Being thankful for what I have

So, events last night brought me with a speedy slam into reality. Turns out I’m going to be an aunt. Yup, the sister out east has gone and gotten herself pregnant. I know I’m supposed to be all excited, squealy, and happy right? But I’m not. I’m jealous. She has always seemed to get everything in life so easily.

Then again, as I was reminded over and over last night, things that come easily are not appreciated near as much as those that come from true hard work. This is true, I value my family and everything I’ve surrounded myself with because I’ve busted my ass for it. Yes, including my husband. He’ll even admit that.

I think it was a shock to me last night, because I figured of all of us, she’d never actually do it. I mean, it would ruin her perfect body y’know?

Also, it really hurt that when my mom phoned to tell me the news, she was positively giddy. I can not think of one instance in my whole life where my mom was that giddy about me. I have to stop trying to live up to my mother’s expectations… I’ll never reach them, and I there’s days I can accept that… then there’s others. That kind of conversation with her makes me want to cut off contact with her totally, but I can’t. I love my dad too much to do that. He comes in and saves the day… he gets on the phone and the first thing he asks me, is about me. He wants to know what M and I are doing for our anniversary on Friday. He’s even willing to take C for the evening for us.

So all in all, I feel like a heel for being jealous of my sister, but the situation is nothing new. I think I’ve been jealous of her and her achievements my whole life. At some point, I have to realize my own achievements. And it takes an awakening like this to slap me in the face with reality again.

M explained it very well last night. We have chosen to go through our lives together smelling the roses. My sister has chosen to go through her life running from finish line to finish line. And last night I got upset because she beat me once again to the finish line. But wait…wasn’t I smelling roses? I have been happier in the past year than I have in longer than I can remember. I need to take my antihistamines and get back to my roses.

I have a wonderful family, a husband who loves me, a great little step-son, an exceptional dog, a gorgeous house, a good job that allows me the freedom and income to do what hobbies I want to. A supportive family (on the odd occasion), a good family-in law who often step in when my family is lacking.

I’ve got it pretty damn good.

I'm amazed my parents ever took us to K-days more than once

So... brain is completely melted with yet another heat wave. Last week was pretty uneventful. Camp was easy to get to, grandmother picked C up all week after camp so I just had the morning ride.

Only real entertainment, if you can call it such, is the dog getting sick.... all over the living room... and horribly, his digested kibble is almost the same color as the carpet. With his last health scare M called me home from work to clean up/watch the dog so he could go to his doc's appt. Doggy's fine, by the next day he was right back to normal. My mom figures perhaps something from the last digestive upset moved and perhaps he's now passed it.

C's camp last week was a "science" camp so he made all sorts of strange goop, and got to go to the Space Science Center (Telus center or whatever now) for a day. He seemed to like it mostly, except for the part where they had to "sit and watch the ceiling for an hour and a half while waiting for the bus" in the astronomy theater.

The house is freaking hot. Have I mentioned that? Thank goodness we have a basement to hide in now, but even that gets sticky and hot after awhile.

We had a wonderful thunderstorm at about 6am this morning. And perfectly timed, the rain and everything stopped before I had to leave to trek across the city to this weeks camp. Next time I'm checking addresses more closely, this one is in bloody Lessard! Now for those who know us, we live in the NORTH! Lessard is on the SOUTH and west too. But strangely enough it took the same amount of time to get there as it did to get downtown, go figure. This week tho, with it not being downtown, we're on our own to pick the kid up. Which means today I get to drive to get him as M is the most senior person at work tonight to wrap stuff up. Should be fun, driving the whitemud twice in 1 day... wow more than I usually do it in a summer!

Oh and yes, as to the title. We took C and a friend P and his son S with us to K-days. I remember it being much more fun as a kid I guess. I hadn't gone in a few years, and now I remember why. It's gotten rather boring. Even the "market" was small and not near as much fun. We did watch the bellydancers who are preforming this year, that was worthwhile, except for the "I'm boreds" echoing from the boys after about 20 mins. I think they enjoyed themselves for the most part. Both panned for gold, C was shown how by one of the people there and so had one nugget found for him, then he found his own, and very nicely shared with S who got fed up and dumped his pan. M and I looked at hottubs, still playing with the idea of putting one in, now we have a bit more info of what we'd need to do first even tho the company's tubs were rather expensive.

