Date night, scrubbed.

Well, date night is scrubbed. For next weekend that is.

I can't remember if I told the story, but last summer mother in law was down here visiting. Turns out it was race weekend in Daytona and we didn't know- I thought it was the next weekend. I commented something about how it would have been nice to go, and that was that. No big deal.

Well ever since then, MIL has made it a point every other time we talk on the phone to tell us that she is coming down to watch the kids in Feb so that we can go to the race. Since July she's been saying this. It really hasn't been anything that I was desperate about going to, goodness knows we've been to a lot of races, just not at Daytona. It's only an hour from here, not that big of a deal if we went or not.

Well she insists that we go, even buying our tickets for "Valentine's Day" she says.

As the date is approaching, it is plainly obvious to me that she has absolutely no interest in coming here. I'm pretty darn good at reading people, and she's not a hard one to read. We have called her on multiple occasions asking when she plans on coming down, only to be met with "Do you need to know right now". It was really beginning to piss me off because I knew it was going to get down to the wire and she was going to get grouchy about it. I *hate* to make plans too far in advance, but she was acting like she may be here Thursday night, in which case daughter would be at gymnastics and we wouldn't even be here to let her in. Just a simple question of when she was coming, what day, with the understanding that it's subject to change is all we wanted to know.

Honestly, I don't want *anyone* in my house that doesn't want to be here, and certainly not watching my kids. She is a great person and wouldn't ever harm a fly, but she gets so grouchy sometimes and given all that has been going on lately, I just don't have the energy for it. At. All.

Husband calls yesterday as one last attempt to see when she is coming. You know, it wasn't that big of a deal and I think it could have been handled differently. If she really wanted to be here she could have said things were busy at work and she just wasn't sure yet, or something to that extent. But to bluntly say "Do you need to know right now" just signals to me that she has no desire to come here. So I told husband to un-invite her or else (yes, I threatened), stuck the tickets on Craigslist, and that is that.

Really there is no point to this very boring blog entry other than the fact that I needed to rant about my mother in law, because even though she is very good to us, she can really wear on my nerves more often that not. :) I see a lot of her in my husband, it drives me insane. Needless to say, she won't be down for awhile.

Hopefully I don't sound petty. It's not over the race, it's just over the situation and her in general. On a good note, my mom is coming on the 10th, and bringing my Mimi with her, who hasn't been down yet, so I'm excited to show her around and let her finally have mental pictures to associate with what we're talking about on the phone :) Maybe husband and I can sneak in a date night while they are here. And, at least I have an additional few days to get my house clean. It looks like my washing machine vomited in my bedroom floor, and we're having company for the Super Bowl, Girl Scouts meeting here on Tuesday, and then my mom and Mimi the next Tuesday. Yikes.

I suppose I *should* be in my room putting up said laundry, except that I refuse to put it up until it's all washed, and it's not, and aside from that I have a terrible sore throat thanks to ill daughter. Therefor I am not in the mood to do anything, at all. ;)

Strange but true things

Well, I thought of two more interesting facts about myself that may make me seem even more weird to the general public. Actually I thought of about 5 more last night, right as I went to bed. I told myself to get up and write them down, but alas I did not, and now I have forgotten them :)

* I hate jokes. This makes me seem prudish, but I am not. I love to laugh, but for some reason I.hate.jokes. I think it's because my aunt used to tell *the* worst joke (sometimes more than 1) every time you saw her. Yep. Jokes. Can't stand em. I actually get pissed when people tell them. Eek.

*I think that not only is daylight savings time a sham, it's a waste of time, inevitably taking hours from your life over the long run, only to give them back 6 months later. Sort of. I hate daylight savings time. Just pick a freaking time and stay with the crap! I know why they do it, I just still think it's stupid. I often wonder what the states do that don't ever participate- I think it's IL or IN, and AZ? It's 2 states I think. What do you do if you live right on the state line and work in the neighboring state, and have to attempt to get ready for work on the other states time? This troubles me. Or more so, just confuses the crap out of me. I think they should do away with daylight savings.

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I had the craziest dreams the last two nights. Just absolutely wacked out! One of them involved the need-to-know-too-much mortgage lady calling our house and asking for an explination as to why we had a dead mouse in our house that we lived in in 2005, and what we did to dispose of it. She needed to know the information for our mortgage papers. HA

It at least made me wake up giggling, along with the fact that husband decided to serenade me with "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry. I could have done without that at 7:30am. But I could totally see the mortgage lady doing that thing about the mouse. It's getting that ridiculous. As a side note, we did actually have a mouse in the house when we lived one place in 2005. It was in a wooded area, and the house went all summer un-rented. Fun times. Me, standing up ON the arm of the couch, and husband running around with a ski pole threatening to kill the mouse. Once I realized he was going to beat him to a pulp, I made him catch the mouse in a big box, and drive him about 5 miles down the road and let him out ;)

I sent daughter back to school today. She's still got a yucky cough, but I'm hoping it was just from the weather change when she went to WV last weekend with husband. I'm going to give her a couple more days before I take her to the doctor. Ugh. Doctors.

Son's face is still healing quite nicely. He for some reason *hates* me putting Neosporin on his cheek, so I have to sneak to do it, but it gets done :) Today I have plans of being utterly boring, cleaning up the house and doing laundry all day since we're having company for the Super Bowl on Sunday. I'm rooting for the Cardinals by default, because I don't enjoy either team. I also don't enjoy the fact that I am only 2hrs 45min from said Superbowl, and will not be there. Maybe next year in Miami.Because I just have 5 grand laying around to blow on $100 face value tickets you know ;) Ugh.

