Thirteen Things About Mr 9, about to be 10.

Sometimes the symmetry of my life astonishes me, how odd is it that my 2 younger children were born 3 years, 1 month & 3 days apart & that their birthdays also fall nearest to the paychecks which I get an extra day of pay for holidays (Memorial day for ms 13 & 4th of July for mr 10) to cover their birthdays? Here are 13 about Mr almost 10- he’ll be 10 on July 14th.

1.  He’s the most cheerful person I know. 

2.  Even at almost 10 he’s always hungry.

3.  Although he can put the food away, he’s very picky & would live on hot dogs, green beans & pizza if I would let him.

4.  He loves to swim, river, ocean, pond or pool, he doesn’t care, just get him in the water.

5.  He alternates throughout the day between passive TV watching & running around outside to check the garden, feed & torment the cats & work on digging the holes he’s made in the yard behind the shed.

6.  Not a day goes by that he doesn’t push me to get him candy. He is terribly candy obsessed.

7. Luckily he inherited his dad’s genetics & is skinny as a rail even with all the TV watching & candy eating attempts.

8.  He wants to run a bakery/resturant when he grows up & is full of plans for which of my recepies he’s going to use.

9.  If you like bread & desserts, you’ll like his resturant I think.

10. True to his baker/chef plan he loves to help me cook in the kitchen, although he often disappears when it’s time for clean up. (not too surprising there)

11.  As the “man” of the house, he takes care of the mess when the cats bring us “gifts” I would not want to be the person who someday, for some reason, excavates the ditch across the road from our house, as that is the mouse/bird/mole burial/dumping ground.

12.   He reminds me of my brother a lot, but not so much that it hurts.

13.  Finally at nearly 10 he can clean his room on his own & get it looking pretty good (as long as you don’t look under the bed!)

July Begins

It’s going to be a busy month, I hope to (maybe) have a little more time to visit on here. Then again, I may not. I’m still a lot more interested in sleeping & hanging out with the kids than in any computer usage at all just lately (you can ask Chrissie, who has emailed me a lot just lately, not disuaded by my lack of response- it’s not personal, I’m just not online very much these days).

After work Friday night I had to go to Walmart, which is my least favorite thing to do (but one I do more often than I’d like, due to their cheap prices) I had forgotten to even look for shish kebab skewers at either of the local grocery stores on our sojurns to them on Thursday & Friday- one each day- after picking up ms 19 from work- and before her- mr 9 & ms 13 from school at 1230 (boy, am I glad that’s over with- it was 2 weeks of summer school & it seemed more like 2 months!)

I found wooden skewers pretty quickly (I spent twice as much time looking for metal ones than it took me to find the wooden ones- they didn’t have any metal ones at all) I decided to just do the grocery shopping while I was there rather than take the kids to C’Burg on Sunday.  It was remarkably quiet, calm & relaxed, I used the calculator on my phone (we’re on a very strict budget this week, very strict) there was no yammering about ice cream, cookies or cake & no fussing about this one didn’t like this & the other one doesn’t like that.

I can’t say I’ll never take the kids grocery shopping again, but it was a nice change of pace, the other drawback is midnight to some ridiculously early hour is when walmart stocks the shelves so the asiles are crowded with boxes & surly unpackers who are expected to work at a pace of a box in 45 seconds, I realize by shopping at that hour I’m in their way & so I try not to go there & get in their way any more than I have to & every other Friday night would be too much in my opinion so I’m sure after vacation the kids & I will be wandering around Walmart on the Saturday after I get paid for at least the next few weeks (they’re saying we’re going to have shift changes in late August- I don’t think they’ll be mandatory & I’m also not sure whether I’ll stand pat or go back to days since summer will be over & the kids back in school)

The fourth dawned with typical noise, Ms 19’s BF starting up his loud truck to go visit a friend after taking ms 19 to work @ 5:30 am & coming back to our house to nap for a few hours, as soon as he was gone mr 9 showed up in my room to visit & we had a nice conversation, he let me nap for a few more hours a little later & then ms 13 came down to visit & woke me up again, we were all lounging around my bed when I heard what I think may be a squirrel in the ceiling so I asked mr 9 to go grab a cat outside & put it in the ceiling up in ms 13’s room.

