Kimdergarten

Vacation

2012-01-03T14:04:00.004-06:00

New Years Eve weekend was a wonderful three days in a log cabin on a lake in the middle of nowhere. Heaven. Ten of the best friends anyone could want to spend a few days away with. We sat around NYE drinking and playing dealers choice for pennies away from the rest of the world and it was a great time. Was able to catch a quick nap the next afternoon and woke up freaking out for a few seconds that I'd brought on another bout of the #voodoodonkcurse by letting my hair down and goofing around with the pennies. It's all good. And it's going to be a really great year. Happy 2012!

Found My Balls ...Heh.

2011-12-27T09:40:00.006-06:00

Went to the coast for a few days last week for vacation and to mix up some cash and tournament play. Played in the $1,000.00 Guarantee at Beau Rivage and finished third in addition to picking up a little bit of cash off the locals.

Am I learning to pay more attention to everything? Sure hope so. It seems to be making a difference. Been doing lots of reading, getting a little bit of coaching, fingers crossed that I can continue growing into a stronger player as time goes on.

Had a great virtual rail for the tournament. I wanted to share some of my favorites so that I can find them here in the future in case I need a reminder of where my head was at this day.

Stone: @jedi_balls: Nice balls. Are you playing today? (see pic above. This reminded me that indeed I do have balls as big as any guy at the table, they're just strapped to my chest, or in this case, remembered forever in a silly tweetpic)

Steve: @swhitelextown: Make it a payday. Ship It. Hoodie On. Game face on and look at your donks and take it down. You got this. (This came in at just the right time. Helped me make my own comfort zone regardless of the seat number and focus) ALSO: don't limp. Destroy it. Have position and make em tank. (reminder, position makes a big difference, don't limp)

Dave: @Djm182: grind #donkalicious grind. Pick your spots. Own the Game. One decision at a time (A little reinforcement here on things I've been trying to remember lol)

And thanks to @jedi_balls, @Roseyg917, @Jammenplayer, @suzysbad, @wisecapra, @rosietexecano, @djm182 for pulling me back to earth during the breaks. Sometimes it helps knowing that someone's out there. Big hugs to @mitchell1969 for recommending some reading material to help me improve. Have been reading and re-reading and will continue to read.

Happy Holidays. Wishing you lots of run good in 2012 and happiness too.

It's so nice to be free of the #voodoodonkcurse and be playing poker again ;)

About Poker & Stuff...

2011-12-12T09:33:00.002-06:00

Stopped by a local poker room yesterday morning to check out the action. I went to the desk and asked the poker host what table he had going on at the time (there was only one). He had his back to me. "Excuse me, Sir? What game do you have going?" "2/5 NL with $200/500 buy-in." He went back to watching the table and again had his back to me. There were only five players seated, two of whom I recognized from last weekend, so I pranced my happy little ass around to the other side of the desk where you buy your chips. Yeah, he still had his back to me. "I'd like to buy in." I said as I slid my $200.00 onto the counter. "Excuse me?" Finally. He turns around. "I'd like to buy in". He gives me A LOOK and said, "It's NO LIMIT". Well, yeah duh (I'm thinking) looking at him and my money on the counter and at him, "I'd like to buy in." Finally. He slides me a rack.
I set up at seat 3 doing a little happy happy joy joy dance that I was finally going to sit in a 6 handed game and not deal with a 10 player table like I'd been facing all year in tournaments. And yeah, I played some poker. Watching the 5 guys who were already there I realized I'd sat down with all of them last week. It was a nice, friendly game-- a little less brutal than the previous meeting. I was up just over $150 and was thinking about leaving and going to get some lunch before work when I looked down at A10d. Maybe a few more hands, huh? There were two players in so I called the blind. Flop came diamonds. The opening bets had pretty all much been $15 so I tossed in $25 thinking that would be enough to buy the blinds and I could go home. Guys in seat 5 and 9 both called. Well crud. I'm thinking, well, I couldn't buy it and I'm not going to donk off the hundred some I was up and I know if these guys stay in I'm going to get killed on the river. Right? Turn came diamond. I can't remember which cards were out there exactly but they were far enough apart to know a straight flush wasn't possible, and unless one of these guys boated up on the river, I still had it and shoved in $75.00. Seat 9 folded the guy in 5 called. WHAT? I kept looking at the cards out there going over and over in my mind what could he possible have. He hadn't won a hand since I sat down, had been betting on pretty much nothing, I'd already taken two small pots against him... No, I still have this. I THINK? It's got to be a smaller flush. Relax. River card was 3h. I remember that one because I slid in the $100 bill in front of me. If I'd reached for chips I would have knocked them over... if he'd been looking at me he would have noticed I was shaking so bad I had to flip my hair until I got the shaking of my head back under control... I know the guy next to him saw that. But he didn't look at me. He thought about it for almost FIVE MINUTES, as I settled down and waited. He had Qd, he called. SWEET. I played a few more hands and as the table had now become 8 players, begged off that I had to get to work. After tips & drinks cashed out $572, felt pretty good after a year of tournaments and three months of total voodoo poker curse donk-a-thon play. Not bad for an hour and a half work... Maybe I can get back into it, would be nice to start seeing regular cash again.
So I grabbed the chips & four $100.00 bills in front of me and slipped back up to see Mr.Rude at the desk who first apologized for seat 5's earlier language (he and another guy had been tossing the N-word back and forth when guy sat down in seat 4 short time earlier), thanked me for playing and cashed in my chips all while presenting me with his front side and looking me in the eye. ;) That's all for this week, not the greatest, but I'll take it.

Reflections

2011-12-11T09:42:00.001-06:00

One of my goals for 2011 was to focus strictly on tournament play. What an adventure! (...and blow to my bankroll lol)
Do I feel like I've accomplished what I set out to do? Yes. Is there still room for improvement? Oh yeah. Has it been a waste of time and money? Nope.
I've been playing poker about 15 years. Did the online micro grinding thing for a while but chose to stop 3-4 years ago because it just wasn't as satisfying as sitting around with live bodies touching the chips and the cards. I've done very well in cash games until recently but my heart has always been wraped around tournaments.
So 2011 was all about tourneys. Tunica, Vegas, Biloxi, Vicksburg, Vegas, Biloxi, WSOP-C, and was on the rail for the 3rd time at the WSOP. Stepping up and playing with a different caliber of players than I'm used to has sure brought room for growth and I've cashed twice, second place both times. At the same time there were moments when I was terrified, confident, made a good read, donked off my stack and had nightmares. All year long, I was working three jobs -about 70 hrs a week, trying to bounce back from an abusive marriage, Feb-Nov my boss at the full-time job found out he had cancer, went through chemo and died--a whole word of personal challenges going on there which definitely affected how much I could mentally and physically stand to play. Then came one hell of a blow to my ego. The first part of December I sat down at a cash table and LOST. WTF? Yeah. That had NEVER happened before and was probably good for me in some warped, sort of way. Obviously there is still plenty of room for growth and adjustment.
Would I do it again? Yes. In fact, I plan to continue with this goal into 2012 and do even better. I've met and played with some great people and look forward to seeing them again.

Poker & Snow

2011-12-09T09:39:00.001-06:00

Had planned on playing in some of the Winter Poker Classic events in Tunica this week but when a friend posted this picture I decided to just skip the drive and stay home. Between working 70 hours a week, volunteer work and the little bit of poker I've had time to go play, I'm burnt out. Bad. Looking at the Million Dollar Heater in Biloxi (January) and WSOPC Tunica (February) for next bit of adventure.

Kids? What Kids! It's Poker!

2011-11-27T13:27:00.006-06:00

Wow. I haven't written a blog post in 3 years 20some days. Been a little while. Guess somewhere I lost not only my sense of humor, but also the ability to write. The kids are grown now. They've moved out moved on and well, LilDD is living with me but she only comes in to sleep and do laundry. So, if I ever find time to redo my graphics for this thing, it's all about poker now. Yeah, twelve years and still playing.

A few things really stood out about the tourney yesterday that for some strange reason I wanted to write about.

There was a young kid sitting in seat 7. I think it was his first tournament because he was scared to death. The first hand he played (first or second hand of the game) the blind was raised from 50 to 300 by seat no 4. Kid tossed in one $100 chip and two $1,000.00 chips. Didn't say a word. The chips were somewhat similar in color. Dealer calls, "RAISE, Two Thousand, One Hundred" to which the kid's jaw dropped. Mouth open. "huh"? Guy in seat No 1. mentions, he should have said, "call" right? (I was waiting for the kid to whip out his badly worn copy of NLHEforDummies at this point). Dealer proceeds to explain to the kid to verbalize and yes the chips are similar in color, expensive lesson you just learned, etc. Fold all the way around the table to Seat No 4. who had the original preflop raise. He calls. After the flop No. 4 bets some inconsequential amount and the very green kid folds. I continued to watch him, he would toss chips in hand after hand but wouldnt' see anything through to the end. I used this to my advantage twice to fluff up my own stack a little bit.

I tweeted about the bald guy sitting in seat No.5. He started into the game shoving and trying to by blinds out of the gate at 25/50. The first time, I think maybe he had a hand. I was watching, not dancing the first two times he did it. Something felt a little off though. He was bullying, or trying to, but wasn't doing it in the normal arrogant way of a very experienced player (some of whom can be just about unreadable some days!) so the third time he opened up after the flop with 2,400 I had AQs and AQ7 hit the table, I went up over the top of him and he folds. Eye contact immediatley after from Patty, the other lady player at the table, told me she knew exactly what I was doing and I enjoyed giving him the spanking. He played some decent hands but when we switched tables I lost track of him and don't know how he ended up.

I never like playing a hand right after they move players around. My stack was decent I was having fun and I'll be danged if my first hand at the new table wasn't AKc. If I'd been any shorter stacked I would have folded it and just sat back and watched for a while. Only one other guy was in and I think the blinds were something like 400/800 at this point. I can't remember what came out on the flop, it really never mattered. The guy bets 2400. I call. I didn't have jackdiddly at this point but I just knew this guy didnt even have a pair. Turn, same bet same call. River, same bet same call. He was chasing and my A was good. The hand itself really doesn't matter. It was his reaction to me actually calling his bluff which will with me for quite a while. He blinked. Looked me and blinked again. And did this little head twitch shake thing. Blink stare twitch. He was still doing it 10 minutes later. Tons of fun.

Advanced Combat Training...

2008-11-05T09:52:00.004-06:00

My son's travel agent has decided that he needs to get away from the lovely Arkansas weather for the holidays and is sending him to Iraq.
Right now, Mr.Blue is on the east coast for combat and survival training. We've had some pretty weird conversations the past two weeks. "Mom!" He told me. "While I'm there, I'll be in all my kevlar and I'm going to get SHOT!" At first I was thinking, well sure, you've got to get your shots up to date before deploying, but then as we talked I realized no, that's not what he's talking about. He's REALLY going to be SHOT. I guess part of the training is dressing up in your battle gear and then getting shot with simulation rounds coming out of an M-16 to make sure you can still function when you feel the impact of rounds hitting your vest or whatever. Probably no big deal after spending 2 weeks hauling dead bodies from humvee to humvee and crawling on the ground with M16s firing all around you... Another day he txted and said, "I died today" ..."they carried me and loaded me into another convoy and it was fun" Yeah whatever.

He's loving it. My geeky dorky non-athletic straign A-son has started to buff out and act like a guy and I'm so proud of him. He's ready to go and it won't be long and he'll be there.

We were able to steal a day with him before he left TDY. Well, not a day. Three and a half hours. It was wonderful...

As a mom, it's really bothering me that he'll be gone for christmas. And, by the time I get his mailing address in the sand, his packages won't get there until January. That's ok. He'll know before he leaves that care boxes will be on their way.

My son will be 20 years old 2 weeks before he leaves for the sand.

I was in the store this morning before work, and there was a man stocking candy bars and another man across the aisle filling up the chip rack. Of course, they were discussing the election last night. As I walked over to get my coffee I heard one of them say, ..."this isn't going to end the war in Iraq like everybody thinks. It's not going to bring the troops home." Oh Man. I wanted to say something. Something like... Well, I dont' know. I just wanted to say SOMETHING. But I bit my tongue and behaved. I still cry every time I'm driving down the road alone though. This is difficult. This is my baby boy. My only son. Going off into the middle of a war zone.

And WHAT REALLY TICKED ME OFF was on the radio over the weekend. Two different people mentioned hearing to me that there were NO u.s. casualties in Iraq last month. WRONG. There were TEN. Eight army, one marine, one air force. Two were not combat related, but eight were. and half of those were in the area my son is heading.

Ok. I think I'm better now.
For a little while, anyway.

NO NO NO NO NO......

2008-10-22T13:41:00.002-05:00

How in the HELL do you stop crying and be an understanding, supportive, wonderful mom when one of your kids tells you he/she is getting ready to deploy?? How in the HELL do you stop crying and be an undetstanding, supportive, wonderful mom when your planned trip to visit your deploying child is cancelled because they have to go TDY for combat and survival training? How in the HELL do you stop crying and be an understanding, supportive, wonderful mom when another child calls you up right in the middle of all this and says, "ummm, Mom? I just talked to (my brother/sister) and he/she should be back before I go in (insert month here)....

That's it for now.
Isnt' it enough?

Before BabyBlue flies off into the wild blue yonder, both other KidBlues are going to play in the sand.

I may not get out of bed for a while.

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

2008-10-15T15:56:00.002-05:00

Well... it's like this.

I thought Lil'DD was going to stay with me until she turned 30. No such luck.

Today she was sworn into the Air Force delayed entry program, just like the other two did.

I have THREE in the Air Force.
She'll go after graduation.

Going Green...

2008-09-23T07:37:00.003-05:00

Since we bought the house last November, I've got all of the lights switched over to those energy efficient bulbs. Back in May, when we didn't run the a/c, our electric bill was 24 bucks. That's not bad for a huge 2 story house with all the extras. ...ok so, then I went and bought the hybrid. My friends no longer discuss cars with me, they do not want to hear that I get on average 52mpg and 47-48 when it rains. I complain about that 47-48, believe me. But that's ok. I love my car and the money I'm saving on gasoline is making my payments. We went down five weeks ago and traded DH's huge pick-up in on a ford escape. It's getting 2 1/2X the mileage of the old one, so we have 2 brand new vehicles parked in the driveway of our new house. You'd think I'd be happy, huh?