It is nice to have company though. A small reminder that people actually *do* like us! I've met a lot more moms online since I joined the new forum, and hopefully we'll have a playdate set up soon. So if I don't accomplish anything else on my pseudo-resolutions that I made, then at least I am taking care of the socialization part. ;)

A nice, rainy, dull, uneventful day

Ok. So, nothing exciting happened around here today, and I enjoy that. A lot. Some days, too much stuff happens, and I'm all "why does so much stuff happen", so I like when stuff doesn't happen. Make sense? ;) The highlight of my day was going to the store by myself. Because it was by. my. self. I drove semi-erratically, sang off tune at the top of my lungs, and took my time through the store, because damn it sometimes I'm entitled to do all of those things :P

I have nothing interesting to talk about, so I'm going to steal an idea from another blog that I follow, and tell you some things about myself. Prepare to be bored to tears :)

* My favorite color is pink
*When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian. When I started thinking about how animals couldn't tell you what was wrong, I switched to nursing.
*I have near-constant dialogue with myself, in my head. I hope that doesn't make me crazy.
*I was never a small town girl. I was just stuck there for 25 years ;)
*I have the eating habits of an overly picky 5 year old. So not joking on this one.
*I am overly organized. Like borderline OCD. Things have to be put just-so, in the right place, turned the right direction, and if you move them, I WILL know. ;)
*I am a shopping addict- way too expensive jeans, shoes, and purses. And makeup. Oh and shirts. Oh and...
*I have this overwhelming feeling of "Oh No" when I walk into a bathroom in someone else's home and the toilet lid is down. Because I think that someone has pooped in there and not flushed for whatever reason. Yeah, I know that's weird.
*I watch way more "reality tv" than "real tv" like the news and stuff. I hate the news.
*I don't read the newspaper
*I'm actually really smart, and really good at writing. I have lots of common sense.
*Those are about the only nice things I will admit about myself. Now if I just could find a work at home job that required only those 3 qualifications ;)
*If I didn't have kids, I think I would be a travel nurse. I never seem content in one place for long.
*I am a makeup wearing, teeny bopper music loving, Louis Vuitton carrying, pink wearing, pro-football watching (go Cowboys!), NASCAR loving girl ;) So you can't call me a priss, OR a redneck ;)

That's all for now :)

Smell, Swirl, Swish, Repeat

I went to the wine tasting last night. It's really funny how things appear in my mind and how they actually are sometimes. I expected going into this really ritzy room, and people who were wearing ridiculous amounts of jewelry and some snooty man saying "and now we are tasting a delicious Cabernet", etc etc. And everyone swirls it, smells it, and swishes it, and all of those things that you are supposed to do, while I pretend to take a sip and then spit it back out into my glass in disgust.
It actually turned out to be this really trendy-ish restaurant with a small local band playing. You gave your donation at the door, and they gave you a wrist band. Then from there, you just went to the bar and told them what wine you wanted, as often as you wanted it for the hour and a half. So it turned out to be really crowded, but really low key. Not to mention some drunks because it was a free for all on the wine. They had the wine on tap too, sort of, which I found to be very neat. It was so nice to have some actual adult conversation.The only downside is that the girl that drove, could not. I was soooo carsick by the time we got there, and then even worse by the time I got home. It's been foggy as crap here in FL the past few nights, and that made it even worse because she couldn't see, and I had nothing to focus on. Thankfully I never actually got sick, but I ended up with a bad headache that then made me nauseated. Oh it was terrible! We were home by 9:30, and I ended up on the couch by 3am, so in pain I thought I was going to have to drive myself to the hospital, and I don't know how, or if ,I would have made it. Smart of me, to be out of my migraine prescription. Reaalll smart. I eventually wandered back downstairs and took a Benadryl so that I could get rid of the nausea. So that knocked me out and I finally was rid of it by this morning. I think if we go out again, I will volunteer to drive ;o) I probably should also mention that I decided to not drink the wine, and opted for White Russians instead. And the cause? Raising money to find a place/build a children's museum in St Augustine. So I felt good about giving my money for that obviously :)
In other news, we are almost certain that we have been denied a home loan. Honestly, I think our mortgage lady is so freaking shoddy that part of the blame lies on her. Yes, about 80% of that is our fault- our credit- but she is non-responsive, and SO freaking nosy. I think the only things left that she doesn't know about me is my bra size and date of my last menstrual cycle.
I'm honestly not that upset. Like I said before, owning a home isn't something I feel like I have to do right now in life. I was the one that was all for waiting another year. My Jeep will be paid off, and we will be in so much better of a position to buy. By then we may even be able to build if there are still lots left here. That would be much better. It would be mine, how I want it, ready to move in, and new. I enjoy these thoughts :) So in keeping with her usual business ethic, for now the answer isn't no, but it's "they don't really want to do it". I wish we just knew something- anything. I kind of feel like this lady thinks she has a lot more power than she really does, and I really just want to fire her from helping us, and move along. Move along! Poor husband wants a house so bad that he's just impatiently waiting. If I had communication with her, I would have already dealt out about 50 eye rolls, 20 "Oh no you didn't!"'s, and a few select foul words. Ah well.
Son's face is healing quite nicely. He's still considerably bruised above the eye, but it's getting better. For some largely unknown reason, husband thought it would be a nice get well present for him, to bring in the biggest bag of Skittles I have ever seen in my life. Uh-huh. I actually hid them, but tonight they were on the dresser, and somehow son got them off, dumped out the whole bag, and shut himself in our bedroom (not locked). When I went in there, there was a huge pile in the floor and he looked very suspicious. So needless to say, I'm not surprised that he was up 2 hours past his usual bedtime, he was obviously jacked beyond belief. Men. ;)
Daughter is sick with some nasty-cough-yuck-stuff-in-the-throat-kind-of-hot-but-not ordeal. The thermometer says she's normal, but I never trust those things. Not since the night I just knew she had a fever, and it kept saying 98.6, yet when we woke up that morning and went to the doctor, she *actually* had a fever of 105.1 (!!!) and had RSV. So yeah, me and thermometers are not on good terms since about 2004. I keep at least 3 in the house, and I use each one of them for taking a temp every time I do it, since each method has a bit of a difference in result. If they all 3 are relatively close, then I may (or may not!) believe them. Anyhow, school is probably out for tomorrow, but we'll see in the morning.
Beyond that, life is normal for the time being. Mother in law is coming to visit next Thursday, and I am looking forward to some alone time for me and husband. And looking forward to the Melting Pot. One day, I will branch out and go to other places that interest me. Like this one weird place called Pussers??? The menu looks great- I don't know what the deal is with the name. But for the most part, I always pick the Melting Pot for date night. There's no way we could do it with the kids and come out without 3rd degree burns.
That's about it for now :)

