1.  Blog every day. (really!)

2.  It’s half past October & I have yet to post a single cool Halloween picture.

3. I haven’t even looked at the cool Halloween Decorating books I spent the last 2 years puchasing cheap on Amazon.

4.  Also, I’m sketching again & think often that I should drag out some of my old art & consider what I’m doing now against it.

5.  Sketching always puts me in mind of my favorite artists – Edward Gorey & Tasha Tudor. I should look through some of their books, especially since this year I’m missing my grandmother more than I have since right after she died in 2006 & Tahsa Tudor makes me think of her as she was a huge fan of Tasha Tudor’s books.

6.  I’m engrossed in my current read: The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry, but don’t ever seem to read when I’m at home, only at work.

7. I should clean up around the house, even the computer keyboard’s keys have a subtle stickiness which I am not enjoying.

8. We have a foam Haunted house to put together, we started last weekend but were rather frustrated with it & it became time for family game night a little too soon so it was put aside, now, what we did have done has fallen apart so we’ll need to start back over from scratch.

9.  As always there are earings, necklaces & other bead involved things calling my name at the back of my head.

10.  The weekend of the 24-25 we’ll be doing our annual chocolate pops making for the kids to give out at school & ms 19 & I to give out at work.

As always, there is embroidery to be done, I’ve finished the Thanksgiving picture I was making & begun an ambitious advent calendar on 14 gauge plastic board. It’s coming along nicely but is the biggest, most structured project I’ve put before myself since I completed ms 13’s Christmas stocking 10 years ago. Everything else I do, I dabble at. Just pick it up & put it away, freehand & pick & choose from multiple sources to make what I want to make. This is a real project with specific instructions & I’m enjoying the challenge.

When I think I have something to say, I still get sidetracked & end up staying up way too late playing mahjong or spider solitaire & after 30-40 minutes of that- I don’t even remember what I had to say!

(or I’ve thought the better of it, since tonight it was a rant about work- best kept to myself!)

We leave Friday afternoon, (ms 19 unexpectedly has to work Friday & I have to stay home until she’s out of work to go pick her up & bring her back home) I’m getting excited about being out of work, seeing my mother & friends & the kids are bouncing off the walls already!

1. Swim at Hampton NH (I admit to being a little more interested in shopping in the stores than swimming- it’s always so cold at Hampton beach!)

2. Visit with my mother, she’s relieved that we already have plans for 4 out of 5 work days so she doesn’t have to miss work while we’re there.

3. Shop at Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall. The kids especially love this & with $100+ each this year to spend, I’m sure we’ll be coming home with some interesting stuff (they both requested cash, and that I hold it for them until vacation time, for their birthdays in June & July this year)

4. Visit my Cousin J & her family, her kids are quite a bit younger than mine, but they get along & J’s my favorite cousin!

5. Visit Ann & her family, many years we’ve stayed 2 or 3 nights with Ann & much thanks to her for putting us up (& her husband for putting up with us) This year the whole thing is downsized, (we’re only going to be in MA for 6 or 7 days total- rather than 12-14 most years) so they may not have to put up with us much at all.

6. Lake Patuckaway. My kids could swim all day every day & never get bored.

7. Visit the Jabberwocky Bookstore & Toy Store, maybe this year we’ll get to do a little general Newburyport shopping too. (probably not, this is going to be a shoestring vacation, at least for me)

8. Salem MA This will be the fourth year I’ve intended to go there (I’ve never been)maybe this time we’ll make it!

9.  We always go to Skip’s for at least 1 meal, their french fries are to die for & the burgers are great too (no lie, this is my mother’s favorite resturant in the whole world!)

10.  Nantasket beach at Hull MA. We’re big on swimming (at least the kids are & as I’m outnumbered & thus outvoted, we do a lot of swimming) and we try to get to Hull at least once or twice each year.

11.  We went to the New England Aquarium 3 years ago & the kids would like to go back, I’m not sure if that will happen this year or not but it’s always a lot of fun (even back when I was a kid, I loved only the Science Museum more than the Aquarium.)

12.  Speaking of the Boston Museum of Science, we haven’t been there in 4 years, so if not this year, definitely next year!

13. On a less touristy note we do always go to the town I grew up in & visit my brother, father & grandparent’s graves (all conveniently in the same cemetary) we also have to do the ‘tour’ of the house I grew up in, the place my ex & I lived when we first moved in together etc. etc. The kids are good about putting up with my rambling on this trip down memory lane most years. This year Chrissie is up in MA too so we’ll quite possibly be doing a similar ramble too I’m not sure how the kids will enjoy that!

