Cause I'm Just Too Cool To Pee Without It Burning

I'm leaving for my trip, very shortly. So true to usual fashion, what happens? I get sick.

Gotta love it.

Last week I felt like I was getting a UTI, but then the next day it went away. So I carried on with life, until yesterday when I felt like my whole crotch was burning off. I was ready to flush my nether regions with bleach, just to lessen the burn. This, warrants a trip to the doctor.

So I go, very reluctantly. I've only had one panic attack in my life, but I came about 2 seconds away from having another one, just at the mere thought of all of those sick people sitting there with me. Thankfully, no one looked "ill for real", and I made it out of there just fine.

That is, after the mental games with the doctor, who apparently thought I showed up at that germ infested place, just to get antibiotics for an infection that doesn't exist. Yep, that was top priority on my list for the day buddy. Thanks.

Anyhow, I procrastinated and didn't even get my stuff packed until today- a probable first for me, because I am always packed days, sometimes weeks, in advance. But now? I'm ready to roll.

Be back next week ;)

Tourist For A Day

I had a nice day playing tourist in my own town. It was fun to walk around and take pictures, and look generally lost/confused. I have learned though, that my town is better seen in person, it's really hard to capture what a cobblestone street looks like in a picture, without it looking like...well, just a cobblestone street. I promise that there are lots of little neat-o shops and stores that line each side. If you want to know how nice it is, then you'll just have to come and see for yourself ;)

And so, without further adeu, here is what I have captured of my town. I started off the day with my little point and shoot camera, I suspect that if I would have carried around my Cannon beast, I would have had better pics. But I also would have had sore shoulders and a potential migraine by the end of the day..

(apparently I made the pics small, click on them to enlarge..I think.. ;) )

Starting off my journey....so NOT the side of the horse that you want to find yourself behind, with windows down..




The fort...one of those that you definitely have to see in person to appreciate. It's big, and ...fort-like. No, it really is neat, it's just huge and not camera friendly ;)



The old town sits right on the bay- which leads into the river (the site of husbands lack of boat driving and sign reading skills), and right into the ocean. You're basically looking at all 3 of them in this picture-labeled for your enjoyment.




A view of one of the main streets, from the fort.



Soldiers, on a coffee run ;)




A few of the town in general





The Casa Monica Hotel- gorgeous inside (didn't go in this time)



This is Flagler College- once a hotel, then converted to an all girls college. They give tours everyday while people are in class. Part of me has to think that would be distracting. At any rate, it's a beautiful school.






Not bad for a City Hall, huh?



This one's for you Bridgett ;) (the store is called Notions and Potions)



I just liked this one- the town square has the oldest, most beautiful, huge trees everywhere. Lots of shade and Spanish Moss, it's very quiet and serene most days :)









Well there you have it. My heavily-pictured post on my life as a tourist in my own town for the day. I got a few weird stares because I think at this time of the year, most people are locals. I was also alone, and walking and snapping pictures at the same time, so I'm sure I looked a bit goofy. It was a beautifully hot and humid day too :) I walked all through the town until I got to the dress shop, only to realize I had forgot my credit card in my car. Needless to say, after all that sweaty walking, I came home dressless, but still satisfied ;)

Bitches

Side note- I wanted to title this entry "Cattyness", but I'm not totally sure if it's spelled like that, or as cattiness*, so, Bitches will do. :)

I'm finding myself sitting here tonight wonder why there is so much hatred in the world, why so much rudeness? I've seen it first hand this week- although the issues have been very mild, I've seen it. Both ironically have been in the facebook world, and I'm considering just deleting my page altogether. Just tonight, I actually had a girl tell me that I have NO CLASS because I said that I hoped a football team would lose! Seriously people, who gives a rats ass about football enough to insult someone they don't even know. Who?! As much as I would really just love to give people a peace of my mind, I try really, really hard to not hurt other's feelings, or put them down. I want my kids to be good people when they grow up, and I do try to lead by example. And so anyway, here is my virtual toast to you, BITCHES, for being just that- bitches.

I feel better now ;)

This weekend has been very nice and relaxing. Today we rented a boat, and explored our town from the other side- the water. It was a really nice day, despite the fact that son hated the boat. Yup, my son who loves nothing but being home and playing, also hates boats. He was saying "I don't want it, I don't want it" long before we ever even got on the boat. We took our chances anyway, and after a little bit of crying he finally settled down and just spent the rest of the trip laying on me. His ears are really sensitive lately, and he seems to cover them a lot when something is loud, so he spent part of the time on me, ears covered. He survived though, and I'm hoping the next time we try it, it won't be so bad.

