ciao bebes!

I’m pretty well all settled in at my new webpage.  friends have been invited.

screw it

nope, I’m going private.  changed my mind again.  Then I’m “moving”.

I’ll let my actual friends know where I’ll be and so on.  If I don’t know ya, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to include you. 

I wanted to be nice and classy and mature and all that, but now that it’s sunken in, I feel so much more than I can even express on here, and truth to be told, since I’m currently still “public”, I’d rather not get into it on here.  I’m beyond pissed, now.  best way to handle that is to keep my mouth shut so I don’t say anything that’ll come back and bite me in the ass.  Because I don’t feel nice at all, and I don’t feel like being mature or classy, either.  So I won’t.  But I’ll keep it to myself and spare everyone.  Those who really care already know most of the story anyway, and if those same people are lost at any point, they know how to contact me to get it clarified.  yup, just gonna keep quiet in this public venue for now.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye and The Sh** Hits The Fan

I don’t even know where to begin.  I contemplated making this page private, but in the end, decided that would really complicate things, and have decided to just leave it.  whatever.

I screwed up.  and for a little while, I felt pretty bad, still kinda do in a way, but what happened has sunken in more, and now I feel a lot of anger among other things.  see the next entry.

all I need is this thermos…

Yesterday pretty much sucked for me.  I wrote an entry earlier with more details, but I’ve decided that’s boring, so I’ll just say it was a bunch of piddly crappy things that ordinarily, individually wouldn;t wreck and entire day for me, but put them all together and add in some other issues, and yeah.  suck-a-tronic.

I had hoped today would be better, but thus far it doesn’t seem to be.  again, with the lack of detail, because again, boring.  I will, however say that in a fit of upset I cleaned my room.  which needed to be done, anyway.

I dunno, I really got nothing.  But the good part is that I only have 2 lil kids for the whole weekend instead of 4 kids of varying ages.  because the older two are with grandparents. yay for grandparents.

Ok, yeah, thats all I got.  my life is boring and a little sucky lately.

mice have become my pee-shoes

Robin at Poppymom.com (link on the right) wrote a post about pee-shoes which you need to read.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  (it’ll be a few entries back, somewhere towards the end of June) 

(jeopardy theme song)

(3 rousing games of paddle-ball)

(re-enactment of key battles from the civil war done entirely with dust bunnies and toothpicks)

geez, you’re a slow reader!

(make 2 quiches and a souffle)

(wax my car and another random car parked on the street)

(wax my eyebrows completely off)

ok, done, now?  well, at least I accomplished something while you were reading that, at any rate.

so, pee-shoes.  now that you know the backstory, let me just tell you a story of my own that has absolutely nothing to do with pee or shoes, but much to do with a sloppy family and rodent-feces.

so remember how we had the whole mouse-thing going on here? and remember how I had it pretty well under control inside of a month, at least according to the orkin guy? 

yeah, not a week after he pronounced us “under control” and said he saw no more signs of mouse activity, guess who I saw? 

yup, a mouse. 

and I have been killing myself yet again to keep things clean around here, in an effort to rid my home of them.  At this point, I believe this is a rogue mouse who is a little too smart or stupid for his own good.  I am growing weary of the constant disinfecting and scrubbing.  And as this is really getting to be a bit too Monk-like for comfort, I have yet again enlisted the aid of the mentally-challenged, namely, my kids.

I know, what a terrible thing for a parent to say, but Bill Cosby said it best; “children are brain damaged”. And like I always say,”having kids is much like having tiny drunk people around you constantly.”  both things are true, by the way.  Yesterday, I begged my drunk, mentally challenged offspring to help me keep things clean by sweeping well, throwing out the trash, and vacuuming.  none of it was done, despite repeated reminders, which, they told me they didn’t need.  by about 7 pm, I’d had it with all the noise and obnoxiousness and not-listening-ness of it all, and I shut myself away in the bathroom until after 10 pm, when they were mostly settled in for the night.  Still, nothing got done, and so in a little bit, they will all be getting a very rude wake-up call, possibly in the form of some dutch-ovening, because hell, I’m gassy, and they’re being jerks.