He did so, but then came down with a cat, we asked why he had the cat & he explained that this was the other cat (they look very much alike) & that it came out of the ceiling when he put the first one in the ceiling, so apparently we weren’t hearing a squirrel or a mouse, but the cat. He sent that cat outside & sat back down on the bed, there’s a third hole in my ceiling from other cats (most notably 19’s past BF’s cat) which is right above the left side of my bed, we could hear the cat which was still up there walking around & mr 9 pointed at the hole & said in a whisper “shh- I see fur” I looked up with him & suddenly, there was the cat’s face in the hole, looking down at us, just like Jack Nicholson, in the movie of the Shining, the cat was staring down at us like: “here’s kitty” & we all screamed. Maybe you had to be there (ms 19 didn’t find this story amusing at all but her BF did).

We got up, fooled around with breakfast for me, lunch for them, mr 9 went out to pile tree branches & sticks from around the yard into the wood pile we’ve been accumulating for over 2 years, (last year no one was into burning brush on the fourth so we didn’t do it) we hung around, I read a little, ms 13 watched some tv & mr 9 joined her, then we had to go pick up ms 19, her BF didn’t have the gas to go get her himself so he rode with us since he was back from his friends house.

We came back home & the kids & I set up all the shish kebab skewers with meat, veggies etc. I tried to get ms 19 to come make the rice pilaf as that’s her favorite part (& she sprung for the better, more expensive, Near East brand over the Rice a Roni brand which I’ve found is not too bad- 2 boxes even) She declined & she & the BF hung out upstairs until after the kids & I had the grill going & the rice a boiling away, mr 9 surprised me & took over the grilling, he did great, I was a little worried but he placed everything very carefully & was able to turn the skewers without burning himself he takes after his dad I guess, very talented in the grilling out department, it’s almost too bad I have such a terrible grille!

Ms 19 & the BF set the table on the front porch & we all ate together out there, it was lovely & cool out there, the cats were a bit of a nusicannce but eventually, when the food was gone, they provided some entertainment,  we had watermelon for desert, cleaned up the dishes together & Then mr 9 & the BF got the fire going, we sat out by the fire for 3 hours or more telling ghost stories & chatting, it was great, when it got full dark we lit up the few sparklers I had been able to buy (things were a little tight entertainments-wise)

Then we doused the remains of the fire as it started to sprinkle rain in earnest, cleaned up & settled in the house, ms 19 & the BF went off on their own & I, as promised due to the ghost stories read mr 9 & ms 13 5 or 6 short stories from a book which I loved when I was 9’s age, when I owned this cheap plup paperback it had a skull with rolling eyes on the cover & was called “tales to make your blood run cold” when ms 19 got it (about 6 years ago from scholastic books at school) it was called “Tales For the Midnight Hour” I had tried just recently to interest mr 9 in reading a few stories in it but he wasn’t buying, the stories I read last night generated some interest though & he went to bed a little early tonight to read a couple of them to himself. (Victory!)

Today was rainy all day (woe to the laundry on the line which we forgot about last night) the day was very quiet & low key, I watched a few movies with the kids, picked up ms 19 again from work & cut ms 13’s hair, she’s happy, I have my doubts about this new haircut- originally she wanted it to the bottoms of her ears & I refused, we compromised at her chin but it still looks very short to me, with the curl her hair has developed in the past few years, she looks like a 1920’s flapper with a bob & a marcel wave! I suppose if it makes her happy it’s ok though.