So anyway... we came home from a conference Sunday afternoon to find water all over the garage. The hot water heater decided to go out while we were gone. ...SO... we spend the deductible I'd put aside for the roof (dont' let me forget to tell you about the roof!) ...and ordered a tankless water heater, it's supposed to save me about 200 bucks a year by not having a pilot light, it's got some fancy hydro thingy that creates it's own electricity and uses minimal propane. Good investment? We'll see... DH's is putting it in tonight, lucky for me I'm working my 3rd job and won't be home until late.

Back to the roof. not this last hurricane that blew in, or the one before that, but that tropical storm that came first and hung around for a week? Well... we came home from working my 2nd job one Sunday afternoon and noticed water seeping through the ceiling in the entry way and down the wall next to the stairs in the living room. Insurance couldn't come out and look at the roof until after the first hurricane moved out, but we're getting a new roof. That's cool. Except now I spent the deductible on a water heater. ...it never ends. Since the last hurricane blew in too, there's more damage to the walls, so we'll be kiltzing and painting and we're not only waiting on the roofer to get to us, we're still waiting on the insurance company to get us a check. Our adjuster's national guard unit got called up so he's having to finish up his stuff long distance and it's taking a while. It's been a freeking month since we made the claim, and they're telling us when we do get the check, it will be made out to us AND our mortgage company, so we'll have to send it to the mortgage company and have them endorse it before we can get the roof done...

Hey. I'm loving the new girl in the office. It's nice to finally like my job again.
Gotta run...have a nice week.

The Sec - The End...

2008-09-08T07:45:00.002-05:00

You're not going to believe this. After all of these years of shenanigans by 2 different (REALLY AWFUL) secs, they finally fired her. Two and a half weeks ago. I was told nothing officially but when she left the office is quiet, functional, and a really plesant place to come to every day. I never liked this one. She was a lying, manipulative, unethical wombat. Two years of her and I finally quit laughing. I could laugh about the other one. This one just about made me cry. ...between you and me, her leaving had something to do with some money disappearing, a large sum in the tens of thousands. But don't repeat that because like I said, I was told nothing.

Nothing really new with me, just trying to get through day by day.

I'll try and drop in to write more often.
I promise.

Have a nice week...

About...Stuff.

2008-04-09T09:54:00.003-05:00

Friday a growling, swirling storm blew in and knocked the power out, AGAIN.
Tornados went by out at the lake where we keep our camper in the summer and not too far from the house. There is a lot of damage out at the lake, but lucky for us it hit a few streets from the campers and we didn't get blown away. The new house is about 12 miles outside of town, between here and Jackson, MS. With the street lights not working and the storm raging, it took an hour and ten minutes to get from the office to our offramp on I-20 Friday afternoon. A little farther past that, there was an itty bitty female deputy blocking the road that said there was power lines down and we couldn't get home that way, and trees down blocking the other road in. But, she said, if we want to go on down closer to Jackson there was another way home that they had cleared the trees and we could get home that way if we wanted. OhMyGosh. I went back to the onramp and waited for DH who wasn't too far behind me, figuring he could lead the way so I wouldn't get lost. OhMyGosh. It was an itty bity dirt road full of potholes and the storm was still raging and Lil'DD must have thought I lost my mind because I laughed the whole rest of the way until we got home. I swear, the things we've got to experience since moving to Mississippi are unbelievable. So we got home and the power was out a few days. We went back to town and bought the last generator. At least we have one now, it seems the power goes out a lot in the country. The rest of the weekend pretty much sucked, it was a couple of days before they got the power lines off the road, but the trees were cut and cleared and we were able to go the other long way to and from our house... what fun.

Mr.Blue graduated from tech school yesterday. Hooray. He rented a car and is driving to Dallas today then the rest of the way home tomorrow for a short stopover before going to his new base in Little Rock Monday morning. I cannot wait to see him, hug him, and cook for him!!!

Ms.Blue and NavyBoy got their car back out of the shop. They adopted a dog to go with their cat and she is officially moving in with him.

Nothing much else new. Looking at the convention schedule for our upcoming trip to Vegas that just happens to coincide with another World Series of Poker. Lucky Me. I'm wondering if I've still got what it takes to stay up all night and play in one of the satellites tournaments. We'll see. I haven't made up my mind for sure yet.

...gotta run!

RETURN OF THE SEC!

2008-03-27T15:21:00.002-05:00

The old sec walked into the office half an hour ago to visit. WOW. I almost cried I missed her so much. Isn't that awful? Y'all remember the stories I posted about her. But even with all that, she's not as bad as the one we've got now.

It was good to see her.
Hugs hugs, kiss kiss, catch up about the kids and all that stuff.

Yeah. It was really good to see her.
I still smiled when she worked here.

About... Stuff.

2008-03-26T09:45:00.003-05:00

I've been so busy.
Most mornings when I'm driving to work, I still think about what I'm going to blog about today. I've been doing that for years now, and even though I don't make time to write most days, it still goes through my mind.

Ms. Blue and NavyBoy bought a car together. A brand new 2008 ford somethingorother with exactly 12 miles on it. 6 days later they smashed the car up killing a deer and the car is in the shop. OUCH. As a result, Ms.Blue won't be home next week like she originally planned.

Mr.Blue is about to graduate from TechSchool. He still hasn't heard if he'll be allowed home for RecruiterAssistance for 10 days like Ms.Blue did. His paperwork just hasn't come through so we're guessing he'll do a quick drive-by since he plans to rent a car and drive from Texas to his new base in Arkansas in a couple weeks.

Lil-DD didn't get to meet with the BlueRecruiter. The guy didn't show up and we haven't been home to reschedule.

I took a Friday off to go to a conference 2 weeks ago. It was nice to get out of dodge, but not as nice as the 4 day holiday weekend we spent up in Hot Springs, AR with friends. Saturday we went to the horse races, oh gosh, what fun that turned out tobe. I'm hooked. Then Sunday we went to all the go-kart tracks and rode go-karts. What a way to spend Easter weekend now that the kids are all grown. Not bad at all.

Work sucks. Just plain sucks. Even the raise doesn't seem to be helping. I look in the mirror and I see one very unhappy person. Other than that though, I'm hanging in there.
Will try to do better about writing. Mostly I'm just counting the days until Lil'DD is old enough to get out on her own and I can GO. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just Away from here.

Death of an Airman

2008-03-10T09:59:00.002-05:00

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/mar/08/suspicious-death/

and

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336553,00.html

My thoughts are definitely with her family and friends.

Mr.Blue called to tell me about it over the weekend, since he is presently in the same vicinity.

Maybe Itty Bitty Blue?

2008-03-06T12:56:00.002-06:00

Lil'Dd said this morning she's ready to talk to the recruiter. The BLUE recruiter.
...just talk, of course. Not make any decisions or sign anything, but just kinda look into it because from what Ms.Blue and Mr.Blue tell her, it might not be so bad. And she doesn't know what she wants to do for the rest of her life anyway. so. If we can find the blue recruiter, she's going to set up an appointment. TO TALK.

I cannot believe I may have my baby girl, the last of my kiddies at home...
joining the other two in the Air Force.

Peace Offering?

2008-02-20T11:20:00.002-06:00

Lil'DD served her in school suspension yesterday as punishment for ditching last Thursday. Today his her first day back at school and I'm so nervous wondering if she's going to class or out screwing around. She SAID she was going to class, but who knows, right?

Anyway, I just have to believe in her I guess...

DH left again yesterday for another week up working near Memphis. Oh I love the quiet house and waking up to an empty bed in the mornings... I cannot tell you what peace I've been getting from these work trips of his. Badly needed after 10 years of yelling.

Jaye. Val. I've been thinking the past couple of months about packing up and moving out closer to my Mom. Arizona in fact, because I don't think I'd go back to CA for much of anything. Now, don't get so excited, I'm not talking about next week, but sometime within the next year or so, if I can put all the pieces into place. If things get any worse with DH, it will definitely be sooner rather than later, but I've been watching the housing and job market... anyway, I'm looking at the Kingman area which I know isn't too terribly far from you. Just thought I'd put it out there. There's a whole lot more to it than this but that's all I'm ready to talk about right now.

Hope you're having a good week...

That didn't last long...

2008-02-15T12:34:00.002-06:00

Peace? Did I just post that a few days ago? HAH. Not in my lifetime.

Not sure if I mentioned or not, DH was gone all week, up in memphis.
Sunday right after he left, the washer broke. It took until today to get the repair man out, still don't know if it will be fixed or not. Then Tuesday, put Lil'dd's wet from the rain shoes into the dryer, and the dryer broke. UGGH. Not fun

The high school principal called yesterday and asked if Lil'DD was with me. She hadn't attended her 5th or 6th period classes and they didn't know where she was. I immediately stopped processing information at that point. I may have even stopped breathing. The rest of the day is actually somewhat of a blur. ...it seems the principal had called Lil"DD out of class yesterday to award her with some special roses that were being given to the top students in some of the classes. When they couldn't find her, they called me. I went to the school and met with the princiapl. She didn't show up for her 7th hour class either. My heart & mind were in overdrive by that time, typical mother worry. So I went out to the parking lot to the regular place I pick her up and waited. I was 17 month. I figured she'd be along shortly.

At the regular time she comes bee-bopping out of the school building with her book bag, smiling and says "Hi Mom. I gotta pee..." I asked her where her flowers were. "What flowers?" she said... I said, "The ones they tried to give you in 5th, 6th and 7th period classes today."

You should have seen her face. You know that BUSTED look teenagers get before they get it all back under control and start lying to you? Yeah, that one. She went there. And looked me straight in the eye and lied, saying, "I was in the bathroom throwing up." ...Oh honey. First of all I'm not stupid, and second... this lying is only going to make things worse...

It took her a little while to come around, but it turns out, a group of kids has been sneaking off to the park every day to hang out and smoke cigarettes. MY BABY. Needless to say, I'm ticked off at the little one right now. Sure, she'll be 18 this year and I understand that she's going to do pretty much whatever the hell she wants, but she needs to at least make wise choices when doing it, right??

SO... this morning, we went to the principals office for our big pow wow. She fessed up to ditching and where she was at. The principal gave her roses from yesterday and told her she's suspended for ditching school. The principal did not address the twenty-two freeking times she's skipped class and nobody notified me. Only the three classes missed yesterday. Oh well. It's not a perfect world. At least they caught her and maybe we can fix this thing before the problem gets any worse...

Thank goodness it's Friday.
I dont' think I can stand any more fun this week...

Peace... and, well, Peace.

2008-02-11T13:28:00.000-06:00

I said my peace to Ms.Blue and dropped it. I'm not going to push or nag.

Then the funniest thing happened. Thursday night she and I were visiting with all of our friends and she dropped her bomb on them. They pushed and nagged for about 3 hours. They squawked and talked and reinforced everything I've said from thirty different angles and by the end of the evening had her planning a wedding in October of 2009! Aren't friends wonderful? ...I think mostly she just needed to come home and be reminded the she is loved.

Ok. So that disaster is now under control.

Then yesterday, DH had to go out of town for the week. The company he works for had a warehouse taken out in the tornados last Tuesday and he had to go in with the team of engineers to tell the cleanup crews what product can be salvaged. SO...He's gone for the week.

30 minutes after he left, my fancy-smancy high dollar washing maching broke. The warranty went out 3 weeks ago. I've never bought an extended warranty on anything on my life. EXCEPT...for this paticular washing machine. I loved it so much when I bought it that I couldnt' stand the thought of anything happening to it. So I've been trying all day to arrange for the warranty work so I can wash clothes again.

Taking off early today to drive over to big city and take Ms.Blue to the airport.

I think I forgot to tell you that two weeks ago, Mr.Blue put on his first two stripes and caught up with Ms.Blue in rank. They are both A1C now. (Yep, proud mamma here)

Ok. I think that's all. For now.
Have a good day.
oh! Jaye. I'll try and come and catch up on your blog tomorrow. It's crazy at work!!

No and Hell No.

2008-02-06T13:09:00.000-06:00

Just got back late last night from 4 days in Peachtree City< GA. It was heavenly.
Ms.Blue flew in yesterday a couple hours before we got home for a week's leave.

I'm turning 40 tomorrow. (Thursday)

Late last night, road weary and confused and having had to change time zones again, Ms.Blue dropped a bombshell on me. (she's 20 now...)

Mom. she said.
No, I'm not pregnant. She said.
We want to get married in March. she said.

Next month. she said.

She isn't acting like a woman in love.
She hasn't told me this is the man of her dreams.
She isn't saying he's the one she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

She said. I'll get 1200 more a month.

Oh No.
Hell No.

I am so not liking this right now.

Celebrate With Me?!

2008-01-28T10:33:00.001-06:00

As long as you and I have suffered... knowing all the b.s. that goes on around here... knowing that it's been since 2002 since I've had a freeking raise...

T O D A Y.

Today, we're doing the happy dance.
The new sec is still a pain in my.... yeah that. But she's helped make it happen. She and I both FINALLY got raises AND the check isn't going to bounce today.

I can live with that for a while.
Hold my head up again.
Maybe even feel like coming to work for the rest of the week...

Yeah. I'm going to like making $16.25 an hour.

...until it bounces next time, anyway.

Thank you thank you thank you for listening to me rant, year after year, after year after year after year...(maybe even a couple more after years) ... while I waited and hoped and struggled.

Life is good today.

2008-01-14T12:12:00.001-06:00

...

2008-01-07T16:02:00.000-06:00

I got a call earlier today telling me that they gave the dream job to somebody else on Friday. Ok so, I keep looking. Then I got another call for an interview elsewhere. Ok. So, I keep looking ;)

And if you haven't run across this link yet: http://www.andrewolmsted.com/ you might want to check it out. It was written by a soldier/blogger before his death in Iraq. It is certainly enough to bring this military mom to tears... Major Andrew Olmsted, who posted a blog since May 2007, was killed in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2008. Olmsted, who had been based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, began blogging after his unit was sent to Iraq with the mission of helping train the Iraqi Army. A sniper killed Olmsted as he was trying to talk three suspected insurgents into surrendering. A sniper's bullet also cut down Capt. Thomas J. Casey. They were in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. Olmsted was determined to make a difference in Iraq. "The sooner the Iraqi government doesn't need U.S. support to provide security for its people, the sooner we will probably be asked to leave."