once they’re up, they’ll be giving all the pertinent sections of the house a thorough going-over under my watchful and impatient eye.  because as crazy as they are, I’m even crazier because I still love the lil jerk-faces.  (despite their insistence upon making me live with the threat of death-by-mouse-shit-toxins.  but see, I refuse to live with that, so if they can’t cooperate, then I can’t care if they’re miserable.)

moving on.  drama drama, everywhere, and not a moment’s peace to be had.  parents, friends, children. I really hit the trifecta with drama lately.    I’d go all detailed, but that would just be rude, so we’ll pretend I spilled my guts and so forth.  But I will say this, I’ve had it and I’m fed up, nah-nah, boo-boo, cry y’all a river of tearful sorrows. 

no, truthfully, I really am fed-up, though.  (not to be mistaken with K-fed-up, which I also am, but that’s entirely unrelated)  I’ve decided that I need to make some changes in how I handle certain people/things; namely, speaking my mind in plain english.   I am mostly done being nice, I have tried that and it does not work like it should.  instead of resulting in a calming of whatever upset is at hand, it seems to only escalate things or keep them at an insane level.  so screw being polite with certain factions in my life.  And those of you who do not cause me all this angstiness, I apologize for the ranting, rest assured dear friends that you will still recive your stellar friendliness and loveable-Lizness you have always received.  I can be reasonable, after all.  Hell, I thought I was being reasonable, but apparently anything short of just being a doormat and giving everyone else their way is unreasonable. who knew, and why wasn’t I told this?

see ya soon

Just popping in to let you all know I’m going to take a little break from this writing thing.  I’m not particularly busy, don’t have anything interesting to report, and truthfully, at the moment, my thoughts are pretty scrambled.  Writing would normally help that, but right now, I’m sort of hurting, emotionally, and I need some time to myself.  I’ll probably still write, but whatever comes forth at this point will be sheer garbage and not fit for consumption.  I’ll be back, I promise, I just need a break.  Until then, have fun, kids.

Shorty With A “40″

So, I did manage to get all my running done, yesterday.  Of course, when I came back, I realized there were a few things I probably should have gotten as well, but they are not a big deal and can wait.

I did buy myself a couple pairs of cheapo shorts; they do not look particularly good on me, but they are comfortable and I’m only planning on wearing them about the house, so they were worth it.

B’s work schedule has been screwy in an on-again-off-again sort of way.  This does me no favors in terms of our financial status, so I’m being pretty careful with spending, lately.  Luckily, aside from the most perishable of items, I have nearly everything we’ll need for awhile.  I wouldn’t have even bought the shorts at all, but I have very little in the way of actual summer clothing, and it has been too hot lately for my usual wardrobe.  Buying the shorts was much cheaper than running the air-conditioning, though, so I don’t feel too badly about it.  B and the kids all have plenty of summer clothing, so I was the one left sitting here and dying.

It’s been slow-going with M.  Some days are better than others.  Yesterday started out so good, and by midafternoon, went south, and then got slightly better in the evening.  He has to go so early for weight-lifting, and I was surprised and very pleased when he came home on time.  And then he was very good about having to watch the two younger kids while I ran errands.  I complimented him on this good behavior and told him it goes a long way with me, and that if he kept it up, I would be willing to reconsider my stance on him not going anywhere or doing anything.  I did it to encourage him to continue being good and also to give him hope that the current lockdown wouldn’t have to be a permanent thing.

And then he pulled a fast one on me and snuck out of the house, and disappeared for a few hours.  I never even would have known he’;d returned if the girls hadn’t told me.  He even snuck upstairs to dinner, and I didn’t even realize he was up here until after he’d finished and was about to walk out of the kitchen.

I asked him where he’d been, what he’d been up to, and he refused to answer me, we went through that several times, with me getting increasingly frustrated until I turned him over to B, who refused to even deal with it.  So I put M in the corner, like a little kid.  I told him he’d get treated like a little kid if he was going to insist upon acting like one. 

