Everyday Thoughts

The Other Side of Story

2010-03-04T17:14:00.008-05:00

Due to the strong likelihood of my coming across a bit too cynical in previous blogs and for the purpose of balancing out all the negative energy I've thrown into the universe with my crabbing about the job situation, I feel it's not only fair but necessary to comment on the rest of my life and those aspects of it which for the most part are surprisingly pleasant. Prepare yourself for a lot happiness and magical unicorns in this blog!

Having lost our insurance and then applied for Medicaid for the kids (Gasp! Horror of all horrors!) I've been keeping tabs for the last six plus months on when that first trip to the new doctor would be. . The doctor, who probably in reality is a perfectly competent person with a lot of letters after their name and an exceedingly packed waiting room, has much to my delight not been visited by any of our offspring as of yet (!). If you knew my children's medical history, this point alone would be worthy of double backhand springs and flaming sparklers being waved all over the neighborhood into the wee hours of the morning. My children have never, ever, ever, ever enjoyed such health. And yes, they did both get the swine flu back in the fall, and we were very fortunately able to get the necessary meds and treatment from our old doctor - but I'd say overall for going on 7 months here and having only contracted a single illness that necessitated a doctor's visit: I am delightedly bewildered, and I'm attributing it to our new quite nearly gluten free diet. It's insane what a little non-processed food can do for one's immune system!

Little Jimmy is a little ham. Never shy and always having some unintentionally hysterical comment to make, he makes our days a lot more comical. And while he does have a great sense of humor (whether or not he knows it) he's also a little smarty. He actually can really read to his sister now with enough speed that she doesn't lose interest and leave the room mid-sentence. He's going to start soccer in a couple weeks so that should keep us all busy with some happy family time, and it should do wonders for his excess energy that usually manifests itself in the form of his chasing Kyla at break neck speeds around the couch whilst pushing a doll stroller or miniature vacuum.

Kyla is our midget Mommy. I truly believe she has way more maternal instinct than I do despite the 27 year age gap between us. She can usually be wholly entertained simply with caring for all eight of her babies - that's right EIGHT. You can just call her Nadia. It's a lot of working dressing and changing and feeding and napping and walking EIGHT BABIES. Why just as soon as she's done with one, she's got to start on the next one, and the next, and the next. . When I take her to the nursery at the YMCA she'll usually inform me very seriously with her big doe eyes that she's going to be "takin' car of babies." No, she doesn't go to the nursery because she's too young for the three and up section, she goes to the nursery to help the paid caregivers there; there's just no telling what kind of chaos would ensue there without Kyla's help. Today I took Kyla to story time and observed as she called to every other child in the parking lot and inside the library, "Hi, friend! Hi!" and then proceeded to offer a warm little welcome hug. Just how cute is that?!

Jim has been staying busy helping friends and family, and they in turn have been helping us. I don't know what it is about 'unemployment' or how in the world this happens, but I know it's a real phenomena that actually does happen to others aside from just us, but (brace) we're madly in love. Call it TMI if you will - which it is, but in the interest of presenting a more balanced perspective, it's out there. I have a feeling it may have something to do with totally losing all security and fallback, but with that also losing all the need to be uber responsible and to save or prepare for a rainy day; the rainy day is here and it's raining hard so I've totally shut off the hyper-preparedness section of my brain. 'It' (for lack of a better word and so as to not further gross-out any unsuspecting readers) may also have something to do with the fact that Jim's around a lot more; he helps me get things ready for the day, and he's pretty much never late getting home (and that's HAWT!). Top that off with a huge lack of 'work stress' and you've got a recipe for a happy marriage.

And just to add the icing to this blog that already poops rainbows and sends jets of sparkles through the air behind little shooting stars, it's almost springtime! Do you have any clue at all, whatsoever as to just how beautiful Ocala is in the spring? Le'me just tell you. It's GORGEOUS. Picture the forest in Bambi in the springtime - that's Ocala (alright, it has a few more trees than Ocala). You pretty much can't go anywhere without seeing the brand newest little baby foals and calves and colts EVERYwhere. It is breathtaking. Do you know what the cutest farm animal on the planet is? You'll never guess it - it's a bebe donkey. They are THE darlingest, most awkward, fluffy little balls of adorableness you'll ever lay eyes on. And as for scenery in general, all these fields that are usually entirely unremarkable turn a vibrant purplish-pink in the spring. Now top that, peeps! It's like all of Ocala's nature sings the Hallelujah Chorus perfectly with volume all the way up.

So the whole job search thing feels like it's totally in the dumper. We keep trying, but it's just not happening. Fortunately for us, a LOT of other things are happening. There's a lot in life that's not fair and is terrible and horrible, but there still is a lot of beauty and joy in life too. I know I do a lot of crabbing and whining and venting on this blog, so a post like this is sort of a rare jewel. Consider this one a gift - maybe like a little prozac from me to you. XOXO and lots of sprinkles and shimmery hearts for you today!

A Job Update - And No, It's Not Anything Exciting

2010-02-16T14:13:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since my last post. The main reason for this would be the plain and simple concept of: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Oh, I have a lot to say - trust me; I just feel it's better if on a regular basis (1.) others don't have to hear it, and (2.) I don't have to actually connect with different less than desirable aspects of my life in order to articulate them. Still, it's been a long time, so I'll give a highly edited version of my current perspective on life. Brace yourself - this won't be pretty.

I've once again come to the conclusion that life isn't fair. Again. I've also come to the conclusion that the early bird does not get the worm. Further, it's true that being responsible and disciplined will yield few if any worthwhile results (I know this is not true in everything . . but it is true in some areas), while utter negligence and thoughtlessness are rewarded and nurtured in our society.

For the last six months I've spent my spare time (read: Kyla's nap time) searching for jobs and submitting resumes and filling out tedious and lengthy applications. That's my spare time (I feel that point should be dully noted). That means that other tasks that I normally handle in my spare time don't get addressed (i.e. - cleaning, ironing, reading, blogging, talking on the phone, personal time in general). And the results of my efforts have been utterly disgusting. There've been a handful of interviews which (obviously) have not yielded any decent results. Several of these interviews (I'd put it at 3 -4 at this point) have ended with the companies simply deciding not to hire anyone. Period. They interviewed people, narrowed down the best candidates, and then they crapped out. . the big boss men who call all the shots decided that the already existing staff should fill in for the position which was to be created, but which now had been kicked to the curb.

Do you have any idea how much wasted time and energy goes into each of these interviews which are then just discarded? - and not because my spouse didn't qualify, simply because the company changed their mind. Or do you have any idea how much time goes into typing personalized cover letters for each company with a listed available position? Or what about *simply* submitting resumes? Or what about filling out their generic applications which usually start at around 3 pages? Maybe you're getting the picture that my husband is unemployed not for lack of effort or skill - he's unemployed simply because the job market sucks right now. (And that's actually my edited thought.)

Do you have any idea how much rejection that is on a daily basis - and more so on interview days? I've come to the conclusion that all aspects of job hunting are crappy. I don't like sending in info to companies, and I don't like not having companies that are looking for info like ours. I don't like interview days, and I don't like non-interview days. I haven't liked hearing back from companies, and I haven't liked not hearing back from companies. Pretty much all aspects pertaining to finding employment are utterly annoying and discouraging.

And while we may struggle with finding a real job, I'm acutely aware that life could be worse. We could be homeless; we could be without family or help; we could've been living in Haiti; we could have ill children or family. . the list goes on. And while many people are facing terrible situations, that still doesn't change my perspective that life, in general, sucks - for a lot of people. Is that any consolation to me? Nope. Am I wanting any sort of admonishment, religious or otherwise? Nope. I'm just sharing where I'm at. There are happy moments in life, but a large part of it is suffering and struggling. And the more irresponsible you are (I've found) the more the government and people in general try to assist you.

So there it is. My verbal vomit all over the internet. Blah. Feel free to comment on this blog, but as a matter of common knowledge, don't ask me to my face about my life; I guarantee you won't want to hear what I have to say as far as "the job search" goes.

A Good Place with Two

2009-12-10T11:18:00.008-05:00

Lately, the contrast between the way I've raised each of my children thus far has come into sharp focus. Maybe being that we're unemployed right now and I'd expect to somehow find myself in a permanent funk, but instead to my surprise sometimes find myself feeling pretty much stress-less has caused me to evaluate the different stages of my life in the past years and ponder what I've done differently at various points.

Thinking back to the years when little Jimmy was home with me before starting school (as Kyla is now) I recall pretty much all day Mommy and son time. We did story time together. We took walks nearly every day. We visited all the local parks regularly. We played with blocks and Lego's and puzzles. We read LOTS at home. We ran errands. We did just about everything together. And while that's wonderful and beautiful in a lot of ways, it also caused me to frequently feel like I was totally losing my mind. Don't get me wrong - I LOVED (and still do) little Jimmy and being with him, but sometimes I just really needed some alone time. And yes, we did have the kind services of babysitting from various family members which was great; still, many days it felt overwhelming. I tried to join a YMCA when little Jimmy was younger solely for the purpose of my having personal time and space, but he was very much a Mama's boy, and I found myself frequently being called to the child care section of the facility to pick up my child who had screamed non-stop from the moment I had dropped him off. Within a few weeks of joining, I was forced to cancel the membership. It didn't help either that I didn't know at the time that he was totally allergic to milk (and I'm beginning to think gluten now too). Jimmy has a very strong will - a will that I believe served him well in coming through his premature entrance into this world, and a will which I fully believe will serve him hugely as an adult. But as a baby and toddler, it was challenging. The struggle of those first few years is certainly not solely attributable to him; I completely played the role of the overprotective mother. I coddled my little boy and sheltered him just as much as he would let me. I checked on him at least twice a night until he was four years old, and I think I even gave him a sippy of milk once a night until well past the age of two (I know! - that in itself is unbelievable. . . but if only I had known the milk itself was not helping anything at all). Frequently, I cooked three meals a day for him. I don't know that I ever left him with anyone aside from family (with the exception of our short stint at the YMCA). Long and short of it - he was my first; he was early and strong willed by nature, and I was worried and hyper-overprotective and also strong willed by nature.

And then Kyla came along. In my opinion, she's been a people-pleaser since birth; not really - she's just extraordinarily accommodating. She's cranky when she's sick or tired, and the rest of the time, she pretty much just goes with the flow. Whatever's happening, she goes with it. Granted she doesn't appear to have any crazy food allergies which makes life much simpler. She wasn't born prematurely and spending her first six weeks of life being poked and prodded in a hospital. No, by contrast, she had a very easy start. I was too exhausted from caring for Jimmy rather spastically for the past four years to devote that much obsessiveness to her - and she didn't want it either (go figure). Of course I still was up with her through the night as an infant, but once twelve months hit I let her learn to put herself to sleep. Now that's not to say Kyla has always been all peaches 'n' cream; no, she definitely has her own little personality that she shares with everyone. She's just a different person with a different temperament and different experiences. We do read and play and go to parks and run errands together - just not as much. I have a membership to another YMCA now, and I take full advantage of it; and yes, I do go to get a break from the constantness of motherhood. Sometimes it's just good to not have to respond to anyone at any given moment. We usually go to the gym in the morning after dropping Jimmy of at school, and then we come home for her nap time. When she wakes up, we have lunch and play a bit before picking up Jimmy. When we get back from picking Jimmy up, it's Jimmy's homework time and Kyla's coloring time. And then it's playtime, and they play together wonderfully (usually). Yes, I play with them too, but they really can do a great job on their own which frees me up to make a decent dinner.

It's just struck me how easy this phase of life is as far as child rearing goes. Somehow I feel like I should feel guilty for how simple it is. But should I really? The kids are happy, and I'm reconnecting with some levels of my own sanity (note that I said some). And I like it like this. Kids are great and all and I'm thrilled to have this experience (and to have survived it thus far), but in my perspective at least, they're easier when they're not infants. At last both of my kids are old enough to articulate their feelings or wants or needs; do you have any idea how huge that is, and how much whining and crying that eliminates?! I don't even need to tell you that a child crying may as well be nails on a chalkboard to me, do I? Even a child that's not my own. If I can hear a baby crying at Wal-Mart per se, I will intentionally shop in an area where I am out of range of hearing that - it disturbs me. I feel compelled to *fix it,* but given that it's someone else's child, I know that my efforts at appeasing their little one will go fully unappreciated (just a hunch). I also love that I only have one child in diapers who will soon be out of that phase completely too. Again, don't get me wrong - there's not much cuter than a child toddling around the house in a diaper; but really, it's fecal matter and urine people. . I'm happy to not deal with that repeatedly all day.

I remember before Kyla was born asking some friends who had two kids when they were going to have their next one. "We're not. . . Just wait, you'll see. . " I have to say, at the time I honestly didn't believe them, and that was even as I was in the thick of raising my first. But there's been a lot of water under the bridge between then and now. I get it. Raising kids while being the most rewarding job, is also easily the most exhausting and frequently the most unappreciated job. In a nutshell: I like my sleep - A LOT. I've enjoyed reconnecting with the me who is well rested.

Once more, I can't reiterate it enough: I love my kids as much as it's possible for one human to love another. . but I don't want anymore. In August, what ended up being the week the company Jim worked for closed and the week he lost his job, Jim got the old snip-snip. It was a little touch and go there as to whether or not the insurance would be active at the time of the surgery (as the company closed on Wednesday and the surgery had been scheduled for Friday) but in the end we were both very relieved to hear the insurance would still be active. What a relief to no longer have the possibility of an unexpected pregnancy. And while I'm sure a vasectomy is unpleasant (it is surgery after all), I believe the men should be more than willing for this type of procedure after all the pain their wives have endured in bringing their child/ren into the world. I was so pleased with the whole thing being taken care of and done with that I made Jim a little cake in the shape of scissors to commemorate his bravery for the sake of his wife's constitution.

Have I regretted the decision at all? Not a once. In fact, when I see other mom's with their infants or hear about newly expecting friends or family, I actually feel a tinge of pity. Of course expecting a new little one is a happy time and all, yet there is so much work in the whole process and so little sleep. All of that to say, I'm glad to be where I'm at. I sleep, and I think more rationally. I have time for such frivolities as blogging and Facebook (gasp!). I can use the bathroom any time I feel the need. I get to read WHOLE books. I can cook real food regularly. I shower every single day! My life is not consumed with doctor's appointments. It's a nice place to be really. Ya, we may not have found a job yet after several months of searching, but that doesn't mean there's not a lot to be thankful for, and having two great kids and no more is one of them!

Nasty, Nasty, Nasty

2009-12-04T12:16:00.007-05:00

When I volunteered to help my sister finish with cleaning out her home in order to rent it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It wasn't that the house was filthy or in wretched state of disrepair. No, quite the opposite. In fact everything was going along really nicely with finishing those last little bits of cleaning and repairs here and there UNTIL we made that flippant and, looking back now, foolish decision to drop off a few bags of garbage at the dump. We could've just waited; she could've just driven over the evening before garbage day to set the bags out by the curb, but no. Feeling a bit too overly eager, we decided to just get the job done straight away by driving it to the dump.

Really we weren't even going to the dump, but rather to a transfer station. It was right up the road; couldn't have been more than a ten minute drive. . simple, right? Wrong. . . dead wrong. I'd never been to a dump or a transfer station until last Tuesday, but I totally underestimated the entire situation. Completely. I was not mentally, physically, or emotionally prepared for what I was about to experience. My husband, who had also been helping with the final repair and clean up of my sister's house gave me no warning either. Having previously owned a property care business, he had plenty of experience in making drop offs at the dump. Since he had visited such places as this so regularly, I assumed it would be no big deal (and you know what they say about people who assume, right?) and he didn't indicate otherwise.

We loaded our dad's truck which we had borrowed for the day with anything we could find that should be disposed of: old blinds, garbage, scraps of laminate etc. The drive was brief and entirely uneventful. As we pulled into the station where you show your ID or pay, we decided it was best to just turn off the diesel truck as it was so loud we couldn't hear what the attendant was saying to us. We provided the necessary info and then proceeded to follow her directions up some ramp. . except - we had to turn the truck back on again first. . .this meant waiting for the allotted warm up period for diesels. . . all the while garbage trucks and recycling trucks were passing us, and we were beginning to feel just a bit out of place (at least we weren't driving my sister's Prius.)

The truck finally started and we turned onto the ramp. The ramp. How weird is that? It's not like we were merging onto an overpass or something; no, we were simply entering the ginormous warehouse-looking transfer station. Feeling somewhat awkward and strangely nervous, we sat in line waiting for our turn. At the front of the line we observed MOUNTAINS of . . . poo. Really, it could've just been actual poo; that's how bad it stunk at least (and that was before we rolled down the window). We watched as garbage trucks backed in and added to the mess followed by some huge nasty floor sweeping machine that swept the sludge and garbage more closely towards the mountains.

When the attendant at the top of the ramp noticed us sitting there awkwardly, he approached *laughing* (maybe he sensed our state of shock and awe) and told us where we could "back the truck in" when he gave the cue. The cue came quickly and let me just say there was no backing in; neither my sister or I had any interest in trying to get as close as possible to the garbage heap so as to avoid spreading the mess any further. No, sorry; they would just need to come through with the nasty sweeper machine after us and push all of our garbage into the rest of the collective heap.

Feeling pressured to be quick (given the line of commercial vehicles waiting at the doorway of the elevated warehouse) we both jumped out as soon as the truck was parked. I had only two scant days previously treated myself to a pedicure, and here I was wearing my flip flops inside the most repulsive place on the planet. A thick coat of grime and sludge and gunk made the floor very slick. My sister and I both separately envisioned our utter demise should a wrong step be made. I walked carefully towards the back of the truck, but was forced to stop when I came to a deeper segment of muddy sewage. I decided instead to try to reach over the side of the truck to grab whatever I could and then, using my brute She-ra type strength, thrust the debris as close to the mountain as possible. My poor sister; this meant that she was left doing most of the work and traversing through all the gore beneath our feet. At one point, I managed to get a hold of some sliding door blinds and was able to use my amazing javelin throwing abilities to pitch the whole thing approximately six inches from my feet. To say that we were completely out of our element is easily the understatement of the century; not that anyone could be in their element there, but clearly others there we less horrified and more prepared for the repugnance of the transfer station than we were. I actually noted the garbage truck drivers and even the attendant within the transfer station laughing maniacally at us; these weren't little chuckles either. These were out and out making-fun-of, sincere belly laughs kind of laughs. . .

When the debris in the back of the truck was unloaded we both eagerly climbed into the cab of the truck to prepare for our hasty departure. I carefully removed my flip flops at the far side of the floor by the door so as to detach the most highly contaminated portion of attire from my being. My sister had no choice (with sneakers on and the rush to leave) aside from simply getting in and driving. Of course, there was the issue again of having to wait for the the diesel engine to be ready for us to drive after turning the key. . . . How can a few short seconds seem so painfully long? When the light finally went off and we were free to leave, my sister managed to sort of peel out (which isn't a difficult thing to do given the scum on the floor). We then both commenced noting the feeling of numbness in our appendages which *may* have made contact with ANYthing in the facility. Surely it was all bio-hazard-sludge-acid that would likely give us a quick and severe case of leprosy.

The next stop on our list of errands was Home Depot. Climbing out of the truck in the parking lot, we were surprised and disgusted to see the *mud* (if only it was just mud. . just plain old dirt mud. . but we knew better) spattered across the side of the truck. Not anticipating the smell of the dump following us around, I was fully unprepared for the scent that greeted my nostrils as I walked away from the truck, and I'm not joking: I gagged. . I nearly vomited at the smell of the truck. We weren't even at the dump and the smell on the outside of the truck was still that strong. As we walked in, we both noted that the other smelled like a dump, so we chose to head strait to the bathroom to wash our shoes and feet and hands with soap. I felt a bit like what I imagine a homeless person might feel like with a one foot and then the other sudsied up in a public restroom sink. Still, it made a huge difference in our odor to simply wash our shoes and feet. Later we took the truck to a car wash which helped some but did not completely eliminate the odor that lingered over us and the truck for the remainder of the day.

I have never in my life experienced such abhorrent filth. I didn't know a place that horrific existed in our state. As amazing as it sounds, that was just one of many transfer stations where garbage is collected before it's driven out to the real dump - which I'm presuming is far bigger and grosser on many levels. I have a new found respect for garbage collectors; that is some nasty work, and I'm really glad I don't have to do anything like that every week. I asked my husband about not warning us of the horrors of the transfer station, and his response was basically that he thought we'd been before and knew what to expect. Um, ya - NO; that will never be happening again. The experience has made me surprisingly conscientious of how much garbage our household produces, and also eager to implement more recycling and reusing. And it's definitely high time biodegradable materials were implemented into every possible consumer product made.

I'll leave with this final and parting thought on garbage collection sites in general: Yuck-o.

Knowing the Consumer Well

2009-11-16T12:44:00.002-05:00

I really appreciate that Ford is meeting us at our need. Their Super Bowl add is bound to clear the car lots of these puppies!

Ford Unveils New Car For Cash-Strapped Buyers: The 1993 Taurus

A Letter to Employers

2009-11-13T15:12:00.005-05:00

I know this is a terrible thing to do here, but for three months we've endured such amazing injustices as far as the job hunt goes that I feel it's my duty to bring attention to the matter and call a spade a spade. To all employers *considering* hiring now or ever: You are NOT all that and a bag of chips. While I know I should continue existing in a faux state eager readiness and excitement at the prospect of ANY employment, it's just not happening any more.
For starters, I am 100% fed up with the false advertising of businesses. As hard as this may be to believe, there are actually businesses out there falsely advertising positions which do not exist. By that, I mean that these are positions which they hope to exist some day when they get that new account or when they start having the common situation of money flowing out of their ears. TWICE now, Jim has done interviews which seemed to go relatively well, until the point at the very, very, very end of the interview wherein the interviewer stated something generally to the affect of: "Well, IF the position becomes available, it won't be until JANUARY." Emm. . Excuse me? Your telling me that this position, which supposedly you (the interviewer) are handling right now (along with three other positions) won't be available until JANUARY? And emmm. . is that because you're hoping for some inordinate amount of money to somehow manifest itself within the company at some magical date in January? Great - thank you for wasting our time. My husband, he just really enjoys preening for people; it's his idea of a good time to sell himself; he likes demonstrating all of his knowledge when requested on the spot. . And he even more just LOVES acing an interview for a position which very well could NEVER exist. That's totally his idea of a real good time. Or what about the other interview he did just last week wherein he divulged all kinds of info about himself to prove what a 'very useful engine' (to coin Thomas the Tank) he was, only to have the HR lady on the other end of the line (who up until this point had seemed extremely pleasantly surprised and satisfied with Jim's answers) inform Jim that should their company acquire 'X' account, they may give him a call. . Well, thanks for all that! And of course Jim wouldn't feel like a used up whore or anything. . Of course he wouldn't! Really, I feel like this practice of conducting interviews for positions which at present (or possibly ever) do not exist should be criminal. And the fact that in both of these cases, the employer dropped that rather notable and critical bit of info at the VERY last possible moment in the interview just speaks volumes to the companies' integrity. Talk about being led on. It's on level with being invited to a fun pool party only to show up and have the host present 'the plan' to become a sales rep for xyz multi-level company. It's dishonest and disheartening.

Another amazing little factoid that I've come to be utterly disgusted with is the fact that employers simply will not accept the fact that you are willing to accept a pay cut. Again, it's been three months. . We would really appreciate some gainful employment at this point. Jim's not the type who would get hired on someplace, and then start sulking around because he's not getting paid what he got paid previously. And it appears this little issue of pay is a sticking point. People just will not accept the fact that you could be happy getting paid less - ever. News flash employers of America: every unemployed person in this country who has spent any quantity of time searching for a job has come to the realization that a pay cut is inevitable, and they have accepted it. . and it's HIGH time you people figured that one out too!

And for all the super neat-o managers out their with an inferiority complex, let's set the record strait for the unemployed folks: We don't want your job. That's great that you have a high and mighty position wherever, but we're not competing with you for your position; we're simply interviewing for the job your company advertised. While many of us are in fact far more qualified than you are for the work which you are doing, that does not mean we will be trying to edge you out the door. No, again, we're simply looking for employment - so quit being on the defensive. . it makes you look insecure and shallow.

My last gripe regarding prospective employment has to do with the manner in which people are informed of not getting the job. I received a letter in my inbox a couple weeks ago from an interview which Jim had completed at least six weeks previously. As soon as the interview was completed, though we both new it was a bad fit and just wasn't going to happen, we went ahead and sent a "thank you for the interview" card (how prompt and special of us!). I had pretty much long since forgotten about that interview until I received this special email informing us regretfully that he had not received the job. Again, we picked up on that when one of the interviewers began preparing to leave for lunch before all parts of the interview (as Jim had been informed) had been completed. . . That was our first hunch that it just wasn't looking so good. But to six weeks later get an email. . . an email? The level of utter stupidity of this is just mind-boggling. They couldn't even defer to the concept that their letter had somehow gotten lost in snail mail; no, it was an email. When an organization is that slow at simply sending out post-interview informative letters, it speaks volumes to their level of competency. Receiving the email made me realize just how close Jim could've been to getting that job (even if it wasn't totally up his alley); I mean, with time anyone can learn and accomplish anything, and clearly this little group seems to think that time is not a factor at all. Really, at that point it would have reflected much better on this group if they just didn't bother with sending out the notices at all. It should be noted that this was a position with one of the governing institutions here. WOW.

For right now, I don't plan on naming any organizations who have exhibited these extraordinary traits. But I would really like it (since I know this blog is read by lots of big employers) if the people doing the hiring and interviews could be a little more considerate to their prospective employees. Don't get our hopes up for nothing. Accept that we can accept you and your pay. Don't fret that we're going to take over the world (or your company or your job for that matter). And don't be rude. That's fair, right? If you can handle that, then you're hired!