Later.
Kim

Another Adventure...

2008-01-04T11:57:00.000-06:00

I was following Dh home last night when one of those frozen-time slow-motion moments happened...

It was about 10:30. We were on the long, curvy, somewhat country road heading out to the new house. Less than a mile from home. I saw the deer about the same time it hit DH's pickup. As I reached towards my purse for my cell, I watched the deer roll out from underneath DH's truck, do a flip in the air, and bounce into the ditch. (Score! 2 points!) ...then I heard THUD as the deer ran back out of the ditch and slammed into the side of my truck before looking right at me and wobbling off into the woods. OMG it was so funny. Nobody was hurt, and it was just minor damage to both vehicles. What are the odds of us both hitting the same silly deer?

...the only thing that would have made it better would have been if the deer had dropped dead on the side of the road so I could have taken it to be processed... the freezer is empty.

Have a nice weekend!
K

Happy Holidays!!

2007-12-27T10:47:00.000-06:00

I'm still here...
Did I mention I'm still here?

Came in to work yesterday for 3 hours because I had to set up the NewFreekingComputers on the office network. Went home to find a letter from the bank in the mail telling me my FreekingPaycheckFromChristmasWeek bounced. What a joke. Yeah. I'm still here.

The house is great.
It's not going to fix my marriage, but it's a great house.

Having my son home is wonderful.
At least as much as I can enjoy having him home with DH bitching about him being home that is.
He's here until Saturday. I'm cooking all of his favorites and well, enjoying that too as much as I can enjoy it with DH bitching about my cooking all of his favorites.

SIL and her husband will be here tonight for a week.
Maybe having them around will be somewhat of a buffer and it won't be so awful.

Did I mention I'm still here?
Something has to give.
I told my DH on the 15th that if he doesn't quit his yelling and bitching about everything under the sun for no reason at all I'm leaving. I don't deserve the awful, ugly, mean and hurtful things that constantly come out of his mouth. I'm tired of being numb. I'm tired of biting my tongue and walking away. I'm just...well, Tired.

So it lasted all of 10 days. The peace, I mean. Without him constantly bitching at me. Nothing is ever right, or good enough, or well, up to his freeking high standards. Which, by the way, change with the wind or the sunrise or well, the moment.

I'm doing some very serious thinking about some really big resolutions for myself for the new year. Right now, it may include leaving him. But first I've got to manage to find a job where the paychecks don't bounce.

And survive his bitching the rest of the time Mr.Blue is home.
And survive his sister and her husband coming for a week.

So there you have it.
The real reason I haven't been writing lately. I've been really unhappy for a really long time. Now, I just have to figure out what to do about it...

and do it.

Happy New Years.
and thanks for listening.

K

Step In The Right Direction.

2007-12-12T08:45:00.000-06:00

Oh man.

I got the call for the 2nd interview Monday. Both appointments were over on State Street in the capitol city. A block apart. One at 9 and one at 2. ...the first one was ok. But I don't want to do temp work when I could be here. The second one. OMG. the firm is over 100 years old. some heavy hitters work there. My interview lasted an hour and a half. I have my fingers crossed because it would be a dream job with a dream pay.

OK. Then I came back this morning and the sec made all sorts of changes to the phone. at 8:40 we realized they were not ringing and they'd been disconnected. She'd 1) failed to pay the bill and 2) authorized someone who'd faxed ME a quote on the phones to switch our service. (InsertBadWordHere). I jumped on her ass. I'm the only one authorized to make changes on the phone system and I review quotes and run them by my boss a couple times a year. They can't do business without the damn phones. I reminded her that I do still work here and some of what comes through here is actually my job to do and she needs to back off.

Man I feel better

Back to the interviews.
I want the job from yesterday afternoon.
She handed me a two-page (TWO PAGE!) printout on their benefit packages.
I wish I'd been not so nervous and a little bit more well spoken. (hindsight)
The position wouldn't be doing the same sort of work I'm doing now, which I really love. It's an executive legal secretary for a lobbiest and a 1st year associate. Very nice pay. I could see myself there.

So that's where that's at.
In the meantime, I've been promised another (ANOTHER? I NEVER GOT THE LAST ONE) raise to keep me here and not do temp work. Yeah whatever. Show me the freeking money.

Happy Holidays.

Ok. No More Whining...

2007-12-10T11:11:00.001-06:00

Everybody cross your fingers. toes. Anything else you're able to cross.

I've got an interview in Jackson tomorrow.
9:00 a.m. sharp. (CST)
...and I'm waiting on a lady to call me from a different agency who's trying to arrange a second interview while I'm over there.

Yes. I bought a new pantsuit with jacket.
Not going to have time to get my hair cut before I go though.

Ready. Set. Cross em!

Yeah well...

2007-12-05T11:23:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I still haven't got the pictures posted. They're still there on my phone waiting , promise.

Ms.Blue spent all weekend baking Christmas cookies to send with cards to airmen in Iraq. She put me on speakerphone and I got to enjoy an hour of listening to her chatter and decorate with her friend and NavyBoy. It was so sweet... Sometimes I'm really proud of her... sometimes.

Mr.Blue called day before yesterday. He changed the dates that he'll be here so that he can meet up with an air force buddy in Houston and then go up and catch the air force academy football game the weekend after Christmas before they have to head back to their base... AND... he got his papers for his first assginment. He's going to spend the first part of his time in the service on a base 3 hours and 20 minutes away from home. So much for seeing the world and all that good stuff.

There's a fact of life now that both my airmen talk to me about that I sure never factored in when they were born. Deployment. Life insurance. Funerals. My children shouldn't have to be thinking about things like that at their age... but anyway... so Ms.Blue should be good until '09 unless something major stirs up between now and then... Mr.Blue can go anytime after April... he was trying to explain to me yesterday that where Ms.Blue will go for 4 months at a time, he can go anywhere from a day to a few months and may go often because of his job. ...at least he's preparing me for the possibles. Knowing is so much better than the unknown... I don't know what I'm going to do if the baby makes that choice also. Not sure I'm that big of a woman to have all three kids serving at the same time. It's enough to make you crazy...

So... Mother in law announced that she is coming back to spend the week when sister in law is coming. Oh Lord help me...

...I'm not a happy camper right now.

No Rest For The Weary...

2007-12-03T11:02:00.000-06:00

It seems like the past couple of months have just dragged on forever.

We're finally moved.
yes, I have pictures for you on my cell phone. I'll try to get them uploaded and posted asap.

And now that I'm only 20 minutes away from Clinton and 35 minutes or so away from Jackson, DH has finally caved in (after 2 years of my nagging!) and is "allowing" me to look for work over yonder in big city. Now that we have a mortgage, he's kinda realized that my paycheck bouncing more often than not might not be a very good thing... so I'm looking. Not finding anything... but looking

(Hey Stacy! If you hear of ANYTHING please give me a call! thanks :) ...)

There are a couple of handfulls of boxes left to unpack. Mr.Blue is coming home from the 23rd to the 29th... Hooray! Ms. Blue can't come home until spring, but the good news is they did not draw her number to go to the Sandbox or Korea, so she should be good and staying stateside until around 2009. (happy Mom!) ...SIL and her husband should be arriving to stay with us the 27th-Jan2. I am not impressed with DH's family at the moment deciding after all these years they all need to show up within a couple of weeks of each other. I have not yet got to finish unpacking and enjoy my house. I have not spent one minute in the woods this season either.

If I still had the parts to PMS boy would I be PMSing right about now. But no.

Tonight, I'm going to try and enjoy my house... We spent all day yesterday (it was 77 degrees!) trying to get the new jacuzzi up and running and figured out. ...after dinner tonight that's where I'll be. ...but hey. Dont' tell my inlaws. ok? I really could use an hour to myself to en joy my new house before the next holiday!

UGGH...

2007-11-26T08:52:00.000-06:00

Still not totallymoved...

Almost there...

K

Kim & the Castle...

2007-11-19T08:19:00.000-06:00

OMG. I like my house. Can I say that enough??
We did take 30 minutes out of the hum-drum on Saturday to stop by hunting camp and check out the score sheet. They got 7 DEER opening day... I survived not being out in the woods, was too busy moving to think about it much... yesterday it rained all day. Moving in the rain is not fun. Especially when you pull into the house you're moving out of and the u-haul truck sinks 36 inches down in the mud and it continues to rain the next 5 hours while you're loading the truck and you have to wait for someone with a winch on their truck to drive in from a hunting camp to pull it out... trust me, I know. ;) ... the new house is coming together beautifully. The old house, well, after the mud we tracked across the hardwood floors dries... and we get the rest of the boxes out of the kitchen... and finish cleaning... and level the front yard back out so the grass can come back in the spring...well, it's still going to be an old house and I'm not going to miss it one little bit!

Now... if DH can just get the new hot tub drained and running before the long holiday weekend, I might feel like unpacking the rest of those boxes and cleaning up all the mud at the other house!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving !!

A SHORT (Hah!) DETOUR...

2007-11-13T09:47:00.001-06:00

DH's grandmother passed away early Thursday morning... just about the time we hit the interstate heading for central Texas DH's brother-in-law's father died... So... I've been in small town Texas for five days going to funerals and putting up with the outlaws from hell... I missed five days of packing and cleaning and MIL is coming in a week to get in my way... We got home last night after a 12 hour drive to discover we'd run out of propane while we were gone and there's no hot water at the old house and we dont' move until day after tomorrow (SIGH)... and having missed three days of work, now I can't take off Friday to move like we planned... Did I mention my rude-ass MIL is going to be here in a week? UGGH. I am frusterated this morning. Ok. While I was gone, the sec tore my office apart looking for stuff and I not only have a torn apart mess from box-hell at home, my office resembles ground zero. I'm not sure if I want to cry or run away at this point, but I think I'm going to have to wait and do that after I make a few calls and try and get some address changes done on some of our bills... I'd been doing a few a day and was supposed to be done with that now.... like the packing and cleaning was supposed to be done...

Everything happens for a reason. I know.

Just The Facts, M'am.

2007-11-06T10:53:00.001-06:00

Friday the law office across the way from us was somehow involved in a shooting. that's all I know about that.

The sec is involved in one of those check scams that were featured on the news this morning. SHE GOT SUCKERED ROFLMAO... She had mentioned yesterday that she had met this guy on the internet and had been chatting with him... showed me his picture, then he called the office yesterday and we weren't prepared for the heavy accent he spoke with... anyway, she said he wants her to do something... then I saw on channel 3 this morning they just arrested some people not far from here for another check scam... I mentioned it to her and she said oh no it's not like that so we pulled up the news website and watched it and that's exactly what it was except they sent her stolen money orders... I told her she ought to call the attorney general and she ended up having to send it all to them... What a ditz.

We closed on the house Friday. I own a house. And a hot tub. I'm so excited. I can't wait till next week when they get the rest of their stuff out and we can start moving in. Last night we went and bought fence. A pretty wooden fence... :)

Won't Be Long Now!

2007-10-31T14:18:00.000-05:00

I thought I had 2 more weeks to work on packing but the bank called and we're closing Friday on the new house!!! :)

Weekend...

2007-10-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

Heading back out for another Elvis gig in Hot Springs Arkansas...
Everybody is fine, except my brother is disabled and his doctor's office and pharmacy burned so it's going to take some adjusting!

Southern CA Fires...

2007-10-24T12:28:00.000-05:00

My brother just txt'ed me and said they're getting ready to evacuate... they're ok for now but the canyon is filled with smoke and they're waiting on the authorities to tell them to go... no word from my uncle or cousins down there. ...I saw on the Today show this morning some of my old stomping grounds is gone... the town my grandparents lived in when I was a kid was hit pretty hard... so was the town my dad lived in when he was little. It's crazy... I don't remember fires this bad out there during my lifetime. I'm really glad for now my mom and sister are in areas that are safe... so far, my brother who is a firefighter/arson investigator has been kept in his own district and isn't in any danger...

And on a lighter note, I got a fabulous haircut today and am making some progress in the packing up and throwing junk out department... Have a great day!

House Of My Dreams!

2007-10-19T13:29:00.000-05:00

We're under contract.
The bank said there'll be no problem with this one.
The bank said interest rates were 1/8 percent lower today than when we locked in so we're now at the lower rate and saving 15.00 a month with the change.
Cool. That means we can eat one night a month and pay the mortgage.
Just kidding.

Can I get excited yet?
Finally a homeowner.
The house of my dreams.
It has everything I've ever said I wanted in a house...
It just might be the most beautiful house in the world.

Life might not be so bad next year when I turn 40 after all.
Yeah.

Another Wednesday...

2007-10-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

Gosh, it's been another week since I've posted? The days are just going too fast right now!

SO... anyway.

We didn't get the house. The bank(S) (all three of them in fact) said there's just too much wrong with it. After 5 weeks of ups and downs it ended up being a relief. It would have been a ton of work anyway having to remodel the whole thing to bring it up to our standards... so we're cool and life went on since they called us last Thursday at 4:00 and finally let us know...

THAT house, was Dh's choice. He grew up in the country, on a FARM. So he liked the land and the shop and the tractor that came with the place. I think his karma bit him in the butt over the whole thing because he really didn't consider my feelings in wanting that house, it was as always all about him and what he wants at the moment... so THAT house is over, done.

Yesterday we put an offer in on another house. THIS house, is my favorite out of the dozens we've looked at the past few months. You see, not only am I from California, but I grew up in the city. A spoiled rich kid. SO... things like tractors and sheds don't impress me much. I'm more into granite counter tops, vaulted ceilings, tile floors in the right places... pantrys. Out of all the houses we looked at, and yeah, there were a lot fo them, only one had a garage and a pantry. Something about this part of the world I guess.... I never told Dh I liked this house, I know better than that by now. I just waited until he was ready to pick another one and he insisted on this one. What a lucky break! It has everything I'd like to have and a jacuzzi too. We should have their counteroffer by 5:00 tomorrow. Guess we'll see what happens...

