Well, we're back. It required 9.5 hours to drive from the airport home, due to a blizzard. Usually, it's about 3.

We're all quite tired still, and we forgot a small suitcase of goodies at the hotel, which I'm still trying to track down.

I'm still working on details of the trip, and I'm too tired to hit into them right now.

I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful and spectacular New Year.

Well, it wasn't asthma, it was bronchitis kicking in hard. I'm on antibiotics and while there's improvement, there's also the total agony of coughing up lung chunkage. My whole back feels like someone ran over it with a bulldozer. On top of which, we had to have the entire house spiffed up for an appraisal for the refinance we've decided to do on Monday. So bronchitis diagnosis on Saturday -- appraisal on Monday. Insomniac on Tuesday...Okay...super freaking early Wednesday.

I've pretty well said "fuck it" to getting anything further done toward Christmas. I have revised what I am doing for Genny's princess dress for Disney World and she could care less, but I'm somewhat perturbed. I did find at JCPenney outlet a dress that would go with the Santa cape for $13.

I'm just depressed. I have all of this stuff towards xmas boxes done that I can't begin to do before Christmas. So, I'm sending out New Year's presents. I'm celebrating Christmas on New Year's Eve. When I get home on the 30th, I will make up my presents, finish my mailings and do it then.

I can't sleep because I can't breathe, so my Christmas wish is a small one -- 8 -10 hours of sleep.

*sigh*

On top of all of this shit, Mike's raise was essentially nonexistent. He didn't do the spifftacular job they'd come to expect and raises were substantially nailed because they had to pay the shareholders their dividends. I'm angry, worried, and just generally pissed.

With the refinance, however, we'll be okay.

Ultimately, we'll be okay. I keep trying to get past being angry and just give it to God, but I'm being familiarly human and failing at it, so far.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Peace on earth and in your neck of the woods.

I'm not entirely sure why, but my asthma is kicked up. I did some manual labor today, but nothing is blooming, so there's nothing that should be making me icky, yet, I am. I just poured bags of rocks next to the garage in a place that is usually the weedy corner of the building. I sprayed round-up, put down black plastic, and then poured about 10 bags of rocks out there. They weren't even dusty or nuffin.

I've been doing that high tight cough thing and it hurts. I don't want to go on steroids again, but it's pretty bad and I'm not sure what would be best to do. I guess I'll be calling the doctor to determine that or making a quick run to the emergency room.

*sigh*

I've started up my sewing again -- halfway through the xmas blanket for my bro and his wife, starting to put together the pieces of the princess dress for Ms. Thang.

We have all the shelves done, just drying and Mike is insistent that we must have a certain bracket in order to put up the shelves, despite the fact that I bought it for him and now, it's disappeared. Tomorrow at the butt crack o' dawn, ostensibly, I'll be making a run at Home Depot, which is actually a thinly veiled excuse to go to Starbucks.

So tired.

The appraisal is on Monday at 11AM. Unfortunately, the guy that was supposed to come and do our garage door never called or showed, so we're going to have to get some help to get the damned garage door fixed. We're going to try calling Gorden and Dan and see if they can help just close the darned thing. I don't care if it works, I just care that it is closed when the appraiser pulls up.

Now, the doctor call. Ain't we got fun.

We're going to refinance the house. We hadn't really planned it, but we went to get a holiday loan to pay for Orlando, and the woman involved was trying to refinance our house for us. Only her rate really blew, so we thanked her for her time and looked at each other with disbelief. I was thinking, wow, I should think out bills paid every month was a good thing! So, I called my accountant and asked him for advice -- what should we do? Is it worth it to refinance, should we get an equity loan, or what? He gave us the name of a friend.

The guy can refinance our house at a boomin' rate -- a full percentage point lower than what we were paying and only one point! The other gal was offering us 2 percentage points higher and 4 points! When I heard our credit rating, I realized I was being had by the holiday loan person and was soooo mad.

We are trying to get the house appraised for a very high amount, obviously. We think that if we can clean it up nicely, it'll appraise for more. I spoke to our old realtor and she sent me some comparative stuff for the area, and I think we're going to have to work our tails off. We'd been concentrating on shelves in the bedroom, but I think we ought to concentrate on redoing the kitchen cupboards. I need to talk it over with Mike. The fact that we have had the oven's innards completely updated and revamped and updated the stove top with a glasstop jenn aire are to our credit. However, the other stuff, we're not so sure of.

We're going to toss a coat of paint in the kids' bathroom, reorganize the livingroom, by putting stuff on shelves in the bedroom. I stained a decorative shelf for our bedroom, too, to put over the computer desk to hold the printer, fax machine, printing paper, and cd's.

Ideally, we should sand down the kitchen cupboards and restain them and put cute little pepper knobs on them. Not gonna happen this weekend, is my guess. I can dream though.

I'm still not right. I am going without prednisone for the first time in a week because I'm exhausted and hosed physically and I need my energy. My hope is that I can still breathe and that going without the prednisone will make me less wiped out.

Right now, I'm lucky if I can stay awake for a couple hours before I want to go back to bed.

I feel old and frail and it frightens me a bit.

---

In other news, we're working on refinancing the house, so we can finish the garage and convert it into more living space. What's nice about doing that is that we could essentially pull all the computer and office crap out of the bedrooms and put them out in the garage.

We're still talking about exactly what we want to do, but I think when we get all done, it'll be really beautiful.

This is my bi-annual whine o' sickness. I hate diabetes and I hate asthma and I hate my body for having both.

Every danged cold I get, I get a bronchial infection and asthma and I have to take freakin' prednisone and then inject insulin and it happens EVERY STUPID year at the holidays, so I have to be super careful at a time when I'd rather not be so careful. I resent making sugar-free cranberry sauce and some stupid sugar free pie thing that only I will eat. I hate having foods around that I have to warn the kids out of. I want to eat something naughty and not have to be an food plan angel. I would also appreciate not having fingers calloused from poking them for blood samples and a belly covered in injection site bruises. I also would like to not widen up like a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I swear, I inflate over the holidays at an exponential rate due to the annual holiday ingestion of prednisone and I spend all of January walking it off.

I like fruitcake, mincemeat, and all kinds of bad things. (I know you read fruitcake and said,'Well, you are what you eat, you know.')

I've been struggling and it really sucks. I am sick of being sick. The kids were peeved at me because in lieu of french fries, I made them eat broccoli when we went out tonight. But they've been sick, too, and I'm sick of everyone being sick. I figure any way to get vitamins into them is good. (Although, Russell's been angling for me to go to Costco and buy the gummi vitamins and I haven't had time) Mike's sick, too, and he NEVER gets sick. It's just been a sickening time, ya know?

Thankfully, I am not working while I'm this sick. The gal I was replacing at the counseling center decided that she wanted to work full-time not part-time and my job ended. I asked the temp agency for something after the new year that used my computer skills and was for a non-profit. I said I have the business acumen for profit ventures, but no desire to use it. I will NOT turn to the dark side.

Yesterday, I got up, had perfect sugars and then promptly turned around and went back to bed after 4 hours to sleep for two more. Of course, now I'm here at this hour posting because my body clock is completely thwacked.

I want to go off prednisone, but my doctor said that if I can't get off it and insulin, that going to Orlando would be a bad thing. Somehow, I can't imagine that 80 degrees is a bad thing. I just can't. And I have a one piece, so no one will see my bruised belly, though the large whiteness should be frightening enough.

Mike asked me, jokingly, to ask him anything about the future. I said more seriously than I meant,"Will they find a cure for diabetes, so I don't have to die from this fucking disease?" He said,"That is uncertain." I said,"You sound like an 8-ball." He says,"Yeah, but I was accurate, huh?" I groused and grumbled.

I guess I feel behind the 8 ball, lately.

Thus, endeth my whine o' sickness until March-April.

I got a job working at a counseling center that serves people who are generally in rehab through the temp agency. I don't know if I want it forever, yet, but they're nice and it's doing service type stuff, so it's good for my heart.

Thanksgiving was really wonderful. Sarah came up and then after dinner, we drove to see Donna and Mel and family and had dessert and visited. It was fun. Genny and Lulu didn't want to part and were devising all sorts of ways to stay over at each other's houses.

Today, we woke up to about a foot of snow. It was so wonderful to just lounge in bed and watch the storm. I loved the curved icicles hanging from the eaves -- curved from the curl of wind. I remembered with a shudder that I used to eat those when I was a kid and was thinking about all the crap I must have ingested as a child. Gack.

We got the Halloween/harvesty stuff put away and Christmas decorations up. I miss putting up a real tree. We put up a small fake one because we'll be away, but damn. I miss the real thing. We had to limit our ornamentation to small ornaments that wouldn't break easily.

Genny was pretty cute today because she announced she was putting on her snow clothes and going outside. She then proceeded to put her boots on the wrong feet, claim that one glove was good enough because she could stick her hand in her pocket and then reached for a sweatshirt. Mommy gently suggested that her boots should go on the other feet, so that she could walk without falling down, found her a pair of matching gloves, and helped snap, strap, zip, and velcro her into her winter jacket with the butt protector (prevents snow from going up the coat). She had such a good time, that Mike was able to con her into going out to get the mail instead of him. He said he felt like a tyrant. I agreed. (Criminy, she's only 4, Mike!)

I wanted to get out of the house after two days tonight, so I went to the 7-11 and won $5 on the poker machines. I got 4 Aces and then skittered and slid my way back up the hill to the house on the big giant sheets of rutted ice we currently call roads here. The snow is still fluffy, so not really conducive to making snowmen or anything, either. I couldn't find the damned brushy thing for brushing all the snow off my van, so Ms. Brains that I am, I decided to use my coat and ended up pouring about half the snow on the windshield down my jumper.