Then I went outside with the phone and my cigarettes and called my MIL and asked her what she thought I should do.  She was very patient and had some good advice and insights, and I felt much calmer and better equipped to handle the current situation.  Before I could end the call, M finally came out of the corner complaining of being about to black-out.  so I had him sit on the front porch with me, and I managed to get some kind of story out of him.  I am not sure if it was the whole truth, but I’ll take what I can get.  we had a long “talk” (with me doing most of the talking) about the situation, and I’m hopeful that we understand each other.  I told him that if he’s feeling antsy and needs to get out, that he would do well to come talk to me, because I would be willing to try to come up with a compromise we can both agree to.  I also told him that I’ll always be willing to help him through making these necessary changes, because I know and understand how rough change can be.  I went on to add that I want very much to be able to trust him, but we have to work together as a team for that to happen, so he has to also try to trust me a little by coming to me and talking to me  and being honest, and that together, we can baby-step our way towards his goals.  I was thinking maybe it was all going in one ear and out the other, but I needed to say it and use every metaphor I could think of because I never know when something might sink in.  I still do not know what prompted his actions this morning, but whatever it was, it must have been a damn stroke of genius.

Because this morning, after I returned from dropping L at summer school, he disappeared for a bit and told me he had to give me something, and I immediately stopped what I was doing and paid attention, because M NEVER does stuff like that.  He handed me the forbidden lighter and pack of cigarettes that he had, and the “reason” behind yesterday’s actions.

And I am impressed by this. It’s a huge step for us.  I didn’t yell at him at all, but I did ask him where he’d gotten these things.  The lighter he had found in the yard outside (note to self: talk to B about not leaving things laying about), and the smokes a friend had gotten for him.  I told him if he felt he was getting desperate for a cigarette or anything else, that he should come to me and I would talk with him, and see if we couldn’t work something out.

It goes against my principles to allow one of my kids to smoke, especially when they are not of leagal age to even be purchasing cigarettes. I’m a firm believer in following the laws where controlled substances are concerned, though I’ve been known to make exceptions in certain cases.  I believe this is going to be one of those cases where I’m going to have to allow it in some ways, if only to keep him from the larger of the evils he’s been choosing.  we can worry about breaking him of this habit at a later time, when things are more stable.  It would also be hypocritical of me to really get down on him for smoking since B and I both smoke.  But as a parent, I can forbid it anyway, as it’s against the law for him.  so I’m going to compromise and allow it when necessary, in order to help him make better choices and also to keep him away from his crazy friends for the time being.  He need sto be stronger, emotionally, in order to  stand up to them and make better choices for his own life.  right now, he’s not, and is easily influenced by these people.  I’m not saying he can’t be friends with who he wants, I’m basically just making him take a bit of a break from them in order to regroup and hopefully thinkthings through more fully.  so if I have to allow him the occasional cigarette to keep him from taking off and smoking dope or any other number of unacceptable behaviors, so be it.  it’s killing me inside, but it’s the least of the evils, you know?

Right now, I have to concentrate on getting him to accept the rules and follow them, and also to concentrate on learning to trust that I really do have his best interests at heart, and that by coming to actually talk calmly with me, that I’ll help him through anything.  Basically, if he can start acting like the adult he believes himself to be, I will be much more willing to treat him as such, and then we can respect each other and have that trust again that we both desperately need.

So, yes, I was impressed by his actions, and I think we were both ready to tear up some.  I thanked him for his honesty, and told him that it means so very much to me.  I let him escape because I also needed some time to compose myself, but in a little while, when I think we’re both more in control of our emotions, I’ll go talk to him some more. I think we’re long overdue or some real communication, and hopefully, little by little, I can draw him out some and things will get better.

I have no illusions that this is the last I’ll see of troublesome behavior from him, he is a teenager, after all.  But hopefully this can be the turning point, and the troubles we’ve been having will become fewer and further between, and if we’re very lucky, he will make the necessary changes for himself, and these things will eventually stop happening altogether.  Those are the goals I’m shooting for in any case.

