Well this just SUCKS!!!!!

Yesterday our baby Clawdia  was extra lovey and playful. She insisted on playing fetch with the nerf dart...we toss them down the hall and she would race after it then bring it back for you to throw again. She normally would lay beside you on the couch and let you pet her, but yesterday she laid in my lap for a long time and just purred. I thought it was weird but also thought maybe she was just learning to not be so skittish. Sadly though, I think she was saying goodbye because last night my husband went over to the laundry side of the basement and she asked to go with him. She meowed at the door and he let her in, she went over to the cat bed that was down there and just laid down. This morning I went down to check on her and she was gone, passed away in the night in the quiet of the basement.

It's been HELL!

The past few days have passed in a blur, it's been very hard on all of us but mostly the boy. On Thursday we awoke to another 18 inches outside and as all the neighbors crawled out of their homes to clear out driveways and mailboxes I couldn't help but notice that the next door neighbor kids were again there. One of our neighbors made his way over to inform us that Jim had sadly lost his fight for life.

Jim is the sweetest neighbor you could ever want. He literally bought his house when it was the only house on the street! He was the kind of neighbor that watched out for your house when you were here and when you were away, he knew all the in's and out's of every neighbor, knew everyone by name and always offered a helping hand....even if you didn't need it or want it. He offered his tools, his truck, probably would have offered you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it....and every year from the day my son was born he bought him a Christmas and birthday present. He treated Orion just like any of his grandkids, he held a special place in our hearts. From as far back as I can remember Orion called Jim and Ellen his other grandparents. Jim had a special jar of cookies that he kept only for the grandkids....and Orion. He didn't buy the boy video games or electronics, he bought him flashlights because he knew Orion loved flashlights and kept losing them because of his ADHD. He was a great man and it was so sad to see him leave this world.

So Thursday I explained to Orion about Jim, he wanted to go to the wake and say good-bye. I wasn't sure but the boy insisted so I allowed it. He walked in there, signed that guest book and was ever so brave as he walked the line of family members, shaking their hands and telling them how sorry he was to see Jim go.  He got to Ellen and gave her a hug, he tried not to cry because everyone was telling him how brave he was to be there, then he walked to the casket and just stared. He's never seen this sort of thing and it's way different than seeing a dead pet, this was tough. He stood there clearly in a state of shock, I had to physically steer him away. All he could ask later was "What did they do with his wrinkles?" He didn't sleep well that night, none of us did.

Then yesterday, after the family got back from the funeral Orion took Ellen a card. He walked into that house as brave as can be and hugged her. He sat with the family and they all talked of Jim, how nice he was and how he used to give Orion his special cookies. I spoke with Ellen in the kitchen and she told me how special Orion was to Jim and how it would have meant so much to him if he knew that Orion was there. I decided I needed to take him home as he sat and just stared at the picture of Jim on the wall, I could tell he was going to fall apart soon. As we were leaving he ran back in and hugged Ellen so tightly she started to cry then he looks up at her and says "If you ever need anything, shoveling, yard work, whatever. I'm around most weekends so you call and I'll be right over." The he goes on to say "Jim was like a grandfather to me and I loved him!" he turned and walked away leaving all of us in tears and his mom exceptionally proud of the wonderful child I have raised.

Jim will be dearly missed, but the healing for the boy is going to take some time. He can't sleep at night because he says he keeps seeing the dead Jim....I'm sure it'll be awhile before he gets that image out of his mind. It's been hard watching him deal with this and try to be so brave, at night his bravery is no longer hidden and it comes out in his sleep as he cries weeps over his first real big loss.

Today was a good day

I am starting to get into the mode of things and am finding a way to balance work and life. Although I am still working more than ever but it's feeling more smooth and I am adjusting.

I have decided to not start answering questions until after I have had coffee in the morning so that I can start my day in a more relaxed mode. I hang out with Orion watching him play video games and drink my coffee. Once he is off to school I head for the computer where I begin the mystery shopping job. Since my questions can be answered at anytime of the day I bring up the list of questions while I'm on hold for a price quote and look for something that I can answer easily without too much research. I basically do both jobs at the same time. Around noon time I take a lunch break where I leave the office, eat lunch and watch a tv show that I have recorded from the night before (today I watched House) After lunch it's back to the computer for a couple more hours. About an hour before I have to pick up the wild child I stop work, take a shower and toss a load of laundry into the washer. I pick up the wild child from school and if I haven't hit my goal for daily income for the mystery shopping job I head back to the computer while the boy unwinds and I finish up my day. My goal is $25 per day minimum. Today I had to make 3 calls to hit that goal afterschool because of the fact that I had to stop work a little early to snowblow the driveway since it had another 3 inches of fresh stuff out there. I was pleased with my success and Orion thought it was fun to play on his dads computer next to me while I worked.  Right after that we did homework, which Orion flew right through tonight because it was bowling night for us.

After homework it was cook dinner, then head to the bowling alley where Orion and I kicked major butt and we won all 3 games! Came home, hung out with my kid, and then read him a chapter of Harry Potter and then came to work for the call center. I think it's going to go pretty smoothly as long as I stop stressing so much!

Sorry I've been neglectful....

As I mentioned in my last post I have been venturing into the world of working some daytime hours mystery shopping car dealerships over the phone getting price quotes. It is challenging to stay motivated because it is the same thing every single day, every single call and it begins to feel a bit tedious after awhile. It is easy work though and I am sure I will feel better about it once I see my first paycheck.

