Sick

Gots a cowld...atchoo!

Yo!

So far I like high school =) Way more professional than the
other school was getting to be, and my kid is actually taking
an interest and learning something. Course he's only been
in school 7 days.

I have come to the conclusion I just butt heads with anyone
living in Ohio. Funny to say that as I was born there and lived
there for the first five years of my life, but the next person
I meet from Ohio and I'm just saying 'see ya'.

Working on the fall cleaning. This week will be doing the windows,
valances, blinds, light fixtures, furniture and floors of the living
room and dining room.

Reconnected with a dear friend yesterday. Just took a shot
on Google and shot an email to someone in Georgia with the same
name, and viola, it's her. We haven't talked in about 13 years,
she remembers my son as a baby. She is a very intelligent and
apparently successful person, with 2 equally as fine kids.
While we tend to exaggerate some on the internet, I have no
reason to doubt what she says, as most of her stories fall into
place from when I knew her before. Yeah, someone with some class!
She was my maid of honor at my first wedding.

Started Christmas shopping. Uh oh.

Still planning on sending hubby to AZ in the fall, but there
is also a house we looked at in Nevada we'd make an offer on
if it goes on the market. It is repossessed by a bank and
we can't find out what the situation is on it. Across the
street from a good friend =)

Slowly working up the courage to cut my own hair, it needs it.
Been studying and watching videos and I know what to do, and
really want to try it. Not so much a money thing (but all
savings help) as much as I want to learn it and who better to try
it on than me??

The Asshole Song By Jimmy Buffett

Just pass the bottle

Woke up this morning and was informed there was no signal on the tv.
Coffee.
Took a shower, got the laundry started, called the Dish Network guy.
Coffee.
Went to town on a back to school shopping trip, came home, called
the Dish Network guy again.
Hubby came home, reset the box on the tv, it's fine.
Called the Dish Network guy back to tell him to cancel my service call.

Get the kid busy organizing his back to school stuff. He informs me
that it all won't fit in the new backpack. That's when I considered aspirin.
We put the stuff in the old backpack, hopefully he'll lose some junk
at school and the stuff can then fit in the new backpack.
Kids next door rang the bell and inquired if I knew who owned the
white and tan dogs.
That did it, extra strength please!

It's that time again

Some say the public education system is going downhill quickly.
I am one of those people.
Last week, we stood in line for TWO FRICKIN HOURS JUST
TO REGISTER THE YOUNGUN FOR HIGH SCHOOL. Not efficient
in my book, and if they can't run that right how should I
expect them to....oh never mind.

I could homeschool easily here and have been looking into it -
On so many levels I could do a better job and occasionally
think about various ways and methods of teaching. But I don't
want to deny the whole high school experience if possible, so
we'll give it a go with the public system. They regularly
p*** me off though - the teachers can't write, grade papers,
and teach when they don't know how themselves. I guess that is
what bothers me the most, when I get an email from a teacher with
many words misspelled, etc.

CLASSIC LITERATURE - Almost a thing of the past. Lately I've
been reading 'Little Women'. I have vowed to re-read some classics
and re-charge my brain. In between the classics I'm into the
Stephanie Plum series, ROFL. Mixing it up a little bit there!

Get me out of here!

Missouri that is.
Mis-ery.

Bear with me. I knew what I was getting into with people
when we moved back to the midwest...I will not insult any
midwesterners or former midwesterners on this page. The
people are different, yes. Besides the point.

This weather is nuts. Are we in the south, the midwest, what?
In the winter it can get cold, just not as long as it does
in other places, and we get snow and ice storms here. Then
spring finally comes and you spend the entire spring hiding
from the tornado potential. Summer gets here and it sizzles,
with that humidity it sucks! Fall isn't that bad in all
honesty.

Hopefully moving to AZ. If not AZ then hopefully Nevada.
Not Nevada then hopefully ANYPLACE but here. Had enough
after seven years!!!! I want back to that low or no humidity.
Back to the mountains. Back to the southwesterners =)

...Eating a lot

Summer vacation means.......

