Now Playing: Ends by Everlast
Topic: just letting off steam
I'm feeling pretty lost without my blog today, it's currently out, the whole tripod organization seems to have dropped off the face of the world wide web. I admit I rarely look at info on the tripod home site so maybe this is planned maintenance & I just wasn't paying attention, there's never a good time for maintenance but a Tuesday since 1030 am? (It's currently quarter to 3pm) It's making me look at other blogs, I was shocked at how hard it is to put a picture on blogger! I couldn't even get a picture on my profile (Which I have for people who do blogger blogs & insist on only blogger profiled people commenting) I was thinking about beginning a blog there but I love my pictures, I think it's really boring to read blogs without pictures. Tripod may not have the most spectacular layouts (though I love mine since it's teal) but I can post tons of pictures easily!
Of course, from the looks of this I wouldn't really be doing any monumentous blogging anyway. I'm just sitting here running random thoughts,
I've been looking at my addiction to the computer with new eyes, the day before new years my bookmarks all disapeared & I'm slowly getting them back, not all of them though, many are lost & not coming back it's not exactly a bad thing, I think an enforced clean out can be useful & I tend to take things like Mozilla dumping them without warning as a meant to be 'clue' to me that I needed to clean it out a little.
Mozilla stopped opening things in tabs (which I prefer) at the same time it dropped my bookmarks, I'm beginning to think it's time for me to have the computer looked at again.
Miss 16 came home in a royally ill mood, she & her boyfriend are having stress, I didn't help matters by flipping out on her because she asked for a dollar twenty five I owed her (I only had a ten dollar bill)
Then just as she was beginning to unfreeze I mentioned to all 3 of them that the tax refund may be a bit smaller than usual this year, I'm earning more & the company gave me (& everyone else) 25 shares of company stock, a matching amount of cash (out of which they took taxes for both) & then I sold the stock, I think I'll need to pay tax on what I sold the stock for. There's also the fact that back in august of '05 I claimed exempt to federal tax to get myself some extra cash, I never changed it back (it makes a pretty big difference) & so whatever my actual tax burden is (With 3 kids & myself as the whole household its usually just under three hundred bucks) so the EIC will cover it & then some but the last 3 years we've cleared over 5 grand in refund & EIC. I sincerely doubt we'll see annother year like that again- The price of success.
Miss 10 is still getting caught up on her homework, she has until next monday to get it all caught up for this, the third, marking period. Keeping her focused is one of my greater challenges, she's the biggest procrastinator I've ever seen (& belive me, my father was a master) she keeps walking around doing anything but homework, I offered to let her clean her room instead but she wasn't buying it.
Mr 7 being younger & only in second grade, came home with 2 sheets of work, one from before Christmas & one for tonight, this is the benifit to it having been the week before Christmas at school they do little more than crafts & have fun that last week & again the last two weeks before school closes in the summer. (spring I call it- they're out 5/31 barring any really severe weather which I doubt is going to happen this winter at this point, though I admit the worst ice storm I ever witnessed personally was in March 1994)
When I was a kid the kids who went to public school got out around the 25th of June or so.
I'm reaching a point in my life where what went on when I was a kid is irrelevant to everyone!
This whole schedule change is going to take some getting used to, I keep thinking, 'I'll do it tommorow' but tommorow I'll be at work not at home! I'll be home Friday & for a lot of reasons it is going to be better but the transition is a challenge. I spent yesterday telling myself I didn't have to work tommorow (Which is normal & often the only thing which gets me out of bed) but usually the mental mantra on Mondays is 'you don't have to come back for two whole days, just get through it' & I had to keep amending it to
you don't have to work tommorow, you'll have Friday & Saturday off too! If they ever force me back on a schedule where I have to work any more than 2 days in a row I'll either loose my mind or quit!
Last night (ok, early this morning) I was in bed, I was sitting up with my back & head against the wall because I do that when I first go to bed so I can breathe & in case I have an food in my stomach (I get awful heartburn if I lie down with anything in my stomach- not the case last night but still...) So I'm sitting there beginning to fall asleep & suddenly the back of my head
begins vibrating, I reached up & touched the wall & it seemed to be vibrating to my hand too. In the dining room a room away I heard one of my hand painted (By me) snow village pieces fall to the floor. A few seconds later it stopped, did SW Virginia have annother earthquake? There was one back in 2003, I was sitting on the couch at our old trailer & so was miss 10 & we felt the wall & the couch rock, Miss 16 in the next room saw my earrings swinging on the thing I have them hanging on. but standing up in my bedroom (which was attatched to the trailer & made of wood) she didn't feel the quake. No one else felt anything though Miss 16 heard the ceramic house fall down from upstairs. & there was nothing on my favorite local news' website. Still, I wonder!
