hours of holiday pay, this last year at christmas they changed it to 10 hours of holiday pay for those of us who work 10 hour days)So I stuck it out, to my co-workers dismay. Today I called in at 730, I breifly considered trying to go in but I could barely croak to leave a message that I wasn't coming in so I left it at that. I'll get written up when my boss gets back from vacation & I don't really care at this point, I realize we were really busy last night but I can't belive that they really think my being there contaminating everyone else & croaking at customers who keep asking me to speak up or worse yet ask me why I'm there at all when I sound as bad as I do. my calls per hour was way down, I usually take about 60 to 65 calls a day I barely topped 40 calls yesterday because of all my bathroom breaks & having to stop to cough every few words I spoke.
I was irritated enough last night that I went looking for a manager to voice my annoyance to (mostly so they could hear my voice for themselves & realize how that sounds on the phone) but I couldn't find one, they were all in a meeting or gone for the evening. Funny, on my way to training, (after 10 hours on the phone we had an hour of overtime for training) I saw a bunch of managers at once, just standing around talking, on my way back out of training when I could have spoken to one there wasn't any to be found. I think they're fitted with devices which sense when someone wants to talk to them so they can go hide.

Memories
Now Playing: Ends by Everlast
Topic: History

Memories, reading in the hollow in the yard where I grew up, I think it may have once been a treestump, when it was pulled it left a little divot about 18 inches across which I loved to sit in to read (or play I was a bird & it was my nest- but that was when I was younger than the age I'm thinking of) the divot made a more comfortable place to settle into than the flat parts of the ground.
I was thinking of my first garden while readying my garden for planting, we had a couple of cherry tomatoes I think, & I was so impressed with the corn that I took it all apart while it was about as long as one of my fingers. we got a lot of onions which were no bigger than the onion sets that I see in the stores here in VA. I remember the carrots being pretty good though not very large, I was 8 I think & my parents pretty much humored me in making it. My Grandmother showed me how to sow seeds in saved eggshells which were planted with the seedlings to provide nutrients & I know it was my Mother was the one who watered it every evening (Something I know was not really a good idea- you should water in the morning) About once a week a friend of my Fathers would show up with his daughter & take both of us to the beach for the day, we always went to Brant Rock in Marshfield Mass & the daughter & I would spend a lot of the day out on the stones picking perriwinkle shells off the rocks to see them close their little doors. One time my brother walked off & was lost for awhile. There were always too many Jellyfish to have much fun swimming there. I liked Nantasket Beach in Hull better but no one I knew wanted to go there because of the park which everyone said was 'a waste of money' Of course, as a teenager that was exactly where I spent all my time. Chrissie & I got to go a few times before they closed it down for good & put up condos. I know my mother's hair would've turned white if she knew we walked there from Chrissie's grandmothers house. Not much to worry about, we were broke, I think we did one ride each or something like that. By the time we had our first apartment (right near where the park had been) there wasn't a trace of the park, just a big brick condo.
My parents never went anywhere, I remember 1 trip to Vermont for a weekend & 1 trip to Maine. in my entire first 10 years. the furthest we went was the park across the street from the house, the swimming hole there (& I do mean hole) had docks floating in it & swimming lessons which I took every year until I was 13. My brother went to them right through jr. Lifesaving though, I finished early at 13 & by the time I could take Jr. life I was busy doing other things- getting up & swimming at 8 in the morning 5 days a week was NOT my idea of a good time.
I used to climb a giant beech tree in my yard, well, partway in my yard partly in the neighbor's yard. friends & I would carve initials & names etc in the tree, a year after my brother died the tree split in two & fell in the yard, my friend Jackie said to me after making the trek out to the back yard to see the pieces lying all over the yard (it came within 5 feet of the house) 'do you think all that carving we did was responsible for this?' the tree was almost 6 feet in circumfrence & was a very old one, I assured her that it was just the tree's time to go. (she was always a worry wort- we were both 23 at the time this took place)
I spent time in the woods behind the house I grew up in, walking on pathways that were there when my grandfather was a kid. there was swamp lands some of which pooled in areas which formed little pools, there was an uprooted tree with a rock beneath it which overlooked a swamp pool, where I loved to sit & listen to my walkman & think. (brood over my mother's & my latest fight is more like it) in winter there was another swamp place which would freeze & we'd skate, it being a swamp the water would often freeze around trees so you could skate between trees on the frozen swamp water, it was like twisting pathways, I loved it! The woods also had, in later years, a cabin built by neighboring teens who used it to party in, I was old enough to go but too shy to do so. I would go lurk there if I needed to get away from my mother for a few hours during the day while all the 'normal' kids were in school, I'd bring a book & read but it was awkward, everything stank of wet ashes & to this day when I smell that scent I think of that half-assed log cabin. The furniture was all trashed, damp & moldy stuff people had salvaged from their parents houses so it wasn't too pleasant to sit in there.
I would also go to the park across the street & follow the paths there too, just walk around & look at views, (not too great compared to where I live now) & read stuff people had carved in the trees, I actually read where my mother in law (I didn't Know this at the time) & one of her friends skipped school & got stoned for the day & carved this in a tree to commemerate the occasion!