It's not big money mind you, in the past week I made just just about $85. That was doing a lot of on and off time, trying to figure out how to fit in laundry time, family time, Orions playtime with his friends, hubby time, life in general and working. I'm still working the 9 to midnight on my other phone job as well so I can't do things like laundry at night like some other people.

Right now my schedule is a little hectic, I'm sure I'll get it settled in soon but for now I feel a little frazzled and have neglected the blog because of it. Basically I get up in the morning, take the dog out to the bathroom and then go to work on my LiveWork job where I answer questions. I get paid 35 cents a question, so it's a little something and I can make a few bucks before Orion gets up. I enjoy my coffee while answering those then it's get Orion up, fed and off to school. Once he goes to school it's the mystery shopping job for most the day while he's at school. I do break to take the dog out and to have some food, refill my coffee cup etc. but for the most part it's just calling and getting those price quotes. Like I said, simple work but tedious and boring and some of those guys seem to realize that I'm not booking an actual appointment so they don't want to waste their time with answering my questions. After that I try to get in a quick shower and then go pick up Orion from school. Then it's the homework battle that can take anywhere from one to 3 hours depending on his mood, his meds wearing off and how much he actually has to do. Then it's cook dinner, feed the family, make sure the wild child takes a shower and story time where either I read to Orion or he reads to me...mostly I read to him since he loves being read to. I take full advantage of it since I know he's 10 and he isn't going to want mom reading him stories at bedtime everynight forever. Someday he'll feel too old for such a thing but until then I'm going to soak it up and enjoy it. After an hour or so of reading it's bedtime for Orion and back to the phones for me for my other phone job unil midnight. Then it's off to bed until the next day when I get to do it all over again.


It's not easy, it's not the most money, but between the 3 jobs I manage to make a fair enough wage that the bills get paid and my son does not have to go to an afterschool program or camp in the summer. The daytime job I can do any day except for Sunday and they encourage you to work with kids at home since that makes it sound a bit more realistic. So if it's a vacation day or a snow day or a Saturday I don't have to worry, I can work while Orion plays video games or plays on hubby's computer right next to me. I can pause to talk to him, I can walk away to help him with something if I need to. Basically it's nice and flexible and that makes a huge difference to me and makes it all worth it.I won't become a millionaire working from home but I'll have a child who always has his mom around when he needs her.  A lot of people don't understand how I can work so much for so little, but since I make at least minimum wage per hour I don't feel it's that bad. I don't have the best education, I scraped my way through high school and I didn't finish college. I couldn't afford to finish and I went with just making money to pay the bills and having a place to live. Unfortunately as a foster child, once you turn 18 you have no one to turn to, no home to go back to when the going gets rough or even during the summer while struggling to get through college. You have to make it completely on your own from that point onward and it's a sad reality check. I had to have a place to live so the money went to that instead of college. I managed to work my way up the ranks at Dunkin Donuts and was a manager for awhile but once I got pregnant and had to go on bedrest that all ended. I have not worked outside my house in nearly a dozen years! April will be 11 years since I have had a job outside the house, that's a long time to not be employed. All these jobs working from home are independent contractor jobs and I am not an employee so I have no employer references other than myself...and apparently I don't count lol So I take what I can get and I live with it, I accept it and I try to make the best of it. I try to look at the positives like Orion getting his mom here at all times, but the reality of it all is that money rules the world and it's tough to make ends meet this way.

I hope that someday  when I am through my online course that I am doing I can get a good paying job outside the home, but until then I will just make the best of things and take life day by day.

Snowday Video

And so it begins............

Tomorrow morning I will send my little man off to school and I will begin work. I will work most the day while he is in school. This is a new job for me, but at least it's still working from home.

When I first became a mom I was determined to raise my own child, I wanted to always be here for him no matter what. The problem was that in this day and age it's near impossible to live on a single income. I started looking into ways to work from home, envelope stuffing (I had previously worked in a mail processing plant) was my first dream but unfortunately I realized all too soon that pretty much all those are scams. I looked into a few home business ideas, but those required money that I didn't have so I couldn't do those either. I tried telemarketing, but that didn't go over well since I'm not the type to hard sell people or enjoy harassing people at home. Cold calling is not my thing. Finally I found this phone job, an at home call center agent! It was great, I was making money and I was happy...until they went employee and decided that they didn't want to employ people in my state. I quickly found another at home call center job and I became happy once again. The calls were easy and I was making a fair wage. Unfortunately the economy and "As Seen On TV" stores has brought my line of work to a snails pace. I have gone from making $15 an hour to making $10 an hour on a good night, most nights around $7 or $8 an hour. I have found that nights are better than days for this particular work.

Because the call center work is not being as profitable as it used to be, I have had to once again look for something to help me make money. I am working on taking a course online to become a Medical Administrative Assistant, but in the meantime I need to make some money....so I started looking at blogs for working from home jobs. I found this one that looked interesting and I put in an application but nothing came of it until suddenly a few weeks ago I received an e-mail that my application was reviewed and that they would like to call me for an interview. I was definitely interested, so I arranged the interview. I spoke with the gentleman and it sounded perfect for me. 20 hours a week minimum and no more than 6 days per week. I would be a mystery shopper over the phone! I call up car dealerships and get some price quotes and then report those prices back to them. It sounded great so I was thrilled to be accepted. I did my training last week and did 1 hour of work which seemed pretty easy to say the least. I made almost $10 in the 45 minutes I was working, so it's not a ton of money, but at 20 hours a week it's a world of change for our lives here in my home! I look forward to making more than that and seeing our lives change!