Just shut up.

There's supposed to be more snow tonight and then the temps tomorrow night are supposed to drop into the single digits. We're going to go buy a heat lamp for the cat in the garage because it'll just get too damned cold otherwise, but we'll have to wait for the sun to come out and the roads to melt, even a little and take the all wheel drive van to get it.

I keep thinking of Lilo and Stitch. Stitch is the virtually indestructible alien who arrives in Hawaii thrashing lots of stuff, and when confronted by his creator who says he'll make him less fluffy next time, says, "But I like fluffy."

Winter is that kind of fluffy, funny, and virtually indestructible. But I like it. Come April, I'll be jonesing for crocuses and daffodils, but for now, I like fluffy.

I'm finally done with the job from hell.

I went through the books today and while things don't look great, they don't look as grim as they could. One thing I'm thinking about is taking Genny out of daycare to save the money there and spend time with her. I know all kinds of websites with teaching tools and I'm going to talk to LaDawn about getting a copy of the homeschool materials she uses, to work with Genny. I also think I'm going to see about setting up playdates or even taking her to LaDawn's a couple afternoons per week to play with other kids. With the holidays coming, it seems like an appropriate time, but we'll see if I get a temp job til we leave for Florida.

I'm back to sewing again, which is a sure sign that I'm happy and relaxed. I don't want to work again, unless I absolutely have to. We'll see what God brings.

I like working at home. I like being a homemaker. I never thought I'd say that in a million years, but I really do.

I've been shredded about not going on field trips with Russell. He got to go on a fossil dig and he had an absolute ball. I wanted to go sooooo bad. They're going to a play in December. I'd love to go to that with him, too.

I like the idea of earning money, but I miss my kids, my home, and my life.

I'm not even sure I want to return to grad school right now. It's such an exciting time for both children. I could take a few of the requisite classes needed for my teaching credential without officially going back to the big U for a couple years.

Genny's sooooo damned close to reading. I'd like to be there when she can do more than recite the letters that she sees -- when she can actually sound out the words.

I'd also really like to take morning walks with her and hang out with her.

I'm nearly dancing myself silly. They interviewed some pretty thing today, which would mean I could get the hell out of there sometime soon! Whee!

The issue, of course, is that we need to pay for Orlando.

Ugh.

This job is an amazingly bad fit, but Mike got word today that the raises have been cut by 40%. This may mean that we won't get the $5k bonus that we have gotten the past two years, which of course, means I'm stuck doing this hideous job I hate.

*sigh*

It wouldn't be so bad, if my boss wasn't so often a real pain in the ass. I think if there's anything I hate more is being patronized and this guy is undoubtedly the crowned Prince of Patronization -- like I'm too stooopid to know what I'm doing or something. As a result, I am very careful about what I reveal about what I'm feeling.

Apparently, he told the temp agency that he thought he was looking for someone more motivated in sales. I told the temp agency that at $12.50 an hour, what's to be motivated about? Hey, I sold another machine and made my boss a lot of money that I'll never see! Whee!

Yeesh!

As I told the temp agency, if he wants to motivate people, he really ought to compensate them in motivating ways. If I got a percentage of each sale, I think I'd be a LOT more motivated. Yeah, I live to hear my boss and the VP gloating about each sale made, knowing that I won't see anything but my $12.50 an hour.

I keep wondering, if the guy just thinks I'm going to be all excited about making him money. I'm more interested in making money for my family. That's why I'm working. DUH! The pictures on my desk are my HUSBAND and CHILDREN and are there to motivate me to tolerate his obnoxious behavior. If you want me to sell the hell out of stuff, then PAY me something more than shit wages.

What a dumbass!

Well, with any luck at all, and the creek not rising, tomorrow will be my last day at this awful job.

I'm trying to get caught up, but I may not and I'm at the point to where that is totally okay with me.

I basically told my boss yesterday that I was not willing to make sales calls because despite his assurances that he would be there that there are many times when he is unavailable and then, I'd be stuck selling. I told him that if that was a dealbreaker for him that he needed to contact the temp agency and get someone else to do this job.

I need to just get my substitution credential and teach.

My employer decided to take me off the bookkeeping. I kept messing it up last week, and then yesterday, just as I was getting it down, the boss's wife had me do something I knew was wrong, but she insisted was correct and now, today, I'm suddenly not doing bookkeeping, but am the Sales Administrative Assistant.

I fucking hate sales. I'm supposed to make calls to people who gave us their phone number when they called in for lit. I'd rather chew glass. I didn't tell my boss that, but that's what I think about it. I know damned well the temp agency can find me something better.

I want Mike's big fat bonus to come in, so I can quit this shitty rotten job and sew blankets, cook, and teach Genny to read. She's *THIS* close to it. She knows all the letters and their sounds, so we need to work on the connecting them together thing. I also would like to finish up my incompletes. Oh, PLEASE, God, let Mike get his big fat bonus again?

If it doesn't, I'll be stuck doing this til Christmas, at which time, I'm giving notice and quitting!

Office work blows.

I do not think I can adequately express my displeasure with the outcome of the elections.

It's disheartening that the Democratic party is so freaking wishy washy and so out of touch with the bulk of American citizenry.

I'll grant you -- I'm a left-wing liberal. I think abortion should be legal, gays should be able to have some kind of legally recognized partnership ability like everyone else, that war is bad no matter what, and that education is completely screwed with No Child Left Behind. However, the election results showed that people didn't feel like they had much of a choice.

I didn't feel like I had much of a choice. As much as I loathe Bush, I was not a hard core Kerry supporter. I saw a bumper that said it best,"Kerry sucks less."

For Halloween, I did the candy handing out. Mike and Russell dressed as ninjas and Genny, my princess of all that is pastel, was a pink flamingo ("Amingo") because she got fixated on that color and just HAD to wear it. I usually costume up, but this year, I just wore a Halloweeny t-shirt, had my usual scary hair, and a dirty house. That was scary enough without a mask, I think.

---

Work is hard.

I am thinking that I will only be working until we leave for Florida. I like the place and the people, but I do not think I'd like to be an office lacky indefinitely, I'm also not organized enough to enjoy it. I can do it, but I'd rather be home sewing.

Mike says we should wait until we see what his raise is. I'd really appreciate it, if his company would finally bring up reviews, so we could find out what's up on that score. We could really use the pay increase retroactively, in fact. And I would like to make a decision as to whether or not I'm going to continue doing all the shit I do making as much shit-for-wages as I do.

Mostly, I'd just like to sleep -- delicious, luscious, scrumptious napping under warm blankets in the wintry night.

I'm also worried about getting my incompletes made up, which will be well nigh on impossible to do while I'm working. I'd need a week of NOT working to do them. I'm thinking maybe I can work it out to get most of the stuff done on Thanksgiving weekend, though that's cutting it close and I realistically need to do my research well before that.

I am a Super Geek scoring at 45.6% geekiness.

Be totally fucking afraid. I sure know I am.

The new job...

I am glad I don't think of this as a career. It's eerily not a career and certainly not something I want to spend the rest of my life doing, but for now, I feel happy to be at work making money doing stuff I can handle.

It's not overly stressful, though, I am tired at the end of the day, which has made for a skimpy love life. Mike told me he thought he could pencil me in for 915AM tomorrow morning. Cross your fingers!

Tomorrow, though, I'd like to drive up to Apple Hill in the morning and get some apples before it snows in the passes. I just want to get out of town, to be honest, and I think I'm going to try to whirlwind clean up tonight, and I'll work on laundry tonight and Sunday, so the guilt factor doesn't flare up wildly.

I like the guy at the temp agency. He was funny. I called after my first day and asked if we should discuss tomorrow that I plan to take two weeks off at Christmas time and he said that he thought I should wait a few weeks. I giggled and said,"Oh, so I have time to make myself indispensable, huh?" He laughed and said,"Pretty much!"

The boss is kind of a persnickety German kind of guy. He goes into extreme detail on everything -- which is kind of German and kind of Engineer. He told me that when the lights in his office are off he is not in. Then he told me that when his door is closed that he doesn't want to be disturbed and when it's cracked, he's just shutting out noise.

Um, duh. I was trying hard not to burst into hysterical laughter. Both because he must think I'm retarded and because it was so expected of a German engineer. The other guy there was looking at both our faces and saw my eyes glinting, I know. I was trying to look away, but he was in the only place I could look.

I haven't yet told him that I have had 5 and a half years of German that I can't fucking remember to save my soul, though weirdly enough, I can get myself through most German magazines. I just can't speak/understand any more. I know he speaks a bit, but today he used Ersatz and all I could remember is that I thought that it meant sentence, but he had said paragraph in English, and that's not the plural that I would have expected (sentences), so I pretended I had no idea what he was talking about.

I'm a little embarrassed about abandoning my German heritage, so readily, but I still love sausage and mustard, so that should count for something!

I got a job today.

When asked in the interview what I would plan for a career, I said I don't think that way. My career is my family. I want a job to support them.

Duh.

The shit you have to go through for $12.50 an hour.

At least I will be able to afford Orlando for Christmas, though I have to negotiate that with them. :)

I interviewed with a temp place today, but they wanted to talk to the client I worked for NOT the employment agency and I felt kind of weird and uncomfortable about it. I called and warned the woman and I called and warned the employment agency, but it seemed weird. I also am going to have to make myself a "fat" suit until I get my weight off more. I have that gorgeous Macy's suit, but am too fat to wear it. I found some nice patterns online today and I think I'm going to just buy my fixings and make myself a suit. I have some nice lightweight wools at home, but either I don't have enough yardage in any one or it's just the way wrong plaid. I can't bring myself to do the mauve houndstooth, the orange, or the blue striped. I just want a plain navy blue suit. Period.