Other than that, I'm getting a tan *cry* I can't wait for winter, or at least the fall!

Over the hump and down the...

So, it's Thursday. I finally get the route to camp mapped out in my brain only to have 1 more day to drive it. Then a new one on Monday. Ah well. At least I get to do a lot of riding.

M had a talk with C, and things have been steadily improving with his morning rituals. Today the only thing he needed "reminding" was to brush his teeth. Wow the kid has wicked breath if he doesn't. Hate to see it when he hits puberty. He's also having major troubles locking the door. He needs to be able to do it for school at the end of august since we'll be leaving before him in the morning. Any suggestions? Should we replace the lock with a keypad? Use the bottom pushlock only? (That's what we did in the old house). Any other ideas?

Also to my ladies, it's YaYa time! Let's find a time. :)

Was the baby sister's b-day yesterday, hard to believe she's 27. She bought herself a new car which is great. Was also nice to see my dad get out to a restaurant, I don't think he's been out too much since he got sick. But good reports from the orthopedic doc on his shoulder replacement and the correctional cardiac procedure will be done next month hopefully.

At work we graduated another PhD from the lab. We have 1 grad student left, it's getting small. And in september it's going to get quiet. Very quiet. Part of me is curious as to what's going to happen around here, and part of me wonders if I should be looking to move on. I don't really want to rock the boat at the moment since I've got it really good here, but how long do you hold onto the boat?

Well, just some morning thoughts...

Tomorrow

Well this morning was an improvement over yesterday, although not by much. C didn't set his alarm, so he slept in and we had to haul him out of bet at 7am. Then while getting dressed he goes "I have no pants", I lost it at that point because his father and I had just spent time putting all his pants away on the weekend, and he has 3 bloody drawers of them! So I just told him to keep looking, and lo' he found some.

He did remember his lunch and his water bottle. The lunch I think he only remembered because M looked in the fridge while he was in the kitchen.

On a good note, one of the camp leaders told us that C was really well behaved, polite, and even got a shy kid to participate yesterday. So I hope that camp at least goes well.

I'm not enjoying having to drive cross-city for the damn camp, but if he enjoys it, it's worth it.

Now tonight I have a BBQ at the boss's house to celebrate a PhD defense... gonna be a long night.

Is it bad?

To feel relief at going back to work after my holidays?

Sad to say it, but I'm happy to be back. Going headfirst this past week into step-mom'dom hasn't been a picnic. Not only am I still under all the stress of moving, I have this kid who can't seem to do anything without my express instruction. He's a great kid, but it's gonna drive me nuts if he can't find his own mind soon.

I know it takes time to get settled, thanks for the words of support C! It just feels like I'm trying to do too much all at once, and getting nothing done. I don't feel like I accomplished anything on my holidays except to get more stressed out. I still feel like just sitting and crying at the hopelessness of it all. I know I'm probably having a downswing, since as much as I like change, my body hates it.

It's all I can do to get myself organized, and then to have someone who can't do anything on his own really is hard on me. Here's how this morning went...

C turned off his alarm, so therefor didn't get up when he was supposed to. I'm getting tired of waking everyone up so I stayed in bed until 7. At 7, I rolled out of bed, as did M. C was just getting dressed, I told him to hustle and go eat. I went to get ready. M had to run out the door to get to work.

I finished getting ready, asked C if he ate anything "yeah, a banana". Well at least it's something. Did he feed the dog? No... so tell him to go feed the dog. Tell him to get his backpack. Ask him if he has his waterbottle? No... go get your waterbottle.

I start loading my bike up and tell him to get his jacket. "Where's my jacket?" "If you were a jacket where would you be?" So I finish loading up my bike, find his riding gloves etc. Go back into the house, he's wandering around in his helmet and jacket, no shoes. I go to find my jacket. He's tossed/knocked it on the floor while trying to get his down. I get my jacket on, tell him to get his shoes on. Let the dog in. Fill the waterbottle that's still in the dishwasher (which was full of rotting jujubes by the way).