I think Ms.Blue and NavyBoy are going to be on again-off again with this engagement thing. Which is fine with me. I'll tell you more as it develops...

Mr.Blue is still doing great in tech school... a bunch of his friends are heading down this weekend to visit him...

Ok well. So that's all for now.
Next week I will be posting about Ms.Blue turning 20. And how I've actually survived the teenage years of the oldest. Still can't believe it. Stay tuned :)

Blah Blah Blah...

2007-10-10T13:15:00.000-05:00

Ok. So the brat (Ms.Blue) is engaged and that's all I have to say about that for now. I'm ok with it... she's not pregnant and she didn't call and tell me, "Mom-- I'm married!" ... we'll see what happens :)

I went to get my paycheck yesterday and the idiot sec told me, "that's going to bounce. They put a new overdraft limit on the account and it's 2,000 dollars overdrawn and we aren't going to get paid this week." No freeking way! I just went through this three weeks ago when I was in Texas with the paycheck bouncing and all the extra stress and worry. So I moved enough out of savings to make it until DH gets paid on the 15th but... it's just a matter of a few more days and if I don't get a dratted paycheck I'm not gonna be able to make ends meet for my family... I asked Dh last night why don't I just go get some other job temporarily, anything, just something to keep the money coming in, and he said to wait and see because he's up for another promotion and it may (might?) happen in time to fix everything. To top it off, the firm tax return for last quarter is still sitting on my desk and hasn't been mailed with our tax payment... they don't have that either... I cannot stand this place. Have I said that lately?

No news on the house... the appraisal review committee is still looking at it before it can go back to underwriting. The good news on that is, our contract expires Wednesday next week, and if things aren't settled one way or another by then, we're finished putting our hearts into this one and will just have to wait until we can find something else we like...

Mr.Blue is doing great at tech school so far... Lil'DD is getting ready for her first big dance at school... I'm working my 2nd job tonight then have to brush up on my notes... I'm teaching a quickbooks class down in Hattiesburg this weekend... can you say snore? How on earth can you make accounting/bookkeeping fun or exciting to people who don't even want to learn in the first place and are just going to complain all day? Well... we'll see. There might end up being a story there after all...

Nothing else going on (as if that isnt' enough??)...
more later!

Oh CRAP!

2007-10-08T13:37:00.001-05:00

Ms.Blue just called and said NavyBoy proposed and she said yes...

He could have at least waited until he found a freeking job.

He asked her to marry him at the Brad Paisley concert...
in the middle of the song ..."Wrapped around her finger"

Middle Of The Road...

2007-10-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

Thank you Stacy, for calling and checking up on me :) ...I always love talking to you...

The trip to see my son was wonderful! Ms.Blue and NavyBoy showed up in time for graduation, she even left her uniform at her base and let Mr.Blue have the weekend to shine alone... Lil'DD and I had a blast making the trip on our own... what a treat! We flew back home about the time Mr.Blue got on the bus to head to tech school... he's actually back here in Mississippi! ...6 more weeks and they send him to

somewhere in Texas for the second part of his school...

I deposited my paycheck from the firm the day before I flew to Texas. After our plane landed and I picked up the rental car, I checked my bank balance on the phone before we stopped at wal-mart and you're not going to believe this (well, you might if you've kept up with all the crap that's been going on here the past 3 years that I've been blogging about it)... and my paycheck bounced! They had shut the firm account down because it was in overdraft too long..>JEEZ what a pain... anyway, one of the attorneys made good on my check the next day but I was freaking out there for a while... When I came back to work on Monday, there were four certified letters from the IRS in the mail about liens and levvys and all sorts of awful stuff because of all the time the stupid Sec had lied about doing the taxes for the whole year... SO... the first couple of days after I got back was getting dollar amounts to the exact so they could not only get their bank account straightened out, but pay the taxes too.

The next weekend we went to a conference, so I only worked 4 days that next week... good time. Throughout all of this we were on the phone with the bank and the realtors back and forth negotiating about the house. Oh! I didn't tell you... they accepted our offer... We've been fighting over an existing easement though and I won't bore you with that except to say we should have an answer on that in the next 24 hours or so and finally know if we are going to close on Wendesday next week or if we are going to have to back out and look for another house...

I guess when Ms.Blue and NavyBoy spent that little time back together again during Mr.Blue's graduation weekend, NavyBoy realized how much he was missing his little sweetie... he quit school, quit his job, and moved back to Virginia last Sunday to be close to her again... She's going to be 20 in two weeks... and that's all I have to say about that for right now...

SO. You can imagine the whirlwind I've been in... not to mention last week I made my first real F*&k up at work ... it was a doozy. I made a 4k error and my boss had to pay for it. I've been so upset and sick over it... it wasn't entirely my fault but my boss didn't yell and scream or throw things or slam doors like he did when the sec didn't pay the taxes and lied about it and tried to hide it for a year. I called him right away and told him I screwed up... and we talked about it and gosh darn it his not yelling made me feel even worse than I already did! But it's over and I still have my job but it was awful... just awful...

This past Saturday I took my paralegal certification exam over in Jackson. I was really pleased with how well I did, though I expect when my scores come in 6 weeks I will have to retake the section on the different federal regulatory agencies and federal volumes and digests... It was an 8 hour test and following my meltdown over the messup at work, I just flat out couldn't remember. No sweat. I can retake that section in March and then I'll be certified. Sweet huh?

Yeah... it's been a whirlwind... I finally have a weekend off this weekend with no HAVE TO's. I cannot wait to get out in the woods and do some hiking... it's almost hunting season and the roads need to be worked. It will be a wonderful change...

Next weekend I'm supposed to be down in Hattiesburg to teach a class... I've done three individual trainings since March when I signed on to teach the new accounting systems, but this is the first regular class... Should be fun...

And to wrap it all up, I'm still having migraines. Every day since I posted about the last one. I have got to get rid of some of the stress, because I've known for years that the only time I'm overloaded is when I have them... last time was when I was working and doing my volunteer work and taking 5 college classes... I slowed down a bit and didn't have them again until now. I think I'm going to have to drop my 2nd job ... we'll see. I have to do something and soon.

Hope you have a wonderful day and I'll try to be better about posting with all that's going on. Thanks again Stacy for kicking me in the butt and reminding me that I haven't posted in forever! :)

Happy Dance X 2

2007-09-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, in case you're wondering. ;)

It's been a rough couple of months for me... Work has been busier than I can't remember when. I spent a whole lot of time looking for another job. I was feeling pretty bad with Mr.Blue being away and getting used to just having one at home. Well... there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

This is graduation week. Mr.Blue. Friday. :)

Lil'dd and I are flying out tomorrow. To Texas. Alone. If that doesn't sound like a freeking vacation, I dont' know what does. ...AND I don't have to fight HER to drive the rental car LOL. Thursday is the Airman's Run and Retreat. I cannot wait to see my son again. Friday Ms.Blue and NavyBoy will be there for Graduation. Sunday evening LilDD and I will be flying home.... It will be a wonderful few days, I'm sure.

Now, for more good news.

Another thing I've been busy with is finding a house.
It was a HUGE decision to become a first time home buyer when I'm almost 40. It was an even bigger decision to commit to staying here when all we've done since we got here was talk about moving away. We looked at 1 sunday. UGGH. We looked at 2 yesterday. I think we might have found it. The price is right. 2 story on over 5 acres. A bit of a fixer upper but I can hunt from my front porch in my pjs while I'm drinking my coffee. Yeah. I will lay carpet and paint and remodel... but this time it will be OURS and not a side job for somebody else... ummm.. so we got approved for financing within a couple of hours and put in an offer today. All I can say is I know if it's meant to be it all will fall into place.

So There.
I've been doing STUFF.
And now, I'm off to work my 2nd job and then home to try and remember what I need to put in the suitcase to wear for the next 5 days as I waltz across Texas. I was so excited last night I couldn't sleep more than an hour or two...

See ya next week!

Rough Morning... :(

2007-09-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

Today it's hard sitting at my desk...
I'm fighting a migraine and I haven't had one of those in a couple of years...

Missing my son...

On The Road Again...

2007-08-23T15:50:00.000-05:00

Only working half a day tomorrow, then heading out for Arkansas to do a gig. I've never stepped foot in that state before, so you can be sure there will be a shotglass and also a new babyspoon added to my collections during the trip... My mom's real mom's family is from Arkansas. That's all I know about them, except for what her real mom's last name was. Our gig is a private show for entertainment at some big convention. I'm sure I'll be scruitinizing name tags in the hallways and elevators to see if I might pass anyone with that last name. I know, that 's pretty lame. Like I'd be paying enough attention at any given time to even notice there might be someone in the elevator with me or passing me in the hall? Not likely.

We decided to leave the new hunka-hunka-burning-ripped-in-two-places-jumpsuit at home rather than try to mend it for the show. We decided it'd be better just to use one of the other suits instead of having to hold back on the performance and energy of the show due to worrying about more rips and tears. It wouldn't be fair to the audience or the people who are paying us to perform. Right? right.

I can't remember if I posted about getting called about a job over in big city last Friday. Anyway, I did get a call but it wasn't worth the hour drive each way to big city and back, and it would only be doing workmen's comp stuff which would be a total snore. I'm still looking though. I put in with the state gaming commission last week and the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms this week. Sooner or later I'm going to find that perfect job.

But for now, I'm going to finish up the stuff on my desk and try to figure out what I need to pack. What on earth do people wear in Arkansas?? Goodness. I have no clue.

Letters Home... (Boys Write Too!!)

2007-08-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

Got a wonderful 90 second phone call from my son on Sunday. Yesterday, 2 -2 page letters written a week apart came from him too. Gosh that helps...

American had a 99.00 each way special on, so I bought tickets for Lil'Dd and myself to go to Mr.Blue's graduation in 3 weeks. Ms.Blue hit the same sale and bought her ticket too. For the record, DH isn't going. I'm sure it won't be too much longer and part of my job will include drawing up my own divorce papers... but enough of that for now. I've tried not to air my dirty laundry about him and I and shouldn't change that today.

Anyway... Got the new elvis suit finished in time for the show last Saturday. Dh ripped it out in 2 places on stage, so I'm busy sewing again this week trying to get it repaired in time for the big show in Arkansas this weekend...

Round & Around & Around It Goes...

2007-08-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

Mexico would be a good place for this one to hit. Especially if it gets bigger. Don't want it to hit Texas because of Mr.Blue... and the northern route looks awfully close to home...

Freeking Peachy - Again...

2007-08-16T14:32:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning ready to pack up Lil'DD and her clothes and just leave everything and drive to my Mom's in Califnrnia. DH and I have been together 9 years, and in all that time while I've been more 'content' than 'happy,' I've never once thought about just chucking it all and running away. Until today. I spent most of the morning wondering "what on earth is WRONG with me??" ...I never had post-partum depression after the babies were born but I swear I've got it now, and how. Day after day for the past two weeks I've told myself ... "things just seem worse than they really are right now..." it was a really rough morning for me, again.

Then about 1:15 I saw an 18 year old kid come into the office to wait to see one of the attorneys. He had a 45 minute wait (it was the only time he could get a ride) so I got a pretty good look at him. The kid was filthy. Not like 18-year-old-working-or-playing-hard-in-the-summertime dirty. Dirty like he was homeless and hadn't had a bath in quite a while. Which he was and he hadn't. He was wearing dirty flannel pajama bottoms and a dirty white t-shirt. flannel pajamas and it's over 100 degrees outside.

Maybe I don't want to be in such a hurry to pack up and run away after all. Maybe I'm very lucky that my own 18 year old boy is wearing his combat boots and BDU's out marching in 75 degree weather in the middle of the tropical storm that's pounding Texas the next couple of days. Maybe I'm also very lucky that my 19 year old girl is wearing her combat boots in a nice air-conditioned office up in Virginia. And maybe I'm also very lucky that my 16 year old baby girl is on her way home from school right now and will be home when I get there tonight...maybe a little sweaty, but wearing clean clothes and having had a bath before school today, with a roof over her head and good food to eat...

Maybe it's not all about being happy.
Maybe content is okay.

Maybe.

Baby's Got A Brand New Drill!

2007-08-15T13:01:00.000-05:00

Lil'DD is being spoiled rotten now that she is the only kid left at home. She will be 17 in a couple months... and started 11th grade last week.

When we sat down the end of last school year to pick out the classes she was going to take her junior year, she was stumped about what to take for electives... She decided to take German II, (she'd already taken 2 years of Spanish and one year of German) and I talked her into trying ROTC and if she hated it, promised she could drop it and take study hall.

By the second day of school, Lil'DD decided she's dropping German II and she absolutely loves ROTC. They made her company commander. Oh.My.God. This is my blonde child. Remember--the one who got upset because the CowForSale (or was it HorseForSale) sign was on the fence we passed driving down the road rather than on the cow or the horse or whatever it was that day?? Goodness. So now when we're cooking dinner at night she's practicing saluting and right face and left face and talking about doing pushups... "Mom!" she said. The class voted to do drill outside rather than inside, then they complain about it being so hot..."

My baby girl has got a brand new drill! I think it's hilarious. She didn't want to take the class in the first place. The oldest two are now out in the world wearing combat boots, and everyone we know has asked her over the past month if she's going to be going in the service too. She has answered up to this point with a blank stare and "I dunno..." perhaps that's going to change? We'll see I guess.

Anyway... in another month I'll get to post pictures of Mr.Blue in his snazzy new Air Force uniform... maybe by then Lil'DD will have her Army JrROTC uniform and I can post hers too!

Gotta run...

Weeks 1 & 2

2007-08-13T15:49:00.000-05:00

Thank GOD last week is over. It was a rough one.
I screwed up everything I tried to do at work... fortunately my boss remembered how I fell apart when Ms.Blue left and was really patient with me.

Mr. Blue made it through week 1 and is now in week 2. At least I'm assuming he did. I haven't heard from him and don't expect to... he wouldn't call now unless he'd been hurt or is getting discharged. No news is good news still doesn't make it any better though... I still jump every time the phone rings, even though I know it will be either Sunday or next Sunday before I hear from him ...at the earliest.