On the kid front, Russell was trying to lobby to go to his best friend's house tomorrow and I told him he wasn't going any where because he's grounded until that damned room is clean. It was odd how all of the sudden two big bags of trash came out of his room, however, they were initially covered with the sleeping bag. He wanted me to check his room and I asked him if the drawers were closed to his dresser and the clothes on top of it were hung up. He told me no, so I told him that I didn't have anything to check.

He's got a half day tomorrow, so he'll be working on that dutifully tomorrow afternoon in anticipation of getting to go to Charles' house when he's done.

Mike also found nothing but junk food wrappers in his clothes while changing loads and said something about "No wonder he's been sick all the freaking time -- he's eating a lot of crap." I agreed. I got up this morning and made everyone eat a good breakfast, cheesy eggs, slice apples, ww toast with homemade jam. I figure eggs aren't the best thing, but it's solid and it'll get them through until lunch time.

I'm thinking about making fake cheese blintzes tomorrow -- you can use lowfat ricotta or cottage cheese with a little cream cheese (low fat) and you mix in splenda, cinnamon, apples, and put it in a tortilla and pan brown it on a bit of oil on a teflon pan. Usually, we drizzle a little maple syrup/honey on it for the kids or use jam to add sweetness.

It's hard getting up early, but I'm hoping it will pay off. I miss my garden. Jack Frost ate my garden.

And to top it all off, I am by far the meanest mommy in town.

Well, half the room's floor is clean and clear. The freaking closet pole bracket broke last night, so the closet dowel full of my clothes hit the floor. And there it sits.

I asked Mike to make necessary repairs and he looked at me with that spouse in the headlights look, which usually precedes running him over with a large moving vehicle. I have to get the ladder tomorrow and see if I can raise the shelf a foot myself and if so, then I'm going to start fixing it myself and cussing him out simultaneously.

Should be fun.

Otherwise, not much happened other than I discovered just how much I overspent in Vegas. No, I don't want to talk about it. I am contacting temp agencies all over the place for jobs. I found a temp to perm admin. assistant job part-time that pays $15 per hour. Gone are the days I wouldn't cross the street for less than $100. Now, I'm willing to drive across the county for $15.

I'm a whore through and through. Of course, due to my advanced girth, I'm going to have to make a run to the JCPenney outlet store and see if I can find the makings of a suit that will actually fit because I'm chunkier than I used to was thanks to the thyroid problems this year.

Yeah, it's coming off, but dude, it's taking a while and Vegas put on 5 pounds. Yeesh! Tonight, I just did housework, though and my sugars are 95 as I head to bed -- good for me!

These days I'm on a cocktail of actos and metidate. I tried skipping the metidate one night and I woke up rather sugar logey with a 130. I used to get by on the actos. Apparently, with my extra weight, that's not happening any more. Dammit.

Thank God for my life now, despite diabetes and some of the hereditary ravages of age, I've got a good life.

People ask me lately how I'm doing and I couldn't even define that entirely. My asthma is kicking my ass because the rabbit brush is in full bloom and my body has about run out of defenses. I've got a lot of housework to do and I've been revamping my room.

Today, I took out all the clothes from my side of the closet that don't fit. I have a portion of Mike's closet devoted to my clothes that I haven't even begun to consider -- mostly because it's buried behind shit and is a bitch to get to.

I can actually see floor in my closet. There are still a few hangers, but all the clothes have been sorted through and that which will fit in two sizes from now lives in two boxes that I can safely stow either in the garage or the bottom of my closet until I either fit in them or it seems pretty apparent that's not going to happen soon and I give them to charity.

I'm going to paint a dresser that we've got in the garage and stamp leaves and stuff on it. I treated it with paint thinner today and tomorrow I'll scrape/sand off what I can and then I'll paint it. I think that will become a storage vessel for my seasonal clothing. I'll swap t-shirts for my long-sleeved stuff and move my xmas and winter stuff over. I have several dressers in the garage that I could also broach for the same thing, but this dresser we have is a high boy like the other dressers, so seems more in keeping with what I've already got in the room. The other two are garage sale specials which hardly seem worthy of painting. One is a particle board with plastic veneer and the other one is a vintage metal dresser in two shades of icky mint green. The latter works great, but metal is not something that would look good in this room no matter what color I did -- wrong texture and feel.

Our bedroom is kind of a natural world in earthy colors. We have two red walls and two goldenrod walls (they aren't every other wall, but rather two and two)and I've got lamps and rugs with leaves in the same colors. When I said I was painting it red, people gave me shit about it and said that'd it'd be ugly. It's not, though. It looks really good and I enjoy how dark it makes our room -- like a comfortable cave. All the furniture is wooden. We've even stained boards to pick up the colors in the lamps/rugs. There are pictures of moose (my husband's nickname) and watercolors of flowers, as well as posters of wildflowers. One of the dressers has decorative knobs that are kind of a weathered brass leaf.

The only thing we really have to have NOW is more lighting. My dream would be to have someone come in and make my closet beautiful and organized, but that's a bit out of the budget for now.

Our adjoining bathroom has brown tile, and green and blue sponge paint with silver butterflies and dragonflies, with a sky blue ceiling, and drawer/cupboard pulls that are pewter-looking branches. All of the faucets, the picture frame, the bathroom shelf behind the toilet are all in some version of silvery finish. We'd like to go more brushed nickel all over the place, but we'll get there when we can. To me the bathroom embodies the earth, sea, and sky -- sounds very feng shui, I'm sure, but it's just how I feel about it. Mike wants curtains, and I even bought fabric, but I can't bring myself to cover the night sky -- something I often watch in the *wee* hours. I have a leafy shower curtain with matching sink set in blues and greens, a silvery maple leaf candle holder, and a watercolor of butterflies and blackberries.

Some day, when it's clean I'll take pictures and show you.

We are in Vegas. I haven't fully relaxed. I'm exhausted, but yet, I'm not able to sleep. It's pitiful.

Mike is sawing logs and I'm just too tired to sleep.

I keep thinking I could go to the casino, but then I'd have to get another set of clothes saturated in cigarette smoke and I'd just about rather chew glass.

I miss the kids and sincerely wish that we could have sex and time with each other AND play with the kids a bunch. However, our kids are a demanding lot, and we both know that we couldn't get all the sex and time we want with kids present.

Also, it seems like it's hard to talk with them around and all the demands they make and talking is important for us. Ultimately, I feel guilty for having time without them.

I think tomorrow will be better when I'm not so damned tired and frazzle, but right now, I'm homesick.

I got pulled over. I never get pulled over for the usual -- speeding. Not that I don't speed. Trust me, I speed sometimes. When I don't have the kids in the car or anyone else, I drive like a madwoman, although much less so with age and judgement.

However, I always get pulled over for some kind of stupid, unsafe turn. Today, that was the case. I have an unregistered vehicle, but I only got a warning for that. I got the ticket for making an unsafe left turn across the four lane highway.

It's one of those things that EVERYONE does. It's referred to as the suicide lane. They really need a light there, but instead they have cops ticketing people In frustration, after he gave me the ticket, I asked him,"How are you suppposed to get out of there? It's so frustrating!"

It's only $140 and if I go to court I'll probably get something less significant, but yeesh.

Mike was home at 6PM tonight. It was positively miraculous. This is the man that is typically gone from 8AM til 1130PM for the past month.

I was stuffing turkey enchiladas in the kitchen and he walked in and said,"Hey, baby."

I kind of stood there sputtering. "What happened?"

He shrugged,"I think I'm done."

Then he grabbed my butt and kissed my neck. The things that you miss. I swear.

We've already necked all over the kitchen, snuggled on the bed, and fondled each other a few times. Cute enough to make even the most strong-stomached person a bit nauseous, huh?

I can't believe the night that I make enchiladas, is the night he managed to come home. What's up with that? Last night, we had spaghetti - slightly tampered with from the can over left over noodles. The night before was Taco bell.

He claims he could smell it from work. He might just get sex for comments like that.

At the university yesterday, my adviser exclaimed,"You shrunk!" Of all the things a fat woman wants to hear, that is definitely among the top three. Everyone I saw commented on my longer hair, my smaller body, and my generally relaxed demeanor.

Relaxed?

Yeah, I know. I am guessing they were smoking something or that in their exhaustion-inspired graduate school delirium that they thought I might look relaxed. I told Mike though, it's kind of like going to your high school reunion sveltely slender, fabulously wealthy, and happily married to a studmuffin. Everyone claimed to miss me and that was nice. I was told I should be glad I'm not there, due to the usual whining and politics.

However, to be honest, I wish I was there. I loved school, I just wasn't healthy enough to be there. If I were at school, it would mean I was healthy. Health would be cool.

Instead, I'm relegated to house marm, which while entertaining at times is also intensely lonely. As soon as things cool down with Mike, I'm going back to work for the temp agencies. We need the money, and I need to get the hell out of Dodge for sanity's sake.

I was thinking it would be cool to homeschool Genny because she loves that and she's already far ahead of her peers, but she really likes hanging out with the other kids and she misses that intensely when she's not there. I think once things chill, if I'm not working, I'm picking her up in the afternoons and taking her home, so we can play.

She's the cutest little girl on the planet and she still thinks I'm cool, so I need to use it or lose it. :)

Okay, I'm 20 pints into plum pear jam which, by the way, is unfreakingbelievably good. I'm only about 10 pints into plum nectarine jam, which is okay, but pales in comparison to the other.

And I'm tired to my bones.

