Stalker!!

ok.. maybe STALKER is a little too strong of a word.... but I do love a strong beginning.





so let's see... if not stalking.. then.. voyeurism? what exactly would you label observing someone in a publicly accessible area when they might not be aware of you observing them? lurking?





anyways.. once again, troy was working last night. he came home so we could go to the lumber store to view the samples of composite woods, as well as the three main brands of composites... (which, btw... when your husband coming home early means he comes in at 6pm.. you MIGHT want to check to see if the lumber store is even OPEN at that time first by calling ahead, versus going all the way there to see it dark and locked up.)



ok. so whatever. get home after an unsuccessful mission, then troy goes back to work. well.. the other job. ANYWAYS.



so since every now and then I hold a soft spot for the workhorse.. I promise not to watch our common favorite shows until he's home and we can watch them together. so SINCE I couldn't watch American Idol (no spoilers, please... I still haven't watched it) I figured what the heck.. might as well play call of duty.



so I did, and during one session, I got grouped into a particular group of people. one happened to be a girl. now.. if you're at ALL familiar with these online shoot-em-up games... you'll know MOST players are either teenage boys or tech nerds like my husband. so imagine the testosterone a'flyin when these boys realized it was a GIRL playing.



OH the flirting that was happening... I nearly laughed out loud. well, I SUPPOSE it was flirting. the girl was all "oh, HOORAY!! I shot someone! hee hee hee" and "oh no no no!! not fair! I'm re-loading! you can't shoot me! no fair! hee hee hee"



EVERYTHING this girl said ended in some form of giggle or cheer. on ONE hand, it made me want to stab my ears with pencils... but on the other.. I couldn't stop listening to the 'show'.





about three 'games' later.. one of the guys asked her how old she was. 20 was her response... though I'm betting she was probably younger. cause if she was really 20, she would have lied and said she was 21. I remember. I used to be that age once, too.



anyways.... when you play those kind of games.. you see trends. most of the time, you get one or two talkers... but EVERY TIME a girl is playing.. the guys come out of the woodwork, and the guys stay on for the longest time.



I SORT of felt guilty for listening the whole time, but hey.. they were in a public place... what they choose to say is fair game for listening, right? of course, I had a good time snickering at how immature the whole scenerio was... and had fun telling troy all about it. He asked me if I piped up and said anything... so of course I said no. I was worried that if they knew I was listening that they might change what they were talking about, and I was having a good time just watching the show.



not sure exactly what I was hoping for. a juicy morsel? scandal? that's doubtful in last night's case... but I know I've been guilty of gawking before in many other situations. I'm going to try to work on that during Lent this year.



of COURSE it'll be much easier to stop lurking once the writers' strike gets settled. DAMN I miss my shows.





speaking of shows.. SO HAPPY that Lost is back on tonight. oh, but troy will be working late again, so I'll have to wait another night for lost. sigh.





that's it. I'm gonna start putting chick ficks in my netflix queu.



(ps.. pardon the spelling errors. spell check is not working, and I don't feel like going back to edit.)

Locked out!

so this morning is interesting... I logged into our online banking this morning, and when I went to our 'bill-pay' feature (I like to see what bills have been sent out, what ones are dues, and which ones are still being processed... gives me an idea of how much money is really in the account, versus the number I see as the balance...)


anyways.. even though I could log into my account, I couldn't access my bill-pay features. damnit.

so then I hopped over to one of the two credit cards we keep.. same thing there... wouldn't let me access the account. hmph.


I suppose that's not exactly blog-worthy.. but hey. I'm trying to get back into blogging again.


in other news.... I've had a run of crazy dreams again lately. very tense ones at that. the other day I was dreaming that the entire family on my mom's side was trapped in the basement of our house (pre-fire days) waiting on a hurricane or tornado to hit. Even some people from my high school were there.. which is strange, cause I only talk to about 3 people from high school still. anyways.. I distinctly remember having rhena sitting next to me, and me stressing the fuck out internally about the impending doom heading our way, but trying to stay lighthearted and calm around rhena so SHE wouldn't worry. bleh. I woke up wondering how mothers (or fathers for that matter) tend to their children during natural disasters. bleh again. I was very tense when I woke up.


another dream was that I was living in the world of Call of Duty 4. and I was truly running around like I do when *I* play the game. which, btw.. is quite the scene to watch, cause I spin around and bump into walls more than I actually shoot people. once again I woke up tense and exhausted.

there have been little flashes of dreams here and there in addition to the big ones, but again.. very tense themes. I think it's because of this damn diet. I'm so freaking hungry all the time so I go to bed tense. maybe? or maybe I'm just tense in general? uh.. probably.

