Thoughtful Thursday.....

Dobro Hank and The Sunshine Trio...you may have heard of us



Before I was even born the egg donor realized that musical talent seemed to flow through our veins. Big Brother #3 was what you might call a prodigy...he could pick up pretty much any instrument and within an hour he would be playing songs by ear. This started when he was 3 years old! He never learned to read sheet music, never had a lesson of any kind, just picked away at the guitar, piano, banjo, violin, (basically you name it and he could figure out how to play it).

His true talent shone through with the Dobro ...this is a Dobro

Definition: A dobro is an acoustic guitar with a metal resonator built into its body. This resonator serves as an amplifier. In contrast to acoustic guitars, the placement of the resonator takes place of the sound hole. Therefore the shape of the guitar doesn’t tend to have an affect on how the dobro’s sound is amplified. A dobro is usually played laying across your lap.

Big Brother #3 could play the dobro amazingly! But not only could Big Brother #3 play, he could sing...that country voice that can make a girl cry! Older Sister #2 and Big Sis also sang and they were AMAZING! They were so amazing that they started singing and playing at Bluegrass Festivals all over the state in the summers. Before I came along, they were only known as The Sunshine Trio, when I was 3 I started singing with the girls and when I turned 4 the group officially changed to

Dobro Hank and The Sunshine Trio

We traveled all over the country singing and playing country music. We were so good that we sang with the likes of Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, and George Jones to name a few. We even sang on the Grand Ole Opry once!!! Yep, we were that good!

So why would I talk about all this? Where am I going with this? It's because this talent was the egg donors out...literally! When I was about 5 years old an associate of George Jones offered my egg donor money. He wanted to adopt the 4 of us, move us to his farm in Tennesee where we would each have our own horse, home schooling and personal nannies. In exchange we would have to take singing lessons and make records! He was sure we were talented enough to make it big if we had the right kind of management, training and opportunities. The egg donor refused! She was our manager, she was NOT going to let someone else get rich off us. She was sure that if we were that talented then we would make it big regardless! Yes, we were that talented, we still are that talented, BUT she refused us the opportunity. Personally I think she refused because she didn't want anyone knowing our dirty little secrets. Heaven forbid we tell our personal nanny what she had done to us, how she had beat us daily for the littlest thing like not memorizing a song in the time limit she gave (usually about 1/2 hour). Besides, if someone took us off her hands then she would go back to being a no good for anything bum! Seriously we were her money ticket...she literally dropped out of school half way through 6th grade! She would actually brag about this and how you don't need an education....she would say "Look at me, I'm doing fine! I have a house and a mortgage and I never even finished 6th grade!" She never pointed out how the phone would get shut off every few months for non-payment along with the electric. Or how the house would be freezing cold and we had to huddle around kerosene stoves to sleep because she couldn't afford to pay to have the propane tank filled. OR even worse, we had to huddle around the old pot-belly stove in the haunted music room because she couldn't afford kerosene so we had to burn things like wooden chairs. She never mentioned not being able to afford toilet paper and forcing us to wipe with sears catalogs! She was stupid in so many ways!

I hated her on so many levels for refusing us the opportunity to better ourselves! I still hate her for this one decision! She would rather keep us at home with her, beat us daily, whip us with belts and horse whips, try to kill us instead of let us go and live a happy life! The guy was offering us the world and she was not letting it happen! I know, he could have been a psycho...could of been just as bad as living with her...but it sounded pretty and it sounded a heck of a lot better than what we had! We were GREAT, we had natural raw talent and she refused to let it shine. She instead tried to beat it into us that it was our obligation to HER to sing and make her money so she could provide for us...yet we never saw a single penny! All we ever got was a beating and maybe a bowl of mac n cheese if big sister #2 made it for us and even then it was one box for all of us to share. There was never enough food, never enough warmth and never enough love!

I still hate her for the life she gave to me!

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What amazes me most about my chldhood is the fact that I NEVER did anything to stop it! Honestly I don't know why I didn't, I don't know why none of us did anything until older sister #2 was in her senior year of high school and wrote in her journal.

Picture this...large living room and right in the center, against the wall is a tall gun cabinet holding no less than 5 or 6 guns. On the top shelf inside the glass cabinet is the bullets for the guns. There was no key, no lock, just a door. It was beautiful wood finish with glass panels on every side so you could see the guns from every angle no matter where you were in the room. Every year at hunting season time the guns were taken out and we would go hunting. When I was 4 years old I was shown how to load the gun and shoot it. I was 4 years old when I shot my first deer and I was so proud of the fact that I knew how to use a gun! So WHY didn't I use it to save us? What kept me from taking a gun out of that cabinet, loading it with bullets and shooting that evil egg donor and sperm donor (at least the person I thought was my sperm donor but I now know was not) Why didn't I just deliver myself from evil since I kept begging god and it was falling on deaf ears???

I still ask myself that question and can not come up with an answer!

I just don't know what kept me from doing it...I really should have and I probably would have gotten away with it too. I would have been deemed a troubled child once the authorities knew my story! I probably would have been in a mental ward for awhile but hey...it would have been a nice change! If nothing else, I would of had the satisfaction of knowing they were dead and could never hurt me again! I was never sure of that, not even after going into foster care. My foster parents wanted me to visit with the egg donor, they tried to get me to visit with the sperm donor, my social worker tried as well....but I was always afraid she would turn on me and hurt me or that he would rape me in the back seat of his car just to have a go with me one more time. I was so scared every single time I was forced to visit with them that I starteed playing sick every single visitation day. Most of the time I didn't even have to fake it because I would be puking from the nerves! They terrified me and my protectors thought I should visit with them, make small talk and try to re-unite our family. The only time I EVER went anywhere with the egg donor was when I wanted to go back and get some of my things, I wanted my pictures of my Grammy and a my favorite red tonka truck that I played with under the wheeping willow. I got them and got the hell out of dodge! I started puking and hyperventilating so I was taken back to the foster home. I hated seeing her and I hated being in that house...all the more reason to envy Big Sis for going back there and surviving, personally I feel light headed and queezie just thinking about it! If I went back to that house I think I would probably puke again!

I don't know why I didn't kill them when I had the chance, the only thing I can come up with is that I'm a much better person than that deep down inside. It wasn't a matter of "Do unto others" I was too good for them and I wasn't stooping to their level of violence!

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I'm gonna drop it off here, next week I'll talk more. I feel refreshed and renewed once again and now I can begin my weekend! That's mainly why I do Thoughtful Thursdays...because Thursday and Friday are my days off. I can get this all off my chest, enjoy my 2 days off and relax fully.

Enjoy your weekends people and if your parents sucked like mine, remember this....

YOU ARE A BETTER PERSON THAN THEY WERE!

That's my moto for this week :)

From Blogger Pictures

Med Check today

Took Orion to the doctors for his med check. He has to go every 4 months to watch his weight and height. He moved up to 30mg of the Adderall XR and therefore he needs to be watched very closely! Orion has always been very low in his weight in general. He never even got out of the 10th percentile on the charts until he hit 5 years old and even then he only went up to 25th percentile. When I knew I was going to put him on meds I fed him lots and lots of junk so he would gain weight. I let him eat as much as he wanted, when he wanted to, so that when he went on the meds he would only lose the fat that I put on him and not drop into a dangerous level...I knew that one of the biggest side effect of the meds was weightloss.