Grab all my things, get him out the door, lock the door. Ask him where his waterbottle is, as he's come out the door empty handed. Back in he goes to get his water bottle. Out he comes. Send him back to lock the door. He gets on my bike without warning, almost toppling us. Gets in trouble for that. Then I realize he doesn't have his gloves on. Off the bike to get his gloves.

Finally we get moving. 10 mins into the ride I realize that I'm probably going the really long way to get to this damn summer camp that's downtown. Oh well. 5 mins later I realize that I should bet money on the fact that C hasn't put his lunch in his bag either. And top it off, the kid has ants in his pants, which is real bad when on the back of a motorcycle.

I pull over into a Macs store and ask him where his lunch is. He hangs his head. Shit. This is not what I need today. So in we go to the Macs to buy him a sandwich. And.... they don't have any.

So back we get on the bike, and head towards this school, I'm thinking there's got to be some other Macs/7-11 on the way. Finally I spot another one. We pop in there, and 9 bucks later he has food for lunch.

Finally I get to the area where this school is supposed to be... I see churches, churches and senior centers... round and round the block and I finally find the school. It's already later than I wanted to get there (stupid me, thought I could get there for 8). We go in and end up in the daycare section of the school... guh, finally with a bunch of directions we find the gymnasium where they're having the camp and I can finally drop C off. I give them the new phone number, tell them his grandmother is picking him up and finally get on my way to work.

By now I am totally soaked with sweat not only with heat, but just stress in general. I finally get into the lab at 8:45am. Not happy. But lovely G has bought me a Timmy's coffee! And my sweet hubby is very supportive when I whine at him about the morning.

I understand this whole step-mom thing is going to have a lot of growing pains, but I just don't know what to do. I mean, I know I'm not doing it by myself, but recently I feel like it's been all me and I'm beginning to resent it. Must speak to M to see if we can come up with something else.

I only hope tomorrow goes better.

FINALLY!

Some rain! And it's a bit cooler, and I can almost walk around the new house.

I don't like living in chaos, I find it quite upsetting for some reason. I'm tired of the mess, and I know it just takes time to get organized, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to just sit and cry in the middle of the afternoon. At least today is cooler, and I feel like I can actually do some organizing.

We have our bedroom mostly set up, slight downside to this place, is the master bedroom doesn't have near enough closet space for 2 people. So we've got 2 chests of drawers and a dresser full of clothes. That's going to take some getting used to for me, M used to live like that all the time, he never hung stuff up in a closet.

C's room is a disaster zone, that kid has so many clothes, he doesn't need anything new except maybe underwear until he grows out of a size 12. Considering he's wearing a 7 or so at the moment, I think it'll be awhile. He has more clothing than me and M put together. So we're still trying to juggle how to put all his clothes away. I think I'm going to take my parents' methods with the bedroom... it's his place, and he has to deal with it, so we will just close the door if it's messy. He's not allowed to do that anywhere else in the house, if he makes a mess playing in the rumpus room he has to clean it up.

We even lucked into some free living room furniture from my aunt who is moving this week as well. A couch and chair which we go pick up tonight. I also want to take a look at her dining room set which she might part with for some cash... all depends on how much cash she wants as to whether we decide to take it. There's always the bargain finder.

So maybe the stress level is coming down, maybe not. It's hard to say. I've been living on a sore stomach for so long I'm getting used to it.

M's back at work this week, it's taking some getting used to just being me and C. I value independance, and he's never had to be. But M and I decided, he's had enough babying in his 9 years, it's time he learned to microwave food, tie his own shoes, make his own lunch, etc. It feels harsh to me, but I think it's just because he's been so coddled. His grandfather's favorite word for how C was raised. Can't knock his grandmother, that's what they do ;) It's just they're not normally raising a child 24/7.

So that's where we stand for now. I'm back to work next week, and part of me will be relieved to get back, at least to get away from the mess here for awhile. Even though it's going to make the evenings rougher.

Moved

Moved, but far from settled. Many many thank you's to all who helped!

Ok now I'm pissed

I HATE PUSHY PEOPLE! There, I had to get that out.