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.

Well, not really, it’s just that I’m still sleeping a little too much in the mornings, I know (because the weekends are a preview) that once school is out the kids won’t let me sleep in past the 1030 wake up time I set for myself. So I comfort myself  with the idea that I’m just storing extra hours of sleep.

It’s been odd though, I get up between 11:30 & 12 (feeling guilty the whole time) make my breakfast & crumple on the couch to watch last nights national news, the Daily show from last night & then the noon news which is normally recording to the DVR while I’m watching the other two.

I feel good about that part of it, I’m also doing really well with keeping our pathetic dryer going so that we have clothes to wear (always an issue when I worked days & only had from 5:30 to 10:30 each night to try to do everything which needed to be done.  I’m finding though, that sometimes the thought of turning on the computer & even reading my email is just too much for me.

Working at night is more labor intensive, as I think I mentioned before, where when working during the day, having 2 chats at once for more than a half hour or so was considered busy, now on nights, 2 chats is essentially the norm, three at once is not at all uncommon for at least a couple of hours each night, like the first few months doing chat full time, my arms ache at the end of 8 hours of typing & in the mornings I’m more than a little meh about getting on the computer & typing some more.

I’m typing this now because I’m off of work, they’re encouraging people to use paid time off right now in addition to cutting the overtime to nothing.  So since tonight was available & last night I so didn’t feel like being there, I offered to take today off. I had visions of rearranging my room (that might get done before I go back to work on Sunday) getting mr 9 & ms 12’s clothes sorted out so that I know what they really need for the spring & summer (mr 9 is in a growth spurt suddenly where his ankles seem to be exposed in every pair of pants he puts on – lucky for me, in VA mid- May to mid October is shorts weather.

Ms 12 is a little better in the jeans & shorts department, but in the tops department, well, Wow! She’s inherited my generous chest without the belly, thighs & hips that ms 19 also received. She’s getting stacked I’m afraid, the difficulty is that she’s a very young 12 & is offended when the boys stare at her.  I worry over her daily. She’s not as savvy as ms 19 was at her age about anything at all (well, except murder, she’s a Law & Order fan, watches all versions, special victims, criminal intent & the regular one)

It’s nice having an extra day off, a 3 day weekend is always welcome & due to all the rain we’ve had in the area lately I’m glad to not be driving home tonight. Last night when we walked out of work an old friend/co-worker was walking me to my car because he was taking my new computer tower home with him to get ready for me.

(the job gave away towers & monitors for free earlier this year when they updated the equipment on the job- it’s wiped clean though so a new operating system has to be loaded into it – which I haven’t a clue how to do, once M does it for me though, I should be enjoying  much quicker surfing speeds & less lock ups than I do now- maybe my scanner will work correctly again too!)

So M & I were walking to my car & another co-worker, the one who drives right by my road everyday & doesn’t want to share the ride, (probably for the best, he drives like a maniac & I’m sure I’d annoy him by being so slow) came running up to tell me he’d just received a text message from his wife telling him over 2000 people were without power in our area right then due to the bad weather which had passed through earlier last night. I had lights when I got here, I don’t know about T though, he’s got another 20 minutes after my road to get home.

It was not raining but it was very very foggy & it being spring, horny deer cavorting in the fog made the whole drive especially treacherous.  In spite of not sharing a ride with T there is something comforting about being on the road behind someone you know at that time of night. (I tend to be about a half mile behind him, but I catch glimpses of his tail lights & he always slows down near my road & taps his brakes as a goodbye when I turn off) We traded cell phone numbers since we went to night shift- just in case one of us does run into trouble the other one can come help out, or at least take the broken down one home.

The kids were very happy when I told them this morning that I’d be staying home, then they were not so happy when they arrived after school & I told them they were cleaning their rooms. Tears, threats, arguments over who’s mess was in each room (mr 9, without a tv of his own {because it’s in my living room as the ‘family’ tv until I can afford a larger one for the living room} Watches tv in ms 12’s room while she’s online or watching tv in the living room & she maintains that he makes messes in her room) Mr 9 insists that because the stairs to 19’s & 12’s rooms are in his bedroom that their trash, laundry & general debris comes down the stairs & into his room & then he’s stuck picking it up. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

When I asked ms 19 if she’d help me rearrange my room tomorrowshe very haughtily told me I would have to clean my room first ! As if 4 pairs of shoes & 2 laundry baskets full of winter clothes that I can’t get into mr 9’s room to put away in the closet constitutes a mess!