He actually went way up in weight, but very shortly after going on meds he dropped down. Now we fight to maintain a good weight and the more medication he takes, the harder it is to maintain a healthy weight. When he sprouts up like this it's even worse because he'll appear to be nothing but skin and bones. That's what he looks like right now, nothing but skin and bones! The doctor is a little concerned about the fact that he went up in height but down in weight since moving up to the 30 mg but since he's doing so well in school and socially he wants to give us another 4 months to gain that pound back! Ideally Orion should gain 4 to 5 pounds a year according to the doctor, not lose weight so if he doesn't get that back we will have to adjust the meds, switch to something different or find some other solution to the ADHD problem.....trust me I will be working very hard to fatten this kid up and get that pound back!

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Monday...because I feel the need

I saw on Facebook a message from Big Sis, it said that she had just had lunch at a restaurant back in our old home town. So I asked her what made her go back to the old stompin' grounds, afterall there is nothing there but bad memories. Her response threw me for a loop.

She had gone back to face the demons, to deal with the things that had happened so long ago. She went back to the old house where we grew up and asked the people living there if she could have a look around. She found herself standing in the very same rooms where we had been beaten, where we had been raped, where we had our childhood stolen from us. She stood there with the memories flooding back and it was then that she realized that she WAS standing there, she had survived! I asked her if she had vanquished any demons and this was her response:

"sure did... it seems smaller than I remember and being there brought on some flashbacks bu its ok because there I was right where I had been beaten so many times and assaulted and it hit me that I was still breathing and didnt turn out to be a psycho killer.... so ultimately... Though I was beat down at a young age, I dont have to let the memories hold me down there. Time to wash the scars clean and stand tall."

Her words are an inspiration to me! I hope that someday I can do what she did....go back there, face the demons head on and walk away feeling like a new woman! She says the house is exactly the same as when we lived there, but the garage is gone and the old weeping willow tree was chopped down (I sure did love that tree, so many memories hiding under its loving branches). She says that someday she wants to save up enough money to buy the old place and turn it into a home for abused children! I, for one, believe she will do just that! She also said that when I am ready to face the demons she will go with me so that I won't have to face them alone! I don't think I'm ready just yet, someday maybe I'm just not sure when someday will come. Writing about it is one thing....seeing the old place is a whole different story!

From Blogger Pictures

Well he finally did it...

Orion has been saving his allowance for months in order to purchase his very own Nintendo Entertainment System complete with Super Mario Bros. 3 and second controller! $75 later he has placed his order and in 2 to 6 business days he'll be hanging out in his room playing a game that I hope will hold his fancy for more than 5 minutes lol

See Orion has this fascination with the old school systems. He has become a collector of sorts, purchasing himself a Sega system, a Super Nintendo system and now the original Nintendo system. He loves the old school games but wants to play them on the original systems NOT on the computer. He enjoys the systems he has, but is on a constant endevour to purchase and own ALL the old school systems...I'm waiting for him to start talking about Atari and playing Pong lol

Today I deposited the money he gave me into the bank and made the online purchase with the bank card. He has been working so hard around here, doing extra tasks to earn extra money and making sure he saved every penny possible in order to buy this system. He could be seen many nights sitting at his computer at the JJgames.com website looking at the system and dreaming about the day it would officially become his! He finally made it! I can't wait to see his face when it actually arrives and he gets to play with it for real!

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday...the real thing

Ok so hubby convinced me. I came out of the office and he asked what I had posted for Thursday and I felt guilty. I hadn't posted much of anything except a bunch of excuses as to why I wasn't posting. Since writing my Thoughtful Thursdays, I have become a better person (IMHO) I actually have faced fears and I have moved through things. So today I will write about one of my greatest fears....the feeling of being trapped.



At this point, I will retitle this post "The closet under the stairs and My dog Spot"



When I was little if we were (in the egg donors eyes) really bad, we got put into the closet under the stairs. It was this small space, the door was about 4 feet tall and the closet was maybe 3 feet wide by 4 feet deep. The ceiling was the underside of the stair, sloping upward over your head. At one point I could stand up in there, but it wasn't long before that was impossible even for me, the littlest of all of us. The vast majority of the time we were tossed in there by the hair on our head and the door would be slammed in our face and locked from the outside. You could kick and scream and slam the door with your fist....but no amount of begging or pleading would get you released! There was a single bulb that hung from a chain just inside the door, you could pull the little chain and make the bulb light up and at least then you had something to see by. If you had really angered the egg donor the bulb was removed when you were thrown in there so that you sat in complete darkness until released!

My stuffed dog Spot was my only companion when I was in the closet!

As you can see, I still have Spot, I used to lift up his little ear and whisper all my secrets into his ear so no one would hear. I would hold him close to my heart so that I knew I wasn't alone in the darkness. His eyes used to be cloth eyes, but they fell off years ago and at first I used a marker to draw eyes on, but once I got into foster care I managed to replace the eyes with the ones he has now. His ear that I used to lift all the time was hanging on by a little bit of material, so I bought some black felt and made it the right shape and fixed him up so he could hear once again. The little blanket wrapped around him USED to be baby blue (can you believe it) When I was about 4 or 5 years old I found that material and poked some holes in it to poke his legs through and I wrapped it around him so he wouldn't be cold (yes, that material has been on Spot for 35 years). And although you can't really see them, he is actually covered in little spots of gray and thus his name of Spot.

Spot has been my constant friend no matter what goes on. He has been with me through every major event in my life. I am so glad I had a heads up the day I was told a lady would pick me up at school so that I could take him with me to school and keep him with me all these years. He was even by my side when my son was born! Spot is my lifelong friend bought for me the day I was born by my Grammy Grace!

Anyway, Spot was there in the closet with me but I was still afraid. I learned to be afraid of the dark, afraid of small places and any room I am in I must be able to see the escape or I will panic. So when hubby suggested we move the office to the basement so that Orion could have this room to play in with his friends....I got scared! I still am! How am I going to be able to work in the basement with only one small window that I can't climb out of and concrete all around me? I have a hard enough time being down in the basement long enough to put laundry in the washer or dryer. I get all wigged out! The one window is in the overhang so not a lot of light comes in and if I'm down there during the night (since I tend to work the overnight shifts) it's going to be very hard to deal with....especially if the power goes out! Spot is going to have to go to the basement with me, he's going to have to be the strong one for us both....I just don't know if he'll be enough! I just don't know what I can do to make the room less scary! The only thing I do know is that I must do it, I must overcome the fear and I will survive somehow simply because I must!

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Thus ends Thoughtful Thursday for this week! Enjoy your weekend!

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday.....

Ever have one of those days where you know you have things to do, but you just don't want to do them??? That's me today!

I know I should have done the breakfast dishes before coming on the puter, but I didn't. I know I should have re-folded the throw blankets on the couch (for the umteenth time) but I didn't. I know I need to write a Thoughtful Thursday post....and I just don't wanna think about it!

I don't want to recall today, I don't want to do anything but sleep and relax and enjoy having a day off! Hubby bought me a new lawnmower yesterday and I love it, but you won't find me out in the yard doing that, you won't find me doing much of anything except maybe sitting here typing out what I should be doing lol I am so unproductive today!

See last night (or should I say this morning since it was 3:30 in the morning) I heard noises coming from the entry way where the dog sleeps. I crept out there quietly to find out what was up (thinking the cats had stolen his blanket again) only to find the dog crouching in the corner, ears backed down like he had done something wrong and what looked like wet wet mud all over the place! The stairs there are open stairs...it was dripping off the stairs down into the basement. It was on the walls, it was on the floor, it was everywhere! Apparently he ate something bad yesterday while he was outside and his backside exploded! It was the nastiest thing I have cleaned up in a VERY long time! It was one of those moments where you just stare in amazement for a couple minutes asking yourself "WHERE can I step without stepping in any of this??" All the time hoping the dog will not bound up the stairs at you and track it all over the place! It was not fun, I had to put the dog outside on the deck while I cleaned it up...took over an hour to get everything clean and sanitized!