Ms.Blue's supervisor approved her to take leave for Mr.Blue's graduation so she's hoping nothing will happen to mess that up and she'll meet us in San Antonio next month. She told me the other day her supervisor also mentioned that it'll be a year in just a couple of weeks since she screwed up last year and got arrested, she's worked hard and done a good job of staying out of trouble so it should be coming off her record before too long...

Before Mr.Blue left, he cut yards and yards of material for me, we have 3 gigs coming up in the next several weeks and I've been sewing like crazy the last few days. Every time I see where he cut something a little off and the scarf is going to be uneven or crooked, I just miss him so much I start to cry all over again. So it's more like sew sniff sniff sew sniff sniff... but I'm hoping to get the scarves done in time for Elvis to pass them out... this weekend it's a 4 hour show not too far from here... next weekend --check this out. Next weekend, we are driving all the way to Arkansas to play for an HOUR. They are paying for our hotel room for 2 nights. Plus gas/mileage. PLUS our regular fee. Guess with all the Elvis stuff that's been on tv the last month or so, it's a good time to do EP stuff... then next month we're back closer to home playing at a convention. I started sewing the egyption jumpsuit a couple of months ago, got about a third of the way through with it, and we discovered the aloha eagle kit which DH has been wanting forever so we put the other suit on hold and spent another thousand dollars on stuff to do the aloha eagle jumpsuit. We also had a new pattern made, the one I've been using for years has finally given up the ghost and just fallen apart... the new pattern took forever to get here... and it's been a nightmare ever since. I had to alter it a couple times, and DH has been putting all the studs on this one so I can have time to study. ... except the sleeves weren't measured right when they made the pattern... so I have to see if I can change them around tonight to get them perfect and then put the lining in... I'm not sure it's going to be finished by Saturday but we're hoping so...

Other than that, it's just life as usual here... The sec is still a pain in the ass. I received email replies from 2 of the jobs I sent out resumes on, didn't hear anything on the rest of them. Get this. The regular secretary government job I applied for sent me a thing telling me I wasn't qualified. Which was pretty much cool except for the fact that I've got my legal secretary certification (which by the way the sec managed to get hired without) AND am testing next month for my paralegal certificate. BUT. I was considered for the paralegal position over at the JAG office over in big city, which would have paid 3x what I'm making now plus benefits... so that made me feel pretty good...

Gotta run...

Zero Week... (Just Freeking Peachy II)

2007-08-06T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yeah. I'm just freeking peachy. About like I was when the first one left. Except this time I know more. It doesn't make things any easier though. Thank you Stacy for calling Thursday to ask how I was doing. Sometimes it totally sucks and sometimes I can keep busy enough to not worry so very much...

Mr.Blue finished ZeroWeek and is into WeekOne. This week he's a baby flight. That means they have to wear white tennis shoes with their BDU's to let all the other flights know they are the new guys. He can't go anywhere at all without taking a wing man with him. They travel as a group or in pairs and are never alone. Even knowing all that doesn't make it any easier...

Damn.
6 more weeks.

It's (almost) All Over But The Cryin'...

2007-07-31T12:44:00.000-05:00

This morning was back to school morning for 11th graders... which meant dragging Lil'DD to work with me, taking her to the high school to pick up her schedule and get her locker assignment and fill out those parent information cards... It was REALLY weird only having to go one time for one kid this year. The only other time that happened was the year Ms.Blue started kindergarten...

Then I drove Lil"DD back to the house. And I hugged Mr.SoonToBeBlue.
He gave me a real SonHuggingHisMomHug rather than one of those embarassed teenage boy things I've been getting the past couple of years... it was nice. I almost cried...

He's leaving before I get off work today... going to big city to stay in the MEPS (MilitaryEntranceProcessingStation) hotel so he can get up early tomorrow and be processed before flying off into the wild blue yonder. I could have taken this afternoon off if I'd asked but jeez, I'd just spend the entire night bawling, which would be no good because I have to work at my 2nd job tonight and payroll taxes have to be done. Not a good combination, taxes and tears, I dont' think. SO. I took the whole day off tomorrow and we're driving over to big city to spend a little time w/ DS after he's processed and re-sworn and all that good stuff... To say good-bye. And good-luck. And yes. THEN. I can start crying. About the time I turn my back, take the eleven steps from the chairs in the reception area to the front doors, five steps through the front doors and out onto the sidewalk. THEN. I will cry. After hugging my little boy good bye.

I took the whole day off so I can take Lil'DD to the mall while we're over in big city and see if we can find her some cool clothes. She's going to be a junior this year and school starts next week.

I wonder what the rules are for crying women who are scaring the wits out of mall shoppers. Anyone know? Well, anyway...

Ms.Blue is doing great, by the way. Especially considering the fact that she didn't get caught with the kitten she snuck into her dorm last week and couldnt' find a home for off base until Sunday evening. Other than that, all is well with Ms.Blue...

Oh! There is one good thing that happened this week. I sent in my reservation to test for my Paralegal Certificate. I've finally been here long enough to do that without finishing my degree. My boss signed the paper yesterday and the other attorney said they would pay the $250.00 registration/testing fee. THAT WAS NICE. Dont' get that too often around here, so I wanted to make sure I told you... SO. I have less than 60 days to keep myself totally busy cramming through all my textbooks and the law library here at work trying to remember all the crud I learned in college because I REALLY WANT TO PASS THIS TEST. And be recognized as a professional paralegal. Might keep my mind off Mr.SoonToBeBlue being gone too as a matter of fact...

Mr.SoonToBeBlue(a.k.a.AcademyBoy) is now officially my own darling Mr.Blue.

Good Luck son. I love you.

The Last Dance...

2007-07-30T08:48:00.001-05:00

Mr.SoonToBeBlue leaves tomorrow... he'll spend the night at the MEPS hotel then spend the day at MEPS on Wednesday finishing his processing before flying off into the wild blue yonder. I can't look at him without wanting to bawl. At the same time, I am so terribly excited for him....

A couple weeks ago he and I had our last dance before he leaves for boot camp. The band played "Have I told you lately that I love you", and the singer sang it "Have I told you lately that I love you, my son" ...so it was pretty special.

I'll try to write more later on in the week when I'm not such a mess of emotions...

All Things Political...

2007-07-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

I'm going to break my rule of not blogging about stuff that's controversial today. What the hell. I'm in a rare mood...

First off - I paid 2.73 for gas this morning. How much are you paying for gas where you're at? I haven't seen 2.73 for a LONG time LOL...

I've been watching America's Got Talent, no prediction on the winner but oh my gosh! The first part of the rounds, this chubby guy got up with a guitar and sang... WOW! His name is Cas Haley and he has a fantastic sound that I've never heard from a white guy before. I absolutely loved the music, the sound of the voice. Good stuff. After he sang the 2nd time a couple weeks later, I was definitely hooked. I got online and found his myspace and his band's web site and ordered his cd. I haven't bought a cd in six years, but I really liked that sound... so anyway... he made it through and sang again last night. It was time for the voting... I voted 10 times from my phone. 10 times from Lil'dd's phone. I was trying to talk Mr.SoonToBeBlue and Dh into letting me vote from their phones too, but they said I was getting rediculous... (yep. that's me) but anyway... the cd came a couple days after I ordered it. It was very well done. The music is fantastic, the voice/sound mix sounds totally professionally done. Hey, I've worked in the music industry for years, by now I can tell the difference LOL.... but anyway. I was REALLY disappointed in the actual lyrics in the songs themselves. They were a little drug-infested for my taste, but I still keep listening to the stupid cd because I love the sound and that voice...

Anyone know how long the IRS will let a company go without paying income taxes before they really get into trouble? Things here at work are bad. ....really bad. I appliied for another job yesterday. Something has got to give in this small freeking town...

Six months ago I stated that although I'm a registered republican, I vote my conscience and not the party preference. I'm predicting the democratic ticket for president next year will be a Hilary/Obama thing going on. Most likely Hilary running for Pres and Obama their choice for her V.P. Just my thoughts on that while I'm writing naughty today...

Oh! So, did you go out and buy the new Harry Potter book? I had to wait until Sunday evening to get it because we were out at the lake. I LOVED the book but am grumbling about the ending... that's all I'll say for now. I read it in 5 1/2 hours. Ms.Blue didn't get her copy in the mail until Monday and she's not finished yet. Lil-DD and Mr.SoonToBeBlue started reading it as soon as I finished, she's reading it evenings while he's been working, and he's been reading during the day. I cannot believe it's all over... :( The kids and I have ready HP together since the first story came out...

Gotta run, have a great day!

A Last Week...

2007-07-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

Mr.SoonToBeBlue is leaving in less than a week. I've been numb for days and days and today I'm starting to feel like I'm going to shatter into a zillion pieces... Saturday we went to the lake for the last time just the four of us. Sunday, Mr.SoonToBeBlue and I went driving. It's been over 2 years since he took driver's ed, and although he's had his permit, he hasn't driven all that time... Brave soul that I am, I decided to let him drive me to wal-mart. O.M.G. I went through my entire dictionary of cuss words in the first mile and a half. What was I thinking?? Why on earth would I want this child to get a driver's license while he was still living in my home rather than waiting until he's out on his own??? Anyway... so he drove to wal-mart and we bought his carryon bag to take his change of clothes with him... and his phone card... so he can call home from boot camp... Then today, today was another big day for him. He went to take the driving test to get his license. He made it... he got his license. We went from the driver's license place to get a cell phone set up. He can't take it with him to boot camp, but he wanted to get it set up now and I'm going to bring it to him at graduation in September... so he'll have it... poor kid, they asked for a $500.00 deposit and he paid it out of his own pocket... it was what he wanted to do... I stood there and wanted to throw up... maybe he'll be responsible and get it back in a year, who knows? ...we went from there and headed to wal-mart and ordered his new contact rx. He can't wear contacts at boot camp, has to wear those silly birth control glasses, but we're bringing the contacts to him in september as well so he can have them for tech school when he's allowed to wear them again... All of this took 2 1/2 hours and I treasured every second of it... time spent with my son. As I was driving him home. ...(What - do you think just because he got a license he's going to drive me more??? Hahhahaha. Not anytime soon. I need to learn some new cuss words first...) anyway... on the way to drop him off so I could get to work, he said... Mom... the phone is in my name and the bank is in my name and you won't have to worry about problems with me like you did with Ms.Blue... O.M.G. I've wanted to cry ever since... I'll still worry and I'm sure he'll have some problem or another... and I'm so proud that he's trying not to make the same mistakes as his big sister...

The rest of today I've been fighting a migraine. I don't get them very often anymore, and only when the stress gets where I can't handle it... yep. I'm there.

Tonight is Mr.SoonToBeBlue's last night of work. His friends have already had a band & going away party for him. ...now all that's left is getting through these next couple of days and saying good-bye for now.

I really thought the second one going away to the air force was going to be easier. I'm discovering it isn't. Nope. Not at all...

Flashbacks!

2007-07-18T11:20:00.000-05:00

Mr.SoonToBeBlue is packing away his room and getting ready to leave in 2 weeks. Here we go again...

I've applied for 2 jobs in the past week. I can't take this anymore, and am looking. REALLY looking for something else.

I had some free time (SOME? The sec and one of the attys are on vacation this week. The other atty is in depositions today. It's a morgue here!) this morning and logged on to classmates.com. I hadn't been on in over a year and had two messages. One was from a high school friend I've kept in touch with over the years, letting me know their daughter is getting married. The other was a surprise. It was from the first guy I ever fell in love with. He'd left the message back in February, wishing me a happy birthday. It has been 21 years since we were together, 19 since I saw him last... we broke up for reasons that were out of our control and it took me a whole lot of years to get over him... I think I went into shock when I saw his name pop up on the screen. And it was suprising and very sweet that he remembered after all these years...

I haven't really had much, other than that, to write about since we got back from vacation. Been swamped at work until the past couple of days trying to get caught up.

...later!

1.5 more hours!

2007-07-03T15:21:00.000-05:00

We got back from Florida late last night.
I have stories, but most of them involve DH and what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go, with the kids and I tagging along for the ride. 5 days of well...sort of... fun.
First part of vacation is over.

yes, I had to work today.
We had to miss out on 2 days of the convention and fly back early and work.
If that doesn't totally suck.

Now. Only 1 1/2 more hours until

Vacation PART 2!!

Heading home in a little bit to switch vehicles, load up the food & jet skis and head out to the lake for the next 5 days.

I need a vacation ;)
See y'all next week!

Counting Down...

2007-06-25T10:41:00.000-05:00

3 more sleeps (2 days)
until VACATION!!

Ticked Off!

2007-06-22T10:26:00.000-05:00

GRRRRR!

Two months ago Mr.SoonToBeBlue ordered a box of checks from our bank. Not long after that, our mail lady left a note in our mailbox that checks for our son had been delivered to a neighbor a couple doors down. It took us 4 days to get ahold of the neighbor, who told us they had her address on them so she sent them back to the bank. I called the bank and screamed and hollered and they finally sent out new checks with the correct address on them.

A month ago I ordered deposit slips for our savings account. I ordered them through a different person at a different branch. Yesterday I realized they never came. I called the bank to see what was up and the head teller told me that they had been shipped on the 5th. WHAT? Yesterday was the 21st and they never came where the heck are they?? She said she' d look into it and call me back. Yeah right. This morning I called again. Someone else is looking into it and calling me back. I'm done with that freeking bank. This is four HUGE mistakes in less than 4 years. (the other two involved several hundred dollars cash which was deposited into my account yet didn't show up as a deposit, then took 4 days to track down. The second involved my paycheck, which is drawn on the same back, which was deposited into my account, and shown as cleared through my employers account, yet never showed up as a deposit in my account...)

It's time to switch banks.
And soon.

TGIF!

2007-06-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

It's finally Friday! Unfortunately, that means Ms.Blue is leaving for home this evening. She's been a treasure most of the time she's been home. I'm really going to hate seeing her get on the plane tonight :( ...yesterday she and I snuck off to spend a little big of quality girl time together. Her poor feet were such a mess from wearing combat boots 40 hours a week, and she's wearing flip-flops most of the time (when she's not in her cowboy boots, SIGH)... so we went and got pedicures. She was so excited that her feet looked girly afterwards, she went with a girlfriend over to BigCity and bought foot scrub and lotions and new sandals and some sassy new bras... I'm glad to see her acting more and more like a girl, and that being in the military hasn't totally made her conform. She may be almost 20 but she' s still my first baby, always will be...