There are so many times I have just wanted to give up, many times I have wished I could just hand him off to someone else to deal with.  But there isn’t really anywhere he can go long-term, and because I just cannot stand idly by and watch him destroy himself and his future, and make our home-life hellish inthe process, I have been sticking it out.  and raising M has been probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.   But I’m doing it.  and maybe, just maybe, when he’s grown, I will have done enough right by him to ensure a decent life for him.

The little man was made of cheesy baked snacks and pencil shavings.

Hi, I’ve been up since 5:30 this morning!  And I went to bed after midnight!  And I got up once in the night to pee!  And I couldn’t fall back asleep for a good half-hour! Can you tell I had a lot of coffee this morning?

Had to get up extra-early to wake B up so he could take M to weightlifting by 6AM.  Stinking football coaches.  I get their logic up to a point, but I think it’s terribly inconvenient.  B says he’ll be the one to take M the 3 mornings a week he has to go, but I am not entirely sure B actually will.  I love my husband, but I know how he is most mornings, and awake and coherent is rarely an apt description, to put it nicely.  So, chances are, it’s going to end up being Me shuttling him there and back most mornings, and that just plain sucks.  On the upside, it’ll help prepare me for going full-time running a kitchen, if I ever get the job.

Speaking of which, i got my test results in the mail yesterday, and I did pass.  with the equivalent of a low ”B” (I think).  a score of 72 out of 85. which works out to 84.something-percent. I don’t know, a score of 60 is considered passing, so 72 is halfway decent, I’d think.  I’m amazed I even passed, considering I had no clue about a lot of the stuff on the test and did the majority of it on a “best-guess-by-logic” basis.  Quite a lot of the questions, quite frankly, had little to do with my actual training.  But that’s okay, because even the test was a learning experience for me.  Now, if a full-time food-services job opens up, I will at least be on the list to be considered and I have at least 2 people who hold that same position to vouch for me and who recommend me for it. so there’s that.  In the meantime, I’m checking the district website every few days to see if the job I want has opened up, and I think I’ll check with the main offices every so often, as well.  Because sometimes, they don’t post the openings on the website right away, and instead post them in interoffice memos… which means if I want that job, I have to keep on top of things, especially since it’s summer and I won’t have the access to interoffice job-postings that I did during the school-year. 

Aside from all that, not much happening.  I have some miscellaneous shopping to do today, and unfortunately, it’s one of those times where I have several different stores to hit up, and each store only has a few of the items I need.  Which means lots of stops.  *sigh*  So I’m going to try to get all my running done while Laura’s in summer school, so I can just go drop her off, do all my shopping, pick her up, then come home and stay home.

And on that note, it’s almost time for me to head out.  Have a great day, y’all!

Apropos of nothing: fill-in-the-blank with your own witty title

Well, I had an interesting, insane, busy weekend.  May things calm down some from here on out.

here’s a quick run-down of Saturday alone:

1) jewelry making,

2)taco-dip making,

3)prepping everyone to leave and go to a party or gradma’s house,

4) drive to Milw. and be berated for every personal failing on the way there by husband

5) drop kids of by my mom, talk for a bit

6) arrive at party, nearly get into a fight with ina hour of arrival, avoid husband for the most part and have fantastic time

7) leave party and pick up youngest child at my mom’s, stop my brother from spraying hazardous, testicle-shrivelling, degreaser on my toddler son, leave mom’s

8 (or eleventeen, if you prefer) swing by dad and grandfather to inspect ratty old mattress and boxspring, agree to take them just to shut dad up about it once and for all, visit grandfather and discover he is depressed, talk with him for a bit and try to comfort him over the loss of my grandmother, head for home

9) stop at a gas station because the little guy needs milk or he will cry the whole way home; hit highway

10) arrive home and attempt to put little guy to bed, discover he has sand all over his body and a raging 2-year-old-sized hard-on in his very wet diaper.  clean up and change baby and finally put him to bed. 