WHAT am I thinking?
Now Playing: One thing by Finger Eleven
Topic: General Diatribes

I am thinking Chrissies wasting the day sleeping (& I'm wasting mine on the computer) & if she thinks I'm staying up til 3 am with her tonight she's nuts, I'm thinking I will be glad in many ways next week when school ends but I will miss my peace & quiet in the morning & afternoon on tuesday & wednesday, just the cat & I (& the other cat now, & the dog & Chrissie snoring away in her room) But the kids being here means I get to see them more.
I'm thinking about my garden lying out there growing weeds waiting for me to come make more raised beds, I'm thinking of the clothes I have ruined out there already this year & trying to decide what clothes I'm going to ruin out there today because even though it's past noon I'm still slopping around in my nightgown.
I'm thinking about milk, cheese, eggs & bread all of which we need & the fact that I have 11 bucks on my credit card & hate taking it to the store to buy groceries (it just feels wrong) & that Tuesday is too early to kite a check on a check deposited on Thursday & not technically available until Friday.
I'm thinking about the check I already kited to the school to send Val to a field trip on Friday, hopefully they won't cash it too soon... they usualy hold them for awhile which is what I'm betting on. I'm thinking that I should call the bank & check my balance (bank does not have an atm or automated system you actually have to talk to a person) I'm thinking, as I call the bank that there should be a way to pause napster when it's playing your music but there isn't & then I'm thinking after hearing my paltry balance that I should have put $100. in there for emergencies & kept it out of my balance sheet so I would have it available at times like this (HA!) of course I know I would have spent it long ago if I had done so. I'm thinking now that it's about time I did something other than mess around on the computer even though by my measure I haven't been on very long (I average 4-5 hours on my days off & 30 minutes on my work days) I've only been on for about an hour now but there's so much to do around here that I know I should give this up. I should wash dishes & clean up the house, I would like to do some laundry but Chrissie says she's doing some today so I'm leaving the washer & dryer alone for her. I need to put my laundry away & I have a book case & a media rack to build & put up. cabinets to organize & Cam's room to clean, I have the garden calling my name but it being aproximately noon I know I won't be going anywhere near there for awhile yet, even going out around 4 pm Saturday my neck & upper back were red & painful later on, I'm too light skinned the slightest sun can make me burn lately. From what I've read, that's the St Johnswort's doing.
I'm thinking that if the credit card I applied for last week appears in the mail today I might say the hell with it about the chicken divan I'm supposed to cook tonight & take everyone out to dinner instead. I'm thinking that that sort of thing has got to be kept to a minimum unless I want to be paying a huge credit card payment every month... & of course I'm also thinking that everyone going out to dinner is a messy idea because either someone has to sit in the trunk or we have to take 2 cars & there is school in the morning so I'd have to worry about getting back in time & about homework getting done, especially if we go anywhere but right here in town which is what I don't want to do. I'd rather go somewhere else, even Galax, though I shouldn't say it like that because I do like Galax, at the very least it's not on my way to work & that's a plus, I'd rather drive to Roanoke than drive the same way I drive to work each day. Also I'm thinking if we go out to eat the garden won't get anywhere today. I think I should say goodbye now & get the stuff I need to do done, at the very least I should get dressed!