I went to the uni today, caught up with a few folks and hung out. I got all the stuff together for both classes squared away. I am now armed with a plan for completing everything, which should be fully executed by mid-November.

I spent the whole day in the car, driving back and forth between the two big cities here. I literally drove from 845AM to 7PM tonight when I drove up into the driveway.

Now, I sleep.

I made plum pear jam last night and it is to die for. I made a triple batch and only used a small portion of my plums and it only came to a lousy 9 pints. Mind you that's a lot of jam, but I had to peel pears and depit small (but tasty) plums for it, i.e., not much end product for the effort.

I bought 20lbs of sugar today and 3 boxes of pint jars and I'll be busy skinning pears and plums slicing up plums until the wee hours this evening, I'm sure. I also found a plum peach jam recipe, so I'll probably be doing some combo of those tonight. My hope is that next year that I won't have to buy any more freaking canning jars. I'm also fairly certain that somewhere in the depths of my garage, I have a whole box filled with perfectly useable jars, but I'll be darned if I know where it is.

Mostly, I'm tired. Mike is working 12-14 hours per day and this single parenting gig really blows. I accidentally slept in today and honestly, I felt like I could stand a few more hours, but I got up and worked on laundry, shopping,etc. I brought Mike a sandwich, because otherwise he doesn't eat lunch. I have groceries that I still need to put away.

One thing at a time, I swear.

So much to do, so little time to accomplish it.

I also felt like a queen yesterday because I managed to get rid of three boxes of crap out of the garage. Some of it was boxes I hadn't unpacked since we moved out of California three years ago.

Oh, shaddup.

I found scrapbooks, Russell's baby books, and some favorite tapes.

I think what was neatest is that I got to go through Russell's baby book with him and he got to understand how much I planned for, protected, and loved him. I think when Russell understood that despite my obvious failings that I have spent his whole life adoring the blue bejesus out of him, he found it comforting that I have always thought he was special. Heck, I think I got one month's worth of stuff into Genny's book and abandoned the whole thing.

I have a lot more pictures of her, though, and for that, I'm happy, too.

I also found Genny stuff in the boxes -- including a small Beatrix Potter pail with her tiny baby newborn socks in it. I tried putting it in her room, but she started to go through it, so I hid it in mine until she's older.

Memory lane is a pretty place.

I made about 3 gallons of homemade fruit cocktail, using white nectarines, pears, maraschino cherries, and my plums. For dessert, I gave the kids the juice I made to store them in -- hot, but over ice. They both were thrilled and deemed said juice worthy of their palates. ( A mix of maraschino cherry juice, pineapple juice, and white grape juice.)

I still have half a box of pears and nectarines to go and a whole lot more plums, but I'm thinking I should be making fruit crisps or something because they'd be tasty fresh and might fine. Well, and I'm getting sick and tired of canning stuff.

I still have to make a small batch of green tomato jam. No, I don't know if it is good, I'm just going to try making it for Donna's husband because he says it's good and I have all these stupid green tomatoes that I saved from the frost.

Mike hasn't been home before 10 all week, really, and I miss him. I'd like to actually have sex with him some day, if we can remember how. Although sleeping is something I don't seem to have a handle on either.

I haven't been sleeping at all and tomorrow, I told LaDawn that I'd take over the daycare for her in the afternoon, so she can drive 3 hours away to her see her Mom. Her mom had surgery and went septic, so she's been in ICU for weeks and it's been pretty scary. At any rate, I'm going to need the sleep, I'm pretty sure.

I'm dropping children in bed and then I think I'm going to drop in bed and sleep for a few years.

Zucchini relish simmers on the stove while the canning jars bubble away in their sterile hot water environment. A box of pears calls to me -- peel us, slice us, drop us in jars. The peaches join the chorus, as do the plums, and the frozen cherries in the garage.

I'm tired though. 6 hours of sleep and one hour of worrying and slap me and call me wiped.

I untoweled, desheeted, and untarped the garden. The frost got most of the plants anyhow. I only really saved half a squash plant, 2 peppers, and several halves of tomato plants. I collected what green tomatoes I could find for jam and relish. They too call on me. I watered my patch, and the next week is supposed to be warm, so I'm hoping I get some survival out of these damned plants. I've got tons of tomatoes in the fridge, cilantro and hot peppers that I should can up salsa out of.

The snow has all but melted off the mountains, now. You can see a few patches hiding on the north side of trees. I hope we get a lot more because the drought here is getting rugged and I don't want to come up with a fortune to redig my well.

Today, however, I dig through laundry and fruit. I'm sure there's some kind of moral or pithy saying in there about fruit of the loom, but I'm too exhausted to think what it might be.

Well, I picked about 2 bushels of plums in 50 degree weather on Sunday. I still have scratches on my hands and forearems and windburn on my face from it. Tomorrow, I can those up, probably with white grape juice, peaches, and pears, actually, because I can't bring myself to just turn them all into jam. I still haven't pickled the zuke, but it's sitting in the fridge covered and waiting.

Today, it seems like I didn't do a damned thing, but I ran around a lot. I ran to two different music stores in town to find the necessary book for Russell's trumpet playing. I stopped at joann's fabrics and found some cute bug fabric with coordinating fabric sets, so I'm going to make 2 receiving blankets for the friend of a friend. Drove 30 miles south to get to my eye doctor appt.

What I want to know is: On what fucking planet does a fucking EYE exam take nearly 2 FUCKING HOURS?!!! I will never go back to that doctor again. The staff is really nice, but there's no excuse for making someone wait forever and then shuffling them around constantly and taking 2 hours for it all.

After that, I went to the PTA meeting where I felt enormously out of place. I finally had to leave early to give Russ his meds. Unfortunately, that feeling of vague uneasiness didn't end.

I baked three loaves of zuke bread today and another pan of jumbo muffins. Yeah, that's a whole lotta squash, dude. Cuz there's more in the fridge fermenting for more relish.

I'm sick, I tell ya. I've still got to go finish picking and canning all the damned plums. I bought peaches and pears to go in that jam.

Tonight is threatening to be first frost, which would suck because the tomatoes are JUST starting to ripen. We tossed tarps, sheets, and beach towels to protect the squash, some peppers, and the biggest and healthiest tomatoes.

Nip this, Jack.

I had a good birthday. I got some awesome stuff from Betty and other fun things from friends and hubbins. I got this awesome star lamp from Betty that is now in the livingroom. I also got these wonderful sarongs that were so beautiful. (more on this in a paragraph or two)

I've been canning my fool head off. I was supposed to actually can the zuke relish today, but ended up running around. Russell needed an instrument for band and I managed to talk him into the trumpet because it's something I know how to play and I figured I could help him out at home, if needed. Russ also left his word processor thingy on the bus, so we had to run to the bus depot to get it.

Genny's going into a different room of the daycare and they'll make sure that the recesses are staggered so that the psycho child doesn't get near enough to attack her again. The girl bit her again last week so hard that she broke the skin through Genny's clothes. This time it was on the shoulder, so it was pretty obvious that Genny didn't do anything to provoke the kid. I'm trying hard to balance unsheathing the Mommy claws to protect my child and being reasonable. Part of me just wants to rip Genny from there and put her back at LaDawn's. There are girls now at LaDawn's daycare, so it'd be nice for Genny, but I know she really likes her school and the things she gets to do there, including a cute little dance class thing she gets to do. I also think that the preschool set up there is more conducive to a smooth transition to kindergarten in terms of the number of kids and the structured nature of it. I think if Genny hadn't spent the entire weekend showing me her dance moves, I might have just said fuck it and put her at LaDawn's, and I know I can put her in dance classes elsewhere and all that, but she really wanted this. Mike said it best, too, "I think if we asked Genny, she'd tell us that she wants to stay at Child ____."

Sunday, we took Bear and four friends to the local waterpark and they played and had a wonderful time. I took the sarongs for me and Genny as coverups for there, which was big fun. Genny really liked that she got to wear Momma's sarong and I really liked how the one I was wearing felt so pretty with my suit. After we got home and did an ice cream cake and dropped off kids, I felt completely thwacked exhausted, so Monday I kind of hung close to home and did butt-tons of laundry, napped in the chair for half an hour, and baked 2 loaves of zuke bread and 6 jumbo muffins after collecting stuff from the garden and deciding after cutting up three gi-normous zukes for relish that the food processor would make the zuke smaller and thus, would make it eligible for bread, but not more freakin' relish.

I swear tomorrow, I'll can. And I'll harvest the plums. Oh, and the kitchen floor might even get cleaned afterwards.

Okay, fat chance on the floor, but pigs might just fly out of my butt. Ya never know.

Today, I became a bazonga booster.



You should, too.

I don't have it in my famiily, but a friend has it and you probably know someone who has fought the breast cancer battle.

Adrienne Rich, one of my favorite modern poets, writes about it in a poem entitled,"A woman dead in her forties."

Donate a boobie prize, if you're short of cash. (I stole that from Marn.)

Sometimes, I amaze myself.

I don't know how it is that I do these things, but I'm really good at hooking people up with appropriate resources.

So, the girl that bit Genny...that started it. I didn't want to just gripe, so I suggested a resource at UNR. Last night, that person wrote me an email that she'd hooked up with my daughter's daycare person.

I just called to follow up with the daycare and the resource person is observing kids in Genny's classroom and planning on helping the daycare meet and work with parents. Color me psyched up, baby!

I have done the same thing a lot of times for a lot of people and that's just the most rewarding thing to me. It's a virgo thing to be of service, I realize, but more than that, serving children and their families sets my soul free. It makes me want to write poetry, dance around the room, and sing joyful songs.