This week I had a situation with my son that took me back to my childhood, it involved the school, him making a bad decision and trying to lie to get out of it. Our situations weren't exactly the same, but as I found myself asking myself "What would the egg donor have done if I did this?" I couldn't help but think back to a time when I was about his age and I made a bad decision and tried with all my might to lie my way out of a hole.

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When I was about 9 or 10 years old I had basically 1 friend. She had been my best friend since 1st grade, we played together at recess all the time, we played together before school and tried to sit next to each other in the classroom when we got to choose our seats. We tried to sit on the rug together, read together in the library and be on the same team when it came to gym class. We were basically inseparable and I loved having someone who actually liked me and didn't hit me or hurt me in any way. 30 years later we still talk (through facebook) we have kids the same age and we are still friends. Back then though, we didn't want to be apart from each other ever and so one day we spent recess creating our master plan to get to play together after school. Her mother would never allow her to have friends over without their parents permission or without knowing the parents. My mother would never allow me to have a friend over ever and besides the point I wouldn't want her to witness the hovel I lived in or risk her seeing me get hit. So we both sat and very carefully wrote letters to the others parent. We thought we were being really smart, copy our parents handwriting, tell the other parent that we were giving permission for (in my case) me to go to her house on the bus after school and (in her case) her to have me over for the afternoon. W didn't think much beyond the fact that we just wanted to play together. We signed our parents names and our big plan went into action. We figured each parent would read the note, see the nice handwriting and agree. We thought we would get away with this and her mother would be too tired to drive me home after work so I would get to spend the night too. I thought my egg donor would love the chance to get rid of me for a day and I would, for one night, be safe from the rape and hurt that always happened there.

We went home that day with notes in hand, handed them over to our parents and then something unexpected happened.....a phone call. Darn it, I knew I was in trouble before she even got off the phone. You could see the manic gleam in her eye as she spoke with my friends mother who was simply calling to verify that it was ok for me to come over. Apparently our handwriting wasn't as neat as we thought it was and it wasn't really believable. As they spoke the egg donors lip got tight like it always did when she was mad, her knuckles around the phone handle began to turn white. Her face became reddened and her breathing began to get heavy. I knew I was in for it, I knew I should have run for it before she could get off that phone but somehow I was there in major trouble and I didn't know what to do.

I tried to lie and say it was all my friends idea, that it was a joke and we hadn't really meant it. I cried and said it would never happen again...but it was no good and I was in some major trouble! I got a good beating for that one and locked in the closet for good measure.

My son will never learn his lessons the way I did, he will not learn through fear.

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This week has also been very special on a good note. When I was growing up I had an amazing uncle, his name was Hiram and he was my all time favorite uncle. He was a great man, so funny and he could play the harmonica so beautifully! I haven't heard his harmonica playing in close to 30 years but I remember it and loved it. Well his granddaughter, my cousin, is one of my friends on facebook and she sent my son some maple candy for Christmas. She told me to be careful opening the tissue because she had put a little something in there for me too and so we opened the box with care when it arrived just the other day. Inside the box we found plenty of maple candy, enough to last the boy almost a year LOL Then, in the very bottom of the box, I found a cd. It was an hour long cd of my uncle playing the harmonica! I burned it into my desktop and my laptop and I sat here listening to his music and I began to cry. I suddenly remembered sitting in his living room singing along to him playing the same songs I was listening to, it was such a beautiful sound. He passed away last year, so I feel very honored to have him here with me now playing his harmonica forever.

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Ok peoples that's it for today. Enjoy your weekend and remember....if your kids lie to you or they do something bad, don't teach them a lesson through fear and violence, teach them instead with love. It works much better!

So much to do and so little time it seems

I need to get money in the bank, I need to pick up the dog from the kennel, I need to reschedule Orion's med check appointment with his doctor since he kinda missed his appointment over vacation....bad mommy I know! I totally screwed up and didn't look at my trusty calendar on the wall and neglected to read that he had an appointment scheduled. I need to pay the 1st of the monthly bills, I need to finish laundry. I also need to clean the house up, take care of dishes and hope for the e-mail telling me what time training is supposed to be for this new job I was working toward getting.

This job is actually pretty cool, 20 hours a week working from home doing mystery shopping on the phone to car dealerships across the country. I applied with them awhile ago and was accepted a couple weeks ago but the holidays put training on a stand still. The lady I've been in contact with (my supervisor, so to speak) seems to send out very last minute notices on the training sessions. The last one, she sent the e-mail at 10:25 in the morning saying that training was going to be at 11am that same day. Like I sit at my computer all day waiting for an e-mail that may or may not show up.  It sounds like a good gig to make some extra money if I can get through training so I replied to that e-mail (well after it had been received because of holiday activities) to appologize for not being able to make it and explaining that I would be more available after the holiday. She replied that there should be a training session sometime today but that she would e-mail me the details on time and the number to call in for the online training. So here I sit at the computer waiting, but I haven't seen any e-mail so I guess I'm going to have to just go about my day. Unfortunately if I do not pick up the dog from the kennel by 12 noon they will charge me for an extra day so I have to get that task completed. I also need to get to answering questions for my other at home gig and do all the other stuff that I've already mentioned.