I WILL say for the record, though, that when troy called from his real job (not the part-time job) saying that he would be working late once again.. he came home around 7:30pm. which is actually EARLY in the grand scheme, being that he normally has been coming home around 11pm or midnight.. but since it was just one shift at the real job.. well then I guess it was late.. but I digress... besides.. I'm confusing myself.

ANYWAYS.. we said screw it and ordered pizza. crispy, greasy.. bad-for-my-ass PIZZA. it was delightful.


and you know something??? I had no bad dreams last night. a little heartburn... but no bad dreams.

End of an Era

so today... I officially quit bunco.



I have a LOT of reasons why.. one of course being that someone threw up all over my house... but that for sure is not the only reason.


I suppose that's perfectly natural considering I went to bunco for all of about MAYBE three times in 2007? despite having a set date once a month.. I just was NOT able to get it together most months. either the kids had issues or troy was working, or we were out of town...


the biggest reason I think is the guilt. NOT GOING month after month has started to bother me. I mean.. for no lack of planning, like I said.. I just couldn't make it most months. this would leave me pissy, frustrated, short-changed.. you name it. month after month.


so I decided to stop kidding myself, and remove my tendency to get my hopes up and inevitably get disappointed each month. which is all a bunch of bullshit mind games to myself.. cause deep down I know I quit cause I have to keep putting my family's schedule and needs above my own... but on the surface I guess I at least feel like I was able to make the decision to quit. like some reverse-psychology empowerment or some shit.


oh well. bunco nights come and go. having a happy and harmonious family takes work and maintenance... and I feel (at least I'm hoping on this premise) that with enough investment now... I shall reap the rewards of free time in the future.

(yeah.. like when the kids are old and grown and doing their own thing and I have no friends or sense of self to do anything with?? I'll have PLENTY of free time then, right?? crickets chirp.)

ok. sarcasm aside.. I feel ok about this decision. I mean.. I don't get much time with my husband... and family time (meaning the four of us) is even rarer... so do I REALLY want to whittle away the few occasions a month that troy IS HOME on a night in some one's house surrounded by a bunch of women that I haven't seen in months? on the effort-out-reward-in scale... I'm just not feeling the balance there too much .

and once again.. I see I'm using words like balance again. can you TELL I haven't found it yet???


oh well. for now.. I'm cool with dropping out of bunco. I seriously doubt I'll see the women involved any more or any less now than before... and if the action of quitting takes away just one more thing that I stress about.. well, then I guess that's a good thing, Martha.

I'm a loser, baby

yeah... lost the weekly weigh-in to troy this week. bastard was down THREE POUNDS!!! seriously!


I was down point-6 pounds.. so not BAD.. but clearly not good enough. I owe the man another back-rub.


though I have to say... I should have planned this weekly betting thing a little better. not ONLY am I raring with PMS (can you saying walking BLOAT??) but I ALSO haven't crapped since friday. so pretty much once a month I screwed with the weight.


I can only hope that by next week (and a few good dumps) I will be bloat free and down a bit more than I was this week.

other than that.. same ole same ole. I'm hungry... and now with the added bonus of hormones. and constipation. good times!!!

unleashed

so lately, I feel like I've been exposed to.. in some fashion or another... questionable parenting techniques.


today was a doozie, and I SWORE I was just going to walk away... not say anything. "let it go, let it go...." I told myself.


I went upstairs and folded some laundry. but that got me fired up even MORE, cause I was folding the kids' clothes... so that just made me stew.


so as you may or may not know.. a few weeks ago, I took a parenting survey. sick.. unsettled.. the whole deal. you can read back.. it's only a few posts ago. so TODAY.. I'm reading online about a friend who has a friend who is smoking. while pregnant.


ok... I see isolated cases of stupidity like ALL the time.. most of the cases from myself, as chance would have it.. cause well.. I'm around myself the most. but the smoker apparently admitted to knowing that smoking while pregnant is bad... but JUSTIFIED it by saying that HER mother smoked while she was pregnant with HER, and since SHE turned out ok, that she's going to smoke, too.

right... because APPARENTLY the nicotine exposure she had in her life has had no effect on her cognitive reasoning ability... and since she herself is now not addicted or anything.. she's just CHOOSING to expose her unborn child to nicotine. cause you know.. she's fine and everything.

or you know.. spanking. "my parents spanked ME, and *I* turned out ok!!" Cause I guess bullying, hitting or otherwise ABUSING a CHILD 20-30 years younger than you is considered 'ok' behavior.