I really need to get myself together to go back to school. I've got to finish up my incompletes and go back in the fall. In the interim, I think I'm going to get in as a volunteer in either the disability advocacy office or the parents empowering parents office. I'm interviewing for a state position as some kind of basic clerical schlub, but I'm not sure I want to take it because then I'd be lassoed into something I might not want to do.

Things to put before God and ask for wisdom on, I think.

Well, Mike looked at me yesterday and said,"You know, I think you're feeling better." I asked,"What makes you say that?"

He smirked and said,"Because we had a marathon sex session this morning and the house is spotless. You're a good widdle wifey-poo."

"Widdle wifey-poo? Do you have a death wish?"

He smirked and smacked my butt.

Dork!

But the truth will out. I am feeling better. I worked last week and this and I'm remembering what I am supposed to do and I am keeping track of stuff, and generally, I'm doing a whole whale of a lot better.

And yes. Holy schmoley, Batman, my house is clean. The only room that isn't is the back bedroom and that's because we're halfway through reorganizing everything. I also realized last night, as I was going through my closet that I have a lot of crap that should be boxed up and marked as a size I can't wear right now. I know, I should bite the bullet and just donate everything, but I've got suits I have never worn that I am reticent to give up as I am losing weight like mad. I've lost a full size and am continuing to lose.

I put on a pair of skorts this weekend that used to barely fit, which now require that I use the drawstring on them in order for them to remain around my waist. Before, pure lard kept them up. No longer, however.

Next week, I'm hoping I won't be working and I'll be able to get my canning done. If not, this weekend appears to be a blowout between my birthday on Saturday and Russell's party on Sunday at the company picnic. I supposed I could just prep the canning Friday night and try to get it done on Saturday.

Well, I survived my first day at work. It was actually kind of nice, all in all to actually be AT work.

I don't have near enough to do and I desperately need my glasses, but can't find the damned things. I think I'd like to clean my room thoroughly and see if I can't find the darned things. I have my old pair, but they don't fit so hot, and I know my vision is worse now, what with my advancing years and general decrepidness.

Today, is shaping up to be about as boring as before, but it'll be nice to get that paycheck, I tell ya. They've promised that they'll train me and give me more to do next week. I sure hope they're not lying, or at least, that they'll pay be for doing more nothing next week.

Last night, got long because we had to leave abruptly from back-to-school night when Mike (like the man he is) refused to ask anyone where to find a restroom and Genny peed herself. We took her home, bathed her and put her in jammies and drove back up to Mike's work to get his car, while Russell was at home finishing homework hurriedly. It ended up being an unbearably long day.

I think it was doubly long because a kid at Genny's daycare bit her so hard, that you could still see the mark on her this morning. This is the same kid, who hauled off and decked another girl, then tossed herself on the floor in a tantrum, when she was told to go to the office.

I called and griped to the daycare, but I didn't just blindly gripe. I did give them the name of a woman I know from my classes who works with difficult preschoolers and helps the preschool and parents work with them and sometimes even places them into more appropriate environments. I figure, you don't want this kid messed up more than she is, so if I can help her now, I've done my job.

I feel bad because they don't have much for me to do at this job. I think some of it, is that they are going to have one person go to part-time and they need someone to fill in with stuff like filing, answering phones, etc., until they figure out what they'll be doing.

They said I could web surf between things, so I am, but then their corporate whatever limits it so that you can't access web email. I've found a work around, which probably speaks to my long-term computer knowledge more than anything. (telnet windows)

I miss being home, in some ways. On the other hand, it's rather nice to be in a place working. I did no brainer type work -- filing and answering phones, but upon arrival, had to reorganize their file cabinets, which were rather in a shambles from previous temp employees, apparently.

I told them I am looking for part-time work, but I don't know if they're interested. Ok, I'm not sure I'm interested. I'll see how I feel at day's end. :)

The only thing I found difficult this morning was how to take my thyroid and give it an hour and be able to eat breakfast. I had a cafe latte and I bought cheese crackers and had a pack, but that's not a good diabetic breakfast. I'll need to figure that out, so I can eat more appropriately and keep my sugars normal.

I start a temp job tomorrow as a receptionist at $10/hour.

I'm all jazzed. 1-2 weeks of that and I'll be ~$500 richer. Whee!

However, tonight, I spent about $85 buying business attire (read things I can wear comfortable shoes and socks with) because I have one skirt and sweater set and no pantyhose. If you know anything about me, nothing squicks me out more than pantyhose. Give me cotton hose or tights, but kill me rather than make me wear pantyhose.

I decided in lieu of the idea of wearing pantyhose in 80-90 weather, I'd go for pants and trouser socks. Thank god for trouser socks, pants, and damned long skirts.

Perverts. You thought I meant something else. Sock, not snake, okay?

The registering people to vote job hasn't come through, yet, so I'm going to take the sure thing and go work. They're waiting on a call, but I'm not. My hope is that they decide they need someone to register voters in 1-2 weeks after this job is over. :)

If not, I'll tell them that there will be some overlap and they can be grumpy about it, or not.

All's fair in love and temp work.

It seems like my days go dashing by faster than I can possibly keep up with them.

I miss my friends. I haven't heard from Melody for over a week. Leann called and she just seemed lonely. I had stuff I was supposed to do, so I didn't plan anything, but tonight I sent her an email and invited her to pickle with me tomorrow. LaDawn and I have no time. She's always insanely busy, so I tried to call her when she wasn't busy and got the phone machine.

I guess, it's fair to say that I'm feeling lonely, too.

Next week, I think I have a temp job registering people to vote outside one of the local post offices. They're supposed to call and firm things up with the temp agency, after which I will be called and I'll get to set up a little table and chair with my clipboard and stuff. My temptation, of course, is to use an ironing board to register people to vote, reminiscent of my days on the quad at UCD, registering people to vote with the campus NOW and getting them to sign anti-abortion petitions.

I'll probably chicken out in the face of the heavy duty red-neck contingent and just bring my card table, toss my blue checked table cloth on it, and call it good. But Evil Ruby thinks it'd be fun to toy with people. Truth be told, however, my ironing board is a bit tipsy, so is not a practical choice.

I still have my pro-choice posters in the garage. Mike and Dan were working on the door out by the laundry stuff, which is where they are stored and Dan asked Mike about them. Mike quickly told Dan the Strict Mormon that they were mine. Bastard. Nonetheless, Dan said he was going to have to have a talk with me.

Little does he know what liberal feminist woman lurks in this mom suit. Mike knows, though, and he just shouldn't tease the Mormons.

Kitty made it home safe and sound.

I had my foster niece from last summer up for a few days, which is why I haven't posted squat here.

I have spent way too much money, lately. I have had help, of course. We were trying to get the last hurrahs in before school starts for the kids. We took them to the state fair and while it doesn't even mildy compare to the California State fair or even several of the California county fairs, it was still fun and we still blew an enormous amount of money there.

We played squirt gun races and won a lot of stuffed animals. My first game, I won the biggest prize they had and gave it to Genny. I got a temporary tattoo. Mike requested the atom versus the butterfly. Freaking engineers! I watched the kids do rides. I didn't really feel like getting nauseous and banged around in a rickety anything. I enjoyed the various exhibits, but was disappointed they were so small. There were livestock shows, but they were also kind of small.

Tomorrow, I run a friend to the doctor and back, then I meet Mike for lunch, so we can shop together for Russell's birthday gifts. We had thought about giving him a computer, but decided rather than blow $500 on a shitty computer, we could give him our old computer and fight over the one we have. Mike and I figured that we could simply just build a kickass computer for $1000, in lieu of basically crapping the money away on a brand new POS computer that is already out of date. Then, I'll be baking an oreo cake for the birthday boy. 11 years old. He's heading inexorably towards adolescence and while I love the person he's becoming dearly, I miss little boy kisses and questions.

With the kids returning to school tomorrow, I am thinking about my week ahead. I have lots of zucchini bread and relish to make. I also have a lot of pickles I'd like to work on. I also need to contact professors at the university and get my incompletes made up. I also have books to return to the university and the fridge to give to the grad students. I have a hard time doing my stuff when the kids are here, I think because I'm so busy doing stuff with or for them. This summer, of course, I've been super ill. I plan to swim, I've got sewing projects, canning, mailings, bills, you name it.

It's not true, but tonight, the day before school starts, Ifeels like I have been waiting all summer for them to go back. I think it's because in the last week, I've actually started to feel better -- a lot better, which is what I have been waiting for all summer. It just happens to coincide with their return to school, which makes me very sad, because I feel like I missed the summer with them and that all my wonderful plans for the summer are a shambles because of my illnesses.

To address that sadness, I walked up the hill with Genny tonight and we went down and talked to the horses, which she enjoyed a great deal. It made me realize how few moments like that I've had with that kid over the summer. I'm going to have to make more of them in the coming months. Soon, she'll be in kindergarten and I'll be much less interesting to her and I won't get all those fruity-breathed kisses and giggles any more.

My sugars are officially better. I actually had a fasting sugar this morning of 110. Not great, but honestly, better than the 138 of just a few days ago.

I'm still tired, but I figure I'll just take naps as I need them and go with it. I am eating on a schedule, which is working pretty well for me. The only drag is that last night because it cooled down, we didn't run the fan and that had screened out the cock-a-doodle doo-ing of the 4 fucking roosters. Apparently, the roosters think that 530AM is when everyone should get up.

I'm thinking I need to make rooster stew. One goes off and then the other three talk to it.

Yesterday, I nearly killed my son because he let the damned chickens out and we had to shoo them out of the garden 20 times. I have lotsa veggies and I'm not sharing them with the chickens. I'll be so glad when Mike finally puts the cement in the chicken run, so we can let them out during the day at least there.

