I have asked for referrals to volunteer teach in some local special ed classrooms. I just emailed one and I will be calling the other two tomorrow. I'm very excited and nervous about this, but I think it's about time, too. I need the classroom exposure. I need to make sure that this is what I want to do.

After getting drummed out of my first teaching credential program, I guess that I just am feeling really gunshy. I know this is what I want to do and that I would be good at it, but I still feel really insecure about it. I think the classroom time would let me get comfortable with the whole thing and more confident. In dealing with kids, confidence in myself is going to be important, so I need to get back to it.

As I have been getting into my classes, I have been coming up against some things that really make me sad.

It makes me sad that they shuffle perfectly intelligent and capable English as a Second Language (ESL) kids into Special Ed classes. Special Ed classes are supposed to be for kids with learning disabilities or problems that make learning difficult or challenging for them. It would not be so bad, in my opinion, if they made ESL instruction part of Special Education and provided funding for ESL kids, but they don't. ESL kids end up in Special Ed when the teacher in their regular classroom doesn't know how to deal with them. Eventually, because there is a quantifiable discrepancy between the kid's ability and their test scores, they get shuffled off to Special Ed.

I would be able to do a good job of helping kids in that situation, but realistically, a Special Ed teacher can't focus a class for an ESL kid and an ADHD kid and have it be successful necessarily for both, unless it's an Spanish-speaking ADHD student. I think a native ADHD kid would be kind of freaked if I instructed partially in Spanish. (Spanish because 92% of ESL speakers in our state speak Spanish as a first language.)

No Child Left Behind does nothing to help teach ESL kids. I am not even sure about the funding they are going to offer to special ed programs. I know that around here, that 90% of the special ed budget is locally funded, anyhow, and most of that is designated for litigation. That seems stuipd, doesn't it? If they just gave the kids the services they needed, there would be no litigation. *sigh*

In other sad news, I think Genny has an ear infection, so I am taking her to the doctor's tomorrow. I am going to place a call to the ENT we saw because while there's been a 2 month break since the last ear infection, it's still scary. She's starting to get such a command of language, although Daddy read her "Shikn Boom Boom." Apparently, they couldn't find the more popular version, "Chicka, chicka, Boom Boom."

Insomnia is like sleeping with a lesbian who has a crush on you. My lesbian crawled into bed with me about 4AM. She left about a half hour before Genny came into to stick her cold squirmy body in bed with us. I shouldn't complain about Genny waking us up though, as I am anxious about the time she decides she doesn't need to come in to wake us up and wants to make herself breakfast. While the "lesbian" was in bed with me though, I figured out a ballpark estimate of our deductions and I think I can come up with around $4500 in deductions, plus our student loan interest and childcare deductions, which means it might not be so bad after all, although I am going to have to ask for copies of most of our utility bills for the past year, which may cost moolah. Taxes in the wee hours can be a good thing, however.

I have to write a future plans essay for a scholarship application. Writing a future plans essay seems to me to be much like being a beauty pageant contestant. I keep saying to myself,"Yes, Mr. Barker, my plans for the future include creating peace on earth and fellating 30 year old virgins." Then, I snicker to myself and get stuck rewriting an introductory paragraph to that essay a million times over. Of course, fellating 30 year old virgins would probably create peace on earth, which means I would be a redundant beauty pageant contestant. This starts me snickering all over again and totally distracts me from writing the essay, which is probably the point.

I came up with a skeleton plan for doing my homework yesterday, which is to my credit. I still have to watch a video that is still used as the icon of teaching parents about learning disabilities, and it totally sends me over the edge. The guy who does it infers that teachers are bad people who do bad things to LD kids in class, which I think is a completely inaccurate and scary message to send to parents, who might not know any better. I also think that many of the parents who might be seeing this video are going to pretty fragile because they just discovered that their beautiful child has something wrong and then they're going to see this video which makes it seem like teachers are exploiting their children when they aren't around. Big Ew. I do realize that some teachers do these things, but I think it's a lot less common than this video would have you believe.

Additionally, this week I started the Iditawalk. This past week, I missed a few days, so I am going to be walking longer this week to make up the time. I walked yesterday for 45 minutes and discovered that here in RedneckRubyville that everyone owns a dog.

These dogs typically bark rabidly at me while wagging their tails and following me the length of the fenceline of their property. I got nervous yesterday because I saw a big black dog without a fence ahead, but it appeared he was called in before I passed his driveway, thankfully. We aren't going to consider a dog until we get a deed to a house. I often think I would like a small dog, that was smart, but I haven't met any. Most small dogs are what I consider blender dogs -- annoying little pests that should be dropped in the blender and fed to my cat. I realize this may damage my credentials as a potential redneck, but I do like some big dogs, despite the drool factor typical to many breeds. I grew up with border collies, which are about the smartest, nicest dogs ever created, but border collies need a lot of room to run. But they don't gnash their teeth on tennis balls until the ball is heavy with dog spit, like retrievers do, rather they get the ball, lay it in front of you and bark at you to toss it again. They aren't into the ball, they are into the running to GET the ball. The ball is just a means to an end.

I also want to state for the record that I think that Elmo is ten times more annoying than Barney. The fact that my daughter is addicted to Elmo only amplifies my hatred of said furry red monster of Sesame Street fame because I have to listen to his hyena laughter when she tickles his tummy, and hear his horrible high pitched un-monsterish voice singing and baby talking on DVD. When my husband picked out the three DVD Christmas set, I thought we'd only have to deal with Elmo at Christmas. How wrong I have been. While I am not Catholic, I will confess that I have also taken several opportunities to wish my husband unpleasant mishaps at the hand of Elmo, most of which include his ears bleeding to Elmo Christmas jingles.