Oh yeah, I gotta go scoop those litter boxes downstairs because I didn't do it after snowboarding yesterday and with 4 cats....well those boxes get pretty nasty after a good 24 hours of not being scooped say nothing about the 48 that it's going on now lol

 I decided to start my New Years Resolution today so that I can end this year with my first change :)  Thoughtful Thursday, a day to stop and think, a day to get all the dirt out of the carpets and empty the septic tank of my life. Sounds pretty nasty right?? Well it was....my life that is...it was very, very nasty! 

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This past holiday made me remember a time when I was young and should have been care free, unfortunately my evil egg donor made it full of care and worry and stress. My hair was so thin, constantly falling out, now I think I know why. For one, I was a hair puller. I would sit and just pluck the strands of hair out of my head. I wouldn't think about it, I would just do it. It was a nervous habit, probably the beginnings of being a cutter, I just didn't know that yet. I remember taking safety pins and pinning them through the skin of my fingers...why would I do such a thing?? I have no idea except that the evil egg donor made me want to control something. As an adult I can see now what I could not see then, I can see that if I had remained there, if I had not ended up in foster care I probably would have become a cutter. I probably would have done more to myself in order to be able to control the pain inflicted upon me. Beatings were a daily thing, like going to the bathroom. You knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of what time of day she would feel the urge and how much she had held in. Was this going to be one of those days where it was a simple backhand across the room or the day where she grabbed the leather belt or metal yard stick and beat you until you couldn't even feel it anymore...it was a mystery that you could be sure would be solved before the sun had set. 

She was the type of woman you feared, but you learned to out maneuver if you could. You learned her weaknesses...like she couldn't run because she had short stubby legs and she was fat! She couldn't climb a tree and she couldn't climb to the garage roof. You learned to use these to your advantage, get out as fast as possible, get up the tree and sit there waiting for her to realize she wasn't getting you down and then go away. I was the cat and she was the dog, when I came down I would catch hell but for the moment I was safe and maybe, just maybe she would forget why or just how mad she really was and the beating would be less severe. It rarely happened, but I had to live with that hope! I was a desperate child!

Here is an example of my desperation I have never shared!

I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, it was a warm summer day and I was tired from haven been beaten. I had not learned the words to the song the egg donor wanted me to learn and I had received her wrath for my disrespect. I went outside to try to learn the song, I knew that I always memorized better while swinging on the swing, so I walked across the drive to that old swing hanging off the old green boards off the side of the house. I sat there swinging in the swing, wishing I could grow wings and just fly off that swing and to some far away place. In front of me was our huge driveway and in front of that was a clear view of the street. Occasionally a car would drive by and I remember thinking I wish one of those people would kidnap me and take me away from here. Then up on the hill I saw a big mac truck coming. I remembered how the egg donor had told me that truckers were bad people who would steal you if you were too close to the road when they drove by so I ran to the edge of the yard as he approached the corner. There on the corner was a lilac bush, beautiful and full of delicious smells. I ran just past it to where that truck would stop to make his turn......and then I dropped my pants and I took off my shirt and I thought surely he will want me just like my daddy does, this will make him take me away for sure.  I waved my precious parts to him, I tried to flag him down, I flaunted and flirted as best as I could, but the man just looked and then drove away. 

I began to do this on a regular basis, every new truck was a new opportunity. But alas, no pediphiles happened upon my corner except the sperm donor and evil brother #2. Ok, so it's actually a good thing they never happened along or I probably would be dusty bones in a ditch somewhere instead of typing this out right now, but seriously at the time, that is how desperate I was. To stand naked on the corner trying to get a truck drivers attention, how sad and pathetic I must have looked. Why didn't the neighbors say anything? Why didn't they ask questions? Why didn't they say to themselves that something was seriously wrong in a home where a child of 5 will stand on the corner and parade naked for truck drivers? So many why's and so few answers....the story of my life!

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And so I will wrap up this weeks issue of Thoughtful Thursday because my son is home on school vacation and he got some really great Christmas presents that I want to play with hehe I also need to get out food shopping before the New Year and today is a great day to do that. 

Happy 2011 to all my blog readers and to anyone who happens upon this post! I hope I have helped someone today and if not, at least I have helped myself, which is the whole point of Thoughtful Thursdays. Enjoy your family and friends and remember, it's not a good idea to dance naked in the streets, you might catch a cold lol

New Years Resolutions.....

Every year all around the world people make New Years Resolutions. In general, I am not among them because my thinking has always been "why disappoint myself?" I tried making resolutions but they never seemed to work out and I would end up feeling like I had failed myself. I stopped making resolutions and laughed at those who made them. I would watch people say things like "I'm going to lose that baby weight" or "I'm going to be a better person" or "I'm going to save more money" but then they would just continue with the same habits they always had and never succeed in changing. 

Perhaps I hang out around a lot of under achievers, or perhaps I just know a lot of losers. Possibly, I just don't know a lot of people who have the will power to change. Whatever the situation, their failures have always fed my resolve to not resolve. They have always given me a reason to say "see that, it's just not worth making a resolution".