Before                                                                                                  After

Friday Fill in #131

1. When I heard we were going back to Mandatory overtime I I was actually kind of glad about it (at least we’re not getting laid off). {Yes, I know this was supposed to be for commentary on the recent celebrity deaths but really, I don’t care much for or about any of them- except maybe Ed McMahon, because I always wanted to see him at my door with one of those giant checks!)

2. Laughter is always the best medicine. (Although living well as the best revenge is my personal favorite)

3. It’s late, but I’m still up & wide awake, I go to sleep earlier than anyone I work these same late hours  (5pm to 130am) with but get up later- weird! I just can’t do on 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

4. My kids come first always.

5. My eyes have seen entirely too much greed, stupidity & foolishness.

6. The shish kebab meat’s marinade smells strongly. (and deliciously)

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting the hell out of work as early as possible (& reading the book my boss loaned me in my free time there at work), tomorrow my plans include shish kebab, a bonfire to burn the excess branches & brush in our yard & s’mores & sparklers with the kids around the bonfire and Sunday, I want to rest & relax, but we’ll be running around doing grocery shopping!

June Review

1.  Photo of Me: This is one of those pictures which show why
I don’t like to have pictures taken of
me, we were at the river on one of
the lovely days in June, Chrissie
& I didn’t swim, but all the kids did
& a lovely time was had by all however, the picture Chrissie snapped caught me with a weird look on my face due to some joke Mr 9 had just made!

2.  Current Candle Scents:  I had my rose-scented candle lit the other night, otherwise we are usually using incense to off set the scent of the cats – who have been kicked outside for the duration, both due to their inability to understand the use of a litter box & the experience we had last summer around this time with fleas to an extent you couldn’t even sit on the couch without keeping your feet up on the couch because the fleas in the rug were so plentiful you would be bitten to death.

3.  What I am Currently Reading: I spent the majority of June reading the first 2 books in the series by  Charlaine Harris which are the inspiration for True Blood on HBO. Dead Until Dark & Dead in Dallas were both pretty quick, fun reads & both ms 19 & I are impatiently waiting for the co-worker who loaned them to me to get the third book back from another co-worker who has borrowed it-(we may just go buy book 3 on Sunday)

4.   Newest Music Added to my Playlists: Careless Whisper remade by Seether (hated the original, take some amusement & pleasure from this remake- they say you should never remake a song unless you can add something to it & Seether certainly did!) & Too Bad by Nickelback (I didn’t know it was by them when I started liking this song- which was a long time ago- it was when we still lived in the trailer)

5. Movies I Saw:   I’ve been doing well to keep up with the tv shows I watch, let alone any movies.

6.  Something Yummy I Made This Month:    Very little cooking, the chicken with broccoli, cheese & rice was pretty good, best thing I’ve been eating is Fudgicles with no added sugar, at 40 calories each they’re perfect to eat while I wind down before going to sleep after work, or before I leave for work, when I want something sweet.

7.  The Last Place I Ate Out:  We had Pizza Hut 2 weeks ago Saturday, not haute cuisine, but not bad either especially since we had stuffed crust pizza!

8. Something That Made Me Cry:   Nothing really, I’m pretty at peace with the being on the phones at work even.

9.  Something That Made Me Laugh:  Warm weather, the kids playing around, mr 9 finding tons of raspberries I didn’t even know about in our yard (of course, we’ll still be going up the mountain on this Sunday to pick more in our big place for them)

10.  Something I Looked Forward to This Month:   Ms 13’s birthday.

11.  Something I Am Thankful For:   That the ex didn’t end up being able to fly the kids to OR where he lives now.

12.  Something I Want to Remember About this Month:  It’s always a good idea to imagine the very worst which can happen & then imagine yourself dealing with it/living through it. You can get through anything in this way.

13.. A Photo I Took This Month:
Ms 13 on her birthday, the new computer doesn’t have a picture editing setup yet so I apologize for how orange this cell phone photo is.

