Kids, kids, and more kids.

Well, It's finally Friday. It's been a long week of late nights, and as a reward, I get the weekend? Jake is having two of his friends spend the night tonight. Heather invited a couple of girl friends to go with her to Youth group, who will also be spending the night, since they won't be back until midnight, or later.

So, it's just been me, Roy, and the guys all evening. Since I went grocery shopping this evening, it's worked out pretty well to have three healthy teenage boys to help me carry bags into the house. Of course, they feel that means that they get first crack at all the new food. So they ate their fill, played a few video games, and crashed out on the couch while watching Dawn of the Dead.

No sooner had the boys gathered themselves up and gone to Jake's room to sleep, than the girls came home with a chorus of giggles. It only took the girls about 5 minutes to settle down and zonk out as well. So, six teenagers, five dogs, one husband, and all is quiet. Not what I was expecting, but I'll take it.

I've got a bunch of errands to run tomorrow, but first, the dogs and I are getting out for a walk. They have forecast 65 degree weather tomorrow, and I promised them that we would take advantage of it.

Sometime this weekend, Roy and I need to sit down with Jake and have a talk. He is really starting to struggle lately. All through elementary school Jake was sort of a quiet kid, but well liked by his class mates. When Jacob started middle school, he knew that he would be surrounded by a lot of new kids from four other elementary schools. I suspect that he saw it as his chance to re-invent himself. Over the summer he lost weight, grew out his hair and had it high lighted, got contacts, grew about 6 inches, and gained tons of new confidence. He has now become very popular with the kids, (especially with the girls) and not so popular with the teachers, because all his popularity has come at a cost to his grades. Over the past few weeks, he's discovering that once the kids and teachers see you in a certain light, it's hard to make a change. This morning, he actually admitted that he's feeling very depressed and frustrated with the situation. I think that he needs a little help in finding a happy medium. He has always been a smart kid, but he has never had very good organizational skills, and managing his time and setting priorities - not exactly his strengths. Up until recently, he kept insisting that he could figure things out himself. I think he's finally ready to listen and accept some help. We need to help him set up a plan for balancing his social life with his studies. And I need to get him straightened out before Heather starts middle school in the fall. Just thinking about enrollment has turned her into a bundle of nerves and she's going to need some encouragement. (and an older brother who is a better role model wouldn't hurt either)

Well, I'm feeling exhausted and I need to get some sleep. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Good night.

Love,
Susan

I been a bad, bad girl

It's late. I'm all alone. Everyone is in bed. I had made a chocolate cake earlier this evening, and it was cooling in the fridge. Since I was bored, I iced it with a lovely, fluffy blanket of cream cheese frosting. I swirled the spoon around and made beautiful little sugar peaks on top, just like they do in the Betty Crocker commercials. Damn, it looked good. Sooooo, I ate a piece. Then, I ate another one. And since no one was there to see, I ate a third piece. (by accident - oops.) For this, I am very sorry. My tummy is filled with chocolate cake, my heart is filled with regret, and it's quite possible that my arteries are filled with thick clumps of sugary lard. When my family wakes in the morning, they will open the refrigerator and find the cake. Their little hearts will leap for joy. Until . . . they slide the cake pan off the shelf and see that there are three pieces missing. Their eyes will slowly roll towards me in an accusatory way. Then, they will sadly shake their heads at me and make little "tsk, tsk, tsk" sounds. I will look at my feet and feel like the baddest mom in the world. It's amazing how your family can go from seeing you as a hero, to a zero, in a matter of seconds. Oh well, they'll get over it.

Exploding Toilets.

I slept in late this morning, really late. Actually, I woke at 10AM, went down stairs and popped the top on a can of Diet Coke, I looked out the kitchen window to see that it was snowing, and decided that it was just too damn cold to stand around the kitchen in my jammies, so ran back up the stairs and crawled back under the covers. The next thing I knew, it was 1:30 in the afternoon and the phone was ringing. I have no idea who it was, I didn't answer it. I've been known to sleep in, but rarely that late! I suspect that the past two days of chills and body aches may have been my body fighting off some virus, all I know, is that when I woke up, I felt 100% better. So I guess my body won that battle. I'm feeling very proud - that doesn't happen too often.