Back to my future plans...

I need to make dinner, write essays, and otherwise be doing homework. Note, that in that I didn't mention housework. I mopped the floor and have been insisting that it get swept, and I vacuumed. I've started laundry and will continue with said laundry until I'm dead.

I am so down. I can't find a house we can afford, where we'd like to live. On top of that, I'm not sure about living here. I just found out that four kids basically took trading cards from Russell's pocket -- stealing them, ripping them, and tossing them in the trash. In the face of four kids, I'm not sure what he was supposed to do, but I wrote a pretty ripshit email to his teacher. I hope she reads it before I call the school on Tuesday, after the holiday.

I have this assignment that I hate. I'm supposed to basically tell the teacher how I'd like her to set up the class, if it were independent study. I realize that I'm supposed to do stuff like this, but I hate self-evaluation and it makes me want to rip all my hair out and leave it in clumps on the floor even to work on this assignment. I don't mind setting up a class for someone else, but I definitely am not liking having to do it for myself.

I think Genny has ear infections again. I finally convinced Mike that we should take her in and then she was acting "better" and we thought better of it. Tonight, she's kind of being a crack baby -- flitting all over the house bent on destruction, so I think I'm taking her tomorrow, just to be safe.

I figured out our tax bill and it's not pretty. I'm contacting an accountant LaDawn uses because we only paid in about $8K in taxes and I show us owing upwards of $18K in total. It's astounding to me. I know we should get some writeoffs, but I don't know how to do them particularly well, I just know for a family that lives check to check, that seems like a phenomenal tax burden and as a result, I am back to my usual state of insomnia.

I'm way too tired for my body and my age. I should be young and bouncy again or at least well laid. I have stayed up way past my bed time the past couple nights doing homework and contract stuff and it's been rugged. Of course, I've slept restlessly because I am worrying and stressing. Today, I took a nap and was supposed to get up when Mike called and he called and I was so out of it, I begged off and crashed and burned.

I slept for a couple hours, but the only reason I got up was because I had to pee. Being that I was up anyhow, peeing, I decided to rip off the flannel nightgown and stumble into the shower. It was stupid, I realise in retrospect because the day has only fallen apart since into foggy-brained stumblings through email, more contract work and I swear all I want to do is make this one quilt block.

I was at Wal-mart, last night, at the fabric counter and I saw a sign for a quilt block contest that they are sponsoring for the "heart of America." The quilt blocks get turned into quilts for kids in the Children's Miracle Network, so it's a no lose thing. The woman at the counter showed me the only one someone had turned in and it was buttugly, so I am making my own. Of course, my idea requires being appliqued, which I don't know how to do, yet, so it ought to be interesting. I have to stitch CS's quilt and I think I've finally given up on being able to get the thing done all by hand, so I'm stitching it with the machine this weekend and she'll just have to forgive me. I just don't want her baby to be a toddler before she gets it...or a teenager, for that matter.

I think Mike is mad at me. I'm kind of mad at me, too.

Pauline called and needed money. We didn't have tons, but we had a little to help, so I paid two of her bills and basically I told her she needed to get into a smaller place she can afford and I sent in a low-income request to her utility company on her behalf, so they can reduce the cost of her bills. Mike let me do it, but he was not thrilled about it. I wish now, that I'd stood by my guns about sending the smaller amount. I love my friends, but I love my husband more. Her roommated got pulled over on parole with a DUI. I don't know why she'd have such a person living with her, other than desperation, but I am thinking about going down there and having one of those heart-to-hearts with her. She needs better friends.

I have a certain school psychologist in mind, when I say,"THAT CUNT!"

This is the same unmitigated condescending bitch that said,"Oh, so sorry, your son is just over the cutoffs, so we can't provide him services." This is the same patronizing pissant who I bypassed by going directly to the school district office when I got the test results from my second source because I knew if I had to deal with her, I'd beat her bloody with the test results.

I sat in my learning disabilities class and learned a boatload about how kids are evaluated. It then dawned on me that this bitch is the one who administered the IQ test to him and rated him at average, when in fact, I know he is NOT average, so that they could justify his so-so iffy grades. Of course, this was also in California, not our new state. This is the kid who beat the undefeated chess champion today in chess club. My son is now the undefeated chess champion. My son rates in the top 5% of the state in math skills. I am going to call the school and have him reevaluated and have the IQ test readministered by someone who has less in mind than the financial bottomline.

I am so angry right now. It's a good thing that that bitch is in another state, because otherwise, I'd be sorely tempted to track her down and have her removed from her position for complete ineptitude. If she'd been half the psychologist that she should be, she'd have suggested ADHD instead of insisting he was "above cutoffs." I curse her and her incapable scholastic evaluating kind. May their scantron sheets gang up on them and papercut their impersonal, unprofessional, inept bodies and haunt them like the nightmares they've inflicted on me and the parents before and after me.

Tomorrow is heating oil delivery day. I swear, I want to crank up the heat to 85 and let 'er rip. As long as I am toasty warm, I don't care what happens. Just bury me in a flannel electric blanket and I'll die a happy wench.