To be better about losing weight. I’ve walked the last 2 nights, on Saturday it was an easy progression out of a long lovely day hanging out with the kids all day long, Sunday was more of a chore because I’d worked all day & really just wanted to take a nap (I couldn’t though, because I knew if I napped I wouldn’t be that tired when it was time to go to bed around 10 & then this  morning I would have been miserable at 530 when I had to get up & take ms 19 to work)

Boy do I ever regret saying I’d make sure she got to work & back every day so that she could let the last BF go, I felt like keeping him around for his ride was a crummy reason to keep him around so I said I’d do the driving. Of course I didn’t think about making any limits on this or a requirement that she start saving money for a car & licence of her own- silly mom, requirement before the reward.

Of course I no longer have to help support the old, non working BF which is nice & the new one takes her to work at least once a week. He is happy at his parent’s home though & so doesn’t live at our house which is also nice- since I really like hour & a half book & bathtub marathons when the mood strikes & while my kids are all really casual & will just come in & use the toilet while I pull the shower curtain for privacy, not pleasantly mind you, I bitch & complain the whole time they’re invading my space, but still, I would be super uncomfortable if any of 19’s friends felt close enough to me to just walk in to the bathroom while I was in there!

Today after work I had to pick up ms 19 & so my schedule is a little off, I came right in because I had an extra half hour detour to get her & was in need of a rest stop, of course one thing led to another & I oversaw dinner’s cooking, made myself a bowl of rice & ate it, played mah johng on the computer & am waiting for ms 12 to finish her dinner so she can walk with me.

I’m just trying to do a few little things to try to start some downward momentum on my weight. Last night I just had a couple of pieces of toast for dinner, with water they were enough to fill me up & though I wanted a bowl of veggies, some rice like I had tonight (which is why I had it tonight) & a bowl of cereal (the kids beat me to the cereal & we’re out so no concern there) I sat on my hands in the living room & waited for the urge to pass.

The walk to the farmer’s gate in my yard isn’t far but it’s a lot less embarrassing to stop for breath every 10 feet (my lungs are still ridiculously full of phlegm) in the yard than on the road where cars going by slow down & stare. I hope to get up to 2 round trips an evening by the end of March & then I want to start going around the yard.

I was thinking today at work of how I used to do so much more. But the “more” was things like going shopping at the mall (or even Target) browsing for cool stuff, going to Roanoke to the marketplace to check out cool things & going for hikes on the parkway. The last year & a half I’ve been so broke we can’t go out shopping & gas was so expensive last spring & summer that we barely drove anywhere but necessary trips.

You wouldn’t think being broke would affect this sort of thing but it seems to, just like the whole pasta thing, when you’re broke, pasta is cheap, but it & the things most people put on it (oil, tomato sauce, butter & cheese) make you fat, so pasta makes you fat & you are poor & fat at the same time. (story of my life- I still eat pasta at least once or twice a week) Can’t win for losing as my grandmother used to say!

All of a sudden it seems that everything is one way or the other & often both at the same time!

Good: The car is back up to snuff
Bad: I don’t have any money for gas for extra trips & am even sweating the extra drive to work on my mandatory overtime day.

Good: My mortgage payment is going down about 20 bucks per month due to the escrow I’m finally building.
Bad: They’re reassessing the tax rate for the county I live in & my mortgage (because taxes are figured into the payment) could go up a whole lot next year.

Good: A friend is getting out (at least part way) of  a difficult situation
Bad: I might have to help with the moving

Good: We haven’t heard from the ex in months, except for the child support, which comes through the state not direct from him.
Bad: We’ll probably hear from him soon & it will probably involve pressure to send the kids to OR for a week or two in the summer.

Good: I have to admit 2 weeks with out the two of them yelling, screaming & fist fighting, in which I could work a ton of overtime & save for our vacation to MA (about the only way I’ll be able to pull it off at all this year) sounds pretty good right now.
Bad: The idea of coming home every night, regardless of how late I work overtime, watching the news, eating dinner & going to bed without talking to anyone but the cats sounds horrendously lonely & sad.

Good: or at least, realistic: The above scenario is going to happen sooner rather than later, whether I like it or not, mr 9, my youngest is of course 9.
Bad: They’re all so grown up & don’t need me that much any longer anyway, soon they’ll be out with friends, on school trips etc & I’ll be here alone with the cats anyway.