So DH has grudgingly agreed to make another trip to SamsClub when we take Ms.Blue to the airport... I know he's got his eye on one of the flat screen tvs over there and him deciding to put one in the cart this close to our vacation really would NOT be a good thing... LOL

As for me, except for being sad about Ms.Blue leaving tonight and being totally heartbroken that Mr.SoonToBeBlue leaves in just one more month... I'm doing great. In fact, I've been gearing up in vacation-mode all week (yeah, I know. I had all that time off after my surgery but hey, I need a VACATION!)... Boss has either been out or in court most of the week so I've been playing online... researching some of the things we want to do in Orlando... that sort of stuff. Just six more sleeps and I haven't started packing yet for the 1st part of our trip, though I do have most of the other stuff gathered for the 2nd part of our trip...

Someone said yesterday was the first day of summer. Huhh? It's been summer here for 3 1/2 months already. ...I keep looking at my tan to make sure but I'm pretty sure...

It's time for vacation.

Sniffle...Sniffle... at XYZ Law Firm

2007-06-20T09:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday this guy came in the office whom I'd never seen before with a huge stack of discovery marked with the district attorney's cover sheet. He told me that attorney Y had given it to him to read and he wasn't finished marking it up yet so he asked me to make him a copy. I copied the whole 5 inches and handed it to him, and took a message for attorney Y to call him when he got back from lunch. He told me his name, which was vaguely familiar... is that spelled with a Y or a G? I asked him. When he answered something in his voice jogged my memory and I remembered exactly who he was from talking to him on the phone dozens of times. Then he left.

I flipped through the book he left me with. Reports from the district attorney. Witness interviews. the works. And promptly forgot about the whole thing.

A couple hours later he's back in the office meeting with attorney Y. The guy must have court in the next couple of days. And I heard him being the big tough businessman discussing this and that and the errors in the statements and whatever.

Yeah. This is the guy who called seven times a day, over a period of about six months, from the jail, crying, begging attorney Y to go and see him.

Some days I love my job.
Even if I haven't had a raise since 2002.
Yesterday, especially because the sec was out sick for the 2nd day in a row,
I really, really loved my job.

About Friends...

2007-06-19T08:17:00.000-05:00

Two friends of ours who got engaged under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning are getting married this weekend. Everybody is coordinating plans because we all go from that into our vacations through the 2nd weekend in July. E&S, who live about an hour from here, were up a few days ago. They're hurrying home from the wedding to pack because they leave for Orlando the day after the wedding. She is going a few days early because she says she has a date with both Mickey and Shamoo. A&J will be in town Thursday to stay until the wedding, then they're driving back to Tennessee, switching suitcases, and heading to Orlando. They should get there the night before we do. T&D are flying to Orlando like we are, but they're leaving a day ahead of us and coming back a day after... Everybody else is driving and will straggle in whenever they get there. It sounds like it is going to be a good conference. I'm excited about my invitation to the reception on Friday night for technical trainers... and I get to work in one of the booths at the main convention area one morning as well... After the conference is over, everybody is heading out to the lake for the last 5 days of vacation. What a perfect way to break up the middle of summer. Boss has finally stopped growling about me taking more time off, but that's mostly because the sec hasn't shown up for work the past couple of days... but anyway.
Oh! And when we get back DH said I can book a cruise for this winter. I'm so ready to go!!

Father's Day

2007-06-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

Since I got to go down and pick out new living room furniture for mother's day, I surprised DH with a custom built laptop for father's day. To replace the one we use for the elvis music to run on during the gigs... you know ... the one the glass of tea spilled into back when Mr.SoonToBeBlue thought he was man enough to use the FWord and I went flying over the coffee table after him... yeah, that laptop. anyway. It was supposed to be here this coming Friday, a little late, but loaded down with all the hardware Dh could imagine. Suddenly last week, the tracking information said my order had been cancelled. I was on the phone with them, wait, let me rephrase. I had the office phone in one ear and the cell phone in the other. I was on the PHONES with them for an our and fifteen minutes last Thursday. Getting it straightened out. Finally, it was back in production and I'll be darned if they didn't extend the ship date to July something or other, when I'm going to be in Orlando... so this morning, he called and asked me if there wait, let me back up. DH called and asked me if there was any news on the laptop. I pulled it up and lo and behold it shipped out of Nashville on Saturday and will be here TOMORROW! Not as late as we expected and he'll have a few days to play around with it before we go to Florida... and he has 2 months to get it all loaded w/ the music, and the sound & lighting software before our big gig up in Hot Springs....

We spent part of father's day at the lake. The rest of it, HE spent in his new recliner while Ms.Blue and I ran off to a bridal shower for a little while. Then. HE cooked dinner.
Imagine that.
There might be hope for him after all...

Monday Already?? (Sigh)

2007-06-18T09:58:00.000-05:00

Started with VodkaSlushies.
Switched to VodkaSmoothies
Tried a DockRocker
Changed to Vodka&MangoJuice
Finished with Vodka&Coke

... enjoying this last week with Ms.Blue and counting the days until our vacation !!

Jokes On Me!

2007-06-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

Hahahahaha.

It appears NavyBoy's parents are not the real responsible type AT ALL.
They showed up at 11:00 last night w/ Ms.Blue & NavyBoy. ...stayed and talked for a couple hours...then drove home to TX??? Freeking crazy whacko people.

At least that's over.
I have my Ms.Blue at work with me today.

Yes, it IS possible to make Vodka Slushies. :) Haven't you ever... well, hmm... maybe you haven't. ANYWAY... trust me on this. And yes, you can make rum and coke slushies too, Mo. I'll make one for you tonight, maybe tomorrow night too...

Another hour or so and I'll be running home to grab a suit, pack the truck and load up the jetskis, and head out for the lake! (last weekend we get to go until July 3 because of our vacation... )

TGIF!

Grandma the Groupie...

2007-06-14T11:59:00.000-05:00

My Mom totally loves Toby Keith. She called me a couple of weeks ago and said "Kim!" "Toby's going to be on Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmell and I've taken off work and am going!! " ...if that poor man is anywhere within 500 miles from my Mom, she's going to see Toby.

Well, it turns out she wasn't picked to do Leno but did make the Kimmell show yesterday. I didn't know who in the heck this person is, never heard of him before she said she was going. Ok. I found it and set the tivo. I'm not staying up that late to watch Toby, the Kimmell guy, whoever the hell he is, or my Mom.

This morning I got up and rushed to turn on the tv and FF the tivo up until Toby came on. Then, there she was. MOM. On Tv. I've only seen her twice in the past 9 years because of the distance and the cost to get us all out there and the fact that her one flight to visit us and then fly home scared her to death... and I lost it. I sat in front of the television set this morning bawling my eyes out, rewinding and watching and rewinding and watching and rewinding and watching... I did that for 30 minutes. DH got up and walked out in the living room to find me, sitting there with the remote in my hands... sniffling with tears on my cheeks... he said, "What in the HELL is wrong with you?" "I SAW MY MOM!!" I said. "And that's something to cry about?" he asked?? well. Yeah. Today it was. I. Saw. My. MOM.

...Other news this week, Ms.Blue learned a lesson! Woohoo!!
She called me Tuesday night, saying, "Mom. I need to tell you so you don't THINK THE INCONSIDERATE (I almost giggled here). They're not going to be able to bring me home until Friday because MotherOfNavyBoy has to work...

OH YEAH... SCORE ONE FOR THIS MOM!

So with the change of plans, rather than a quick hello and good-bye tonight meeting ParentsOfNavyBoy, it's turned into ParentsOfNavyBoy are bringing Ms.Blue, NavyBoy and the family camper out to spend part of the weekend with us out at the lake. (HUH? They're going to be intruding on my party time???)

And even better news...
I went to wal-mart at lunch (yeah, you'd think I'd learn my lesson after the quick trip and coming home with just one shoe...) but anyway. We had just checked for the little individual slushie machine w/ the cute cups/straw/spoon on Monday and they were still out. I almost forgot to check after picking up father's day cards but remembered just before I got in line. They had the machine w/ one cup and I bought the last 5 cups. Phew. My girlfriends have been using theirs for weeks and they are so totally much fun making all the different flavors of slushies (with vodka for the adults of course) out at the lake when it's 98 degrees and 98% humidity. ...silly thing to get excited about, I know. But I REALLY wanted one.

So anyway. Vodka. Slushie. ParentsOfNavyBoy.
Did I mention Vodka. Slushie?
yeah. The weekend might not be a total waste after all...
Vodka. Slushie
Vodka. Slushie.
Vodka. Slushie...

Wishing I Was There...

2007-06-12T10:29:00.000-05:00

I keep reading the blogs and updates on the first week at the WSOP in Vegas. If you've ever been there, you can just FEEL the excitement, and the boredom, and the exhaustion from the words...

Big news there is Phil Hellmuth won his 11th WSOP bracelet yesterday, breaking Poker King Doyle Brunson's record of 10. With that win, Hellmuth also set the record for total number of cashes (cash wins) at the WSOP, 59, and there's still 6 weeks of poker left to play in this year's series!! Phil isn't one of my favorite-most players, but he's made 38 final WSOP tables, one more and he'll tie TJ Cloutier's record of 39 final tables.

NavyBoy & Ms.Blue & MoreBeer...

2007-06-11T08:39:00.001-05:00

We headed out to the lake Friday night after work, man was it hot! Ended up putting one of the boats in and just cruising around on the water until 9pm when it finally started cooling off... while we were out, NavyBoy consumed most of a 12-pack. By the time we were cooking dinner, he'd had enough to start pouring his lil' heart out to DH and myself...

He MENTIONED that he knew from right off that Ms.Blue wasn't like any other girl he'd ever known... then he MENTIONED that he has his eye on a piece of land out by his parents that he plans to buy ... then he MENTIONED that he isn't going to ask Ms.Blue to marry him without talking to DH first...

OMG about that time I started choking on the air I was breathing. Ms.Blue said I got a really strange look on my face.

THAT was A LOT to soak up before dinner.

I couldn't eat.

I stayed up until 2am slamming mudslides with my friend S after everybody went to bed.

Saturday we all got up early and hit the water. Boats. Jet skis. Lots of swimming and soaking up the rays. ...out of the blue a few people and my dh kept asking me, "What's Wrong??" Nothing I said. At least I didn't THINK anything was wrong.

I was just having a Mom Moment I guess... This is my little girl. Ya know?

...So... Saturday night we took Lil'DD and Mr.SoonToBeBlue to a going away party his friends were having for him (Mr.STBB)...they had a band and everything and about 25 kids showed up... and after dropping them off, the rest of us went to karaoke for an hour before NavyBoy and Ms.Blue headed out west to TX to stay with his family for a few days.

For whatever reason, NavyBoy is bringing his parents to meet us on Thursday when he brings Ms.Blue back here to spend the rest of her leave with us. I'm not sure that I'm up to this... but I'll try.

That was my weekend. I can't wait to go and read all of your blogs and hope you had more fun than I did...

Meet the fam...

2007-06-08T10:37:00.001-05:00

This is me. I'll try for a better picture next time...

This is one of my favorite places.

Meet Ms.Blue. She wears BDU's every day

at her job but this is my favorite picture of her in uniform so far...

This is Mr.SoonToBeBlue/a.k.aAcademyBoy

Except here he's in his armyrotc uniform...

This is my baby. Lil'DD. Isn't she cute?

Home At Last!

2007-06-08T08:52:00.001-05:00

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I've MISSED writing in my blog like I used to. Heck, I've been writing my stupid stories here for almost 3 years now... but it really took something out of me, being afraid to write what I wanted to write or afraid to post pictures... My DH isn't the most understanding of men... if he discovered I was blogging and putting personal info out there, or even corresponding with people I didn't know, there would be ugly stuff at home... SO... at least for now, I'm going to try writing again. And if I want to post a darn picture I'm going to post a picture LOL...

There's been so many things I've wanted to write about lately, stuff I couldn't write because if someone I knew happened to hit the next button and end up reading it, life might turn out pretty bad for me. I like not having to worry about that now.

SO... where to start?

Stupid Stupid Me...

2007-06-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

OMG you'd think at my age I would have learned by now.

I trusted somebody online this past year (yes, I know, I'm REALLY stupid) but anyway. I was stupid. I think I've been looking for something I probably shouldn't be thinking about looking for, and hopefully I wised up before it's too late and I end up doing something stupid...

Hey-

2007-06-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

I think I can relax and write more with the new security features on blogger now. Sara @ StickyMuffin tried to get me to log on to her secure blog for months and I couldn't figure out how to do it. Now that I've found her, I think the features are so great that I'm going in for the cloak and dagger stuff myself.

If I've forgotten to invite someone (who you know is a regular read on my blog) please give them my email : kimsmith@loveable.com and tell them to write and let me know who's asking and I'll send them an invite.

This cloak and dagger stuff might be just what I need!

Ms.Blue & NavyBoy Day 1

2007-06-07T07:57:00.001-05:00

When Ms.Blue decided to JoinTheAirForce, I thought it would be a very good thing for her to experience more of the world than she would find had she stayed here and tried to make some sort of life for herself. We've traveled a whole lot over the years and she's seen a lot of places, and well, I just really hoped that she wouldn't settle for what is HERE. Lord knows we're counting the time until the kids are grown and we don't have to feel like we need to stay here anymore. Anyway...

So. Ms. Blue has spent the past year up in BigCityOnTheEast Coast where she's stationed. Trust her to find a piece of home wherever she goes...

Ms.Blue and NavyBoy arrived right after I got home from work last night. Ms.Blue and NavyBoy arrived in RedneckTruck with RedneckTrailer attached, as NavyBoy ended his navy career a few days ago and is on his way home to his parents house to work with his dad and start college in the fall.