I know they like to explore, but they're so disgusting and EVERYWHERE that I'm not gonna do it. On top of that, we've started having a lot of coyote visits in the wee hours, so we really need to protect them from becoming food. I guess we could um *accidentally* leave out a couple roosters. :)

Oops. Wow, we seem one rooster short. *evil grin*

Russell didn't get the cat in last night and is all freaky that she got eaten. I heard the coyotes last night, so me, too.

He's been out calling for her, so hopefully, she'll come back home. Otherwise, I think we're going to take a couple kittens from his friend's cat's new litter. *sigh*

Hot damn, my sugars are normalizing. Jumping Jesusfreak on a Pogostick, baby!

I tested a couple hours after I ate breakfast and lunch and had a 107 and 109, respectively. While I had a nap this afternoon, I feel a lot better. I got more done today and I actually *made* lunch for the kids this afternoon.

Genny's got a cold, poor thing. She's been sleeping for the past 4 hours. She's slept through four phone calls and the wind pummeling the house. I figure I'll send Mike in to wake her up when he comes home in about 10 minutes.

I'm doing laundry and not forgetting about it. I remembered to put clothes away, I went to the garden and picked produce, I made my phone calls, and generally, did ok. I also went to the neighbors and made sure the house was in order and the horses had water. Tomorrow morning, I have to get up and do the budget. There's a lot of money I've got to account for, which should be interesting.

*sigh*

At least if I'm cooking meals at home, I won't be spending money on going out and that's a good thing. Particularly, if I'm feeling better, I will be able to think beyond the next inhalation of air, which frankly has been extremely difficult this summer.

Sucks to be this tired and still having what I need to get done hanging over me all the time, but it sincerely rocks that I don't feel so much like crap and I am beginning to feel like I am catching up.

For your average diabetic, my sugars have been ok. However, for me, they remain high. The way I can tell is that my feet are fucking killing me. I've been generally hovering around 130-150.

Last night, I had low carb noodle lasagna and my sugars were 180, but after about an hour, they'd dropped to 135.

Eventually, things will even out -- however, this tween time is killing me and my feet.

__

We went and visited Mike's grandparents. It was nice, quiet, and boring and like last time, the kids didn't sleep much, so neither did we. We took our time getting home, stopping at various food joints and a craft fair, taking time to enjoy the ride.

However, on the way home, we had a misadventure of sorts. Genny said she had to pee, and Mike told her to hold it. But she was using the urgent "now" whiny voice and I said,"She's had a rootbeer and an icee, she's gotta go now!" He argued with me until we heard this little voice in the back seat say,"Daddy! I peed!" At which point, I was thanking my lucky stars for the fact that I always bring an extra set of clothes for everyone -- just for such an emergency, so I pulled out a complete set of clothes to change her into. We have the fold out child seat in the car, so I took her soaked booster, tossed it in the back and put down a towel to cover the seat of the van's childseat because the cover is in the laundry room ( I keep forgetting to put in back in the van. )

I very nicely avoided the "I told you so" commentary that Mike so richly deserved because I made him take her to the bathroom to change her.

I. So. Mean.

It's official. I'm considered depressed. I hadn't really considered myself depressed and then I called Mike and asked him what he thought. He waffled as any self-respecting man would until I corned him and said, "Look, my doctor thinks I'm depressed, do you?" To which he responded unhesitatingly,"Yes!"

It's one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism that will eventually go away, but it's the eventually, I'm waiting for.

I burst into tears in my doctor's office. I'm just so damned frustrated with how lousy I've been feeling and how unable to do anything I am.

Add to that that my sugars have been kicking my ass, and not only am I frustrated and tired, but I'm in agony because I never heal up from any exercise that I do.

I'm taking a pill -- just for a few months until the thyroid stuff gets rectified. I also am taking a low dose of glucophage to help kick up my actos. My ankles look like logs of flesh, but I've lost 6 lbs. And that's a start.

Doctor said I could take tylenol for the pain until my sugars work themselves out.

I just feel so useless like this.

Well, yesterday, in a flurry and a rush, we went to have Russell evaluated for the appropriateness of botox injections for his legs. I know you're thinking, "For his legs?" Yeah, plastic surgery took their idea from the CP kids.

They inject the muscle that is stiff with botox and it essentially makes the muscle quasi flaccid and makes it much more susceptible to physical therapy improvements, in the case of CP kids. It's not permanent -- the effects last 3-4 months. Kids have to wear braces at night to keep the muscle stretched out.

The idea that my toe-walking boy, might be a heel-to-toe walker like everyone else is astounding. I've spent more than a decade, catching him when he falls, dressing the wounds from his falls, and watching him get easily knocked down when someone brushes by him. I remember in Kindergarten he used to come home and cry because he was sure classmates had intentionally knocked him down all day. When I watched the classmates at parent-kid night, kids were brushing by as kids do, but he'd go down. His ADHD added drama to the moment, so he'd bawl and carry on every time. His teachers thought he was making it up. I didn't think he was, but I had no means of responding to that. I mean, how do you respond to that?

We've never owned a dog because a dog could knock him down and he's terrified of falling, thus, he is terrified of dogs. Fido is Russell's worst nightmare.

I feel like such a bad mother for not seeing how different he was sooner. I didn't know how he was different, just that he was, but I loved him so fiercely that I simply said that that was just the way he was. I accepted him no matter what. I had taken him to the pediatrician asking about cerebral palsy and ADHD, and had been dismissed. I just figured something was wrong with me and that we'd struggle along the best we could.

Maybe it's a throwback to my dad. He had a terrible lisp as a child, but his family understood him. In those days, speech therapy wasn't available to poor farm families, and he was a big buff farm boy, so none of the kids at school dared tease him because they knew he could kick their butts. His speech impediment was let lie until he took a speech pathology course in college and taught himself how to speak correctly.

I can't fix the past. I've talked with Russell about it. He simply has said,"You didn't know, Mom, and I'm ok now."

And when we talked about him being scared about the impending surgey, I said,"I know it's scary, but wouldn't you like the chance to walk pretty normally and like everyone else without falling all the time?" He quietly answered,"Yes." There was a conviction and dreaminess in his voice, which told volumes about how much he's yearned for that -- just to be like everyone else. I have watched the kids in games play more gently with him and be more careful of him, and I said something about that to him. He was a little embarrassed -- he, of course, knew that. He said,ruefully,"Yeah, they are trying not to hurt me."

I asked him,"Wouldn't it be cool, if they didn't have to do that any more and you could play like everyone else?"

"Definitely!"

Well, that's what the botox shots will do, babe.

I don't know what happened, but basically, I'm a giant ache only relieved by a lot of ibuprofen mixed with tylenol. It's fucking embarrassing.

I went swimming yesterday and I think I was already tired, but add to that the short night's sleep last night due to a persistent husband before bedtime and a promise to the 10 year old at wake up, and I'm toast.

Today, we had a birthday party/BBQ in the park out, which ended abruptly when the lightening, thunder, and rain started to come down and the pinata contents were tossed, but thank God. I was so damned tired and my feet were just killing me. We got pounded here for an hour or so and things moved on, but it was scary -- you could see the lightning strikes really close to where we were with kids.

However, spiffy thing about today? Two people told me how much weight I've lost since they saw me last -- a year ago.

I need to lose the rest and get down to somewhere between a little frumpy and svelte, which coincidentally lands between mild aching and slight muscle soreness.

I'm trying really hard to be motivated to live. I distinguish that from being motivated NOT to die. Being motivated to live seems more empowering to me, though not wanting to die, has its own rewards.

Today, I swam for nearly an hour. It wasn't a hard hard workout, but it was a workout. I went with a new friend, Leann, and she and I swam laps and talked the whole time. It was really fun. I suddenly realized I'd been swimming for an hour, so I decided I needed to stop because there was that whole wanting-to-be-able-to-move-tomorrow thing. Mostly, just my achilles tendon is tight, so I've been doing little stretches and I took some alleve, so I sleep ok. Otherwise, I'll wake myself up all night, kicking about.

My sugars are starting to normalize. The highest sugar I had today was 150, which was a lot better than last night, after a careful meal's 178! I swam last night, too, in order to bring it down.

I'll swim again tomorrow at Mel and Dan's. We're going to have a BBQ there and hang out. Thankfully, they also have air conditioning. The swamp cooler has been sucking ass in all the thunderstorm humidity we've had lately.

Well, it's later than hell. I need to sleep because I have to go to Sylvia's and make her the chicken marinade at 11AM. Even cooks need their sleep.

So I got the best bit of mail today.

My pap smear was normal. Not even slightly abnormal.

Who'd have thought normal would sound so fluidic. So mesmerizing. So delicious.

Normal.

What a beautiful word.

I made jam tonight with lime, lemon peel and lemon, added into the apricots. It'll be nummy. More jam. Lots and lots of jam. If I am a good jam monkey, I will stay home tomorrow and make more jam.

If not, I'll be the bad jam monkey hanging out with the 10 year old, applying for temporary work and watching the Yu-Gi-Oh movie.

Today, I took Bear shopping. Yeah, *that* was so exciting. Not!

I got him jeans and long-sleeved shirts. I found Genny a couple of cute jumpers. I found Mike a $2 pair of shorts and a few nice shirts for winter. I found me a pair of dress pants and a couple of $5 shirts. JCPenney outlet is the bomb, baby.

The thing that made me want to sell my body on the streets for pocket change? They had these matching beautiful blue wingback chairs that would look loverly in my livingroom, in lieu of the hunter green one that doesn't match anything, despite being a really nice chair. $100 a piece. So, I didn't buy them.