However, this year, I think I might just try again. This year I want to help my son see that no matter how old we are we can make changes for the better, that we should all take responsibility for our previous actions and that we should change the things that aren't showing us to be the best people we can be. I want to show him, that I can set an example and work hard to achieve a goal, that I can structure myself and my life to reach a goal. Perhaps if I can do that, then he can follow my lead and change too. Perhaps he can find it in himself to fight the tough fight and be the person he wants to be. I might fail at my task but if I try and my son follows my lead in trying then I will not be a complete failure, I will have succeeded in something. And so I will try, for him, so that he can see that change is possible.

So in 2011 I will strive to achieve the following:

1. I will become a better parent by teaching my son he is capable of living without me. By this I mean that I will help him less so that he can do more for himself. I will let him try and fail until he gets there instead of just helping him or doing it for him to make his life easier. Although it will be hard to watch him struggle through some tasks, it will benefit him in the end when he learns that he really doesn't need me to do as much for him as he thinks he does. I will strive to be a more patient mother, not yelling when he makes a mistake or messes something up. I will take a deep breath when he pushes my buttons so that he can relax and learn that mom is a loving mom and not so angry all the time.  I believe this will be my hardest task of the year!

2. I will complete my studies and obtain my certificate to be a Medical Administrative Assistant. I am almost through this course, the medical terminology has been hard for me to learn and I have struggled in the memorization of all this. I was never very good at these kinds of things, but I want to make more money than I do currently and it seemed the only way to do that was to get out into the work force again. Of course in order to do that, after being out of the work force for 11 years, was to get some kind of education. I started the course in June of this past year and I want to be done with it by June of this coming year so I can start looking for work and making some "real" money.

3. I will be a better wife to my husband. By this I mean that I will work harder to please him and make his life a more comfortable one. He works so hard for us, gives up his days off to make extra money, hurts his hands and body in order to provide for us, the least I can do is try to clean more, do more and be his sounding board when he needs me to be one. Sometimes I'm not the best at listening to his grumblings, sometimes I forget that he's not attacking me but is merely venting his frustrations, sometimes I forget that I am not his victim and I take things the wrong way...I know I need to stop doing that. He is not my "evil egg donor" and he will never strike me down regardless of what I do or say.

4. (a lead off of the last resolution) I will learn to not live in fear. When I stop to look at myself, I have come to realize that many of my actions and reactions are based on irrational fears. Even though he has NEVER given me reason to believe he would harm me, I fear my husband. I know that my own ADD makes me forget to do things I say I will do, I forget to get stuff done and then run out of time in my day. I fear him coming home because the child inside me remembers when the evil egg donor would come home from work and beat me for forgetting a chore I was supposed to do. The child in me remembers a lot, is still remembering things all the time and that child needs to be comforted and taught that it no longer needs to fear the people around her.

5. Finally, I WILL post my Thoughtful Thursday posts! I have slacked off as of late and I notice a difference in my everyday thought process. I see myself holding onto the pain, letting it sit there and swell up inside me and I don't release it. Hubby doesn't like to hear about my childhood, he sees no reason to sit and recall the details of that horrid life I once lived. I don't want to burden him with memories that he doesn't want to hear about and so I will type it out, I will let it go and I will move on. Every week seems to bring about a new memory, something that happened so long ago. I see my son doing something and I suddenly remember doing that myself and my egg donors reaction. If I don't write it out I begin to feel the anger growing inside me. Before long the anger is just sitting there waiting to lash out at the first person to cross me....which unfortunately tends to be my son. I can not let HER mess with my parenting! I refuse to allow her to invade my sons life any further...so in order to complete goal number one of being a better parent, I must succeed with this goal!

So those are my resolutions for 2011, I hope this year I find a way to succeed!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

So sorry, I have been neglecting posting again but the holidays came and went so fast I can't believe it!

Christmas 2010:

The days leading up to Christmas were awesome! Orion tried so hard to be good and I found this great text message thing where you could have Santa Clause send a message of your choosing to your childs cell phone. So on Christmas Eve Eve Orion received a text from Santa telling him that he was going to try to bring that Nintendo 64 that he had asked for because he knew that Orion was trying very hard to be a good boy. Orions friend was over and was amazed when Orion received a text from the big man himself! Orion had been very worried that Santa might not have gotten his letter in time to special order a Nintendo 64 for him so it really helped him calm down about it and enjoy himself a bit.

On Christmas Eve morning, as is our tradition, Orion got to open one present. He opened a fun hotwheels toy that is a snap together truck/snowmobile. It actually has 25 different configurations and can be mad into anything from a big wheel truck to a racing snowmobile. He had a lot of fun with that for the day and it kept him well entertained. We baked sugar cookies and frosted with homemade frosting. Shortly before bedtime Orion took 2 benedryl since he knew he would have trouble getting to sleep. I read "Twas The Night Before Christmas" and "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". We put out cookies and milk and a little note for Santa from Orion. Orion snuggled under the blankets and by 11pm he was finally sound asleep (An AMAZING thing!) I stayed up and greeted Santa so that he didn't set off the house alarm or the big 96 pound black lab lol 