Lately, I need headstone because I'm buried in homework. It sucks big wang, too. I don't know what came over me, but I offered to make coursework web pages for both my professors. I guess I'm not slammed enough, what with essays and reading to do up the wazoo. To be fair, I just ripped what I did for one professor and changed the names and places to protect the innocent, but what a ridiculously stupid thing to do, huh?

We went househunting again this weekend and yeesh, the prices have jumped $10-40K around here on most everything. It was really disappointing. I feel like the only way we'll own a house is if we buy a manufactured house, which would blow. Russell said he was willing to move, but didn't want to move back to his previous school, which was a place we'd looked. Mike and I also discussed the possibility that if his company's stock bottoms out because we bomb the fuck out of Iraq (George Bush is a chest pounding buffoon), that we might have to sit it out another year to have time to gather that down payment, though we may be shy enough credit card debt to be able to get a 0% down credit rating at that point. Right now, we've got about $6000 in stock option money available. We'll just have to see what the latest in obscene medical and dental expenses comes to pass.

Other than that, Mike and I had a date on Saturday. We had dinner at a nice place, hung out and enjoyed the absence of children. I took him to see the Lord of the Rings moive and we did our grocery shopping with no whining and got everything we needed. The absence of children when one is alone with one's mate, is a guilty little pleasure. I always feel like I must be a rotten mom to be so happy not to have them right there, but then when I see them, I feel like I could eat them up. Mel and her new husband watched them for us because we helped them move on Friday and Saturday. After the moving, I took a lot of ibuprofen, but the walking funny was from the babysitting, as was the relaxed knowing smiles Mike and I had for each other all day Sunday.

I need to go study...no small surprise. I did the ebills, got the web pages dummied up, responded to my email, and contemplated my navel, so I can't sidestep this any more.

I had this great blog to post and my computer lost its pretty little head and Poof! it's gone.

And no, I did not send notification to microsoft that explorer puked, thanks for asking. Nosey little bastards. Like I'd actually let them know I had any of their software.

All I know lately is that grad school is hard. The homework is hard, but geez, even just getting a freaking student ID was a special trip. I had to actually *pay* for said ID. I started at the library where I discovered I had to have the ID to use the computer lab. I went to an entirely different building where a humorless woman young enough to be my child, had I chosen to reproduce at 18, took my picture and charged me. I returned to said computer lab with card where I was told I had to have the scan bar from the circulation desk on the other side of the library from whence I'd come. When I returned and wanted to print, I was told that in order to print, I had to pay for a stupid little copy card back at the freakin' circulation desk.

By the time I huffed my way up the hill to the education building, I was completely out of breath, exhausted, but I did have my printout with my one corrected sentence in it and the pure satisfaction that if I want to use the computer lab this semester, I don't have to go through all that shit again.

We are rather broke. I can't afford the $300 for a tank full of heating oil. We're so broke that we had to make two trips to the local hardware store to put kerosene in the heating oil tank to fuel the heater. Of course, lately, the night temperatures have been in the teens, so it's been cold as a witch's nipple here and we're running low on wood. I've been heading out of the house during the day, so I don't have to run the heater, so I can run it at night for the kids. We've been bundling the kids up in a lot of blankets at night and burning wood in the fireplace nearly constantly, especially at night. We had a bunch of big logs, so those have been skating us through this week. I've taken to running the oven on low heat during the day to add a little more heat when I'm here by myself because at least the electric bill is paid for! We've weatherstripped a bunch of windows and broken out lots of flannel. I just hate the oil tank because there is no dipstick and no way to tell just how much oil is in the damned thing, which sucks, so we don't know we're out until we're out. And right now, we're out, shy, 12 gallons of kerosene. (Kerosene is more refined heating oil.)

In good news, however, I should have a check from my contract work in a day or two, so things will get better. Yay! I may just buy us all electric blankets!

Okay, so maybe thinking I would not be here soon was a little early, but I'm sure the day will come.

I started reviewing the syllabus for the ESL class and apparently the professor will return your paper if there are more than three punctuation or grammar mistakes. He does not tolerate tardiness of any kind. If you are late by 15 minutes to his class, he will count that against you and it is part of your grade. Of course, he was not there on the first day of class for an emergency, so I think he's liable to be graded himself. I thought I might drop his class because he seemed like a bit of a nazi, but then I started checking things through and the class is required for an ESL endorsement. I'm not likely to make tons of diction or punctuation mistakes, but I supposed it's possible. I was late to his first class to discover that indeed class was cancelled, though. I just had had problems getting out the door. I need to leave no later than noon for that class, just in case.

I figure, if I am going to get the ESL endorsement here, then I am stuck taking some of my coursework from him, so I better get used to him. *sigh*

I am so excited to do this. I am worried about the coursework I blew off indiscriminately at the UC 12 years ago. I had expected I would be dropped from all my classes and instead, they expected me to drop all my classes, my damned self. So I definitely have less than a 3.0 average. Yikes! The Uni here said I shouldn't worry, but of course, me being me, I am worrying profusely about it.

Of course, midway through all this, I am applying for scholarships. I keep reviewing the tax return and my finances and there is no doubt about it, we made way too much money last year and I am seriously doubting I am going to get any money given to me if financial need is a criterion. We could just really use the extra boost because we want to buy our house this summer. I could instead take some of Mike's stock option money and pay for grad school that way, but I'd rather buy a house! If I have to make that monthly payment regardless, it would be nice to be able to get credit for it!