So Tired,
Now Playing: Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads (just got this from napster & am listening to it ad nauseum!)
Topic: History
You can ask my mother at any given time of day or night, any day of the year how she is & she will always say the same thing: 'Tired' I'm sitting here at the computer after having been up til after 2 am last night, & getting up at 10 which is a pretty respectable wake up time if you ask me! falling asleep over the computer, listening to Styx is not the best way to wake up either, I'd be better served with Godsmack or Audioslave really. But since I've got to go take a bath pretty soon I'm not going to sweat it too much, too much fresh air for me today I guess, which is really pathetic since I was outside for only about 45 minutes trying to mow the lawn, it was too cold & it was raining out there too, I looked at the garden space which is dug up but needs to be tilled with the small tiller now, (I didn't know it but there's different grades of tilling, what we dealt with last year was a rough till, I smoothed it out & hoe'd it up into raised beds with out breaking the soil apart much.) the guy who tilled it is supposed to come back & finish. I was expecting about $50. bucks, it cost 15, He showed up to finish on Thursday & now I'm working on making raised beds, I'm considering doing structured raised beds with wood, there's so much clay out there, I can really tell the difference between where I gardened last year & where the guy expanded the size of the garden. the part which hasn't been used before & had dirt mixed in to loosen the clay is like pottery clay, when you sink a shovel into it it stays right in the shape of the shovel. I have to mix more good dirt in to make that clay loosen up, more money to spend! arrgh! if I made raised beds structured I could really control the quality of the dirt, I just worry about the dirt getting sour, I like the idea of structure because I wouldn't have to have it tilled every year & I could eventually have stone paths or something between them rather than just dirt which will get weedy.
I've always tried not to whine about being tired like my mother does, I often tell Lois who is an Aquarius like both my mother & my grandmother that she can be like one or the other, my mother has her life set in stone, she does a, b & c each & every day & god forbid someone or something interfere with when she's supposed to do any of those things, there's no room for deviation from her plan & change upsets her terribly.
My grandmother takes things as they come, she tells me my mother used to get upset at her as a child because she'd ask every morning what they were having for dinner & my grandmother never knew, she waited until it was nearly time to make dinner before making that decision.
As an illustration of how they're at polar opposites on this one time just before my Ex & I called it quits we decided on thursday night to go for an extended weekend visit to Mass, I called my grandmother & asked her if she could stand to have us visit for 2 days & stay at her place with her. She said 'sure, great when will you be here? I can't wait to see you all!'
When I called my Mother & asked her the same thing (we stayed 2 nights with each & 1 with friends) she said 'I don't know, is there anywhere else you could stay?' & when I said there really wasn't I got, 'well, I suppose you can stay but you'll have to sleep on the floor'
My Mother is actually, in spite of this a pretty cool person in many other areas, she's very liberal & is interested in reincarnation, ghosts etc. we get along very well (now that I'm an adult)
My Grandmother & I get along well too, we talk more about the past, the kids & politics but we do talk & she is almost as liberal as my Mother.
I should've written this last week, with mothers day & all, but here it is coming out now!

Things to do before I die
Now Playing: What the Hell Have I? Alice in Chains
Topic: General Diatribes