Damn it! I just went to get a bag of Cheetos out of the cupboard, and one of my precious little darlings have already been into them, and put it back into the cupboard without a clippy thing on the bag! Why is that so hard?! It's not like they couldn't find a clip, there are 6 of them clipped to the front of a box right next to the chips!!! Do you know how many bags of chips I have to throw away every week because they've turned stale and rubbery? UGH! I know, it's just a stupid little thing, but you never know which stupid little thing might push me over the edge one day . . .

Anyway, Today has been a long day. My hubby has been working a lot of hours lately. His boss made the decision to let the other service tech go, so he has been picking up the slack. He's been up early and home late all week long. The extra money will come in handy, but I miss my hubby.

I felt really bad about it, but this evening, after Roy got home from work, I had to ask him to fix a leaky pipe in the basement. He had to shut the water off for a few minutes to solder a new cap on the end of it. Afterwards, he ran the faucets to bleed the air out of the pipes. A few minutes ago, I used the bathroom upstairs, and as I flushed the toilet, there was a terrible belching sound and I turned just in time to see a huge air bubble came to the surface of the bowl and splatter all over! Normally, I would have gone downstairs and slapped him around, but when I got down to the living room, he was splayed out on the couch, snoring away. Poor baby. He looks so cute when he's sleeping. When I woke him up to send him to bed (before he started drooling all over my new couch cushions) I didn't even mention the exploding toilet incident. See, I can be a nice wifey.

Well, there really isn't much else happening around here today. I don't know if I can sleep, after sleeping in this morning. (uh, afternoon) But I'm going to go give it a try, I have to get up and get the kids off to school tomorrow. I may have to drive them, it's only supposed to be 6 degrees by morning. Brrrr !

Good night all.
Love,
Susan

New drawing

Okay, this is it. I'm really not very happy with it. As usual, you can click on it to enlarge and see detail, but I don't think it will help. I think that at some point, I may re-do it. I don't know. For now, I think I'll just move on to some thing new.

Cold chills and peanut butter withdraw.

I know that I said I would finish, and post, my drawing today, but I have spent almost the whole day wrapped in a blanket on the couch. I don't think that I'm sick, I just can't seem to get warm. For the last 24 hours, I have been chilled to the bone, to the point where I feel achy all over, but I'm not running a fever, and other than a slight headache and a general loss of appetite, I'm just freakin' COLD. Granted, the mercury outside hasn't risen above 18F over the last few days, but everyone else is quite comfortable with the inside temps in our house. Gawd, knowing my ass-backward body, I'm probably having cold flashes, instead of hot flashes. It's always the simple things in life that manage to confuse me the most.

I had just about convinced myself that the world would be just fine if I spent the day on the couch with my blankey . . . until Jake and Heather came home. Heather reminded me that tonight was parent's night at the junior high school. She's very excited (and nervous) about starting Jr. high next year, and she is determined not to miss out on one tiny shred of information. I did my best to squirm out of it, but she wasn't going to accept no for an answer. So, I braved the cold and spent an hour and a half wondering if it's healthy for a 46 year old woman to have such an emotional attachment to a fuzzy blanket,.

My dogs are really upset. I got an e-mail today stating that the recent salmonella tainted peanut butter contamination is not limited to people food only, but has been extended to peanut butter flavored dog treats! My dogs are totally addicted to peanut butter. They LOVE that squeeze peanut butter in a can that I use to fill their Kong toys with. I can't believe that President Obama has done NOTHING to solve this crisis! Millions of American kids and dogs have become dependant on their daily peanut butter fix, and the man we entrusted with the welfare of our nation, has a total disregard for the people (and pets) suffering from peanut butter withdraw. We the people, (and now, canines) have NO peanut butter, and he has a total "Let them eat cheese" attitude about the whole thing! Mark my words, all this is going to end badly. I know things in my house could get really ugly.