So after sending Orion off to school I went back to bed. I slept until about 1/2 hour ago and I still have no motivation to do a darn thing! I'm having a "I DON'T WANNA!!!!!" kind of day! My arthritis is flared up bad, my head hurts from the sinusitis caused by my allergies, and the smell of bleach still permeates the house...but it's better than explosive dog diarrhea smell right?

So I think this Thursday, I'm skipping the past, I just don't wanna do it! I don't wanna think about it, I don't wanna post about it...maybe later on I'll change my mind but if I do I'll post then, just not right now. Right now I'm going to go make myself refold those throw blankets for the umteenth time and relax until the wild child comes home.

From Blogger Pictures

Happy 6 year Adoption Day

To our special needs child Gig!

This is Gig, our goofy, fun lovin' dog! He's a 6 year old Labrador Retriever who still thinks he's a puppy. We like to say he has ADHD just like the boy because he's full of spunk and never seems to get tired no matter how long you play fetch or run him around the field. He's a good dog for the most part, just full of energy...more than the 3 of us combined! He loves to play, receive belly rubs and water! Even though he keeps us on our toes, we love him and enjoy the time we spend with him.

From Blogger Pictures

Spring has sprung

For the first time in many months I have managed to go outside in just a short sleeve t-shirt to do things like wash the car, clean up the yard and plant our sunflower seeds! Every single year since Orion was very little, we have planted these giant (and I do mean giant) sunflowers out in the front of our house. These babies will grow to 12 to 14 feet tall and the flowers will have a diameter in the range of 18 inches across! They produce edible seeds that taste oh so yummy and can be replanted the following spring to produce more of these beauties! It's a tradition that we have held onto for many years and I am betting that when Orion grows up and gets his own place he'll be seen outdoors in the spring planting his own sunflowers! They are sitting in the ground hopefully growing roots and preparing to grace us with their beauty over the summer. We have a nice section along the edge of the driveway that gets sun almost all day long so they love being there and grow fairly quickly. We've also seen the bleeding hearts growing nicely and the scallions have already produced enough greenery that I get to enjoy baked potatoes nightly! I get to go out on my deck and enjoy grilling again (something I LOVE doing) I had missed my beautiful Weber grill that hubby and the Wild Child bought me last mother's day. We are friends once again and I get to enjoy that flavor of fire cooked meat nightly!

Yep, spring has sprung and life is grand!

EXCEPT for the aches and pains from all the yardwork lol THAT I do not relish, the blisters on my hands are finally healing.....couldn't find my yardwork gloves but I HAD to get out there and breathe in the fresh air, soak up the sun, and make my yard look more presentable. It's not perfect yet, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was.

Again, spring has sprung and life is grand!

I went out and bought myself some work gloves since I couldn't find my old ones (I'll probably find them now that I have a new pair lol) and my hands are thanking me for the purchase! On Wednesday hubby will take me out and together we will purchase a new lawn mower since ours died at the end of last summer and I will get to mow the grass and make my yard something my boy can be proud to play in and have his friends come over to play in. I'll get over my allergies and fight the good fight because I love the nice weather!

Again I say......

Spring has sprung and Life is grand!!

From Blogger Pictures

Tired and cranky and wanting to run away

That's me today...and I don't like it....but I can't seem to help it!

I've mentioned before that I suffer from PMDD (PreMenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) and I take a wonderful medication called Yaz for it. You've probably seen the ads on TV for Yaz...maybe even seen the ones for the law suits over Yaz as well. Yaz is a form of birth control pill, but it is also for PMDD and if you don't have PMDD but take Yaz you will most likely have the side effects that caused the law suit in the first place. Most women suffer from PMS, and they think it's bad but until they have suffered with PMDD they have no clue just how bad it truly can be! When Yaz first came out it wasn't clear in the ads that it should be prescribed for PMDD and not as a general birth control method. They have cleared it up a little better and now doctors know if the patient does not have PMDD they should NOT be taking Yaz for birth control. I do have it, so therfore I take it.

So you might be asking why am I suffering this month?? Well it's really simple! My doctor prescribed Yaz to me but only gave me a 9 month supply because he wanted to see me again after 9 months to make sure that my condition is PMDD and not just PMS. In case you didn't know, PMDD is hard to diagnose and he wanted to be certain since there are bad side effects with it if you really don't have PMDD. Anyway, in that 9 months my doctor left the practice where I go to become a trauma specialist. Apparently he wanted to make more money and so he left the general practice and moved on. My new doctor had never seen me before and therefore had no clue about the plan that my previous doctor had laid out for me. So when I was in her office for a sickness I mentioned to her that I was out and needed a new prescription. She didn't understand why my previous doctor had not given me a years supply and said she would call in the rest to get me to my regular annual check-up.

She never called it in!

I went to the pharmacy to pick it up and it was not there. I called the doctors office and she was on vacation and there was no notation in my file about it so no one would prescibe me anything without an annual exam and of course my insurance will only pay for 1 a year and I am not due for a few months so I had to wait until she got back. She was back this week, but that put me almost a full month without my meds...and thus I suffer...hubby suffers and Orion suffers!

And so this week I am tired, cranky and downright evil at times! I hate the way I am and don't even want to be around myself when I get like this which is why I went on the meds in the first place. I'm going out today to pick up my new prescription that she called in finally and will look forward to a better month next month.

From Blogger Pictures

Results on Big Sis

She had her MRI yesterday morning and then the stinkin computers went down so the doc couldn't compare the results. Apparently, her doctor (much like Orions doctors office) has gone to electronic scans over printing them out so you only get to view them on a computer screen. Anyway, according to the doctor she won't know the full plan of what will happen next until the computers get up and running (and with this being good friday and then the weekend the earliest will be Monday). Looking at her previous MRI however she could tell Sis that she has a bad case of arthritis in her spinal column and the disc between her 5th and 6th vertebrea is breaking down. It is the breakdown of this disc that is pinching the nerve causing her to have the tremors, the numbness and unbearable pain and spasms. As it continues to break down, it will only get worse. The doctors concern is that since Big Sis' symptoms are so severe and happening pretty much daily, that she is going to need some kind of surgery to repair or replace the disc. Big Sis is scared of surgery, especially anything to do with her neck as she has this almost irrational fear of ending up paralyzed...I keep trying to tell her that if she doesn't get the surgery then her disc will break down enough that she will end up paralyzed anyway so she's better off taking the risk. My MIL just had this surgery about a year and a half ago and she's perfectly fine....to which Big Sis pointed out that she probably had real insurance and that just makes me sigh because it is true.

Anyway, the doctor will hopefully get back to her sometime next week to let her know what the next plan will be, but most likely we're talking surgery as long as Big Sis will go through with it. I will be working on her to lean her that way simply because I think it's really in her best interest.

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday.....

Easter

A holiday where people are celebrating the impossible no matter how you look at it. Either it's a dead guy rising from the dead (he was probably just in shock and they didn't know how to check his pulse and the reality was that he was in a coma for 3 days) or it's the bunny rabbit that forgot it's a mammal (and even better a boy) and lays eggs instead of live bunnies.