Some *real* wine for my cheese!

I've accepted an invitation tonight to attend a wine tasting/fundraiser with two moms from daughter's Girl Scouts. This is *all* wrong for many reasons. But, the most important of them being that I *hate* wine! LoL I had this incident one time in Germany, we were on a school trip. And the legal drinking age is 16. So we all thought it would be cool to buy like 6 bottles of CHEAP-O wine, and drink a bottle...a piece. I did some hard core puking, had to get up at 3am for our flight back home, which was 10 hours. Though the entire flight, only got up once to puke and request a Sprite from the flight attendant, and back to sleep I went. I slept the entire flight except for that short 5 minutes. I had to have lost about 5lbs with all of that puking. Oh, my stupid days!
So yeah, me and wine? Not such great friends. What can I say. I'm desperate for socialization!! HAHA At least we're helping a good cause- I should find out what that cause is. I didn't even ask!

I'll let you know how it turns out ;)

On the road to recovery

Well as it usually goes after a big streak of things beating me down, it's starting to look up again. I am SO thankful that son is not bothered by his stitches, and hasn't messed with them hardly at all. His eye has gone through the many phases of brusing- the sides are yellowish and almost healed, the top part is still pretty much black and blue. But, his cheek looks pretty good. I am certain that he will have a scar, but hopefully one that he will mostly grow out of. He still runs warp speed down the hall just as he was doing the night of "the incident" , so I am constantly saying "Slow down! Slow down!". He's not slowing down though ;) At any rate, he can trade scar stories with daddy when he's older, since daddy too has a scar on his eye from a lovely meet with a tree while skiing in high school ;) We go tomorrow for stitch removal.

My computer is still deathly ill, so I've resorted to using an older laptop that is very slow, and also has a bright (I mean almost neon) blue strip that runs down the middle of it, but it works, and I can still see through the strip and that is what matters. I will probably have to get my dad to fix the other one.

We won't begin to talk about the laundry- hey at least it's all clean now. AND I fixed my Wii! Who knows what was wrong with it, but after I unplugged it for about 5min, it was fine. Once I get over this HORRENDOUS back ache, I will be back to my promised every other day workout.

We finally got all of the loan papers through for house hunting, and we should know by Friday if we get approved or not. Which that in itself is amazing, given the run around we have been given by our mortgage lady. Once we get that preapproval then we can finally work on putting in bids on houses and hopefully timing it just right. We would like to close around April (end) so that we have about a month to get the places cleaned and painted, and be completely moved in when our lease is up here on June 15th. We spent all last summer moving (twice!) and would prefer not to do that again.

Husband got a new(ish) car- still used, same year as his other (2003), but a LOT less miles and in much better shape. And free, thanks to a mother and father (his) that own a body shop and can get wrecked stuff cheap and repair it cheap too :) The "lima bean" is gone, and replaced with a Z24 Cavalier- much more manly than the Lima (a VERY green Hyundai), and the best part is that is has air conditioning and a radio- probably two of husbands favorite qualities in a car since it gets hot as Haiti here in the summer, and he has a 40min drive to work everyday :)

Other than that, I am still trying to regroup from what ever illness has stricken me. Kidney infection? Mono? I have NO idea, but I've got to get to the doctor this week. I've spent the last 4 days on the heating pad and I am just out of it, and SO exhausted. I hate going to doctors, but it seems like the more I say that, the more I end up going. Ugh!

But, things are looking up for the most part, and it's about time :) We have a night to ourselves in a couple of weeks, MIL will be here to visit and we're going to the NASCAR race in Daytona. Call me redneck if youl will ;) Yes a girl can love her makeup, Louis Vuitton and NASCAR all at once. Just call me versatile ;)

In Memory of Yoda

I'm coming to you from a computer that may or may not crash at any given moment (for the 50th time in 2 days). I stepped over a mound of laundry waist deep to get here, son has stitches in his face, and husband is out of town for the weekend as of tomorrow. Oh, and we have no dog.

So humor me, if you will.

Yes, I know it could be worse. Long ago (no really just like 8 months ago) when we moved to FL, life essentially fell apart. What was supposed to be a fresh start was clouded by a huge string of bad luck, talk of divorce, and anything in between. So I can't exactly say we got off on the right footing here from the beginning.