11) watch idiotic tv with husband, discover he “needs attention” 

12) give husband attention, only for him to crap out midway through, go to sleep.

But wait, it gets better!  Sunday:

1) get up, discover I’ve become distinctly dotty sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

2) take care of business, attempt to write blog entry and give up after half a dozen tries

3) get baby up and ready for the day

4) start cleaning house with a vengeance since that was one of the cheif complaints in the bitchfest-o-rama on the ride to Milw.  make coffee for jerkface of an ungrateful husband because it’s father’s day.

5) avoid husband like the plague for most of the day, eat nothing because I feel like a fat cow and not eating makes me feel better, mentally.

6) get into mini-argument with husband over my supposed “bad attitude of the beaten-down little housewife”. give up and let him win, because he’s not going to listen to anything I haveto say anyway.

7) drive to in-laws’ and pretend to make nice while not-so-secretly seething and snapping at a few family members when they give your 2-year-old permission to go into a freezing-cold pool, fully clothed in a dirty diaper.

8 (eleventeen) contemplate apologizing and decide not to as this family would never apologize to you had positions been reversed, make an effort to be nicer

9) watch husband make an extra-strong drink like a big moron, knowing he can’t hold his liquor and say so in the nicest way I know how, get ignored and mutter imprecations under my breath for awhile.

10) head home, i’m driving because B shouldn’t be. 

11) get home and discover B is apparently out of cigarettes, leave boys there and take B to gas station for more, have minor discussion of weekend’s events/attitudes, come to general understanding of each other, but keep eyes on the road so as not to get into an accident. 

12) arrive home, put boys to bed, sit around for a bit then head to bed, where cramps kick in full-force and it feels like a damn miscarriage happening.  pass out from pain, awake at 4 am to pee go back to bed and toss and turn for a couple more hours before giving up and get up for the day.

and here I am.

And today promises to be no better. I HAVE to make a run to the store for some higher-absorbency tampons, and while I’m there, I plan to pick up a bubble-blowing gun for Jimmy so he doesn’t continue to accidentally consume bubble-solution everytime he wants to play with bubbles.  Later I have to drop M at his football camp and drive to Milw. to pick up both daughters, head back into town and pick up M from his football camp and then start making dinner so B doesn’t yell at me for neglecting to do that. 

Truthfully, despite the insanity and teeth-gritting pain and all that, I actually had a pretty good weekend.  It would have been pretty much perfect if B had been nicer, but what can ya do? that man’s just a horse’s ass sometimes.

Chicken Noodle Soup Cans Do Not Make Good Banks

I never did get to finish making my salsa.  Tuesday was a bit… distracting, Wednesday wasn’t much better.  M’s been a royal pain.  But I’m not writing to crab about him.  I could, but it’d be a very long, pointless post.  plus, in writing the eleventy million drafts of this post I have crabbed about him ceaselessly.  I’m dealing, now.

B has also been upsetting me; just being a jerk.  Today’s day 4 of my being off work for the summer, and for the past 3, he has made snarky comments alluding to my laziness and non-job-havingness.  He won’t be able to say anything to me like that today, at least not when he comes home for lunch, because I won’t be here.  M starts a football camp today, so for 4 1/2 hours I’m free of him.  I am planning on dropping him off and then heading out to run an errand or two or four.

Last night, I discovered a big, painful lump on my head.  I do not know why it is there or what it is, but I am calling it Edgar.  Edgar yells at me all the time, even when I’m not prodding him with a fingertip, trying to figure out his origin.  Prodding only makes Edgar yell louder.  Bad Edgar. 

Maybe Edgar is a reaaaaallllllly bad, realllly deep, incompletely developed zit.  Or Edgar could be The Cancer.  Not out of the realm of possibility, but not high on the list of probability.  Or, you know, he could be a troll.  Whatever Edgar is, he seems like he’s sticking around for awhile. 

You know what? I think all guys are just making me crazy, all the way across the board.