I was filling out a survey to put on my 'regular' blog & was struck by the question: '3 things you want to do before you die'. It reminded me of a book I saw either at the library or in a bookstore (been to both recently & can't remember where I saw it) about 1001 things you 'must' do before you die. & they were all things like skydive, see yellostone ntl. park etc. Now I'm not against these things & I hope to do the 2nd one & would theoretically like to try the first (assuming I was of normal size, strength & abillity- all of which I am not.) also some of the stuff on the list was out of reach of most people I know. I realize that living where I do & coming from the background that I do I am not actualy in the normal range, for instance: My father never went anywhere further south than New York City, (He'd spent plenty of time in all of the 6 New England states though) He never had a credit card & did not want any. None of that is normal by todays standards, it was amusing to me that with in a year of my fathers death my mother had not 1 but 3 credit cards & moved to Houston Texas (that part was temporary- she was back in Mass in less than a year) My ex Aunt here in VA (originally from Mass too) spent almost 10 years up here before she ever went to Roanoke. (She did go home to Mass a few times but never would go to Roanoke- she said she was afraid of the ride down the mountain- I did that ride within 2 weeks of coming here for the first time in 1987 & have loved it ever since. My best friend who's living with me left awhile ago to go to Roanoke & I had a burst of jealousy because she was going to get to drive down there & I had to stay here because the kids will be home from school soon. I comforted myself by reminding myself that the weather is gray & cloudy & the view won't be that good! (I am trying to forget that the weather here has no bearing on the weather in Roanoke, it could be beautiful there when it's pouring cats & dogs here or vice versa) I know of other people, elders I met when I worked at the local nursing home etc. who had never been further than 30 miles from home in their entire lives & were proud of that fact. I could totally understand that. When we first moved back here in 1997 we lived 20 miles from the center of town & 8 miles from the main road, part way up a mountain & since Valerie was only 13 months when we moved I was a stay at home mom for the first 4 or 5 months & then again the following Summer because it made more financial sense for me to be home with the kids than to earn $5.25 an hour & pay someone to watch the kids. Due to the way my ex is he'd go to work & then go out with friends from work or decide to go visit his mother & step dad or other people instead of going home & so I would go at least 2 weeks with out ever leaving home, except for an occasional late night excursion to the nearest store to get milk or something like that. & then, when he did get paid & we went out to go grocery shopping I felt all weird due to having been at home with kids all the time & not leaving the house at all even the small town felt huge & too busy after being at home on a road that saw maybe 10 cars pass by all day long! Things aren't the same for me here, even if I could stay home more than the 3 days a week that I do, the road is too busy for me to feel as isolated as I did there.
As for other things to do before you die, most of them seem to be travel destinations. Places to see & experience, though I did find a bunch of peoples lists of things THEY wanted to do before they died, I don't know that I could do that though, certainly there's things I want to do but I don't like to limit myself with a list, after all, who knows what might happen next. I want to sell my house after my kids are grown & buy a smallish rv & travel around the country to see it. But if gas is $5. a gallon or if I end up a grandmother younger than I hope to, I might have to change those plans. you just never know, & I don't want some piece of paper I wrote 20 years earlier hanging around & making me feel bad about not reaching my 'goals'especially since I've done pretty well so far with getting what I need to keep my family going!

It Could Always be Worse
Now Playing: Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads
Topic: General Diatribes

Did you ever have a dream where you can not figure out what anything is, you try to read what's in front of you, you try to click on the link but none of them go anywhere, every button you press does nothing or opens up annother bunch of possibillities that you either don't understand or are not what you need? Welcome to my LIFE! I felt pretty good after yesterday, I felt like I had the whole new computer program at work under my belt, I could schedule a tech to come out, I could set up to replace equipment. Then Monday came, I knew it would be more difficult, the sheer volume alone, people who don't do business on Sundays & people who assume we don't do business on Sundays always call on Mondays so there's Lots of calls coming in. & there's a lot more random stuff, people who are mad because the tech didn't put the cable in where they wanted or left it hanging off the gutter, people who select tech because 'I thought it would be the fastest way to get a person on the phone honey' We're allowed to use the old computer system in certain circumstances (all of which we have to document for the programers to check out so they can make the new program do those things too- I'm not holding my breath for the day that happens-) & the computer with the old program is next to me so I've seen a lot more of my co-workers than I usually do. Every one of them who has walked by my desk to the computer with the old program has been mumbling swears, imprecations & laments all the way there & all the way back. One woman's rant was so blue with swears that I had to mute my customer so he wouldn't hear her.
I try to look at things like this: The job is really the same as it ever was. It's still nice when I fix a little old lady's snowy tv screen. It still stinks when I have to tell people who are at least as poor as I am or sometimes even poorer what it's going to cost to have someone come out & fix their problem. I still take the attitude that if you get on my phone & it's technical I will fix the problem or get someone to you who can fix it. (I tell anyone who I have to talk to who hasn't been at the job as long as I have that tenacity is 70% of the job I DON'T just quit or give up - before I was advanced tech it was a point of pride not to transfer to them. Now I am the end of the line & I make sure what has to be done gets done- even when it means doing unpleasant things.
The only thing which has changed is how I do a lot of the things that have to happen to make sure that people get their remotes or that the tech gets to the right house on the right day. It's a part of my job but not the biggest part & not the most important part. So far everyone who I've had to ask to wait while I resolve their problem thru this new program has been very patient & kind. Especially when I've explained about learning a new computer program. There's always a curmudgeon in there though, once in awhile theres a person or two who just won't wait & they get mad or hang up while on hold. I try to take that as being their problem not mine.