Friday Fill in #130

1. She had a great deal of stress & felt entitled to take the evening off.

2. my cell phone is by my side, always.

3. I know this: as soon as you think everything is going well, life will throw you a curve ball.

4. I’m sort of glad, that even at 19, 13 & (almost) 10, my kids need me once in awhile still.

5. These words apply to me: fat, cheerful, too busy.

6.  We had to cut the grass while the sun was shining.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing my abbreviated work week, even though it will actually be Saturday morning when I do, tomorrow my plans include hanging out with Chrissie & her daughter, along with my kids, somewhere wet- since it’s going to be nearly 90 and Sunday, I want to take Chrissie & her daughter to the train station & manage to find my way back home without getting us lost!

Thirteen Random Things I’m Thinking About Tonight

Working nights means I’m home so late that it’s really Thursday when I get ready to sit down & do this, in my more “together” weeks, I get it ready Wednesday before work, but the past few weeks have been chaotic- see last week when I posted my thirteen at 2:30AM on Friday morning!

1. The ex called just after I started work this evening (he doesn’t currently know my schedule) he just left a message for me to call him- which freaks me out every time, it turns out when I finally got him on the phone 5 hours later that he says VA is taking him back to court to try to get more child support for my kids (& they didn’t even let me know!)

2.  I’m really not at all surprised about that, everyone, every company & apparently every state run agency seems to be pawing through things looking for places to get money, people to hound for more money & ways to bring in more in general.

3.  They keep advertising these get rich quick schemes on the radio, I’m inclined to check out one of the websites, just to see what it’s all about, I’d probably still have better luck in winning the lottery though.

4. Ms 13 & mr 9 are in summer school for the next 2 weeks (began Monday & ends 7/3) This was one of the reasons I wanted to go on nights, but it’s proving more difficult than I expected, currently a normal day for me is get home at 215am, go to bed asap, get up at 810, get the kids ready & take them to school (the school is only 3 minutes away, one saving grace) come back home & fall back into bed until 11 or so, go get the kids at 1230 & come back home until I have to go to work.

5. Tomorrow & Friday (along with Monday & Tuesday) ms 19 is also working, so you can add get up at 530, drive her 12 miles to work, come back home & go back to bed until 810 & then go back to school at 1230 & then back out again at 210 in order to be at her work at 230 to pick her up & take her home again.

6. Luckily this is only for 2 weeks, I’ll have earned my vacation when we leave on 7/17.

7.  Tonight, while I was at work an hour early doing overtime, they announced that we’re back on mandatory overtime, to the tune of 4 random hours a week (this is preferable as last time we were on mandatory overtime, we were assigned 5 hours on one of our 2 days off)

8. I would much rather tack an hour or two of overtime onto an 8 hour day than ruin one of my paltry 2 days off by going to work for 4 or 5 hours.

9.  I’m still knocking the calls out at work, I’m taking 200+ calls a week & my call length is 2 minutes below the maximum they want me at (also 2 or 3 minutes below the others in my group) Often people fuss about quick calls equals poor customer service, but the customer satisfaction polls that have been done for my service have been pretty good if I do say so myself.

10.  The additional overtime required means that I’ll be able to be a little free-er with my money on vacation in July- which is a very good thing.

11.  Ms 19 is staying home when we go on vacation, says she can’t afford to miss 3 days of work, her BF is probably going to come stay with her too. I’m just hoping they’ll have enough to eat.

12.  Somehow they thought I was supposed to have a paid day off today at work, not a good thing at all & I still can’t determine how that was ever set up or requested, there was no reason for me to be out today.

13.  I’m slightly excited, but mostly apprehensive about taking Chrissie & her daughter to Lynchburg VA on Sunday morning to catch a train to Massachusetts. Excited because I like to go different places, apprehensive because Lynchburg is not really a fun place & because we have to be there at 6 in the morning, I’ll be staying up all night Saturday night & we’ll be leaving at 3 in the morning because I haven’t been to the train station there in about 16 years & I am worried about locating it.