It's ok, cause we've moved past it. But now the bad luck has seemed to return. What is it about luck anyhow? Do you ever notice how it comes in strings, like one thing can't just happen, but you have to *really* be kicked when you're down? Why is that?

Let's rewind.

For a short list of just some of the things I have endured over the last 8 months, here's a peek at what happened since we decided to move.

*Mental bashings ona daily basis from my family about moving- this is such a vague phrase, it honestly cannot even begin to paint the picture of what I endured before coming here. I have a fabulous Christian family, but it was as bad as it could get without being non-religious. Yeah.

*Our house was in shambles when we moved here (the second move in a months time since we lived in a corporate apartment for a month)- we moved twice in 30 days, with 2 kids under 5 and no baby sitter. The only organized room in the entire house was our walk in closet, and the next day after I got all of my clothes hung, the whole entire rack came crashing down to the floor.

*More mental bashings while already here

*The first house we chose had a shoddy landlord who lived in AZ yet still had half of his belongings in the house, including a car, insulted us and said our credit was too low to rent from him, and also only wanted a 4 month lease in case he wanted to move back

* Started getting petty about this point, couldn't even go into the bathroom and clean without a shower curtain rod falling on my head, I think just to spite me

*Husbands air conditioning went out in his car, in FL, in the summer. Paid $500 to get it fixed, couldn't warranty the repair and now he has no air conditioning again

*House we moved into is extremely nice, yet had probably never been vaccummed. That's what you get for viewing things online

*Almost couldn't get daughter registered for Kindergarten due to the rudest nurse I have ever encountered in my life- hey I am a nurse, so don't dog me for dogging her. It was bad. I almost made the 30 minute drive just to kick her ass.


These things are honestly only a small percentage of what we dealt with, which all lead up the grand finale of my first ever anxiety attack that landed me in the hospital because I seriously thought I was dying. I have a whole new perspective on people who suffer through those often. It's wretched.

Why do I tell you all of these things? Well because since then, we have had it pretty good. Unfortunate happenings have been kept at a minimum, and yes I know that it could all be worse, but spare me for the time being.

We can fast forward a bit now, to my talking about how I've always wanted a dog. Never had one. LOVE Pugs. Husband comes home about 3mo ago and surprises me with a pug puppy. I was thrilled and overwhelmed all at once. I had NO clue how much work goes into have a smal animal like that, it truly is like having another child. We named him Yoda.

Fast forward a bit more. The dog is WILD. The other night, son gets out of thebath and as usual, comes down the hall to me to get his pj's on. Dog starts going crazy, runs through sons feet, right at the coffee table. It all happened too fast for me to get to him in time, and son hits smack on the corner of the coffee table. He's now the proud owner of 2 stitches in his eyebrow, and 3 in his cheek. Devistated mom doesn't even begin to describe it.

He's taking it all in stride though. Still sleeping great, playing like crazy. I can tell it hurts him but he really is ok. He has a huge,puffy, black eye, though I am sure that he probably looks a lot worse than he feels. Stitches will be out on Sunday.

Which leads to why we no longer have a dog. Spare me the lecture of how animals are not disposable, and pet population, etc etc. I LOVE animals and have always wanted to be a veteranarian. But then I thought about how animals suffer in silence, can't tell you their problems etc, and it tears my heart out and so in a way that is what lead me to nursing. At least sometimes, though not always, people can tell you what is wrong.

However, there can't ever come a time when my animal(s) mean more to me than my kids. The dog had NO clue what he had done wrong, but there was no way I could ever risk that happening again. If son had hit a little higher or lower, he would possibly be blind right now. I loved my dog, and I cried like a baby when husband left to take him to his new home, but it's a chance we can't take while the kids are small. I will miss Yoda so much. He went to a great home with a lady who has a huge fenced in yard, who also happens to be a nurse, and we are confident in that decision but it still saddens me.

Moving on to other things, the house hunt has all but stalled out. Turns out that we found out that mother in law, who should be paying husbands student loan as his college graduation present, was late about 5 times on it last year. Credit score=Shot. Yeah. Our mortgage lady is about the most non-chalant, non-available person out there, and the home that we found that we REALLY like, that is actually in our price range and needs NO work, already has an offer in on it. It really is about 2 coats of paint away from the perfect home. We can't counter and try to beat it until we get our pre-approval from her. Not to mention that we can't even figure out where we will get our closing cost money and 3.5% down.

If you're ready to give me wine (whine)for my cheese, or call the waaaaammmbulance or whatever, I don't blame you. Yes I am whiny, and feeling a bit crappy, and yes I know it could be SO much worse. I am thankful for all that I have but so annoyed at these past few days events.

I at least thought that now that most of my soreness has worn off, I will do my Wii workout while son naps. 32 min on my first day may have been a bad idea, and apparently I am in worse shape than I thought because yesterday I HURT. But today was a new day. Still sore and down on myself, but why not try to be productive. Well guess what. My Wii? Won't even cut on. WTF is that? I fumbled with every single thing on there and every cord and plug in and--nothing. So no workout today either.

Did I mention it's really not a great day? Really not!

Hope is in the air..do you have some?

I have a wealth of emotions that are running through me on this day. Sitting home in the quiet while son naps, and seeing the first non-Caucasian President being sworn in, swells tears to my eyes that warm my cheeks. Be you democrat or republican, there is a new hope that is in the air. Seeing hundreds of thousands of people braving cold temperatures to support the cause they believe in, it warms me.
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House hunting yesterday was not as great as I had hoped. The problem is that you can rent a really nice house, for a lot cheaper than the cost of the mortgage on that same house. So our taste has significantly outgrown our budget, and it's obvious when we compare what we can afford with what we want. Today's houses seem more promising, I'm hoping so.