Frightening Assumptions

2009-11-03T12:21:00.003-05:00

Wheeewwww. . . Pheeewwwwww. . . Sigh. . Breathing again over here. I just had a very disturbing experience for which I'm now on the other side of and enjoying the relief of it all. Phew. Still glad to be breathing.

It all started when I dropped little Jimmy off at school this morning and headed off to the gym and to run some errands with Kyla. As I was coming home around 11:30, the thought actually crossed my mind that his school does not have either my husband's or my own new cell phone numbers. I thought of all the reasons both simple and complex for which they'd need to contact me during the day, and fully had in mind to promptly call the school just as soon as I got home. When I did arrive home I saw a message flashing on the machine. Checking it, I was utterly horrified to hear it was the Dean of Students at his school. "Calling to speak to the parents or guardian of James Britton. If you could please give me a call at your earliest convenience." Oh. my. gosh. I of course immediately called back and was forced to simply leave a message. . . Just let the gravity of that sink in for a moment. . . I was having visions of horror and shame and fear - nightmares really, and I was left to leave a message.

I put Kyla down for her nap, and I showered as quickly as is humanly possible (not wanting to miss the phone call). I checked my emails ever so briefly and thoughtlessly. And then I stewed. I checked the school schedule online to see when the kids would have their lunch so I could call again, and if I couldn't speak to the dean I could at least speak to his teacher to find out what had happened.

So while waiting, thoughts kept overtaking my mind - literally hijacking my brain. Bad thoughts. Sinister thoughts. I pictured little Jimmy having been sitting in the dean's office for the last four hours while the dean glared at him for his baffling behavior and wondering why in the heck James' parents were so inept at returning a simple phone call - surely this was the cause of James' behavior today. . .

I envisioned Jimmy shoving other innocent children. I pictured him sitting in his desk with his arms crossed obstinately refusing to do any work. I saw him telling off his teachers. I imagined him back-talking the dean. And then my thoughts took a turn. What if he had been the victim? What if some other kids had bullied him? What if he had been injured? What if he had been life-flighted to the nearest hospital? I googled his school to see if any breaking news clips showed up (fortunately there weren't any). And then just as quickly as it had come on, I snapped out that one. Obviously the dean wouldn't be calling me if that was the situation - probably I would have heard from his teacher, and the hospital, and the principal. . ya, there'd be more than one message on my machine if anything really terrible had happened.

So I returned to my stewing over Jimmy's behavior. I tried to think of good punishments for the sort of behavior that would elicit a call from the Dean of Students. He'd be cleaning the bathroom and sweeping the porch; he'd be doing dishes and fixing meals too for that matter. Still, I couldn't help but feel my attempts at more serious punishments would go unnoticed. I remembered back to the days of my own elementary school. There were children who were notoriously naughty (at least for that time) - kids who knew the principal a little too well or who had even been sent home on occasion. I tried to think of what these mothers did to encourage their children to behave, and alas, I could think of nothing truly special or notable. Ya, the mom's of the *naughty* kids from elementary school had finally earned my sympathy.

Finally it was lunch time at Jimmy's school (emm. . . yes, this was actually only ten minutes later), so I called back. Much to my relief and dismay, the dean picked up. "Oh, ya. Hang on just a minute." She seemed so casual as she placed me on hold - like he was just one of a list of offenders for the day, and she needed to pull his file to remember exactly what he had done to earn himself a trip to the office. "Yes, we're showing five excused absences and five unexcused absences for James for the month of October." Silence. My heart began beating again much the way most other living beings does, and I simultaneously realized how completely and utterly wrong I had been in all my assumptions. I casually explained how he had missed five days for the flu, and five days for our single family vacation planned for the last year, and how I had worked it out with his teacher and all his work had been completed. And that was it. "OK. Thank you. I completely understand." And that was it. . .

Yes, I know that mother's tend to worry, and I know that I in particular have an extraordinarily overactive imagination; but the bottom line is this: you know what they say about people who assume. . .

Organically Grown Locally

2009-11-02T13:58:00.006-05:00

There is absolutely nothing quite like really fresh, locally grown produce. And when I say fresh, I mean "I just pulled this out of the earth" fresh. My favorite farmer is just a scant drive away from our home, and I take great delight in purchasing organic fruits and veggies from his stand. Not only do they taste amazing, but they also cost next to nothing. For absolutely NO effort on my part of trying to grow a garden in my back yard, I have all the advantages of just that.

Fernando is an amazing farmer; previously employed in the construction industry, he found himself out of work when everything came to a grinding halt a couple years ago. That's when he decided to begin growing his own food and open a little fruit and veggie stand. He's grown to love his work and says even if the construction industry ever comes back, he still plans to stay put at his little farm growing fresh produce for himself and all the locals here who love him for it.

I appreciated the reporting by Tom Brokaw on NBC on the importance of buying locally and from farmers who carefully consider their work; a beautiful piece of reporting describing how we, the consumer, can actually fix the food system by simply choosing carefully where and what we buy. . Choosing small local farms that don't use chemical pesticides or fertilizers means that we get a higher quality end product. We get a product which will serve the intended effect of nourishing our bodies - not harming them. I believe it's very important that we as the consumer make our voice heard: our health counts, and that means the food we eat should be grown conscientiously. Just because we can buy scads of uber cheap produce from government subsidized farms thousands of miles from our homes, does NOT mean that is the way we will be spending our money. I say the health of our nation's citizens is more valuable than saving some lose change to get a cheaper product. And while some local, organic produce may cost more, in many cases it doesn't. Fernando's Produce prices are very competitive, and frequently cheaper than buying elsewhere. Not only that, but he gives me any veggies that are on their way out free of charge to feed to my chickens; talk about smart recycling!

To Fernando of Fernando's Produce in Summerfield, thanks for making this possible in our area. We truly appreciate your efforts in supplying our community with thoughtfully grown organic produce.

The Best Barbershop in Belleview

2009-10-30T12:51:00.003-04:00

Big Al's Barbershop really is the best. Their shop is always full, but the service is always quick. Yet just because they're quick doesn't mean they don't give the hair cut you request. No, in fact, for nearly no wait and a scant $6, you can actually get your hair cut the way you request it! Imagine that! I find this very novel because so many times I have taken Jimmy to get his hair cut, and he walks out looking like he's ready to enlist (obviously this was not the style his mother requested). Other times, I'm rather horrified to see just how many crooked or jagged lines are created - and for a cut that ended up costing three to four times as much as Big Al's! Now I know little Jimmy is by no means an easy customer, but the fact that Big Al's could give him the haircut I requested AND make it look nice with no real wait for SIX DOLLARS. . . well they're definitely on my good list.

Fall has Fallen!

2009-10-18T15:10:00.009-04:00

We wait all summer (OK, half the year) in Florida for days like these last few - days where you can go outside for periods of time exceeding 30 seconds and not break into a full on sweat. It was wonderful to enjoy the cooler air yesterday, and even more wonderful to wake up this morning to sweater weather. It has been gorgeous outside to say the least! Though we are relishing these pleasant days of real fall weather now, we can't help but marvel at our own strength and fortitude in surviving the Long Summer (very similar to the Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but the opposite season of the year).

Here are some pictures of Jimmy and Kyla enjoying the non-sweat and possible snow (per Jimmy's beliefs) weather.

Little Jimmy opting to climb over the front of his vehicle to pick a dandelion.

Pretty baby.

You can only imagine the fart jokes being told to elicit this sort of laughter.

The Flu Week Thus Far

2009-10-15T18:51:00.008-04:00

So, I'm sitting here feeling the effects of the flu attacking my body, knowing that sometime tonight probably my immune system is likely to succumb to the barrage of germs swarming my being. I feel like I've gone to great lengths to keep this thing away from me for the last week or so, but dang-it, sometimes it's OK to call it a good game and admit defeat.

This whole flu, SWINE FLU, thing has been circulating in the media for quite a while, and we could all see it coming. We heard about schools closing - WHOLE schools! And we heard about classes without teachers or students - just empty classrooms. And then my son woke up on Saturday with a sore throat. We'll just say there was at least one eyebrow raised in his general direction when he first admitted to having a sore throat. I was suspicious, but I tried to ignore it because, hey, it's just a sore throat, right? That's definitely not the flu or anything crazy. . . Right?

Sunday morning he woke up complaining of a sore throat and headache. A headache. It's hard for me to even put into words how odd it is to hear my son complain of a headache; it just doesn't happen. Ever. Obviously I couldn't pretend the words he said were just a fluke or some little verbal mishap, but I didn't. We checked his temperature, and sure enough he registered at 101. Well poo. So this is where I undertook my super-human ability to ward off illness. I cooked up a big batch of fresh soup, and pulled out the humidifier. I found the vix vapor rub and an extra pillow to prop him up in his sleep.

Unfortunately, despite all my preparation, there was to be no sleeping that night. The fever got a little too high for comfort or sleep. It was around 104 coming down only to 102 at best about an hour or so after giving him the fever reducers. I was alternating Tylenol and Motrin every three hours, which I now realize I had wrong (you're actually supposed to rotate them every four hours, but I was doing it every three hours - so should my child have liver and/or kidney problems as an adult, we'll all know just when the organ damage started). Anyway, suffice it to say there wasn't much sleep for any of us. Jim headed to Wal-Mart at 1:00 AM (yes, you read the right) to get some medical supplies (think Tylenol Cold, Kleenex and Gatorade).

The next day I endeavored to keep Jimmy from spreading his germs around to everyone else. There was lots of hand washing, vacuuming (not that that would get rid of germs or anything - it was just mentally soothing) and scrubbing. That afternoon with Jimmy's temperatures still not dropping below 102, I decided to call his doctor who recommended he come in the next day just to make sure all was well. She also informed me that had I come in earlier, if he did in fact have the flu they could have given him Tamiflu; but as it stood, if I wanted to get the drug within the first 48 hours of his fever, I'd have to find a walk-in clinic or something that night. Feeling far more confident than I should have, I decided to forgo a walk-in clinic and just schedule to see the doctor in the morning simply to make sure there was no infection or anything. Just FYI, this next sentence is where my optimistic, I-can-conquer-the-swine-flu attitude kind of took a nose dive. Being unemployed, we had just been confirmed for medicaid. . and my doctor doesn't take medicaid. . so I'd have to go somewhere else.

Again, there is really no way to express in writing the horror of this statement. You see, I'm picky about pediatricians. Really picky. I've developed a rather judgemental attitude towards pediatricians, largely because I've seen that there are some that are just REALLY good at what they do, and then there are lots that are just REALLY bad at what they do. There's not a whole lot of middle ground or gray areas as far as pediatricians go.I don't like my pediatrician; I LOVE my pediatrician. I don't think I could count on more than one hand the number of times there has been a single. Other. Patient. In the waiting room. They don't overbook themselves - and for this, I am a devoted follower. The doctors are kind and understanding, and they don't overbook themselves. They actually hear what I say as a mom and they VALUE it, and they don't overbook themselves. They're sweet and affectionate and empathetic and engage my children, and they don't overbook themselves. I have been to some practices where the minimal wait time in the packed waiting room (picture kids and snot mingled together in a room that is vaguely reminiscent of a cattle car) is at least an hour every time; of course this is not something that's advertised, but it's a quick and nightmarish realization when it is discovered. So suffice it to say when I find a pediatrician that I like, I stick with them forever til death do us part (or we move away).

I asked the nurse on the other end of the line if she knew of any doctors in the area that did accept medicaid. She rattled off a few names, and when pressed, even mentioned one that she thought was "OK." I called that one and was quickly reminded of other disappointing pediatricians I'd seen previously. "Hellopleasehold" a woman answered without waiting for a response. When she returned to the line, she was unapologetically blunt and brief. Ya, that place just was not going to be happening anytime in my near future if at all possible; we'd just rough it and go without seeing a doctor.

Over the course of the day, I had compiled a list of a few more cold/flu items that I needed, and headed to the store in the evening to get them. Halfway home from my excursion, Jim called to inform me that we needed Feverall. . . 'Nough said. . . Jim didn't realize with his one comment he had fully wiped out any remaining bit of strength and hope I had of surviving the flu with my sanity intact. Feverall. It's a low point for any parent when their kid needs it. As they advertise blatantly, it's the 'only brand of acetaminophen in suppository form.' In other words, my kid couldn't keep down the Tylenol we were giving him to keep his crazy fever down, so we needed medicine we could stick up his rear to keep the fever down. I returned to the pharmacy I had just left in search of Feverall, and they were out. .

So I hit another store just up the road to see if they had Feverall. I looked around, and not seeing it on the aisle, approached the pharmacy counter - loudly coughing and jingling my keys to get the pharmacists' attention (you know how they all always do that. . that thing where they pretend like your not there and there's just no possible way for them to even glance over and say, 'I'll be over in second'). Fortunately, one of the women was pretty quick to respond. I told her what I needed, and she cheerily turned to the shelf behind her commenting "Yes, we do. . . . . . . Umm. . Where's the Feverall?" she called to another woman shaking up some medicine. "Oh, we must've sold it all. We had some earlier." Another uber low moment. There's a pandemic, and all the Feverall in the area has been sold; the gravity of the situation was surreal. At the same time, I saw some Motrin Cold on the pharmacists' little shelf of hidden goodies. I didn't mince any words in questioning why the Motrin Cold was hidden back in the pharmacy when I had been looking for it for the last two days, and "No one told me people were hiding it in the pharmacies these days! " The woman responded that it was a drug which had to be signed off on to be sold. "Oh, that's great! So I've got a sick child at home, and I can't find the drugs I need to help him because there's a bunch of drug addicted crazies out there!!!". I was fully and unabashedly venting at the pharmacy ladies because I was frustrated with everything in my life. And you know what they did? They did the best thing in the world at the moment. They empathized. "That's exactly right! YOU are the one whose punished because there are crazy people in the world. It's not right! It shouldn't be that way. What does your child have, may I ask?". Well, now that we had reached this level of flagrant emotional honesty, and she actually asked the question, I didn't hold anything back again when I sob-sassed my cynical run-on response back to her "He has the swine flu. And my husband's out of work, and we don't have insurance, and the stupid medicaid isn't working, and it's not set up, and I don't know what to do!!!!". And again, I love that they leveled with me on this and empathized with me as a human being - not just another customer. "Well. . you could always go to the health department; they'll probably at least put you in a room if they know that's what you're there for. . . Or you could go to the ER. Heck, that's covered by medicaid! Ya, they'll figure out something to do with you there too!". All of their responses were offered with a tone disgust which matched my own for a broken system that's too complex and frustrating to be useful (think of submitting papers requesting medicaid for your children on the basis of NO INCOME and then having that request kicked back THREE separate times for varying, time-wasting, useless reasons). So I'd like to say to these wonderful ladies at the pharmacy 'thank you.' Thank you for really getting my outrage and fear, and thank you for offering your wonderful solutions that sounded more like solutions my girlfriends would suggest to me. Thanks for not making me a number, but for actually acknowledging my humanness.

Fortunately, we didn't end up needing the Feverall. Jimmy was able to keep down his fever reducers after that one incident. So I resumed the sick protocol in our house: writing down the times and name of each medication administered along with temperatures (we don't always remember what was given or when it was given as you may recall from previous blogs), sanitizing everything all the time, pushing liquids, and quarantining ourselves in the house. A few days later Jimmy seemed to be feeling a bit better though with a very runny and raw nose, still hanging onto a low grade fever, and coughing pretty much nonstop. It was today as we sat next to one another and he coughed and something landed on his leg that I realized the utter lameness of my attempts at scouring this endless onslaught of germs and sickness away. A little later I observed Kyla, who now had a low grade fever too, sipping out of Jimmy's cup. And then a little later I observed Kyla, who now had a real fever, sitting on top of the bathroom counter brushing her teeth with her brother's toothbrush. Ya, the germs were obviously communal within our home at this point. No amount of cleaning or cautioning was going to overcome the impending illness.

It was noon today, and I had just put Kyla down for her nap when it dawned on me that she now officially had the flu given that she had a fever and I guess that's the official start of the flu - after which you have 48 hours to treat with Tamiflu or suffer through the whole nasty thing unaided. I thought of the next week, and I thought of the week I'd experienced up to this point. Ya, um, no. It's just not going to happen again. No way on earth am I going to just deal with the flu. I called up the pediatrician (ya, my pediatrician - the one I unabashedly love) and found out how much it would be to pay for a visit cash. For around $100, I could find out if Kyla had the flu and get a prescription written up for her if she did. I thought of saving the money and trying to get in to one of the medicaid doctors, and then I thought of my sanity hanging narrowly in the balance and decided to go ahead and take that single remaining available appointment for the day.

Sure enough, Kyla does have the flu. And the doctor even volunteered to look at Jimmy too to check for signs of infection (which he doesn't have). And the doctor offered to to right a note for Jimmy's school to excuse him. And the doctor called in the prescription for Tamiflu. And the doctor gave both of my kids stickers and a squirt of hand sanitizer. Once again and this time to the kids' doctor, THANK YOU for your humanity. Thank you for offering your help. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for actually caring about what you do. Thank you for being more concerned about kids than about lawsuits.

I left with my sanity intact and my faith in humanity renewed, and picked up the prescription which medicaid did pay for (Thank you too, medicaid. You do serve a purpose, thought it's not without a lot of jumping through flaming hoops and pleading and a complete loss of dignity). Yes, so here I am now - feeling like next week will be a better one. I may be sick, but at least my kids will be feeling better, and that will make it all much more bearable.

***Update: I've just discovered that for liability and legal reasons non-medicaid participating doctors can NOT see persons who carry medicaid. I guess I was just lucky to get in to our doctor by some error. I have a feeling our next visit to a pediatrician will be a very different kind of one.

Fearful Fancies

2009-10-09T11:40:00.005-04:00

I have had the privilege in recent weeks of observing my son's burgeoning awareness of his surroundings - particularly the scary parts. Things for which he never really cared about one way or another before, he's suddenly developed a sense of reservation and caution about. While little Jimmy has some pretty standard six year old fears, he's also got a fairly active imagination (I have NO idea where that came from). To me, this combo translates into a lot of laughs privately, and a lot of motherly guidance for my son.

One of Jimmy's new phobias is bears. He's afraid of a large number of bears chasing him. . . (ya, just let that one sink in for a moment). I think this little nightmare was concocted after a trip to Blue Springs a few months back wherein we observed FOUR (yes, you read that right, FOUR!) bears in trees over the boardwalk down by the boil; there were three baby cubs and one Mama bear. Feeling like the bear-whispering Florida natives that we are, we took a few moments to coo and awe over them before heading back to the swimming area. Unfortunately the thought of these bears somehow tracking our return to the picnic area or worse yet, our home, stuck with little Jimmy. And I'm sure it didn't help that I shared with him the story of how his Nana as a child was chased by an angry Mama bear and scarcely evaded a certain mauling thanks to her quick thinking Father who scooped her up and swept her to safety just in the nick of time! Phew! This was one of my favorite childhood stories of adventure which I begged my mom on a nearly daily basis to retell. So ya, a fear of being chased by bears seems kind of normal for this six year old to me.

Jimmy's also admitted rather shyly to me that he's also afraid of the 'D' word: the dark. This also strikes me as a very typical misgiving of a six year old. Every night he reminds me to shut his closet door because his closet is even creepier and darker than his bedroom at night; the closet is more or less a blackened abyss with no beginning or end in sight, which gives no forewarning of just what may be lurking within and about to come come out and attack. (For the record, no, little Jimmy has never seen Little Monsters, and at present I'd like to keep it that way). But really, I think the fear of dark is something we all have to one degree or another - at least figuratively speaking. No one really wants to ponder what atrocities may lie just around the next corner of life - or just out of the realm of sight. I think we all face the darkness of the unknown with a bit of trepidation.

Another genuine fear my son has, which actually brought tears to my eyes when I realized just how serious this fear was, is his fear of my old baby dolls. When I was helping my parents move a while back we found a couple of these antiquated plastic dolls my sister and I used to play with as kids. They were great mainly because they were made of plastic, and you could take them in the tub and bathe them just the way any little Mommy would bathe a real baby. One afternoon in search of some activity to occupy a single 15 minute block of the day, I put the kids in the bathtub along with one of the plastic baby dolls much to Kyla's delight. Jimmy didn't see the baby doll at first as he was busy filling up cups of water or attempting to create a waterfall or something to that effect. But when he realized the scary baby doll was in the tub with him he was outta there in no time flat. "No, Kyla! Put that scary baby doll out of the tub!" he yelled at her while climbing out of the tub at lightning speed and keeping a steady eye on the horrific plastic creature cradled in her hands. Kyla has come to understand her brother's angst over her new dolls, and it isn't in the least bit uncommon for her to terrorize Jimmy with them. Just this morning Kyla was chasing after Jimmy and giggling delightedly as he ran away from the doll screaming "NO, KYLA! That baby doll's eyes are scary! They're all messed up!"

And while baby dolls bear some resemblance to their human counterparts, there really is nothing quite as alarming as an actual live human being who's unintentionally scary for one reason or another. Such was the case when we were shopping at a children's resale store about a month ago. I first noticed the person of topic when we exited the dressing room. She was a super skinny younger woman (possibly a teenager) who wore a shirt that scarcely covered her bra (assuming she was wearing one); her belly was pierced and adorned with some rather eye-catching piece of body art, and her teeny tiny shorts were cut well below the belly bling so as to fully display the piercing and anything else she might want to show off in all its splendor and glory. I have to say even I was shocked when I saw her; I actually inadvertently did a double take, and then forced myself not to gawk. As I continued searching the racks, I could hear some snip-its of the bizarre conversation that was ensuing between the woman and the clerk, and it struck me that this person was likely on drugs of some kind. I felt bad for her, but at least I had a better idea of how she may have selected her wardrobe. Jimmy and Kyla were playing excitedly with their newly selected Halloween costumes while I hunted for the elusive slim OshKosh pants that little Jimmy wears, when Jimmy ran up to me in a frenzy. "MOMMY!" he whisper-yelled. "That lady isn't wearing ANYthing! She forgot to get dressed! And she has metal poking out of her stomach!". His shock and fear were palpable. I tried my best to calm him down without chuckling audibly, but he was most definitely disturbed by what he saw.

There's a lot of scary stuff in life. Some of it fully warrants our leeriness, and some of it is more within our imaginations. Either way, it's interesting and comical to observe a child's mind coming to grips with all the frightening possibilities which surround it. Life through a child's eyes is a beautiful and frequently amusing thing - even the scary parts.

A New Perspective

2009-09-09T10:56:00.004-04:00

Since this whole job loss thing has begun, I've had a big change in perspective - maybe even a change in my world view. I've realized just how easy it is for people's lives to take a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse. I used to think that people were where they were in life largely as a result of their own choices - which is true to a degree; but to a greater degree, it's not totally true. Sometimes life just happens - and situations beyond your control put you in places you never thought you'd find yourself.

Take Jim losing his job. He did nothing to merit losing his job. It was strictly the result of poor decision making within the company at the very upper levels. Jim worked hard and strove to surpass expectations; he was aiming for a raise when the whole company shut down. Despite the atrocity of it all, we've found ourselves to be in a very fortunate situation. We have family that lives nearby and is very supportive and capable of helping us, and we've had the ability to accumulate a small savings for just such a rainy day. While we'd rather not be in this situation period, it's a wonderful thing to know that we're okay - fine really.

But what has struck me over the last five weeks has been the thought of what happens to the people who don't have the support we have been privileged to have. While unemployment compensation is a great idea, it would by no means cover the cost of standard living expenses. And it's pretty much a complete waste of time to even try to reach them via phone as all their lines are always full due to an exceptionally high call volume (I sent them an email suggesting they go ahead and relieve some of Florida's unemployed by hiring a few more people to answer phones). It was one full month almost to the day before we received the compensation that we had applied for immediately upon receiving word of TBW's closing. If we didn't have the support we have, we would have been in the food pantries of local charities humbly asking for a hand out. And what about health insurance? Forget about health insurance for the adults - what about just insuring the kids? We're still waiting to see if the state will approve our kids for KidCare, so we're hoping nobody falls severely ill or breaks anything. Some people aren't so lucky though and their kids do get really sick or injured at just the wrong time. Many people today here in Ocala find themselves in just these precise precarious situations - by no fault of their own.

Ocala has always had it's fair share of homeless people, but lately there's a lot more. They're not just at that one intersection I always saw them at before; no, now it seems like they're everywhere. And yes, I'm aware that they all may not be fully homeless, but they're obviously struggling to get by in a time when jobs are scarce. And what happens to the people who are out of work and out of health insurance who medically need high cost prescription drugs on a regular basis to function? Surely they should just come up with $1,000 or so every month so they can become insured independently with all of their *pre-existing conditions* (as a side note, I think the state of our nations health care is shameful. . the cost is absurd, and the coverage for people who need it most is even more so). And lest we forget, approximately 25% of the nations homeless people suffer from some sort of severe and persistent mental illness. They didn't choose that, but it's obviously affected their lives to the point where they now sadly find themselves at the mercies of another's discretion and hopefully their generosity too.

It would be fair to say that I have a lot more empathy or understanding for people who find themselves on hard times. It's sad that it's taken me this long to realize how cruel life can be even to nice people or people who work hard or who have families to support. So from someone who finally sees both sides of this coin, I'd suggest generosity, empathy and a lack of passing judgement on those who find themselves in unkind places in life.

It's too easy to slip through the cracks.

Fun with Homemade Clay

2009-09-03T13:34:00.011-04:00

A friend of mine who is going to be a kindergarten teacher this year was preparing for her upcoming year when she found a recipe for homemade play-dough online. She made it at home, and her kids loved it. Now normally, I wouldn't consider myself to be the type of mother capable of such an amazing feat, but somehow I was inspired by her blog about the whole thing. The next day I was taking little Jimmy to school in the van when he commented sullenly that there was no 'spearmint station' in his new first grade classroom. Of course I immediately thought of the play-dough recipe and promised him that we'd do some fun experiments at home even if there weren't any at school this year. Curious as to what type of experiments we would do, I had to explain to him just what we would be making. Obviously a light bulb went on in his head when I mentioned homemade play-dough, because he then asked if there was any way to make clay at home too - for permanent artwork. Well, after searching around online, I found you actually can make homemade clay! Crazy the stuff you can do with roughly $3 worth of standard pantry items.