I called a certain internet provider to cancel my account with them, we're moving, we thought we'd try something new (*GASP*). I had to almost hang up on the guy who decided to tell me all the negatives of another internet provider even though I didn't tell him who we are going with, and would not let me get off the phone. I'm still debating calling back to make a complaint, but why should I waste my time with them even further? I mean, you'd think, I'm calling to cancel, it should take all of 5 minutes right? Apparently not. Hell, even if the new provider doesn't work out, there's no way I even want to think about going back after this guy. They totally blew a customer, good thing we decided we don't watch enough TV to put up with them for that either.

I so need my holidays... 2 more days... after today that is...

Now I've gone and done it

Heh, nothing bad. I figured since I'm finding friends blogs on livejournal I'd set up an account there. I probably won't use the journal part of it, but another way to keep in touch. Perhaps I should put a link... one of these days

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Ok, we've decided that we've had enough bad luck. 10 years worth in 3 months... That's it.. no more!

World crashing down

So it seems I only update this thing when bad things are going on. Perhaps that’s the only time I need to vent. Who knows, I’m not the most opinionated person around, so I don’t get into any big debates.

So, the bad things.

I get home from work Friday to find that Bear hasn’t eaten his breakfast, now he’s done this before, so I wasn’t too concerned. Then, while we were eating dinner, and told him to “lay down” cause otherwise he begs at the table, it looked like he was having trouble laying down. So then Saturday he still won’t eat much, he has a cookie but he’s really slow to eat it. He’s still drinking, so we’re just thinking ok, his stomach’s upset, we’ll see how it passes. (I totally forgot that the vet is open on Saturday).

Sunday comes and he’s getting worse. He just lays around, barely lifting his head, I have to hold a dish of water for him, and he doesn’t even want to drink unless I poke wet fingers at him. Now I’m starting to panic. I call my parents and get the go ahead to call the vet at home/on his cell.

I call the vet and we drag him out at 5pm Sunday night.

Bear gets up to get into the car, but won’t get out at the vets… we carry him in. The vet examines him, notes that his temperature is up, and his gums and tongue seem pale. He begins discussing hemolytic anemia. Downright scary. He draws some blood, gives Bear shots of cortisone, heparin, and antibiotics. He tells us to watch him and bring him back in the morning. He’ll send the bloodwork off first thing in the morning.

So, meanwhile, the hubby is having some health issues of his own (I won’t share since they are his to tell people) but he’s not mentioning much because I am totally hanging onto the dog.

We take the dog to the vet Monday morning, and the hubby to the doctor. Get the hubby’s diagnosis and then go home to wait for the dog’s. Meanwhile we sign the papers at the lawyers for the sale of our house (yay). I call the vets and he says that Bear is stable enough to go home, I can come by around 5. So I go to pick him up and spend an hour at the vets both waiting for him and then talking to him.

The blood tests show not hemolytic anemia (phew!), but no other explanation either. Bear has perked up a fair bit at this point, he no longer has a fever, and he’s wagging his tail again. The vet suggests we do a check on his kidney function because his urine was quite dilute. So I say go ahead, and wait all day Tuesday for that news.

Get home, doggy seems much happier. He even eats dinner (half then half two hours later to make sure he doesn’t get sick) and drinks a fair amount of water. We’re waiting for him to go to the bathroom to check how things are doing since the original theory was he ate some blanket and maybe that was upsetting his system. ‘course the dog won’t go while we’re watching.

Then the hubby gets a MAJOR nasty headache so off we go back to the docs calling in the mom-in-law to watch the munchkin and the dog.

Needless to say it was a late night Monday. I let all of us sleep in Tuesday morning getting the kid to school 10 mins before his bell. I went to work for half the day and went home to see how the hubby was doing around lunchtime.

Doggy is still improving, he ate his breakfast, but we didn’t see that he’d gone to the bathroom though. So still a bit concerned.

Called the vet to find out that the kidney function tests (protein creatinine ratio) was normal (PHEW) so no kidney damage.

Finally! After dinner, doggy went to the bathroom. Anyone who is not an animal owner may not understand the fascination with doggy doo, but when your animal is sick there’s not much you can go on.

And again, this morning. Seems the inner workings are functioning. Doggy seems perky.

