Signs Of The Times

Our birthdays just behind us- 

it's Christmastime, pretty baby.

There is no snow on the ground like this time last year.

It is 70 degrees.

A tornado touched down in our town tonight.

A friend had his gun and electronics stolen. 

They even took the sheets from his bed.

Times are hard-

Christmas is too.

Big City

Laser Skeet Social 2010: The Night Of The Living Loko

Can't believe it's taken this long to get the pictures of the day before Thanksgiving up!

Good times. Good times.

 

And don't worry about this man down. 

By his own admission he was was not sick, only "cooling his tum-tum."



I should add this evening included experiments regarding Laser Skeet, bowls and bowls of nondescript food (SO nondescript I can't even remember what I served), a plaid clothing theme (I was unaware but the ghost of Annie Oakley allegedly appeared to a number of guests the night before...), charades and deconstructed poses. It was a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Behind The Wood Shed

"The beautiful thing about treasure is that it exists.

It exists to be found.

How beautiful it is to find treasure.

Where is the treasure, that when found, leaves one eternally happy?

I think we all know it exists.

Some say it is inside us.

Inside us one and all.

That would be strange. It would be so near.

Then why is it so hard to find, and so difficult to attain?"

-Log Lady


_________________


I am short on words these days

but I am big on

dreams

and

memories.

I Am Fresh Out Of Snappy Blog Titles

Sooooooooooooooo...

I use 'so' a great deal in my writing. Soooooo...

Today, I can only describe myself as so-so. I remember my grandma reached a point when she stopped saying "fine" and started answering "so-so" when asked how she was. Then she died. Soooooo...

Things started off with a bang. Woohoo! The holiday season commenced and I was, dare I say, happy about it. Now? Not so much.

I've been robbed of my fine.

______________________________________

A few days before Sam's Thanksgiving play at school, I was pulled to work at another school. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing. Sam ran into another student while lining up and because he keeps his hands in his pockets 99% of the time, he couldn't right himself and fell to the ground. The boy he bumped stayed upright but whirled around and maliciously kicked Sam in the mouth while he was down. There was blood. His lip was busted. It was the other child's third strike of the day. He'd hit two other kids and had drawn blood earlier so he was suspended for a day per protocol.

Sam handed me his front tooth the very next day. (In the perpetrator's defense, the tooth was just barely loose the day before the incident. In Sam's defense, it usually takes him a week to work a loose tooth out.)

The perpetrator received a knocked noggin and a bit of a goose egg to the forehead the very next week. He was standing idle in the hallway. A third uprightly-challenged child ran toward him, lost his footing and pushed him against the wall. Voila. Knocked noggin.

Yeah. I'm the nurse and I do a good job. Now partly because I hear at least 90 % of all the other school nurses of the world are jokes. Way to go, guys! Anyway, this kid is as cute as the day is long when he's not busy being a thug. You know? I gave him the full meal deal. Neuro checks. Ice packs. Reassurance. A smile or two. Then I called his mom to report his injury.

The news was received poorly. You know what they say about trees and apples and how they fall? Yeah. Well. I will leave out the verbatim conversation. I will say she was upset he was injured by another child just days after he was suspended for injuring others. She assumed the injury would go unpunished. She cursed me. She said, "You can't call me and purr to me, sweet as sugar." (My bad. Most assuredly, I used my porn voice by accident.) I responded by telling her I was the nurse and I was reporting an injury. I directed her to administration if she needed to talk things through. I hung up. I went into my bathroom and stewed because I'd done the right thing but I didn't want to. I wanted to verbally filet her. I wanted her to know her guy had kicked my guy's tooth out! I paced around in a tiny circle.

I got over it. Sam's missing front tooth is cute. They're buddies in class as if it never happened. His Mom has always been like that and she probably won't change. She has her own row to hoe, her own struggle, her own story I can never know.

________________________

I filed for bankruptcy months ago. Just me. It was debt and debris left over from my first marriage and divorce and I was facing a nasty garnishment case. I was told by my attorney it was a very simple case. I was told the loan I'd received from a LPN to RN bridge program would more than likely discharge due to the school's inability to meet requirements for our contract. And the medical bills would go. The ones from that kidney stone attack that took me to their ER... The ones from that high, unexplained fever after Zoe's birth... So Hallelujah! But after I met all the requirements, every single one of them for months, the attorney's office didn't file a certificate in time and my case was dismissed without discharge of debt. My only option is paying an additional $360 to file the certificate. The bill collectors are already calling again. It's Christmas. Need I say more?

_________________________

I don't even want to discuss Logan's choice not to come visit for Christmas right now.

__________________________

Sooooooooo.....

I'm not dead yet.
I see flowers everywhere.
I take my pleasure where I can.
But sadness lies beneath it all.

Destiny Or Accidental-Like

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both.” Forrest Gump

Zombie Juice

What do you do when the world gives you Zombies? Make Zombie juice, of course!

Stephanie wrote a very honest and heartfelt post and I read it today. She shares her struggles with us. I had my suspicions about her but now, I know. She's strong. And she'll laugh and shake her head when she reads that.

"What makes your life hard?" she asks. And I think to myself....what a wonderful world...

HA! Sorry. Can you tell I'm uncomfortable? So why am I sharing my own hard knocks? I don't know. But why not?

