Now Playing: Yesterdays by Guns & Roses
Topic: Family Business
This made me laugh & think of similar rules I've had to lay down myself....
At the trailer we lived in ruins, the roof leaked, the floors were falling through, every drop of water which went do
wn the kitchen or bathroom sinks flowed up the pipe into the tub & had to be bailed out of the tub & thrown down the toilet. It resulted in some odd, rather specific rules for trailer life, like that we had to be really careful about not letting food go down the kitchen drain because it would have to be cleaned out of the tub later, & that we could not leave the shower curtian in the bath tub because if nasty water from the kitchen sink got on it the shower curtain would grow moldy faster than brie cheese left on the counter in July. No one could jump on my bed if it was raining because I had usually at least 2 or 3 pots, buckets or bowls balanced precariously on the bed where the roof leaked (move the bed? there wasn't enough dry ceiling space in the room to put the bed anywhere that it wouldn't get rained on- except for the spot occupied by my dressing table which is an antique with lovely carving on it & given the choice of ruining that or sleeping with buckets I took the buckets. It's been 18+ months & I still get tense when I hear the weather man call for 3 or 4 days of rain in a row. I usually remember I don't have to worry about it anymore but sometimes I find myself during the second or third day starting to worry again!) Then there was the business of living 5 feet away from your neighbors, we had to remember to whisper if we wanted to converse in the bathroom after 10 pm because the bathroom was across from the back door which looked right out on the neighbors' bedroom window so if we talked even normally in summer with everything open they would hear us & wake up. No yelling in the house at all after 10 & no loud music or anything ever. (the first year we were there, back when the ex was still around, his best friend lived across the street & he & his girlfriend got in trouble because they watched a movie with their surround sound turned on & it bothered their neighbor next to them, we didn't hear anything right across the street though)
We lived in a hell for 6 years & I never thought we would get out but we did. A lot of things which would have produced screams & rage here in our new home were matter of course in the trailer & things which had never been an issue were
an issue now. So I had to make some new rules fast.
The first was 'we do not throw live animals at people' this was produced on the fly after miss 16 threw our cat at miss 10 (they were 15 & 8 then but you get the idea) The cat was the most displeased in this scenario because miss 10 has pretty good reflexes & ducked the flying cat & it hit the wall instead, you would think this is a once in a lifetime rule but I have had to invoke it at least once a month since then & the dog did get thrown once too!
Many of the obvious rules I have had to post in my failed signs, which I used to write up with each child's chore list written out on them, are truly scary but all had to be posted because when I would say "don't you know better than to wear shorts in December?" I would get a blank look & a shrug. Here comes a new rule! 'Wea
r weather appropriate clothing to school every day- if it is anything less than 70 have a sweatshirt or coat on, or in your knapsack, just in case you need it'
A lot of the rules are mostly for my son's benifit: 'if you can see dirt on your hands wash them in the sink, use soap & warm water' 'if you are sent to take a shower or bath use shampoo on your hair & soap on your body, don't just run your head under the water'. Both spawned after many discussions about what is & is not good hygene.
I try to leave it at the simple common sense things like 'if you take it out put it back', 'if you empty it fill it up or wash it out', 'if you take your snack or lunch plate & cup out to the garage or upstairs bring it back before the mold grows across the whole plate' seems to be the one they ignore the most. But a lot of these rules assumes someone who lives here did take 'it' out or emptied that water bottle, to hear my kids tell it 'noone' used the last of the refrigerator water & put the bottle back empty (& all the way to the back, we keep 2 rotating bottles of water so one is always chilling) No one took that plate out to the garage with the nachos on it & left it to grow fur. (when did we last HAVE nachos?)