On the house buying front, the houses are starting to look very Californian in prices around here. There's a town about a 45 minute drive from Mike's job that has cheap housing, but then it would be a 45 minute drive for him. We really want to live here, but the challenge is going to be a house large enough for our interests that is cheap enough for our budget. I saw an icky manufactured house with all of 1100 sq. feet on 1.3 acres that was $170K. For the same amount in this other town, we could get a brand new 1700 sq. foot house on an acre with really nice fixtures. I saw a slightly run down ranch house on just shy of an acre and they wanted $205K, just down the road from us. It was pretty damned depressing. I talked to the bank and they said that we shouldn't plan to buy anything over $200K and we need to have at least 5%. Mike may have a commute if we buy, that's all.

On the plus (maybe minus) front, I'm starting to lose weight again. I had put some of that winter poundage on, but I've been walking more and eating carefully and I can feel the difference. And in 10 short days, I start the Iditawalk again! Oh, to fit back in my clothes.

And I am giving up the illusion that I will be in a size 10, so I'm selling or donating all the clothes I have, which I have used to berate myself for gaining weight over the years. I'm sick of feeling lousy about myself for no good reason, and lord knows I could use the space. I will lose the weight I am supposed to in God's time and in the interim, I can give myself a damned break.

Dear Friends,

I'm writing to let you know I'm not dead.

I have had a few days lately when I've been remembering when I wished I was. Suffice it to say, it involved a cattleprod, an hour of paralysis, a lot of fear and a lot of grief -- over something that happened nearly 20 years ago that I'd nearly forgotten. I'm doing okay, though, on this side of it and I've been praying for God to keep me safe and hold me in the light. He's great at doing that. Funny thing. And I'm healing from it just fine -- diabetes doesn't affect healing of the heart, thankfully.

I am not going to be here much for the next few weeks because I am filling out all my stuff for graduate school, scholarships, and the like, in addition to homework. I have a lot of it, too, I might add. It's astounding all in all.

I had my new professor essentially offer to write me a letter of recommendation for my application, which was kind of odd and cool. I said,"But you hardly know me." She said, "All I have to do is see how you write and I should be able to come back with a reasonable sense of how qualified you are to be a graduate student and write you a letter." I told her I think my letters will be enough alongside of my essay. And my son is going to write me a letter of recommendation. She thought that was cool.

What's neat about this is that for the first time in a eight months, I feel really qualified for something and totally on top of my game. I'm exercising again, too, and starting to take off the winter poundage. I feel good like a shiny-faced grad student should.

Pray for me and my aspirations, wouldja? Thanks. Talk to you all soon.

Love,
Ruby

I have never seen fog here and it's a complete white out pea soup mess out there this morning. I also have a lot of work to get done that I am avoiding.

The house is an unadulterated pit. I've been trying to run the vacuum for a week and it just hasn't been happening. The bedroom is a freaking health hazard. Mostly just piles of clothes, but ewwwww! And the boy has been mimicking mommy. He's been "cleaning his room" for close to a week. I told him that when I was a child, if I didn't clean my room, my mom went in and took everything out in garbage sacks and threw out whatever she felt like tossing. I told him I was damned close to doing the same thing because it was just too gross.

I guess I should clean my room, and thus, end the hypocrisy.

*sigh*

Examples to set, people to see, places to go.


And we figured out the money thing. Michael can only be at so much negative vacation time and then it becomes unpaid time. So he didn't get paid for 8 hours, which of course, we didn't and if we had, we'd have done something different time off -wise over the holiday.

Oh, shit! Genny's quiet -- gotta fly!

I went to my first graduate class on Tuesday. I feel like such a grownup now. Part of the class is that we have to introduce ourselves and I was the only one in there that wasn't currently working in a teaching capacity. It was kind of a bummer, but when I explained my history and who I am more, they were all impressed, even if I still felt lowlier than them.

The first special education teacher in the state is in my class. Gack! I feel so old to be starting this.

But the class rocks, overall. We're doing self-study to see how we learn in order to develop strategies to help other learners. Neat, huh? I guess you had to be there. I think it's neat, but I also love Applejacks, so there's no accounting for taste.

I also have been noticing lately that my foot hurts. I kept thinking it was my shoes and then realized that no, it's the one I sprained. I am temporarily giving up my slide in clog shoes for the less attractive sneaker thang. The fashion police are going to ticket me or reward me for a fashion trend, however, dumpy 30-something women in tennis shoes seems unlikely as a future fashion trend, somehow.

Oh, and you'll notice that blogger finally removed the ads I paid to have removed 2 months ago. Bastards.

Oh, and I discovered how to make the most of my fireplace -- remove the front glass door thingies off. Makes the room toasty. My husband was rather surprised to learn that one can remove that thing and buy a fireplace screen for $30.

And money troubles have reared their ugly heads. I couldn't understand how we could possibly be under at the bank and then reviewed the deposits and Mike's check was short about $170. I asked him about it and surprise, surprise, he didn't put one day of work down there, so now, were Check N Go's biatches. But we don't have to pay until after we get contract money checks in. It just sucks because we are so damned tight after the holidays and wedding expenditures and now, we're even tighter.

*sigh*

In other bad news, Ladawn's husband left her last week. Claimed it was for stupid stuff -- but everything I've seen shows that he's got some kind of online whapadang going on, i.e., keyboarding net sexually and all. He's also screwed with the money badly, and I just am worried to pieces about her. I'm going to start bringing food to her with each paycheck, so she can use it for the daycare. She's not sure how she's going to get through, financially, so our rates may go up, which would suck big time, but would totally be understandable.