In other news, I'm headed back to the doctor-AGAIN-tomorrow, for what may or may not have been a kidney infection all of this time. After a full round of antibiotics for the urinary infection, my symptoms are no better, and I'm having a good bit of sporadic pain in my back now too. Blah. I am not a fan of doctors, but I am a fan of keeping both of my kidneys, so back to the doctor it is.

I also started the Wii Fit today, just as I promised. Probably not the greatest of plans since I am not feeling up to par as it is, but I said I would start today and I did. I was really surprised to see that it categorized me as the low range overweight---??? I know I could stand to lose a few pounds, but when I am wearing a size 6 and 8, over weight was a bit shocking.

Ah well. I put my weight loss goal as 20lbs down in the next 3 months. We'll see. One thing I've learned in life is that after two kids, I am fabulous at holding weight, not so fabulous at losing it. it doesn't help that I have the eating habits of an overly picky 3 year old. I managed a 32 minute workout on the Wii Fit (refusing to round down on that, and taking every credit I can get!), and I feel accomplished for the day on that note. I am not the most fond of it, as it is a bit disruptive to have to stop and start a new sequence each time, but seeing as how some of the small stretches and exercises had me saying "Are you effin kidding me..." and stopping half way through due to the pain, I think it will keep me occupied for the time being ;) After that I will probably buy the Biggest Loser workout and move on to it.

New days ahead :)

Home sick..where is home?

Am I....home sick?
Maybe, except not for my "home" town.

You see, dh and I have been married 6 years this past December. And we've moved once a year since being married. One year, we moved twice.

Yeah, that's not fun.

Well, maybe in a sense it is. My house stays uber organized, and clutter is always kept to a minimum. There's never any chance to accumulate junk when you never stay in one place long.

Anyhow. The one town we lived in was where all of our family was, and what friends we had left that hadn't moved somewhere else, which was only like 2. We had family who babysat at any time we wanted or needed it, so that was a big bonus. But for some reason, that town never felt like home.

It's not that I am a snob, I can promise you that. But after not living there for 2 years and then moving back, I felt like I was so much better than the place I had came from- if that makes any sense. Not the people, but the place in itself. It had nothing to offer. Housing prices were ridiculous, there were no things for young adults to do except get into lots of trouble. I had moved past that. And my "home town" that I grew up and lived in for about 20 years, never felt like home after we came back.

When we went through the job dilemma, we were choosing to live in either FL or Washington DC. DC was the top choice for both of us, but 100% impossible on one income, and my degree would have to be furthered from an LPN to an RN before I even thought about getting a job that would make it worth it to put son in daycare. But still, every time husband had to go on a business assignment to DC, I would get mother in law to watch the kids and steal a weekend away with him. DC felt like home. Of course, any time you are on vacation-esque trip, you think you could live there. It's always the excitement of something new, not having any responsibilities like bills and cleaning for a short time. Yeah I get it, it's not reality. But it still felt good.

Why am I saying all of this? I don't really know. Life in FL hasn't really turned out how I thought. I had a bad feeling about this move before we ever got here, and now the thought of buying a house is so....permanent. Do I want to move again? Nope, pretty sick of it by now. But now that husband has taken a promotion and what not, it's just....yeah. Maybe it's the inauguration, and all of the excitement that is going on up there, that we know that's where we could have been. DC wasn't any more friendly of a town than it is here, but we felt safe and we felt in place. We've only been here 7 months, but at the same time, we've been here 7 months. I haven't made any friends other than the people from daughters Girl Scouts. That's partly my fault, but....yeah.

Am I tired? No. I think I am just doing some random rambling. Sometimes in life I think we come to crossroads, and often times you are forced to take one path which may or may not be the one you wanted to take. Sometimes you're in a good position where you can choose between either path. I think I am just in a grumbling mood, and I needed to talk it out.

Back to laundry ;)

Mi casa

Ok yeah, I don't speak Spanish. I should though, living here in FL. Anyhow, my lovely title is a nod to the fact that we may soon be purchasing a house. Wooha!


Well, maybe I'm ahead of myself.

What I should say is that we finally have the loan approval in place, we know the amount, and now we can begin looking in that range and see what comes of it. Our original plan was to build here, but now we are thinking that we may buy a foreclosure. Our subdivision has about 1000 houses in it (I am estimating- husband says around 700some, I think closer to 1200, so I'm going for the mid-range), so foreclosures are a plenty. Most of them are in great shape and really pretty. We will be downgrading in size probably, but that's ok. Right now we are in 3400sqft and it's kicking my tail to keep it clean. I could use a down size :) So we're thinking downgrade in size, upgrade the house we move into, and then re-sell in a few years and move to the gated community next to us.

I have to say, that really owning a home has never been in my dreams. Husband has a big dream of a place to call our own, and I can understand that. No surprise pop-ins, no pre-authorizations to paint a room when we want, none of that. It sucks to have paid so much in rent too. But,owning a house isn't something I've strived for, it's just a bonus if it happens.

Anyway. Nothing else exciting to report on the home front. Daughter went to her first sleep over which was a success and she had lots of fun. Of course having only one kid for the night could have been peaceful, until son somehow managed to get to the ledge on the shower, take out my brand new razor, and cut his finger. Nothing serious, but he must have sensed that it was going to be a nice quiet evening. He's *never* done that before, but you know boys, they can be surprising. So I guess he grew 3in overnight, and it's time to put those elsewhere. Bad mommy!