Yep I'm a pessimist, but not completely! I prefer to celebrate the impossible bunny story. When I was a kid it was the same thing, but we never had little plastic eggs full of candy, we had real eggs...the eggs that the chickens would lay up on the hill. We used markers and crayons to color them and we would poke little holes into either end, blow the egg out through the holes (no easy feat mind you) and then hang the shells on strings to decorate. Then on easter morning we would wake up early and we would actually find a small basket right next to our beds and there would be a candy bar and some jelly beans and one of our favorite treats as well. It's one of those rare good memories I had and I can't help but ask myself...why??

Why was she nice this one day? She was an athiest, she mocked people who believed in god and jesus and all that stuff. Perhaps that's part of why I'm so skeptical about god...I tried to believe, I really did but he took so long to save me from my abuse that I wonder if he is real afterall. ANYWAY....back to my real question....why was she nice on easter???

I honestly can't figure it out, it makes no sense to me. She would give me a clipboard with loose leaf paper on it for my birthday, she would give me socks for Christmas, both wrapped up neatly at the end of the day with a good beating. On easter, I knew without a doubt I was going to have a great day! There would be candy, my favorite candy even, and no beatings until tomorrow at the earliest. It was like a sacred day to her, you don't beat your kids on easter sunday. So I love easter sunday, always have, it's my one day of respite, my one day of peace, my one day that I have happy memories for every single one I can remember as far back as I can remember! I wish I had that one day every day of my life....and now that I have a kid of my own the easter bunny finds his way here to our house and he leaves a basket full of candy and small toys for the boy to enjoy and play with.

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Other thoughts today are on my Big Sis....she is having an MRI right now as I type and then she will go meet with the doctor to find out what to do about this problem between her 5th and 6th vertebrea (I think I posted before that it was the 4th and 5th but I was mistaken and it's the next set down) In any case, she is probably looking at some kind of surgery to fix this, but she won't know until the doctor looks at the MRI results and compares them to the last MRI results from a month or so ago. It's nerve wracking to say the least, I wish I could be there holding her hand and supporting her through all this but all I can do is text her that I love her and am thinking of her and remind her that she's strong and she will get through this! Unfortunately I am seeing the results of state health care vs. private healthcare and I get the feeling that if this were me things would be moving along a lot faster. It could be my imagination, or maybe this is a case where the doctor thinks maybe time and medication will make it better, but you would think she could at least pass that on and tell my sister so that her mind is at ease and she's not feeling like she's being blown off and forgotten because she doesn't have the money to pay for the services and she doesn't have a good paying job because she has spent the last 25 years trying to raise her kids instead of going to college and getting a higher education. I should hear from her later on today and she'll let me know what's going on and what the next step is.

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Well I'm off here. I hope everyone has a great easter holiday no matter what you celebrate!

From Blogger Pictures

Picture Post

I took these photos on my cell phone, they aren't the greatest quality but I like them none the less and wanted to share.

See my hubby and I noticed the other day that Orion is changing...at least his face is. He's maturing, looking less like a little boy and more like a young man. He's very quickly becoming more and more handsome and in just 174 days my boy will be in the double digits...he's going to be a pre-teen!!! Of course we can tell he's already starting puberty, his voice crackles and often times when he's talking his voice is low and sounding more "manly". I know we have many years of the tween age to get through and this process of changing from boy to man is not something that happens overnight, but it's happening and it's kinda happening too fast for this mama to handle.

Where did my baby go?

From Blogger Pictures

Phone update...

Just had to share that the cell phone gods have smiled upon me and had mercy on my soul! They have seen fit to release the phone of all condensation that was in the screen and the volume is coming back quite nicely as well!

From Blogger Pictures

Note to self.....

Next time you have a relaxing drink and decide you need to go to the bathrrom....take your cell phone off your pocket! I didn't do that and the poor cell went for a swim in the mighty throne LMAO! I got it out pretty fast, dried it off and used the hair dryer on it in hopes that it wasn't totally shot to H E Double Hockey Sticks....but it was not really fast enough! The phone works ok, I can still call and text and take pictures. There's a little condensation on the inside edge of the screen...but it's a lot less than it was so it looks like it's going away. The biggest thing is that now the volume is shot! I can barely hear it when it rings and chimes and when I called my voicemail, it was a little more difficult to hear because of the volume....but the volume is turned all the way up! It's so not what it used to be....and the worst part this phone is only 5 or 6 months old....and no I did not buy the extended warrantee incase I dropped it in the toilet :( Silly me!

So now I am hoping and praying to the cell phone gods that they have mercy upon my poor little soul and heal my cell phone of its laryngitis so I can hear my nifty ringtones that I just put on it! Seriously, so not fair here! I mean, yes I have been wanting a QWERTY phone that will make texting Big Sis even easier, and yes I have regretted getting this one that does not have the QWERTY keyboard, BUT I can't really afford to drop the $200 or so on a new phone! Hopefully this one will dry out and when it does it will have full volume once again...if not I'll have to start saving my pennies so I can get myself a newer, better cell phone :)

From Blogger Pictures

FREE stuff alert!

Ok so I think I need an addictions annonymous group or something because let me tell ya, I have found myself getting addicted to a few things lately....I already told ya about my addiction to posting on here, and I have this addiction to texting my sister, and now my newest addiction RINGTONES!

I found this website that I simply LOVE it's phonezoo.com If you like ringtones and even better FREE ringtones, then you need to check this site out! I love having different ringtones for the people who call me on a regular basis, that way I know who is calling before I even get to the phone. The problem is that ringtones in general will either be A) the lame ones that came with the phone or B) Something you get to download but it'll cost ya $2.49 plus whatever you pay for the internet usage to download it. (at least that what it is with my carrier AT&T) There are some websites that charge a membership free but you get to download as many as you want, but those often only have the option to send it to your phone and then you again, have to pay for the internet usage to download it. That's what's so awesome about PhoneZoo.

PhoneZoo is completely free. You register with their site just like you would facebook or anything else, you then have access to make your own ringtones or choose from literally probably thousands of ringtones that are made by other people. You can put in any search word and it can be found! There's even ones from tv shows and movies...I found ringtones that were the animaniacs theme song, the A-Team themesong, you name it, you're gonna find it! AND to top it off, you can save those to your computer and if you have a nifty phone like mine you have a memory stick in it that you can also connect to your computers USB and download them onto your memory stick that you stick into your phone and voila....COMPLETELY FREE RINGTONE! If you don't have a nifty phone like mine with expandable memory then you can always just download it to your phone and pay for the download time if you need to. It's not as good of a deal, but still a better than paying for the ringtone AND the downloading.

As an example of the perfect ringtone find...the thing that made me so excited about this website was finding one titled "SISSYPOO" and it's this little girls voice saying "That's my Sissy over there. Sissy I see you, Hi Sissy Poo" As I explained in a previous Thoughtful Thursday post my sister calls me Sissy....so I downloaded it and put it on my phone as her ringtone :) There's also a rap one that sings "Your sister's on the phone, your sister's calling you" and a couple other lines, I have that one for a switchout when I want to change it hehe

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And just incase anyone is wondering, no I am not being paid to review this site, nor was I approached to advertise for them in any manner or form! I simply was excited to find this site and since I know a lot of people like ringtones and they also like saving money, I thought I would be kind enough to share :) If you do visit their site I would love to hear how you feel about it and I hope you find the perfect ringtone for your phone!

From Blogger Pictures

Another snowboarding season has passed

and I am not afraid to say I will miss it! Finally, after 10 years of waiting, I can say that we are a snowboarding family and we will all be anxiously waiting for opening day 2010 when we can take our boards and once again ride down the mountain!