For us, it would be cool if I could get some substitute teaching work. I've got to spend $100 on the licensing though and that's going to be rough.

The essay saga continues.

I hate the essay. I know what I want to say. I want to say, look, I've been a special ed teacher the hard way for 9 years. I know the ins and outs and the shit no one's thought of in an IEP. I am damned good at knowing what needs to happen to get various services provided to a child. I know a lot of linguistics. I kick some serious ass.

I am not even sure how to explain away the teaching credential fiasco from the first time. I did not want to teach English, but rather English as a Second Language and I could not force myself, no matter how hard I tried to enjoy it. I fucking loathed it. I hated it. I hated lesson plans for it and considered it lower drudgery than cleaning cat vomit. Teaching English to high school kids at a school where gang shootings regularly occurred was terrifying and a totally hideous experience. Student teaching while flat broke and still recovering from a suicidal week in the hospital just 4 short months before was an insane undertaking on my part and is something I should have deferred for a year, at least. In fact, probably more like 12 years, actually.

I was trying to do the right thing, more than anything -- get out of school, get a job, and get on with my life.

However, despite all of these items, the thing I keep coming back to is that I love to teach. I love problem solving teaching. I love teaching English as a second language because I have to figure out how I am going to teach them to form their mouths correctly to utter the sounds they need or even how English might compare to their language and their culture. I love giving writing topics where a kid reveals something cool and interesting about their home life or culture. I love working with special ed because there's a success story at the end of it. There's a kid who has worked their butt off to reach for tangible successes, outlined in an IEP.

My son is a success story. The kid placed in the 90th percentile for math skills in our state. He's got good grades and he views scholastic successes gleefully and most of all, people can understand all the smart things he tells them that he knows, now. He knows what it means to work hard -- to go from severely speech handicapped to mildly handicapped and get somewhere and that is so amazing to me. I helped him. He helped me. We are becoming better people because of each other and I want to take the person I've become because of his hard work and help other people.

I guess *that* should be my essay.

What kind of raving lunatic am I? Yeesh, I forgot how much of a gigantic pain in the ass applying for graduate school is. I've been to a grand sum total of 5 schools -- two community colleges just to take a few classes since I graduated, which means I have 5 sets of 2 transcripts each to order and pay for. UC is making me request my undergrad and grad transcripts separately and pay for them! Each school has its own peculiar ritual for getting transcripts, too. There ought to be a Discovery Channel show on the bizarre and unusual weirdnesses associated with each school's transcripts procurement process.

I sent off 3 out of 5 transcript requests with accompanying checks today. I started tearing apart boxes to find my CBEST score and instead, I found old transcripts. That's good though because now I can fill out my graduate application which requests that I figure out my cumulative GPA, and now, I don't have to pay to get transcripts sent to me. The only transcript I don't think I can get my hands on is my graduate transcript, so I may have to fax them my visa for it. I didn't find my CBest, but I did find the form I filled out for the CBest to take the damned test originally, so at least I have a date. I downloaded the necessary form for a copy of my test score to be sent to me and filled it out and then discovered that they require a money order or cashier's check. Much cussing ensued upon reading that, but I'll live.

I started my essay today. You know the essay. It's the one that all students historically torture themselves over until their hair falls out in clumps. I have 2 pages in which to explain the last 12 years of my life and it hardly seems sufficient or right. I guess if I have 12 years to cover, I feel like I should be able to use a page a year, you know? Mostly, I am writing about my experience in raising Russell. I explain that I was drummed out of the credential program. I am debating how much to tell. I don't want to go the TMI (too much information) route, but I also don't want to omit that I was hospitalized only a few months before I started the credential program in a credential area I did not want to teach in (in order to get to teach in the area that I did) and that I was student teaching in a school that had regular gang shootings.

I have the option of using my editor when I get the thing to a semi-finished place and making him help me make it pretty. I got one reference letter asked today and a message to the other person I had in mind. I am unsure about the other person because she was Russell's teacher, but she was with me at several IEP meetings over two years and she supported me in getting him the help I sought for him, so I think she has a good idea of my capacities and willingness to go to the mat for a kid. Ladawn would also write me a letter if I asked. I've been thinking about asking Russell, too. He knows more about my abilities as a teacher and my knowledge of special ed probably than anyone short of Mike, of course, asking my kid might be considered a cheap shot, too. I don't know.

I walked for about 45 minutes today. I plopped Genny in the stroller after lunch and then hauled my big fat butt all over the hillside behind our house. I found a new route and it had a lot of uphill and at the end, it had a blessed, albeit small downhill. Genny fell asleep in the stroller about 10 minutes from home and I unraveled her from her jacket, dolly, and sneakers and plopped her in her bed. Tomorrow, I have her all day, but I think in the morning, we'll be going to Costco and laying in supplies and then I'll stick her in bed and unpack all that crap, do some more quilting and probably take a snooze. I've got hill butt tonight, but I feel pretty good, so I don't really care. I was bummed at how huffin' and puffin' I was, but it's a start and I'll take that.

There's other stuff, too, but Genny keeps wanting "Uppy," so I'm off to find a comfortable chair for my baby girl with the runny nose, who got her flu shot yesterday, until Daddy and Bear get back from Cubscouts.