Dammit.

And they had short-short underwear. Thongs, I realize are the thing now, but short-short underwear? I kept thinking, oh, yeah, I need one more thing crawling up my ass, disguised as underwear.

So tired, I'm jaded. I tell ya.

A rip from Sue's site
"Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? "

Teastaioinn cineal uaim - 'I want sex.'

Horny little bugger, aren't you? You enjoy porn and being naked. Hell, you're probably naked right now. Both hands on the keyboard, you pervert!

Okay, I'm not naked, but if I had spare time and no kids, I'd be doing my husband a lot more often. And there's that whole tired all the time thing, but I'm trying to kick that!

---

Took the kids swimming today and I got to wear my new speedo. Then I took bear to Big 5 (sports emporium) to buy him goggles. While there, I found a items to complete my aqua-aerobics ensemble -- a matching speedo towel and pool bag. With an ass as big as mine, it's important to accessorize to distract onlookers from looking at one's large rump and have them look at your spiffy towel and matching handbag. *Vogue* *Ratchet Position* *Vogue*

Now, that that is complete, I need to take some alleve and crawl into my bed. Too many errands followed by physical fitness. Ugh.

I'm back to canning. I put up 11 pints of apricot-pineapple-cherry jam. I had a couple licks off the spoon, after I finished -- superb stuff. The problem is that I've got a buttload more apricots to go before I rest. Also, I suspect that the neighbors with the tree, probably would like me to relieve them of the rest of the apricots.

I looked into canning them -- you know in a little sugar or juice to eat in the winter, and I'd have to buy a $75-90 pressure cooker. I like canned fresh fruit, but that seems steep. Mike suggested lemon jelly.

There's a couple recipes for it, but everyone wants you to rind the freakin' things and after doing two lemon cakes a year, I'm freakin' rinded out, thanks. Genny and Mike would enjoy it, but I kind of think it's more work than I'm willing to do right now, especially in light of a half bushel of apricots in the kitchen needing to be put up.

I've gotta go pull them out of the boiling water baths and get to bed.

And tomorrow, my speedo arrives! Mine's purple, which seems kind of wild and crazy, but I figure I'll be swimming at the buttcrack of dawn when no one else will give a crap about a fat chick in a speedo working out.

Nighty, night.

I'm starting to look for part-time temp work. The bitch is that everyone wants full-time, and with my skillset, I know they will want me BAD around here.

I know too much. At least if I were in the CIA, I could get killed for it, but here, I'll have to set boundaries for myself that will allow me to continue to work without working more than I wanna.

The thing is that I don't know if I can handle office work. The wardrobe alone would make me nauseous. The idea of having to wear pants in summer, much less NYLONS EVER, makes me want to screech and run out of the room.

I've got a couple cute skirts, but what I really need is cute pants. I love dresses -- hate nylons and shaving, so I'm stuck wearing pants with my comfy shoes and cotton socks.

I don't know if I'll be ready for this, but I'm gonna give it a whirl and if I still feel like shit, I'll ditch it until I feel human and put up with the lowered income.

It's official. I hate glucophage.

I'm on this glucophage extended release stuff and my GOD, if it isn't beating the crap out of me. Literally.

I've been running for the bathroom on a regular basis with this stuff. I often have heartburn with this, too. I usually start about 3PM and make a lot of trips to the bathroom up until bedtime.

I've just soooo had it. I'm calling the doctor on Monday and asking for help.

___

Other than that...I picked more apricots today. I'm a canning fool, I realize.

I took Genny with me, ideally, to just get her out of the house and let her do something kind of fun. However, I don't think it wasn't fun for her. She whined, she crabbed, she angled. I finally just picked as fast as I possibly could to fill what containers I had and put us in the car and tried to put her down for a nap because she was acting wiped out tired.

And you know, I swear she never ever sleeps. She. is. so. 4. She's in that tween place between really needing to take a nap and just staying up and going to bed early, but being a miserable pain in the butt between 4 and bedtime because she won't nap. The problem is that she rarely goes to bed early and she's almost always the first one up and she's up super early.

If she naps, you get to hang with the nicest sweetest girl in town. If not, you wish you could duct-tape her to something that's nailed down and gag her because she's nasty, mean, into everything, and blathering at you a mile a minute ("Mommy?" "Yes." "I love you." -- repeated 10 times per hour until you absolutely start to loathe her.) When she's like that, every minute with her is painful. Because you can see this little person you love and adore who is exhausted beyond reason, who simply won't/can't sleep.

Tonight, she was still up and playing in her room after bedtime and after not taking that nap. It was after 9PM and she was still spinning madly, despite being up since 730AM and running all over town with us, helping Daddy and Russell outside, picking apricots with Mommy and playing in her room. We finally gave her a little benadryl, just so the poor thing could sleep because she was absolutely wiped out and frankly, so are we.

I feel like a bad parent, but I'm fresh out of chamomile tea and honey for honey and milk and the little pookerbutt was so tired and wired that she was having trouble settling. Been there, done that. I've also taken benadryl at those times to get dropped off. I figure with the sagebrush bloom heading into full swing, it's probably not a bad thing to give her at this point with night-time being the worst for asthmatics like Genny and Mommy. We're also going to have to restart her asthma regimen because if my allergies are any indication, she's going to need it.

Sidenote: Yesterday, Mike told her that "You need to get your beauty sleep so you get more beautiful." To which she replied,"I'm already all the way beautiful." As a secondary thought, Mike asked,"Do I need to get beauty sleep?" "Yes, Daddy, you better get to bed."

Well, I'm off to bed. Dealing with Ms. 730AM is going to be a very early event, I guess. I just hope one of us gets some sleep around here because I'm not even brown bag pretty before 8 on the weekends.

Dear Medical Insurance Company,

Don't screw with me.

My diabetes is in good control. I know what I'm doing with it. I've got excellent blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides levels. My sugars are well within healthy ranges. My last HBA1C was 6.5. Not great, but not bad, either.

Don't try to enroll me in your stupid disease management program. I know that stuff. You wanna be helpful? You want to actually make a difference? Get me a cheap gym membership. Help me pay for that. Give me incentives to keep going -- like after one year, you'll reduce how much I pay if I go X number of times.

Don't spend money on a bunch of nurses I can call 24 hours. That's why I have a doctor. Don't spend money on a bunch of glossy PR mailers. Don't waste your postage, dude. It's not any help and it doesn't adequately resolve shit for me.

I need help and encouragement to exercise and get my weight down. I want a place that has childcare facilities. I want you to actually think about what's good for me as a person, because the day you do that, is the day I gain success over this damned disease.

And I want you to stop shaking my ass out of bed at 8AM on Saturday by calling me to ask me if I'd like to join your long-term disease management program, after I've already ignored 3 mailings, and 4 phone calls. I'm not old enough to be up that early, fuckers, and if I were interested in having you in my business, I'd have let you know.

Back on off of my Kool-Aid, or there's going to be an asskicking.

Totally fucking not kidding,
Red-Neck Ruby

I have been hating my body lately. Everything hurts. My feet hurt horribly. They cramp up so badly that they make my leg tendons ache. On top of it all, I'm so damned tired that I can't hardly contemplate the whole idea of working out just yet.

It's hard right now to contemplate grocery shopping because I know if I go shopping that I'll just be tired again.

I should be depressed, but I'm not so much. I'm frustrated. I feel like I'm watching the world go by while my meds build up.

It's really pissing me off.

So, I hung out at the lake with my new Mormon friend, Leann. I don't know why I keep finding all these Mormons with whom I become fast friends, but I do. I keep asking myself, if God puts me in the way of all these Mormons because I'm supposed to change religions.

Every time I actually start to think about that, I realize that that is NOT it. I love my church and while I think examining one's faith is a good thing, I keep finding my faith intact. But I feel like I am supposed to learn what God has in mind with me by putting me in the position of having to hear all the gory details of the Mormon faith by exposure. I say gory intentionally.

I wouldn't want to be a member of a church where I wouldn't be welcome into the temple of God. Mormons make a distinction between the temple and church. To enter the temple, you have to be considered "temple worthy." Of course, it's not God who determines a Mormon's worthiness, but fellow parishioners. My whole problem with that is that it flies in the face of what's in the Bible -- how when Christ died that the veil was torn that separated the most sacred parts of the temple from people -- the idea that God had accepted humanity (with flaws and all) fully into the church -- that there was no more holier than thou God any more. God had spent time with us kids and loved us unconditionally and would constantly remain part of our lives.

The idea that the Mormon's flout that really sticks in my christian craw. It's one of the most beautiful ideas in the Bible -- that all people are accepted by God and that God is accessible to anyone. As a hippie throwback, I think that most major religions are just different paths to God. Because God accepts us so unconditionally, he accepts that we travel different paths to gain that sense of godliness and service in our lives. My husband who doesn't really believe in God, behaves in a way that shows me that he has a sense of godliness in him. His willingness to help anyone in need is the biggest demonstration of that and is one reason I married him.

--

At any rate, I think Leann's a sweetheart. Her kids are wonderful. Our kids liked each other and we had a wonderful day at the beach and were not keen on leaving because it was really lovely today -- not too hot or too cool.

I got a lot of mail today -- the book box from my kids' group, the therapy putty for Russell, but most importantly, I got my spiffy new floor cleaner. It vacuums up the crap, scrubs the floor for you, then sucks up the water to leave it dry. I wonder if it has a vibrate attachment. It's damned near as good as foreplay.

So I'm going to the beach today with the kids and a new friend.

But tomorrow, I'm getting a gift. I get an afternoon without children.

I'm going to sew. I'm going to can. I'm going to be a very happy person with no responsibilities for four whole hours.