Still Here

I am still alive, it’s not a robot posting the Thursday Thirteens & the Friday Fill in’s, I’m just not really feeling the writing thing right now, I’m still adjusting to being on the phones again at work  & while it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, it’s a lot more stress. At home with the kids during the day is ok, very distracting & often either mr 9 or ms 13 is on the computer already when I get up (if they’re not still asleep when I get up- as is the case today- everyone has become a night owl since Mom is a night owl now it seems) them being around definitely has a censoring effect on my blogging, they’re always coming up to me & asking what I’m doing, wanting to read over my shoulder & playing editor about what I can & can’t say about them. Summer school starts tomorrow though & hopefully I’ll have a little bit of quiet time in the late morning for the next two weeks at least.
The other thing which I’m heavily focused on is the vacation plans, I know I’ve said in other years that we weren’t going to have much money to go with, but this year is going to be even worse, in other years I’ve had $200. or $300. put away from the tax refund money to help fill out the vacation cash, this year, with next to no refund, I’m going to have just what I can keep out of my paycheck. I’m going to try to do some extra overtime in the next few weeks, but it will really, only matter on the 2 weeks before the paycheck I’ll collect on the day we leave on vacation, anything before that, for the next paycheck (just 1 more before the day we leave on vacation) will end up being spent, that is just the way it is, my expenses always seem to expand to fit the amount of available cash I have on hand.
I found last year’s check register in my bedside table drawer the other day (I’m still not at all sure what it was doing there) and found that I’d been just short of $1000. When we left for vacation last year, this year I will have just a little more than half that (If I’m lucky & If I crack down on myself & do some real overtime, not just an hour here & a half hour there) Of course, we went for 14 days last year, we’re only going to be gone 10 days this year. It will be interesting to see just how this goes, mr 9 & ms 13 are getting $100. each on the day we leave, they requested this instead of birthday gifts & I’m complying, I wonder how long they’ll be able to make their money last with purchases of fascinating things they can’t seem to find in VA.

Friday Fill ins.

1. All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting Them to act as you say, not as you do.

2. Show me a good loser and I will show you a mom who’s played entirely too many games of monotony Monopoly.

3. A few days off at the same time is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one time.

4. Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxis and waiting tables.

5. I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine work and fatherhood.

6. It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without mushrooms or onions in it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to I guess you could say work, looking forward is a stronger statement than I really feel like it deserves, tomorrow my plans include grocery shopping, taking the kids to a few places they want to purchase things with their allowances & dinner out on the cheap and Sunday, I want to maybe go swimming at the river again!

Thirteen Animals I’ve Encountered Here

My apologies to anyone who stopped by earlier, somehow my post was posted way down the page on the date I began it instead of today’s date.

There are many things I love about living in VA, not the least of which is all the various forms of wildlife we see here. Growing up in Small town suburban Rockland MA & then living in Haverhill MA- albeit on the outskirts “almost” in the country. We didn’t see too many wild animals, just the occasional squirrel, opossum & raccoon, we get plenty of those down here too. But I was here in VA for the first time in 1987 before I ever saw a live deer.

1.  Now I see way too many deer. There is seldom an evening when I drive home from work that I don’t see at least a couple, last night it was 8, some in pairs some singly, but entirely too many. They also, I discovered last Sunday evening, when I finally moseyed out to the garden, have been visiting me at home, the first row of cucumber plants are nibbled nearly to death, there are a few raggedy looking leaves on each one left but I doubt they’ll flourish now…Sigh.

2.  The second year here in this house I was enchanted to discover we had a real live fox living in the field across the road, we would see him trot across the road & through our yard, probably on the way to the creek at the bottom of the hill behind our house, nearly daily. The cry of a fox is somewhat unnerving (sounds like a woman screaming) but other than that it has been really lovely seeing that bright red scoundrel with his black socks occasionally.