This whole thing was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it. For the mom's out there leery of such undertakings, it's really quite simple (trust me - I'm usually the leery one). And the mess isn't bad either - though I would suggest anyone who attempts to make and especially PAINT the clay, put down an old vinyl shower curtain or tablecloth to help with the ease of clean up. In the end, the kids were really proud of their creations, and Jim and I had some fun with it too.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
water-based paints

Place dry ingredients in a bowl, add the water and oil, then stir until blended. Once the dough holds together, it's ready to be shaped!

Bake at 250 degrees until hard (for one to two hours).

Once cooled, paint with water-based paints if desired, or glue on glitter using white household glue.

Survival Mode

2009-08-27T19:52:00.004-04:00

Stress. I find that I'm not really good at dealing with it. In fact, I'm flat out horrible at dealing with it - which is particularly sad given that I find myself to be still in a state of living and thus coming up drastically short of one of the most basic necessities for survival these days. When I say I'm bad at dealing with stress, I'd like it to be noted that it's the modern day stress that I'm bad at. I feel my natural responses to stress would've been perfectly acceptable and even necessary were I living a few hundred years ago and was regularly forced to outrun or fight off rabid dogs and angry mama bears. But now in a modern day setting, my natural responses to stress really serve no purpose aside from making me feel strangely weird even in my own skin.

My ability to feign strength and logical reasoning when confronted with an overwhelming situation is very short lived. More often I find what little reasoning or intelligence I might normally exhibit takes an unannounced sabbatical roughly ten minutes into finding myself amidst the said overwhelming situation. I'm kind of like a deer in headlights except worse, much worse. I don't just freeze, but rather I watch the slow motion process of the vehicle heading straight for me and foresee my quick demise and the demise of the vehicle at hand as well as any other random bystander or vehicle who might cross my line of vision, and I see my poor little Bambis at home all forlorn as man enters the forest. . . You get the picture. My husband references this habit of mine as 'predicting' and he hates it - largely because I'm frequently wrong in my predictions and succeed in not only spazzing myself out even more, but also any others who are gullible enough to buy into my vision of doom. Ya, add a little stress and I'm a full on the-glass-is-half-empty, Negative Nancy kind of girl.

I think part of my inability to deal with stress is the fact that so often I'm looking at the larger picture. Something bad happens, and I don't just see it for the burden of that day, I see it affecting my life and my family's lives for months and years to come. And then I think of all the events leading up to *the big one.* It's this whole time line thought that bothers me the most.

Take this whole horrid event of Jim losing his job as an example. The time line for this one starts two years ago, just a few weeks after Kyla was born. It was at this time that Jim realized he hated his lawn business. I had hated his lawn business for a long time and was all about him getting pretty much any other job on the planet (trust me, it was a LOT more work than one might imagine from the outside - a lot of bookkeeping, a lot of taxes and filings, a lot of crabby customers, and a royal ton of work all day into the evening/night and weekends). So when Jim made this announcement, I quickly posted a resume and began a job search for him. He had several valid offers for employment within just a couple weeks. In the end he selected this job here in Ocala because the work appealed to him more and appeared to be very stable. We moved here and were getting settled when a few months later Jim's Dad died randomly. After that we were forced to move again when the value of the house we were renting with the intent to purchase decreased drastically, and the owner offered no compromise on the price. (Have I ever mentioned that I despise moving? It's just a ton of work for a long time and it's very disorienting.) Nevertheless, we were getting settled. Jim's work was going well, and he was working a bit extra to earn a raise. So here we are all nice and settled and actually living our lives when this whole new fiasco strikes.

Can I just say, it irks me. I know that it was a good job while it lasted, and we actually were able to enjoy THREE whole vacations in less than one year (gasp!) - something which had never before happened. But honestly if I had known the rug was going to be pulled out from under this whole operation just as we were getting settled, I never would've even considered this job. My aim in life is stability. For as much as a human needs water to survive, my personal desire is just stability. I don't like drama, and I don't like change. I know everyone reading this is right about now thinking to themselves, "Well fat chance of finding stability. Life's hard, get used to it - and it changes a lot too by the way!". But the problem with this is that I look over my life and those that I've known, and I've watched as people have made one stupid mistake after another and have somehow come out from all of their stupidity OK and even kind of stable. My question is, why, for all the smart and strategic planning and hard work, could it not work out for us just this once. I'm not wanting something bad or evil. It's not like I'm a drug user or pusher. I'm not wanting to be rich or famous. All I want is stability for my family - nothing more. I want to set my mind to a task, accomplish it, and then have that be the end of it for a good while at least.

And yes, I know there is a huge standard quantity of change that happens to everyone all the time. I get that. Cars break and people have to find ways to pay for new vehicles or find alternative transportation - that's standard stress. Kids are sick for months on end and end up needing surgery to have adenoids out and tubes in - that's standard stress. The dogs get out and eat the neighbor's rooster and bunny and then proceed to begin herding their goats throughout the neighborhood - again, that's standard stress. All of it annoying and distressing - but on the level of standard. What I'm sick of is the upheaval - the continual upheaval. Right now Jim's out of work, but that's just one aspect to this whole mess. His company truck was taken away so he had to find alternative transportation. We banked through Lee's bank which now appears to be also complete with fraudulent activity too, so today I went and withdrew in cash form what money remained there to deposit at a new bank. We have no health insurance at all, and the way everything went down, no one can even get on cobra (we're hoping to at least get our kids on KidCare). Our homeowners insurance and auto insurance were with Lee's insurance company which also went down - so that needs to be changed. Our mortgage was held with TBW which also obviously changed (and the new company that's received all this work is so flooded that they can't be reached by phone at all. Ever.) We've filed for unemployment, but haven't received a dime (this is 3 weeks later people, and all their phone lines are conveniently always busy too).

Quite honestly, I don't want to deal with any more change. These are the type of stressors that should occur when you move and have to set all this stuff up, not when you lose a job in a small *city* (I use that term very loosely) which already had an unemployment rate over 12% prior to the other half of the town being laid off. And given all that's happened, it's not totally beyond the realm of possibility that we'll be having to move again and do all this stuff again. And did I mention my mother's doctors have found a 'mass' of dense tissue in her liver which they're looking into. . just as a side note. .

Ya, so I'm not the strong one. I'm not the pillar in this family. I can try to be upbeat and helpful in searching for jobs and claiming "Sure, it'll all work out." And I really hope it does, but basing my expectations on past experience, what exactly does that mean for it to all work out? Don't answer that. . . It means that life is hard and unpredictable. It means that you can work really hard and smart to achieve, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. For right now, I'm left finding myself occasionally just not breathing. That's right; I find that I sometimes subconsciously hold my breath. And when I am breathing, it's like I'm in a permanent state of having some sort of panic attack. My hands shake, and my stomach is often upset, and I don't always sleep well. Again, all of these stress responses would be perfect were I hunting my dinner hand to hand with the Lion King hundreds of years ago, but for now it's flat out ridiculous, and it leaves me exhausted and needing to go to bed. Ya, you could say I'm kind of incompetent at this stage of life.

What's worse is I can't seem to do anything about it. I can't make myself get a grip. I can go for a run or try to remember to breathe deeply, but invariably deep within the dark recesses of my thinking, my mind is not at all fooled and is still in the 'hunt or be hunted' mode. I think it's that ominous and vague abstract quality to this whole thing that further perpetuates my stress level. There's not really an end in sight, and I'm not sure what all else I'll have to change or fix or deal with before any kind of resolution is discovered.

So if I sound just a smidge keyed up or cynical, now you know why. It's not you, it's me. . . Really.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

2009-08-25T12:56:00.004-04:00

Anyone who's ever done any measurable amount job hunting, particularly for any kind of government position, has faced a serious dilemma in the filling out the application. I'm not talking about the length of the application (which is in itself baffling), but rather the tediousness of the questions. One set of questions in particular that I've come across several times has caused me to wonder who wrote the application in the first place.

The said question begins something like this: "Describe all knowledge you have which will assist you with the position." So, in paragraph form I of course wrote out a detailed explanation of Jim's knowledge. Given that he doesn't have a doctorate or anything, most of his knowledge has come from experience and the school of hard knocks - the 'live and learn' kind of knowledge.

Feeling pretty successful in thoroughly describing all the knowledge he'd acquired over the years, I then went on to read the next question. "Describe any skills you have which will assist you in this position." I actually had to read the question several times thinking it was some kind of typo or something. And then I found the one. single. changed. word. Skills. Emmmmmm. I think I just pretty much answered that question. See above paragraph. Obviously though, that would not be the thing to put on a job application, so I commenced writing my next paragraph explaining Jim's skills. Pretty much it was the 'knowledge' paragraph repeated and reworded.

Again, feeling like I'd conquered the application, I moved on to the next question. "Describe any abilities you have which will assist you in this position." At this point, I'm not joking in stating that I seriously considered just turning the computer off on the spot - application incomplete and all. They had repeated the SAME question three different times in three different ways. Based on principle alone, I wasn't about to repeat the same paragraph again in a mildly different form, so I think I put down something to the effect of "I work hard, learn quick, and I like people." Ok, maybe it wasn't quite that simple, but I really felt like they were messing with me - OVER THE INTERNET. I can see someone thoughtlessly concocting this type of questioning at a live interview, but OVER THE INTERNET? REALLY?

The next day, still bothered by my first encounter with the knowledge/skills/abilities questionnaire, I stumbled across it again for another government job (this time though, I knew what was coming when the *knowledge* question came up. . .) That was it - the straw that broke the camel's back. I was forced me to look up the difference online. As it turns out, a LOT of people have looked up this very same question. Now to me this indicates that it's a stupid series of questions to begin with and someone should rephrase the questions. But there's also the aspect that someone in the psychology department probably decided this question would offer the employer insight into whether or not the potential employee would bother to research the question - and whether or not they really wanted the job.

I'm not expecting the creators of these applications to be moved by my critiquing to rework their applications, so instead, I'll just explain it to you. Knowledge: Emm. Well, I guess this is what you know or have learned. . . (OK, I really didn't look this one up; it was more the skills and abilities one that totally flabbergasted me). Skills: Stuff you've learned through practice that you didn't start out with (now doesn't that make more sense?). Abilities: Things (for lack of a better word as I'd hate to interchangeably use the word *skills* here) you're innately good at - from the beginning without any training or knowledge (this could be something like people skills/things).

In the process of deeply pondering these words, I was reminded of the movie Napoleon Dynamite wherein *skills* was quite the hot topic.

Pedro: Do you think people will vote for me?
Napoleon Dynamite: Heck yes! I'd vote for you.
Pedro: Like what are my skills?
Napoleon Dynamite: Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache.

So of course, all this talk of skills has caused me to ponder what skills I have to offer. For one, I'm really good at the Eager Beaver Adventure Park game on my son's Webkinz site. In fact, I'm so good at it that I've actually BEATEN the game. Who beats the game, I ask you??? WHO? Me. Yes, I'm a word making fool. I'm also really good at performing Houdini-esque stunts in order to appease my children. My mother was both dumbfounded and horrified when she rode with me a couple days ago and observed that I was able to, while still focusing on the road and driving cautiously, reach my arm nearly 360 degrees around backwards while searching through the diaper bag for a peace pipe that I was hoping to extend to Kyla who was screaming in the background. And speaking of searching through the diaper bag, that's another skill I've got: being able to identify objects solely with my hands. Remember the party game where you're blindfolded and the host brings out a basket full of random items that you have to identify with your hands and then remember? Well, that's my game (not so much the remembering part though). In short, I feel like if I'm ever blind, in a lot of ways I could do alright.

While I've got a lot of great skills, I don't necessarily know that any of these would be the clincher for an employer looking to hire. Still, maybe there's a special job out there where people are looking for just these skills. Should you come across a job that I could shine in, let me know; I'd be happy to put my skills, abilities, and knowledge to good use in exchange for a paycheck.

Kid Quips

2009-08-25T12:04:00.006-04:00

The commentary coming from my children's mouths lately has just begged to be documented. They each are at such different stages of development, yet they both manage some pretty unique and profound thoughts. These are the thoughts I like to ponder at night before I drift off to sleep; they're funny thoughts and calming thoughts, and they give so much insight into what their little minds mull over each day. So for your pondering pleasure, I present to you some of their current profound thoughts.

-A couple of days ago we were all in the car, and little Jimmy was in the back seat saying to Kyla, "Kyla, say female; say it. Kyla, say feeeemmmmaaaalllle." Then she would try to repeat it in her own special way, and Jimmy would cheer wildly as though he'd just conquered the universe. Curious about his knowledge on the said subject, I asked him if he knew what 'female' meant. Disgusted that I would question his intelligence in any way, Jim chidingly responded, "MOM! It's a type of bird!". Priceless.

-Given that Kyla is two, she has developed a fascination with all things poo or poo related. Today we were putting a little puzzle together in her room when our kitteh, Tagger, wandered over the puzzle board. (Bear in mind that Tagger is a clean cat and there's nothing wrong with her - at least not physically. . .). I petted her and crooned over her expecting Kyla to do the same, but Kyla could only respond to one thing: Tagger's tush. "Na-tee, Taga, na-tee poo-poo butt." And then she ran over to grab a wipe with the obvious intent of cleaning Tagger's tush while repeating the same thought over and over again. This on the tail of my having just changed a real na-tee bio-hazard-type diaper from Kyla. Irony.

-Little Jimmy had just gotten dressed for school this morning when he came into the bathroom where I was brushing Kyla's teeth. He was pulling on his shorts in the back and jumping around. In disgust and anger he declared: "Mom, I hate these shorts! They're making my underwear seep into my butt." Just his phrasing on that struck me as very vivid and perfectly descriptive. I was able to sagely inform him that that's something we refer to as a ' wedgie.' Imparting wisdom.

-While at Wal-Mart this morning, Kyla decided to ride in the part of the cart intended for the bulk of the groceries as opposed to sitting in the little seat up front. The cart was getting pretty full, and I'd just added some frozen chicken to the mix when I had to remind Kyla to sit down before we'd move again. Inadvertently, she sat down on the frozen chicken I'd just put in there. She scooted over and commenced apologizing to the chicken for sitting on it: "Sa-wee, chicken. Sa-wee, chicken." Over and over again - as though the chicken were somehow hurt by her sitting on it. Innocence.

Their little discoveries and announcements are perfect. They provide an endless source of amusement. While these two can drive me insane at times, I wouldn't trade raising them for the world. We just learn so much from one another.

A Sweet Summer

2009-08-23T21:27:00.004-04:00

Another beautiful summer is coming to a close. We've vacationed and visited; we've shared time with family and friends, and we've had lots of play time, just us - our little family. We've scheduled lots of play dates and library trips and park visits; we've planned beach days and spring days and swimming pool days. And now we'll be settling back into more of a routine and less of the spontaneous-on-a-whim decision making.

Because I'm not one who likes people to gloss over things and make their special little lives appear more magical and perfect than anyone else's, I should point out this summer was not without it's fair share of struggle and heartache. There's been lots to overcome and lots to reckon with, but on a whole I don't think those experiences necessarily define the journey our family shared that was summer.

I guess I'm coming to realize this little grain of truth about life: it's never perfect (I know - I'm just a bit slow here at picking up what's being laid down.) We can never plan for or predict what's going to be thrown at us next, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the moments that make up our existence just the same - despite and around the hardships we find ourselves amidst.

Over the summer I've found that whenever I get to the point of taking myself too seriously and obsessing or dwelling on *issues* too long, it's a sure thing that either Jimmy or Kyla will be around soon enough to lighten the mood and remind me of the funny and happy experiences that still sprinkle each day - no matter the extenuating circumstances.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Job Hunt

2009-08-22T13:12:00.008-04:00

It's been two and a half weeks since the Taylor, Bean and Whitaker lay offs, and in that time period we've been busy.

We've submitted approximately 20 resumes (many with ridiculously long accompanying applications comparable to what I'd expect when applying for a job with the CIA.)

We've called pretty much every large farm or estate in our area just to check for openings (and there are a LOT of these in the Ocala area).
We've become familiar with the varying levels of government which list their job openings independently on each of their websites (cities, counties and state), and we've found most government websites to be rather inept; we've also have suggested in some cases that IT persons be hired to polish up their websites a bit while also providing much needed employment for some skilled individual.
We've uploaded the resume to a large variety of online search engines for companies looking to hire.
We've also constructed a number of cover letters each advertising the vast grandeur of my spouse in general, and each also stating how much he would just LOVE to work for them and how their company is just the creme de la creme and how he'd be the perfect candidate for whatever opening it is they have.

Through this experience I've discovered that I'd make a pretty great marketing rep. or advertiser; I really feel like I could market just about anything to anyone. Despite my feelings of success and accomplishment, the desired end result of a job has not yet been achieved.

And though I feel like I'm really honing my 'advertising craft,' I just don't enjoy it. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Maybe if I were advertising some inanimate object or service, I'd still be relishing a love affair with a marketing career, but given that I'm advertising my husband - it's really lost it's thrill quickly. The first couple of days - even week - I tried to temper my excitement each time the phone rang or we got in a new email, optimistically expecting it to be someone calling for an interview. I'd say that was the 'waiting period.' At this point, having exerted this much effort, and having received only one credible offer (yesterday) for a job interview, I'd say I don't feel so much like I'm waiting anymore. Now I'm just existing. It's a strange thing to exist in this sort of permanent state of limbo that stretches on before us indefinitely. There's really no call backs, or responses or any sort - just silence. So in that time we try not to imagine what we'll be doing in two months if we're in the same situation; instead, we just kind of hang out expecting it will be different and hunting for more jobs and submitting more resumes and applications.

Fortunately, as I stated, we did receive our single callback yesterday to schedule a job interview in the beginning of September. That was encouraging - a shred of hope amidst the stillness that otherwise pervades. As the woman on the other end of the line explained some of the responsibilities of the job and the interview process, there was one rather odd clip-it that stood out to both of us. She suggested that if Jim had any "media clips" he should bring them. . . Of course I immediately pictured the local media coverage in our area over the last couple of weeks of newly laid off employees touting their disgust and horror for all things Taylor, Bean and Whitaker. "Ya, I think we're good. Nobody taped us at the employment workshop or anything" I told Jim still a bit confused. Jim responded "No, I think they're wanting some sort of media clip - like something that I've stated representing a company or something - an intentional planned statement on behalf of someone. . . " Oh. Well, that's a different story.

We both thought hard about it for a few seconds, searching through our memory banks for any brief moment of fame that we could have somehow dismissed. Jim recalled that he was pretty sure the top of his head was in the back (center) of a photo featured prominently in the local paper from the employment workshop. We also remembered his weatherman gig in our back yard from when Tropical Storm Fay hit last year (now that was some intense reporting). You can see it here if you missed it the first time around (scroll to about 5 min., 45 seconds to see where weatherman Jim takes over.)

Unfortunately, this is pretty much all we've got as far as media clips, so I guess he probably won't be bringing any to the interview. The woman on the other end of the phone said that it was no big deal if he didn't have any as lots of their candidates didn't. So I guess we'll just hope the rest of the interview goes as close to perfectly as is possible and that maybe a few of the other prospective candidates accept other work before the scheduled interview day.

TBW's Closing

2009-08-09T09:33:00.007-04:00

So Wednesday last week was the last day of my husband's work. There was no announcement ahead of time or forewarning. It wasn't because he'd been a bad boy and gotten into some kind of trouble or something. No, this was because the whole company - or rather empire - closed. . in one day, in one fell swoop, it ended.

Well, I guess there was a little bit of forewarning when the FBI raided the Taylor, Bean and Whitaker global headquarters in Ocala on Monday. Yes, that surely raised some suspicions. But whatever concerns were raised, Lee Farkas was certain to allay all those fears by merely reminding his 1,000+ employees (that's just in Ocala too, and only at his main office - not his subsidiary companies) that there was plenty of work to be done, and we needn't be distracted by this little *raid* incident.

Following Lee's lead, it appears that the employees quickly revived their work efforts and went back to business as usual the next day, Tuesday (with the FBI circulating around and amongst them still - taking files and computers, etc.). Unfortunately, things took a few more sudden turns for the worse. Ginnie Mae decided to quit working with them, and the federal government decided to quite backing them. On Wednesday, the infamous email entitled "The saddest day of my life" was sent out around 1:00. Here's what it said:

Today will be the last day of operations for TB&W. I have done everything possible to try to save it, but I couldn’t. Since 1991, we have provided excellence in mortgage banking. We did our best for a very long time.

I apologize to everyone.

Everyone except those specifically designated as “essential employees” will be terminated today. Payrolls through today are currently being processed. Additional information with respect to employee benefits will be sent as soon as possible.

Lee

So today is Monday of the following week. I have been busting my butt since last Wednesday with updating a two year old resume and perfecting the dang margins (Why are the margins on resumes always an issue?? Why??? Is there no way for Word to make their program just a smidge more user friendly??). I have submitted said resume to numerous companies online. I have filled out various "applications" (which can be up to 15 - 20 pages on average) in addition to the resume. I'm exhausted. And as I've been informed by my spouse this evening, this may just be the beginning. Can I just say, I can't handle this. I recall my husband quoting the infamous Lee Farkas as having stated: "Some people can handle life, and some people just can't." Ya, so I guess, Lee, we're kind of on the same playing field; I'd venture to say neither of us can handle life today. Granted, my version of not handling life means filing for unemployment and scaling back on gas and what groceries I buy, and your version of not handling life means retiring a bit ahead of schedule. . . . Which I guess is fine - you've worked harder and longer than I have, so go for it. Either way, for today, we're feeling similarly inept and flat out crappy.

Personally, I'd like to just excuse myself from this little segment of life which I'd like to refer to as *hell.* Lee referenced this as the saddest day of his life, and I concur; it very well was the saddest day of his life. He worked hard and built himself up from a 'nobody' to a billionaire. I think I can speak for all of us in Ocala in stating that we truly appreciated his success and the impact it had on our life. We had good jobs with good pay and good benefits and good comradery. Really, it was good while it lasted; in fact, it was great while it lasted.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. I've gone over this a myriad of times in my head, and I still can come to no reasonable conclusion: 'Did Lee Farkas see this coming?'. I don't know. Maybe a week or two ahead of time he had an inkling. Maybe he knew his baby would eventually fail, but I really don't think that was ever his plan or intent. I think he intended to see it through until the day he died.

Obviously there were screw ups (in a big way) within the company. They didn't file their annual reports which obviously indicated (to me at least) that the books were soooo cooked that any nimrod with half a brain would suspect fowl play. The audit conducted last February was canceled midway through because there was so much evidence of fraud. Ya, I think Lee had an inkling, but I wonder if he hoped it would just slide under the radar a bit longer. Remember, for every day he stayed in business, he made money, and for everyday that he remained 'in business' but unable to conduct business as usual, he lost money; hence the sudden announcement of their closing on Wednesday - no pensions and no explained benefits.

I'm not sure at what point Lee knew about the fraud. His top two company officials have been banned from business with the federal government for the next 18 months. To me, that sounds like a lawyer set things up so Lee would never be the victim of the fraud within his own company. To me, that sounds like the upper officials within the company knew what was going on - and that doesn't exclude Lee. To me, that in itself sounds like fraud.

Regardless, the success that has been the last 18 years of Lee's life, and all who entered into business with him came to a close last week. For Ocala especially, it was a miserable day. For the USA and our economy on a whole it was a bad day. For Lee it was the saddest day of his life.

So Lee, maybe that was the saddest day of your life. For me, it's not the saddest day of my life, but it sure has been a miserable week. It sure has been stressful and difficult. It sure has been mentally and emotionally draining. Every night I go to sleep and I swear my eyes do not open for even an instant until the morning has far surpassed it's beginning. Every day feels like marathon - and I'm told this could go on for a while (I'm hoping to not be one who dies in the process of marathoning, but who actually somehow gets stronger). And every morning I wake up to see my husband sleeping peacefully next to me, when he shouldn't be - when he should be off at work taking care of business as usual.

I wish the very best to all impacted by this in any way.

Fine Dining with Kids

2009-08-03T15:09:00.011-04:00

I don't have any idea what came over us on Saturday night when we decided that dining out with our children would be a nice idea, but I can tell you now in hindsight that it was a temporary lapse of sanity. Maybe our disturbing thought pattern was encouraged by us aristocratically needing to be waited on and catered to after living the life of mere peasants for nearly a whole week since debarking from our cruise, or maybe it was that extra nudge we got from knowing we had a gift certificate to use that was just burning a hole in our pocket. Regardless, we were not right in the head when we thought up this idea.

Despite our decidedly naive stance going into the situation, we were both quick to admit our mistake. Upon arriving at 5:00, the opening hour, we had a brief wait wherein Jimmy quickly located the chocolate covered peppermint sticks at the hostess station and proceeded to immediately inhale his first one. Kyla, seeing Jimmy delving into this sweet decadence of course had to have one. I had just returned from having taken both Kyla and Jimmy to the bathroom to clean up (and this is prior to even being seated, let's remember) when I narrowly caught Jimmy red handed with a whole fistful of chocolate-peppermint sticks. I know this is my personal weakness as far as sweet things go, but I still felt it my duty to try and demonstrate and enforce a little self control for Jimmy (at least in public and before sitting down to a crazy huge feast). So there I was, my hand on his wrist just beside the hostess station with a small crowd seated around us observing the melodrama. I tried to get him to simply release the treats. "Jimmy, release it!" I commanded in a tone that probably very much sounded like I was talking to one of our dogs, but it was to no avail. He was locked in on it (kind of like the way Albert on Little House on the Prairie was when he was needing his opium fix). "Jimmy, you HAVE to put it back. You cannot have this before the meal." I had to repeat myself a couple of times before Jimmy came to and responded to me. And this was all before being seated.