Oh Gosh, my fingers are too cold to type. I'm going to shut things down and jump into bed. Good nigh y'all, stay warm.

Love ya,

Susan

Chugging right along

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm feeling the Valentine's magic, so this is my new layout. Cool, huh?

Oh my gosh, I just got back from a midnight Diet coke mission. Brrrrrr! It's freakin' cold out there ! I used to believe that after a certain point, cold was just cold, but this! The winds are absolutely icy ! Of course, since the only place open at this time of night is the local convenience store (Quick Trip, about a mile away) the heater in my car never had time to even start to warm up. As I was paying for my addiction at the counter, I thought, I must be insane to brave this cold in the middle of the night just for a can of caffeine and saccharine. Of course the whole insanity concept wanders into my mind about 3 or 4 times a day. I seriously doubt that it's necessary to take a vote regarding my mental status.

This has been a busy, and fairly productive, Sunday. Roy and Nick went to do some work for our landlord at one of his other properties early this morning. (Cha-ching, money towards our rent) Before I knew of their plans to work, I had invited Nick and Jen over for dinner today; so when I woke up, Jennifer was on the couch, just hanging out with my dogs. Not a big deal, I also had five other kids, besides my own, wandering around my house, entertaining themselves in various ways. This is just the way my life is some days.

Jennifer and I sat in the living room catching up for a couple of hours before I actually got up and busy. I got some household chores knocked out while most of the kids got picked up by their respective mothers. (Finally, Thank God!) In the meantime, Jen had curled up on the couch and fallen asleep so, I got some work done on my drawing.

My drawing is now, about 98% complete. I just have a little work left to do on the borders. Tomorrow, I'll try to finish it up, and figure out if it will fit into the scanner, or if I'll have to scan a photo of it. Hopefully, I'll get it posted tomorrow evening. It's not quite what I had envisioned. You all can give me your critiques, just be kind, I haven't drawn in quite a while. I'm not sure what I'll do next, I should probably start thinking about getting some work done for next year's Halloween haunt. During October, Jennifer worked at Party America, and after Halloween, they threw out a bunch of styrofoam wig heads that she saved for me. I'm thinking of creeping them out and placing them on wooden spikes in our Graveyard next year. Pretty gross, huh?! I am so demented.

Anyway, since I did promise Nick a home cooked meal, I made an old fashioned, artery clogging, down home, comfort meal of ; chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, creamed corn, and biscuits & jelly. Nick had specifically requested that I make my mom's banana salad. It's one of those country recipes that sound really weird when it's described, and you either like it, or you don't. Anyway, it was a specialty when I was growing up, Nick developed a taste for it, and he was adamant that Jennifer should try it. Since they are engaged now, I think he is testing her to see if she will freak out when confronted with our family's oddities. I guess she passed. She ate half of it and she didn't barf - even after I told her the ingredients. She did have seconds on Mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy. (a starch-loving girl after my own heart!)

After I got the dishes done, I baked a double batch of Chocolate chip cookies so they could take some home with them. Poor kids, Jennifer's mom is a nurse and they are always complaining about the bland, "healthy" food that she tries to cram into their bellies. I do my best to send them home with something that will tick Jennifer's mom off. I shouldn't be that way, but she has always acted like my son isn't good enough for her daughter. People can say whatever they like about me, but you had better not disrespect my kids! I have always considered my kids' friends/girl or boy friends/ spouses as my own. I take issue with people who reject, or are judgemental, of others because of their status, life style, or even their imperfections. Granted, Nick is a drug addict/alcoholic, but he didn't ask to be one, and he really is an awesome person. ( by the way, he has been sober for an unusually long time - Yay !) Most people don't realize that it's a condition that can afflict anyone, and any family. "But for the grace of God, there go I . . ." (or anyone else, for that matter)

Anyway, it may not seem like I accomplished much today, but it was just one of those days when everything fell into place and went, fairly, smoothly. I've really missed Nick and Jennifer. (I never thought I'd say that) Besides, it just makes my heart happy to have my kids (and grand kids) at home - especially if I get to feed them. I know, that sounds like such a corny "mom" thing, but I really DO adore my kids, they're great people.