Good: I often yearn for peace & quiet, respite from the chaos I mentioned above & in which to take a long hot bath & soak without people coming in to use the toilet or just chat because they figure you’re not busy anyway.
Bad: What if the ex won’t give them back? I can’t afford a lawyer to fight to get them back.

Good: Spring is coming
Bad: Not fast enough it’s not- possible snow here tonight!

Good: Ms 19 is happy because she has her “best friend” (I hear that alot, pardon my jadedness) here for the weekend.
Bad: They are so giggly & loud.

Good: The martinet of a director at my work is gone
Bad: Lord knows what they may bring in the door next

Good: We have 3 cats & I haven’t seen a mouse all winter.
Bad: The 3 cats are scavengers, think they’re always starving in spite of being well fed, healthy sized kitties, are always knocking over the trash to look for  goodies & no one’s plate is safe if their back is turned.

Good: My once yearly raise will be in my first paycheck in March
Bad: I have to change my withholding when my pay goes up, because for the first time ever I owe taxes this year (only $28. but if it weren’t for the child tax credit, {I now make too much for EIC too} I would owe a lot)

Good: A family friend gave mr 9 & ms 12 $2. each
Bad: Now they want to go to the store.

Gotta Go.

I was thinking about license plates today on the way home from work. Here in Virginia it’s just an extra $10. to have what we called “Vanity plates” when I was growing up. Many people here have them as a result, and I spend some part of at least one, sometimes both of my commutes pondering what random combinations of letters mean.

Some of them do make sense easily FredT would be someone named Fred of course, some are probably nicknames which make sense to the driver & their circle of friends, I know someone who used to have “beabutt” on her plate. (she may still have it for all I know) Which actually stood for beautiful butterfly but that’s not at all what it looked like!

My ex always said he’d get his initials & either too or 2 because he’s a junior, but when push came to shove & he got a vanity plate he got “resq”  & his 3 digit rescue call number for his plate- thankfully this was at a time when we actually had 2 cars so I didn’t have to drive around with that plate (much) The whole rescue squad thing leaves me cold.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they provide a service to the community & that they’re willing to get up out of warm beds & leave their jobs to help strangers, more power to them for that, it won’t be me that’s for sure, I just have issue with how it gets caught up with small town politics & a bunch of he said she said high school like stuff which doesn’t need to be involved in something as important as helping people after a car crash or a house burns down.)

End diatribe, let’s hope that one doesn’t get me in trouble! Anyway, the plates people have are many & varied, from bible verses (think Isaiah191 or Mark3.5 {not specifically, just giving ideas}) to their names to how many kids they have (takenx6, do you suppose that includes the spouse? I certainly hope so)  I could not make this one come out to anything intelligent yesterday: “urnerih” right, I’m sure it made sense while you were filling out the form.

Elderly ladies with “SmithGal” or things which allude to their hot-ness or beauty always make me smile, I can’t help but think ‘you go girl’ when I see a plate like that with a teased, gray haired, wrinkle faced lady behind the wheel. Conversely though, I hate, hate, hate any plate in which theh woman refers to herself as Kevin’s gal or anything like that. Come on, value yourself a little more, you aren’t just his ‘thing’! You’re a lot more than that.

Ms 19 when she was younger (& I referred to her bedroom as the glitter dome due to her excessive, unchecked & sometimes hilarious use of glitter in all forms of makeup, room decoration & confetti) said she wanted her plate to read “sparkle” when she grew up.  Now, she would just like to have a plate & even more importantly a car to put a plate on!

Myself, I’ve never really wanted a vanity plate, partly because I don’t consider myself terribly vain (I was often accused of being so by my father especially & so am self concious about it) also I don’t know what I’d put on it. 7 or 8 characters is not much, I prefer bumper stickers to express myself with! Weirdly enough, my current plate, quite naturally & with out any design on my part (& which I’ve had since before I got divorced) poses a metaphysical question, which I love, the first 3 letters are “YRU” so said outloud it’s “Why Are You?” Which is enough to give me pause on a daily basis!

We’ve got company- I’m a mite overwhelmed right now & Chrissie’s coming for a visit to see the company too so I can’t stay on long.  If all goes well I may have Wednesday off so as to have 2 days off in a row! (joy!) Updates soon.

Quiet because the kids are at school & ms 18 is at work I’m trying to treasure my one & only day off- although I’ll probably spend most of it here at the computer! Sometimes these kitties of ours are as loud as the kids though.

