its a quiet day on the homefront
today .. my daughter is shopping with her dad and plans on getting her
hair colored later this afternoon
me? i'm being a lazy mom today
.. i put in my 6 hours at the humane society healthchecking cats and
dogs yesterday so at least the entire weekend isn't one big haze of
laziness
we were scheduled to healthcheck 2 tiny little
Chihuahuas yesterday, but they were just too nervous to be good adoption
candidates .. so instead we signed them up for the headstart program so
the volunteers know that these 2 little girls need a LOT of
socialization in the next few days
both were too scared to
approach us unless we were safely on the other side of the gate ..
something about having that gate between us made the dogs feel it was
safe to approach .. towards the end of my shift yesterday i decided to
spend a little time with them and brought along some chopped up hotdogs
.. i slowly made my way inside their kennel and within a few minutes,
with food as the motivation, they felt it was safe to climb up into my
lap to receive more treats .. we made sure and made a note in the
computer that both babies were highly motivated by food so it should
make it easier to socialize them in the next few days
did i
mention that i received a raise from my employeer on January 1st? its
not a lot, but every little bit helps .. i have made an executive
decision that i personally am going to benefit from this extra income
(as opposed to my children or the bill collectors) so the first thing i
did was ordered a breadmaker to replace the one i sold for extra income
to help pay the rent after my divorce 12 years ago ..
friday
i made my first loaf of whole wheat bread since my daughter is on this
healthy food kick .. the bread was a bit too heavy for my preference so
today while the daughter is out of the house i'm making a loaf of
cinnamon raisin bread !!
the dough is rising right now but in a
little less than an hour our little cottage is going to be filled with
the aroma of freshly baked bread
confessing my love of sweet hot
cinnamon bread, there will probably be no evidence of my indulgence by
the time my daughter returns home this evening
the breadmaker was
a great deal .. i ordered it from ChefsCatalog.com .. the Breadman
Ultimate in stainless steel .. and it was listed as $150 off the regular
price .. i couldn't resist !!
the rest of my raise this year should probably be set aside for me to purchase a larger size of clothes for myself eh !!!
my teenage daughter came home last
week and relayed an incident at her school that has me wondering how far
a school representative is allowed to go ...
her
school has a zero tolerance for students having cell phones at school
.. and i agree completely with the enforcement of the rule .. any cell
phones are confiscated and will be returned to the student at the end of
the day
students can
receive permission to have cell phones on their person, but the phones
are never to be turned on during school hours
one of the students was caught by the vice principal checking for messages on her cell phone
the phone was confiscated by the vice principal
when
the student went to retrieve the phone at the end of the day, she was
surprised to find that the secretary was in the process of reading all
of her text messages .. the vice principal had also read all of her text
messages, and upset with the content of the messages (being rather
flirty with a boy) proceeded to call the students mother and inform her
of the content of the text messages he found
perhaps
i could understand their "need to know" if the student had been using
the text messages during class or during a test, but this wasn't the
case, the phone was used between classes
as
a parent who believes that even teenagers have a right to privacy, i am
astounded at the vice principals behavior .. it just doesn't feel right
i
have checked the school districts policy on confiscation of cell phones
and nothing i found gives any school representative the right to invade
a students privacy
had it been my daughter you would find me down at the school board insisting that the vice principal be reprimanded
i
realize i'm probably in the minority in my thinking, but i feel that if
anybody is going to invade my childs privacy, its going to be ME
its been over a week since my
daughter revealed to me that her and her daddy are considering having
her live with him over on the islands for the next year (read more about
it here ...http://journals.aol.com/his1desire/GirlsHeadNoise/entries/1100)
although
i've been riding a roller coaster of emotions, i feel i'm much better
prepared to deal with this big "what if" than i was a week ago
negative
aspect .. 5 years ago, when my ex invited my son to live with him
several hours away, i felt like i'd lost 2 years of my sons life .. even
though i swore i'd never let the same thing happen with my daughter,
now that i'm faced with the identical situation, i still refuse to stand
in her way
positive
aspect .. i've basically raised my daughter single handedly since the
divorce 12 years ago .. my ex has NO idea of our struggles .. perhaps if
he was faced with living with her day to day, he might come away with a
better understanding of what it takes to raise such a strong willed
child and perhaps even learn to have more respect for me
my
daughter and i have battled for the top dog position in the household
since she was 18 months old .. sometimes i win .. and sometimes i don't
.. this little girl has left me weary and exhausted .. the battles are
less frequent .. starting out at literally dozens of struggles a day
to maybe just one "good one" every month or so .. i feel she's finally
learning that good old mom really does know a thing or two about life
and she's learned to trust my decisions and my experience .. i still
insist that she make her own mistakes and live with the consequences of
her decisions .. every so often she still tries to push the blame for
some god awful decision she made over to good old mom but all in all,
she's learned to be responsible for her decisions
i
really wouldn't mind having a break .. some time to catch my breath in
time for her "teenage years" which i've heard can be traumatic for both
parent and child
how
on earth i ended up with 2 children on such opposite ends of the
spectrum is beyond me .. i feel like my son was born feeling his mom was
the coolest thing since sliced bread (hey mom !! even all my friends
tell me that you're the best) to my daughter who feels i was put on this
earth to make her life miserable and to make her suffer (i don't care
what my friends say about you mom, they don't know anything either)
a year of peace and quiet? letting daddy see first hand how emotional and dramatic our little girl is? hmmmmm
i
have tried to prepare myself for this "empty nest syndrome" that i've
heard so much about .. i even got a taste of it when my son moved over
to the islands to attend college there .. i kept my tears and my broken
heart to myself .. i knew my son needed to grow up away from home
without having to deal with any guilt i could have so easily tried to
place on his young shoulders
so
i bit my tongue when he left .. i wanted to grab him and beg him to be
safe .. to beg him to come back home again when he was done with this
stupid college in hawaii thing .. i wanted to beg him not to forget
about me
so instead, as he boarded the plane to hawaii 2 years ago, i hugged him, smiled and reminded him to eat his vegetables
and
every once in awhile he'll call me, like on thanksgiving .. "hey mom?