Radio Days

The worst of times, but also some of the best of times.

Accident

As mentioned in the past entries, I had a bad auto accident in 1991.
Hit the only patch of ice between Albuquerque and Denver, and rolled
my Suzuki Samurai on the Raton Pass. And I WASN'T wearing a seatbelt.
Ended up with a concussion, broken ribs, and bruised from toes to top
of head. Could only work part time for months. Came across these pictures
at my parents' house and got them scanned.

I'm here

Been awhile eh?
I'll be back, no worries.

Boot camp

It's almost the official kick off of summer for us,
and that means spring stuff is winding down. And we
are busy, busy BUSY for at least another week and a half.
Something is going on every single day almost between now
and next Monday, and they are getting ready for a trip
after that. Once they're off to the west coast, I have
a list a mile long of what I hope to accomplish, of course
included in that list is plenty of junk food and goofing off!

Need rain? It's here. Some saying we got over 25 inches of the
stuff in about ten days. Lucky where we are, but others not
as fortunate.

Weather a bit steamy now for a few days - highs almost 90
and humidity and dewpoint high. Yep, we'll go right from
winter to summer with not much in between.

Spring Sprung

It was MARVELOUS to have some bright sunny
days with temps in the 70's and even 80's.
But now it's back to reality for awhile as
we're going to be in the 50's and 60's till
further notice =(

Earlier this week my kid went on a school
trip to St. Louis. Hubby and I took the
afternoon to go house shopping, go out for
drinks and eats at Colton's, and then go
to school to wait for the bus.

Which brings me to house shopping - we're
starting to look for a house in the town.
I WANT TO MOVE TO THE MOJAVE DESERT, but he
doesn't want the stifling summers. I hate
the constant cleanup of country life here,
the sharing of the well, the rental neighbors
(although it does get quite interesting on
those occasions when the cops break neighbor's
door down and raid the place), etc. SO
if we're staying, I think city life is for me!
I haven't lived in the city (or town in this
case) in many years, but I can adapt. Just have
to figure out how the cat is going to adjust.

So I find houses of interest, give the paper to
hubby, he checks them out and narrows the list
down. On one, I found a $27,000 fixer upper.
He checked it out, said it was in need of a lot
of TLC, and oh yeah Molly, there's a cemetery
not far from the place. Okay so I thought
a cemetery was across a field or something and
from the house I might glimpse a headstone or two.
I could live with that.
WRONG.
He takes me to the house. We're kind of talking
about how much is too much to put into an old
house. I glance at the very tiny back yard (the
front yard is larger and fenced), and notice
a sign or something. Is that on the property?
What does it say? I go walk through the back
yard, walk up to the sign, look, nothing written.
Look DOWN and there are two freshly dug graves.
WELL EW!
I could sit on the back porch of the house and
throw rocks to the graves. I don't want to
be that close! I did the sign of the cross and
we got out of there.
I did fantasize about Halloween parties at the house
though, how fun they could be =)
We then went on to check out other places.

2nd week of March over

Not totally awesome, but not the worst.

I need to get with the program. Starting
to get the blahs a bit. Hopefully warmer
weather will be upon us soon (it was upper
60's today so that's not a bad start) and
that will help my mood.

First week of March over

And unfortunately it was not the best all around.
Oh it wasn't that bad for me, but for some of my
family:
Last Monday a cousin to a sister in law was swept
away in a flash flood and tragically drowned. She
was in her car when it was washed off the road and
called 911, was on the phone for 4 minutes before
it went dead. Her last minutes were described in
great detail - her panic, her anguish, her unknowing
of what to do. The media really went into this in
great detail. Hopefully it will help save someone
at some point, and it will be a good thing, otherwise
there is no obvious good in sharing the last few moments
of this person's life in such a way. Sometimes
it was better before cell phones!

And this was the second tragedy I heard about in
a matter of about two weeks - as around mid February
a fire claimed the life of 3 small children and
a 24 year old babysitter. The babysitter was on
the phone with 911 when she perished, and her last
minutes of life were shared openly. Again, sometimes
it's better not to know things......