Yesterday was our last day on the trails, there weren't many left to ride on and even those had a lot of bare patches and icey patches and thin cover to say the least. We saw the begining of mud season in the parking lot and on the access road, the warm sun glistening off damp earth. It was a day to remember though, a day where I watched my husband and son ride top to bottom together with me, a snowboarding family riding with smiles and laughter flowing from us. It was a day to remember as I watched my son connecting turns down pretty steep terrain and not riding on a single green trail since there weren't any to ride on. He has fully transitioned to an intermediate rider, he can handle the terrain, he can handle riding on steep stuff and flat stuff, he can ride around bare patches and over icey patches without crashing. He did wonderfully and at the bottom he tagged up every single run. We rode the chair together, we rode the trails together, we had a great day together as one happy snowboarding family!

There's a song by RUSH called "Time Stand Still" that says everything I felt yesterday...I was really wishing I could just pause time and hold onto the moment just a litle bit longer.

From Blogger Pictures

It must be allergies

because today I woke up clear headed and feeling great....it's snaining (snow rain mixed) outside and there isn't a bird in sight! I even drove the wild child to school and the dog to the kennel and not a single sniffle, not a single eye itch, nothing! So yeah I have come to the conclussion that that miserable feeling the past week has been fully due to the warmer weather bringing back those little pests and their nasty dander!

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In other news, I forgot to mention that Orion feels really good about that essay MCAS test that he had on Tuesday. He came home from school with an actual smile on his face and said it was one of his best school days EVER! What happened was he got a prompt that they had actually used for a practice at school so he already knew what he could write about, what he had done previously and what he had left out previously as well! He said he did his 5 paragraphs, made sure to restate his prompt (which was to write about a day off of school) in both the beginning and final paragraphs and he felt pretty good about his figurative language. He's not sure if he used it 3 times like he was supposed to, but he knows he got it in there at least twice! He's not sure how many adjectives and adverbs he got in there at all, but he's sure he got a couple into the story. The best part of the day...he finished by noon as did all the kids in his group so the teacher let them play games for the rest of the day until it was time to go home at 3pm! Three solid hours of playtime because they are allowed all day to complete the essay and there was nothing else for them to do. Instead of making them read for 3 hours, the teacher opted to allow them to play games like UNO and hide n seek. Now we have to wait until fall for the results to come in the mail...that's the hard part. We won't know his score until somewhere in September or October. Next week he'll have the rest of his English MCAS test (it's a big test and it takes all week to do) and then in May he'll take the math portion of the test, which again will be an all week event. He and I aren't worried in the least about those parts, he's already tackled the hardest part so the rest should be "easy, peezy, pie"...that's what his kidergarten teacher used to say hehe

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday.....

This is going to be a short one because I feel like my head is about to explode! No, I'm not angry, I just feel like crap! My sinus' are raging mad right now, head is throbbing, and sudafed is doing nothing to kill the pain! I've even tried the cocktail my Big Sis told me about....mixing naprosen, motrin, asprin, tylenol (not all at once but different variations like naprosen and asprin or motrin and tylenol) I tried naprosen and asprin because that's what I have in the house at the moment, my head is still in pain! I am sure this has a lot to do with my allergies and it's why I HATE spring!

See spring brings back the birds and me and birds, we just don't mix! If I am enclosed in a house with birds my lungs close up so I can not breathe ( a rescue inhaler will help a little but if I stay too long...like longer than 5 minutes I will not be breathing period!) My eyes will also swell up making it hard to see out them. It's really a deadly reaction! Now when the birds are outdoors, like in springtime, it's not quite as bad but still bad enough. My sinus' swell, my lungs work extra hard and I have trouble breathing without using my rescue inhaler every couple of hours and even then I will get this really yucky cough from my respiratory system swelling. I end up sounding like I have bronchitis for awhile until the birds all move along to the woods or where ever they go to make their nests. My eyes also itch and burn like no tomorrow and I want to scratch them out of my head! Once the birds clear out and stop congregating on my back lawn I'll get better and do fine, but for now it's not a fun ride. So that's why this post won't be super long!

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Today is Thursday, so I'm supposed to write about my evil egg donor or my evil sperm donor or their evil minions who raped me and hurt me. I hate that life, I hate those memories, I hate that I had to live through it....but I did just that! I lived, I survived, I rose above the evilness and somehow found a world that was completely the opposite of that. It's like I woke up one morning and realized I had been dreaming for years and it was a really bad nightmare! Sometimes I wish it was just a bad dream, something that never actually happened, soemthing that happened in my head only and now that I'm awake I can move on in normalcy. But I know it was real, I know it wasn't some bad dream and even when I want so badly to believe it was there's still those scars that show the reality to my imagination.

There's that scar on my back when I was whipped so badly that it tore my skin, the one on my head hidden in my hairline where I was hit over the head, there's those internal scars that are not visible but I know are there none the less. Like the ones in my ears that the doctor swears could only be from tubes being put in or someone stabbing something into my ears repeatedly....yeah I never had tubes. I had an egg donor who would hold me down on her lap while I screamed bloody blue murder! She would take a bobby-pin and stick it in my ear telling me she was trying to get rid of my ear wax that was supposedly in there. She would tell me if I didn't hold still she would poke out my ear drum...yeah she was that mean! Now I have scars inside my ear that hinder my hearing some, at least it's not enough to cause a ton of hearing loss!

and of course there's those scar "downtown" caused by the evil brother and the evil sperm donor. The scars that almost cost me the life of my son and cost me any other children I ever wanted to have! The scars that linger in silence...those are the worst in my opinion! I wanted to have more children, I wanted that so badly...still do as a matter of fact. But alas, it was taken away from me, stolen before I was even aware that I would want children, stolen when I was a little toddler....still even a baby as I was only 2 years old when it started! How I survived, how I managed to even carry one child is nothing short of a mystery to my doctors! It should not of happened, I should not have had the ability to carry a child at all, say nothing about carry one (albeit on strick bedrest for most the pregnancy) to full term and beyond (Orion was born at 41 weeks!) Every single day I feel so blessed to have him in my life!

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Ok that's it I need to go lay down and put an ice pack on my head, hopefully it will help this headache go away and slow down the sinus pain some! Have a great weekend....we're supposed to be going up north for one last weekend of snowboarding as a family but I'm not sure I'm really feeling that happening. Sadly, I think I'll be staying home resting and trying to feel better.

From Blogger Pictures

Only time will tell

Tonight I tucked a very nervous little boy into his bed and read Harry Potter to him until he fell asleep. He's nervous and anxious because tomorrow is his big day, the day he has been working towards, practicing for, the day that shows how much he has learned from his mom. Tomorrow he will go to school and have all day to write a 5 paragraph essay on whatever topic they give him to write about. He will not know the topic until he opens the test booklet and he would only say that he hopes it's a good topic, something he can relate to, something he can really write about.

Tomorrow he will have to write without mom, without anyone prompting him but himself. Tomorrow he will have to ask himself the questions I have asked him and write down his answers. Tomorrow he will have to find a way to come up with an awesome piece of work all by himself and he is nervous, anxious, scared even because tomorrow will answer the big question of how much he has learned.

See my hubby thinks I have done too much prompting, that I have helped him write his papers too much, that I have only hindered in him learning how to write. Hubby thinks that my style of teaching isn't actually teaching him how to write, but is teaching him how to copy what mom wrote. I feel he is learning, that he is doing better and that he can pull this off on his own. I feel I have tought him how to write better.....only time will tell who is right and I really hope it's me that wins :)

From Blogger Pictures

He scored 103!!!!!