Yesterday, I went to the university to officially gain admission and see about registering for classes. I was pissed off about how old I felt while I was there. All of these petite young things and super young guys. Several times, the phrase,"I'm old enough to be your mother came to mind." I found that disconcerting and uncomfortable. People were nice though, so it was not that bad, but it makes me nervous for my classes. Does age make you a better student? I remember being somewhat intimidated by the older students because they were smarter than everyone else and me. Am I going to have to live up to a lot?

I am also looking into what will it take to get non-income contingent financial aid. I know that there are several scholarships available and I am pretty sure I can write a bitchin' application letter for said scholarship applications, too. It would just be nice to not be entirely self-funded. While the tuition isn't bad, the ability to not have to pay $500/semester for it, would be a welcome financial relief, especially next fall when I won't be working and we won't have contract money, etc. We can get by, but just getting by will suck.

Hopefully, Mike's bonuses will continue to be really good and will help us get through. I also have to get that substitute credential thing going, too. I have to download the forms for that and pull money out of our asses so I can pay for it all. It'll be $200, so it probably won't be until next month. For whatever reason, next month, we have money. *shrug*

I think it's because I blew every extra penny we had on my ungrateful in-laws. No, I'm not bitter.

I've been doing a lot of handquilting. I know I could run it on the machine, but I like hand quilting and I like who I'm making it for, so it's a labor of love. (CS) I am sending out a care package for CS this week because I love her and because she needs some post-partum TLC. I've gotten a lot of the quilting done and I'm having the best time inventing my own designs and quilting them in there. I wish I had some more design stencils to play with, but I starting inventing things with the stencils I have and I invented some stuff just for fun. I think I understand the whole fun of quilting thing now and it's not the piecing, which is what I suspected to begin with.

You know you're turning redneck when...

You drag your poor unsuspecting family to the auto show.

Well, Mike is so damned tall at 6'7" that finding a car that he can fit into comfortably is a big challenge, usually involving much whining and several car lots and a lot of bitching by all. So we dragged him through a buttload of cars with kids testing out the leg room behind. Genny was stumbling tired behind us working feverishly to put herself into the other side of every car we tried, which meant of course, that I was circling around different ends of the car, trying to keep track of her and ask Mike his opinion of the car he was in, simultaneously. We narrowed it down to a Honda Odyssey, a Chevy Tahoe, a Chevy Malibu, and a Saturn Vue. The problem that we ran into with most of these cars is that most of them have a center island, due to the bucket seat thing, so we'll actually have to go to a dealership and see if we can get rid of that feature and fit him in there. A Taurus wagon also fit Mike really well, but the legroom behind him was pretty rugged on kids.

The other thing we were looking at was gas mileage because Mike is going to use this car as a commuting vehicle, so whatever we get ought to get reasonable gas mileage for that commute. Of course, Mike's solution was that we should move really close to his work (the housing there is REALLY expensive) and then we could skip buying a second car and just get a nice house. But then we'd be living in a town I'd rather not live in because the schools suck for the kids.

We've been eyeing over this house down the road from us which we could totally afford -- mostly because it needs a lot of work. The actual buying of it is months off, though and the asking price is steep for what you get, so I need to see if I can do some title searching and figure out how much the guy paid for the place and offer him something reasonable between his super high asking price and what he paid for it. No one has bought it and everyone I've talked to has said he's asking way the hell too much for it. It needs a lot of TLC -- serious redecorating inside -- it has a room that is bright purple and orange because of a previous Phoenix Suns fan, another room that is black and white stripes with a mirrored closet that looks like a prison and a kitchen that has been painted two pale shades of pink, mint green, and then the faces on the drawers were left as their natural wood color. And no, I don't understand what possessed who. There's also the front room, which would have to have the half wall ripped down that separates the dining area from the livingroom area because it breaks up an already limited and small space. Of course the dining area is carpeted, so I'd have to pull that out, eventually and the carpet in the family room area is truly horrid, and would also need to be pulled. The family room area has a fireplace and adjoins the kitchen, so I'd probably just put down a tile floor in there to keep it cool in the summer and the drop an area rug for winter, with the idea that if we run the fireplace, the stone floor will retain heat. I would also initially either repaint/refinish the cupboards in the kitchen or I'd replace them with something nice.

The yard of this place is also thrashed. The deck out back needs to be treated or painted or something. It's all wood and just basically stripped. The yard front and back has marginal landscaping, so yes, when I got through with it, it wouldn't know what hit it. The house is close to a busy road, so I'd have to put up some bushes and trees for screening out street noise and I'd have to make sure the house was well-insulated, so we weren't feeling like trucks were driving through the house. Apple trees grow well here, as long as we don't have late freezes and they're short enough to where they'd soak up the noise, provide a screen and add value. I took Mike by this house yesterday and he could see the possibilities with me and while it's not my first choice in a house and and not even like the brand spanking new ones of the area we look at a few months ago, it'd keep Russell in the same school district, we'd retain our neighbors and friends, and we'd still have the same astounding view. The house would gain equity quickly because of the area we are in and would allow me to pay off my student loans in short order, which would allow us to consider buying a much more expensive house in a couple years, and I'd have my loans paid off that much faster. And with the loans, because so much of them is interest, at some point, I'd get an amazing tax break because of all of the interest that we'd pay off.