Christmas morning, 5am, the little man is wide awake begging to go open presents. I made him stay in bed long enough for me to take the dog out to the bathroom and set up my video camera. He came out with wonder in his eyes and a smile on his face, Santa had obviously come since he had a stocking that was full to the rim complete with a snowy leopard stuffed animal ;) He opened Santa's presents first and sure enough he got that Nintendo 64 he had asked for, some chocolate, a couple of really bouncy balls with glitter inside, his usual bunch of hot wheel cars, a DS game, a dvd, and a couple other small items. Then he started in on the "Mom and Dad" gifts

Mom was sneaky this year, I made him open all the littler things first, I saved the big money items for the very last. He opened Mind Flex, his DVD's, his video games to go with the systems he currently has. Then we gave him his new PSP with Little Big Planet and a movie. Next came his new 7" portable dvd player that he had requested. Finally I handed him his last present, it was small and squishy and he opened the paper to find a 3 pack of underwear! He held it up to the video camera with this look on his face that was priceless! It was awesome because he didn't realize that inside those underwear was a 32 G i-pod touch! He tosses the underwear away completely disgusted and asks why he got underwear so I had to tell him to look a little further and not to judge every present by it's wrappings. He went nuts when he found the i-pod touch and said it was the best joke ever! It was my idea...score 1 for Mom!

After playing with our presents for awhile, we went over to my in-laws house where Orion received a wii from his grandparents...spoiled rotten kid that he is lol Orion, on a whim, asks if he can spend the night with his grandparents and we said sure. Hubby and I went home to enjoy a quiet kid free Christmas night.

1:30am my phone is ringing. My heart is racing as I frantically wake up and run for the phone. Orion was homesick and realized he really would rather be home playing with his Christmas presents instead of at his grandparents house without them. NOT FUNNY kiddo, calling mom at 1:30 am only leads me to picture blood or death or both! He wanted to ask me to pick him up nice and early the next morning...little bugger. I picked him up at 11am.

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As you can see I have changed my background to something more fitting the conditions outside. The day after Christmas brought us a wonderful blizzard of snow! Everything is white and cold outside, just what winter is supposed to be. The blizzard messed up our driving plans to get up to NH to go snowboarding, so we'll go this coming weekend instead once everything is nicely groomed and the roads are again safe to drive on. Now I just need to fix my siggy tag to match...it'll probably take me awhile since I need to work and make up for all the time lost while I was sick. Orion will go back to school next week and hubby will be off at work and I'll be able to relax and do some messing around with my paint shop pro.  I hope to have at least 1 more post before the years ends, but just in case:

HAPPY 2011 TO YOU!!

What can I do? H still believes

So I thought that by now Orion would have been told by kids at school that Santa Clause is really his parents, I thought this year would be the year of him asking a lot of questions and losing that little piece of childhood. Amazingly he has not lost that belief. What he wants for Christmas more than anything else in the entire world is a Nintendo 64 console. Yes, my son loves the vintage video games systems and this is the one that will fill his collection. It's also the only thing he asked Santa for this year. My husband did not want to spend the money on it, he was totally against getting him an old system for Christmas, my line of thought was that this might be the last year for him to believe and I could not let that belief die...so I got him the system and it will be here soon. Then the other day Orion and I were talking about Santa and Orion was wondering what kind of stuffed animal Santa was going to bring him this year. You see, every year Santa has topped the stocking with a stuffed animal and knowing that the boy still believed I wanted to buy a stuffed animal for the stocking but hubby said no way. It's too babyish and that we had to stop buying him baby things. I tried to protest, but hubby put his foot down, no stuffed animals this year. But my boy believes and he is looking forward to the stuffed animal that Santa is going to bring. I tried saying things like "Don't you think Santa might realize that you are 10 years old now and that you might not want a stuffed animal since it is kind of a little kid kind of toy?" The boy replies, "No, I think Santa will know that I love my stuffed animals and look forward to them every year." Guess what mom went out and bought against hubby's best protests......Yep I bought a stuffed animal and it will be topping his stocking on Christmas morning. If my boy expects Santa to bring him a stuffed animal then a stuffed animal he will get!


Other thoughts, well not a lot right now. I'm just getting over being horribly sick with some kind of cold or flu. Orion seems to be coming down with it but he is fighting it. The hubby will probably come down with it for Christmas since that's Murphy's Law.  I'm still not 100% but definitely doing better. I can't wait to get out snowboarding again and be back on the mountain. It will be fun to watch Orion get back out there and learn to progress some more. I am looking forward to a good season on the slopes as long as I can get healthy enough to actually get out there lol.

If I don't get back on here before the holiday, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Years!

I know I've been neglectful

but I have a good excuse...honest I do lol

The boy has been growing up right before my eyes!

Somehow he went from sweet beautiful baby boy 

to  big boy

to surly teenager

overnight!

I know it's only been a little over 10 years since he was born, but I after I took that photo yesterday I wanted to cry. He's still sweet faced when he wants to be, or should I say when he wants something, but for the most part there is no more sweet faced baby boy left in my child. He's looking more like a man than ever and although I can see the little boy hiding in the background he's very quickly fading away.

Suddenly my little man is texting with girls and hanging with girls and mom is embarrassing if she calls him "sweetie" in front of those girls. If I dare kiss his cheek or hug him, that look up there is the look I get, the look of a surly teenager, all moody and grown up.