Other than that, the weekend has been calm. I *finally* went through all of the kids toys. I ended up with 4 huge totes, and 7 garbage bags of stuff to get rid of! It's amazing! In addition to that, it meant that we could finally unpack all of the Christmas stuff that the family mailed down, thus now a whole new mess was formed. Add that to the fact that a wild hair possessed me to redecorate daughters room, and ahhh...another weekend of house cleaning!!

Monday? Time for Wii Fit. Oh no wait, Monday is a holiday and husband and kids will be wild around the house.

Tuesday ? Time for Wii Fit. Promise!

Doctors, Ear Tubes, and Pharmacies, Oh My! Doctors, Ear Tubes and Pharmacies, Oh My!

Well today was an interesting one. It started with rain, and then some more rain. Not that I mind really. Seeing a day or two of rain now and then is refreshing to me. It can't be sunshine everyday, right? When we first moved to Florida, it rained literally everyday. For three.months.straight. Yeah that was a little discouraging, to move to the "sunshine state" and see rain everyday. Now we've come into this drought like phase, the grass is all dead and the rain is nice.Maybe these things are normal. I don't know, I'm the new kid in town ;) The fog, I could do without. Except that since I look out the window and can't even see across the street, I at least know that I am not being spied on by the landlord at her temporary residence :)
So anyhow, son had an appointment today to check his ears. He has had fluid in his ears since birth. The right ear finally cleared up, but the left has not.
Another underlying issue that we've had is his speech. He says a fair amount of words, but not a lot. Enunciation is a big problem too. So I was hoping to find out that the speech is related to the fluid (which in a way he said it is), and by curing the fluid, we will help the speech and %&*ZAP!*&%- problem solved.

Not so much.

They want me to take him to a speech therapist in conjunction with this. It makes me feel like a really bad mom, like maybe I didn't work with him enough, or that it was something that I have done. I know that this probably isn't true, but still, mama feels bad about it all.

For the time being, we are to schedule the speech therapy consult, which I will begrudgingly do tomorrow. Then he is to report back in 4 weeks. If the fluid isn't gone, then he is already booked for the OR that following week for tubes. Bah. They said his tonsils seemed larger than normal for his age, and that he seemed dry in the throat and congested? Yeah, lots of stuff goes on that I am apparently not aware of, as I had not noticed any of this and I am very attentive to detail. So he's on Nasonex as well. We'll call that Pharmacy Trip #1 of the day. The nice people at the pharmacy were kind enough to fill my prescription for his Nasonex while I sat in the drive thru, so that, as she said, "You don't have to bring the baby back out into the cold". Pretty nice of her I must say--did I mention it was almost 60 degrees? A cold spell compared to normal, but hardly worth cowering in the house for. Oh how I love the FL attitude to cold weather. They are buried in snow right now in WV ;) 60 degrees this time of year is fabulous! Though I do agree with the locals- there are even times here when it's 70 and it feels COLD.

Anyhow, on to other things. We'll call this part of my day "Stupid Urethra, Part II". I'm sure you aren't particuarly interested in these details, but again I feel the need to share :) This raging urinary tract infection that bombarded me out of nowhere, is NOT getting better. In fact, it's getting worse. I finally caved today and called the doctor back and asked if I can be switched to something else. I am not a doctor person, but this was so necessary.

The doctor called me back and was super nice. He was more than willing to call in the prescription, but was also concerned as to why the infection wasn't going away (I have no clue!). So he suggested before I start the new antibiotic, to come in and do another urine sample so that they can send it off to make sure that it isn't something else. This proved to be a bit inconvenient for me. You see, as a mother it often becomes part of our nature to give, or give up. So I suffered through one extra day last week of the UTI, so that I could multi-task. Rather than risk husband having to take off work, or me being stuck in a waiting room forever (though I must say that we have NEVER encountered a wait time in FL like we have in WV), I waited until Thurs to go to the doctor. Husband kept son with him at daughters gymnastics. I was able to go to the doctor, drop off my prescription, and get a few groceries while waiting, all in one. But, this also means that the office is not near here, and so I began my 25min drive in 5:00 traffic to pee in a cup. Did I mention that I'm taking OTC AZO pills, so my pee actually resembles orange koolaid? Yeah, that was interesting to turn in as my sample.

So mission accomplished on that one, and after I went by there I headed to Publix. Why? Because we went to the grocery store last night, which ALWAYS means that I will forget some things. I always refer to this as "2nd (or 3rd) grocery store trip for the week". Got my missing items, plus a few unnecessary things, and headed for Pharmacy Trip #2 of the day.

I was feeling rather dumb about going back to the same CVS, less than 4 hours later and picking up another prescription. The pharmacist was nice and turns out she moved here from WV too. I tell you, I have yet to met many people that are actually FL natives. In fact, I don't think I've met any?? It amazes me how many people are familiar with the hole in the wall town that we came from when we mention it, and how many people from here travel to WV. Apparently it's this great place to visit. Yeah, I'm not getting it either.