And ultimately, I'd have a lot of fun working on this house. I have enjoyed living in each of the houses we've rented because each house has allowed me to fix things up and add a lot and come into my own in each room. Genny's room has a Winnie-The-Pooh theme going -- I even made her curtains. I've still got some Beatrix Potter stuff, but I'm slowly phasing that out for Pooh, which Genny loves. Russell has a space theme working in his room. He's got a combination of Star Wars and Harry Potter, so we've got stars and moons and planets in his room, including on curtains he picked out fabric for and I've got a HP quilt I'll be working on for him this summer, probably for his birthday. The kitchen is a chile pepper haven -- chiles of all kinds adorn it and the dining area is kind of ethnic, and our livingroom is as always, stars and moons. I bought different carpets for the livingroom and I made curtains, pillow and futon covers that reflect the stars and moons, and I have a lot of star wars stuff in there, too. We've got our cardboard cutout of Bobafet, a framed mosaic poster of yoda & Darth, and soon we'll have Mike's old star wars poster framed up. Our bedroom is kind of the nature palace. I've got Moose stuff for Mike, wild bird curtains, wildflower posters, moose bed spread and sheets, and something that may not entirely fit, but that we both like a small poster of Gustav Klimt's, "The Kiss." I'd seen it on someone else's website and loved it and Mike knew how much I liked it and saw the poster at a student union poster show at school and brought it home for me. It has a natural feel to it, however, so it works for me. It also symbolizes how I feel when I'm with Mike, I guess...protected, cherished and always always kissed. In our house, it hangs appropriately, over our bed.

Lately, my arthritis about kills me. My hands feel like they're burning up. You'd think that would feel comforting, but it so limits my range of motion in my fingers that it's rather debilitating instead. I find grabbing a needle for quilting requires several tries and a lot of concentration.

Today was a good day overall. I had Genny all day today and it was pretty good. She's so self-contained. She plays with her dollies and we talk while she does that. She tells me stuff and asks for help with things, but I kind of do my stuff in parallel with her play. I periodically pull the bathroom addict out of her favorite room to play in, where she jubilantly yells down the hall to me things that instill fear like,"Soap!" and "Towel!" I scurry down the hall to find her and remove her from her beloved bathroom and put the soap where it's harder to reach and use the towel to dry her off from her latest foray into wet play.

I took her shopping today and she was smacking bags of chips as we went down the aisle, yelling,"CHIPS!" I would move her an extra inch or so away and tried to pick my tortillas out quickly and bolt. That only made her try harder to smack the chips. Nonetheless, if you find broken chips in your bag and you pulled your bag from the front of the rack, it was probably because my daughter or another little kid smacked them and broke them for the satisfying sound it made.

I made a list of crap I should get done. It's formidable, and I don't know that I'll get it all done, but having the list was rather satisfying because as I worked on things around the house today, I realized that I was getting to some of the junk on my list. I actually got all the Christmas stuff done, but then realize that there's still a substantial string of lights on the sagebrush out front and then I found a half dozen little things I missed. I hate it when that happens.

I did weird things today like trim all the box tops coupon things for the school. It was kind of anal retentive and I hesitate to mention it, but it seems like an infernal waste of money if it give someone else money to take a chunk of cardboard off something you already buy NOT to cut the damned things out and trim them. It also seems like a ridiculous thing to have to do. I'm almost tempted to start sending in $10 a semester as donation because it'd probably amount to more than the stupid box tops. I remember saving box tops for things like a square record. Hell, if I could find that stupid square record, I'd probably be a freakin' millionaire.

I had my friend and long-time editor today tell me I should write about my travels and adventures and life adventures in memoir format. I kind of cringed at the thought because it seems so self-indulgent that someone so ordinary should write memoirs. I was thinking of Ruby fun facts though and thought, maybe I could start with that because those seem less ordinary.

Fun fact #1: I traveled all over the west and slept with a lot of strangers out of boredom/loneliness, while camping out of my truck. I carried nice clothes and an iron for working, so I could work in an office. I used to wash my hair and clean up in gas station restrooms.

Fun fact #2: I have worked for ski resorts on both coasts as a lift operator, soley for the purpose of being a ski bum with income.

Fun fact #3: I worked on a Wilderness Crew one year in Oregon, where I restored lakeside trails and habitat. We had to get special permission to use a wheelbarrow.

Fun fact #4: I learned Microsoft Word when it was a DOS program and no one had heard of it.

Fun fact #5: I had a horse when I was kid named Bay Mar. She slipped the saddle the first time I rode her and then gingerly stepped over my prone body.

Fun fact #6: When I was 19 and cute, I tried out for amature night at a stripper club because the winning purse was $100 and I needed the money. I got $10 stuck in my underwear and thought I'd done okay. (Side note: Band-aids suck for pasties.)

I think I need to start reading Tom Robbins again -- Still Life with Woodpecker, etc. And I think I might need a road trip.

I've been getting a lot of housework done. I'm still up to my ass in quilts to finish, but this too shall pass. A quilt that Mike's mom had started for Genevieve and never finished was given to me to finish. It's one of those quilts I should have done by the time Genny is 18 because it's a gigantic pain in the ass. I figure if I can get the center of it done and then add strips around it, it should be a nice bed quilt for her later. I've got to finish the two I'm still working on, but I'm dangerously close to mailing CS's out for Katen because it's getting there so well.

I've had Genny at daycare for the past few days while I get caught up on stuff from the trip, like laundry, dishes, Christmas put-away, and stuff like that. We were sweeping the carpet last night to get the worst of the needles up, so I won't choke the vacuum today. I've actually made paths in our bedroom, so we can get around the damned bed and I've got most of the bags unpacked and put away. I also called my husband and invited him home for a nooner. I was told I should extend that invitation more often.