Once seated, we were free to raid the salad bar. Jim sat with Kyla while I took Jimmy up and in an orderly fashion attempted to gather food for myself, Kyla and Jimmy (somehow I picture a painting called The Harvesters. . . yep, that was me, gathering for our clan). It was really quite the challenge though with little Jimmy. Though he's been through buffet lines before, somehow, maybe because the food was all different and presented in strangely appealing ways, he had a hard time not grabbing any old thing that caught his eye and then studying it in his hands only to then return it back to the salad bar for someone else to pick up. The monologue that ensued from me went something like this: 'No, Jimmy! Don't touch it with your hands! Wait! You can't just grab! No - once you take it, it's yours!'. Ya, I'm sure we contributed to the peaceful and elegant feel of the restaurant.

The restaurant was a Brazilian Steakhouse with a Churrascian grill (not that I would ever have any idea what any of that would mean except through now experiencing it). Pretty much that means (in my opinion from observation) that the meats (all kinds and lots of them) are cooked over a large open flame with different skewers located above it. Throughout the meal, gauchos (I'm not joking - at this place they wear real Brazilian cowboy attire - Yee Haw!) come around offering the different meats and slicing you off as much as you'd like at your table (I don't know that this is the type of restaurant a vegetarian would necessarily be super comfy in). Lucky for us, we were seated directly in front of the window to the kitchen - which meant my children simply had to turn around in their seats to lean up on the glass and watch the cooking channel that was ensuing behind them. It was really great entertainment, and I'm pretty certain the cooks back there got some amusement out of their tiny faces pressed up to the glass and their expressions of excitement as they sharpened knives or basted meats or pulled out a skewer of sausage (the meat Jimmy had been waiting for all evening - not that he wasn't indulging in some mozzarella chicken or lamb chops prior to that). At one point, we watched as Kyla did a slow motion dance in her chair to the music playing while watching the cooking; it was a riot. We also had to reprimand Jimmy for licking the glass (ya, he had to take it that one step farther that just wasn't okay).

Aside from the kids' awe over the cooking display, there was a good bit of delighted screaming coupled with some moderate bickering which had to be broken up. There was food dropped and silverware dropped. Little Jimmy learned the fine art of accepting or declining varying food offers from the gauchos: "Em. . . No thank you. Not this time." (spoken in the most adult voice he could muster up). The table was quickly and frequently filthy, and our waiters seemed uncertain of how to handle the ever mounting mess (ya, my sentiments at home exactly!). For a good portion of the time, Kyla undertook the cleaning with her napkin. She cleaned the "MESS!" as she declared it. But then she kicked it up a few notches and even polished the brass buttons on the seats, and then she cleaned her face, and then she cleaned her Daddy's ears and his nose. It was at this time, with her napkin wrapped finger up her Daddy's nose that someone came by to refill the drinks and appeared uncertain of whether to be amused or grossed out.

By the end of the dining experience Kyla had to be carried out whilst crying loudly over some sort of injustice which was so magnanimous that I've already completely forgotten it, and Jimmy was too distracted to remember the chocolate mints by the door (his shirt bearing evidence of every single item he had even considered tasting). Our table and area in general did NOT look like the rest of the facility, and I'm pretty sure people were alright with seeing us leave (they were actually probably wondering why we didn't hit the McDonald's Play Place instead). Though Jimmy did end up having to come home and right a page about 'good manners' and what all that would entail (due to a few behavior issues we encountered) , I'd still say it was kind of fun - in an adventuresome, embarrassing, non-restful sort of way. But the next time either Jim or I get any crazy ideas in our head about dining out with children, we will both be referencing this blog for a quick reality check.

Yard Lady

2009-08-01T10:10:00.006-04:00

I have a confession to make. I mow our lawn. . every week. . . Every single week during Kyla's nap time I set up little Jimmy with a DVD from the library, and I head out to our garage to crank up the large riding commercial mower. It's very convenient for me because there's no cord to pull or anything; you just turn the key, and off you go. There's also no real chair on the thing, and I'm not really sure why; it's more just the space where the seat would go, but there's no actual cushioned seat. And then there's me balanced on top of a fleece (for cushioning) on top of the seat space. The thing is ginormous, and I've never been certain of what exactly to do with my legs while sitting up on this sort of pedestal. Should I sit with them tucked near my rump to give added stability, or should I stretch them out on top of the deck to make the super-sized mower look a little less obtuse with me driving it? Usually I opt to stretch them out and hang on for dear life.

A slight issue developed for me yesterday though when our neighbors were having their tree (near our side of their property) cut down. As I backed out of the garage on the John Deere and observed the large leafy part of their tree laying in the grass over our yard and our neighbors' yard, I could hear the sound of chainsaws hacking the tree into pieces from somewhere deep within the foliage (why they cut down the whole tree as opposed to just trimming it is completely beyond me and a whole 'nother story in itself. . ). Had the tree cutting people been out and readily apparent there's a good chance I would've just ditched the mowing for the week, but given that they were obscured and totally invisible to me I decided I'd just go for it and cut the yard. You see, while I enjoy cutting the yard, and it makes me feel productive, and I like getting to tout my accomplishment to Jim when he gets home (something that he should feel just amazing appreciation for - similar to the way a dad is supposed to feel upon arriving home to see the piece of stupendous coloring their child eagerly presents for them as a gift), I know I kind of look like an idiot, and I'd rather just not do it when there's a lot of people nearby to bear witness to my yard production.

So not seeing any gawkers from the neighbors' yard, I persisted. I got the whole front yard mowed, and had just gotten about a quarter of the way into the back yard, when I was pretty sure the tree people from next door might be observing my mowing skills in the back yard. Now the back yard is kind of tricky. There's lots of big holes which the dogs have dug for seemingly no reason whatsoever aside from to practice war maneuvers. LOTS. And given that I'm on a schedi what with Kyla's nap being somewhat limited, I feel the need to cut the yard quickly. Thus, I was traveling at about mach VII while hitting the ditches in the yard and literally getting air under my hiney from the whole thing, when I noticed the tree crew not just observing the mowing event haphazardly, but actually leaning over our fence and affectionately hugging on our 'guard dogs' (who were also doing their darndest to hang over the fence for the TLC session) while looking quizzically in my general direction.

Ya, it was a moment of horror and shame. I'm not exaggerating even in the least about the joltage from hitting these overgrown ditches while mowing at lightning speed. There's no seat belt on the mower (which I guess is a given since there's no real seat) and my butt literally gets a good, modest 6 inches (I'd say 12 incautiously) of air while cutting the backyard. The problem with this is that I'm hanging onto the speed and direction controls while I'm flying all over the place, and I think I inadvertently sort of lean into the controls while hanging on for dear life thus giving me even more speed. Ya, I know it would be really funny to watch. I know I'd get a good laugh out of it myself; but that's just it, I want to be able to laugh at it maniacally before anyone else does. After that, I'll be fine.

Once realizing I was the comic relief for the tree trimmers, I then had to decide whether to slow it down some and risk not completing the job (gasp!) or just keep going at mach VII so as to hurry through with the embarrassment and get done before Kyla woke up. In the end, I decided on a sort of middle ground; it wasn't mach VII anymore - maybe mach III.

I was more than happy to be done with the yard mowing yesterday and pulling the John Deere into the garage. Kyla was still asleep when I got inside, and I even had time to shower (!!!!). I've already decided that for next week, I'm going to strategically place a recording camera in the backyard to capture the horror of it all. Then, once I've gotten a good laugh out of it all, I think I'll be fine with the world observing my skills.

Vacation in Pictures

2009-07-31T15:56:00.007-04:00

Our Canadian friends from the cruise, Sarah and Craig, just sent us some pictures from our little vacation. Fortunately for all of us, Sarah is a professional photographer and has the ability to photo shop (this is a very good thing). Despite her ability to portray things in a better light than they may actually appear in reality (literally), I think these pictures remained pretty true to form and accurately captured some rather comical and fun moments.

The first one is of Craig, Jim and I snorkeling over a gorgeous coral reef in the Bahamas. While the reef was beautiful and filled with bunches of neon colored little fishies, it was hard to forget about the dilemma Craig had experienced just prior to jumping into the water. A bunch of life vests had been randomly passed out to everyone on the catamaran and as the bartender/captain had instructed us, we put the life vests on and snapped up all the buckles so that there would be no clips trailing behind for people to trip over. Unfortunately for Craig, his life vest had one extra belt to be clipped - a crotch strap. So while the rest of us looked moderately goofy, Craig looked more like he was somehow unstable or impaired as the crotch strap created a permanent slight wedgie - captain's orders. Further, while all the rest of our life vests were reasonably clean, Craig's had what appeared to be a large ketchup stain down the front. Craig felt certain that whoever the tool was that had used this life vest before him had been stumbling around the boat chowing down on a hot dog with lots of ketchup and had carelessly slopped it all over the life vest. It was a good visual to go with the extra special life vest. Just before Sarah snapped this photo, Craig requested that Sarah be careful to try not to get the ketchup stain in the photo - this as we're all looking more than a bit rough around the edges after snorkeling for a while in our antiquated snorkeling masks and life vests.

After returning from our snorkeling excursion back to Nassau, there was some discussion about just heading into Nassau to get a look around. I guess I was kind of the stick in the mud on this one because I sort of felt like I looked like I had just gotten out of the shower with only a towel on over my swimsuit. Fortunately, everyone obliged me and we headed back to the ship so I could collect myself a bit before exploring the island. This was a photo just before we got back on the ship which Sarah graciously took and brushed up for us.

Exploring the island was an adventure in and of itself. There was so much beauty, but also so much filth. Quite literally, there were just piles of garbage randomly placed here and there. . Not that that's where garbage pick up was, just that it must've seemed like a good spot. And Sarah and I both exchanged looks of confusion and then confirmation as we observed a man tightly holding a *cigarette* between two fingers as he lit it (we then noted how happy everyone on that beach seemed just then. . .). Despite some of it's downfalls, Nassau was still beautiful. One thing that made it beautiful was the Starbucks there (which unfortunately was closed by the time we got there). But beyond the commercial beauty, it was just plain nice to look at: white sandy beaches with clear sparkling water, buildings painted in vibrant beach colors, and gorgeous tropical plants.

All in all, visiting Nassau or just being on a cruise or laughing with friends, it was worth it. It was a wonderful vacation worth every dime spent and every kurmugdeon of planning - even if returning to normalcy can be a bit brutal. . .Thank you for all the photos, Sarah! Love 'em!

Crabby Patty

2009-07-28T12:14:00.003-04:00

I'm crabby. I'm crabby because I'm home and back to reality. I'm crabby because it will be at least another year before I get to go on vacation again. I'm crabby because the vast majority of my life these days is spent on tasks that are overly repetitive, meaningless and annoying. These tasks include such sundry items as are listed (please take note of my baffling outlining skills - one of my many super marketable talents!):
I. Cleaning
A. Kids
1. After any and all food consumption
2. After any and all play
3. After any and all discord
4. After any and all bowel movements
5. After any and all mishaps
B. Animals
1. Cats
a. Litter
b. Food
c. Any and all hairball/upchuck events
2. Dogs
a. Porch and the several inches of dirt/bugs/etc. that they track in on a daily basis
b. Any and all items attacked and/or destroyed in the backyard (this includes in-ground plants, fences, swings, trampolines, tools, dog dishes, dog collars, dog toys, etc.)
3. Chickens
a. Water dish that grows a new layer of mold every 24 hours in the summertime
b. Food
c. Bedding that must be regularly replaced (hay)
II. Supervising
A. Kids
B. Finances
C. Household
D. Pets

So there you have my day in a nutshell. Does it make sense now why I wouldn't be leaping at the chance to return to it? Ya, it has it's fun aspects, but day in and day out, it gets old.

What amazes me is the fact that this is just the standard outline. This doesn't account for any additional poo that may be randomly thrown my way by the forces of nature. The mauled armadillo strewn across our backyard with some sort of larva oozing out of it is not included in this list of 'things to do.' Nor does this list give reason for the fact that our bank somehow didn't clear the deposit for a local check which we made LAST WENDESDAY, and which became apparent last night when I went to fill up my gas tank. This list doesn't even make mention of the dispute the broke out between Jim and I after he insisted that I drive around a barricade for a closed road because he thought it was 'no big deal', but for which a cop was waiting on the other end of said road only to ask why we'd gone around the barricade. Nope, that was just the starting point list. From there quite literally ANYthing is possible. Now isn't that reassuring?

I'm Definitely a Crier Now

2009-06-08T13:38:00.011-04:00

In the last several weeks, I have found myself either tearing up or just flat out bawling an inordinate number of times. I think it started with the impending close of Jimmy's kindergarten year. First there was the kindergarten celebration wherein each kindergarten class sang a couple of songs (I didn't stand a chance), followed by their little diplomas being handed out (more waterworks from little Jimmy's crazy mom in the back); then there was the awards ceremony (full on tear-age happening there); next was the last day of kindergarten and the handwritten note from Jimmy's teacher to him: "James, Reach for the stars. Do your best. You can be whatever you want to be. Mrs. Thompson. June 2009." (OK - I'm actually tearing up just rereading this. . .). And then the beginning of summer and swimming lessons, etc. etc. . You get the picture.

Finding myself so completely undone on so many fully public occasions left me wondering what in the world had become of me - the girl who very seldom cried at movies or other life altering events a scant half decade or so ago. I decided to try to trace things back to when all this teariness started. I went back nearly a decade to my wedding in search of tears. Nope, no tears there (I think even my husband was a little astonished by my stonewalled but blissful facade). Fast forward a few years to the birth of our son: no tears upon being admitted 9 weeks too early for a severe maternal/fetal illness. . . but the tears were not far off at that point.

It was when the doctors and my parents collectively decided the baby had to be delivered immediately, and I stubbornly conceded in utter disbelief and horror - it was then, as I was being wheeled back for a surgery to deliver my baby that was too early, that the onslaught of tears began. Because little Jimmy was stable when he was born, I was allowed a few seconds to see him before he was whisked back to the NICU. . . I remember studying his face and strangely not knowing what to feel. There were no tears then. I couldn't even grasp this whole crazy event that I had not planned for which was happening before my very eyes. How do you emotionally cope with such a tiny though seemingly perfect precious little being that is yours, when you really don't know if they'll survive and what the future will hold for them? It's almost like your subconscious tries to keep this new little being at bay (for fear of the worst) so you won't begin falling desperately in love. . . so you won't be hurt in an irreparable way.

Despite my shock, the waterworks soon resumed with a vengeance. The next time I saw him, they had wheeled my whole bed into the NICU to see him (the nurses and doctors obviously thought I was more capable than I felt I was at the time). I remember looking around at all these tiny babies and praying mine wasn't one of them - praying my baby was a big fat little guy. When they pointed him out to me I stared out him and studied him for a moment - crying, and then having to turn away - unable to understand and maybe even accept that this teeny little creature was mine to care for. Of course he was not mine to care for immediately, he had 39 days in the NICU where the staff there cared for him and taught me how to do the same as we both recovered. From that first visit to see him, to walking back and forth between the Ronald McDonald House and the hospital to see him several times a day, to the day he was finally discharged - there were moist eyes and at times, full on crocodile tears.

When we arrived safely home, the crying resumed with unprecedented regularity. I cried because Little Jimmy had made it this far and had overcome some crazy stuff. I cried because I felt inept at caring for him. I cried because he cried. I cried because he suffered different ailments that were the result of his prematurity. I cried because I felt more exhausted than I knew a human being could ever live with. I cried in frustration, and in worry, and in relief.

. . . And the crying continued. I cried at every milestone, and every setback. I cried when his apnea monitor (a machine that makes sure the baby is breathing) went off different times even months after bringing him home from the hospital. I cried when he smiled, and when he laughed. I cried when he sat up, crawled, and walked. I cried when he began sleeping in a crib and when he was moved to his own room. I cried when he turned one, two, three, four, five, and six. I cried when he went to storytime for the first time. . . and preschool. . . and kindergarten. I cried when he succeeded at school, and I cried when he struggled. I've laughed so many times at things he's said that I've cried even then too.

I'm finally noting the trend. Kids = Mommy's Tears. I've heard it said before that when you have a child, it's like walking around and living your day to day life but with your heart outside of your body. . . and it's so true. When I was little, I remember watching different shows with my Mom (per say, Little House on the Prairie) and her crying anytime children were involved in any sort of conflict or struggle; I remember her saying, 'You just wait until you have children; your whole world will change." While I certainly don't consider myself to be the most intrinsically maternal person, I can still say she was right - my whole world has changed. . . and for the better.

So yes, Little Jimmy, I'm afraid your stuck with your crying mother at every school event and personal milestone in your life; it's just that I'm so proud of you I can't seem to contain myself- and obviously I don't!

Why I'll NEVER, EVER Buy Another Dell Again

2009-06-04T07:49:00.006-04:00

Dear Mr. Dell:

I am writing you because your customer service in India has been utterly useless to me over the last year and a half in attempting to resolve the problem with the the faulty laptop I received at that time. The problem with the laptop was a simple one: it randomly shut off during usage. There was never any apparent rhyme or reason to it other than that I'd been sent a lemon. I never downloaded or uploaded any material aside from the programs accompanying the computer when I received it from your company. So, for EIGHTEEN months, I have been on the phone with Dell attempting to resolve this problem. I think I could say on average I spend around 3 hours a week on the phone with you people - though I'm sure you'd know better if you just checked the notes under my name (another perplexing and annoying fact, why is it that every time I call up I have to explain my situation several times to several confused people before ever being ultimately transferred to someone who will have to sign off anyway when his shift ends before fixing the problem or who will offer scads of useless advice. . why can't you people just read my record. . it's the same problem. . . the same one, folks. . ). My time is valuable, I'm a busy person and I have a family and responsibilities to attend to during my non-workday hours, and yet your company has sucked up so much of my time, and offered nothing in return for it. . no fixed computer. . no resolution. . . nothing. (Oh, and I should mention we bought the extended warranty and Norton protection from you - thanks a lot - it's ALSO proved worthless).

After much banter and being put on hold, and wasted time in general, Dell finally told me I could return the computer where they'd likely replace the motherboard (as they deemed that was the only place where there could be a problem). They stated they would send me a box to use in the return of my laptop, and I should then be sure to request FedEx Air. I followed your instructions precisely, only to be greeted by the FedEx man at the door telling me the label you had sent me was for FedEx ground. I know that's really nothing at this point, but I should've taken that as a sign of what was about to transpire in this seemingly simple procedure. Later FedEx Ground came to pick up the box with my laptop in it. I waited, and waited. And then I got a strange call from the people who bought our previous home telling me they had received a package for me from Dell along with a FedEx receipt on their door stating they had a package to drop off which needed to be signed for -and it was all in my name. Thank goodness the people who bought our previous home are honest individuals, because that would have been the perfect opportunity for someone else to inherit our laptop.

I later met up with these people to acquire the materials they'd received from Dell. The box contained a hard drive (which it shouldn't have - as the Dell representatives I spoke with assured me they would handle the repair of the computer including any necessary installations at their business before returning my laptop to me). The FedEx note was for the drop off of our laptop. I then called Dell, and after explaining my story again at least three times, was connected with someone who was able to redirect the mis-shipped package to our correct new address (which, should you be wondering, they did have. . remember, they sent the original box to return the laptop to the correct address we currently reside at).

I naievely signed for the package from FedEx with the Dell return label posted on it, strangely expecting that Dell might have done what they said they would in fixing our computer, but boy was I foolish to think that. Upon opening the box, I found my laptop with the old hard drive sitting on top of it. I called Dell again to inquire on the assembly of the computer at this stage, only to find out they'd forgotten to send the screws.

And now, I just want you to know that I will NEVER, EVER buy another Dell again. I will be happy to return your lemon laptop if you will kindly reimburse my money and wasted time. Your products are shoddy, and your customer service is even shoddier.

Should you desire to actually check up on the facts of my story, I'll give you my information, and I'll give it to you very simply, much like how I've been requested to speak to all of Dell's customer service reps. Hopefully you'll understand what I'm trying to say to you.

Address:

******

Phone Number:

******

System Type: Inspiron 1720, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330(1.6G

Service Tag: ******

Express Service Code:******

Thanks for a lot of nothing.

Danielle

PS - I fully plan on sharing my experience with Dell with all my friends and casual acquaintances.

I emailed my letter to every address I could find for Mr. Michael Dell and his upper associates. I'll let you know if I should hear ANYthing, but as it stands, I've learned to expect NOthing from this company.

Also, for the rest of the world out there searching for ways to contact someone at Dell who stands of chance of understanding them, here are all the emails/contact info I've found:

Michael Dell
Dell Computer Inc.
One Dell Way
Round Rock TX 78682

Direct Access to Dell Escalation

Michael@dell.com ; michael_dell@dell.com ; lionel_menchaca@dell.com

End of the Year Fun in Kindergarten

2009-06-03T15:01:00.000-04:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I am Mother, Hear me Roar!

2009-05-22T15:57:00.004-04:00

On my way home from picking up Jimmy today I had a slight bout of road rage. . OK - well, it was a little more severe than previous episodes. . .Here's what happened. I stopped on the way home at McDonald's to get some food (I was hungry). The place wasn't notably busy, though it did have its fair share of teenagers hanging out in the parking lot (how cool!). Not much happening there at all though. I pulled up to the stop sign within the shopping center after receiving our food and administered hand sanitizer for the kids (this took all of 5 seconds). Well, I guess that 5 seconds was a bit too long for the bratty pubescent little boy who happened to pull up behind me. I guess he was unhappy with the slight pause at the stop sign ('What? People actually stop here??') and decided to squeal his wheels as he went around me.

To pass me would've been totally fine, but to squeal the wheels is not only dangerous, it's also obnoxious - and I was in no mood for attitude from a teenager. Well, again, much like with Publix - something within me took over. I swear I had no control over myself . . .well, maybe just a teeny tiny bit. Anyway, I decided (after much practice doing vehicular spy moves with friends growing up) to follow pursuit, but not before laying on my broken and sputtering horn in the van. So I just laid on it for a brief moment, and then I too literally peeled out after him (children in the back seat wondering at what point they get their burgers).

I followed the boy up to the stop sign that actually enters the real highway, laying on the horn intermittently, and again, peeling out after him as he merged into the intersection. Unfortunately, we both were headed for the turn lane. This made for a great opportunity for me to fully express my disgust in his uber teenage driving habits, and it gave him the opportunity to prove he was all that and a bag of chips. Feeling the power of being in the back, I pulled up pretty close to his bumper whilst throwing my hands in the air and making faces that said "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, CHILD???". Observing my obvious rage, he decided then to roll down the window and hang out the side of his vehicle to scream profanities in my general direction. Fortunately, I'm incredibly NOT astute with lip reading and was thus able to simply reciprocate by merely shaking my head and squinting my eyes as to express: "You are a real idiot, aren't you?". Despite my lip reading impairment, I did understand the process of him slowly backing his vehicle up towards my front fender: a game of chicken. I of course wasn't going to back up even an inch and really doubted he'd risk damaging his much nicer vehicle, so I grabbed my phone and held it up while pretending to dial 9-1-1 all the while smiling at the child as I smugly moved the phone to my ear (as though I was really going to report him). After a second or two of my little charade, he decided to just drive.

Much to the horror of both of us I'm sure, we were quickly stopped side by side at a stop light. In order to demonstrate my maturity and wisdom, I took this moment to hand little Jimmy his chicken sandwich. 'Yes, I'm driving a van with children inside. I'm older and wiser than you. And you need to quit driving with so much testosterone!' was all that I really wanted to convey in that moment. A second later, I boldly turned my face his direction, and we both stared at each other silently swapping looks of disgust. Then I mouthed the words "You need to grow up" to him. He mouthed something back, but alas, I had no clue as to what he was saying, and I let him know that by pointing to my ear and shaking my head with a disappointed expression and shoulder shrug.

The light turned green pretty quickly and we were off again. I made an effort to let the boy pass, but he was also seemingly taking this same approach. After a few seconds, he did finally pass, and I waved calmly as I stared expressionless at the road ahead of me. Much to my horror, he pulled into my lane and turned down the same road I was going to turn onto in order to go home. There's really not a lot on this road, so I began to anticipate following him for the next 15 minutes or so right up to the point where he turned into my neighborhood (Wouldn't that be terrible? -to be road dueling with some neighborhood kid?).

FORTUNATELY, when he saw that I was behind him, he quickly turned into just about the only commercial facility between that road and our home. While I watched the rear view mirror for a minute or two just to be sure he wasn't hoping to get the upper hand by being in the back, I was relieved to know that he wasn't. And actually, I was really pretty thrilled that I had won. I WON the game of road rage between me and the pubescent boy. I, the older and wiser woman, won. He chickened out; he backed down; he ate crow.

Young men out there, let this be a lesson to you: just because the mini-van isn't moving at the pace you'd hope for, it to does not mean you have the right to act your age. There are a LOT of crazy mom's out there willing to go great lengths not only to somehow prove their fearlessness but also to teach you a valuable lesson about the lunatics on the road!

An Apology to Publix

2009-05-08T12:21:00.004-04:00

Dear Publix:
Recently I visited your store and had something of a temper tantrum. While it wasn't necessarily your fault, I was rather angry with the store. While you may have been unaware of it, I have secretly nursed a grudge against your store, refusing to set foot in your place of business. Outwardly I acted as one feeling very justified in my stance, but inwardly I longed for your clean aisles, extensive section of organic and gluten free food, and short check-out lines. Yesterday my son brought me home a cake from your store for Mother's Day, which he had decorated. It was beautiful - not only because you had decorated it before he got his hands on it, but also because you set up a fundraiser with his school wherein he could ALSO decorate the cake for me while raising money for his school! But the real clencher for me was the card with coupons that came with the cake; the card talked about how hard it is to be a Mom and how much you appreciate me. As I finished reading the card, my heart towards Publix as a whole changed. I'm sorry for my rotten attitude as of late, and I'd like to start over fresh if that's at all possible. Please consider my continued patronage an apology gift.