3. Until last week. Nature is a cruel place, but crueler still is the internal combustion engine & it’s fast moving, lethal metal capsule, the fox got struck down in the road in the curve before my house. This did bring about a fascinating (if you like that sort of thing- I don’t) array of big, fat, ugly buzzards (they may have been turkey vultures- I’m not all that up on my birds of prey identification) picking up lunch in the road.

4. Another bird of prey we see a lot of here are Hawks, mostly red-tailed, I love to see them for the most part, watching them soar on the wind currents is definitely an enjoyable pastime, just as long as I can’t actually see the poor rodent they’re circling.

5. When I got home from picking up ms 19 at work one recent Tuesday afternoon (just before school ended for the year) I discovered a dead snake right in front of the porch. Mr 9 was ecstatic, he put it in a jar & kept it in the fridge overnight so as to bring it to school to show his science teacher, no email yet suggests she was at least accepting of this lovely uh, gift?

6. Raccoons are always amusing to see, I saw a family of them crossing the road the other night on the way home. They’re so cute, but not any fun to pet I understand.

7.  Not too long ago one of the cats caught a red headed woodpecker, they brought it as a prize & dropped it on my porch, I was saddened because that bird was beautiful, not just the bright red head but the lower brown & white feathers were just a gorgeous pattern. I wish I could have seen it live.

8. We do see quite a few live hummingbirds, they’re fun to see although the last feeder I bought for them lost it’s stopper over the winter, so they’re not able to eat at our house right now, they seem to remember from year to year & keep coming back to check.

9.  We of course, have cats, just 2 right now, but they’re entertaining in their own ways in spite of being not wild, the other domestic creatures we can see from our yard are cows & a llama, why the neighbors have a llama in with the cows (& only one, it’s not an alpaca fur farm or anything like that) I will probably never know but everyone gets a big kick out of it when he deigns to walk up the hill & appear across the road from our house. Here’s a picture of one of the many cows which have broken fences & come up the road to visit us at the house through the past 4 years at our new home, we have cow pastures on all 4 sides for at least 1/4 mile in every direction so it’s not too surprising that we see roaming cows occasionally.

10. Rabbits, lots of rabbits, some years are big rabbit years, some years you hardly see any at all. This year seems to be a rabbit year, I’ve seen lots & lots of them so far. (also does not bode well for the garden)

11. Of course the cats are always leaving moles & mice at the door, they’re not exactly welcome “gifts” but at least it proves they’re stopping them from getting into the house.

12. Last night I was amazed to see the tiniest opossum I have ever seen on the side of the road, (small as a 3 week old kitten- he had no business in the road) he proved to me that opossums may be learning from past lives because he saw my headlights, turned around & jumped off the side of the road into the ditch.  I didn’t see a mom, so maybe he had an object lesson for why not to go in the road, somewhere in the weeds nearby.

13.  This wasn’t all that recent but I still haven’t gotten over the bear we saw on the way to go berry picking up in the mountains.

Last Weekend

I never got around to putting anything down online last weekend, mostly because we were busy having fun, but also it was hot & easier to just relax in the living room where the ceiling fan works.

Chrissie & her daughter came over after we went grocery shopping Saturday & we all hung out, there was a late evening run to the store when Chrissie realized she’d forgotten to pick up some sleep inducingasprin which she often uses, that was fun for us because just she & I went, most of the rest of the day we had mr 9, ms 12 13 (I keep forgetting she’s 13 now) & Chrissie’s daughter Sami with us.

Sunday we all slept late, ms 19 was working, luckily for me her BF took her to work so I didn’t have to get up at 530 to do so. Once we were all up & around we decided to go to the river. Our normal place to swim was taken up with a fisherman so we went to ms 19’s favorite spot which has too steep a bank for me to make it down, I hadn’t planned to swim, although I would have liked to wade. Chrissie didn’t go in the water either though, so we sat under the trees & chatted while the kids played in the water.