I can usually tell though, who did what ever it was, of course the upstairs is the girl's territory so whoever brings down what ever I'm looking for (cups & glasses are always being called to the black hole of my upstairs- it gets to the point that I'm looking at 1 cup from Applebees & a coffee mug as the only inhabitants of my cup cupboard & I start yelling. Suddenly someone brings me 42 cups stacked taller than they are, from upstairs) But of course the person bringing the cups is not the one who used them (not a single one, no mom, I always bring my cups right back down)
The garage is mr7's domain, out of 60 hourss r
oom I can't blame every mess in his room on him, some of it is spill over from the girls upstairs, sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental but I'm usually sure when I find Nail polish & eyeliner on his floor at the foot of the steps that they're not his (unless it's halloween time, then all bets are off) on the dvr out there he might let his sister have 5 & only if she's recording a tv show that he likes too. So he always gets the blame for anything wrong or left in the garage area. Since the stairs from the upstairs come down in hi
ree that sheared itself off in the high winds we had in VA today, my house is on a hill with a row of obnoxiously large pine trees behind it, the trees have worried me ever since we moved in (I've been afraid of tall trees falling on me since I was a very small child, my mother attributes this to a very large tree which was struck by lightning behind our house when I was about 2 & 1/2, she says it shook the house & I do remember her leaving me alone in the kitchen while she went out to look at it in the rain- not my earliest memory but a close runner up) & I still hope to have all these large pines taken out eventually due to the hill & the wind coming in from the west, the tree broke at a spit about 10 feet off the ground & fell down the hill. Miss 16 said it shook the house & scared her half to death! I'm not surprised, I always miss this stuff but in a way I'm just as glad that I did, we had a tree fall down at the trailer similar to this (th
ough it was the whole top of the tree) & I was at work for that too, it narrowly missed hitting my trailer & my neighbor's trailer, it fell in such a way that it just hit the ground behind the backs of our trailers if you can imagine! That was actually scarier, this one, due to the hill & the fact that the wind nearly always comes from the west was no question going to fall downhill & away from the house (I have been telling myself this about all the trees behind the house since we moved in back in May of 2005)
hear occoured though, & in the above picture, how it is more than half the thickness of the tree & in the lower picture that the wood is gray not yellow at the break so I think that part of the tree was dead or dying before it fell. the red glow is the setting sun hitting the branches, (ok, maybe it's a tree spirit?) Directly below it is the break. Anyone nearby who want's some good pine wood can have it for the hauling, we don't have a woodstove or fireplace & I've been warned by a couple of people that the chimneys in the house would have to be completley redone before I could have one. (that would also require removing the beesnests from the inner chimney & the squirell nests from the basement one- neither thing is high on my to do list) 
at on the couple of occasions when my Father couldn't find enough downed trees in our woods to cut up & would have to actually fell a tree for our firewood) 7 & miss 10 went back out after I came in & played together on the tree for almost an hour - until it was too dark to see & I had to call them in. The vomiting has slowed & with liberal aplications of immodium our Christmas shopping expedition will not be rescheduled, especially since I already had to reshcedule it once due to silliness & madness at work causing me to have to work 8 hours of overtime before sunday (of course, by getting sick I screwed that up!) I couldn't keep down the immodium this morning or I probably could have made it the whole day. I would prefer to go alone & get everyone's shopping taken care of but I can't very well do so, I don't like to leave the kids home on days when I'm home & they're home, instead I intend to go shopping on Tuesday or Wednesday, my days off, while they're at school, finish it all & lock up the shed until a few days before the 'big event'. Tommorow I can at least take care of the kids choosing what they want to give to each other & to me & I may pick up a few small items here & there which I can hide under coats until 16 takes the younger ones to the car & I check out alone. (One definite benefit to going alone on a weekday, the stores are much less crowded) I am not looking forward to the shopping, it's not hard for miss 16, she's an artist so paint, canvasses etc are easy, clothes are always appreciated though I don't always get what she likes exactly. mr 7 is easy too, the hardest thing about shopping for him is how much I can spend, if it's Batman, Spiderman, I
maginext or Magnetix he's all set. Miss 10 however, is at that age where she's too young for makeup, too old for Barbies & Babies, Clothes she gets from family & friends with kids older than her & so I only buy her a few special pieces (& some jeans, it seems there's never enough jeans) I also don't really like to get the kids clothes for Christmas (except 16 because she actually likes them!) it just doesn't seem right.