Ocala, Here Are Your Signs!

2009-05-08T11:45:00.019-04:00

I know this is kind of a different sort of post, but bear with me. Every city has signs up - everywhere and all kinds. Somehow, a number of Ocala's signs, strike me as entirely different from the sorts of signs I've seen the whole rest of my life. When we first moved to Ocala, I was really shocked by them (not that I should be, particularly given the number of other signs that are designed to be shocking) but over time, I just kind of got used to them. Still, in order to give my readers a more well balanced perspective of Ocala (aside from it just being flat out gorgeous), I feel it necessary to post some of these signs that certainly would have initially perplexed me.If you've ever traveled I-75, you've surely seen all of our anti-abortion and *go to church* signs. What's funny is that what you see on the highway, is what you truly find in the city here. Now I'm not going to get into politics or religion, but I feel it's pretty obvious the sway of most Ocalans both politically and religiously. And I think it's great that there's a voice to BOTH sides of each party, but can I just say there are some days when I don't want to be reminded of needing to have a good attitude (AKA: good sportsmanship), or of the zillions of babies dieing each day, or that God is watching my every move waiting to strike me dead, or any number of other motivational/self-help thoughts. . No, these are not ALWAYS the best thoughts for me personally to focus upon.

All the same, if a picture paints a thousand words, then a few pictures of a cities signs should paint novels about that city. Welcome to Ocala.

Everyday Sightings in Ocala

2009-05-08T11:37:00.006-04:00

Ocala's Natural Beauty

2009-04-25T20:29:00.017-04:00

Some very confused cows pondering the crazy lady with a camera.

Simple.

Roadside beauties.
Streets canopied with trees.
Rolling, lush, green hills.
Flowers springing up in ditches.

Locala Mom Goes Crazy at Publix

2009-04-23T17:45:00.006-04:00

Friday afternoon at the last minute, I faced the task of purchasing FIVE (count them, F-I-V-E!) birthday cards and THREE gift cards. I opted to go to Pulix as they have their handy-dandy little gift card center, and I think they have pretty nice birthday cards too. I'm not totally sure where things began to *get weird;* maybe it was Jimmy's whining about having to go shopping after school for the better part of our ride over there (which is over a half hour), or maybe it was Kyla's maniacal screaming echoing throughout the store once we got there. . . regardless, it wasn't pretty.

Somehow when we arrived, the manager of the store was positioned directly in front of the gift card center. When I began searching for gift cards for which I hoped the recipients would appreciate, the manager lady commenced the process of engaging my children in a lengthy chat about their lives (everything from how old they were, to birthday gift ideas, to basic child development and parenting). Ten minutes later, she insisted upon getting them each balloons - one of which Kyla immediately lost (thus beginning her full on hysteria). Ms. Manager then insisted upon getting Kyla another balloon - this one with a special homemade hand tie that she was sure to not lose and for which Jimmy then insisted upon having too. Little did the woman know that she had thoughtlessly just used all of my allotted time for this highly thought provoking and necessary trip. Now I was left with a ticking time bomb. . The uncertain time period before which my children *blew up.*

I quickly gathered my three gift cards as Kyla began loudly announcing her annoyance at our presence still being within the store. I then scurried over to the other cards where I would attempt to read through various sweet cards commemorating different persons' wisdom, endless love, or sense of humor - which, by the way, was extremely difficult over Kyla's howling and jumping in the seat of the cart. Little Jimmy also got in on the action by picking out cards which he thought would be useful (most frequently the ones that played music), or announcing his discovery that some cards were for boys while others were for girls.

Several minutes later, and several comments by the old folks of The Villages later ('Oh, honey, you're daughter's gonna fall out of the cart the way she's standing up in there. . . she's just making me nervous", "Sweetie, you need to sit down, you're going to hurt yourself!') I rushed to the checkout hoping to maintain my sanity at least until my shopping endeavor came to a close.

As fate would have it, the man at the checkout appeared to be even older than the rest of his cohorts at the Publix of the Villages. . .He was sort of hunched over, and very slow (I have nothing against slow people or old people, but for goodness sake, HURRY IT UP!). I waited patiently for a few moments through Kyla's screams of anguish and annoyance (as Mr. Senior checked out the pack of gum for the customer in front of me. . How in the world could it take so dang long?), but I soon found myself biting my nails and pondering the voices in my head which told me to run for the hills.

I was so relieved when the senile gentleman was finally checking out my groceries, but my relief quickly turned to horror as I watched in sheer amazement at the painfully slow process of scanning and processing the gift cards - ALL THE WHILE, KYLA SCREAMING. In an attempt to distract my daughter, I helped her type in my debit card numbers for the ensuing purchase. Everything on my end was ready, we were simply waiting for the cashier to finish scanning our nine items. My anxiety in hearing Kyla's crying and hysteria soon turned a bit psychotic and I found myself attempting to calm my physical being down by practicing my own form of lamaze (which, by the way, I have never learned or had cause to use). . .

When the bag boy (another senior who was at least 65 or older) finally deposited the last card in the shopping cart, I headed out. I don't know what I was thinking really; I just know that something in me snapped and I had to go. I heard someone calling to me "Ma'am, MA'AM" but I assumed they were just wanting me to take my receipt for which I hoped they would get the hint and just drop in a garbage can. I rammed a shopping cart as I was heading for the exit, but I didn't care; I just needed to get to the open air and out of the confined space which Kyla's immense screaming had saturated.

Just as I was approaching the automatic double doors, I heard: "Ma'am, you forgot your lemons!". 'Damn those lemons!' I thought to myself as I recalled that I had made one other purchase outside of the gift cards and the birthday cards. "Jimmy, I need you to go get the lemons" I announced firmly realizing already that I was too ashamed at my *running* from the store to even walk the three yards back myself to grab the lemons.

I assumed Jimmy had run off to grab the lemons, but when I looked down a second or two later as I stood in the lobby area where the shopping carts are stored, I saw him still at my side. "Jimmy, I asked you to get the lemons! Please go get the LEMONS!! GET THE LEMONS, NOW! PLEASE!" I barked at my son in a manner that was truly all the control I could muster in the moment. Several gray haired folks, some with visors and golf shorts on, walked past shaking their heads and clucking their tongues in disapproval.

Ashamed of my own lack of self-control, I pulled my cart just outside the front door and waited a couple seconds for my son. When he didn't show up in the appropriate time period, I decided I should check on him (I could totally see someone kidnapping my kid on a day like this. . . ). Just as I entered the lobby area, the elderly bag boy appeared with Jimmy at his side. "Ma'am, you need to pay for your groceries" he stated dryly. "I already paid for them!" I commented trying to hide my utter horror at not only having to enter the store again, but also at being subjected yet again to the claustrophobia of the store combined with my children's screaming and antsyness. "I swiped my debit card and entered the number and all. . " I pleaded with the man. "Well, it's not in our computer, so you'll have to do it again" he stated blankly.

I then turned around to grab my purse from the cart just outside the door. "MA'AM!!! YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR YOUR GIFT CARDS! YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE!" the bag-man yelled at me. At this point, I did something I'm very much not proud of; I cussed at an elderly gentleman. "I HAVE TO GET MY ******ing PURSE! I may not have much money, but what I do have I want to keep!" I hollered back at him. It was here that I noticed the hush which had fallen over the whole front of the store while people pondered if they were watching an actual modern day robbery by an insane mother of two young children.

I grabbed my cart just outside the door and hurried back in, face down so as not to observe the disapproving looks of those elderly persons surrounding me. As I was retyping my debit card number, I heard in an altogether far too chipper tone from the checkout just behind me, "Boys, I just SO appreciate your good behavior at the store today. It's so helpful to me." I turned and saw a woman with three boys (all older than mine, by the way) who was waiting on her receipt. Needless to say, she received the look of death and few *voodoo-ish* sort of thoughts from me.

After scanning my card and receiving my receipt, I again exited the store - this time with no store personnel calling after me. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my keys, so yet again I had to humble myself and enter the store to search for them. Luckily I quickly found them stowed in the far recesses of my purse.

As I drove home, I seriously pondered continuing the insanity I had begun. I thought about blowing through red lights and driving on medians to get around people and speed my exigence from the *scene of the crime.* I pictured myself being the driver of a blue Chrysler Town and Country (as would be broadcast on CNN) followed by a V-formation of police cars down the highway.

Luckily, I got a grip of myself before I went that far. I stopped at all the stoplights and followed the rules of the road (well, kind of at least). When I got home, the children were banished to their bedrooms where they were instructed to place nicely.

While little Jimmy totally did not understand what was happening around him at the store, he was clearly disturbed by it all. He asked me several times on the way home, "What just happened, Mom?". Later I explained to him that "Mommy just got upset. . It's not your fault at all. . I just got upset with the store. . ."

So now I'm left pondering if I should check myself into a mental institution for my little *incident.* I've decided I'd really be OK with it. White padded walls and a lot of sitting and nothing. No cooking, cleaning, preparing, teaching, guiding and encouraging. NOTHING. I think I could handle it should the day ever come. Feel free to turn me in if you feel inspired.

***As a side note, I'd like to share this media clip I came across on MSNBC. . Can I just say I TOTALLY get where this woman was coming from??? Not that I'm saying she made the WISEST choice in the situation, but I GET IT. . It also wasn't the wisest thought process of my own that led me make a complete idiot of myself at Publix. . Sometimes this stuff just happens.***

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

New Chickies from Altoona!

2009-04-22T11:40:00.007-04:00

It is with much regret that I must announce some rather recent carnage on the Britton farm. Saturday evening, after a day of celebrating Kyla's 2nd birthday with the fam, we returned home to four frightened little chickies. The other two, sadly, were obviously Bear's entertainment for the evening. I feel terrible even having to say this as it somehow seems to reflect a measure if irresponsibility in both my husband and myself. Strangely enough though, Bear's assault was not the result of a couple stray chickens wandering the yard, nor was it the result of the hen house door being left open. No, Bear's brutal attack was the result of his physically tearing through the chicken wire. . . with his bare teeth and paws. . . Needless to say, Bear's temporary lapse of sanity has left him totally lacking for any attention from me. . . After a day in his crate, and another of my ignoring him altogether, we've made peace (sort of . . .aside from when he goes anywhere near the chicken coop. . .). The chicken coop is now surrounded by an electric wire that will send a little *reminder* current through Bear anytime he should attempt to play with my chickens again.

Despite our sorrow over the brutal dealths of Henrietta and Sissy, we realized the time to get any more chickens for our flock was now. Part of the reason for our haste in acquiring more chickens was the fact that they don't mix well with other chickens of different ages. Once they're about three months old, they're pretty set in their ways and in their friendships (think: *us four and no more!*). Left with only four, and having previously discussed getting a couple more, we decided to get four more for a grand total of eight chickies.

Thus began my journey towards finding four more six week old hens. I called various listings on the Ocala 4 Sal e website, but was unable to find any chickens meeting our specifications. Finally I noticed a more prominent add stating: many young breeds of young pullets for sale (somehow, I've trained my eyes to overlook the obvious ads in favor of straining to find the more miniscule ones; thus my actually noticing the big ad was pretty commendable for me.). I called the number listed, and sure enough, they had six week old girl chickens for sale - all different varieties.

Immediately after speaking with Jay on the phone at Cunard's Corner Poultry Farm , I loaded Kyla and a large plastic bin (to bring the new chickies home in) into the van for a trip to Altoona to see what we could find at this place. Let me just tell you, these folks had it all! When we arrived, we were greeted by a humungo Turkey who followed us around sharing his company with us as we checked out different chickens of varying sizes, ages, and breeds. There were also a couple of peacocks, scads of ducks, bunches of cute and fancy chickens, and a couple of very talkative and proud roosters. Jay and his wife Danielle (hey!) were very knowledgeable about their chickens, and you could tell they took great delight in raising them, learning about them, and loving them. We ended up selecting a couple of gorgeous little white cochins, one brown cochin, and one little leghorn.

With a couple of tips on integrating them into the flock we already had, the transition went beautifully. There is of course a pecking order (literally) wherein the chickens determine who is the *alpah chicken* and so on, but there've been no big spars or disturbances. Our original girls are doing quite well with their new friends, and the new little girls seem to be quite happy in their new home.

A HUGE thanks to Cunard's Corner Poultry Farm in Altoona for making it possible to add a few more chickens to our flock, and for so kindly sharing with us newbies the knowledge you've gained over the years in the poultry business.

Annoying Observations

2009-04-10T10:25:00.004-04:00

***To all innocent readers who may have inadvertently stumbled upon this blog, BRACE yourself. This is a venting blog.****

Observations from the gym:
-A man walked in wearing bib overalls with no shirt on underneath. . . Only in Locala. .
-While plenty of vacant treadmills were available, an elderly man opted to take the treadmill next to me (which is bad - particularly considering I forgot to put on deodorant), and then proceeded to actually *slap* the audio thing you can hook your headphones into to listen to the various television stations being displayed on screens (I guess it wasn't working right?). While still cowering on the opposite side of my treadmill after his brutal temper display, an even more disconcerting event occurred: he farted (it was definitely a SBD [silent but deadly]). At that point I seriously considered just quitting the run. . .

Observations from Facebook:
-I hate it when people attempt to display their nonexistent levels of perfection, wealth, and religiosity. It's all a massive farce and I'd LOVE more than anything to call everyone on their poo, but I can't stand drama so I'll attempt to refrain.

Good Friday Observations:
-I find everyone's sudden overwhelming Christianity to be utterly obnoxious. All morning I've been wondering why in the world everyone is suddenly touting their love of Jesus and the Christian Channel(s) only to find out that today is Good Friday. People, if you're actually so darn Christianly-minded, I personally would love to see a little more compassion and honesty (with yourselves especially) throughout the rest of the year and not just today (as people joyfully anticipate the chocolate they'll soon be able to have again as Lent draws to a close.
-While this isn't necessarily a Good Friday observation, it falls into the religious category, so I'm going to state it here: Just because you're a *Christian* doesn't mean your above screwing up big time, so APOLOGIZE when you mess up (I'm so over all the perfection that resides within the holy walls of *the church*.)

Observations from parenting:
-Naps are a must EVERY day.
-Poop and potty training are always gross and yet necessary.

OK - I feel better having aired my grievances. . . If the world could just hop-to now and change everything, that'd be great.

Uncle Donald's Farm Wins Ocala's Best in Show in my Book!

2009-04-01T15:05:00.017-04:00

This week is little Jimmy's spring break, and given that we're going on 6 days of no school and not a whole lot of getting out (aside from a trip to the local Wa-Ma. . . .) we decided to go on an outing today. Our destination: Uncle Donald's Farm in Lady Lake (right amongst the Villages). While I'd heard about this little working farm from friends, I never could've imagined just how much fun it would be or I would've started going a LONG time ago!

While Uncle Donald's Farm is only about 2 miles off of SR441 it feels like you're right in the middle of the country. There is ample room for all the livestock to graze and play, and there is ample livestock for the farm's visitors to play with too!

We first enjoyed a hay ride wherein we were able to feed some hungry cows and a feisty llama or two (see picture below of llama chasing the hay wagon hoping to get some more eats!). After that, we fed some sheep and visited with all the animals in the barn (which included: newborn lambs, chicks, baby alligators (!), snakes of all sorts, Shetland ponies, donkeys and a ginormous pig named Wilbur. Next, we enjoyed an actual guided tour of some of the animals wherein various animals were taken out of their pens to be petted and fed.

After all our discoveries, we were hungry for lunch. There were plenty of picnic tables in the shade available for the farm's constituents to enjoy some fine dining. (Also, for those who are rather germaphobic like myself, it's worth noting that the farm had a humungo wash station complete with running water and antibacterial hand soap; after all the animals had licked food out of our hands, we figure it was best to scrub down before feeding ourselves.) While we ate, we enjoyed the pleasant company of chickens, a big white dog, several cuddleh kittehs, and a couple of proud peacocks strutting their stuff amongst us - the best lunch entertainment possible!

Next, it was time for pony rides. The kids LOVED this! Little Jimmy had the air of a real cowboy, and Kyla was simply awe-struck by the whole event (before we left the farm we visited their tiny shop where the kids each got a real cowboy hat for about $3.50 to remember their riding experience by).

Finally, we checked out their section of wild animals. There were various sorts of owls and vultures, otters (which unfortunately for us, were hiding in their little cave home so we couldn't see them play), a panther (fabulous to see one of those actual alive here in Ocala!), a fox, coyotes, an emu, and some funny little animals that I've never seen before that look like a cross between a bunny and a kangaroo.

For a total of around $25 (kids under 3 are FREE), I'd say we couldn't have possibly found a more fun adventure for the day! Uncle Donald's Farm easily takes my vote for the Best in Show of the Ocala area. If you're ever looking for a little outing with your kids for the day, this is most definitely the way to go!

Adopting . . . . . . Not at This Point.

2009-03-19T16:44:00.004-04:00

So a couple of you may know that we were considering beginning the process of adoption in the not too distant future. Over the last few weeks though, there's been something of a shift in thinking on our part due to some discoveries we've made along the way.

The first thought which seemed to scream at me from any adoption agencies' websites or even their actual mouths, was that adopting a baby through them is really not an option unless you've been proven completely sterile. . And if for some reason you attempt to go through with adopting an infant, you're something of a selfish nut for getting in the way of other women desperately yearning for their first child ("What? You already have two? Why in the world are you trying to adopt a baby?") I was of the impression that there was a need for children in this world to have homes. What I've come to find out is that unless you adopt independently, or are infertile, you have a very loooonnnggg wait ahead of you for a child under 12 months old.

The second big discovery we made was that many international adoption agencies are corrupt. There's really no other way to put it. For an agency to profit $10,000 for being the liason between the orphanage and you (which really involves filling out standard government paperwork) is nothing short of wrong. With that said, there ARE benefits to adopting through an agency. They know the exact procedure various countries require in order to adopt through them and are pros at it, and they have connections with orphanage within the countries. (Still an average of $10,000 seems a hefty sum for a lawyer of sorts. . .)

The third discovery we made was that to adopt independently from another country requires connections - lots of them. And planning and planning and patience and patience. Though I've always admired the more laid back approach other countries have towards work, when you're really trying to get something done in a timely manner (say before your return flight to the US is scheduled) it can be a burden.

A fourth profound discovery we made was that international adoption is EXTREMELY expensive. You can count on spending $25K to $55K up front (with the government reimbursing you up to $12K all told over the course of 4 years following the completed adoption process). We don't have any Swiss bank accounts, so that was kind of a biggie for us. . .

Another revelation we had, is that adopting a child is not the end of that child's problems. .It's a huge help, but it will not right the wrongs they've already been done . The struggles they've faced prior to your finding them will likely leave their mark on that child forever. Whether it's from malnutrition, lack of love and touch, or abuse - their minds and bodies will in most cases have a permanent memory of their sufferings (even if they were only months old when adopted.)

Here's yet another discovery: domestic adoption within your state is FREE! Not only is it free, but that child will receive 4 years of college and all medical care/counseling paid for by the state. Still, the likelihood of your being able to adopt an infant is very slim, but if your OK with a child (4+) you should have ample opportunity. Again, even in the US, children who have been abandoned for one reason or another will have issues, and you can pretty much guarantee counseling sooner or later, but at least the state will help fund it for you.

I've talked to a number of adoptive parents and heard all sides of it. It is a beautiful process that requires commitment. It's a process that offers a child a hope for their future, but it can take a lot of time and money. And it's a process that will involve your whole family and will not be void of intense struggle throughout various phases of the journey.

With all the information we've gathered, we've decided to take a step back from this process for now. That's not to say we won't adopt domestically in the future, but just that we're not doing anything immediately.

I've jokingly told family and friends that the reason we're putting things on the back burner for now is because it requires even more paperwork than adopting our dogs did (if you can believe that - because that IS a LOT of paperwork!). Another bit of humor I've found is that while we didn't adopt a single child, we did adopt six chicks. . and that seems to be working well for us now ;)
(Again, I'm JOKING people!)

Don't Do Skittles

2009-03-19T15:53:00.003-04:00

We all know not to do drugs. Drugs aren't cool. Hugs not drugs. Choosers are losers and losers are choosers - don't do drugs, DON'T (Paula Abdul flashback to the 80's). Unfortunately, I found myself last night googling "OD of Dextromethorphan." What I was really looking to find out was if I'd inadvertently given my son too much cough medicine, and if so if it was dangerous. What I found was that this is actually a *street* drug which people use:

DXM is often abused in high doses by adolescents to generate euphoria and visual and auditory hallucinations. Illicit use of DXM is referred to on the street as "Robo-tripping" or "skittling."

Wow. Exciting stuff considering that it was dawning on me that I'd just given my kid a slight OD of *skittles*. The confusion all happened when I gave Jimmy a dose of Robitussin combined with the tiny remnants of a bottle of Delsym (I figure that since the Robitussin didn't have as much cough suppressant as what he was allowed, I'd supplement it with the remaining Delsym.) Well, my neat-o little concoction didn't work; he coughed all afternoon, and I vowed to make sure to give him something better before I put him to bed. Come 7PM, I researched some online and found Children's Nyquil to be the way to go for a quiet and calm night for all in the house. I gave Jimmy his dose and tucked him into bed and then began cleaning up after dinner. This is when it hit me that I'd given him WAY too much medicine over a brief 4 hour period (all of the above medicines intending to last minimally 6 hours. . ) I found myself pondering the fact that I had just become one of *those* parents who get confused about their child's cold medicine schedule and varying doses and unintentionally overdoses them; I had become one of *those* parents that were the cause of ALL children's cold medicines being pulled from the shelves last year. I always figure you'd have to be something of a nimwit to give your kid too much medicine; really I assumed parents were trying to drug their children and then pawning off their grave error on a simple mistake. I am now one of those parents; and yes, it was a simple mistake.

I got up several times through the night to check on Jimmy and make sure his breathing wasn't too shallow, or that he wasn't having seizures, or in a state of coma (all side effects of ODing on Skittles). Fortunately, Jimmy was just fine. I had to wake him up from a deep sleep this morning to get him ready for school (which is not normal as he's usually the one waking me up), and I have to say I really wondered if he'd had any nice *trips* throughout the night. All the same, I'm glad to say that experience is done with, and I'll try to be a bit more cautious when doling out the cold medicines to my children. I, on the other hand, who has never done drugs (though I've frequently hoped dealers would approach me with a deal!) have now found the solution hiding in my medicine cabinet to a really rough day ;)

(For those who may wonder if I'm for real or not, I'm only joking!)

Despondex

2009-02-15T10:15:00.002-05:00

You've heard my rants against modern western medicine and it's quick fixes for EVERYthing, well now it seems others are finding humor in this topic as well.

My Mouth is Stuck Shut!

2009-01-25T11:55:00.003-05:00

I feel it is worth noting that I'm home sick today. Little Jimmy got it first, and has since shared his wealth of germs with me (I'm hoping Kyla and Jim don't get them too). Despite overdosing on nyquil and halls cough drops and attempting a variety of sleep positions (upright, face into pillow), I succeeded in getting no sleep (beyond 10 -20 consecutive minutes) last night due to an ongoing and railing cough.
Upon getting out of bed (I really couldn't say waking up), I made a steamy shower - hoping to alleviate some of the coughing (which was to no avail). Later I sat reading and drinking coffee whilst filling the floor area around my chair with dirty tissues. It wasn't until attempting to eat an english muffin for breakfast that I became acutely aware of the fact that my jaw was stuck - shut. It's not stuck all the way shut, but rather can open about a half inch. I noted how bizarre it would look if anyone saw me attempting to shove food into the narrow opening that was my mouth.
This jaw problem has been an issue forever, but only recently has become a real problem. I've always had jaws that popped when I opened them, and eventually popping rather loudly so that other people nearbye might comment in astonishment to me, "Was that your jaw?". It's only been in the last year or so that it has commenced refusing to open on command. Usually it's worst when I'm laying down or when I'm really tired, and usually if I try to relax while leaning forward and massaging my jaw (I know - of all the ridiculous situations to find yourself in!) it will eventually open properly. But today - no luck. Fortunately, I feel so crappy elsewhere that it's really not too bothersome (that and the fact that I'm probably still a wee bit drugged from the nyquil).
So, should anyone who knows anything about this type of problem-o happen to be reading this blog, please send me some insight!!! While others around me may appreciate my sudden quietness, I find it to be rather perturbing. A zillion thanks in advance.

Beware of the Next Craze in Young Girls' Self-Image Disorders!

2009-01-21T12:45:00.005-05:00

Being the mother of two children, I'm fully aware of the effects of peer pressure. Though it hasn't truly damaged either of my children's psyche yet (aside from an ongoing fixation with Hot Wheels cars for Jimmy), I'm still not letting my guard down! Young girls seem to be particularly susceptible to the myriads of advertising directed at their innocent minds. Take a look at the latest self-image problem our young ladies will now have to fight against. . .

Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size

Fire in the Meat Department!

2009-01-15T12:50:00.004-05:00

Tuesday evening I headed out for my weekly Wa-Ma shopping trip after cleaning up dinner and helping to get the kids ready for bed. I was tired, and I had way more stuff on my list than I really had the energy to shop for. When I arrived at the Wa-Ma everything was status-quo. The standard Wal-Mart greeter was there with his friendly smile, and there seemed to be a pretty typical number of patrons there for a weekday evening.

It was towards the end of my shopping trip that some real drama occurred. I had just collected some frozen chicken patties and was headed over to get some fresh chicken when a man called out to me: "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to step away; there's been a small fire." Given my rather exhausted state, it took me a moment to process this extraordinarily bizarre information. ". . . Oh. OK." I answered as I backed away from the man and headed closer towards my destination meat cooler. "Ma'am - Please step away!" the man called out again as he took a step in my direction - as though he might have to intervene. "Oh! - you mean this cooler right here? I thought it was kinda warm." At this point I turned around and headed up to the produce section still fully perplexed by the whole situation, and periodically peeking back over my shoulder wondering if there was something more I had missed.