Miss 16 has managed to top off annother record cell phone usage month we 'share' 1000 minutes each month & I usually use maybe, 100 minutes if I'm lucky (this will probably drop now that I don't have my grandmother to talk to) she uses the rest & this month she made it to 997 minutes! (I used 62) to her credit she didn't go over but she came pretty darn close. 
Miss 10 has been doing an hour a day of school work, 4th grade has been proving a little more intensive than she had expected & missing 3 days to being sick the first week in December & annother 5 due to going to MA the 15th thru the 20th didn't help. Her teacher gave her all the papers she needed to complete & a list of her required reading pages in history & english. I have a feeling she's going to be in remediation or repeating 4th grade (summer school is not an option because it's every day from 9 to 1 & I'm only home 2 week days to drive her- they don't do buses for summer school) I hate it for her but looking at her work in everything but math, I'm beginning to think she's going to need the extra help.
something or other, the skateboard is scaring me enough that I wish I had never bought it. Now he's started trying to stand on the basketball. he nearly broke his nose on the computer desk trying to balance on the ball he slipped & went down face first towards the desk. I think both items may need to disappear to the shed for a few weeks (& I thought my new padlock was only for hiding Christmas gifts- I guess in a way it still is!)
her than her brother's stuff) is a cardboard doll house, a fold out, 4 room thing, which came with floam furniture which she made yesterday, she refused all offers of help I might add, she wanted to do it herself. I thought she'd like the making the house & furniture better than the playing with it when it was done but she seems to be enjoying that part too. 
he easel I found last night best, I think, it's hard to tell with her, she's upset because the sun is out & she likes rainy days better, she's also upset over her boyfriend's problems with his dad who's aparently a drunk. She is currently trying out her curling iron, she & her sister both got curling irons, miss 10 got a 3/4 inch barrel size one & miss 16 got a 1 & 1/2 inch barrel for larger curls, since her hair is so thick that's likely the only one which would work on it. 
tand up to pee! 
Annother holiday passed without serious harm being done to anyone I know, admitedly, the new years holiday can be more dangerous than Christmas, I should know, my former marriage's anniversary is new years eve! would be 13 years this year, I'm sure if it had survived this long it would be ending by now, lucky 13 & all. Since I'm already mentioning the ex let me say he has yet to contact his kids for Christmas, no call, no email, no snail mailed card. The last email I had was dated 12/17. He hasn't written back, nor has he done anything else, now I admit, it was in response to my email letting him know that my grandmother had died & the kids would not be available to talk to him by phone or online on the 19th or 20th as was supposed to be in the planning stages when we got the call about Phil. But in my email to him about this whole thing I told him I'd be home both the 23rd & 24th & to go ahead & call anytime since I have free nights & weekends on my cell phone. (yes, I could have called him & let the kids talk to him but really, why open myself up for more grief, all it takes is the mention of 1 thing he doesn't like the sound of - like that I had to work on Christmas day - I left work at 5 instead of 8- to set him off on a long winded, 'you don't take good enough care of the kids, you're always working & not around enough' rant & I have learned it's much easier not to open myself up to such things.
Later that night after a pick up dinner, (I didn't eat a thing, too ill with all the cookie batter & crumbled pieces I'd been nibbling) we finished the wrapping of gifts, (begun the 22nd after I got off the computer, I didn't go to bed until after 2 am on Friday night & it was telling on me, by the time I insisted miss 10 & mr 7 go to bed at 1030 I was already falling asleep)
oxes of cookies for friends & former neighbors, took showers etc & I was just messing around online when my sister in law called me to see 'where we were' -? I was a little surprised since it was just a few minutes past 3 at that point, I usually don't show up at Aunties until about 6, the kids had made me promise to try to go closer to 4 or 5 & I was really just waiting for 330 to start our rounds of dropping off cookie boxes & then go there. since SIL seemed to think we should already be there we headed out. After 7 stops we arrived at Auntie's & the kids had a blast, there were at least a dozen kids there & they all got gifts, it was a chaos of unwrapping & people calling out names on gifts, I was on th
e opposite side of the room from my younger ones & while that was great for taking pictures, it means I have no idea who gave them what! We ate & Hung out with the family for quite a few hours, it was fun, brought back old memories, some good, some bad, I missed my mother in law, who had gone to NY with her boyfriend (I guess that's what you call him, I know at 38 I would prefer not to refer to any one I was romantically linked with as a 'boyfriend' & she's considerably older than I am. Maybe 'life partner'?) This will mean I'll have to try to get with her sometime soon & interact, I do like my MIL, always have, I like/d both my in-law parents, it's my ex's step parents who drove me crazy, both of them. 
h (no chimney/fireplace to speak of in my house I'm afraid) & people were sent to bed, I filled miss 10's stocking first because she's been demanding to 'help' this year, since she's such an old hand at all this, (she's known the 'truth about Santa' for 3 years now) I know it's all a ploy to see what she's getting early & so I thwarted her, she filled her brother's stocking though & that satisfied her. 