I don't know who was more nerve-wracked the first hour or so, the kids or DH and myself. I didn't want to like the kid. I tried my hardest not to like him, especially when Ms.Blue came to the door dressed in a mini-skirt that is smaller than most bikinis and a top, well, I guess you could call it a top, that ummm... well... let's just say I have dish towells that have more material to them than what she was using for a top... (Guess I've forgot to mention over the years that Ms.Blue is the one female in our family who ended up with all the boobs of the other females in our family for 3 generations. All piled onto her proud little (little? HAH!) chest... but anyway...

So once the introductions were over and everybody started to relax (DH had a couple and I started drinking pretty heavily the minute they hit the door)... things were ok. I mean REALLY ok. He's a nice kid. And they do seem to get along really good. I know from things Ms.Blue has told me that he's really good about buying her flowers all the time and stuffed animals and jewlrey and taking her out to eat... things that are important. He's really respectful like most texas boys too... so that's a plus... I think they started relaxing before I did though, alcohol or no alcohol... as they both wolfed down 2 burgers at dinner when I barely picked at everything on my plate...

NavyBoy is bunking in with Mr.SoonToBeBlue and Ms.Blue is bunking in with Lil'DD. They knew that was going to be the arrangements before they even left BigCityOnTheEastCoast and seem to have no problem with it...

Mostly after that, we were just getting caught up with Ms.Blue and making chit-chat with NavyBoy... nothing super interesting happened but hopefully something will come up worth writing about.

As for my plan of stirring the pot and bringing ArmyBoy back into the picture, the joke was on me! Ms.Blue had called ArmYBoy during the day yesterday and he had a 5pm flight back to ArmYBase and they won't be able to meet up after all...

Oh. One more thing. DM (my dear mother) has phoned several times over the past few days, doing the 'inquiring minds wanna know' thing... She keeps insisting that Ms.Blue is pregnant and that's why they're coming to see us and going to see his parents. Ummmm... thanks Mom. I know where I get my evil ways from. No, she's not preggers (thank God!).

No Bed & Breakfast Here!

2007-06-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

When Ms.Blue called 12 days ago and said she was taking 3 weeks of leave and bringing NavyBoy with her, we changed our plans for those weeks to make sure we would be home and could accomodate the things they wanted to do. She was coming Friday. Two days from now...

Ms. Blue surprised me on Monday and called saying, "Mom! Guess what time we'll be there!" She and NavyBoy decided to leave a couple of days early and were coming in Tuesday morning (yesterday) rather than Friday. No sweat. Of course, mom that I am, I hurried to make sure the house was tidied and that we had extra groceries for the earlier days they were coming along with clean sheets for the extra beds...

They planned on driving straight through, but not leaving until 8pm east coast time, we were worried that they'd be too tired and encouraged them to stop and get a little sleep at least sometime during the trip.

She txt'ed me during the night, state by state letting me know of their progress. Last one I received was about 6am yesterday, that they'd made it into Alabama and were going to try and sleep because they were tired.

8:00 last night still no kids in the driveway. No phone call telling us they were going to be late or not coming. Heck! It's only about a 5 1/2 hour drive from where they're at to home. I called her. They decided to (FuckLikeRabbits?) spend another night in AL before driving the rest of the way and were just to freeking inconsiderate to call and let us know. No big deal. I'm flexible. But we've already adapted and adjusted life twice the last couple of days for these 2 kids and now I'm not in the welcomingest of moods to greet them.

I don't like (or stand for) disrespect out of my children... Now that I've spent the past 2 days a little ticked off because Ms.Blue is being so inconsiderate, I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to give her and NavyBoy the warm reception they might have gotten otherwise. Heck, I haven't seen my daughter in 6 months. This is the first time she's bringing a boy home to meet us. How the hell am I supposed to feel? I imagine the next few days (if they even decide to show up!) will be quite interesting. DH is in rare form and hates NavyBoy already...

SO... EvilMother that I am, I have a plan in the works. PayBackIsABitch my dear darling daughter. There is a certain boy that Ms.Blue dated her senior year of high school. Those of you who were reading my blog back in those days might remember me posting about him. I adored this boy. They could have gotten married somewhere down the road and life would have been grand. But Ms.Blue flew away and joined the air force. And SuperBoy ran away and became ArmyBoy. ...I played poker last Friday night with ArmyBoy's Daddy (Evil Laugh)... and ArmyBoy's Daddy just happened to mention that ArmyBoy himself is home on leave until the middle of next week. (oh yeah!). ArmyBoy's Daddy is going to make sure that ArmyBoy catches up with us sometime over the weekend ...

Well. I think now that I've blown off steam I might be able to handle a possible meet&greet sometime this afternoon.

At least I should have some interesting things to write about the next few weeks! LOL

edited 10:40 a.m.
...thought I needed to mention that just because I haven't blogged about it, does not mean that I've forgotten the WSOP has started in Vegas. I am following each day's highlights as well as keeping up with the various poker blogs posted by both the players and those in town to cover the tournaments. My heart beats a little faster every day when I pull them up. ...man I can wait until next year when I get to go back... it's something you just don't ever get over.

TGIF!

2007-06-01T09:18:00.000-05:00

Getting a little excited about Ms.Blue coming home. ...oh, and the new 2nd job is working out great btw. easy work, great pay, and I'm not quite so grumpy when I come in to work at the firm because at least I'm getting my worth elsewhere...

Less than a week after Ms.Blue flies back to her wild Blue yonder, the rest of us are packing up and leaving on a jet plane... oh wait, that was a song, wasn't it? Hmmm.... I guess we'll actually be tossing all our summer ResortCasual wear into the well-worn suitcases and driving the hour to the airport and flying to Florida. ...I've never been there, and neither have Mr.SoonToBeBlue or Lil'DD, so it ought to be a fun week. After we get home we're going camping for a week... then a few weeks later we're going to Arkansas, another place the 3 of us have never been. ...you know me and my road trips. I like to cram as much into a year as possible and get maximum exploring done out of our limited travel time. I think we're going back to TX somewhere in between those two trips... and then to TX again in September.

Work has been totally hilarious. The sec (commonly referred to as PITA) is just such a total flake I cannot understand her. I grabbed the checkbook for the firm account this morning to do our taxes for last month... and there are seventeen blank checks during the month that I'm going to have to wait for the bank statement to come, and try to figure out what they are... I imagine most of them are extra paychecks to her. Wanna bet? I'll let you know next week...

Anyway, that's it for now. Gotta run!

M Y B A D!!
I forgot to post Rabbit's Rabbits! this morning for luck in the upcoming month... maybe I won't play poker tomorrow night after all...

Have Plans... Will Travel!

2007-05-30T08:11:00.000-05:00

I've started this post three times and just can't put anything together.

Maybe later?!

Feels Like Monday!

2007-05-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

It's been pretty emotional around our house the past week or two. AcademyBoy is all graduated and finished up with high school and stuff. A few days before graduation, AcademyBoy got a letter in the mail telling him he is DQ'd becausehiseyesight doesnotmeet pilot/academy standards. HisWaiverWasNotApproved. ...which means, he got the appointment, but can't go. End of story and I really don't want to talk about it any more. Just knew you'd want to know.

I cried.
He took it like a man.

AcademyBoy is once again officially Mr.SoonToBeBlue. He's fallen back on his "just in case" fall back plan... and flies away to the WildBlueYonder (boot camp) in 8 weeks. He's a very determined young man and hasn't moped or complained or even been ugly since he got the news. Still plans on going to college. Just going to go about it in a different manner. No sweat. Still believes the AirForce is right for him at this time, ...and we giggled over the fact that his eyes are good enough to be an avionics technician and work on the planes he won't be able to fly... oh! and there's a 95% chance that he'll be stationed right near here on the coast for 9 months of tech school...

Oh, to be that young again and full of dreams!

Ms.Blue is heading home next week too! She's worked her butt off trying to get leave before Mr.SoonToBeBlue heads out. Her commander just told her this morning she can go home since she hasn't been since Thanksgiving. ...NAVYBOY is driving her. (UGGH!) they are spending 3 days with us, then going to spend a few days with his family then NavyBoy is bringing her home to stay with us for a week while he heads off to TX and before she goes back to the east coast... It will be good to have all 3 of my kids home again one more time... who knows how soon that will happen again.

Anyway... that's what's been going on that I haven't been able to write about...

The Sec Is A PITA...

2007-05-22T12:18:00.001-05:00

The sec is still in way over her head. No, she hasn't been fired yet. I guess she's better than the old sec in a way because at least she comes to work and TRIES...when she's here. She still spends most of her day out running errands though.

Yesterday we had the most unbelievable conversation. She planted herself in my office. The she asked me, "Have you ever done an appeal start to finish?" "Of COURSE I've done appeals." then she queried, "Do you have all the steps documented to do the appeal?" "What do you want to know? Just pull one up on your computer from my files and look at one of them..." I told her.

"Yeah, but I need to know ALL THE STEPS." She insisted...

SIGH. COUNT TO TEN. DEEP BREATH.

"Sec," I said, "File your notice of appeal with the supreme court clerk and make sure to mail a copy to all the parties involved, the lower court judge, and keep a copy for your file..."

...I wandered by her desk a little later. ...just as she was STAPLING THE JUDGMENT OF THE LOWER COURT TO THE NOTICE OF APPEAL

SIGH. COUNT TO TEN. BREATHE...

"ummm.... what's that?" I said.

"This is what we are going to appeal." she replied.

"ummm... did you state the issue you are going to appeal in your notice ot appeal?" my question was.

"Well, yeah, I think so." she said.

"You don't attach anything to that." I insisted.

She handed me the court rule book. SIGH. BREATHE. COUNT AGAIN...
"LOOK HERE" she pointed to the rule she thought she was reading. ..."It says to make sure to include all of the documents which will be involved with the appeal..."

OMG. She's an idiot. ..."You list that, along with all of the other documents which might be in the lower court file on your designation of the record."

Her next question... "What's THAT?"

you know... if you don't know what the hell you're doing, why don't you leave shit alone?? I just printed one out and handed it to her... with the short explanation of..."If the paper you were going to mistakenly attach to your notice of appeal were all you planed to include, you are going to limit the attorney terribly when he goes to court on this and waste his time and the clients money because you are going to lose the appeal before you even file it"

OMG. where are the attorneys in this firm???

She dropped out of her paralegal courses after just a couple of weeks, and thinks she can do an appeal?? SIGH

It's going to be a very VERY long week...

Girl Angry.

2007-05-18T12:03:00.000-05:00

I don't know what's wrong with me today. I've only been back at work 2 weeks and already I'm as short tempered and angry while I'm in the office as I was before the time off...

Maybe it was the fact that gas prices jumped 20 cents overnight. Or how I'm spending 2/3 of a days wages on gasoline so that I can drive to this wonderful law firm and line my boss' pockets with the cash he puts there instead of the bank account so that I might get a raise... not to mention that we all know it's been 5 years since my last raise...

Or maybe it's this. Good sec gossip. On Monday a tax agent stopped by the office to mention that they were gonna do all sorts of good legal stuff to the company and the building because the payroll taxes hadn't been paid in... oh, at least 10 months. SINCE THE OLD SEC LEFT. huh? I mentioned it (HAHAHAHAHAH) to my boss when he returned from lunch. He huffed and he puffed and then finally admitted that although he has been practicing law since before I was born, he has no clue what taxes need to be taken care of for his employees. Never has never will kinda conversation. And he asked me to look into it. So I started looking for the tax folder the old sec used to keep. I knew she had one, but the file is no longer in existence apparently. So I started digging. There were tax letters and forms and stuff never even opened from all sorts of important tax people at various agencies. The new sec came back in the middle of this and said ..."I don't know how to DO it" ... from the minute she lied during her interview here insisting she could do it and stay on top of it... until now, she's been HIDING all the tax stuff and pretending it would all go away. Oh. My. God. What a mess I walked into.

Liens and levys and assessments and penalties and interest. Forms that were never filed and payments that were never made. It took me 30 minutes to figure it all out and present my boss with the grand sum that would be needed to get them out of this mess... He wasn't happy.

He yelled at the other partner. YELLED. His exact words were (speaking about the sec) AS FAR AS i'M CONCERNED, SHE CAN GO!!! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE. AND WHERE IS ALL OF THIS EXTRA MONEY GOING TO COME FROM?? IT IS GOING TO BE TAKEN OUR OF HER PAYCHECK. ... yeah right. Neither freeking attorney said ONE WORD to the sec. Not One. And on top of all my other work, guess who now gets to keep up with the firms taxes?? (sigh)...

So... I'm angry. And I have some other things going on that I'll probably write about before too long but am just not ready to share right now...

Have a good weekend.
Oh, and if you get a raise? Don't bother telling me about it. Some guy (friend's husband who is a supervisor somewhere) made sure to point out to me last night that his "employees got a raise this year... and last year" and so did he. This is NOT the sort of conversation I want to be having with anyone in my life right now. It does NOT help. Not at all...

RETURN OF LAWGIRL!

2007-05-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

Did ya miss me???? :)

Who would have thought 7 weeks would go by so fast! Today is actually my 2nd day back at work but yesterday was totally crazy and I just couldn't stop long enough to post. I'm going to try and sum up the past 7 weeks in one post, but honestly, when I finally stopped and settled down and got a ton of great rest, I wished I could have written a post every single day! So much is happening out there in the world when you get me away from the firm and running 100mph all of the time...

Let's go clear back to March 19th...
I came in to work that morning and was gone a good part of the day for my pre-op workup at the hospital. Just as I was getting ready to leave to head out there, the sec yelled that I had a phone call from the Congressman's office. Oh what a treat! It was official. Mr. SoonToBeBlue had received a congressional appointment to the AirForceAcademy and is officially AcademyBoy. Things for him from that point have been a whirlwind. He flew to CO by himself for four days and did his orientation. He leaves in 7 weeks and a day and oh what an honor. I cried over the spiffy half page article that ran about AcademyBoy in our local newspaper a couple weeks later... But anyway... the good news definitely was a big help in keeping me from getting nervous about my surgery... in fact, I never got nervous at all.

No problems w/ the preop appointment, got a couple hours away from the office and went back to work until 5. Went home and packed an overnight bag, not knowing how many nights I was going for but only that I was GOING... gosh, it had been years and years and well... more than 9 years since I'd spent a night ALONE anywhere by myself. I was excited believe you me.