Anyhow, I ramble on. The pharmacist was nice and turns out she moved here from where we used to live. Small world! I left the pharmacy and felt pathetic for a moment in time- I think it's pretty sad when I get joy out of a simple conversation in the pharmacy drive thru line. I really need to make some friends around here and get some adult interaction before I go nuts. Yes, it's on my faux-resolutions list. I'm getting there. Baby steps. :)

Then that leads me to Pharmacy Trip #3 for the day, which entailed me going directly across the street to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for husband's blood pressure medicine.( Hopefully when he loses his weight again, he can go off of those things). So yeah. In just 4 short hours, I was at the pharmacy 3 times. It's been a day! I rewarded myself with some Smartfood popcorn- no it's not that great for you and it's beyond addictive. But I had to have it. And a drumstick- no not the chicken, the ice cream drum stick. You know, the far-too-many-calories chocolate and ice cream with nuts? Love it.

Hey don't knock me for piggin out. I've been pretty well behaved lately since husband is on a diet. Darn him for losing weight so fast too. Anyhow, I felt bad if I ate it in front of him, so I snuck my ice cream cone after I shooed him off to bed.

Don't smirk. You all do it too. ;)

Stupid Urethra

It's the middle of the night (sort-of) and I can't sleep. Why? Because I have a stupid UTI and I have to pee every 10 minutes. SO annoying! SO! I can only assume that this is a result of a lack of,er, affection between husband and I for a good bit of time due to the holiday traveling and what not. Because shortly after resuming normal activities, I am still thinking of that night- though not in positive ways now :)
The worst part is that I started feeling bad on Tuesday, went to the doctor on Thursday. It wasn't like one of those UTI's where you feel like you have to pee non-stop. It was mild and I thought I had taken care of it in time. Well now, after 4 days of antibitoics, I am feelnig MUCH worse in that department. Peeing non-stop, constant burning...you know, all the details you don't want to hear. I feel the need to share :)
So it looks like either I don't have a UTI, maybe something else like urinary stones (PLEASE NO), or this particular antibiotic isn't targeting what it should be and I need something else.

Ugh. back to the doctor again. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

At least before I started feeling really bad, I was able to go out this weekend and spend some of my Christmas gift cards/money. Which is always nice. I racked up at Victorias Secret with 2 bras, 4 pajama sets, and 7 pair of undies! I also got new socks for the kids and new undies for daughter, and threw out all of their old ones. I was able to pack up their clothes that they have outgrown (note to self: living in FL , buy enough summer clothes to last in the winter as well- son is growing like a weed and why are summer clothes hard to find here??? It's 70 degrees for crying out loud!),and bought a few new tshirts and shorts for son. I also was able to purchase the new bedding and stuff to decorate daughter's room in a very woodsy-girly type of deal from Pottery Barn. I am SO loving it already, and it's not even here yet :)

So in spite of having the bladder of a newborn puppy (I say this because I know. My dog pees more than a man with two swollen prostates), I did still accomplish a lot. Those 15+ boxes of Christmas toys still sit, wrapped, in the living room. I refuse to unpack them until I finish my final house organization task for upstairs, which is daughters closet. It's an all day job.

Thankfully my turn-your-pee-orange pills have kicked in and I am beginning to feel as though I may be able to sleep. I hope that next time I can update with more note worthy things :)

My big plans of productivity are at a halt for a bit. I don't know that I recovered fully from travel, but it was all down hill from there anyhow. Sunday I was sick after eating something that didn't agree with me. Took Monday to recover from that and part of Tuesday too. Then Wednesday I developed a urinary infection which I saw the doctor for yesterday and now I am hopefully getting straightened out. The house is still trashed, the Wii fit and my beyond impossible dreams of dropping 40lbs by Monday are still in the box in the garage, and oh, the landlord is still coming tomorrow. Oh and on top of all of that, the lovely monthly witch is back. but hey, that means still no Discover card twins!


Yikes.

Husband suggested that we go to Animal Kingdom tomorrow, to which I am sure I gave him the "are you CRAZY?!" look. I can't knock him for trying to do something fun, but between peeing every 20 minutes, and going to the bathroom for other womanly problems ever so often, I am hardly in the mood for a day of walking or riding rides. Besides, we just got back from 4 days at Disney/Seaworld/Universal last weekend. I'm not quite ready to go back just yet. :)

Productivity

Rather than come back to this blog at the end of the year and feel like I have accomplished nothing, I decided to list a few things that I am certain I will do or work towards during this year.

Ahem.

#1- teeth. Yup, the chompers. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have crappy teeth and that I would almost rather have no teeth than to have my teeth (I said almost). I have wanted them whitened, straightened, and porcelain veneered for who knows how long. No matter how much I brush and floss, I still get cavities. Thanks, mom. I inherited her teeth. BOOOOO! So this year I will do something with the teeth.

#2- finances/home. Throughout the course of our 6 year marriage, husband and I have spent $69,000 in rent once our lease here is up in June. No, that is not a typo, I said $69,000. And we have nothing to show for it as far as home ownership. So this year has to be the year that we get our finances in order and get our own home. Part of this motivation comes from the fact that we received an email from the landlord yesterday that his wife will be visiting for 10 days. TEN! And where is she staying? Directly across the street. And why is she coming? To trod all through our house and walk it with a contractor to think of putting in granite countertops and a few other upgrades. This whole deal bothers me on several levels. For starters, I see no need for her to be here for 10 days. But the fact that she is going to be right across the street makes me feel like I am being watched (and her, along with our nosy neighbors almost guarantees that I am), and on top of that I do not want people in and out of this house disrupting sons routine. We are beyond ready to have our own place with no one to answer to. We just have to get our finances in order. We came to FL almost debt free, but the cost of living here and expenses throughout this time have shot the bills through the roof, so we must chip away at it slowly.