My baby isn't a baby anymore and as I grow closer and closer to 40 I realize that my son isn't the only one getting older. Unfortunately the more he looks like a man and the closer I get to my 40th, the more it all seems to be speeding up. Suddenly I am reevaluating my whole world, what I think, what I feel, how I feel about life when I was his age. My world is speeding up again and I am desperately searching for the brakes because I really need it to slow down.

Can't avoid it any longer

Apparently the wild child is the only kid in 5th grade that doesn't have his own cell phone and he really really needs one and he really really wants one.

And mom is a really really big sap

So the wild child will be getting a cell phone for Christmas!

His very own cell phone with QWERTY keyboard

Mom is now officially scared lol BUT Mom is also smart and knows when she has a bargaining tool! Oh yeah....bring on the good behavior cause Mama is gonna use that cell phone for all it's worth!

The joys of tree trimming..........

She's there, she's up, but it was not without a major headache and lots of cuss words! No I am not kidding lol


Every year hubby walks out the door the day after Thanksgiving, gives me that knowing look, and says "Now when I come home I don't want to see a tree in my living room" Of course he knows me and he knows I am going to go out and buy a tree, I'm going to put it up, and it will be all pretty and decorated by the time he gets home. This year was different!

First of all I had been out Black Friday shopping all night and got home about 1/2 hour before hubby got up to go to work, so needless to say I was sleeping by the time he headed off for work.  I never heard the words pass his lips and I am sure he was sure that he had no need to say it since I would be way too tired to go out and get a tree.

I headed for my in-laws to pick up Orion after getting up and on our way home Orion and I went and got our tree, we brought it home, set it up in the stand in the corner of the living room. We let it relax while we checked lights and set up the mantle decorations, a good 2 hours of work at least. We put the lights up, put all the ornaments up (another hour at least) and as I hang the very last ornament on the tree it begins to fall! Yep the tree stand gave out and the tree was going to land on top of me and Orion fully decorated! We're talking a 7 1/2 foot balsam fir, big full branches and she wasn't exactly light weight either! I caught her mid-fall because I was not going to let my ornaments smash and I wasn't going to let my kid get crushed. CUE THE SWEAR WORDS! I used every bit of strength to push that sucker back into a standing position and had Orion stand on the couch and basically lean on the tree with all his weight (which really is nothing compared to that tree) while I crawled under her and tried to figure out what went wrong.

Meanwhile Hubby hasn't eaten all day because the usual roach coach didn't come to his work and I should be starting dinner!

I try tightening the bolts in the stand, tree still wants to fall over. I try undoing all the bolts, turning the tree and tightening them back in....tree still wants to fall over. I grab the twine they used to tie the tree to the car and tie the tree to the mantle to keep it up while I start dinner because poor Orion is dying trying to hold up that tree for so long!

Meanwhile hubby is on his way home, grumpy from lack of food and not impressed when he hears that the tree is trying to fall over! CUE SWEAR WORDS FROM HUBBY!

Hubby comes home, he tries to fix the stand and realizes there is no hope, the bolts are stripped out. We take all the decorations off the tree, take it out of the stand, put it in a new stand and try to get that one to work....unfortunately this stand has a couple stripped bolts too and the tree still wants to fall over, and poor hubby is starving!  Hubby canabalizes the first stand and between the two he manages to get the bolts to work and the tree stands alone! We ate dinner (that amazingly I had not burned) and then Orion and I took on the task of redecorating the tree!

The tree came home at 1 in the afternoon, she finally stood alone and fully decorated at 10pm! I told hubby that never again will he come home the day after Thanksgiving to find a tree in the living room! From now on, I'm waiting for him!

We'll see what happens next year  LOL

A much better picture post

A fun photo post

Took these on my cell phone so they aren't the best quality but I simply had to share :

My little goofball has to give me at least one of these crazy pics every time I pull out a camera

Gotta love that smile :)

While doing math homework I caught him literally wracking his brains lol

Sissy is safe! I am so happy this week knowing that Sissy finally realized that it was in her best interest to get away from that boyfriend of hers! She has moved away from him and is now in an apartment with her daughter.

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It's pouring rain outside, it's a cold rain that creeps into your bones, your joints, your very soul. It makes everything seem so gloomy and makes me feel like crying right along with those clouds outside. It's on these kinds of days where I find myself reflecting on my youth more than ever, I guess the cold rain brings out the depression in me and depression makes me do nothing but dwell on what a rough life I have had.  I hate these kinds of days because it's usually when I want to forget it the most.

For instance today I woke up and it was cold in our bedroom, my son had crawled into the bed between me and hubby and was snug and cozy. I didn't want to get up because I was remembering how when I was little I would have given just about anything to have the chance to cuddle with a loving parent on such a cold morning and I wanted to share that with my son so that he would never find himself waking up wishing he could of  had that. I don't want him to ever feel that he wanted something so simple and that his mother didn't give it to him. What was it going to cost me to lay there and love my son? What would it of cost her to love me? The answer is simple...it costs nothing more than a push of the snooze  button and another 9 minutes, a price that I gladly paid. As I lay there with him all snuggled up and warm next to me, I couldn't help but remember the cold beds we slept in as children. How we had to melt snow on the potbelly stove, get it good and hot and then fill up some jars to make hot water bottles. We would put then under our covers to warm our sheets and sleep wrapped around them in hopes of staying warm. Lots of nights Sissy would sleep with me and we would curl up close so that we could keep each other warm. Sometimes the egg donor would forget to pay the electric bill and all the lights would be out for days on end, there was no oil for the heat so we had to use kerosene heaters and the potbelly stove. The pipes would freeze in the basement or the well would freeze up and so we had no running water. In those cold days we would have to get snow from the yard, melt it on the stove and use that to flush the toilet or for bathing. If there was no snow then we simply had no water and we would have to use a bucket in the bathroom and then take it out to the swamp to dump it. I remember that being Sissy's job mostly, she would be so embarrassed having to carry a bucket of foul smelling mess out to the swamp to dump. I felt bad for her but at the same time I was thankful to not be her.