The vet says all we can do is wait. It could have been totally spontaneous, it could have been the blanket, it could have been something disagreeing with his system (garbage, someone threw something over the fence), minor toxicity (ant poison? – we aren’t using any) etc. He had one other suspicion which is called Addison’s disease which is an adrenal gland disorder, but because Bear was given cortisone Sunday and Monday, we need to wait for about a week for it to clear his system to see if he’s having troubles producing his own cortisone.

So the past few days have been a real wake up to the reality of Bear’s age (he will be 8 next month) and I have realized that I would much rather he go in his sleep than watch him fade. My mom says we will know when it is time, but I still dread that day.

I am very grateful for the time I’ve been given with Bear, and I hope that we have at least a few more years. I was so scared this weekend that he wouldn’t make it to Sunday night.

So now I have a doggy on antibiotics, and a hubby on a variety of medications. Both are mending and so is my world. For a day or two there I wasn’t sure where my world was going, but pieces were crashing around me before I could catch them.

So everyone, be thankful for your health, and that of those you care about.

And dammit it’s raining again and I forgot my rainpants at home… gonna be a wet ride home.

Oopsy... from Friday

More real estate stress…

We were told that there were 2 appraisals needed on our current house (for the buyer’s 2 mortgage companies – confusing). The first appraisal went nicely on time, and a very pleasant lady all round. The second… well that’s another story.

This guy, Rick, phoned me at work at 6:30pm (go figure I wasn’t there). So I returned his call the next day, left him a voicemail, which he never returned. This was probably about 3 weeks ago now. He calls me last night on my cell after 6 (again!). I return his call. He says we need to get this appraisal done, so I say of course, and we will need an evening appointment. Well at this point he gets all huffy. I say, well perhaps a weekend? He gets even more pissed and says “I work 60 hrs a week as it is, if I work more I may as well get a divorce.” This is not my problem!

I was told when he first contacted my agent that I could make the appointment at my discretion, and not to go out of my way to take time off work, etc. So, that’s what I did. Then he says “Don’t you want to sell your house?” which puts me into a panic. “Our house is sold, they take possession June 30,” I say. He then responds “Well if they don’t get their money then your house isn’t sold” So now I’m having a fit. He finally agrees to come at 4:45pm almost 2 weeks from now. M’s trying to stay calm and calm me down as well.

I phone my agent (who is awesome!) and have him paged, twice. Poor guy. He was at the hockey game. He calls me back, I explain the situation. My agent reassures me, and even volunteers to deal with this guy. So this morning I gave him the guy’s contact info, we’ll see what happens.

But on a good news note, the house we bought in St. Albert has increased in value by $25,000 since we bought it, and we haven’t even moved in yet.

Thank goodness for Ya Ya tonight. Good company, good food and cheesecake!

May? Where'd May go?

Well things improved, and then they didn’t. There was some confusion on Friday about where C was going after school. Suffice to say, he got himself grounded a bit again for the weekend. Essentially stuck inside all weekend helping us at the mother-in-laws getting her house ready to put on the market.

On that, I think yesterday I finally saw some progress in how the house was shaping up. You can’t park even a motorcycle in their oversized double garage, but the house looks nice and roomy. This is what we’ve been spending our past few weekends doing this all consuming project. If anything it has been a lesson in how not to let out house fall into disrepair. I love my mother in law, but omg I’ve been wanting to pull my hair out.

It has taken a number of people about month to get this house cosmetically acceptable to show. The electrical sucks, but that is beyond us, and hopefully the roof is being redone, so that’s a good thing.

Our house is of course, falling apart during all this. By the time we get home, all we want to do is climb on the computers for about an hour of WoW, and then fall into bed.

That’s about what my past week has been, a blur of paint, pain, moving things, etc…

Let’s hope this week is calmer. M’s b-day is today and I want to take him out for dinner and have a relaxing evening. Tomorrow the real estate agent is supposed to come by, if the mom-in-law remembered to phone him.

Oh and to top it off, I went to the doc to get my wrists checked out, I'd been having some numbness while riding my bike... bingo, carpal tunnel (however it's spelled) so now I get to sleep with my wrists splinted straight. I guess it's better than needing surgery right away, perhaps we can correct it before it gets too much worse.