hroom clean? Annother yeah, right
, I was sick last week of course & barely came online at all, Tuesday I slept a lot & ended up taking the kids to the doctors, both girls have the cough, congestion & sore throat I have had, mr7 has a mild cough & slight runny nose so he was mostly along for the ride! I was supposed to get 2 tires replaced on my car due to some problems in the sidewalls but they were'nt on the truck so they couldn't be put on the car. This is the second time this has happened & I'm starting to think the garage doesn't want to honor the warranty on these tires (I only bought them in January, there's plenty of tread left but one has a big bulging bubble in the sidewall beneath the valve, the other problem tire has large cracks building in the sidewall.) He's not exactly being rude about it or anything but I've given him my phone # & told him to call me if the don't come in on the truck when he thinks they will to save me the trip (yes, it's only 12 miles but when I'm already going to be spending money on the tires 2 wasted trips to town are two too many) The first week- the day I took the car to him to show him the tires he said he'd have them the next day & to come around 2 because the truck would have just off lodaded them around then, I showed up the next day at 2 & he just shrugged & said they didn't come in. so we made an apointment for 10 am the following Tuesday (I'm only off Saturday, Tuesday & Wednesday & they're closed Saturday) He did call Monday & say the tires hadn't come in on that day's truck & to come at 2 Tuesday because they'd surely be on that truck but then when I showed up Tuesday, same deal, no tires. I drive a PT Cruiser (yes, I've already heard all the jokes about Fat Chicks & PT Cruisers) & the tires are incredibly, ridiculously expensive. Even a 40,000 mile tire is about $80. but they should be available - Which is why I feel like I'm being dicked around. 
ng our Thanksgiving dinner, I'm not a turkey fan but Miss 16 is & so we got the smallest turkey we could find (still over 9 lbs.) & made it with all the trimming, set the table with my mother's good china & silverware (she said, when we moved back to VA in 1997 that she had no use for it & gave it to me) & had a lovely dinner complete with a pumpkin pie made by miss 16, miss 10 was the biggest help, she stayed right with me peeling potatoes & onions, mixing the stuffing & basting the turkey, mr 7 was all about setting the table - his normal, every day chore anyway- & by 7pm Wednesday we sat down to a lovely feast. Back to work for the actual Thanksgiving holiday & then again Friday, I'm in a space right now where I'm just ok with being at work, not exactly happy but at least at peace, it all rolls off when I walk out the door at the end of the day. I hope it lasts because I can't very well quit! I always run in phases of dissatisfaction to tolerance, the computer 
program change in May ushered in my longest phase of dissatisfaction ever but I'm hoping that it has passed. We were having really horrible problems Friday night & the guy who sits next to me especially was really freaking out over the whole thing & I didn't really feel too bad about it at all. (a lot of that was knowing I didn't have to come back for 2 whole days!) Which brings me to today, it was annother beautiful day here sunny, warm - in the high 60's & just beautiful, I had promised we'd put up the christmas decorations one day of the weekend (& of course, we have to go grocery shopping on the other day) Miss 16 had a quince (pronounced kinsay) which is a 15th birthday party for a latina girl we know, to attend tonight so I figured it was better to just stay close to home today & do the running around tommorow. (tommorow is my birthday which is why I have it off, my first 'real' job for a company with more than 10 employees was at a place called Building19, - people from New England will know what I'm talking about- & the owner did give paid holidays, one of which was a 'floating' day off specifically for your birthday. I know it's an unusual concept now. But at 17 when I was working there it made perfect sense & I've never lost the idea that it really sucks to work on your birthday & so I take it off if possible every year) I got a new nightgown & got myself a cheap mp3 player which I've already filled (120 songs my ass, try 60 if you're lucky!) With my favorite songs- or at least as many of them as I could fit! We'll be going out to dinner somewhere tommorow afternoon because Mom shouldn't have to cook on her birthday! Then off to do the lovely grocery shopping (because I only shop every 2 weeks it's a real chore which takes some serious time & thought to get everything we need) 
So in reading other peoples blogs I notice a lot of the usual thanksgiving stuff, what we're thankful for, family memories, far be it from me to be out of the loop, better late than never, I'm posting my old pictures anyway, here's one from the year I was 16, of my grandmother, myself & my brother in our dining room in the house I grew up in. I used to love cooking with my grandmother on the holidays, staying up until 1,2 am making pies & the stuffing so it would have time to set up before the turkey had to be stuffed at 5 am (I wasn't present for that part I don't do 5 am unless I'm still up from the night before) you can't really see how nice the table etc, looked (the picture is taken looking away from the huge, beautiful picture window at the other end of the dining room) but it really looked lovely with all the china, crytal & silver laid out on the linnen tablecloth my grandmother would stay up ironing. 