9 am with us but go home at 5:30 were sent home at 4:15 & I was rather annoyed about it, it was obvious to all of us that they were going to try to hold everyone as long as possible, I knew there would be a large influx of people coming in at 5 pm & so I told my boss that if we weren't sent home at 5 I was leaving anyway, he was ok with it. & so I left at 5, we ate, did the tree & I tried to convince everyone that bed at 10 would be a good thing, no one bought it & by the time I had gotten everyone to go to bed I'd gotten absorbed in my current book (Angels & Demons by Dan Brown- the book before the DaVinci code) & didn't actually shut off the light until 1 am again! 
a ton of clothes (first time in almost 3 weeks I'm afraid, we've been living out of the laundry baskets & just adding more as they dry) Watched Fight Club for the first time (yes, I'm a little behind in my movie viewing) it was pretty good as miss 16 had told me it was (the dvd was a gift from me to her at her request) a quick run to the store to get milk & a few other things, got 2 checks in the mail today quite unexpectedly, one was from a company I had done business with & I'd closed my account but over paid, they refunded the amount I'd overpaid & it came today, I figured it would show up eventually. The other was from one of my Grandmother's brothers, he wrote that he wanted to send the kids & I something for Christmas & that he hoped we'd be able to have a good Christmas in spite of our loss. Very nice of him I might add, Very Generous. Christmas presents just keep showing up! Earlier today I was picking up my room & located a basketball I had purchased for mr 7 & forgotten to wrap & then just a little while ago Miss 16 also reminded me I had hinted to her about an easel I got her which I also had hidden in my room & had forgotten to wrap & put under the tree! 
Back home & very glad to be here! Not so glad about going back to work but into every life some rain must fall. 
& simple. There was no Christmas spirit in evidence on Interstate 81 on Wednesday that is for damn sure! You can see by my picture (or I can at least) that the stress & grief are really beginning to take it's toll on me- at this point driving I was just focused on getting us all home in one piece & then hoping to sleep as soon as possible after getting home. I was so glad to get back home to my area, where people coming towards you on the road, (back roads & main roads both) wave at you as you pass. I'm feeling much less stressed since we've been home even though work has been a pain- they told us our schedule is changing as of the 30th, we're going to be off Tuesday, Friday & Saturday, working the same hours as previously though, not too big of a deal for me, it may even be better! (Miss 16 thinks she'll like it better) 
On the way home from work tonight I went over to Target to pick up 1 last minute gift for each of the kids, (there was still room on the credit card of the same name as the store - bad habit of mine at Christmas, if there's money left to be spent it has to be spent) I was amused at how stressed everyone seemed, especially those with small kids. I do get stressed though, just not often at Christmas time, I refuse to do anything I don't want to do when it comes to Christmas- if picking, writing & sending Christmas cards ever begins to feel like a chore, like something I 'have' to do I'll stop. The same with baking the cookies etc. I want to do them & I will, things like stringing popcorn & cranberries to hang on the tree are ok, It was a family tradition when I was growing up & some years we do it now but this year there was no way. Cranberries were ridiculously expensive & the time was short. So no Cranberries or popcorn. I went out of my way to be nice to everyone who met my eyes in Target & especially the people working there I've worked in stores at Christmas & I know what a hell it can be, I'm mostly just glad I'm not there with them! 
thing will strike me like 'I should tell Phil about that next time we talk' & I do a sort of double take & remember Phil died last week (My grandmother & grandfather had all my cousins & I call them by their first names rather than 'grandma' or anything like that so I refer to her by her given name always) 
I've had miss 10 home sick up to today & now miss 16 is complaining of intestinal discomfort, there was a report on the news at 11 last night about a flu bug fitting 10's description of her symptoms so at least we know it's not something she ate somewhere. 
16's very upset & being dramatic & already in a funk (it's premenstrual) she called me weeping from school during lunch (mostly she was raging about the crappy food! This is her grade's 'standards of learning' test week - they couldn't have picked a better acronym this: SOL, as in shit outta luck! & she got a perfect score on her English yesterday, this is an off day & she has her History sol tommorow, the stress is killing her- & us who have to deal with her) 
k to work tommorow. I'll let you know) 
y cough & cold.
l & we managed to get through the decorating with minimal yelling, bickering & fighting mr 7 only hit his sister once & miss 16 & I only argued twice when she wandered off to get online twice (anyone who reads my blog will notice that although I had 2 full days off this weekend I did not get online & blog or do anything else - except check email early saturday morning- at all this weekend- I spent it with the kids 100%.) 
s just to climb over furniture & jump off it). 
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) 
an issue now. So I had to make some new rules fast.
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'
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?) 
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
hroom clean? Annother yeah, right