I find a cases like these behaviors for someone in my age group to be as equally appalling as racism. I mean SERIOUSLY. That old adage "well it worked for my parents, and *I* turned out ok" is shameful. I mean, UNLESS your parent is like 3 or 5 years older than you... I do not see how ANYONE in my generation could subscribe to that line of thinking.

in 'my parents' day"... yes... they drank a few beers while driving. we as children sat on laps.. or in the back-back with no seat belts. wooden spoons and belts and waiting for fathers coming home were feared. people smoked. indoors. drugs were done and unprotected sex was had. and hey.. we came out ok. right?

but that was then and this is now. I'm not saying that what my folks did or didn't do was right or wrong. what I AM saying is that we're playing a different ballgame now. in the last thirty years... information has become available. research has been done. medical documentation has PROVEN the effects on a fetus of smoking, drinking and/or doing drugs while pregnant. We also have learned that SHAKING a baby to quiet it while screaming can cause brain damage.

I mean.. I'm no doctor.. but some of this shit is SO BASIC and considered common knowledge now that I can't understand how people can say ... "yeah, well.. I'll take my chances".

For whatever parenting techniques my parents might have employed that I do or do not agree with... I do so because I'm making my choices based on the information available to me... as in right here and now. just like they did thirty years ago. (ok.. thirty PLUS years ago) I do not in any way fault my parents for anything they may have done "wrong' by today's standards. They did the best they could based on the knowledge, resources, and history available to them at the time. SHIT.. there's things that I do differently with Danny because shit changed over the 2 years that passed between his and rhena's birth.

Were my parents WRONG for pulling a britney and having me on their lap while they drove to get their cheetos fix at a local store? NO. they didn't even HAVE car seats back then. SO why was the media so agog at Brit-Brit's choice to go without the car seat? I mean.. hey.. SHE turned out ok, right?


And listen.. I know my argument of things working for parents etc doesn't hold up in ALL categories. I feel that my parents did A SHITLOAD of things right... and many many many are behaviors I chose to expose my children to. But being a sensible adult now.. being a parent myself now.. I feel it is my DUTY... for the sake of the innocent humans I brought into this world.. to make the best decisions based on information available to me... and not just press play and repeat.

gettin busy

hah! bet you thought this post is/was/will be about sex. NOPE.


seriously.. troy's been working all week at his real and part-time-he-swears-it's-just-for-fun job. please, like CODING is fun. blah.



anyways.. gotta see the man to do the deed, and that, I'm afraid, just isn't happening. Troy has been busy.


as for me.. well, you know.. doing the whole eat bon bons and pretend I do housework thing. sheee-yeah RIGHT? fuckin A, I've been busy, too.


finally got the tree down, boxed up, and away. floors mopped. carpets vacuumed, things dusted. sofas spot-treated. kids fed... like all the time cause apparently even when you feed them they keep getting hungry again.

there's been multiple trips to the library, cause dude.. doing the single mom thing all day every day is just NO FUN when you don't leave the house.

did some decorating (hey.. if troy's going to be gone making all this extra money.. I might as well spend it for him, right?) not anything major, but a few key pieces here and there. a mirror, a lamp, a wall decor thing.. you know. make the house lived in. which is ironic, cause troy's never here, and here I am spending money on decorative things to make us look settled, and all I do all damn day is pick up the toys and laundry and do dishes so it doesn't look like we actually LIVE here. issues.

speaking of issues. we're expecting snow. again. here. in the south. WTF, people??? we had our 1/4 inch STORM OF THE YEAR on thursday.. that's it. we should be good now until next year, but nooooooo... now we're supposed to get more.


grumble grumble grumble.

oh well.. I'll just bundle the kids up like the little brother from christmas story and let 'em roll around for a little. maybe the cold air will make them sleep. but I'm not getting my hopes up.


anyways.. that's it. not a lot of anything, I suppose. just busy. and I was getting tired of looking at that last post.

ok, then.

Win some, lose one

bleh. I knew this would happen. Troy whooped my ass this week in our diet challenge.


He lost 3.8 pounds this past week, and I only lost one. I SHOULD be happy, considering I ate at wendy's on friday (junior bacon cheeseburger AND french fries... I about died from the delight of it all) AND I have yet to go to the gym.... and hey.. one pound is one pound!

but still. I hate losing. losing in a competition, that is.. not losing weight. we've already established that I like to do that.