how do you make those mashed potatoes?" .. and my heart soars, knowing
he's really not all grown up yet and he sometimes still needs his mom
i
got one of those calls from him last night .. the ones that moms across
the world probably long for .. those "hi mom .. i just wanted to call
and find out how you're doing" kind of calls .. he didn't need money, he
didn't need one of our family recipes, and thankfully he didn't need me
to bail him out of jail or some other tramatic event that parents dread
so
i told him about the latest development between his sister and his dad
... "your sister might be going to live with dad over in hawaii during
her freshman year in high school"
his response wasn't what i expected .. "great mom !! so then you can come live with me"
i laughed .. like i haven't laughed in so long
he
became quiet and then told me "i wish you'd think seriously about it
mom .. you'd see that its a really good idea and not a joke"
"i'm serious mom .. i could never live with dad but i could live with you"
"yea hon, i understand .. i couldn't live with your dad either"
we both laughed
i
was finally able to catch my breath enough to explain to him that i
wasn't laughing because it i felt it was a joke .. but because his
invitation couldn't have come at a better time .. how cool would it be
for all of us to be living in hawaii !!!
"really mom .. i could even get you a job on the beach"
"oh? and what kind of jobs are there on the beach for old ladies?"
"you could rent surf boards mom !!"
thats my boy
1985
2005
yo wil !!! (you old dog hehe) .. good buddy .. ol' friend .. pal-o-mine .. mon ami .. mi amigo .. il mio amico .. mein Freund
fast, furry, fierce freddy (aka big ugly spider) should be arriving on your doorstep in .. oh .. 'bout 3 days or so
i made sure and sent him Priority Mail .. nothing but the best for freddy
please take good care of him ok !!
(PS
.. you can keep the bowl .. after hearing from ya how he might be a
wolf spider capable of jumping up to 10 feet, i mailed him to you still
snuggled inside his captive abode)
not too many things in this life elicit the infamous F word out of me
... finding things like THIS in my bowl cabinet do
...
trust that it may be years before i ever gather enough courage to do
something stupid like grab a bowl from the cabinet again
...
and NO .. i don't have enough courage to actually get my hand that
close to these creatures .. i safely encased him in saran wrap first
... and there he will remain until some dear friend (whom i'll be indebted to for life) frees him from his captive abode
... ps .. i'd like new bowls for Christmas please .. i surely can never use this bowl again !!!
there are times that i feel our judicial system is in need of some serious fixing this is one of those times ...
AOL News - Gift of Cookies Crumbles; Girls Told to Pay $900Update
.. i found yet another story this morning in the Denver Post .. no
matter which way i slice it, the old lady is coming off as sue happy
"The families had offered to pay Young's medical bills if she would agree to indemnify the families against future claims.
Young wouldn't sign the
agreement. She said the families' apologies rang false and weren't
delivered in person. The matter went to court."
DenverPost.com - LOCAL NEWS
would anyone be interesting in knowing where my Christmas tree is?
hauled away with the recycling sometime between Christmas and New Years you say?
that was the plan
of
course, being "rule conscious", i first called the trash hauling
company to find out what restrictions, if any, they had .. i was told
"as long as the tree is under 6 feett" i can place the tree whole, with
the rest of my recycling .. "anything over 6 feet and the tree has to be
cut in half"
no problem .. i knew the tree was about the height of my last boyfriend, so i figured it to be 6 foot
but trash day came and went and my tree remained at the curb
then the next trash day came and went and my tree remained at the curb
so
i got my tape measure out and attempted to measure the tree .. yea ok
.. it was a rough estimate .. measuring a bushy tree just isn't one of
my talents .. i swear it still looked to be about 6 foot tall .. but the
next trash day came and went and my tree remained, stoically standing
at my curb and i realized something was wrong
so
i got some wire .. i ran it up the trunk of the tree .. then i got my
tape measure out again and measured the wire .. gosh .. i was wrong ..
it was a whole 6 foot 4 inches !!!!!so
i got out my cute little hack saw .. and when i say cute and little, i
mean exactly that .. it took me nearly 30 minutes to saw through the
trunk of the tree .. it probably would have been quicker but several
neighbors just had to stop to chat with me delaying my progress .. yea
ok .. i'll confess .. i had to take a break cause my arm was killing me
lol
but now i have 2 -
3 foot 2 inch sections of Christmas tree sitting out at the curb .. i
swear it had best be gone when the trash haulers pull away from our
street tomorrow
i have
a message that i am tempted to tape to the tree .. to my beloved trash
hauler who refused to haul away my tree because it was 4 inches too tall
..
i don't care what your girlfriend tells you .. 4 inches really isn't THAT much dude