Well, I need to go get myself off to bed. My little piggies are frozen, I'm guessing Roy is nice and warm . . . hehehe. You know that someone really loves you when you climb into bed and they don't roll over and yell at you when you stick your ice cold feet up against them.

Good night everyone.

Love ya,
Susan

Middle aged romance and teenage rebellion

Hey there,





I know that I haven't posted in a while, things are fine. For the most part, I've been feeling . . . content, I guess. Isn't that what you call it when your needs are being met? To be honest, I really haven't got a lot of needs that go un-met on a regular basis. In fact, lately, life has given me a few extra gifts to keep me busy. Things like a couple of days of spring-like weather in the middle of January. Yesterday, It was 65 degrees! (I think that's 33C) So, I was out, and doing my best to enjoy it while it lasted. Today, we are headed back to more typical, cold weather for this time of year and I'm doing my best not to complain.



I was over at Jasmin's blog today, and she 's all decked out for Valentines day. I used to wonder why they placed Valentine's day in the dead of winter on the Calendar. I always thought that it would be better placed in the spring. This year, I'm feeling like it's starting to make a little more sense. I've spent the last couple of months stuck in the house, looking at my husband, who by the way, is driving me crazy with his lethargy and SAD behavior. To tell the truth, I was on the verge of lashing out at him, and giving some thought to slapping him around a bit. (just to cheer myself up) Well, actually, I had already set in motion a bit of verbal abuse, when it suddenly occurred to me that it really wasn't getting me what I wanted. Maybe, it was the sudden dose of warm air and sunshine that cleared my thinking? At any rate, I had to stop and consider what it was that I did want. I want a lot of things, so it's hard to decide. In the end, I chose sweetness over bitterness, and the rewards are . . . nice! So now, I'm feeling a bit more Valentine-zy. I'm craving hearts and flowers and chocolate. Actually, not so much chocolate, 'cause I'm feeling well loved right now, and that's a good thing.

In fact, I am having fantasies of booking a room at the Great Wolf Lodge (here in K.C. ) and spending a weekend snuggled in front of a roaring fireplace (without children) while the snow falls in feet rather than increments of an inch or less. But see, there I am again, wanting snow. I just want one really good snowfall and then I can say, "Okay, I'm done. We've had an acceptable winter and we can move on now."

Anyway, such romantic thoughts are fine and dandy for old married folks such as myself. Well, unless you are reading this and happen to be my mom, or one of my sophisticated and too cool offspring. In which case, you're probably thinking, "Ewwww! Please, could you go back to bitching, now?!"

And so . . . since I have plenty of children, and way too many dogs for any sane person, I have an ever abundant source of strange and bizarre things to whinge and mindlessly ramble on about. So, if you were some weird and freaky perve who stumbled upon my site in search of cheap thrills, you can move on now..

For the past two mornings, I have been awakened by some odd phone calls. Phone calls that I guess, are to be expected when one has a teenager in Junior high school. *Sigh* I'm just too old (or jaded?) to be dealing with this foolishness.

MY son, my sweet child, whose first words and steps once made my heart leap for joy . . . UGH. Let's see here, Wednesday morning, well, it was afternoon because, well, it's a long story, but I was sleeping. Anyway, Jake's principal called to inform me that my son, who was on speaker phone, yet strangely had nothing to say, was in her office because he had been "referred to her". That's what they call it when your kid is in trouble now. They make it sound like there's some kind of HMO involved ( or maybe should be involved?) as opposed to your kid just acting like a normal obnoxious, rebellious, twit in class. Anyway, the reason for said referral was, because he was listening to his MP3 player during instruction time. GASP ! My son, blowing off academic instruction?! It can't be! Unfortunately, he was caught in the act, with witnesses and everything. The principal informed me that this was the second time that this had happened and according to school policy, if it happened again, he would have his MP3 taken away and I would have to come pick it up from the office. I'm still trying to figure out if the goal was to punish Jake, or merely inconvenience me? Oh well, I told her that I understood, and that was that. Everything except for the heart to heart chat that I had to have with my son that evening. Total waste of time, might as well have been talking to myself.