I just have to share this because it's SO amazing to me! This year for MCAS testing the 4th graders have to do a creative writing piece. They are given their "prompt" or topic and they have to write a paper on that topic. The paper must be 5 paragraphs minimum, each paragraph must have at least 6 sentences. The first paragraph must restate the prompt and tell about the story. The next 3 paragraphs must be details about what was in the first paragraph and the final paragraph must conclude the story, restating the prompt in a creative way. The students must also use "figurative language" throughout their story. They must use a simile in the 2nd and 4th paragraphs, must use a different form of figurative language in the 3rd paragraph. They must also use 4 to 6 adjectives and/or adverbs in each of the body paragraphs as well. When all the points are added up they can score a total of 100 points and then they get 5 points bonus for every well written paragraph over the required 5. They have been doing practice papers every month since school started...this last one blew me away!

Orions paper missed a couple of adjectives/adverbs in his 2nd paragraph and the teacher felt he could have had a slightly stronger lead so for the main part of the paper her got 98 points, but then he wrote a total of 6 paragraphs and he scored the bonus 5 for that and ended up with a total score of 103!

You have to understand something here, at the beginning of the year we were lucky to see Orion writing 1 or 2 paragraphs total. Each paragraph but a couple sentences and there was no figurative language at all!! Not a single bit of it. He writes facts and that's it, he doesn't give you the details to let you "see" the story. So at the end of last term Orion did not score well on his creative writing grade, he was truly struggling and the teacher and I together came up with a plan to teach him to write better. I have always loved writing, I can paint a picture with words when I have to. I have been known to be wordy and too detailed, but I knew that I could get him to at least write a passable paper if I was allowed to work it the way I thought he would learn it best. So he started bringing home assignments where he would have 1 week to do this creative writing assignment. He had to brain storm, write a rough draft and then a final. I would have him verbally brainstorm with me and I would write down the details as he spoke them. I would prompt him more asking how he felt, what did he see, what did he hear? I would put these things down on the paper for him. Then we would both take those brainstorming ideas and write a paper using them. I would write it with everything I had, paint the picture he gave me as he wrote his rough draft. Then, when he was finished I would read his rough draft out loud to him. THEN I would read my rough draft to him. After he had heard both stories we would talk about how my figurative language showed him the story and not just told the story. After discussing it and making comments on his rough draft as to where he needed more details, where he needed to change things to show instead of tell, and of course pointing out spelling errors etc. I would send him back with his rough draft only and have his re-write his paper. If the second draft came back lacking a lot of details I make him write a third time...again pointing out where he can add more, what he can do to make this a better story. At the begining of the year he would score a total of 25 at the most, and that's why we knew he needed help. He lacked so many important details. This term he has gotten the lowest of an 85 and now the highest score of a 103. Now granted, that's with all my hard work and prompting dragging these details out of him, and at school, when he does one of these assignments on his own in one day he scores around a 60 BUT 60 is way better than the 22 he scored just 4 months ago!

So, without further ado, here is Orions story! The promt was to write about the first time you tried something new:

I remember the first time I tried to use a chairlift like it was yesterday, in reality it was over a year ago. I was nervous and scared waiting in the lift line. The ride up was relaxing and really not bad at all. Getting off was way different, it was not as easy as I had hoped it would be and not what my instructor had described. It all began with my instructor telling me that he thought I was ready to ride the Barnyard Chairlift.

When my instructor told me he thought I was ready to ride a chairlift we headed over to the learning area lift, the Barnyard Chairlift. He told me how to get on and off and it sounded easy enough, but I felt like I had butterflies dancing in my stomach. I was SO nervous! We skated up to the waiting area. I watched the people in front of us get into their lift chair, then we skated forward to the loading dock. We looked over our shoulders to watch for the chair and when it reached us we sat down. The chair lifted us up into the air over the trees. We pulled the bar down over our heads and we began my first ride up the mountain.

The ride up was relaxing and quiet. I was up over the mountain trails hanging on a big cable sitting in a chair. It reminded me of being on the ferris wheel with my mom at the fair. As I came to each lift pole I could feel the bump - bump - bump of the chair going over the wheels and hear the squeaking of the gears. I had time to look around at the trees and animal footprints in the snow and watch other snowboarders and skiers going down the trails. I could hear the swish of the boards and skis as they moved through the snow. At the next to last lift pole we lifted the safety bar and prepared to unload. Once again I felt nervous and those butterflies came back. this did not look as easy as it had sounded!

As we came to the unloading dock, I was supposed to point my board straight forward, put my back foot on my board and stand up. I was supposed to glide smoothly down the ramp with only one foot clicked in. What I did instead, because I was scared, was turn my board a little sideways so I could skid down instead. Unfortunately I learned the hard way why you aren't supposed to do this and I fell. The butterflies in my stomach sank like rocks. I stood up and skated over to my instructor embarrassed and frustrated. He told me not to feel bad, the same thing had happened to him his first time too.

My first time using the chairlift was a scary experience. I didn't really understand what to expect so it made me nervous. The only thing I was sure of, was that the ride up would be the easy part and the most relaxing because there would be nothing to do but look around at the people and listen to the sounds. I didn't really know how to get off the chair because I had never seen it done and had only been told what to do. I did fall down, but according to my instructor that happens to a lot of people, even him.

It's been over a year since my first time on a chairlift. I still fall sometimes, but not very often. Just this past weekend I used the chairlift almost one hundred times and I only fell twice. Both times were because I didn't want to hit the person who got off before me and hadn't cleared the path yet. I don't feel those butterflies anymore, they've flown away. I guess they just don't like the cold mountain air.

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday.....

Look at this photo, the girl in the back left with the long dark hair is Big Sister #1, in front of her is my Grammy Niles and in front of Grammy Niles is Big Brother #3. The older boy in the middle is Evil Brother (aka Big Brother #2) on his lap is Lil' Ole Me. The two girls next to us are Older Sister #2 (in the orange shirt in the back) and Big Sis (aka Older Sister #3 in the pink shirt in the front). The only person missing from this photo is Older Brother #1.

I've spent a lot of time texting older sister #3 recently. She's really having a rough go of it with all her problems and it's really kinda scary for us both. She's so strong, so bull headed and so amazing to me....all at the same time.



I know she's strong because she survived our childhood 3 years longer than me. Well not 3 full years....more like 2 years 11 months and 15 days (give or take a day cause I'm not positive on that lol I figured it out a long time ago and in my old age, my memory often fails me lol) ANYWAY, she suffered too, and although I had my zone to hide in, talking to her on the phone and texting with her has helped me to open a window into that zone and I am finding things that I had completely forgotten or didn't even realize!! It's like when those multiple personality people are introduced to their other personalities on a Lifetime movie. I'm finding out things about our lives that are pretty scary and WOW it's a whole new batch of crap to deal with! On the other hand, it's also brought back memories of my fun times with my big sister, and I've come to remember that she used to call me Sissy even when we were very little. It's what she called me from her toddler days when I was first born. She wanted to hold Sissy, wanted to play with Sissy, wanted to dress Sissy up in dolly clothing lol I've found that close bond again, the thing that kept me going, the thing that made me want to live to tomorrow so that I could experience it again....time with my Big Sis! I looked up to her all my life, she always knew what she wanted and she was getting it one way or another!