In all reality I hadn't realized the man was talking about the cooler I was headed for, as he and a few of his colleagues seemed to be more huddled around one of the open coolers in the middle of the floor. It dawned on me that he probably thought I was some sort of self-destructive lunatic woman perusing the Wa-Ma late at night looking for some trouble. Still, he seemed relieved when I finally clued into what he was saying, and it become evident that I was merely a slightly dense individual as opposed to a suicidal one.

Several moments later while gathering myself some hummus and trying to decide between the pine nut and the roasted red pepper types, I was truly shocked when I looked up and saw two fully outfitted firefighters (tanks, helmet and all) briskly following what appeared to be young gay guy who was leading them to *the scene of the crime*. The whole situation was so bizarre I literally could not stifle my laughter. The fact was, there was no fire - at least not at the moment; it had obviously already been extinguished. And yet, following procedure, some faithful employee had placed a likely frenzied call to the fire department.

I'm certain the firefighters were disappointed to discover no flames lapping at the sides of the cooler needing to be hosed down. And some of the shoppers seemed to be a bit rambunctious too. Several teenagers followed the firefighters from a distance hoping to get in on the action, but were immediately redirected by a rather stern manager who told them they needed to head the other direction (once she was out of sight though, they went back to get a better look at the non-fire happening in the meat department). One angry elderly woman confronted the produce boy who was stocking strawberries about when she would be allowed into the meat department as she wanted to rap up her shopping (I thought about suggesting she just get some tofu this week instead, but figure I'd better not borrow any trouble for myself).

All in all, I'd have to put that down as one of my more adventurous Wa-Ma trips. It was really invigorating to come home from shopping and to be able to share with my husband about all the action (I know. . we're really an exciting couple!). Generally, the Wa-Ma trip is not highly anticipated, but I'm really hoping to stumble upon some more bizarreness next week.

Mama's Boy

2009-01-15T12:32:00.004-05:00

The following was a genuine conversation between Little Jimmy and myself which occurred this morning on the way to school.
Jimmy: I'm almost done with kindergarten; then I'm going to graduate.
Me: Yep, but do you know what grade comes after kindergarten?
J: Emmm. . . Fifth grade?
M: Do you mean first?
J: Ya, I mean first. And then after that we're all done?
M: No, there's more school after first grade. Do you know how many grades there are in school?
J: No, how many.
M: Twelve grades! And once you get through those twelve grades, then you can go to a different school that will teach you how to be what you want to be when you grow up. Like, if you want to be a doctor then you go to doctor school, or if you want to be a firefighter then you go to firefighter school, or if you want to be a banker then you go to banker school -
J: (interrupting) I want to do that!!!
M: (very confused) Be a banker?
J: Do they get lollipops?
M: Oh - they give the KIDS lollipops.
J: Ya, but if you do that, can you get a lollipop.
M: I guess you could get a lollipop if you worked there.
J: Great! Then after I've done all that I can come home and be with you?
M: Well, I guess you could. Most people at some point don't necessarily always want to be with their mommy. Usually people when they get a little bigger want to go out and do things on their own.
J: But I could stay with you if I wanted, right?
M: Yes. . . . . But when you turn 30 I'm kickin' you out!
J: . . .(silence). . . You're just kidding, right?
M: (realizing that Jimmy can't connect right now with ever not wanting to be with me all the time) Yes. I wouldn't kick you out.

While I frequently get some pretty hard core reality checks from my kids, I also sometimes get the sweetest ego boosts!

My Target Commercial

2009-01-12T16:01:00.005-05:00

Today - I hit the jackpot. I hadn't even intended to, but I did. After my husband got a few clearance items from Target last week, he suggested I head over there too. I intended to breeze in and breeze out this morning, but once I saw the super deep discounts, I had to stay a bit. I only found one item for myself that I really liked, but the kids discounted items were unbelievable! All the children's and babies' winter items were on super-sale (meaning, at least 50% - 75% off, plus an additional 30% off at the register!), so I purchased complete wardrobes for next winter for both Jimmy and Kyla. The total cost of my extensive shopping spree: $52.11. Just to relish my savings a bit more, I calculated what the items I purchased today would've cost at full price, and the number I came out with was $214.00 even. Shop today and save for the 2009 fall and winter!

Moving On

2009-01-08T12:13:00.005-05:00

It is with much delight and relief on my part that another Christmas season passes us. I have to say Christmas is among my least favorite times of the year. Call me a Scrooge or a Grinch, but I really disdain the whole season.

For starters, I don't like the whole charade of Christians claiming this holiday as their heritage. It's not. It's a pagan holiday with pagan origins. I have yet to discover any evidence of Jesus' birth being on December 25th, or do I have any evidence found in the Bible of such traditions as a Christmas tree etc. I fail to see where God would be satisfied in any way with our over-spending in order to purchase a gift for everyone on our list in honor of his son's birth. Ya - not in my Bible. I have however noted some strong language in the Bible regarding the *traditions* of man. . . But if it's really all about celebrating Jesus, why is not this faith and joy acted upon on a daily basis as opposed to a yearly overly commercialized single day/season? A little less glitz and glamor and showmanship around the holiday, and a lot more sincerity throughout the year would likely be a more satisfactory expression of thanks to God. OK - I'll now step down from my soapbox on that one. (Also, I know that most people do celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, and for the record, this is not intended to be an attack on anyone; this is simply my perspective which I am well aware is not the norm.)
http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm

As far as the whole *Spirit of Christmas* - I hate it. There is absolutely no other single time of the year where people are ruder, crabbier, pushier, and more selfish. This is a large part of my annoyance with this whole season in general. Anytime I have to go someplace, you can bet I'll have at least one encounter with the *Christmas spirit.* I actually don't do any shopping at the holidays anymore. Children in the family get books ordered off of Amazon (I'd much rather make a big deal out of their birthdays), and everyone else pretty much has to accept the gift of my presence and non-Christmas spirit (as is defined by the all-encompassing crabbiness of the season). This is no surprise to anyone in our family; everyone has pretty much come to accept that this is just not a holiday we really get in on the way others do. And quite frankly, I think it's a relief to everyone. No one has to feel obligated to figure out some gift to purchase for us that we most likely do not need. In fact, I can say in all sincerity that there has never been a Christmas gift I have needed; I have a roof over my head, food in my cupboards and plenty of clothing. Further, if we're all going to just go out and spend money for other people guessing what they may want, why doesn't everyone just agree to take "X" number of dollars and spend it on themselves for something they really want. Better yet, how about not playing into the commercialism of the season and not buying anything specific for yourself this season, and instead the next time you have something you really want, get it and consider it your super early/late Christmas gift.

While on vacation, I had two distinct *Christmas spirit* encounters. These are encounters which in my honest opinion, would NEVER happen any other time of the year; the only reason they happen now is because people are so stressed about spending and gift giving and combating the crowds, that they lash out at innocent bystanders and in general just become rude and obnoxious individuals.

One such encounter happened at a gas station. My parents had pulled over to get gas, and as there was a line at every pump, I decided I'd wait in the line next to them so we could chat while filling up. However, because my gas tank was on the opposite side of the woman's at the tank ahead of me, I had to pull in front of her in order to be on the correct side. I gave her plenty of room to get out, and she had no problem whatsoever with my waiting for gas on the opposite side of her while she finished filling up. Just as she was preparing to pull out, another car pulled in behind her and tactfully inched forward claiming the previous woman's spot at the tank instantly. I sat there, jaw dropped, utterly aghast. The woman looked over at me after a minute or so and hollered out dumbly, "I didn't see you waiting there if you were." She then proceeded to begin getting her gas. . . If she really wanted to take responsibility for her actions, she should've said nothing and simply moved when she saw me there. But the fact is, she saw my obtrusive van there waiting and decided she could butt in ahead of me - and did. I beeped a couple of times, but the woman remained unresponsive. Never in my life. . . I've had people race into a line ahead of me, but never when I've been there clearly waiting already. I can think of no other reason for such atrocious behavior than simply the Christmas spirit.

Later on during our journey home, we stopped at a Wendy's at 2:00 in the afternoon. The restaurant was just as crowded as the roads. After waiting over 30 minutes in line, my order was placed. When I received the order at the drive through (and yes, my mother was waiting in line inside - each of us waiting to see who got to order first), as usual I began quickly checking the contents of my bag to ensure all the items I had ordered were in the bag. I was immediately interrupted by the woman inside ordering me to move ahead. I hadn't been there 10 seconds when this woman piped up with this tidbit - and bear in mind I had already been waiting a half an hour. Again, never in my life has someone at a drive through so immediately and rudely demanded I move ahead. "I just waited 30 minutes for my food, so I'm going to check it to make sure it's all here before I get out of the way" I responded calmly. "Ma'am, out of courtesy to . . . " and out of respect for myself, I rolled up my window and sat there taking the next 5 seconds of this woman's precious time to confirm that my order was all in the bag.

What's worse, is I hate having to deal with people like this. I'm not an overly confrontational person to begin with, but I'm also not one to sit around while the world runs me over for fun. (I know - I need to learn to turn the other cheek, right? - just to keep in line with the real meaning of Christmas). I hate being forced to stand my ground or speak up for myself when someone else is absurdly rude to me. It bothers me that while minding my own business during this holiday season, I am forced to deal with people in the Christmas spirit. I'd just assume there be no Christmas at all - it's obviously too much hype and pressure for the general public to deal with without transforming into a sort of cannibalistic breed.

(As a side note to my Christmas rant, I feel it should be pointed out that both woman who were rude to me were of another race. I for one make an attempt to be overly courteous to those of another race so as not to be falsely labeled a racist, but it's funny how those of this other race made no attempt whatsoever to be mildly considerate to me. If I wanted to play their game, I could cry foul with the whole racism card. So did I experience reverse-racism? I guess racism is racism all the same regardless of which direction it goes. . Since everyone seems to feel so wronged by *the white man*, I think it's time we caucasions started speaking up too when other races wrong us. . . Still, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.)

All this blogging to simply say, I'm very glad Christmas is past. I love spending time with my family and friends, but the whole *spirit* of things gets weird with the public in general. I'm very happy there's a 10 month break period every year before the next Christmas season begins.

Ba. Humbug.

I'm Dreaming of Not Driving Near Christmas

2009-01-07T19:19:00.006-05:00

In the past few weeks, I've come to realize yet again that I'm just not a big fan of people. I am not a people lover. Now I know that sounds badly initially, so allow me to clarify: I don't like large groups of people in pretty much any setting unless I know them - and even then it's not my favorite (did that clarification perhaps make it sound any less bad?). Maybe this qualifies me as a loner; personally I prefer to say I lean ever so slightly towards the more introverted personality than the extroverted one.

I was raised with the city of Orlando for the first 23 years of my life, after which I moved out to Lake County (still probably considered more of the greater Orlando area); finally I moved out here to the very outskirts of Ocala. Can I just say that I've enjoyed each location more than the one before? In other words, the farther we get away from the city and the crowds, the happier I am. I know living in the country comes with it's fair share of rednecks and fruitcakes alike, but the more urban areas certainly aren't in any short supply of these 'special' ones either. I just like my space - my breathing room if you will.

'What brought this self-discovery into such vivid focus?' you may wonder. In short, it was our trip back from North Carolina. It was the bumper-to-bumper, 30 miles per hour or less journey beginning in North Carolina and following I-95 all the way down to Florida. I have never in all my life seen such horrendous and ongoing traffic. It was a nightmare.

But if the sheer volume of cars alone on the road traversing at such mild speeds wasn't enough to drive a person batty, then the maniac, frenzied and road rage ridden drivers were. They weren't necessarily everywhere, but there were enough of them scattered neatly throughout our journey to distinctly raise my level of exasperation. We've all seen them before, the ones who gun it for the 10 feet between your bumper and theirs, and somehow in that time period manage to throw in a few crazy miniature swerving motions (just to demonstrate to all how mad they really are) and then slam on the brakes a scant half second before causing a fender-bender (and there were plenty of angry drivers who actually weren't able to stop in time and thus caused fender-benders, further delaying all the traffic). Or what about the ones who weave obnoxiously between the two ultimately non-moving lanes. . . Do they really think one lane is going to get them to their destination more than two minutes faster than the other one?

Really wishing to exact my own justice upon these lunatic drivers but feeling it not necessarily wise (what with other innocent drivers on the road and my own family in the car with me and all), I considered calling the police and offering vehicle makes and models and tag numbers so they could come out and scoot along through traffic to give these annoying drivers warnings or citations. Sensing though that law enforcement officers might not be overly excited about getting onto the jam packed highway and attempting to track down a single car out of thousands in a stretch, I decided to take matters into my own hands. My objective: public humiliation of poor drivers. While driving I photographed to the best of my ability the looney ones (I know - a bit dangerous. . but I felt a sort of higher calling on this one). I know the chances of these people ever stopping in for a visit on my blog is a slim to none possibility, but I figure I'd do it anyway simply for the sake of all of us looking at their vehicles and shaking our heads while mentally reprimanding them.

At this point, I'd like to ask for some reader participation. If you could just stop whatever else you may be doing and focus with me now on the two previous photographs in this blog. While you're looking at these pictures, if you could just think of some sort of demeaning or derogatory remark that would be great. Some examples of possible remarks might include such classics as: "He's driving like a bat out of hell!", or "Speed kills", or "Life is not race." You get the picture. As for me, I've decided to never again travel long distances on the weekend following Christmas. There are just too many merry folks on the road for my taste. I'll save my road trips for less 'festive' times.

Introducing Sanna!

2009-01-07T12:08:00.010-05:00

After months of deliberation and consideration, we've finally taken the leap of getting another dog. Our dog Bear is such a good boy, but sometimes seems a little lonely for some canine companionship - thus, the thought of adopting a little friend for him. We brought Sanna home yesterday from her foster home where she'd been staying with the help of a rescue pet organization. It was sad for her foster Mommy to say goodbye, but she knows it's for the best for Sanna to be adopted into a forever home. Bear could not possibly be more thrilled; in fact, he's been so thrilled that it's almost to the point of annoying Sanna (I've been informed that like their human counterparts, girl dogs mature faster than boy dogs!). Still, all morning they've been racing around together and playing.

Sanna is a sweetheart. She's about 15 months old (which is exactly Bear's age too), and she's a black lab and Australian kelpie mix. She's very smart, and extremely gentle. As her foster Mommy told me, she was always the mother to all the foster kittens she took in - protecting them and ensuring their comfort. One thing Sanna was very excited about in coming to our house was our kids. She was hesitant to even come out to see us when we arrived to visit her, but once she saw Jimmy and Kyla, she came right over and snuggled up by them (as best she could with Jimmy and Kyla both running around, shouting and laying on her).

Compared to Bear, Sanna is a tiny little girl. In all reality though, she's considered a medium sized dog while Bear would be an extra large dog (he's over 100 lbs.). Still, as I've watched them playing and wrestling in a friendly manner, I've observed that Sanna is quite capable of holding her own when she wants to. Bear is going to need to learn to share his toys without making it a game of keep-away from Sanna - this is one thing that has begun to annoy her. Any toy Sanna goes for, Bear will race to get it before her; and any toy she has, Bear will try to wrestle from her.

We are very excited to have Sanna join our family. She's been an immediate hit. We hope she settles in quickly here and begins enjoying her new life with us.

Lake Lure, NC Vacation in Pictures

2009-01-07T10:49:00.024-05:00

Real News

2009-01-02T14:01:00.002-05:00

I had to do a double-take when I saw this video. For a moment, I thought I was watching The Onion instead of MSNBC. . . But no, this is for real.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Christmas Spy

2008-12-30T12:14:00.007-05:00

This year, instead of doing a large family gift exchange with my husband's side of the family, it was decided that everyone would share some favorite memories from Christmases past. So, I'm going to share my memories here.

I don't recall any amazing memories from Christmas times as a child, but that's not to say it wasn't wonderful. In general, it was a fun time with family and new toys. For years and years my sister and I would wake up in the middle of the night to hang a secret Christmas banner we'd made in the days preceding Christmas. We'd sneak out to the living room and ever so quietly climb up on chairs and furniture to tape our grand "Merry Christmas!" banner with exquisite holiday artwork to the wall. We always loved to observe my parents surprised expression at 5:30 AM upon feasting their eyes on our glorious homemade decor. "Oh, Wow!" they would comment, robes wrapped snugly around with eyes squinting in the brightness of the fully lit house. Teresa and I were always a lot more awake than they were (OK - until Teresa became a teenager and, much to my horror, found sleeping in to be just as nice of a Christmas present as anything wrapped under the tree). "Did you make this?" they would ask us in feigned utter confusion as they took the opportunity to wake up a bit more by pausing and staring at the wall. As I recall, there were some years which we fully took credit for the hanging artwork, but other years we played along with the whole Christmas charade and claimed Santa must have hung it.

After my parents had their coffee in hand, the moment we'd been waiting for for at least a month or so was finally at hand: present opening time! Most of the gifts were things we wanted or loved, but none stands out so much to me now as the SpyTech toys we received. With all of our favorite TV shows being spy shows, my sister and I could desire to aspire to nothing more than a top American spy. Through the years, our television line up included such programs as Scarecrow and Mrs. King, McGyver, Mission Impossible and Get Smart. We were simply fascinated with this idea of having a secret identity which nobody but you and the government new about, and going on undercover missions to ensure the continued peaceful existence of our fellow Americans.

I remember having opened all of my presents one year and being relatively satisfied with my haul, when my dad uncovered a present tucked under the tree skirt. Had it not been for his observant spy-type eyes the present would have gone fully unnoticed! "Oh look! There seems to be a couple more presents here. . " he commented as he handed Teresa and I each a couple more gifts. As we tore into them, I couldn't help letting out a few shouts of sheer sugar and commercialism induced delight. SpyTech! We knew just what they were the moment we opened them!

Over the years that followed, my parents were graced with my eavesdropping on their conversations from a distance via my handy spy- microphone. I was always hoping to catch some juicy bit of truth (maybe that they were really Russian spies, or that Teresa and I were really princesses adopted from a war torn country and whisked away to safety), but instead found out nothing of any consequence. More disappointing than my parents rather predictable existence was my sister. I remember ever so quietly opening my bedroom door and pointing the spy microphone at her door - hoping to catch something secretive happening. When after a minute or two, I heard nothing, I tiptoed over to her door and again pointed the microphone at her door. Nothing. Eventually, I wedged the spy microphone under the door and at last could hear something every so often: the page of a book turning.

Another exciting SpyTech toy we got was a fingerprinting kit. I used it to "lift" fingerprints off of various household items: glasses, the remote, the sink. At first, it was quite invigorating to be able to match prints; "So Mom was drinking out of THIS glass!". When I realized this information was of relatively useless to myself or anyone else in the family, I resorted to collecting fingerprints simply for the sake of getting in plenty of practice before my career with the CIA began.

The message rock was probably the most annoying, perplexing and comical toy of any of the SpyTech toys we received. It was a rock with a hidden door underneath it that could be used to place secret messages or valuable items (like stolen diamonds!). The rock could then be situated outside or in any sort of garden setting (NOT near water or rain), and when someone blew the corresponding whistle, the rock would begin beeping to alert one's fellow spymates of the location of "the rock." This was great fun; we'd hide acorns in it or messages (such as "Hi") and then strategically place the rock and blow the whistle so the other one could locate the rock and it's valuable contents. When the rock was not being used, it was stored in my closet with the rest of my toys. While I thought the special whistle the rock came with was the only sound the rock would respond to, I came to find out otherwise. At night while laying in bed, periodically the rock would randomly begin its neurotic beeping. At first I thought my room was haunted, and then I thought my sister was playing mean tricks on me. One night I finally got up to investigate and found the rock and whistle unmoved in my closet. Strange. . . When I climbed back in bed and began coughing some from a cold, the rock went off again. It then struck me that the rock went off whenever someone made a pitch similar to the whistle's. After that, I noticed it going off when there was seemingly no noise, or when there was a large crash (per say the shelves falling in my closet) or when the dog barked. . The list went on.

From hanging banners in the middle of the night, to unwrapping tools for our future trade, spy work was an exciting part of Christmases past for me. While I didn't end up becoming a spy (at least not yet. . and not that you know of. . ) I still get quite the thrill out of anything which might be distantly related to spying (per say, listening to and occasionally randomly dropping in on the conversations of fellow drivers on the road via my parents' handy walky-talkies - this done during our recent trip back from North Carolina for Christmas. . . )

Rebuttal

2008-12-18T16:23:00.004-05:00

I felt the need to respond to the recent comments of one of my readers regarding my new sewing endeavors.

And I quote from Cindy, on 12/18/08: I take it that no one is going to openly tell you that these blankets are a bit on the fugly side ;) I'm just saying Martha Stewart's empire is safe for a little longer hehehe Actually, I think it's great. You'll be a sewing genius in no time at all :)

While Dr. Phil and George W. both agree that even responding to attacks of this sort is a waste of time, I'm simply not of the mental fortitude to just let this one slide. With that said, my retort will begin.

Such audacity. For a person to think such a thought about another's hard fraught effort is one thing, but to fully verbalize this thought in a public arena is a whole nother ball game. Being the somewhat un-hip individual that I am, I've actually had to look up the word fugly on Wikipedia. In its censored and comprehendable meaning it translates roughly as: Very ugly. Nice, Cin - way to encourage your *friend* in her new undertaking.

Cindy is one who's been raised in an artistically and craftily gifted family (this includes but is not limited to professional: crocheting, sewing, knitting, crafting, penmanship, fudging, writing, cooking etc). I personally have not had such a privilege. My mother is quite blunt in stating that she struggled to simply braid our hair as children. So to Cin, it's obvious that this might be considered fugly; but from my young innocent sewing eyes' perspective - it's a work of art - a stroke of pure genius!

And what is with this whole back-handed complimenting thing anyway? I mean, who says in effect: "Gee, that's the ugliest thing I've ever seen, but someday you may be alright. . with a LOT of work. . ." My mother may not have been very crafty, but she did teach me pretty clearly the lesson of 'if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!'.

Further, this is one of my first *pieces,* and I utilized a wide variety of techniques simply to gain experience. In the process, I learned a number of important lessons: measure CAREFULLY, when sewing various squares together all the hems should face the same direction, use a strait edge, make sure the material is fully under the needle when you begin sewing, making cute rounded corners is easy (though not always intentional), silk unravels very easily, and my kids will absolutely LOVE whatever it is I make them.

This brings me to my final point: know your clientele. My clients are obviously not as demanding as say, a certain Ms. Windy might be. I'm gearing my product towards my client. I know with something as generic as sewing it would be impossible to please EVERYbody, so I've honed my services to a select group of individuals whom I know will find great satisfaction in my seamstressing.

In conclusion, I feel it's entirely relevant to post a brief video clip detailing the sheer delight displayed by a client today upon receiving my most recently completed item.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Combo Creation

2008-12-18T10:29:00.002-05:00

I have just completed my third sewing project on my new machine! Because I'm too impatient to do one project at a time, I combined projects; now I have a blanket, a quilt and a taggie - all in one! While the end result is far from perfect, it was a lot of fun to create, and I learned a bunch in the process!

Sewing!

2008-12-15T16:01:00.004-05:00

Saturday, I achieved the status of *hero mom*. Though I wasn't officially titled in this way, I know it's how my kids feel about me at this point. How do I know? - just the way they look at me and my handiwork. To be precise my handiwork is machine sewn 'blankets.' That's right, I've begun sewing. My mother-in-law just purchased all of her daughter-in-laws beautiful new sewing machines. These puppies are the bomb, let me tell you! They each do 70 different stitches (think flowers and snowflakes etc.) with the flip of a button.

I've never been a sewer in my life; I've tried it a couple times in the past and failed miserably, but this experience was far too positive for me to feign any sort of sewing disability. Not only was my mother-in-law encouraging me and guiding me along the way with my very own machine and some different scraps of cloth she'd brought for me to practice on, but my kids were too! Little Jimmy couldn't have been more eager for me to sew him a 12" X 5" *blanket* if he tried! He picked out a scrap of fabric his Mima had brought, then selected various little animals or people from other scraps to be cut out and sewn onto his blanket. For each little person/animal that was sewn onto his blanket, he got to pick the stitch. And for all of his instruction and decision making, he was a very encouraging boss: "You're doing a great job, Mommy!" or "I'm so proud of you!" or "This is the best! I love it!"; all this coupled with screams of joy and jumping around. For Kyla, I took a little square (maybe 5" X 5") of fleece material and sewed this nice satin trim around half of it and some girly pink lace around the other half of it. To say that she felt honored to receive this hot-pad sized blanket from me would be a massive understatement. Yesterday evening as she was getting sleepy, she was found laying on the floor, her head solely resting on the small swatch of material that was her new blanket.

All this adoration for my sewing has left me with the desire to learn more. My next projects to experiment with are (and not in any particular order): baby leggings, a taggie book/blanket, a quilted blanket (2'X2'), and a pillow. I was so excited about it all that, I nearly drug my extremely sick daughter to Wal-Mart today just to get some fleece (fortunately, I quickly regained my composure before actually acting on this absurd idea). I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me - you know, the fabric world, encompassing various sections of stores and even whole stores themselves! Now I can find a use for these sections/stores too! Hooray for my exciting new hobby!

Two is Too Many. .

2008-12-10T13:58:00.002-05:00

Sometimes. .

Jimmy has been home sick for the last two days with a cold. Suffice it to say that between Jimmy's snotty nose and non-stop coughing, and Kyla's early onset of the two's (I won't even fully define that age lest I solidify it's arrival in any way) my life has been pretty crazy.