In other news miss 16 finally got a picture of her boyfriend from KY. he's coming to visit in a few more weeks & staying a week. I'm glad she know's who we're meeting at the bus station now! He's cute & I belive, considering her excitement over the pictures, that he's exceeded her expectations of how he would look. So all is very calm & even a little hyper/happy on 16's front. Except of course, for that little inconvenience called school, this is sol (standards of learning) week for her & I've learned from previous years to not even question her as to how she thinks she did I've learned to just wait for the test results & not worry about it too much. She always says she did terrible but she nearly always does very well.
Miss 9 is having a lot of fun with Chrissies daughter, they're sharing a room & are deep in cahoots when they're not at each other's throats. The really amusing thing to me is how Chrissies daughter is just like Chrissie was when we were 12, 13 etc. & how miss 9 although she's 2&1/2 years younger than Sami is nowhere near the sheep I was. If she wants to do what Sami says she does it, if she doesn't she just digs in her heels & says 'no way.' By comparison I just went along with what ever my friends wanted to do & then felt mad because we never did anything I wanted to do & of course the kids who were willing to let me boss them & do what I wanted to do were 'boring.' That's all too familiar in my relationships with men, (except Doug, my relationship with the ocean 2 blocks away from where we lived kept me from being as big a fool with him as I was with others- though some would say I was a fool since I've got miss 16 & he's never even seen her- but that's my reward not my punishment!)
Mr 6 is adjusting pretty well to watching tv in my living room, he definitley enjoys having Chrissies dog here, he loves to run & the dog likes to chase him so that works out well for both of them. We had the garden plowed (the guy still has to come back & till it & break the turf up more in depth) on Saturday. & he's having a lot of fun checking out the hills & valleys of the plowed area, looking for worms & digging up tree roots (I had to cut off 5 or 6 which were 3-4 inches thick) We had a little bigger area plowed to expand the garden this year, last year I was hesitant because I thought it would be too much to take care of & it was, but I also found that stuff will grow even if you don't weed much, you just have to look harder for the stuff that grew. I bought a bunch of seed packs in January so I plan to start all the seeds, buy even more flats & just grow as much as I can, who knows, I've always wanted to learn how to make pickles, maybe I'll learn on cucumbers we aren't able to eat all up!

Music & Me
Now Playing: Tones Of Home By Blind Melon
Topic: History
A Wise person told me once that most people like the music they heard when they were teenagers & shut the door to new music/experiences sometime in their early twenties but that a true music lover will listen to new music for many years past the 'norm'