That brings us to her bull headedness. She is a stubborn one, always has been. I remember when she was a kid we knicknamed her Geronimo because she was a girl who would stamp her feet and give you that look of death and stand her ground to get what she wanted! She always amazed me because she never caved, never gave in or settled for second best. She still doesn't. This whole thing with her shaking, and twitching and all her other symptoms. She never stopped seeing different doctors, she never gave up on finding the answer. She knew what it wasn't and when the doctors told her something she knew was wrong, she simply found another doctor. Now 5 years later, here she is getting a real answer that is believable and that she feels might actually be right. She stuck to her guns and held out until she heard the right thing...and even then she's stubborn. The doctor prescribed this medication to her that was listed not only as a heavy duty pain killer but also an anti-depressant! She was pissed thinking the doctor had tricked her or lied to her just to get her to take these anti-depressants. I looked the medicine up on google and assured her that it is also used as a heavy duty pain killer for people with fibromyalgia. Although she doesn't appear to have the fibromyalgia, she is in a lot of pain and this might actually help her until they can figure out what they need to do to fix her deformity between the 4th and 5th vertebrae. But through all this, she's still strong, taking it in stride, just dealing with it as it comes. She simply amazes me!



She may be strong and bull headed, she may sometimes drive a lot of people up the wall because of her stubborness, but in the end she gets what she wants, she gets the right answers and she is still smiling in the end :)

Big sis was about 4 years old in that photo up top....this is her today!

And even though she looks way too much like the egg donor, I love her to death and hope that no matter what comes in my future I can be as strong as her! As for the WOW memories that are coming back...I'll save those for another Thursday because today I only want the pleasant happy thoughts of my Big Sis :)

And just for reference I was about 1 year old in that photo up there and this is me today

From Blogger Pictures

It's beginning to look a lot like springtime

Every where you go
Take a look at my video
showing once again
a little boy scooting down the road

It's begining to look a lot like spring time
short sleeves galore
but the prettiest sight you'll see
are the buds that will be
popping out once more!

From Blogger Pictures

UH-OH I have an addiction issue........

NO it's not my sons adderall...I know a lot of mothers get hooked on that but that is not my issue at all. Hell, no way would I rather take his meds than give it to him...I would go crazy with his wild ways lol

Nope, my addiction is blogging! Especially since I changed the layout in here I just wanna come look at it all the time and the more I look the more I want to blog. Just today, as I was driving down the highway, I saw a license plate and I thought to myself "I should post that on my blog!" The plate read:

YBGLUM

Why be glum?? What a great question eh? Why should we be glum? We as humans need to look for the brighter side of things, find the light at the end of the tunnel and seek the sunshine. When the doom and gloom is pressing down upon us we need to rise up and find a positive in our lives. I'm not talking religion...personally I have a hard time with the whole God thing (if you've read my previous posts you know what that's all about) I personally don't know if there is this almighty merciful God out there watching over us...if he is out there why didn't he have mercy on me and my siblings as our egg donor tried to kill us or when the sperm donor was raping us?? OK OK that's another post for another time...like Thursday...but you get my drift as to my problems with religion and why my feelings on finding the positive has nothing to do with religion or god. My decision to look for the positives is for my own personal comfort and to help me set a better example for my son!

My son...he's my own personal positive! When I look at him I see nothing but happiness...ok I occassionally see red when he's in full blown ADHD mode, unmedicated and bouncing off the walls (or worse climbing the walls literally) but underneath that red I see happiness. He is my living proof that there is life after abuse, there is survival, that life does go on and perhaps one reason I suffered my childhood abuse was so I wouldn't lose my cool with this kid who is challenging to say the least! He is everything I wish I could have been...innocent and carefree!

So as I passed the car with the plate that read YBGLUM I found myself asking myself that question and finding all the positives I could about my life. I wanted to share it with whatever readers I have because it made me want you to ask yourself....

Why be glum when you can be glad...isn't that a much better feeling?? I think it is...what about you?

From Blogger Pictures

WOOHOO I see the sun!

There's a big yellow ball in the sky that resembles the sun, mother nature got over her SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and stopped bawling her eyes out. Finally I can enjoy sun and warmth and a dry basement once again...well at least I can when it fully dries out down there. Luckily it's tiles over the concrete so it should dry up by the end of today as long as I keep the fan blowing around down there.

The rest of my day should be pretty uneventful. I have to go out food shopping and get that over with, put hubby's work clothes away that have been sitting in the dryer and possibly even get outside to get some yard work done. There are tons of leaves and branches in my back yard from all the wind we had with the rain storm and someone (aka ME) has to clean it all up.

In other news around here, Orion wants to quit Cub Scouts. He's tired of all the "work" that comes with being a higher level scout and not really enjoying it anymore. He used to enjoy scouts when it was all den meetings and fun, but now it's all about work and doing stuff that he really doesn't enjoy....so he wants to quit. Personally, I'm ok with it, I understand that kids try many different things and they don't stick with everything they try. Orion isn't the type of kid to go from sport to sport, he's more of a thinker than a sports person. The only sport he has ever enjoyed was bowling. He enjoys just shooting hoops in the driveway, but not the actual game of basketball, he enjoys kicking the ball around the yard but not the actual sport of soccer. That's just the way he has always been and probably always will be. Hubby wants him to do sports, he says it's good for him to compete with other kids, personally I think forcing him to do something he hates is the wrong plan and will only end badly. I don't believe in forcing a kid to compete in a sport if they truly don't want to...besides it's a waste of your money if you're going to sign him up only to have him be miserable and fight you every time you try to take him to practice or a game.

So when Orion told me he really wasn't enjoying scouts anymore and really couldn't care less about doing it anymore I had a hard time telling him he had to complete the year...afterall we already paid the fee for the year that covers him all the way through the summer. But he doesn't want to go to den meetings, he doesn't want to go to pack meetings, he just wants to snowboard or bowl or even just stay home and watch a movie with me. What can I say? I don't like dragging him out and fighting with him only to end up embarrassed because of his pouty behavior....because trust me if I forced him to go he would make sure EVERYONE knew he was only there because his mom forced him to go! Call me a push-over if you must, I know I'm soft on him, but seriously some battles just aren't worth it. I have found with my little man that the old saying "Pick your battles" is very true and I have to pick and choose what lines to draw and what lines to get soft on. When it comes to bedtime, respecting his mother and father, internet and helping out around the house, I'm mean! Orion used to tell me "Mom you're not just mean you're a MEANER!" I take pride in being a meaner on some things, but others I know I'm not even remotely mean....and this is one of them. I just go woth the flow and let him make the call as to whether or not he will continue to be a scout. Why should I waste my time and energy trying to get him to den meetings, pack meetings and other scout events only to have him be miserable when honestly I don't feel like the leaders really care all that much about my son so much as they care about the money and politics of it all. Here an example of what I mean:

This past fall the scouts had a fundraiser for the pack. They sold popcorn like they do every single year. the popcorn is pricey and the kids stand outside the stores getting people to buy the popcorn or make a donation. Orions first trip out he ended up alone because his partner never showed up. He made a ton of money for the pack that day, 1/2 in popcorn sales and 1/2 in donations. The slip even said that the donations would go to the troops overseas, but a lot of people said to give it to the pack and walked away. The pack leaders wife asked if Orion wanted to do it again and he said sure, he would help out. He worked with another boy the second time and he made a lot more money....again this time about 1/2 the money collected was donations. Now here's the deal...the popcorn sales have incentives for the kids....if they sell a certian amount they get a prize, and the more they sell the better the prize. Well when Orion finished up on his second day he was $13 away from the bow and arrow set he really really wanted! He went to his neighbor and asked them to buy one can of popcorn so he could get that bow and arrow set. They bought the popcorn and Orion was excited that he had made enough. We handed in our packet with the totals and the desired prize. A few days later the leaders wife calls me to tell me that Orion can not get the bow and arrow set because he hadn't sold enough popcorn, that over $200 of his funds had been in donations and therefore that went to the pack. She was not donating to the troops because the people who donated were under the impression that the money was going to the pack and so she was keeping it for them. Since the money would not go to the popcorn company Orion didn't qualify for the prize. He had to choose from 2 levels down and get some cheesy prize.....he was exceptionally disappointed and all she had to offer was that he was helping the pack!