Yesterday was rough. Both kids were up and about, each demanding my 100% attention, before I'd even gotten up and ready for the day. That's the worst really -when they beat you off the starting line; it's kind of like you spend the rest of the day trying to catch up and paying for the sin of your early morning REM sleep. Trying to sneak in and wash your face and brush your teeth guarantees that some mishap, atrocity or destruction will soon be occurring. Stupid me - I decided to try to get up and get dressed and carry on as normally as possible. This is when the mayhem began (just for a point of reference, this was just before 7 AM) - Kyla's screaming because she wants Jimmy's toys or our toothpaste, and Jimmy's yelling at Kyla to give him back his toys. Then the breakfast fiasco commenced - the kids alternately searching the fridge or cupboard for new and exciting breakfast foods followed by their own unique preparation of the food before heading off to eat on the run (this leads to an almost instantaneous housewide mess).
All this by 7:10.

After breakfast Jimmy brushed his teeth, and I helped Kyla brush hers with her special toddler toothpaste. Kyla LOVES brushing her teeth. She doesn't care what toothbrush she has or whether or not there's toothpaste involved, she just loves scrubbing those teeny pearly whites. Unfortunately, not long after I finished brushing her teeth, and just as I'd set up some crayons and paper for all of us to color with, I noted an odd quietness in the house. I ran back towards the kids bedrooms to find Kyla in the bathroom brushing her teeth in the toilet - with dirty toilet water - and then using her toothbrush to scoop large soggy clumps of toilet paper into her little pink potty chair. . . Vomit. I hurried Kyla out of the bathroom grabbing her toothbrush from her hand as she exited screaming angrily. "Jimmy! How many times do I have to tell you to flush the toilet every time you use it?" I called to Jimmy, but immediately realizing I was just quibbling over the details; I really don't think I'd have felt a whole lot better about any of this even if the toilet was not filled with bodily fluids and particles of toilet paper.

Later, Jimmy flushed this same toilet, only to run screaming from the bathroom that the toilet was overflowing. I again mopped up the mess while noting to myself just how nasty this bathroom is. Just a year or two ago, I would've easily mopped up the floor and then bleached it and scoured the toilet, tub and surrounding cabinets. But now, it's wiped up with an old towel which is thrown in the dirty clothes basket, and that's it. I tell my closest friends that the bathroom is probably not a place you want to be walking barefoot or practicing the two second rule for dropped snacks, but aside from that, it really looks OK (no one needs to know the extent of the germs and bacteria growing on the floor. . )

Not long after I'd closed and locked the bathroom door (not that it does any good. . Kyla's figured out the childproof locks. . ) I entered her bedroom where she and Jimmy had previously sounded as though they were playing quite nicely. Upon entering though, I realized they had been playing WAY too nicely, and it was WAY too calm. Kyla had gotten into the Desitin (which is actually kept out of reach. . but I guess the standard for out of reach has changed) and had it smeared all over her face and hair and hands and the carpet, while Jimmy laughed at her and played by himself a few feet away.

Today has been better. I didn't let the kids beat me off the starting line, and I scheduled Jimmy for a doctors appointment. We were told he has a cold, but no infection. I'm taking that to mean he'll be ready for school tomorrow. One child at home at a time really works better for me.

The Vagrant in Me

2008-12-06T13:49:00.004-05:00

That's right. . . It's not uncommon for certain persons (namely my spouse) to compare me to an old vagrant woman, or, more precisely, a little old homeless lady. I think this has a lot to do with some of my personal habits (which you may have already read about). And while I have gotten much better about showering every day or two (. . or three or four) it seems to have done little to alleviate this brutal labeling which I've been subjected to. Still, I can't help but feel this is not entirely my fault. Yes, it isn't abnormal for me to eat the old cheerios/fruit loops/cheez-its from off the floor instead of just picking them up and carrying them to the garbage (and no, it's not because I'm hungry, but rather I'm just a wee bit lazy. . .look, when the vast majority of your day is spent cleaning up, you learn to cut corners!). But sometimes I feel I'm more a victim of my vagrant personification than I am so much a creator of it.

This morning, for example, Jim decides he wants to make eggs for breakfast. OK - whatever floats his boat. So, as I'm attempting to drink my first cup of coffee and clean-up and get ready for the day, he feeds the kids. By the time I make it to the table, I'm served a single egg on a paper plate that has already been used by one of the kids. As I observed the table covered in various odds and ends (a screwdriver, toy cookware, empty plates and crumbs etc) I couldn't overlook the feeling that I'm more a product of 'nurture' than 'nature.' In other words, I've been made into the freak that I am by being around my family(imagine the effects this will have on the children - still so young and formative!). Really, it just seems that the old homeless lady lifestyle just comes so naturally to me in this environment.

Another notation Jim has commented on (which has less to do with the homeless thing and more to do with the little-old-lady thing) is my unending infatuation with the heating pad. I heart the heating pad. I just crawl into bed, push a button, and no sooner does that puppy heat right up than I drift effortlessly off to sleep. Living in Florida, and using this item year-round, Jim seems to find perturbing. Still, I hold resolute to my opinion: hats off to the inventor of the heating pad!

The commentary which I've endured on this subject in recent months has caused me to do a little introspection. I've wondered to myself: "If this is what I'm like at 28, what will I be like at 78?". . . Hmmm. It should be interesting to observe the digression and deterioration I'm bound to experience as the result of the ticking clock. . Time will tell!

The Blame Game in the Medical Community

2008-12-05T15:43:00.004-05:00

My question today is this: Who's to blame for the exorbitant prices I pay for routine doctor's visits and routine prescriptions. Quite frankly, I'm horrified by all parties involved in my medical care - from the insurance companies to the pharmaceutical companies to the doctors themselves. I'm annoyed that I can go into the doctor for a simple problem and be given a halfway thought over answer, and be expected to pick up my non-covered prescription which will in the end cause far more harm than good. Why is this the way our health care in the United States is? Granted, I know that there are myriads of countries with far worse or even no health care, but it truly astonishes me that our government has seemingly in absolutely no way intervened to provide for the genuine well being of it's citizens.

Not to get too personal here, but allow me to broach a more feminine topic: birth control. Why is this drug not covered on the vast majority of policies, but is pushed so heavily by doctors? I assume the insurance companies believe we the people will be motivated to purchase it from our own pocket out of sheer desperation and not wanting a family as large as say, the Duggar clan. I'm not even going to get into just how asinine this thought process on behalf of the insurance companies is - particularly with pregnancies and deliveries like my own which have easily gone into the hundred of thousands of dollars (. . .ya, just deny the pill and we'll make sure to not get pregnant on our own; but if we do, OOPS! - that's quite the costly mistake for the insurance companies!).

And should we not desire to purchase the pill solely on our own dime, rest assured that our doctors will try to convince us too. Why I've been told by any number of doctors that it can quite nearly cure just about any female ailment you could ever conceive of. . . Unfortunately for all of my doctors, their credibility is completely shot with this one statement. I've had to look no farther than my own mother to see that birth control has many risks in the long term; she had to have her gallbladder removed because of taking birth control, and I've noted that MANY woman when they get older require the same operation (which, if left too long can be incredibly dangerous). When I commented on this to my latest doctor, she informed me that gallbladder problems are in no way connected to the pill. I wasn't going to debate it with her, but for the benefit of my readers, I'll publish my findings. According to Mercola.com: Oral contraceptives are synthetic hormones that your body is not designed to be exposed to in any way, shape or form. Long-term use will invariably increase the user's risk of developing serious chronic illness, including blood clots and other problems.

I just love how doctors conveniently blot out this rather critical bit of info when promoting the fabulous effects of the pill - particularly for me, who in fact already has a blood clotting disorder (if they might take a glance at my record they'd clearly see that.) Or what about this research documented by the NDDIC: people at risk for gallstones include woman who are pregnant, use hormone replacement therapy, or take birth control pills, or are over 60. Emmm. . Ya, it would appear that there's a pretty strong connection between messing with the natural hormones given to us by mother nature and gallbladder problems (but don't ask you're doctor this; you'd most likely get a more accurate answer from people working in the ER. . I would guess they see woman coming in quite regularly in excruciating pain from the afore mentioned problem.)

So why is it then that doctors are doling out prescriptions for these drugs which they know full well have a very defined record of long term serious health problems? The answer can be found at the ever popular About.com: Drug makers have readily admitted that they routinely pay insurance companies to increase the use of their products and to be added to the recommended list of drugs. They admit that they give rewards to both pharmacists and doctors for switching patients from one brand of medication to a rival. Finally, they admit that they provide all sorts of gifts and gratuities to doctors, ranging from financial aid to educational programs to bags and writing pads, in the hopes that they will encourage doctors to remember and perhaps prescribe their brand of drugs.

Need I say more? All that leaves me with an insurance policy which covers very little of what I really need, and doctors who quite blatantly lie to my face in order to get a sweet little kickback from the pharmaceutical companies. Now, I know not all problems can be solved without the benefit of prescription drugs (particularly antibiotics etc.), but a great many of them can. I've treated myself frequently over the years by simply researching natural treatment for various symptoms, and in the process I've discovered healthier alternatives that treat the real problems and not merely the symptoms, and without long term side effects . Personally, I'd love to see America transform their health care system to one which promotes true health through doctors educated in both eastern and western medicines. I've heard this thought echoed by numerous acquaintances, and feel it's high time our leadership took a real, hard, long look at the effects of treating sick persons in the sick and money-hungry fashion which has hurt us all.

Money for Mistakes

2008-12-04T16:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I heard a fabulous bit of news I just knew everyone would be excited to know about. As it turns out, Medicare has decided they will no long be paying doctors for blatantly erroneous surgeries they perform. For example, if you go in for a hip replacement, and they give you a c-section instead (much to their confusion when they discover no baby in there), medicare will NOT pay the doctor. Now, in order for this to not make too much of a stir amongst the medical community, there will be a waiting period whereby doctors and any other concerned soul, can address their fears about practitioners no longer receiving payment for their faulty labor. I find this 100% completely mind boggling. What if I requested or even demanded payment for a service which I did not provide, and in fact actually did quite a bit more damage than good? Why can't I, the average Joe (to coin a popular term) get away with this too? I mean, suppose I forgot that I have children to care for in the daytime, and instead opted to go shopping all day; though my children could be lost or seriously injured, coming home and expecting the standard pay (were I in fact paid for this) would be ridiculous, right? No, instead I'd come home to a house full of police officers and social services workers. Yet, it seems that Medicare has deemed the doctors performing the same such behaviors as worthy of the taxpayers' dollars. . . WOWOWOWOWOW! There's a LOT wrong with our medical system - but this sort of absurdity and waste seems to summarize where all the money is going when I go to the doctor for a standard check up which ends up costing the insurance company $200+. .

I've also considered this situation from the perspective of the patient. Having had 2 surgeries myself, along with each of my children having gone under the knife, I've observed or participated in 4 surgeries over the last few years. It has always annoyed and perplexed me when no fewer than five doctors approach me prior to surgery to ask me what "we're doin' today." I'm not kidding you. At first I thought it was some sort of questioning of my mental ability, to recite to different anesthetists and doctors and nurses the ins-and-outs of each procedure, but later I realized, they were just being overly cautious so as not to perform the incorrect procedure on their patient. Yet, with all their checking and rechecking, insuring that the everyone is on the same page, it seems that patients are still having the wrong limb amputated, or the completely incorrect procedure performed. Again, if only I was given liberty to question Jim five or so times every morning before he left for work, "So, what am I doin' today?". . . I mean, I guess I could, but when you see someone day in and day out, it's not a good idea to perturb them with your repetitiveness - particularly in the morning when they're trying to leave in order to be on time to their place of employment. But really, in the same fashion the doctors do, I should be directing my questions towards my patients, or in my case, my children. . . I can totally see that going over really well.

The next time I personally am in for surgery, I'm going to tell all the medical personnel that I'm there for the obvious procedure, but I'm also going to tack on there a little cosmetic surgery. . . Hey, if they're capable of naively doing what the patient tells them, then I'm going to use that to my advantage! And NO, they won't be paid with my tax dollars for their lack of basic information.

The Disciplined Art of Yoga

2008-11-18T10:58:00.004-05:00

As many of you may know, I'm one who'd rather not sit on the sidelines of life. I'd rather recreate my own ice skating moves in the house, than merely watch ice skating. The same goes for Cirque du Soleil, gymnastics, etc. As frequently as is humanly possible, I try to encourage Jim to get in on the action too. While he's oftentimes not initially as excited about our endeavors as I am, I feel that usually by the end he's glad he gave it a shot! Here's one such activity which I think proved very useful to Jim in the end. All of this came about when Jim commented to me on his lack of flexibility.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Cluelessness that Binds Us

2008-11-10T16:55:00.003-05:00

I'm sure we've all pondered the clueless people in our lives. Whether it be a chance run-in at the grocery store, or persons whom we've shared a great deal of our lives with, there are plenty of clueless people on this planet. Personally, I've always found the cluelessness of those with whom I've shared my life with - be it just vast quantities of time sitting silently next to a coworker, or revealing my innermost thoughts to a trusted soul - to be the most hurtful. I'm certainly no stranger to cluelessness at it's greatest. I can recount stories of severe cluelessness even recently which have drug on and on for months at a time - not by any choice of my own, but by association. This is another annoying trend among the clueless - somehow it seems hard to escape them. Once you've severed all ties with them, they suddenly become best friends with your best friend and your left dealing with them from a distance yet again.

But while cluelssness amongst those whom we know personally is the most hurtful, there's another level of cluelessness amongst complete strangers which is probably more annoying and dumbfounding than personally insulting. I had a couple of encounters of this sort recently which I felt were noteworthy. Just a few days ago while shopping, for reasons I won't even go into, I suddenly had an urgent need to get to a bathroom. I tore down the aisles with a moderately panicked feeling setting in as I hunted for the bathroom. All the way to the back of the large wareheouse type store I scurried, expecting to locate the bathroom there. Not seeing it, I quickly asked the nearest individual I saw if she per chance knew where the bathroom in this store was. "Nope, sorry. This is probably the only store I don't know where the bathroom is. Honestly, I think I've been to every bathroom in every store with my kids, but this is the only one I haven't had to locate yet. . . " She continued on and on as I nodded and feigned a chuckle while hastily rushing off; I could hear her voice continuing on as I approached the end of the aisle and continued moving. While I was fortunate enough to make it to the bathroom in time, it did strike me as just incredibly bizarre that a stranger whom I asked a generic question would feel compelled to give me such a lengthy answer entailing her family's entire public restroom usage history; surely she could see that I hadn't stopped to chat but kept moving with conviction. Perplexing and odd.

A couple weeks ago I had another such encounter which totally dumbfounded me. I was sick and had been having these horrid coughing spells which kept me up all night and also seemed to strike without warning, regardless of where I was at or what I was doing. I had just completed my grocery shopping for the week at Wal-Mart (sick or not, we need food in the house!), and was feeling good about having survived the whole trip with Kyla and Jimmy in towe while being quite nearly on my deathbed with what I trully thought was whooping cough, when it started - the slight little tickle in my throat which then progressed to full blown hacking and choking and snotting everywhere (lovely, really). Fortunately, I was at the register and the attendant was just getting ready to hand me my receipt. "You have a nice day, Ma'm," the women commented whilst waving to Kyla - completely ignoring the tears streaming down my face and the sweat that was now developing on my forehead from literally hacking up a lung. I attempted a fake smile and stumbled off toward the bathroom where my spaz attack could continue with a bit more privacy. After coughing there for another 5 to 10 minutes it began to let up some, and I took my opportunity to exit the store. Of course, once I got to the doors, I needed to find the receipt lest anyone think I had stolen the huge pack of paper towels under my cart. As I hunted for the receipt in my purse, the coughing resumed it's more violent nature. "OK, I see the paper towels on here. . .And, I see that you're getting pumpkins! Let me give you a few tips on easy pumpkin carving and usage. . . " the bubbly attendant at the door began. She informed me of the best way to cut the pumpkin and how to cook the seeds and how to make the pumpkins last the longest and on and on. . All the while, I am literally choking. Tears are quickly rolling down my face from coughing so hard, and the sweating has again begun. I tried to nod and express appreciation with a hint of disinterest in order to encourage the woman to zip it and just let me leave, but it was to no avail - her standard speech for everyone leaving the store with pumpkins didn't seem in the least bit abbreviated. Finally it ended "You have a great day, Ma'm!". I nodded and waved, unable to even speak between the chokes. Trully amazing.

I'd hope I wouldn't be the one to annoy or hurt others with my cluelessness, but I know that I must at times do these very things that so perplex me. Regardless, I also empathize with those of us who have also shared on the receiving end of others' cluelessness. It's hurtful, and it's annoying. Yet despite it negative impact, I'd like to think that our generalized cluelessness is one thing that unites us together as human beings. So, cheers to all of us and cluelessness!

The Purpose Driven Life

2008-11-08T10:46:00.003-05:00

I've finally fully come to grips with my purpose at this point in life:
1. To clean up after everyone - all the time.
2. To convince my family (primarily husband and son) to, on occasion, try to use their brains.
Unfortunately for me, all of my attempts on the above listed purposes are completely futile.

2008-11-07T16:07:00.004-05:00

This was just too classic - regardless of who you voted for or what party you support. I've heard stories on NPR (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1267) and elsewhere regarding people who have temporarily put their lives on hold for the sake of converting possible voters. Now that all is said and done, what will these folks do?!
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Kyla and Kitteh

2008-10-27T17:11:00.008-04:00

Somehow I feel like Kyla was enjoying this a lot more than Tagger was.

Tagger is such a good kitty; she puts up with so much, but is still so sweet.

Our Vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains

2008-10-25T08:57:00.014-04:00

I could think of no better way to describe our trip to the Great Smoky Mountains than in pictures. It was gorgeous! We drove through the mountains, hiked up to a waterfall, played in the streams, and explored the Tuckaleechee Caverns - all this in addition to some wonderful meals at the Old Mill Restaurant and the Apple Barn. Now there was quite a lot of the super-touristy type stuff, but we just pretty much avoided it. If you can handle lots of women with big hair and thick make up, phrases such as 'hootenanny', and the main attraction (amongst hundreds) being Dollywood and the Dixie Stampede, then you can handle Tennessee.

Amidst all the beauty, there were some extremely comical sightings and experiences. The first came the morning after we checked in (at 2 AM). We stepped onto our porch to observe our surroundings and could hear the faint sounds of heavy diesel machinery. And then we noticed 'it'. . . Just across the parking lot was a small mountain which we discovered was a dump. Granted, it was largely hidden by a thin row of pine trees and some shrubbery, but nevertheless, our view was of the parking lot and a dump. When we went down to the front desk to request a different room (with the excuses of noise from diesel machinery at the dump, a leaky toilet and a dim fireplace - which were real, but not the real reason for our desire of a room change) we mentioned that it would sure be nice to have a room not overlooking the dump. "A dump?" the clerk responded quizzically. "I don't think I've ever noticed a dump. . " I had been helping the kids, and upon hearing the clerks answer, I couldn't even look at her; I mean, who did she think she was fooling? (We later discovered that from the main road, the dump across from our hotel was clearly visible.) Then another clerk, likely the manager, stepped in to 'handle' our observation. "I can see your hearing machinery from this side of the building," she commented in a thick twangy accent which almost didn't even seem believable as she pointed to the opposite side of the hotel, "because there's a new building going up, but there's nothing going on over there. . I've never heard anything about a dump. . We'll have to get back with you later on your room change." Fortunately, we were able to get a different room not overseeing the dump.

That same day, we made a trip to Wal-Mart so I could pick up a few things we needed. I found the general atmosphere to be totally unique from any other Wal-Mart I'd ever visited. First off, it was obvious that most people were not locals; they were vacationers. But they weren't distant vacationers; in general most people seemed to be deep south vacationers - as in, they weren't necessarily from Florida, but might be from the Carolinas, Georgia or just another city in Tennessee. This was where the big hair coupled with uber thick makeup was first really noted. Although that was by far the most common style, there were several individuals noted who were sporting mullets (yes, I did a double take just to be sure). But the real kicker of my Wal-Mart shopping experience came as I stood in line with my milk and cereal listening to the accents surrounding me and observing the decor of this Wal-Mart in particular. Up on some sort of shelf above the bathrooms and the hair salon were some white washed, faceless mannequins portrayed camping in the great outdoors with a tent and maybe a fishing rod. But next to the mannequins was a larg black bear. I then noticed that the main faceless mannequin was missing an arm. It struck me as a rather odd advertisement for the city and camping in the mountains.

Despite the fabulous trip we experienced, I feel we didn't really get the full experience of the area because we didn't go to Dollywood. Granted, I had no desire to make a visit there, but it seemed almost expected of us as tourists. Everyplace we went the sentiments of the locals echoed the theme of "Did you go to Dollywood?", "'R' you going to the Dixie Stampede today?". We didn't go to any real shows, but that's not to say we weren't tempted. There was a magic show, a Ripley's Believe It or Not, and various country dinner shows with singers and dancers - much like I-Drive but with a greater southern emphasis. One show we saw advertised in a large tv type sign on the road was "The Miracle." As you might guess, it was story of Jesus as portrayed by these folks. Jim and I noted on the tv sign a women whom we believe was supposed to be Mary, but by her dress, had she actually lived in Jesus time, would've more likely been a harlequin. Well, maybe we'll convince ourselves of these little bits of entertainment the next time we come back, but I kind of doubt it. No, we'll be back, I'm sure of that, but we'll spend our time in the same fashion we did on this trip - playing in the mountains and eating at the Apple Barn. If you have any interest in visiting the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, I highly recommend it.

Reading Rules

2008-10-23T08:44:00.003-04:00

The following was a real conversation between little Jimmy and myself several days ago during the ride home from school:

Jimmy: Mrs. Thompson says 'no farting on the reading rug.'

Me: You're not allowed to fart on the reading rug? (trying to hide my shock and awe that this was actually a real conversation that occurred at school between the teacher and her students.)

Jimmy: Nope. Mrs. Thompson says she doesn't want to smell all of our stinky.

Me: Well what do you do if you have to fart?

Jimmy: We just go over to the bathroom if we have to fart.

Me: (maintaining a purely curious tone) So you go into the bathroom every time you have to fart?

Jimmy: No, you don't actually go in the bathroom; you just go over to the bathroom door.

Me: So you stand by the bathroom and fart.

Jimmy: You fart on the door. The door is dirty anyway - it already has germs on it, so it's OK to fart on it - right, Mommy?

Me: (unable to maintain my composure at this point) Yes, I'm sure the bathroom door has germs on it, so it'd be fine to fart on it.

Jimmy: It's not funny, Mommy! This is serious! We have to fart on the bathroom door.

Me: Oh, I completely understand. This is serious. I mean reading time on the reading rug could really become a stinky affair if everyone in the class was just sitting there farting. Yes, good idea to go fart on the bathroom door.

This conversation just killed me. I actually laughed until I cried. Just the fact that this conversation occurred and that the teacher had to lay down the law on where farting was and was not acceptable - obviously it had become an issue.

Flying with Kids

2008-10-21T09:47:00.006-04:00

Our trip to the Smoky Mountains was a wonderful family trip that was both fun and relaxing in every way, but there were a few hiccups along the way in the beginning with our flight. For example, our plane was initially an hour or so late arriving (no big deal), and then there was a two hour flight delay on the runway (a bit more annoying). The point at which it began to get rather stressful was when they pressurized the cabin before take off; that's when Kyla began screaming. She had tubes put in her ears at six months old, and one of them had already fallen out while the other one was clogged. I knew the possibility of there being problems existed (OK - a strong possibility), but I was naively hoping Tylenol and a bottle would do the trick. Unfortunately for me and her, the bottle was consumed in the three hours in which we should have been on and off the plane and driving in our rental car, but were still waiting in the wrong city - Orlando. Kyla continued her top notch screaming - which is truly deafening - until about 20 minutes before we landed. Can we just say the flight was incredibly stressful. It's hard enough for a parent to hear their child crying in agony, but that anguish was only further compounded by the surrounding passengers who were over her volume. I tried everything conceivable to console her or relieve her pain, but to no avail; and in between my efforts, I had the privilege of glancing around to see passengers physically plugging their ears with their fingers or glaring back at me (as though I could just tell her to be quiet and resolve this whole little disturbance for them), or even twitching somewhat violently as they tried to cope with the blaring distress my daughter was gracing the entire plane with. At one point, my husband and I switched seats (as he had previously been across the aisle from Jimmy and myself and Kyla) so he could take over with Kyla. It was in that moment that I stood, having just passed off my daughter, and observed the surrounding passengers for a moment; I did my best to convey the scolding mother look of "How dare you express such annoyance! You're not even the one having to deal with it!". I even stated to my husband in a clear and loud voice that "If anyone else on this plane feels like they can do a better job, more power to 'em! Pass 'em the baby!" I watched as the man whom I'd be moving next to discreetly removed his fingers from his ears, and another passenger who had been maniacally glancing back at us between violently stretching and scratching his head eased into a less aggressive posture. I felt bad for them (sort of); I mean, I wouldn't want to be on a plane with a child screaming the way mine was, but on the same note, I certainly wouldn't be perturbed with them; instead, I'd hope I'd feel a measure of compassion and a desire to be helpful - not accusing. Eventually the flight ended and we piled our sleeping children on top of each other into our waiting stroller. We then began the process known as baggage claim in the Atlanta airport. All of our bags were accounted for, but after an hour of waiting and searching, we were still missing a car seat. Finally, upon looking in the lost baggage section, we spotted our carseat and headed to get our rental car. I might add this was at 10:00 at night, and we still had a four hour drive ahead of us (don't even ask about why the flight was booked to Atlanta with a drive then to Gatlinberg - that's a whole nother long and boring story). Had our Delta flight taken off on time, it wouldn't have been so late. . Nevertheless, the issue with the two hour wait on the runway was supposedly weather related, so I guess I can't fault them too much on that (though it sure would've been nice to have waited in the airport instead of crammed in a plane). All that to say, the trip began pretty bumpy, but it did get much better from there.

Headache

2008-10-18T07:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday Jimmy informed me he had a headache. "Do you even know what a headache is?" I asked curiously as Jimmy had never expressed this particular complaint before. "YES!" he answered me exasperatedly. "It's when you're crabby and mad and don't want anyone to ask you anything." Wow. I guess Jimmy had a headache.