#3-More organization, but less obsession. This is probably the hardest one of all for me. I am uber obsessive about things. If you come into my home and move a candle, I can tell. I like things in their place, in certain order, turned just the right angle, etc etc. Yes, I obsess like that. I like a spotless house, which is a constant job. I also like organization and no clutter. If you look under our beds, there's nothing there (with the exception of board games under daughter's). There are decorations throughout, but minimal things on the tables as to not look cluttered. I am just particular about things like that. So I am going to try to be organized more (which is hard because we are already pretty organized), but try not to be so uptight about things when they aren't "just so". My first one to work on is when people walk on my freshly vaccumed carpet. This is one that I get so mad about - freshly vaccummed carpet with wonderfully fabulous vaccum lines, until there are foot prints in it. I don't know of any other options, as no one in the house has learned to hover over the carpet, and so this is one that I need to just suck up and quit complaining about. Yeah, I'll let you know how it turns out.

As I said previously, I could go on with more things, but I like to set the bar high. Those are 3 things that I absolutely intend on doing, and now this blog will serve as my reminder when it's about June and I haven't done crap about any it. Yikes!!! ;o)

Pooped Out

Whew. We survived our 8 day stint away from home, and I am SO glad to be back!!! We left the 25th and headed to Orlando to get a room for our lovely 5am trip to the airport. Of course we hit a minor snag on the way. Since we were going to be gone for a week, I had emptied the refrigerator of anything that would spoil, and so no food in the house. Top that off with us getting hungry for dinner on the way there, and nothing open on Christmas Day except....Denny's.

Oh geeze.

I have never been to a Denny's to my knowledge, but I didn't figure it would be so bad, right? And plus it was packed (obviously because nowhere else but the Chinese buffet beside it was open). So we got there and got a table and it was.....yikes. There was definitely a special breed of people in there, and those that actually looked civilized looked just as weirded out as we probably did.

Promptly at 6pm, some random waiter comes over and says that he wants to let us know that for "safety precautions", all blinds must be raised at 6pm. WTH???? Yeah, I don't get that one either, and I was scared to ask why. The guy that let us know about it was almost as scary as the thought of something bad happening every night at 6pm so we just let our mind wander to many different possibilities as to why they do this, including assassians from the outside, and cars coming warp speed through the front glass. C'mon, we were tired and hungry and wanting to stay occupied so cut me some slack ;)

The flight was as to be expected- a normal flight for people who like that sort of thing, and terrible for people like me. The flight back was actually not as great and I was somewhat nauseated, but I survived to see the ground again and that obviously matters the most! Whew, I am glad I don't have to do that again for a lonnnnng time, if ever!!

In between said terrorizing flights, we spent 4 days doing 4 different Christmases, 3 big family meals, too many kids presents, and the ever popular family guilt trips for living so far away. Ahhhhh family :)

In spite of an entirely-too-grouchy cousin, daughter had a nice birthday trip to Disney and a few other parks. We just got back today and I am shuddering at the thought of all of the toys that will soon be mailed here, and all of the laundry that needs washed before hand. ughhh..

New Years Eve was spent at our hotel (Nickelodeon), where at midnight a huge bucket of slime was dropped onto the crowd. I came across some decent tasting (and free!) champagne, which was a welcome change. The only other time in my life I had had champagne was 6 years ago to that very day, and found myself puking shortly there after. Eeek. The kids had "Slime Champagne", and after that we crashed into bed and started snoring before our eyes were even shut, just like the 6 nights before that ;)

I gave up long ago on making New Years resolutions, but if I ever had to, then these would be the ones I make (and yes I will attempt to do them, but I make no promises!).

Ahem..

#1- Be more motivated- I need to get into gear and get things done and be on the ball instead of dragging behind and being lazy (or as lazy as can be expected with 2 kids, which isn't too lazy)

#2- Fine tune and perfect my routine- Son is on a great routine- or was until this extended trip. However when summer rolls around I will most likely be insane while here with both of them. Daughter bores quickly and I don't want a house full of kids all summer either. I hope to go to the beach at least 3x a week and anyone with kids know that this takes a lot of planning, packing, and what not.

#3- Diet..no, make that exercise. haha sorry. I love food too much to diet, and I am far too picky of an eater at that. However, mother in law did get us a Wii Fit for Christmas and I am hoping the mere sight of it propped up against the big screen will motivate me to work myself out at least 5x a week. No wait, make that 4x. Ha.

#4- Be nice. Yeah, I think I could stand to be a bit nicer to pretty much the general population. I am not foreign at all, but I think I could easily act in a movie as an Italian (if I could lose the hick accent and the extremely white skin of course) since I am so loud. So if I were ever to resolve, I would resolve to not be so loud all the time at people and the kids. I've tried to be a nicer driver and a nicer person in general, but you know there are times where it's just not in me to do so. Again, I make no promises.

#5- Socialize if it kills me. Yep. You know, I just hate that whole unfamiliar feeling of walking into a room where you know no one, and trying to make friends. I have found this to be especially true in FL where I almost feel like I have to justify myself as a person in order to make friends (if that makes sense).In other words, people are not particularly friendly. I am a member of a playgroup online forum, but have yet to get the nerve to make it to a meeting. So I will make ways to make friends even if it makes me uncomfortable enough to almost pee my pants.



So I am sure that if I thought about it I could come up with more, but I'm going to credit myself for setting the bar pretty high with those 5. And hey, this is all hypothetical anyhow so I will resolve to not waste so much time resolving, and go do something else now, like sleep. Mama is tired from a loooot of traveling! ;)