DISH Network installed their services last Thursday.
As much as I watch TV, a converter box would do, but
the others in the household seem ecstatic over the
new lineup of channels.

I finalized one of the summer trips, and booked our
flight and room for Vegas in July - yay!

Bye bye February

I cannot say I'm sad to see you go.
This has been one of the worst months ever.
Not THE worst, but it's certainly up there.

Started out with more inclement weather - snow mainly. And
that meant no school and everyone home driving me nuts.

The school gave me hell in an anonymous letter. My son
missed his 11th day of school and they sent me a generic
form letter full of assumptions and legal threats. We
were supposed to have a conference but due to snow no one
was there, and no one called to reschedule. I had to
write them a message addressing their letter as I can
find no one responsible for sending it. I sent my letter
to the Superintendent and Principal.

I never met the new neighbor, but her mother came over and
bitched me out for 'complaining' about neighbor's dog. Doing
a little investigating afterwards, seems neighbor wasn't supposed
to have a dog, and several neighbors complained to her landlord
about the dog getting loose etc. I took the heat. I came to
the conclusion I wasn't the one that wasn't supposed to have
a dog in the first place, so I wasn't going to put up with
her coming over again.

Our poodle monster Tommy got sick. Two trips to the vet before
it was discovered he had oral cancer, and on February 23rd he
was put down.

On February 24th we had a new dumped dog. Friendly border
collie mix, young female. It was NOT the time and I was NOT
in the mood. I hate people. The next day I begged vets to take
it - vet that charged me almost $200 for caring for Tommy
refused to help at all. Ginger's vet agreed to take it if I
surrendered it with $.

Serious storms were possible last night, and meteorologists were
wetting their pants with anticipation. Luckily nothing bad
happened.

Bye bye February. March is going to be great!

I'm a thief

I wonder how long before the statue of limitations
runs out for stealing elephants?

I wanted to find a picture but after lots of searching
I don't think I have one on the computer. But I am
an elephant thief. Oh I eventually gave him back to the
party I stole him from. Maybe I'd best explain......

When our son was about 3, he constantly was saying he
wanted an elephant. Living in small town, U.S.A. there
was no place to buy a stuffed elephant, a big one like he
wanted. I could order it online but shipping would
cost a fortune.

One dark evening we were driving past the local charity
thrift store. Everything was closed. There sitting on
their front steps was a 2 1/2 foot tall stuffed elephant!!!
Oh my God!!!

What did I do? What would YOU have done, when you spent
weeks listening to your child begging for an elephant?
I pulled that car in and stuffed the elephant in it.

Took Mr. Elephant home and gave him a good disinfecting
and cleaning. And my son enjoyed him for several years.
When he was done enjoying him, we returned him to the
charity. Just a few years late but also a lot cleaner
than when he was there before.

Funny

My husband does electrical work for these local
property owners. They own rental houses, apartment
complexes, shopping centers, business buildings, etc.
They are super cheap, but won't mess around with
electrical problems and will pay his price when something
comes up. On plumbing, however, they have their own
maintenance men who do a shoddy job and try to band
aid everything.

So when hubby goes to work on a job for them, he usually
meets their renters. Before leaving he hands them a card
and says, 'If you have any problems don't hesitate to call'.
Hehehe.

Many occasions one of their renters will call me and
request hubby come over to fix something - it is usually
something minor in the plumbing department, such as the
toilet won't stop running.
Most of the time when they call they tell me their
medical history and problems they're having health wise
(cuz I'm on the other end listening).
After about 15 or 20 minutes I have to break the news to
them - hubby can't run over there unless they intend to
pay the bill themselves. We have to check with their
landlord before going over otherwise. OF COURSE the
renter doesn't want to pay for him to come over. So
I tell them I'll call their landlord and relay the information
(which they already have done multiple times without action)
and see what happens.

I call their landlord and relay the message and we usually
have a laugh or two. They take the 'call me if you need
me message' to heart, without realizing that the landlords
have to approve. I call landlord to relay message in case
it helps them to fix the problem a bit faster.

Happy New Year