Diggin' it.

Politics have been bugging me a lot lately.

At heart, I'm of the green philosophy. I'm a Hippie Momma throwback at heart. Candyassed liberal -- All the way, baby.

However, because the Green Party hasn't got a rat's ass chance in hell of winning an election, I'm becoming a hard-core democrat, promoting my own green agenda at home, being that such things should start at home. And I love many of the democratic politicians -- the Clintons, Lieberman....it's liberal and social of me, but that's the way I am. I can't say I'm thrilled with John Kerry -- he doesn't give me political wood -- but he comes across as a New England democrat. He genuinely cares about other people and while he's not as charismatic as Clinton (nor as much of a ho!), he does give me the sense that he'll work to do right.

I've been annoyed by criticism that he "flip-flops" on votes. The thing is he voted for us to go to war -- and based on the info he had, heck, anyone would have gone to war. He didn't know, as did none of congress, that the info they were being presented was mostly fabricated rubbish from the Bush administration. Now, he's against us being there. The thing is that a good politician to me, is someone who is willing on a regular basis to evaluate the information and make a reasonably informed choice on my behalf. If based on the information, the politician thinks something is a bad idea, I've given them my permission to make the best informed choice they can. Kerry does that. And this war?

Well, sheeeeit.

Bush has been dragging this thing on as long as he can, so he can look like some kind of war hero. Unfortunately, the cost is that we're losing human beings in this fabricated war. The thing is if Bush had actually GONE to war and BEEN a war hero, like say um, John Kerry, he might be more believable. Instead, he's been doing some kind of dance of the tarantella, undulating from vague lie to vague lie about his "service" in the National guard, which apparently, no one on God's green earth can actually find proof of. And Kerry not only served, but then he came home and protested the war because he saw horrible things being done in the name of the US. People say he protested like it's dirty. He protested because he loved his country -- which is the same reason he went to war. He didn't want our country to be known for war atrocities! I don't either.

However, under Bush's administration we have military personnel perpetrating some not so cool war-time behavior in Iraq. If Bush had the nads of a tse-tse fly, he'd be apologizing, but his approach is that um, he just didn't know about it. Frankly, as Commander-in-Chief, however, it still makes him responsible. No one expects him to have known about it, but at least to acknowledge it, apologize for it to the parties involved, like a freakin' adult...stuff like that, yes, the American Public and the international community expect those kind of manners.

Seemingly, George must have inhaled a LOT in the early 70's. Or maybe we can attribute that to brain damage/forgetfulness from his youthful drinking. Gee, this screams Reagan in Iran-Contra: "I can't recall."

George, if you ignore it, it doesn't go away. However, you just keep ignoring it...and then, hopefully, voters will see to it that you go away. Ignorance may be bliss, but it isn't presidential.

Our dishwasher does grumbly cranky things when it starts. It's a dingy white beat up gear grinder that we've been struggling through with because we didn't want to buy a new one, just yet. It's getting to the point to where it doesn't entirely wash things well. Recently, Russell busted a wheel on it, so one of the racks sticks, and generally, it's a POS.

So today, we went to Home Depot, expecting to buy sprinkler heads and chicken fencing. Out front, they were selling discounted appliances. We bought a brand new Maytag washer (a couple small scratches on the front) for $219. It was originally twice that.

What's spiffy is that it's black, so it'll match the rest of the kitchen appliances and because it's a maytag, it's a fancy appliance for making our house worth more. Whee! I'm also fairly sure we can just replace the banged up panel on the front, if we get itchy about it. For now, I'm perfectly happy with it.

You know you're having a doozy of a period when...

• you miss your IUD


• you are forced to cough up the head of the child you just bit off


• you have to do the same for your husband


• you'd give your left ovary to science just for 6 months of peace a year


• you've taken all the ibuprofen in the house, gathered it in a pile and threatened your household with bodily harm if they EVEN THINK about touching it


• you've done the same with all the chocolate


• your husband "takes the kids to the park" when it's 100 degrees outside


• all your black underwear is Missing in Action


• you get up to pee at 3am and realize as that telltale drip goes down your leg, you have to have a shower. Right. That. Minute.


• you're starting to believe all that God cursed women crap because God knows if men had periods, there wouldn't be monthly suffering


• you are starting to wish you were breast feeding because it means a year of NO PERIODS!


• You wish wholeheartedly that you were pregnant, despite the vasectomy, because at least in labor they gave you an epidural.

You know, it's hard being such a Princess of Home Ec.

One of my neighbors called and she invited us up to dinner to pick apricots. I started to think: I'm not sure about apricots nor what to do with them, but like everything else, I'm sure they can be canned! It's a sickness, I'm sure.

I also have been eyeing over the fruit on my plum tree. To tell you the truth, it looks like a prune tree -- the fruit is small, meaty, and really seemingly designed more for drying. It's not ripe yet, so I'll have to give it a shot, but that's what I think.

Also, the peach tree is about to burst. Some of the fruit is yellowing up -- I'm thinking peaches in a few weeks here. Those I will not make a bunch of jam with, but they will become yummy yummy jars of canned peaches. I will make one small batch of jam. I have this vision of my head of peach jam with cinnamon added in. I keep thinking of Holes where the one kid survived on canned peaches he found. I figure if the world goes to shit tomorrow, I'll have food put up, anyhow.

I had meant to mail out several diabetic friends' blackberry jam yesterday. It's mostly fruit with a smidge of splenda with lime juice to help preserve it -- very lip smackin'. (You'll have to keep it refrigerated once you open it!) It's going to go out tomorrow when I go to bring my eggs to the store in town. I think for as few eggs as the darned chickens are laying, I ought to just hang a shingle out here. I'd probably sell them all that way and I could get better money without having to go somewhere.

---

Russell got evaluated for Sensory Integration. Apparently, he's got issues. One of the options is "brushing" which is something you have to do every two hours. I'm lucky if I can stay conscious for two hours, so I'm not really willing to return to the days of the two hour feeding schedule. The occupational therapist knows I'm health-compromised, so she gave us another alternative -- it's music with special headphones. Between the frequencies of the music and the headphones, it's supposed to help.

I thought it was kind of hokey, but I've talked to parents who swear by it for their kids. It's one of those things that they say you can see a difference pretty quickly, if it's going to work for your kid. It's early yet, but I think it does help him to get his stuff together better. Tonight, at the witching hour -- that time between 8-930 when his meds have worn off and he's really super bouncy before bed, he lacked the whiny butt stuff he usually has. He was bouncy without being mean, argumentative about every single point, and generally, nice. He'd just listened to the tape while walking with Dad, so I'm hesitant to say, "Wow, big difference" It seems more subtle than that, so I'm just going to give it more time and see what the cumulative difference is.

Earlier today, he was vehemently talking back about something really stupid, but he was very incorrect in his assumptions and I'm trying to talk to him nicely about it, and finally, I was starting to lose it because I needed him to do what I had asked and stop arguing. I was trying to get food and I'd forgotten breakfast, so I was just about losing my mind anyhow.

I suggested that perhaps he should try the earphones. Of course, being that he has sensory issues, he initially hates having the earphones on and he hates putting the fanny pack on that holds the cd player. Once he has them on, everything's fine, it's that 'tween spot where you can just sort of feel him crawling up a wall.

I listened to the CD briefly and I was feeling icked out by it. It made me feel a little queasy. They alternate betweeen high and low frequencies and even volume levels; I just wanted to rip off the headphones and fling them in a deep well. However, it doesn't seem to phase Russell. Either he's being a real trooper or it helps, is my thought.

Time will tell.

Okay, rare for me to post twice in one day, but I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.

I am livid at retailers who think that my 4 year old child should be dressing like a hoochy mama. Nevermind, that Mary Kate and Ashley, as featured at Walmart, have some pretty hoochy clothes -- showing midriff, cleavage, and way too much leg. Yo, I'd like my daughter to be able to bend over to pick up her dolly without showing the world her Winnie-The-Pooh underwear, okay? Nevermind, that I have to frequently sew a ruffle or a wide eyelet lace on a dress because dresses are short AND my daughter's tall, but today, a local radio station said that a "unnamed retailer" was featuring kids in fishnet stockings and mini skirts.

I thought -- oh, probably some little place in town -- just bad taste and stuff. So Genny brings me the newspaper (she calls it "the mail") and I poke around. No, it's a freakin' national chain! Someone should know better.

If you want to see the ad, you can put in 89502 for the zip code and skip to page 15 on their site. The two girls on the ends are wearing fishnet hose. The one on the right is wearing a faux leather mini skirt WITH fishnet hose. Note, that on the first page, the teenaged boy is grabbing the teenaged girls ass. I'm sorry, but what kind of message is that sending? I never thought I'd be flipped out about clothes or even clothes in a Gottschalks' ad, but I don't think it's cool to have kids as "sexy." Kids aren't sexy -- they're kids with a right to their childhood!

The day my under-18-years -old daughter wears a leather (faux or no) mini skirt with fishnet hose is the day, I rip all the clothes off her back and put her in a flour sack. Apparently, the sneakers with fishnet and mini skirts is all the rage and is supposed to cushion the blow of the idea that girls 12 and under are featured dressed or expected to dress like prostitutes.

I am thrilled, nay ecstatic that we don't get MTV, nor will we any time soon. Apparently, the sneakers with fishnet and mini skirts is all the rage for 4 year old! Children are drawing their fashion concepts from such fashion iconic white trash as Britney Spears. Joy.

I think we all go through our rebel stage at some point in our 20's when we wear that crap, but we thought we were cool and we were young women scamming for young men! To stick clothes like that on a kid is sick and it's wrong.