my first thanksgiving here in VA back in 1987 with 
Miss10, Mr7 & I went to town to get some groceries & run some other errands. We got some subs for dinner too so I wouldn't have to cook. We came home & I was feeling some pressure over the report cards the little ones had recieved on Friday, they weren't much better than the previous marking period (miss 16 carried the same, 3 a's & a b but the b was in a different class) So I was looking for things we could do which would promote learning, especially in the reading & english departments (I think I mentioned previously 10 & 7 take after their dad rather than me & are better in Math than English) & decided we would play Scrabble, Mr 7 & I were a team, Miss 10 played on her own & 16 & her friend played as a team, we had a great time, good enough that after 2 games of scrabble we decided to play rummy,
which took us through the rest of the afternoon, un-fortunately I was getting sicker & sicker, my throat was closing up, I was getting more & more stuffed up, my sinuses began pounding & my cough kept getting deeper & deeper (as a daughter of 2 heavy - a pack + a day smokers- & a former weekend/party smoker, every cold I get goes right to my lungs) I consoled myself that just sitting & playing rummy was restful, after a little tv I went off to bed at about 11pm. I got up Sunday morning feeling very unlovely, I could barely whisper, an axe had taken up residence in the center of my forehead & I couldn't breathe at all Man, I have read some bloggers who described their colds in (fairly amusing) detail & I have always thought I wouldn't do that, but here I am, describing the depth of my misery just like everyone else! 
so as not to get in trouble etc.) He said he doubted that was going to happen & suggested I try some Zicam for my cold, he said that it helped him kick his last cold really quick. I remember that cold & I think it was the same one I have - though he got it back in early October- he was out for 2 & 1/2 days with no voice himself- I went back to sleep for awhile longer, I can always sleep all day when I'm sick, I then sat up when Miss 10 who wasn't feeling a lot better than I (though her throat isn't so sore or her voice as hoarse- the price I pay for talking for a living) Crawled into bed with me & started talking. She's abducted my old cell phone which no longer can charge a battery, she was pretending it's on & making calls, later she found the old battery which I had swaped with the new battery in my replacement phone (same phone- same battery) to make the newer battery last longer, I swapped back to the new one about a month ago when the old one started only being able to hold a charge for about half a day. She inserted the old battery & was able to make the phone work to play ring tones & so she could take pictures, she can't download the pictures but she's happy just being able to take them. we listened to the radio & I played tetris on my phone while she took pictures of everything (60 pics in about 10 minutes!) while playing the dial on the radio I heard an ad for that same Zicam stuff my boss recommended & never being one to take a hint lightly I got dressed & made everyone else get dressed & off we went to the store, it was a lot more at my local grocery store than my boss had told me it was at wallyworld but if it really worked/s then it could be worth it, it did say on the package that it has to be taken within 48 hours of your symptoms in order to help but at 11 am sunday I was only about 26 hours into my symptoms & felt pretty good about it. Miss 10 & I both used it, Miss16 flatly refused & mr 7 has a slight runny nose but nowhere near what the rest of us do & also has no real cough to speak of so he declined. Got lots of dirty looks in the grocery store for coughing in public (I guess that was what it was for, mr7 insisting on riding on the back of the cart, making it hard for me to steer & my rasping at him to get OFF the cart may have had something to do with it) Back home I couldn't even face the computer, or read, trying to focus on anything that closely was next to impossible & intensified my headache something awful, I settled in on the couch to catch up on some movies & tv shows on my dvr & worked on the kid's Christmas gifts to their teachers & other family members this year, I'm making cloth bags for them to fill with rice & Lavendar or Mint which people can keep in the freezer or microwave them to heat them up & then use the bag on a neck, ankle, forehead or any other part of the body giving them pain, I made them for everyone about 5 years ago & they were quite well recieved. our own bag tore & spilled the rice about 6 months ago & so I figured it was time for new ones. So I'm just sitting running a needle & thread around pieces of folded cloth 3 or 4 times to make the seams sturdy, I accidentally stictched up the fill holes on 3 of the 4 bags I completed yesterday afternoon & even
ing through not paying attention & a little too much cold medicine. (though I'm grateful that I had some in the medicine cabinet still) 