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Have a nice weekend and try to stay warm :) Cuddle your children close and let them be littl as long as they want!

Too much candy lol

Last night was trick or treating night, Orion and I went out with his friend Jessie and her mom. It was a quiet night, not a lot of kids out there so our kids got lots of goodies...probably enough to last an entire year! Plus we had way too much left over so now I have to practice willpower over chocolate! You know how hard it is to do that??? I have  a major sweet tooth to begin with and now I have a butt-load  of candy sitting here doing nothing but teasing and taunting me every second of the day! The wild child  has trouble with self control on his best days, say nothing about when he's loaded up with sugar so he has to be monitored very closely when it comes to sugar intake. He has to be limited or he'll be completely bonkers!

So that's my post-halloween story, I'll post some pictures once I dump my camera lol

When you're an abused child you think differently than most kids your age. You try not to think about 10 or 15 years down the road mainly because you're too worried about what tonight will bring. You have to think in the moment, how will this decision now effect my life 5 minutes from now when the evil one finds out about it? How can I do this without getting caught? How can I cover this up so she won't know? You dread the moment she outsmarts you because she does that a lot....afterall you are just a kid and she's got a good 30 years of evilness on you. So you do what you can, what you feel you need to do, and you hope the evil one never knows.

One of the biggest things I did that I hoped she would never figure out concerned her alcohol. She had a bottle of vodka that she loved and no one was allowed to even touch it! You even looked at it and you got yelled at. Not even the sperm donor was allowed to touch her precious clear liquid. Since I knew how much she liked it, but also how mean she was after she drank it, I messed with her without her knowing. After she had gone to bed, or after school when she wasn't home, I would take her bottle from its hiding spot, mark it with my finger and then dump some down the drain. Then I would go to the toilet with the bottle and a cup and I would refill it to the exact spot with toilet water.  I would return it to her hiding spot making sure I set it back exactly as it had been when I removed it. I did that at least once a week, it was great fun watching her drink her toilet-watered-down-vodka! I would find myself having to leave the room lest she catch me giggling and it got me smacked around.  Then there was those bottles of budweiser she hid behind the couch. There was always a 6 pack there and they were always twist caps so you didn't have to use a bottle opener...those I would actually pee in the toilet first then fill them! I know, pretty gross, BUT SHE DESERVED IT!  It was my sweet revenge until I realized that Sissy was sneaking the vodka to deal with the sexual abuse she was suffering and Big Sis #2 was sneaking the Budweisers. After that, I stopped because I didn't want them to get sick and I knew that they were watering down her drinks to cover up what they were drinking. Sometimes it made me mad knowing they had taken away my own bit of revenge, but they were older and so they won. Of course I can't help but wonder just how much toilet water and pee water those two actually drank and how they didn't manage to get sick lol I recently told Sissy about that and she just laughed and said "no wonder that vodka tasted funny" At least she had a sense of humor about it, she could understand. What she couldn't understand was why I poured it down the drain instead of drinking it to deal.

Of course I had my own way of dealing...I was a smoker. The sperm donor smoked camels with no filters and he spent so much time being drunk I managed to steal plenty of cigarettes off him. It all started when I was about 4 years old when the egg donor called us all into the kitchen. She lined us up and handed us each a cigarette. She lit them up and made us each smoke an entire cigarette by ourselves. It was supposed to teach us what a horrible habit it was, it was supposed to make us sick and make us never want to smoke again. Sissy puked something awful, poor thing! Me, I rather enjoyed it. It relaxed me, calmed me, made it easier to deal with the stress of life. I smoked my cigarette and wanted more! I found myself sitting next to the sperm donors chair waiting for him to sit his cigarette down so I could sneak it as he sat in a drunken stupor watching tv. He would always light up and then leave it sitting in the ashtray just burning, picking it up every now and again to take another puff. I was very good at sneaking puffs for myself here and there and as my addiction grew I started to steal cigarettes out of the pack. By the time I was 6 years old I was walking the road looking for soda cans and bottles to take to the store to redeem. Back then kids could buy cigarettes for their parents at the local country store, so I would redeem my cans and buy myself a pack a day. I would steal money from the egg donor and the sperm donor so that I could afford my habit. I was a pack a day 6 year old smoker....pretty sad eh? But it got me through, it helped me deal with the abuse. I would smoke right before bed every night knowing that in a few hours I would be woken by the sperm donor, given my bag of circus peanuts and then taken to the shed. The circus peanuts were to keep me quiet. I was told that it was my special treat...I recently found out in conversation that Sissy was told the same exact thing...it was her special treat. Funny how we kept those secrets to ourselves for so long and we never knew that the other was being abused.

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Have a great weekend, and watch the way you treat your kids because they might just spike your wine with toilet water...and who wants to drink that??