The highlight of the trip was when husband was going wide open, which mind you is not that fast in the minivan of the sea pontoon boat, and we came upon a sand bar, literally in the middle of a really deep river. Granted we were only going about 20mph, but then we came to an abrupt stop, and quickly realized what happened. Husband freaked, and starts the motor full speed ahead, and we're going nowhere. I finally convince him to settle down, and we decide there's no other option but to push the boat. So, in the middle of our very deep river, husband gets out. The water is not even waist deep, and he pushes us out of there to safety.

Of all days to forget my camera... !

I'm seriously thinking I should talk him into a re-enactment so that I can catch it in print ;) Once we got out of there and headed back towards the dock, we saw the rather large, bright red, buoys that were a giant warning to stay out of that area.

Note to self: when boating, look for red buoys. And try to avoid boating at low tide, for obvious reasons.


Tomorrow I'm determined to hunt down this really cute dress that I saw in the old town the other day, and to hopefully take some pictures too. As much as I bitch about living somewhere boring, I honestly do love living in Florida. And if you catch me in the right mood, the beauty of the old town definitely gets me :) It's never occurred to me to actually photograph where we live, because that is quite tourist-y, but in that, I realized that I have no pictures of our new town, and that's something I may want one day. In fact, I know it's something I'll want, I wanted it last week ;) So tomorrow I'm on a mission.

This next week is going to be really busy, lots of house cleaning to do, and packing, and did I mention that I'm leaving for Jamaica in just one (hopefully short) week? :)







*((According to spell check, it's cattiness, but Bitches has grown on me)). My blog, my rules. ;)

The Old Town

Things around here have been crazy to say the least. I had NO clue how big of a transition it would be for daughter to go from Kindergarten to 1st grade. She's expected to read 20 minutes a night, and has to document it to be reviewed each week, or she's penalized. We also have math homework, plus spelling homework, which takes the longest of all of them. I'm pretty sure I giggled a little when I heard someone say that 1st grade was hard, but they weren't joking. Obviously they meant it was hard for the parents, because 1st grade is kicking my ass. We do all of this in addition to gymnastics, Girl Scouts, and soccer, while still trying to maintain an 8:30-9:00 bedtime. So far, it's not working out so great, but I'm sure we'll fall into place soon enough. I had a much better routine last year, just have yet to make it there this time around.

The weekend was nice and low key. My parents flew in on Friday, which was also husband's birthday. We ate at a local Cuban (Spanish? I don't know) restuarant in the old town of St Augustine. I have to say that the old town grows on me more each time that I go there. Plenty of people obviously love it, since they vacation here. To me, it was a bit of a let down from the start. Pretty crappy thing to say about the oldest city in America (literally), BUT the reason I was let down was because we left a tiny hole-in-the-wall town to move to a big city. We got to the big city, and realized that the crime and crappy school system was so piss poor, that we had to move the next town over in order to get a good education for our kids, and refrain from having a cap busted in our asses. This town is St Augustine, which happens to be about the same size as the town we moved from, and a lot older and somewhat outdated. We're not all the way in town, but rather in a golfing community about 20 minutes out, so we're conveniently located to nothing, but at least we're midway between the city and the town. Anyhow, Friday was perfect. The dinner wasn't great, but we were finally low on humidity, and there was a wonderful breeze that was preceeding the storm coming in. It was dark with a crystal clear sky, and walking around the old town was wonderful. One of these days I'm going to actually take pictures of where we live. Seems like that would make sense, no? We had lots of rain Saturday, but all in all it was a great visit.

The highlight of the trip had to be when we went to the outlet mall. Husband and I took son into the Disney store, and daughter was with my parents. They then decided to tell us when we came back, that daughter went into the store to find us (we weren't in there) and sent me into utter panic that she had been lost/stolen/kidnapped. Oh what, you don't see the humor in this?

Yeah, me neither. It didn't go over too well. Ugh.

With this trip behind us, it puts me one step closer to my GIRLS TRIP, which is less than 2 weeks away! I've got a lot of personal things- internal debates, struggles, and annoyances going on right now. I'll save it for another post, but let's just say I really am ready for this trip!