What Makes My Life Hard

• My relationship with my son. My firstborn child does not live with me nor does he have any interest in seeing me. If anything, I feel as though he hates me. His dad hates me and has made that very clear. My son thinks his father hung the moon. And this is very hard.
  
• My relationship with my parents. Now heavily influenced by my relationship with my own son. It's not as hard as it once was but it's still very much like an onion. Many, many layers. I am an only adopted child. It would take an eternity to enumerate so I will only say they have a hard time relinquishing control and I have a hard time with boundaries. And they live in my back yard or rather, we live in their front yard. Which complicates things a lot.
  
• My relationship with my body. This one is a doozy! I am now dealing with chronic pain in my knee. The cortisone injection has worn off and it's really messed up, folks. I can't afford the $800 out of pocket MRI to diagnose the problem nor can I afford to miss work for surgery. I am effectively crippled for this next school year. It effects me every moment and sleep is not always an escape. And speaking of sleep, I am sleeping poorly and eating in my sleep again. I have put back on about 15 lbs. I am afraid I will need to resort to some sort of psychotropic medication to curtail my problem. My weight is a concern in and of itself and that ties into my knee, my GI issues, my hypothyroidism, my stress, my depression. And last but not least, I once lived a very, very unhealthy lifestyle. I live with the shame and temptation of returning to it. This is also very hard.

These are the (big) things that make my life hard. Of course, the little things snowball and if they didn't apply to any of these categories, they will soon enough. Like Steph, I don't dwell on the negatives. I try to find the good in everything. According to how you look at it, finding good sometimes makes life hard. Doesn't it?

It can always get better or worse.
Nothing to do but the best you can and wait and see.

The Need Chronicles

I sit, I lie down, I hobble on my crutches. I've been here before. I've been worse than a little gimpy. But it's hard, going where you've already been. Some places you'd rather not tread again.

I will rest as I should. I will follow their rules. I will heal. I will be stronger than before.

Until then, I may need your help.

Listing

There is listing and then there's listing.

The former:

1. I made appointments for the kids with their doctor. Please think of me on the morning of the 28th. I will need it more than you know. They do not remember what it's like to get a shot. They are actually excited. That makes me sad. 

2. I am picking up all of the documents and going to the SS office tomorrow morning. Wish me luck there, too. I hear it takes about an hour and a half and the only thing to watch is a certain security guard pick her nose. 

3. I am now the proud owner of six Pluots. They are a combo of apricots and plums. Mel thought it would've been much catchier if they named them Plumicots. She's right but they're tasty nonetheless. 

4. The babysitter was a raging success on Friday! And the kids have spent the night away from home for two nights now. I'm afraid it's all too good to be true. Who's holding the axe and when will it fall?

5. I filled my prescription for my diet pills. Please stand by for more opinionated, aggressive writings and a skinnier me. And if you think you should weigh in and tell me to stick with diet, exercise and clean living? Don't. 

6. I really enjoy Pinot Noir.

7. I am researching an anti-depressant. I've tried once before with poor results. Anorgasmia is not my idea of feeling uplifted. Joe's take on this is "Well, you know you're not right unless you're not right." He doesn't do crazy but I'm glad he understands me so well. 

The latter:

I'm tilting. I feel like I did that time I had my left tragus pierced. I became convinced my equilibrium had been affected by a tiny silver hoop hanging from one ear but not the other. I lunged and lurched and felt as if I was reeling. I had to take it out. This time, I don't want to be forced to take anything out, so to speak. I don't want to capsize. The coming months will bring about great changes for all of us. I want to be at my best. I want to be able to focus and give and share. I do not need to curl into a great ball of darkness. Especially when I have no good reason, other than brain chemistry, to do so.

Sometimes, I Get Discouraged...

...And then, something magical happens. I am distracted from feeling so sad by feeling so happy. Today was a magical distraction from the gloom and doom I've felt the past week. As usual, I've had trouble enjoying the present due to fretting over what is to come. I've been sad about taking Logan back to Louisiana. This was just what I needed. Just magic...





Zoe was fearless and insisted on her very first water slide ride ever! I was a nervous wreck. I don't process excitement like I used to. Now, I act stupid and my hands shake. I feel like I have jelly legs. It's weird...Anyhoo, she processes excitement just fine and couldn't get enough of the slide.

Sam, on the other hand, was a different matter. He's water wary, if you remember. We were there baking in the sun for exactly two hours before he would get near the water. He lurked and watched.




And then, by the grace of god or imminent heatstroke, he just walked under the mushroom fountain....



After that, he asked to go down the slide. This is his very first water slide ever! I was not as jumpy this time. I used up all my adrenaline on the first kid. What can I say? I don't process excitement like I used to, ya know.

Joe just wanted you to know that he's number one.

And this is me doing what I do best. Going under. Nahhhh, no really, I'm just kidding. Really.

After a costume change, we headed tot he local bowling alley again and enjoyed some Glow golf.





I was quite taken with these bowling ball beer pitchers with spigots. I thought they looked like huge bongs. And who can resist a spigot? I mean, really!



We finished out the evening with some sparkly fireworks.

And now, I feel like a million dollars again. 

Funny how all that works.