The prize this week is that the winner receives a half-hour, full-attention (meaning no tv, no excuses) massage from the loser. bleh. I HATE giving massages. I have weak hands or something (read I'm lazy) but man.. I just lose interest in the giving after like... 2 minutes.


oh well. fair and square.. I'll pay up. my total loss is up to 6.2 pounds. not bad for 2 weeks in.



in other news.. I participated in a north carolina university survey yesterday. it was based on parenting techniques/discipline behaviors. there were a lot of questions that established environment.. such as race, income, neighborhood, and marital status as well as primary child care situations.


after all that was established, they asked my and troy's habits in terms of interaction with Danny. they stated that their line of questioning comes from statistical findings of discipline methods from around the country as well as around the world. so yeah, yeah.. I started answering. the questions started off easy enough... how often do I praise Moosey, cuddle with him, read a book to him. then they got into the negative disciplines... asked how often I or my husband hit danny with an object such as a belt, spoon, or hairbrush on his buttocks.


This question didn't strike me as too alarming, as I know there are people (some of which I consider friends) that consider 'spanking' as an effective method of discipline for their children. This is NOT a method that Troy and I believe in or will ever be convinced to employ for our children for SO MANY reasons that I shall not list here... as that is not my topic. not that I've ever been afraid to go off topic or say something that might piss other people off... I just want to get back to the survey.


anyways.. I was easily able to answer the questions seeking to know that troy and/or I have never smacked, swatted or otherwise hit our children with any object or with our bare hands on their buttocks, back, head or other part of their bodies. Then the questions went further. have we ever pinched our children? intentionally put spicy food in their mouth as a form of punishment? called them names like stupid or useless? threatened to leave and never come back? locked them out of the house? scream or curse at the child? shake to stop crying? scald, brand, or otherwise burn?


at this point in the survey, I could not contain my emotions. the 'focus group' of the survey were children UNDER the age of two. answering these questions and watching Moosey play in front of me made me want to throw up. do people REALLY do that? to BABIES???


overall, the survey made me sick and unsettled. are we as a society THAT uneducated and barbaric?

again.. it made me sick and unsettled. and perhaps there's no point to my writing this other than to get it out of my system. I know where I stand in terms of what I feel is acceptable methods of discipline for my children, and I will do my best to always rise above the symptoms of the situation so that my children can learn to do the same in THEIR future without resorting to violence. my only question is that I wonder if that's going to be enough.


note - If you want to comment, I encourage you to keep in mind the following. First and foremost... this is NOT about you. If YOU do or don't beat, curse at, swat or otherwise hit your children in the past, present or intend to do so in the future... that's your business. Frankly, I don't WANT to know. I just wanted to share my personal experience and reactions to something that happened yesterday. and to let it go.


at the end of the day, I found myself able to love my children even MORE. My resolve to be a positive influence on my children was re-established and recharged. and while I know that's no sure-fire guarantee that my kids will turn out to be GOOD people when and as they grow up, it's still what's going to work for me and troy.

Sunshine in the rain

today, I was in line for the drive through at dunkin donuts, and a woman TOTALLY cut me off. hard to explain the actual logistics, but when I looked up from clipping coupons to give her a quizzical look (read "did you just cut me off, bitch?) she realized she made a mistake.


and it was an innocent mistake.. on account she wasn't paying attention. but either way.. now she was ahead of me in the drive-through lane. she did some frantic arm waving (read "oh my god I'm so sorry, I'm a total dumbass") and I smiled from my car and waved her ok.


turns out she gave the cashier $2 to put towards my order to apologize for cutting me off.

who says the sun can't shine when it's raining?

getting there

DAMN I can just not seem to get myself organized this year.


I fear that with each passing year it's going to take me longer and longer to recover from 4th quarter.. and soon I'm just going to say fuck it all and leave the christmas tree up all year.

like I did in seattle.


sigh.


of COURSE I would be much more inclined to DO SOMETHING if I wasn't so damn distracted being HUNGRY all the live-long day. yes.. I started up weight watchers again. it's so embarrassing... I lost all that weight.. was down to a happy place in the 120's... then I stopped nursing, kept eating, and wham-bam-thank-you-fat m'aam, I'm back up in the 130's.

the GOOD news is that I've enlisted Troy to join WW, too. hey.. misery loves company, right? but the bastard that he is.. gets like 300 points a day, to my measly 23. oh well... I will survive.


in fact, one week down already. I think I was too busy bitching about how hungry I was to keep track of time, but sure enough.. one week has passed. happily, I did lose 5.2 pounds... but alas.. my period is also gone, so I'm thinking some of that weight was for sure due to Aunt Flo. no matter.. that's an encouraging start.. and compared to Troy's 5.8 pounds lost... I maintain the higher percentage of weight lost for the week, and he... must clean all the bathrooms this weekend.

ain't love grand?


oh well. back to the grind. cause posting to a blog sure isn't helping to get the decorations put away.