I don't remember too terribly much about the day of the surgery. It ended up being about 7 hours later than it was scheduled for because the dr had a couple emergency surgeries he had to take care of before they got to me. No big deal. I was there for the long haul. I fell asleep right after they wheeled me into surgery about the time the anesthesiologist (sp??) told me to take three deep breaths... ...and woke up later screaming and crying and in a really awkward position, knees bent and my incision across my lower abdomen hurt like HELL! OMG it took them some time to get the pain down and then I woke up again in my hospital room... spent three nights in the hospital but immediately felt better than I have in 10 years or more... sweet. (not sure if it was from the surgery or getting to spend 3 nights alone, the jury is still out on that one...)

It was nice getting all the flowers and presents and stuff... having the kids come and visit for short times... all of those horrible, nosey, strange people whose mission in life is visiting in the hospital took my advise and stayed away...

And I rested and I read and rested and read...

Came back to work yesterday, started a new part time job on Sunday. I'm tired. Gonna take me a while yet to get my strength and stamina back, that's for sure...

will try to post more later as time allows!

Blogmail (Better Than Voicemail... Really!!)

2007-03-16T09:27:00.000-05:00

You have reached the desk of Kimdergarten.
I will be out of the office for about 6 weeks. Maybe more. Maybe Less. Probably less but more would definitely be better for me. Take care of yourself and be good ... I'll see you in early May if not sooner!

For your enjoyment while I'm away:
I did not make these up, these were actual searches logged onto the stats tracker that brought one idiot or another into my blogworld...
(most recent searches leading wanderers into our class...)
Google search: rubber "boots stuck" mud
Google search: "squatting in skirts"
Google search: "i was made to play in the park with no pants under my short skirt"
Google search: "redhead vamp"
Google search: "teary and upset easily"

... obviously I need to start coming up with better stuff to write about LOL

Shame On Her!

2007-03-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

My MIL is an EVIL person.

...and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Just don't expect me to answer the phone if you call any time soon.

OMG!

2007-03-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

hok. even funnier than my boss telling me I can only have one week off.

5 days before my surgery and the doctor told my dh this morning that he has the full-blown flu. I do not want to go home. I don't even want to be in the same city or breathe the same air! Am I awful??

OMG... that's funny. welcome to my life.

EDITED 3:00: after a couple hours of serious thought and a call to my dr (who by the way is out of the office this week, I talked to the nurse...) I went to my gp and got a shot and 2rxs to try and keep me healthy... now maybe I can go home.

More On (Moron?!) the Boss & Stuff...

2007-03-14T11:18:00.000-05:00

First of all, welcome home Jaye! I'm glad you're back, Girl!

I'm still a little ticked off about him saying that yesterday. He actually asked me after that..."how am I supposed to find a file if I need one?" GOOD GRIEF! I've been asking him for three weeks if he wants me to hire a temp to come in and handle some of his light stuff and he keeps saying NO. Guess he's just gonna pester the hell out of me until I finally feel so guilty I do come back early... but it's surely not going to be in just a week. From what I'm hearing, I'm going to be feeling worse at week 4 than at the beginning because of the way the body heals, so he's just gonna have to buck up and suffer. I'm not going to be able to lift a freeking stapler, much less a client file so I dont' know what he's expecting from me. So anyway... I've been totally swamped and everything he puts on my desk is 'right now' 'right now' ...I'm thinking about starting a pool and selling chances on when I finally cave and come back to work. what do you think? LOL

I have a lot to do in the next 5 days. The kids have have been helping scrub floors and pick up the house a little bit, exactly what Spring Break should be for!

Did I mention that I'm a little ticked off at my boss for even saying that? Whether he meant it or not? After five freeking years of loyalty and staying here and working for him even when he promised me a raise and can't afford to give it to me... to even SUGGEST that I'd come back to this madhouse just a week after major surgery... GRRRRRRR....

ROFLMAO - (not!)

2007-03-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

The doctor told me I'm going to be off of work for 6 weeks.

This morning my boss told me I can take ONE week off.

Hahahahahahahaahhahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahah
that's funny.

TMI. Really. TMI. (I warned you!)

2007-03-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

cystoscopy.

Ever head of that word before?

I hadn't. At least not up until yesterday I hadn't.

My dr. told me I need to go see this other dr. for a "CONSULT" before my surgery. I figured no big deal. They were booked solid for the next 3 weeks but somehow managed to squeeze me in. I didn't complain even after I sat in the lobby waiting for 2 hours and 5 minutes before they called me into the back for my "CONSULT."

Yeah, right.

The nurse was fabulous. Sweetest thing since God created honey. Asked me all of my pre-op questions and made me feel right at home. The doctor was your typical creepy doctor. I wasn't real impressed. He told me what his part of the procedure was going to be and what he is going to do. No sweat. Then he said he needed to take a look. INSIDE. my bladder. uh... you're kidding, right? 'JUST TO MAKE SURE ITS HEALTHY'. ummmm... it's working fine, didn't your nurse tell you I had just pee'd in the cup she handed me? My bladder is just freeking peachy thankyouverymuch.

Yeah well...

Something to do with the labor 20 years ago from my first child or something they needed to take a quick peek and see... so they did. and I'M WHINING.

It wasn't so totally horrid during the procedure. The lydocane helped make the scope not totally so painful, more like just a lot uncomfortable. And getting to watch the inside of my bladder up there on the tv screen in front of us helped give me something to think about. But I swear. I have never felt so freeking violated in my life. The place you pee from is NOT MADE for a freeking camera to take a trip up exploring. End of story.

The lydocane didn't last long. Tylenol isn't that much help either.
I've spent the past 24 hours feeling like I could just rip somebody's eyeballs right out of their head. Pretty bad I tell you.
I know... I know... TMI.
But you can't say I didn't warn you.

Email To A Friend...

2007-03-08T08:51:00.000-06:00

I sent an email to Lady Di yesterday afternoon... yes, I've posted about her before but it's been a while. She's a friend of mine who works over at the med center...

From: XY&Z, Attorneys
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 4:06 PM
To: Lady Di
Subject: Mark your calendar!

Hey Girl. Since we can't catch up for lunch, I've decided to check into your fine establishment and spend a few days within shouting distance of you. Put March XXth down on your calendar. I'm having an abdominal hysterectomy... ...might get to see you a couple of days in a row in fact if I like the place enough to stay...

Love ya
Kimdergarten

Her reply was perfect! ...

From: Lady Di
To: XY&Z Attorneys
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 8:43 AM
Subject: RE: Mark your calendar!

I know. You are a giver. You will never know how much I appreciate your doing this so I can see you.

Lady Di.

Spring...

2007-03-07T08:54:00.000-06:00

Setting the clocks back early this year (Sat., don't forget!) falls right in with the theme that I see all around me every time I step outside... Leaves on the trees are getting larger... the early blooming flowers are everwhere... pinks and purples and bright whites... the next few weeks are lovely until we are totally enveloped in a sea of green as far as you can see...

Spring is my most favorite thing about living in the south. You just didn't SEE it in CA the way you do here...

It's a short span in time that makes you forget it won't be but a few more weeks and the humidity will be back in full force, along with the mosquitos...

I think I'll see if I can make today last a little longer than usual... it sure is pretty out there!

If you pray...

2007-03-06T14:01:00.000-06:00

Please whisper some words to guide those BigBlueBureuacraticDudes just outside the mile high city in CO in their decision concerning Mr.SoonToBeBlue's academic future... the counselor called me 15 minutes ago to let us know they were in the process of reviewing Mr.SoonToBeBlues complete file... I'm a wreck. A mess. The stress is worse on this mom than if he had applied to Harvard. I'm shaking and it will be days if not weeks before we hear what the decision is either way...

so, if you pray...

Finished!

2007-03-06T09:26:00.000-06:00

So... we've got a gig in a couple of weeks... part timg job #2 starting up again for the year I'm afraid... and I'm starting part time job #3 on the 1st of April. Oh yeah, and I'm starting part time job #4 on the 1st of May. Guess I've finally had enough whine with my cheese and figured the only way to solve the problem of not getting my raise is to find another way of going about getting it. ...in theory, all three part time jobs and full-time job #1 are supposed to work together and give me the opportunity to walk out of said dead end dysfunctional law-firm job on the given day when I've finally had ENOUGH. In reality, I already don't have time to breathe, so the added work and responsibility are most likely going to overwhelm and lead to screaming fits. And to top it off, in the middle of all of this, I'm supposed to be scheduling surgery. The dr told me a couple of weeks ago that I need to have the big H. Thank heavens at least THAT's gonna be done and over with. The only drawback to the whole ordeal is waiting to see when they're going to do it, because I just don't have time to have an abdominal hysterectomy... places to go and people to see and all that, ya know? ... the thought of having 4-8 weeks away from this place is enough to get me rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles. After all of my bitchin and complainin' ...I'm gonna get to see what it feels like to quit and be away from this place without having to actually say the words 'I quit" and walk out the door... SWEET!

Supposed to know tomorrow WHEN.... so at least I can start juggling meetings and seminars and see how it will all play out...

Gotta run!

Sec Update!

2007-03-05T15:15:00.000-06:00

Boss is growling because the sec has taken over his desk and office. He growled louder when I had to answer the phones because ...as he stated, 'she's too busy practicing law to do her job!'
...last week he stood in the hall shaking his head and mentioned...'she's going to get somebody disbarred!'

As for me, I don't care about this place anymore. I come to work, do my job, and try to ignore the whole dysfunctional mess. I'm going to get an extra month or so of vacation this year, for medical reasons... and believe it or not I think I'm actually really looking forward to the down time away from here. Will post more about THAT later on in the week...

Gotta run...

Rabbits! Rabbits!

2007-03-01T08:42:00.000-06:00

I love the 1st day of March... the Japanese Magnolias started to bloom a few days ago. The Bradford Pears are blooming today. Baby leaves are popping out all over the trees. ...it is warm enough to dig out the summer clothes and wear them a time or two before the last short cold snap passes through. Yeah. Life in the South! This weekend I'll be sipping amaritto & o.j. watching the sun come up over the water early in the morning... sweet! ...I have a lot to think about right now. Might even have a lot to write about... we'll see.

Happy March!

Don't Forget!

2007-02-28T16:05:00.000-06:00

I know I have totally sucked at posting for months... but I'm still here. A whole lot has changed this past year and I'm sure it won't be long until I start writing about it... it's bothering me not writing about it...

So anyway, just logged in to REMIND THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE ASKED TO BE REMINDED... that tomorrow is the 1st of the month, and on such date, if the first words you say are 'Rabbits Rabbits!" ... you are sure to have good luck.

Oh Yeah!

2007-02-07T12:25:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned before that when I die I want to be cremated and turned into three LifeGems, one for each of my children. (you gotta check this out if you haven't: www.lifegem.com) If that weren't to happen though, this is definitely how I'd want to be found: (p)

Hermoine Says...

2007-02-01T16:04:00.000-06:00

There's something just not right about this...!!

Rabbits! Rabbits!

2007-02-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

1st day of the month... ;)

Life Goes On...

2007-01-30T07:59:00.000-06:00

Lots of thoughts going through my head this morning... I'm turning 39 (for the first time!) next week. Thought I was ok with that but now I'm not quite sure... I was on the phone last night with Ms.Blue and NavyBoy... She mentioned that I had her at HER age now. Wow. She's such a spaz, I can't imagine how worried my own parents must have been back then! And she's mentioned 2x in the last week "You're really young Mamma..." Gee thanks. I've spent the past 20 years almost raising kids and putting them first and all I get out of my oldest is that. Oh well. It could be worse I guess... Mr.SoonToBeBlue is rapidly transforming into AcademyBoy in front of my eyes. I was driving him to work last night and he told me "Mamma, I'm HAPPY." He's changing from a bad case of HighSchoolSenioritis into JoeCollege really fast. Part of me still can't believe my 2nd one is leaving home this year... in a little more than a matter of weeks now. Thank goodness for LilDD. Lord help us all when it's her turn to go!

Ms.Blue and the Shredder!

2007-01-23T08:48:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah! Ms.Blue is finally standing on her own two feet and has not only opened up her very own bank accounts there in the east... she emailed me this morning that she has shredded her ATM card and destroyed the checks on the account she and I share! She wants me to wait until the 1st befcre closing the account just in case her pay isn't switched to the new account like it's supposed to be (you know the military and its hurry up and wait)... I've played is game with her for the past year, trying to get her to be responsible and keep her account out of overdraft long enough to actually make this all happen. (Mr.SoonToBeBlue has his own account already before he leaves, I'm not going there again right now, sorry son, but your sister has ruined my patience as far as my children and their banking habits!) anyway... ever since Ms.Blue started dating NavyBoy she's been acting pretty responsible... for the most part. I'm not real fond of all the weekend sleepovers they are having however... and there's a particular part of NavyBoy's anatomy I wouldn't mind putting through the shredder...but hey. A mom can't have everything, now can she?

Happy Monday!

2007-01-22T12:31:00.000-06:00

Sibling Rivalry!

2007-01-19T10:11:00.000-06:00

Gotta share:
Mr.SoonToBeBlue has received 2 nominations to the BlueAcademy(USAF)!!!
...including one from our congressperson.
...holding my breath now for an appointment!!

Oh yeah!!! Good news!!!!!!

You Know You've Been In The South Too Long When...

2007-01-18T15:57:00.000-06:00

1) You spend hours searching the internet only to discover there are two jobs in the whole state in your present career field.
2) It is 80 degrees on Saturday and snowing on Wednesday...the same week.
3) You dream about sidewalks, malls, and sushi.
4) You discover your spell checker no longer redlines when you mis-spell of, as fo, because in the south spellcheckers understand that some clients say 'fo' rather than 'four' or 'for.'
5) You call the mortgage loan department at your local bank and are told the mortgage department is temporarily closed due to their former employee quitting to take one of the only two jobs available in the state in your chosen career field.
6) You receive an e-mail from the old sec (Yeah! Remeber her?? You're not gonna believe this one) an email which thanks you for the job reference (huh?) and tells you all about her brand new job... the only other position that was available in the whole state in your chosen career field!