Annother wise person took me to task when I was a teenager because although it was 1984 & I was just 15 years old I was mostly listening to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC & the Who. (among others) & he was of the opinion that I should've been leaving those old bands behind for the 'new thing' Personally at the time I didn't much care for most of the popular music I was seeing on mtv at the time, I didn't like Madonna or ABC or Duran Duran- I liked Def Leppard & the Pretenders etc. though & I must say Mtv was a lot better at keeping a balance between different genres of music back then than they do now.
I have always listened to a wide range of music. (As long as it's Rock) I'm equally comfortable listening to Del Shannon, The Beatles, The Cars, Guns & Roses or Audioslave (my current favorite new band) & I like most everything in between.
As I get older I see what the first person meant though. Many of my friends are only into the stuff they listened to as teenagers (most notably Black Sabbath & Metallica)
Others only like music that reminds them of the past & only want to listen when they're alterd in one way or annother.
Or they've changed completely & listen to only Country music or Rap now & have no use for what they would have killed or died for 10 years ago.
I know only a few people who're still checking out new stuff. Besides my kids that is.
My biggest frustration is that there's not enough time to listen to everything I want to hear & that so much stuff gets left behind. If I hadn't invested in Cinderella's Cd Long Cold Winter I'd probably have forgotten all about 'Bad Seamstress Blues' which was never that popular but I loved it. & of course 'Coming Home' was one of Lois' Fathers & my 'songs'
That brings me to one of my favorite things about music. It's abillity to transport me right back to where I was when I first heard the song. I used to (even at 15- when I had time for such things) write down the mental links I had with certain songs. I would love to sit down & do that again. But where to start? Putting all my favorite songs from my cd collection in the windows media player has been interesting in that way, I found I have some odd glitch in mine which does not save every song's name to the song so I have to go back & type them all in along with rate the song & set up play lists. So as a result I'm hearing at least part of every song I loaded in. For instance right now I'm listening to 'Unskinny Bop' by Poison & remebering in 1990 driving 200+ miles with my mother, grandmother & Lois (she was 6 months old) I did most of the driving as I didn't have a car of my own & missed driving one & My Mother was tired (she always is tired- she's the type who gets out of bed, sits down to have her first cup of coffee & when you ask her how she is this morning she says 'tired' right off the bat) So I drove the whole way & back again. I played the radio the whole way, disregarding the fact that both my mother & grandmother are jazz fans & do not care for rock at all.... That song must have played 10 times over the 4 hour drive & I sang along each time. (nowadays I shudder at the mental picture- but at the time I didn't care.)
Then there's the Whole catergorizing factor that the media player adds. I set up my own names for my playlists but for heavens sake, the auto populated ones? who put this stuff in here? Does anyone actually put songs under the classification "songs I hate?" I mean, why waste the hard drive space for songs you hate? I know, purists will load a whole cd to preserve the integrity of the cd. the heck with that, I want to be able to use the shuffle feature & know that every song that plays I've given at least 3 stars rating because I didn't waste any space on songs I don't like.
Now that I've been naming songs for a few days (I alternate between loading more songs & naming the ones loaded in already) I'm finding that arranging the play lists by decade just isn't working. it's ok for the 60's & 70's because I don't have a LOT of music from those decades (they're mostly on album if I have it & I'm a long way from being able to afford the technology to transfer albums to the computer) but the 80's, how can you have u2 & guns & roses in the same genre? they just don't go together. But since I like them both I have them in the same space. I can already see that I'm going to have to go back through once every song has it's name & then reclassify. This is the sort of thing I used to love to do. (once again, when I was a homeschooled teenager with WAY too much time on my hands)
Of course, I always, when new music comes out, or I begin a project like this, ordering my music in a 'reasoned' way. Wonder what my brother would think. Frozen in time at age 16 like he is it's hard to apply his ideas & attitudes to the world today. The internet was largely unknown in 1989 when he died. He was hardcore to the end though, so I suppose he would've been against the whole thing. He was so caught up in his own labels that he called my listening to anything less hard than say, Metallica. (who, I might add, I don't care for much, having had them shoved down my throat by my brother & every guy I ever dated or even hung around with but Doug- who was too old for that particular music-) Selling out. He then turned on Metallica when they put out the video for 'one' because they had said they would never do videos & then they bowed to pressure & did it anyway (I'm sure he was rolling in his grave during the 'Enter Sandman' phase - which, incedentally is nearly the only song I ever liked by them - 'King Nothing' being annother & of course that Thin Lizzy song- 'Whiskey in a Jar' but that's because I liked the original & the imagery in the song)I can't imagine what he would think of the way music is now though. He'd probably Hate most of it- curmudgeon that he was.