I'm a grown up!

2008-10-15T12:59:00.003-04:00

I've just had an experience, the second of it's kind in the last three days, and I'd like to publicly set the record straight. What exactly do I need to set straight? My age and maturity. I'm a grown and fully functioning woman. I've completed all four years of high school, and a year or so of college around 10 years ago. I've assisted with running a company bearing my own last name, and I've been married for 9 years (next week) with two children for whom I am responsible. Why then, is it so hard for some people to give me this simple credit of being a real life grown up.

For 20 of the last24 hours, I've had a full on migraine. Thus, after getting Kyla down for a nap, I showered (Hooray for me!) and went to bed with an ice pack on my head. Not long ago Kyla woke up, and I was forced to get up and begin preparing lunch. I hadn't bothered with any effort towards my appearance, and I guess it showed when the doorbell rang. Well, actually there was a friendly little overly peppy knock on the door followed up by the doorbell ringing twice (all this as I'm walking toward the door). I assumed it was the neighbor kids who had likely skipped school feigning an illness hoping to drop by for an icy pop - especially when I saw the individual cupping their hands around their eyes in order to peer through the glass on the side of the door. What I was horrified to come across as I got closer was that it was not the neighbor kids, but rather a young woman. "I don't have a key to this door, so you'll have to meet me around by the garage" I hollered to her (Jim has the key today for the sole purpose of making some duplicates). Assuming it was something related to the recent purchase of our home I went around to meet her, and that's when her abruptness hit me upside the head like a flying cow patty. "Are you the lady of the home?" she asked through squinted eyes and a rather demeaning tone. Refusing to up my anti and play her little game by suddenly acting really mature, I instead went the other direction with it. I paused for a moment looking at her squarely with a slight hint of annoyance and disgust seeping through my eyes. "Ya" I responded curtly. She then proceeded with her sales pitch for some new carpet cleaning company in town and attempted to sell me on having my brand new carpets cleaned so that her boss would help her pay for her college tuition. . . I was altogether too happy to end the conversation with a brief "No thanks" before heading inside. Did she really think I was some teeny-bopper home with my baby sister for the day?

The other situation, even more annoying than the one I just mentioned, occurred on Monday at the airport in Atlanta. We had managed to check our luggage after great confusion and struggle and were heading towards security following the signs and direction of all the airport staff. I was pushing Kyla in her stroller with several carry on items stuffed underneath her seat, and little Jimmy was skipping along with Jim nearby. When we reached the security checkpoint, an airport personnel woman barked out "Are you planning on taking that stroller on the plane?". "Yeeess. . " I answered slowly. "Well the check in for strollers is the other direction" she eagerly informed me; it was almost like she'd been waiting for someone to correct in her harsh little power-trip sort of tone. "It SURE would be nice if everyone around here had the same story because those people right over there told us to come here, and I didn't see any signs for strollers to go another direction" I replied in my best perturbed teacher's voice. "Young lady, you need to turn around and go the other way!" she yelled as I'd already begun walking away. Her ego trip was getting to be a bit much - especially after all I'd gone through just to get to this point - no thanks to the amazing demonstration of chaos and difficulty presented by the Atlanta Airport and Delta. "If ANYone else references me as a 'Young Lady' today, I will not hesitate to punch them. What do I look like? Am I sixteen or something??!" I commented to my husband rather loudly so that all the airport personnel in the area could hear - including her supervisor whom having observed the ensuing drama had proceeded to walk with us where we needed to go; he briefly reamed out the people who misdirected us, and I'm really hoping he gave that maniacal woman more than an earful once he returned.

Maybe it's not so much that people mistake me for being younger than I am as it is that there are just too many rude people in the world who take abnormal delight in looking down on others. Either way, it's annoying. I'm pondering placing a sign out front informing people that there are no teenagers in this house, and not to ring the doorbell OR knock more than once. As for random encounters with high and mighty persons, well, I guess there's not much I can do about that - except to make sure their supervisors know which subordinates of theirs are offending their client base.

The Apple Barn

2008-10-14T15:46:00.007-04:00

Last week we left for a brief vacation to the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. The trip was wonderful. I'd like to share bits and pieces of our experience over the course of a blog or two, and for today I'd like to focus all of my attention on a notable and infamous restaurant - The Apple Barn (more properly titled the Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant). Over the years, I've heard tell of the Apple Barn, tasted their apple butter, and even seen various food items of theirs sold in specialty stores. Last week we were just a scant 7 to 8 minutes from there, and were fortunate enough to get there twice for breakfast. Let me tell you, it was good! It very definitely lived up to my expectations (which were quite high) and even exceeded them. The atmosphere was relaxing and quaint, and the food was of the highest quality of the good old southern sort. Both times we visited, we actually sat at the same table in a room with a large bird cage housing a variety of small and unique birds (good entertainment).

We were definitely the most disruptive group in the place as we anticipated and then savored every morsel of our meal. While we all were quite fond of the food, Kyla seemed to truly relish her food - not only for the superb flavor, but also for the opportunity to concoct her own little science experiments at the table (apple butter, eggs, sausage, grits, bacon and orange). Every meal was begun with a cup of the restaurant's infamous apple julep and apple fritters. YU-MMY! (said like the old Sonny's commercials used to say it). While it was all extraordinary in every way, somehow I found myself and my daughter to be quite sticky by the end of each meal. My hands were sticky, my arms were sticky, my face was sticky, and even my neck was sticky. It seemed that anything I happened to touch would somehow be covered in the sugar and dough that was built into breakfast. Kyla, with her little science experiments and taste testing, and the disinterest for cleanliness and appearance typical of any baby, was far beyond sticky at the end of each meal. Really, she needed a bath in the sink, but we somehow managed to get her cleaned up with mere wet wipes.

I definitely plan to visit the Apple Barn the next time we're in the area, and I've already planned to request the tables with swings for seats to add a bit of a challenge to the meal!

The Continuation of 'Dirty'

2008-10-06T20:07:00.004-04:00

I've come to the conclusion that I'm quite comfortable in my newly acquired role of "dirty." When I say newly acquired, I mean within the last year or more. You see, prior to Kyla's birth I can recall getting a shower every day with complete consistency, but since then, things just haven't been the same. I remember in the several months following when she was born thinking to myself, "Well, this is just part of having a newborn and a preschooler." And then I remember thinking in the few months following that, "Well, as soon as my hair quits falling out (someday I'll blog on this one!), I'll have more frequent opportunity to rid myself of the stench of my own BO with which I've become altogether way too accustomed to." And then, when the 6 month post-birth date arrived(literally to the day, when my hair quit falling out) I remember thinking, "Now I can actually shower regularly," and I did -for a week or two. But eventually the desire for sleep overwhelmed me and I resorted back to my old ways of uncleanliness. This vicious addiction for sleep (at least 5 hours) coupled with an extraordinary busyness (sick children, running and selling a business, moving, the death of a loved one, and moving again) brings me to today. Dirty. . I'm just a dirty individual; I've made peace with it.

Unfortunately, my husband hasn't. The other day he commented to me quite politely that "maybe I should take a shower" and questioned when the last time was that I'd gotten one. I thought about it for a few minutes, and came to the conclusion that it had been at least THREE days! Now that is gross. . . Truly gross. But what's more gross than that is the fact that I didn't bother to shower that evening. No, I was too tired, so I snuggled into bed comfortably. When I awoke in the morning, after dropping off my son at school, I went to an hour long workout class followed up by a good bit of hard work in the yard in the noonday sun. That evening, when my husband got home, he again commented "maybe you should shower." By the time he said this, I was already in my PJs and in a state of near REM sleep as I crawled into bed. Surprisingly, I fell asleep in an extraordinarily unconcerned manner. However, when I awoke in the morning and was putting on my clothes and packing my gym bag, it was then that it dawned on me how long it had been since I'd showered. I put on extra deodarant hoping not to offend the other gym members, and packed a towel and soap and even a raisor (don't ask how long the lack of shaving had gone on) to shower at the gym. I never thought I'd consider a shower anywhere - home or abroad - so refreshing, but it was. Since then, I've vowed to shower at least every other day, and so far, I think I've kept up my promise to myself. I fully believe it'll take some hard work and a lot of focus to get back into the good hygiene routine, but I intend to give it a good go - at least for a few weeks.

Meeting the Neighbors

2008-09-25T20:39:00.003-04:00

I've come to realize over the years that I'm somewhat of a recluse - not a complete one, but somewhat of one. Maybe a better way of saying this is that I like my space and my privacy. I'm fine with meaningless chit chat per say in line at the grocery store or library, but when it comes to acquainting myself with people whom I may be forced to have continued dealings with, well, that's where things get tricky. I met the woman who lived in the house (from which we just moved) next to us, actually the day that we began moving. She seemed interested in saying hello and being neighborly after we'd been there eight months already and had shared no more than a wave here and there, but as for me, I felt no need to begin this late in the game. I halfway wanted to just let her know there was really never going to be any great benefit in her conversing with me as we were leaving that very day, but I kept my thoughts to myself and tried my best to amiable.
We've now been in our new home for almost two weeks, and I have been fortunate enough to have already met our two nearest neighbors. Unfortunately, both meetings were somewhat awkward and embarrassing. The first one was yesterday. I was minding my own business and relishing the quiet solitude while Kyla was napping when the doorbell rang. . twice. . and then again. . and then a couple more times. All the while, I was running around trying to find the key to unlock the front door (yes, that's right. . there's no nob, you actually have to have the key to unlock the door. . don't ask me. . .). The doorbell continued ringing intermittently about every three to four seconds. Eventually I just went to the front door and shouted through the glass, "Hang on. I'm trying to find the key to open the door." With all the pressure surrounding the neurotic doorbell ringing I wasn't able to think clearly to find the key, and thus I resigned myself to opening the garage door and then walking around to the front door. As I rounded the corner, trying to imagine what in the world could create such a crisis that the man had to go AWOL on my doorbell, I also felt strangely self-conscious . . I mean, I wasn't expecting visitors and was lounging around in old dirty clothes with my hair frumpily clipped. . No make-up. . Heck, I hadn't even looked in the mirror in about 5 hours. . Not good. . "Helllloooo. . " I called out to the white haired man oblivious to the fact that I was now standing behind him. "Oh, Hi. . I'm Gary, your neighbor. . I didn't know if anyone was home or not, but your dog seems to keep getting out. I've already put him back in your yard twice, but somehow he's already out again." I tried to be overly kind to sort of make up for my lazy and somewhat grotesque appearance. Really it was nice of him to have put our dog back twice already, it just wasn't a good time for me to attempt to present myself as normal.
My second neighbor encounter which happened with the neighbor across the street also took me by surprise - well this was really more of sneak attack in my opinion. Moving has brought on some serious fatigue, which seems to just grow more with each day - and with that growing fatigue is a growing underlying crabbiness. I had put Kyla down for her nap and decided I'd try to weed one of the beds out front. The dog had been on the porch all morning (due to the fact that we can't let him out until we find where he's getting through the fence), so I decided I'd bring a rope with a leash (for extra room to run and play) and tie him under a tree up front so he could enjoy some of my delightful company while I worked in the front yard. Sadly, my efforts at being a friend to my dog were deemed a complete failure by him . . He didn't want to be tied; he wanted to run crazy all through the front yard and the road and the neighbors' yards, and because I wouldn't let him, he commenced letting me and the whole community know how terribly he'd been wronged. I tried to appease him with a toy or talking to him, but alas, it just wasn't good enough. The barking and whimpering began getting to me. I talked sternly to him and raised my voice, but to no avail. After about ten minutes or so of Bear's annoying banter something snapped in me. "BEAR!!!" I hollered at him loud enough to get even his attention. I have to say that I was surprised at my own volume; I could here my outburst echoing throughout the neighborhood. I carefully glanced around hoping no one had heard me, and that's when the fellow across the street (who up until this point went wholly unnoticed by me) called out a "Good morning!". I was mortified. "Good morning!" I called back in a tone that was far to chipper to even be mine after having just bellowed at my dog. Silence. "I'm gonna kill my dog" I laughed cheerily. Silence. I weeded for another minute or two, and then went inside and took the dog to the porch.
Nothing like becoming familiar with the neighbors. I have to say, as an improvement from our previous home, they all seem pretty normal. I on the other hand portray rather oddly.

~Cuddleh Kitteh~

2008-09-24T18:19:00.003-04:00

Motivating Campaign Line

2008-09-19T12:06:00.011-04:00

Today while emailing and discussing with a very dear friend of mine her issue with not feeling inspired to feign a state of bliss every day for her office coworkers even if she's feeling rather poopy, a fabulous campaign quote emerged. It seems my friend's peers would rather her put on a display of continual perkiness even when life is rough and she's not really happy about it. While emailing over this subject with her, another friend in on the emailing threw this classic comment out:

"So you're expected to be the sunshine that breaks through the cloud of crap over their heads."

Allow me to just state this is probably one of the best comments of all times, and I plan to attempt to use it as frequently as possible. Further, I feel it best to get word of this comment out so that the presidential hopefuls can begin incorporating it into their speeches. I can quite easily hear both Obama and McCain using this line to persuade the general populace of their beliefs.

Obama: We're not going to be the rays sunshine breaking through the cloud of crap over the heads of the warring countries of the world.

McCain: The government's role is not to be the sunshine breaking through the cloud of economic crap hanging over this nation's head.

I'm hoping to get some sort of compensation for the publicizing of this awesome campaigning rhetoric.

Neti Pot Demonstration

2008-09-08T14:17:00.005-04:00

As we all know, Little Jimmy is prone to sickness. Since having his adenoids out and tubes in his ears last May, he has not had a single infection. But then, he has also been out of the day-in-day- out exposure to germs via the classroom. By the end of his first week at school, he had a full blown infection. I took him to the doctor and was informed, as anticipated, that it was a sinus infection. She gave a prescription for an antibiotic, and recommended using a Neti Pot if at all possible. Given our previous and prolonged experience with sinus infections, we were fairly comfortable with the whole Neti Pot thing. Now if you've never seen one used before, let me tell you it is both comical and gross. Here's how it works: fill up a tiny teapot (specially designed for this purpose) with warm water and a saline solution; place the spout of the teapot in one nostril (while standing near sink), lean forward and tilt head slightly in the opposite direction and begin pouring. The water should eventually pour out the other nostril thus "rinsing" the sinus cavity behind the nose. Yes, it's complex and graphic, but little Jimmy is really quite the pro at it. In fact, he's so good at it that he approached me yesterday with his Elmo doll and a My Little Pony teapot which was being used on Elmo as a Neti Pot. I figure this might be a rather abnormal scene which many parents would not be too familiar with, so I snapped this picture to capture the moment. . . Only in our household.

The Weather Channel

2008-09-07T08:56:00.006-04:00

I thought about Jim and I recreating this exact scenario from our own footage, but I figure these people do such a great job, why not just share this link:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid823425597/bclid877032950/bctid1773087728
Awesome. . It just doesn't get any more real than this, folks! Please do note the couple casually strolling past at the end of the video after all their clips of other violent storms (which in no way relate to the storms weathered in the US this year).

***NOTE: Clearly TWC does not want this video viewed too often because it won't allow me to directly link to it, however, click on the above link, then select the video to the right entitled: "Is Cantore Ever Scared in Hurricanes?" You will NOT be disappointed!

Savoring Nutella

2008-09-04T15:16:00.002-04:00

Yes, I enjoy Nutella, but never before have I actually observed another human being so fully absorbed in savoring this creamy treat.

Permits for Parenting, Please!

2008-09-03T11:39:00.006-04:00

Throughout the course of the last week of school, I've noted some rather disturbing displays of parenting gone awry. I'll cut right to the chase: some parents are making things more difficult for their children. Now I know for a fact that I'm really not one to be talking about other parents being bad examples, but this goes a little bit beyond the standard curse word slippage or disinterested parenting that does on occasion occur. No, what I've observed from a handful of parents amongst the many is more atrocious than these.

Several children have been spotted sporting what I might consider to be rather loud hair-dos. These dos entail mohawks and/or odd coloring. Keep in mind that this is in the lower elementary school grades (kindergarten through third grade). My first reaction is to observe the child; most are just innocent little kids behaving as such. What strikes me as strange is why the *parents* opt to send their children to school in this fashion. It's a different idea which might be fun to try out in the summer, but in school it's simply loud and defiant. The county school rules for appropriate dress clearly state: "Any extreme in hair or appearance that may disrupt the normal operation of school will not be acceptable." While I fully believe in people expressing themselves as they desire regarding their appearance, it just does not seem plausible to me that children this young could actually concoct in their little minds a means of this sort to test the limits of the school. No, clearly this is the parents' doing. Clearly the parents take issue with the school, the rules, or authority in general. My point is this: parents shouldn't wage their battles vicariously through their children. Life is hard enough; these kids truly do not need the added stress of being a banner for their parent's sense of style or refusal to comply with basic rules.

Also observed recently with annoyance was the parents themselves. Why exactly is it that fathers are dropping off their children at school while dressed as *gangstas*. Seriously, folks! Put all your black, baggy, chain-laden clothing with sideways hats away. Again, it's fine to express yourself, but do you really need to make such a strong statement while dropping off your kindergartener at 7:30AM? What sort of message do these people think their children need to hear, and what sort of message exactly is it that they are choosing to convey. Kids need to hear and feel (I know this is a huge generalization, but bear with me) that they are loved and protected and cared for. They do not need to be focused or dwelling upon their parent's persona as they embark upon their day of learning. Really, for these parents, it appears to be *all about them*. It's not about what's best for their kids; it's about what makes them feel good.

And speaking of feeling good, one mother today was observed having just dropped off her child at school who appeared to be on cocaine. I'm not a drug user or a cop, so I can't be certain of it (it's possible this could be the result of diet pills or some other type of upper), but the woman was notably keyed up and almost spastic looking as she walked back to the parking lot. I for one know how hard it is to get out of bed early in the morning having had very limited sleep, but is it really necessary to begin the usage of drugs so early in the morning? Couldn't we just stick with coffee for the sake of our kids? Again, it's clear that it's not about the kids; it's all about the parents - the world revolves around them.

I should make clear that these observations were made in just a few of the parents with the rest of the parents behaving in a more accepted fashion, but the fact that I'm even observing these things is repulsive. I know that many parents weren't necessarily planning on becoming parents, and I respect and appreciate the decisions they've made to endeavor in the child rearing process. But what I want to draw attention to is that at some point, it'd be good for these children if their parents could focus a little more upon them and less upon themselves.

Moving. . . Again.

2008-09-02T15:21:00.003-04:00

After a brief eight months in our current residence we're moving again next week. Obviously this was not our game plan, but it seems with the current housing market a lot of people are being surprised. The house we are currently in was one we were renting with the intent to purchase once our other home sold. We dropped a rather massive chunk of change as a guarantee of purchase and signed our names in blood agreeing to pay a set figure for this place. Last month, we were preparing to close on this house when we had the home appraisal done as required by the mortgage company. Much to our surprise, the house was almost $30,000 less than what we had agreed to pay when we began renting. Apparently, that's just how much the housing market in our area has gone down over the course of eight months. As we had no intention of purchasing a home which we'd instantaneously be upside down in, we began casually checking out other homes for sale just to see what we might come across. Although we'd lose the money we put down initially, it was feasible that we'd come out ahead anyway if we found a really good deal. None of the houses listed on the market were doable, but there was one home a few blocks up the road (which the pilot for Jim's boss owned) that had previously been for sale which we liked. Jim spoke with the pilot and they were willing to give us a deal as they no longer had a realtor fee to pay. . which brings us to today.

There are boxes everywhere. And not a single one of those boxes has been packed by me. . Normally I'm the type who'd be on it and have everthing taken care of lickety split. I've done the vast majority of the packing with previous moves, but this one is different. Quite simply cannot bring myself to pack. Never in my life have I felt such indifference and lack of motivation. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to being in the other house; I just don't want to pack. . . And given that the home is in our same neighborhood and three scant blocks up the road, it seems like moving really isn't a big deal. . Cognitively I know that if I don't plan for this move like any other, it'll drag on forever, but in all reality, it just doesn't seem like a big deal.

So, we shall see; next week will be the true test of my husband's packing ability. Will he have packed quickly enough? Will he have packed carefully? Will he have packed smart? All will be clearly visible for the world to see next week. So until then, I'll lethargically continue observing the boxes and my decorless home in apathy.

Reasonable Road Rules

2008-08-29T13:17:00.006-04:00

All week while traversing the roads of Ocala during the morning and afternoon school rush hours, I've noticed an annoying trend among drivers: speeding and tailgating. Speeding is an easy offense to commit, but lately with gas prices I find myself really watching the speedometer and the average miles per gallon computation. As for tailgating, I have personally never felt any vast measure of satisfaction in driving so closely to the bumper in front of my own that a wreck is inevitable simply to convey the message of "Your too slow!". No, where another might tailgate, I just wait - wait for an opportunity to pass, and when that opportunity does arise the pass is completed without any rude gestures or profanities. Seemingly, I'm in the minority here.
A couple days ago while driving the speed limit, it seemed that I royally offended another driver. I came to this conclusion as I heard an engine rev and vehicle fly past with driver hanging out the window screaming some sort of profanity and sticking their tongue out followed by the primary hand gesture of choice on the road. Obviously, the speed limit signs were wrong and we should all be going ten or more miles over the speed limit.
Yesterday, after dropping my son off at school, I took the opportunity to explore this new area in search of a playground. Though I was going at least five to ten over the speed limit, I was fraught with tailgaters. Finally, I turned off onto a promising road in my quest for a park; there I slowed down to a more sensible speed, and observing a school, proceeded to slow down even more. Unfortunately, the pressure to not offend the drivers behind me persisted and I found myself pulled over for going six miles over the speed limit in a school zone. Fortunately, the officer only gave a warning, but little did he know how far that warning would go. If other drivers didn't like my *slow* driving before, now I was really going to be cautious of speed limit signs - particularly in school zones.
Which brings me to today. Today I had the privilege of putting into practice my newfound respect for speed limits. While traveling a rather lengthy two lane road, I followed the law - not wanting to get a ticket and uncertain of where the favorite police sitting spots are. Unfortunately, the driver behind me (who happened to be male) was sorely disapproving of my decision to obey the rules of the road. He commenced tailgating for an extensive period, and eventually passed me. No big deal, but I did wonder why he bothered - there was a large group of cars not far in front of me, so clearly he wasn't going anywhere even though he passed me. I continued going the assigned speed and observed this neurotic driver tailgating the cloister of cars now in front of him. Eventually the road widened to four lanes. Slowing down while going through a school zone, and not long thereafter I found myself at a stoplight. Much to my delight, guess who was right beside me? Yes, the same vehicle: an old white Chevy with a 30ish year old good ol' boy type. I turned politely towards him and made sure I had full eye contact before smiling smugly. . No, no commentary or gestures were needed. He surely felt like an ass and looked like one too. This fellow's driving is far too common - particularly among males. Really, it demonstrates their innate handicap in being testosterone driven (literally). It just goes to show that using a little brain power coupled with some impulse control will take you a lot farther than all the show of power and ego in the world. I plan to continue teaching the greater Ocala region the satisfaction that comes with following the rules of the road - one driver at a time.

Engineering Kindergartener

2008-08-28T16:59:00.005-04:00

Since infancy it has been hard to overlook my son's similarity to my own father. For starters even as a newborn preemie he had the very distinct look of my dad (yes, he looked like a baby knowledgeable beyond his years). He was never the sort of infant whom I would believe really enjoyed being one, but rather he seemed to be waiting at each phase of development to be able to do more - to grow up and figure this world out. Over the years the similarities have abounded, not the least of which is his interest in the way things work (as a child I remember noting one of my Dad's favorite items of house decor, a prominently placed coffee table book by the same title) - AKA: engineering of any sort.
While Jimmy's interest in the interior-most workings of electronic items will likely serve him extremely well as an adult, for now it's driving me mad. I can't seem to apply any measure of reason, force or threat to convince him to quit taking apart nearly every electronic item he can get his hands on when I happen to have my back turned for more than five consecutive minutes. It has happened on more than one occasion that his newest and most favorite toy has been de-gutted; I usually find the remains of electrical wires, screws and little electrical boards (I don't even know what they're called) tucked away under his bed (where I might also find the wrappers of some candy items he was not supposed to have) several days after the destruction has taken place.
For his first day of kindergarten, the students were each instructed to bring in three items which were very important to them. One of Jimmy's three items was an electrical board with some little wires etc. hanging out - I don't even know what this piece belongs to, but I suspect I'll find out sooner or later. So until Jimmy reaches an age whereby he can really use a soldering iron and accurately place wires and liquid metal to create something functional, I plan to try and just pull together some of these items for him to *play* with.

2 Days of Big Kid School

2008-08-26T16:51:00.005-04:00

My son attended his first day of kindergarten yesterday. I cannot believe we're to the point in life where we're saying goodbye to our boy for a full day in order for him to begin his education. His teacher seems perfect - that special balance between firm and fun. So far all seems to be going well, but you probably wouldn't know it from Jimmy's commentary. Here are some little glimpses of his life from school which he's shared with me:
-We did music and dancing, and I thought it was STUPID because I don't like that.
-A little boy told me he wouldn't be my friend if I laughed at him again, and I thought that was STUPID and petty.
-I couldn't open my drink at lunch, and that was STUPID.
-I made 2 girlfriends and 1 boyfriend.
-A boy was pulling on my backpack, and that was STUPID.
-I found a rubber band and showed it to a little girl; she didn't say anything and that was STUPID.
-There's a girl in my class with the same name as my sister's, and that's STUPID! I just want to vacuum her up!
-I couldn't reach this thing on the playground jungle gym, and that's STUPID.

I've tried to get some more positive feedback out of him, but for the most part, everything that I ask about is, you guessed it, *stupid*. I've gathered from the fact of his teacher still being on speaking terms with me today that things have been going alright. Still, I think I'll pursue this hunch and send a note to confirm belief that things may in fact still be on the up and up.