Yesterday was a good day

Wednesday:

So talked to C's teacher finally around 4pm on Wed. His behaviour has been better, although he's now turned into the class pig. Tossing his coat, bag, etc on the floor rather than hanging them up. When confronted with this, he says some other kid has been using his hook. We told him if that keeps up to talk to his teacher rather than just leave his stuff on the floor, we'll see I guess.

Then C put his foot so far in his mouth that he couldn't get it out. Hard way to learn to think before you speak, but nothing else has been getting through his head. C asked if he could go to the dog park with a friend, M said "but you have soccer tonight, do you still want to keep playing? or shall I take you off the team". C chose to be taken off the team and ran off to the park with is friend. Upon getting home and settling down, I asked who was going to call coach to say that C was not going to continue playing soccer and the fit hit the shan so to speak. He has to learn not to manipulate people (especially his father) to get his own way. But we stuck by our guns and took him out of soccer, if it takes this drastic to teach him a lesson, so be it. We both feel like crap about it, and maybe if his attitude improves we'll look at swimming lessons or something else he likes for June.

So after a lot of crying, yelling, talking, and an hour past bedtime, I think we might have made some progress.

The honeymoon is definately over.

Thursday:

Suprisingly, the grouchy child normally with little sleep was very pleasant this morning. He seems to have accepted that he will not be playing soccer. He has a friend who plays in U12 so he says he can still "keep in touch with soccer that way", whatever works I guess.

He actually talked to his dad about being pushed around at the park! YAY! We have been trying for months to get him to talk to us about this kind of thing. Also when I got home he was playing in the back yard with his friend, I wasn't happy about it, but really in all this, I figured he was honest with me when I asked him "You said, no friends in the house...". So at least they were playing in OUR yard and not someone elses. Only issue I had after that is that he hadn't finished his homework. But when I called him in to finish it, he did it without complaint. Also I told him he'd have to tell his dad he had a friend over... and he did!

I really hope these improvements continue. He'll get his PS2 controllers back today so he can play that again. And we'll discuss tonight about playing outside of the yard.

Cross your fingers...

Please, someone else take this stress?

Ok, there has to be an end to it somewhere right?

Sheesh! So I get a call from my hubby, someone's drowned their lunch/spilled vinegar at his office. Now he has a violent reaction to vinegar, violent and probably almost projectile. Lovely. Now he's feeling miserable, he had to leave work early, and probably won't be able to eat today.

Following this, my lawyer calls regarding the house sale/purchase. I'm amazed that they are working on it already, thinking yay, cool! Then she tells me that changing our possession date may be a problem since the sale of our house won't go through until the next day, she says have you talked to your bank about this? I'm thinking no one said anything about this 1 day being a problem, wouldn't my real estate agent have warned us if it was going to be? So now I'm in a panic, I say I'll call the bank and find out.

I call my banker and she says that no, it is not a problem, she just needs confirmation of the change of possession date. We will just need bridge financing for the remainder of our down payment which is minor, since it will be for all of 24hrs.

So this all settled, I still haven't heard from C's teacher even though I phoned and left a message this morning. I figure I'll give her until 4pm, then I'm heading home since I can't exactly answer my phone while I'm on my bike.

Please please please let tomorrow be less ridiculous... I need a break, and I just had one...

Life goes on

So, the past week has again had its fair share of disasters. We were doin great until Friday when the floor fell out from underneath us. We got a call from C's school. He was behaving inappropriately (easiest way to sum up without going into detail).

So, C is grounded 3 ways from Sunday... It's a bit of a shock to his system, since his father and I are a lot more strict than his grandparents. He's had almost all of his "fun" stuff taken away, he's left with the TV, books and his toys. I'll check with the teacher today on how this week has gone and we'll talk about perhaps giving the PS2 controllers back. It is very frustrating but I figured it would have happened at some point.

It's also given us the needed fire to do more "family" things together. Even if it is watching design/renovation shows together after supper while the weather is miserable. I figure once it is nicer we can go to the dog park, or C mentioned he'd like all of us to go to the playground. I think this is a good thing, we need to get him to open up, so I'm all game to do some things to get us all out together instead of all staring at computer screens.