The next morning as I lay sleeping, the phone rang again and this time, it was the Vice Principal. Apparently, the referral system at school is a bit jammed up, because the VP was just getting around to a referral about Jake that was written on Tuesday. (another MP3 violation) When he went to retrieve my son from class, guess what he found him doing? He was sitting in class, with his feet casually propped on the desk and his MP3 ear buds corked in his ears. Damn it. He wanted to inform me that Jake's MP3 was being confiscated and would be awaiting my pick up in his office after school. Double damn. He then went on to say that in addition to the MP3 issue, Jake seemed to be having a problem with getting himself to class on time. Over the past 10 days of the new quarter, Jake had managed to accumulate 7 tardies. My sweet quiet child has become such a social butterfly, that the temptation to chat in the halls during passing period seems to be too great. As a result, Jake had been given a couple of ASD's (after school detentions,) that he had also managed to blow off. To rectify that situation, he was being placed in ISS (in school suspension) for the day, AND for the next 10 days he would be given private passing periods. Which means that while everyone else is changing classes, Jake will wait, and then be given an extra 2 minutes to pass while the halls are empty. So he still gets to socialize for the five minutes during passing period, he just has and extra two minutes to get to class. How is that a bad thing?

I'm absolutely amazed at all the politically correct changes that have occurred since I was in school. Not only has being sent to the office turned into " a referral", but punishments are now "consequences." Which sounds as if it's something that inevitably "just happens", like lunch or acne, certainly not anything that they should be ashamed of, or feel responsible for. What we used to call 8th hours, are now after school detentions. That sounds like something a nerd would sign up for because they didn't have anything better to do. Even the worst "consequences" like ISS and OSS (out of school suspension) sound like accomplishments, something that they should be congratulated for. Are kids supposed to shake in their boots when a principal says,
"Well, Mister, you've just earned yourself an ISS?"
I would be thinking, "Cool, it'll look great on my transcript with all my referrals and ASD's !"

And the only one who is even inconvenienced, is the parents! As I was waiting in the school office this afternoon, to pick up Jake's MP3, I was looking over the parent info on the office bulletin board. One of the flyers was the school's solution for, "children, aged 12 -18 who have made poor choices or bad judgements that have resulted in earning OSS (out of school suspension ) status." Apparently, some working parents are concerned that their little darlings are left home alone with nothing to do with themselves! The schools recommended response to this issue is a service that allows parents to drop their Jr. high and high school children off at school, and they will receive assistance in completing missed home work, or they can sign up for special classes. And best of all, it will ONLY cost the parents $40.00 per OSS school day ! Ummm . . . first of all, if they are on OSS, and you send them back to school to do school work, then it ISN'T an OSS, it's an ISS, so what's the point?! Secondly, when I was in school, an out of school suspension meant that not only were you not allowed on school grounds, but you LOST the chance to make up school work. You had to take a big, fat Zero for those missed assignments. But I guess all that got changed when President Bush passed "No delinquent left behind."

Maybe I really am getting old, but I just don't see the point in any of this. When Jake came home from school on Thursday, the most effective thing that I could say to him was,
"Okay Jake, this is your last warning. Either you pull your head out of your ass at school, or I am going to take you out and home school you."
His eyes got huge, his mouth dropped open, and all he could do was utter the words, "NO !"
That's right, he'd actually have to DO school work during school time. And if he jacked around with me, there wouldn't be "consequences", there would be punishments, and I KNOW how to make his life a living hell. On the other hand, he'd go back to all B grades, and he might actually learn something. (Other than the words to all the songs on the Hollywood Undead CD. )Hmmmm . . . that sounds like it might not be such a bad idea. Unfortunately, I'd really like to have a life someday.

Uh-oh. I have to go. Roy was playing ball with Angel in the house -again - and the tennis ball landed on the stove and caught fire. I have to do something about the smell in here.

By the way, it's snowing !

Love ya all,
Susan