ght as 9pm which is when I ate them)
nking she was in the room with us. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the movie & it was a nice break to be off the phones for 2 whole hours (plus the hour before for lunch) It took almost a half an hour for the managers (yes, it took 2 guys) to get the dvd playing on the theater size screen in the auditorium & so we discussed our strategy for the Christmas decorating contest & wether we are going to have a gift grab this year or not. (we are I have a beautiful leather bookmark & a knitted winter hat with cat ears (I don't wear it but my 10 year old loves it) from 2 other years when I was in groups who were friendly enough to do gift grabs) After this respite from people yelling at me about their bills or the fact that rain can impede satellite signal I was feeling really relaxed & not at all stressed about the last 4 hours of my day at work & they did pass surprisingly quickly. On the way home I was pleasurably entertained by a book on tape, the name of the book is 
day it was just about me I felt like it was wrong & I was not deserving of any fuss, I made my own birthday cake most years. Except for the year I turned 17, my mother made my cake because I had a charity thing to help with on the Saturday morning that we were having my party & while the cake was cooling, my mother was vacuming the house (a regular Saturday occourence- we all made plans to be elsewhere) & my Father & Brother were coming to pick me up from the charity rummage sale my brothers dog ate the cake! My mother was PISSED! it was really pretty funny in retrospect - I'm not sure she thinks so though- So I came back home & made the birthday cake myself once again. One of my best birthdays was my very first in Floyd, it was 1987 & I had just picked up & left MA with Chrissie a few weeks before, I made the dinner (I don't remember where the Turkey even came from) & a cake, for some obscure reason I bought a tub of premade- Cherry icing, ugh, not a cherry fan anymore I have to say!) I still have a butterfly pin & the earrings I was given that year! It was the year I went from 18 to 19 & I remember Chrissie saying 19 was lots better than 18. Other years, with 16's dad & my family when 16 was a little baby were bleah, just annother day with my grandmother at least being kind- some years my birthday, the 26th actually falls on Thanksgiving & those are the worst, people like to suggest putting candles in a pie (I hate pie- not the filling, just the crust) I usualy just celebrate over the weekend following the holiday. In later years my ex did his best to give me good birthdays, the infamous first year when he took my oldest out with him & I went to take a hot bath (my favorite thing when I have free time & no kids to interrupt) & half an hour into it he came back in & was not pleased to find me in the tub, he had a bunch of our friends & his family outside, ready to come in & surprise me for my birthday! yeah, that was great! That was the year my friend J gave me a card which at the bottom she'd lovingly scrawled '16 years till you're 40' (her birthday was 6 weeks before mine & annother friend of her's had done the same to her! - just passing on that happy feeling!) well, this year I'll be 38 & so it's 2 years till I'm 40 & I don't really care, I've been so fat for so long I've felt old nearly forever! It's all in your head, that's what my 88 year old grandmother tells me, she says she feels in her head about the same as she did when she was 25 or 30 still & I can see that, it's about the same for me. In recent year
s (you read that: since my ex left) things have been tight most years & often the only notice I took of my birthday was that when I asked my mother or grandmother for money to help with whatever the most recent emergency was it was couched in the terms: Could I have whatever you were going to send for my birthday early? & of course a cake which the kids were more interested in than I was. Last year & the year before I've been able to actually have a birthday dinner out & buy a couple of books or some clothes & this year is shaping up the same which is a plus. I think I'm going to get a scanner, I've wanted one for awhile so I can put old pictures on here but I thought they were really expensive, this past weekend we went to a big box electronics store to buy a dvd I'd wanted to see again which I couldn't rent from the local video store - they didn't have it at all (Empire Records for the record & the store did have it for a pretty low price too!) & they had a scanner for $104.99 (!) I'd probably go with the next step up since it was only about 40 bucks more & looked like a more versatile model though. That's one thing I don't like so much about being the only adult in the house- decisions like this are all mine to make & sometimes I could use a little input! Annother thing about it is I usualy just buy my own birthday presents, mostly because I want books & don't always know what books until I'm in the store looking at them. 