Bragging or shame?

so as a "Christmas" present.. troy and I got my mom 2 tickets to see Wicked when it's playing here in Charlotte. Given the fact that my dad is hard of hearing, and Troy's really not all that in to musicals... we're (or at least I am) banking on that my mom will bring me with the other ticket. :)


ok.. so pretty much I told her out right that she and I are going, but fact remains that she holds both tickets. I need to keep my ass in check for the next 4 months if I want to go.. otherwise she may learn how to sell them on ebay in her free time. or worse.. bring someone else.


anyway.. my point is that I am working on reading the book for which the musical was based on. I don't get to read that often.. but in a 5 minute break here and there, I'm knocking it out a page at a time.


so I was sitting on the toilet the other day and looked down at the book (what can i say.. I'm a mom, and the only real "free time" I get is when I'm in the can. sometimes. at least mostly when I lock the door.)

so on the cover of the book, it boldly states "Over one million copies in print". well.. that's really great. at least for the author. but then I started thinking about what that really means. With the population of the USA being roughly 303 million people.. one million doesn't seem to be such a large number. hang on.. I'm not to the shame part. so yeah.. 1 million in print is about 1 book to every 303 people.

Wicked is NOT exactly a children's book... so when you break down the population by considering roughly 28 percent of americans are under the age of 19... now we're looking at about 219 million people. (I will point out that I recognize that there will be a large reading group from the age of about 10-19 that may enjoy a book like wicked.. but I am also assuming that a comparable number of older citizens comprise a near-blind or fully blind state and would be unable to read a printed copy. so.. tit-for-tat teenagers are cancelling out the blinds. (yes.. I know that is skewed logic, but this a damn blog post.. not a frigging term paper, people))

ok. back to about 219 million. that's about one book to every 219 people. adults. considering most reports point to about 40-44 MILLION adults being functionally illiterate... i'd say it's fair to knock off another 42 folks.

ok.. so now we're at one book to every 177 people. so I did a little more digging. according to a little article from NY times.. there are about 55.2 million couples that are lawfully married. another 6 million of so couples live together but are either not married or are in a same-sex relationship. so that another 61 million couples.. meaning 122 million adults.

oh you know what.. forget it. I'm boring myself.


my point was just that it seems like 1 million copies of ONE particular book seems rather high in an age of digital, audio, libraries and the timeless fashion of sharing a book between friends. I know for SURE that I'm the third reader of this copy (my mom and brother have read it prior to me.. maybe even my dad and sister-in-law have as well...) and I do plan on passing it on to my girlfriends that I swap books with.

because do we REALLY need another thing collecting dust in this world? oh well. I'm not trying to take any merits or money away from the author... I'm just saying out loud that I had an actual minute where I thought about how much I consume. ironic that I was thinking about consumption in the potty... but still... enough pause was taken that one of my resolutions this year is to be a little more green this year.

speaking of green. it would seem that the kiddies are still asleep, and I could be reading more about the life and times of Elphaba.

New Year, old habits

hey all.. another new year it would seem, huh.

I'd SAY I will be posting more... but anyone who's been around me enough knows that my posts come and go no matter WHAT my intentions are.

right now, we're just getting back in the swing of things.. as well as taking on some new ones. first new thing on the agenda is boogie-girl is now in a dance class.

this in itself should be a whole post, because I am SOOOO ill-equipped to be a mom of a dancer. in the past week.. I have purchased no less than THREE pairs of shoes (all the wrong ones, btw) and am on a mission to find some obscure store where I will no doubtedly be roped into buying $250 worth of pink things because they are what rhena needs to correctly learn how to 'dance creatively'. I sigh. at least she looks cute in her outfit.

but I now need to muster the moose so we can go stock up on diapers; both for danny and myself. apparently the new year has also brought me a new menstrual cycle. good times!

(oh please.. like you expect anything less than too much information here!)