Also this weekend we went to help the mom-in-law in getting her house ready to sell. Whoah. Lots of work. Lots and lots of work. I re-caulked their pink bathtub (erk) and forced mom to pack things she doesn't need (like kiddy cups and ancient tupperware). Just so much work.

Our living room is now packed, except for things like the PS2 and VCR etc. I think maybe the sewing room is next. I'm stacking everything in the living room so we can just haul it all out the front door on moving day.

Erk, much arguing going on behind me... more later

ERK!

Well we got confirmation of our new possession date on the new house. June 29th!

Of course, now it just hit that we have to book a truck and plan the move, and try to find volunteers! ARG!

So I called U-Haul, and at least got the truck booked. We pick it up at closing on the 28th hopefully so we can start late that night if we want (9pm). But the main stuff will be the 29th. So now we're dredging our brains to figure out who we can invite to come give us a hand either during the day or after work. For some reason I think this is going to be the hard part. Not only is the 29th a "working day" but we haven't really hung out with a lot of people in the past year. I'd feel back asking just anyone to come help, c'mon who really wants to help people move? So, if anyone wants to volunteer? :)

I did email some people that I figured I could twist an arm on without too much trouble (love ya guys!) and hopefully in the next month and a half we can recruit a few more. Once we know the numbers then we can figure out if we're promising pizza or something more :)

New link

Everyone check out the new link over there on the right --->

Cute overload, the website to go to if you ever need a pick me up on a bad day.

Found a calendar!

Coolness! I found a funky calendar which will allow me and anyone else I choose schedule things on it. So anyone who wants to organize stuff can, hint hint Ya Ya ladies!

I will be testing this out so please anyone try the link on the right and comment.

Ya Ya ladies, expect your password shortly.

Back to work

Ok dad update.

He came home Friday afternoon. I think he’s glad to be home, but he is so tired, and seems so “transparent”. Just pale, and tired. It’s going to be a long time before he feels like himself again. We now are waiting until mid May for the cardiac procedure to correct the hole in his heart. I am really glad he is home.

Me update.

Off work for a week, back today. The spells of vertigo are fewer, maybe 1 every 1-2 hours. They were less when I was running around less (go figure). Perhaps it is/was a viral infection in my inner ear, or perhaps it was a result of stress, I guess we’ll never know. The other possibility is that during the whole chaos of my dad I forgot to take my anti-depressants. Totally. Cold turkey. And it took me about 2 weeks or so to realize it. Oddly enough I felt ok other than the dizziness. So I looked up withdrawl from my meds… go figure à Vertigo. Potentially 8 weeks of it. So we’ll see. But I didn’t want to jump back on my pills after going cold turkey, so I’m gonna ride it out. See how the moods stable out. I get angry real quick right now but that seems to be the worst of it. If I can sit on the anger (ie. No fuse) I may just be alright.

Family update.

C has started walking home from school on his own (I kind of figured about time, he is more than old enough). I give him 30 mins to get home, and 4/5 days he was early. This week we are trying him coming home on his own alone. He has a house key and a bunch of rules and phone numbers. He’ll really only be home for 10-15 mins on his own today since I think I’ll leave work about 3:30-3:45. I’m trying to aim for more of a 7:30-3:30 or even 7-3 schedule for the summer.

We’re also trying to figure out what to do with him for the summer. Camps are cool, but expensive (avg. $100-150/week). We’ll see if the mom-in-law wants to take him for a week or two, and we’ll be off for a week while we move.

We actually packed a couple of bookcases on the weekend; hubby was a sweetheart and did most of it. I just labeled and stacked the boxes. We also had way too much fun at a liquidation center this weekend buying these totally cool humidifiers. Hard to explain, but imagine a 3’ tall flower that has almost dry ice mist in it. They’re totally cool! So we had to go back and get mom-in-law one, and great granny too.

Hubby got his tax return so we were able to pay off the car repairs and the loan from mom for the deposit on the house (thank you mom!). And we bought a kit to repair the bathtub, professional reglazing costs upwards of $400, totally not worth it when we are just doing it to make the tub look nice when we leave. I’ll take the $45 kit instead, even tho we’ll have to shower at mom-in-law’s for a week.

I think that catches everyone up. Hopefully.