the birthday (& I guess, Thanksgiving, which I HATE- mostly because I'm here & my whole family is in Mass- my fault though & because I hate turkey) comes the whole Christmas debacle, I used to love Christmas we had boxes & boxes of decorations which came down from the attic the weekend after Thanksgiving & which my Brother & I pored over, checking for breakage, loose or dead bulbs in the light strings etc. until the first weekend in December when we were allowed to decorate (we had control of this from the time I was 8 forward - with a little artistic direction from my grandmother who lived with us-) There were cardboard houses, metal people to walk among them with small mirrors for their ice skating rinks, fake holly & pine garlands, we had a plastic electric candle in every window with white bulbs & plastic poinsettia rings around the base & a big pine tree in the front yard was lit with colored lights, the tree inside we put up a week to 10 days before the holiday & we always had white lights on it (my mother & grandmother were purists & the most common kind of New England snob - the kind with historical ancestors- 'colored lights are garish & tacky unless you just have a few') I am nothing like them though & always felt out of place there, the more color the better, the brighter the better, that's one thing the ex & I were in total agreement on, we loved to put up christmas lights & we always had a lot, I remember the first time we ever saw those icicle lights that are everywhere now. 
't actually need the help anymore (Knock on Wood!) I tried a Christmas Club back in 2004, it didn't help, they disbursed the money in October & 2 weeks later I had a problem with my car & had to use all the money I'd saved to fix the car. (not much, I was on the $5. a week plan so it was less than 300 bucks) Just like a raise at work, what ever they give you, your expenses expand to fill the gap so there's never any extra money! 
es earlier than I needed to be there ontime, well I was dead wrong, the line looped around the hallway twice! I didn't even try to get in it- I was afraid I'd be late for the teacher confrence, it's a good thing too because the gym where the voting took place is downstairs & at the back of the school, it has it's own seperate entrance & a hallway to get to the downstairs class rooms (where the 2nd grade classroom is) they had the doors locked though, so you couldn't get to the classrooms from the gym because the school was technically closed, so I had to climb the outside stairs, go in, say hello to the school secretary & then go back downstairs inside the building to get to the classroom, I was still about 3 minutes early & stood around in the hall comparing mr 7's work with his classmates while the teacher finished the confrence before mine. The confrence went well, mr7's doing well in math & science, doing ok in reading, not reading nearly enough, it's like pulling teeth to get him to do so. He's a lefty & they're having trouble getting him to space his words, otherwise all is ok. Then on to the line to vote. I'm still blown away by that, in 2004 I literaly walked in the door, voted & walked back out, no wait, other than while the nice lady confirmed my name & address, all of 20 seconds, the other 2 machines (we are talking a very small town here folks,) were empty & the only other person voting whom I encountered was a guy about my age walking in as I was walking out! & this was a presidential election in 2004! Most of the people on the line were elders, most of them knew each other well- that is one large drawback to moving to a small town where people tend to stay instead of leave, almost everyone knows each other & as someone they don't know they ignore you for the most part. I was 40 minutes in line, a lady I used to work with when I worked at a clothing factory here came in not too far behind me & so we chatted a little but when you work with someone, even for nearly 2 years, & have barely seen each other for 8 years there's not a lot you can talk about, especially when you're talking over 4 or 5 people. When we reached the registration table the lady in front of me remarked on the amount of people there, the pollster said they'd been out straight all day & hadn't had a break. & the woman who was in front of me remarked that the turnout was ok with her 'as long as everyone is voting the right way' I stood there fuming & reminding myself that at the very least my vote would cancel hers! (she & her husband had been rather loud in their praise of Allen for the senate- I don't think anyone who reads this blog regularly will be surprised that I voted for Webb, the Democrat) It 
it got really bad at least! I can't go help 10 because of the stairs or lack of stairs really, the ladder they use is ok for little people like them but I don't trust it & would not want to chance breaking it so I stay downstairs- annother reason I really want that loan so I can put in stairs. 