The current was strong but Ms 13 & Sami walked upstream & rode the current diagonally over to the other side to sit on a rock, then went back diagonally against the current downstream a little to get back to the middle, calmer water.

Sami had plans to go out Sunday evening so we packed up & got ready to leave just as Ms 19 & her BF showed up, we decided to stay a little longer since they were there especially since Sami texted the guy she was supposed to go out with & he said he wouldn’t be picking her up until later on.

After awhile we headed home, Chrissie & Sami left, the kids & I had dinner & the evening was capped off with some rummy playing because mr 9 was disappointed that we didn’t do a game night the night before with Chrissie & Sami.

1.  I grew up thinking somehow I was responsible for/could change or help my mother’s depression.

2.  Lol News & the other LOL blogs was were the last website(s) I was at before coming here.

3. Why don’t you Go for a swim at the river? (We did last weekend & had a great time!)

4. Music helps me relax.

5. Thanks for the rainy spring we’ve had this year mother nature, you can stop now!

6. I find people who shove their religious beliefs down my throat very off-putting.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing what seemed to be a very long week at work- something about this Monday through Friday thing after nearly 8 years of alternative days off seems to make the week drag, tomorrow my plans include Just taking the trash out, maybe a little cleaning, depending on the weather we may go to the parkway and Sunday, I want to just relax & enjoy my day off!

Thirteen Things About my (now) Thirteen Year Old

Today is my middle child’s 13th birthday so in honor of her here are 13 things about her.

1. She is very opinionated & has no trouble expressing her opinions to those she’s close to.

2.  She was born with a lazy eye & had surgery at 3 & 1/2 to help to correct it, she should wear glasses but manages to “lose” the glasses within 6 weeks of obtaining a new set (very bad because the state insurance we had up until this year only covered new glasses every 2 years)

3.  She likes to cook, especially deserts & is very enthusiastic about helping in the kitchen.

4.  She feels that doing the dishes 5 nights a week, keeping her room clean & helping to pick up around the rest of the house is way too much for her to do.

5.  In spite of her poor eyesight, she does like to read (a child after my own heart) she’s also not resistant to book suggestions which I make (unlike her older sister)

6.  She takes after both her dad & I in that she’s a music lover & will have music on 24/7 if she’s allowed to.

7.  There is little she’s not at least a little interested in (typical Gemini).

8.  To my dismay she’s very interested in pop culture & the lives of the stars, to the point of buying scandal sheet type magazines with her allowance (ok, yes, at nearly the same age, I bought Hit Parader, Creem & Circus to my parent’s dismay, but rock & roll in the ’80’s, in retrospect seems purer & less jaded than Britney & Lindsey et.al flashing their crotches at the paparazi)

9.  Until she was 5 she wouldn’t watch tv because she couldn’t sit still for more than 5 minutes or so before losing interest in it & going off to play or do something else. She also didn’t sit still for me to read to her when she was young, for the same reasons.

10. Sadly since she turned 12 (& now, on day one of age 13) her hair has gone a little crazy, before it was wavy, now it’s frizzy, wants to curl but not enough to make her happy & is- in her words- poofy, many tears & man hours have been spent on straightening, conditioning & flattening her very wayward hair. Currently she tells me she is learning to “embrace the poof”

11. She’s a middle child but not as much of a peacemaker as most middle children are. She’ll often tell me in rage how much she hates her older & younger siblings, although if they’re being nice to her, she’s usually nice to them.

12.  She is starting to do quite well in school now that she’s getting older.

13.  She’s always happy to spend time with me, unlike her siblings who have lots of other interests & things to do, if I’m home ms 13 is almost always hanging out with me.

Friday Fill In #127

1.  I’m so glad to finally be at home.

2. My favorite thing for dinner lately has been anything which didn’t come out of my work’s vending machines, working nights has it’s detriments.