I realized this morning that I never even weighed in on the inauguration.  It was something of a non event for me because I was busy helping someone with a remote while the deal was actually being done. But I did glance up to the nearest tv from time to time.  I liked that Bush’s man- administering the oath of office screwed it up- it really summed up the last 8 years for me- a lot of macho male posturing “of course I know what I’m doing” talk & then tripping over their feet as they go off in exactly the wrong direction (reminds me of my ex- who predicted America wouldn’t elect Obama {to give him credit where it’s due he was for Hillary})

I was also unsurprised (but disgusted) to hear on NBC Nightly news last night that people were quibbling over the incorrect wording & trying to say that the incorrect wording meant Obama wasn’t really president. Come on people! Quit grasping at straws & Accept it – you lost. Just like we did for the last two elections. We didn’t go around saying Bush wasn’t really president (we did however say he was emotionless- a sociopath & generally a tool – but we were right!) Anyone who’s read this blog more than once or twice knows I voted for Obama & am really glad he’s in office now. ‘Nuff said.

So the weather here is warmer than it has been today- up over 40 is a good day to me & tomorrow it’s going over 50! Of course- tomorrow I’ll be stuck during the warmest part of the day at work dealing with unhappy people (my co-workers are only half of the equation.) I’ve already done a load of laundry (didn’t get it out to the line yet though) picked up the front yard & the living room- defrosted chicken for dinner- Divan I think- or maybe with the redwine vinegar sauce- (ms 18 doesn’t like that one though.) Changed out a bunch of music on the chip which makes my phone’s mp3 player work & read my pathetic excuse for email.

The $50. visa card from  my cell phone company as a rebate for ms 18’s phone is wending it’s way through their corporation- they’ve determined I jumped through all the hoops- filled out the correct forms- enclosed the correct piece of the phone box & sent my firstborn child along (well- maybe not that last one- I’m sure they’d return her if I sent her) And the card is just waiting to be sent- allegedly I’ll have it in 2-3 weeks now.

I tried to bribe ms 18 with it to get her to pick up her brother’s room correctly since I don’t have time or inclination to do it myself or to yell at him as much as is required- I’d really rather not know if under his bed & in his closet is where all my cups & silverware is going or not. (if not there- it’s gotta be ms 18 because ms 12 steadfastly refuses to bring food upstairs at all ever- due to ms 18 insisting it is ms 12’s fault cups – plates & silverware have been found upstairs in the past.)

Ms 18 was sorely tempted by the idea of $50. for herself- but she took a deep long look in mr 9’s room & basically said eff that. So now I”m trying ms 12 although the amount is less because I know I’ll have to get involved- (even if it’s just to break up the fistfights which inevitably break out between 12 & 9) I can see though- that there will be issues & I’ll probably have to give mr 9 some money too- especially since it’s his room & I want & expect him to help clean it.

I’m conflicted about giving them money for cleaning their rooms- they’d just as soon leave clothes & toys scattered all over the floors & the closets so full of junk that they can’t close the doors- if I were more like  my own parents I’d deal with it- I was the same way when I was a kid too- up until I was 19 or 20 as Chrissie can attest! I can’t do it though- I’m more of a control freak I guess- & of course- in order to get to the clothes I keep in the closet- I have to go into mr 9’s room- which makes it difficult.

If the money gets them to clean I guess it’s ok. As long as I have enough to get some new silverware & cups (Because even if every missing cup were located & every fork & spoon were found-we’ve broken- bent & accidentally thrown away (forks & spoons) a bunch more & the silverware especially is a melange of 4 or 5 different patterns. ( And they wonder why I only dig out the real silver set on Christmas)

My Grandmother used to pay my brother & I a penny or a nickel for every piece of trash we picked up in the yard (we had a big yard with a lot of frontage on a busy road- there were always cans- bottles- papers etc all along the front of the property line- I have less frontage but the same problem here- although some of it is my own crazy kids’ fault) It’s not without precedent in my family or anything. It still seems wrong though.

I’m still cold- although it’s 48 here it’s not sunny -although it’s not going to rain or anything like that- thank goodness because over the course of the day I did get the laundry on the clothesline & we’re all looking forward to having more than a half dryer full of clean clothes at the same time for once! It’s definitely colder in the house than it is outside but the wind makes the house more comfortable than sitting outside (except while the eastern sun was hitting the porch early this morning- I sat outside in the sun for about a half an hour just soaking it up)