Cleaning Crew

I'm lacking in updates, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes I just want to come on here and ramble. Nice for me, boring as crap for you. ;)

At this point, I am doing what I do best, which is preparing for company. Husband turns 30 on the 11th and so my parents are coming to watch the kids so we can go out.

Right..my parents are spending a few hundreds of dollars to come down for my husbands birthday? Not so much. We welcome company at any time, so I guess that my mom felt that maybe since she called me literally 2 hours after daughter had left from visiting this summer and asked to come down, that she needed a good reason. At any rate, I need an escape and so I'll take what I can get. Don't know where we're going or what we're doing, but I am ready for a moment of sanity. I'm thinking a night of game playing at Dave and Busters, because I am all about any place that serves alcohol AND tells adults to play games. Does it get any better than that??

Once my parents leave on the 14th, it will be 11 days until my mother in law and bestie get here for the girls cruise. No, mother in law isn't going, but merely providing her child watching services to the kids, because husband can't. That's a whole other rant in itself.

So one would think, well I will spend that 11 days getting clothes laid out (I am a very detailed packer, people),doing my normal day to day things, and relaxing (does that happen, seriously?) etc. But what will I be doing?

Scrubbing the ever loving shart out of my house.

This sounds ass backwards to me- I'm getting ready to leave on a trip and I am cleaning like a mad lady? Unfortunately, true.

I don't know why, but when my mother in law visits, she also thinks that she has to clean my house. Don't get me wrong, it's nice, but I object. I like to do things my way, on my terms. It's safe to say that she does them as close to the way that I do as possible, but what I have issue with is that fact that she's supposed to be here watching the kids, not cleaning. While I am confident in my own abilities to do both, I'm not confident in anyone else's. I'm just weird like that. When she cleans, she goes all out and so it really takes a lot of her attention. She is also on the heavier side, and when she works on the house all day, then her knees get really messed up and she gets grouchy. It's hardly the ideal situation. On top of that, she also does my laundry. And when I say does laundry, I mean DOES laundry. She folds socks for crying out loud. She folds underwear, blues are only washed with blues, browns with browns, you get the point. It's quite the production, and now I see why she hates laundry so much. It's an all day and night job. I also do not enjoy my mother in law washing my underwear. Is that not a bit weird? Just a bit?

So...this means that I literally will have to spring clean my house once my parents are gone. It's the ONLY way to ensure that she doesn't do it while she's here, and it's one less thing that I will have to worry about. Right now I'm contemplating hiring someone else to do it for me. Of course the fact is that once she's here means that we will be headed to Jamaica, and that is a fantabulous reward for all of the hard work that I am sure to put in beforehand.

There is no other real news around here to report. I'm in one of my funks about living in Florida. Don't get me wrong, I love the state. I love our house, and the schools and everything like that. But it's hard to meet people, and it's even more hard when I don't put myself out there. Obviously you can't make new friends, if you are at home 24/7. It's definitely a different dynamic because I am the youngest person with kids our kids ages around here. People are all around unfriendly it seems. I've met about 4-5 people that are really nice and lots of fun, but I miss that "best friend" feeling of being able to call and talk to someone, or go out to dinner or just hang out while we're getting groceries, etc. There are actually 2 other moms on my street that are my age- literally across from my house- that have kids that are the same ages as my kids--the girls even ride the bus with daughter, and yet, they don't speak. Maybe I stink and I don't know it? I dunno. All I do know is that I need to start whoring myself out for some adult friends soon, before I go nuts. It really is a daunting task, one that I'm trying to work up to. I went to a moms night out last night and it was really fun, I knew the main girl hosting it because our kids are in Girl Scouts together, but it's hard to meet new people in a house of 25 drinking women ;) ::Sigh:: Still hoping to find that balance and that the answer comes to me soon, before I get the itch to just tell husband to move us somewhere else that I may be bitter towards too, and start all over again. I feel like I've been home with my kids for so long and not had to actually go out and meet new people, because we always lived near family and old friends, and now when I am faced with the situation I'm just all around awkward. Bah. Pardon the pity party.

Besides all of that, I've had a stiff neck/shoulders/3 day migraine thing going on, that I'm finally recovering from. Soooo.. needless to say, when my parents come to visit this weekend, husband and I may end up with a hotel room somewhere so that I can drink myself into a relaxed state once again. ;)