It's things like that happening that turned him away...what turned me away was the fact that Orion got sick and then I got sick , then we started snowboarding. Orions den was preparing for something called the Klondike Derby, which is some winter outdoor activity the older scouts do every year. Orion had no interest in it and it fell on one of our weekends away so Orion chose to snowboard over going to that. SO since the den was busy preparing for that he figured there really was no need for him to be at the meetings. He missed a total of 3 meetings...one for the derby, one because he was sick and one because I was too sick to take him. Anyway, his den leader sent me an e-mail and basically this is what it said....

"Orion has missed the last 3 den meetings. As I am sure you can understand we rely on the members dues to pay for the supplies for the meetings and outings. Could you let me know if Orion will be attending next Tuesdays meeting? Thank you"

That was it, no question as to whether or not everything was ok with us, no wondering if we were sick or if something had happened, nope, just we need your dues! She couldn't even call us to ask, she sends an impersonal e-mail, I was so not impressed! That's when I decided it was all about the money...the next den meeting Orion did go and I sent him with his dues for that week and all the weeks he had missed and a note saying I was sorry she didn't get her dues in a timely manner but we had been sick and I figured it would be best to not send a kid with the swine flu to the meetings.


Well I really gotta get off here, I actually feel better having got that scout thing off my chest lol I need to get my day going and get my shopping done.

From Blogger Pictures

Still sick and tired of the rain

I seriously wish it would just stop already! We have had nearly a foot of rain in the last couple of days and it's still coming down out there! Why can't this be snow so we could at least enjoy it? The basement is a mess and I am so glad I didn't move my office down there this past summer....on the other hand, this has shown me the one corner of the basement that does stay dry regardless of how much rain comes in so if I do put the office down there this summer as intended, I will know exactly where to build! Hubby and I are trying to look for the positive lol We are now positive that the office needs to be on the southern corner of the house....basically right where it is right now, just dropped straight down.

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The goal is to move the office so that we can make changes to Orions room. See right now he has his tv, computer, video games etc in his bedroom. We want to move the office so that we can give him a playroom/electronics room and move all that stuff out of his bedroom. That way when he has friends over they can play in this room and not in his bedroom PLUS when he goes to bed at night he won't be able to sneak in tv or internet.

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See that's been a big problem lately. He had headphones so he can't disturb me with his noises when I'm working, but he plugs those into the tv or the internet and he is nice and quiet. BUT if I am working I can't be checking in on him as much. Just this past week I told him internet, tv etc off at 9:30pm. I went in to check on him at break around 10pm and the tv and the internet were both on. So mean mom took away the internet access for 2 days. We bought him one of those USB plug in wireless internet connections so that I could do just that and boy was he mad at me! I gave it back to him tonight and told him if it wasn't off at 9:30 he would lose it for 4 nights. I went in at 9:35 and the screen saver is on the computer, the internet is turned off and he's sound asleep in his bed :) Lesson learned!

From Blogger Pictures

Another update on my sister...

She called me today as soon as she heard from her doctor, the doctor told here there is a deformity between her 4th and 5th vertebra. The doctor said she didn't want to talk about it over the phone, and requested that my sister come in to see her face to face to discuss what will need to be done, but most likely we're looking at some kind of surgery to fix this. My sister thinks it has to do with osteoperosis and the onset of menopause, but we will know nothing for sure until she meets with the doctor.

From Blogger Pictures

New layout

The other day, while talking to my friend Britainy on the phone I mentioned how I loved her new look over on her blog and she mentioned how she didn't have to re-do all her widgets. I asked about it and she told me how there is now an option to keep the current widgets you have when changing your layout....so I went looking for something new and pretty to put on here and this is what I found :)

I am thrilled to not have to change the widgets, now lord only knows how often I'll want to change the layout lol

From Blogger Pictures

Laptop no. 2

So the other day hubby was playing with his laptop that I told you about and one of the keys popped right up and almost fell off! He had the thing just over a week and already it's got a broken key....a good excuse to return it and get his money back. So he goes off to staples to return the $500 broken laptop and ends up with a brand new Asus laptop that cost twice as much money!! So here I sit in the living room typing on this laptop that costs more than my desktop, is all bling-bling and let me tell ya....I'm rather impressed! It's made for gamers, the keyboard is a lot nicer to work with, and the best part is I haven't run into the opening of more tabs without me realizing it and the screen is a lot bigger so it'seasier for me to read :) I could actually see me playing with this on occassions like this where I am home and hubby is at work and the boy is at school.

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In other news, the rain has not let up in days and I have a swimming pool in my basement now. It sucks having to use the shopvac every 1/2 hour to keep it at bay! Yesterday morning we woke up and the water was halfway across the basement and the cat litter boxes were in water!!!! YUCK!! Hubby and I spent the better part of the morning sucking water out of the basement and then going down through the day to keep it cleaned up. Today hubby is at work so it's just me, I went bowling this morning and in the 2 hours I was gone the water went halfway across the basement yet again. I got it all cleaned up, but I am sure by the time I finish typing this out I will have to go clean up more water. I am not enjoying it in the least and hope the weatherman is right when he says this should be the last of the rain and come tomorrow we'll be seeing signs of sunshine and blue skies. I don't look forward to yardwork, but it's better than sucking water out of the basement anyday!

From Blogger Pictures

Daylight savings...not good for me!

I totally can not stand changing the clocks ahead an hour every spring. It's not so much that I miss out on that extra hours sleep, it's more along the lines that time goes by faster and I feel like I'm running behind (something that I TOTALLY hate!) I am one of those people who is always so worried about being late that I tend to be early for everything. I hate the feeling of rushing and when we change the clocks ahead that's exactly how I feel. By the end of the day Orion is in bed late, I'm rushing to work and I feel like crap because of it!

What I truly wish is that they would stop making us change the clocks, leave time alone and just live it it being dark a little earlier at night and being light a little earlier in the morning! Seriously, it's not nice to mess with people like me who have a hard enough time with life in general!

From Blogger Pictures

I keep forgetting to share this....

Right before we headed up for our 3 day weekend, I dyed my hair. The greys were starting to creep through again and I needed to cover them up since they like to grow right smack dab in the middle of my bangs! It's one small section, but it's right in the front and is extreemly noticable! So I opted to change the color more than try to match my roots like usual, afterall, that's half the reason to color anyway, you can completely change if you want to. The box said it was light auburn and the picture looked like it would be a nice color on me so I went for it.

Orion came home from school and saw my hair (which was now a very red color instead of the soft auburn on the box) and he says to me:

"Mom you are so beautiful! I'm not just saying that because you're my mom either, it's true! If you weren't my mom I'd ask you to be my girlfriend! I hope when I grow up my wife will be just as beautiful as you."

From Blogger Pictures