3. I know my kids say I bark! bark! bark!

4. A nice long walk would probably be a good idea occasionally, but I never seem to have the time.

5. I would love to hear some good news.

6. When all is said and done, things could always be worse.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing work for the week – my first Monday through Friday week since I started training at my job back in 2001! tomorrow my plans include going grocery shopping with my younger kids & Chrissie who is coming for a visit after the grocery shopping and Sunday, I want to rest, relax & recoup for another weird, off, strange Monday through Friday work week! (Still at night though, so still a little left of center)

May Review

1.  Photo of Me: No Photos of me were taken last month (afraid I’d break the camera)

2.  Current Candle Scents:  I burned some lovely rose scented incense.

3.  What I am Currently Reading: The books which occupied most of my interest in May were The Illuminator  by Brenda Rickman Vantrease & How Elizabeth Barret Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medved

4.   Newest Music Added to my Playlists: A bunch of older music, Guns & Roses, Golden Earring, Pink Floyd etc.

5. Movies I Saw:   I’ve been much more into watching the season finales of my favorite tv shows this month rather than movies, although I did watch an old movie called Sweepings the other afternoon which was sad but good.

6.  Something Yummy I Made This Month:     We had some really great chicken with 40 cloves of garlic a few weeks back.

7.  The Last Place I Ate Out:    It was all Wendys, McDonald’s & pizza this month, no “real” restaurants at all.

8. Something That Made Me Cry:   losing the chat status at work I’m still crying over it. At least, internally.

9.  Something That Made Me Laugh:  The utter futility of gardening without a fence.

10.  Something I Looked Forward to This Month:   Warmer & warmer weather, also enjoying the lovely thunder storms we’ve been having, I love to sit & watch the lightning.

11.  Something I Am Thankful For:   The kids & their constant presence making me do things I might not always want to do but should do.

12.  Something I Want to Remember About this Month:  The kids swimming at the river 2 weeks ago Saturday.

13.. A Photo I Took This Month:   actually, I didn’t take this picture, it could go under something that made me laugh, ms 12 is trying to become her older sister, right down to the bizzarely posed pictures to go on her facebook (ms 19 is a myspace girl but as far as I can see, they’re pretty much the same thing) I love mr 9’s weird face in the back ground in this one!

Don’t Call Me!

Day one back on the phones at work was not, well, emotionally it was ok, however, if they were listening to me for quality purposes I’m going to be in trouble, my evening started off poorly as the day person who shares my desk was running late so I had to start at a desk other than my own, I had scripts taped to my computer monitor at my desk to remind me of what I’m supposed to say, but at this other desk- forget it!
They’ve changed the required opening & closing statements so many times in the past year that I had stopped keeping track, unless the new information specifically said that we had to use it on chat I didn’t pay attention at all. And of course, copying & pasting something into a chat box is very different from actually speaking it in a caring tone (another thing I suck at these days) to someone on the phone.
So my scripting was terrible, there’s also the fact that we take transfers & regular calls & it took me most of the evening to figure out which code came up on my computer as a call came in, for which type of call (something it seems my supervisor or someone in a supervisory position might have mentioned before I got on the phone last night- just sayin’)
Being out of sorts in general, even when I realized it was going to be a transfer call I flubbed the (different) greeting 75% of the time.
On the other hand, the evening flew by very quickly & the supervisor in training we have, who updates our stats was very impressed with how quick my calls were, of course, I’m  not all that thrilled because since going to this upper echelon the focus has been more about making the customer happy rather than getting them off the phone quickly. I like to think I do both, and I know in many cases I did so last night. However there were a few that went badly in general, I have forgotten, through not dealing with it on the phone for so long, the general public’s rage in not having television.
Needless to say, I won’t be answering my phone for a few days, I don’t want to talk to anyone, I’m doing enough of it at work.