nce:
d out parts, the IT department in particular stands out - the little ones actually got tentative & jumped when the scare came- something I would have doubted would happen any longer, Miss 16, when we went to get her after school yesterday, had drawn spider webs on her face & looked pretty cool, I didn't make it halfway through the evening with my earings in. (I'd borrowed a pair of 16's big hoop earrings as I was playing gypsy fortune teller) miss 10 skulked around like her big sister- true to her goth teenager costume & mr 7's face paint looked very skull like & my black cape worked very well as a reapers cloak if I do say so myself. One of my co-workers didn't recognize me as we were walking towards each other I guess because my makeup was bright, if I wear makeup at all it's usually just mascara & along with the kids I put on full face makeup & everything for the fun of it. After about an hour at my work we left & headed to our town, on the way we saw my former mother in law at a store putting gas in her car & stopped so she could see the kids in their costumes, that was nice, I seldom see her anymore, everyone's so busy all the time. We stopped at family member's houses & at a church near our old trailer where they have a 'trunk or treat' where everyone parks in one place & the kids just go from car to car to collect their treats, the kid's school had one of these also but they had it on Friday night rather than Saturday or on Halloween & I work Friday nights so we didn't get to go to that. We came home & immediately I was under pressure from miss 10 & mr 7 to 
call it a night & give up on the idea that more trick or treaters might come by. I'd left a big bowl of candy on the porch while we were gone & there was some gone so I know some people came by at one point or annother- I was hoping we might get a few more but we didn't, we arrived home at a little after 8 & for over a half an hour the kids kept telling me to 'pack it in' & 'give it up' that no one was coming, I thought they wanted me to come in the house & hang out with them but it turns out they were waiting for me to give up so they could divide the remainder of the candy we bought for trick or treaters between themselves! 
the table, microwave & computer desk. (all the while worrying that the desk would fall over- it's more than a little shaky) I've done annother 3 loads of laundry over & above the 3 I did yesterday, it doesn't help that when 10 & 7 got home from school & I asked where all the towels are they went to their respective rooms & came back with about 8 towels! I could do annother load of laundry before I'm done tonight- & of course the more I wash, the longer I'll be up since I always like to have everything folded before I go back to work on Thursday morning. I got up early for me, something woke me up this morning which sounded like someone tossing a handful of pebbles against my window. No one was out there, I went out to see if the tree's branches were grown enough to hit the window, they aren't, we didn't have any tv activity yesterday though, which we usually get on holidays, the tv in my garage turns off & on by itself a lot. Over the first 3-4 months we lived here I've had the experience multiple times of seeing through the windows between the living room or dining room that the tv is on, going out to turn it off & when I'm halfway across the cement floor to where the tv is situated the tv will just turn itself off. The tv has no stuck buttons, I've tried it in 4 different outlets, with & with out surge protectors, it does not work with the dish remote so it's not like the remote is malfunctioning & I've tried other tvs out there (Chrissie's tv most recently) It doesn't matter, if it's of a mind to do so it does it, the satellite box stays on or off though, however it was left is how it is- though once we went out there & it had been moved off of the tv & set beside it on the floor- not like it fell, it's a delicate piece of electronic equipment- with a hard drive, if it had fallen it certainly would have been damaged- & no one had been home for hours- we were all out together. Last year around the middle of October it was doing it constantly & I got fed up, I got up to go to the bathroom & it was off, came back through from the bathroom & it was on. I opened the door to the garage & said 'look, just stop, you can come visit once in awhile but I can't take this all the time' I worked on Thanksgiving but miss 16 mentioned in passing that the tv was off & on all day, I was home for Christmas & it was flashing like lightning all day long- at Easter I told Chrissie about it when she got here & sure enough all night the night before Easter & off & on all day it went off & on. I have seen & heard it occasionally at night since then & Chrissie was living out in the garage all summer, she sa
id the dog especially was very concerned with noises & things she couldn't hear or see every time she was in there with Chris. I definitley felt weird about the sounds I heard this morning, it woke me right up & I can sleep through most anything, I've been known to sleep through neighbors knocking on the door wanting to use the phone. (well maybe a little of that was not wanting to deal with the neighbor) 
ids to get home from school, I have an hour left to wait & then we have to hustle the costumes on & go to my work (Why,when they're supposed to be providing a 'warm, safe place to celebrate halloween for the comunity' would they only have the place open from 4 to 6?) Miss 16 was going to opt out of this little excursion but has changed her mind essentially at the last minute, she just text messaged me from her feild trip to the exon station in town (?) to say to come get her & take her with us to my work. What does one
do on a feild trip to a gas station? Well, it's an art class, it could be anything. After the trip to my own personal house of horrors (that's work, I mean) we're going back to town for the 'trunk or treat' at a former neighbors church. 
get a picture of her pumpkin, Mr 7's pumpkin is supposed to be a grave, with the moon behind it & hands reaching up out of the grave. Miss 10's is a witch stiring up a spirit & mine is a reaper skull with flames around it, I also carved a Crypt keeper type face for my work, we have decorating competitions & pumpkin carving competitions & costume competitions, I'm not parcticularly competitive but most of my co-workers are & since I knew I'm a good pumpkin carver volunteered to do the pumpkin especially since in the scheme of things, my desk in our 'pod' is the least decorated (we did a horror movie theme & everyone got a movie to decorate our desk as-
mine was the fly- I can't afford fake drool! - Pictures to follow of the work desks, work & costumes in general) I usually dress up as a Hippie or a Heavy Metal mistress (ok, that one I haven't used in a few years) but as everyone keeps pointing out to me my costumes don't look to terribly different from my every day clothes- I'm going as a gypsy today, not, once again, that I look too different from regular clothes once again, it's the makeup & the scarf on my head & the jewlery which is supposed to make the look!
gned out of my computer & went to the bathroom & had a good cry, then I went & talked to my boss when I thought I was calmed down again & he was a jerk about the whole thing, turns out he's about as unenthused with being there as I am & told me he'd given his boss his security pass as a gesture that he wanted to quit the other day! He couldn't give me details on what he wants to quit over but it seems they're putting even more load on the supervisors over us than they already have & he's against it. So I'm not the only one looking at a newspaper today checking out other jobs, hoping theres something there that could give me something like what I'm making now, after 5+ years where I work. 
lly, the people I talk to are getting ruder & more hateful in general, I'm sure that's got to do with the stressful atmosphere we all live in, with uncertanity & crazy stuff like North Korea & Iraq going on)
s, which I appreciate since it's getting tall, both the push mower & the ride on mower aren't working & I don't have extra money for gas which I know is the problem with the push mower. so she used the weed whacker to cut part of the grass & is taking a break before going back to finish, the other thing on my agenda is to begin putting plastic on my bad windows, some windows are tight & good, some are loose & bad so I'm going to plastic them, I intended to do it last year & we found it wasn't too bad but since last year was a fairly warm winter (according to the weather men, in the course of history it was a relatively warm one anyway) I figure it would be a good idea to try the plastic this year.