Oh, afternoon delight.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by the amount of crud I've got in this house in stacks here and there and God, I need a calendar. I'm getting that Mom's Family Calendar by S. Boynton because honestly, it saved our familial butts last year knowing who was going where and when.

And because Ladawn told me it's a good idea to pray for the people who piss you off, I've prayed for my parents-in-law. I've also prayed for the wisdom to handle the situation appropriately and for serenity regarding all things.

My ankle was pretty healed yesterday. I did a lot and it didn't swell a bit, so I think that day of laying around with my feet up on Monday was a very good thing. I just have to figure out what to do with the moon boot and the barely used crutches. I've been doing quite a bit of work on my contract stuff, with the idea that I might actually get paid for it and be able to pay for the classes I want to take at the university. Right now, I'm making a casserole in my crockpot because the crockpot recipe book came from Amazon today. (Thanks, CS!)

Today is a beautiful day with light all around us and blue sky everywhere I look, though the clouds for the coming storm are a-comin'. I start walking tomorrow in order to prep for the IditaWalk2003 starting February 10.

Mike drove us to his parents' house, so we could get the kids and head back to the hotel, where I would be permitted to doze off in a vicodan-wrapped slumber with my swollen ankle elevated upon numerous pillows.

We got there and the house had everyone -- all of Mike's brothers, one brother's girlfriend, my MIL's friend, plus us and the kids. Whereupon, I was laid into because I didn't watch Genny sufficiently and she overflowed the toilet. I was told that because it was Mike's mom's wedding that I was supposed to be the only parent watching children and that it was entirely my fault. I said,"Mike and I are a team and we watch the children together, and we lost track of her. I am not the only adult responsible for the children." I said,"We really need to leave." Whereupon, I was told that I am " an uninvolved parent." I said,"I have never ever felt welcome in your home and this is simply the last time I'll be here. I am sick of having my parenting critiqued, being insulted regularly, and feeling like I'm walking on eggshells around this family. I'm sick of not being treated with respect. You have gone out of your way to make sure I am not made to feel welcome, and I simply won't put up with this crap any more. You are more than welcome in our home, but obviously, I am not welcome here and I won't be back." As I said this, it dawned on me how much of an audience this idiot had done this in front of and I was horrified that I had simply not left before I uttered what I did. I also Mike's oldest brother pipe up that respect is returned or something like that, to which I responded," I don't respect them, huh? I guess spending all of this money to make sure we could come, pay for our own room and car, so as to not impose on anyone and pay for your ticket because I knew how damned much it meant to your mom is disrespectful? WhatEver! I'd rather eat glass than come here, but I knew what it meant to your mom and Mike asked me to, so we did." I kept trying for the door, but crutches are just so damned difficult to make a quick exit with.

Somewhere in there, one of Mike's brothers said that the way that this dufus was doing this was not okay and that he would not be a party to it and he left the room. I apologized and attempted to leave and was told something like we were always welcome, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's what yo mouf sez! I said,"Well, I don't *feel* welcome, and we're leaving."

Mind you, all this is going on in FRONT OF MY CHILDREN. And I kept trying to leave.

Finally, I limped to the front door on my crutches, pointed children out the door and got into the car. Whereupon, I had Mike's oldest brother physically place himself in the doorway of the car, so that I couldn't shut the fucking door. He told me I should learn to take constructive criticism. Constructive criticisim, typically is constructive, not destructive and is done in a loving manner, but I was tired and I just kept asking him to let me leave. I had to repeatedly ask him to get out of the door, so that we could leave because I simply wanted to go home and go to bed. Mike's youngest brother came out and tried to get him to leave off and Mike finally looked at him and said,"For Christ's sake, Chris, let me take her home!"

And a "oh duh" look came over his face and he stepped away and we went home.

We haven't spoken with Mike's mom and stepdad yet. And Mike has assured me that we won't visit them until they apologize. Two of Mike's brothers said that they were really sad. I simply think to myself, "GOOD!" They should be sad. After all the years of grief and sadness they've put me through, they deserve some sadness.

My test results came back NORMAL!!!! I had a HBa1c of 5.7, when normal is 4-6, so diabetics out there may envy me and normal people should shrug! Whee! I also had good ratios on my cholesterols and all that, though my cholesterol is up, but I have been eating more red meat this year, so deservedly so.

We went to MIL's wedding.

I know I should stop at that. I went to the enemy's den and I know those you faithful readers who know all the implications thereof, are clutching your children and wringing your hands, saying,"For God's sake, why?!"

I went because my husband wanted me to. I bought the non-refundable tickets and then he asked me if I wanted to go, to which I replied, "No, I can't think of anything I'd rather not do." I made sure that we rented a hotel room and a car, so we wouldn't impose on anyone, though it was expensive and the money probably better spent elsewhere, but I wanted to do things the "right" way. I didn't want them to have anything they could bitch about.

So they bitched about the kids.

They had stark white carpet in their house -- even in their bathrooms, which to me is a sure sign of insanity, because only the insane would have a carpeted bathroom, but okay. We had to remove our shoes upon entry, but okay.

We were supposed to eat dinner there. The first night they had tacos, which aren't known for being neat eating and when I suggested that the kids might be better over the hardwood floor in the kitchen, I was informed that under no circumstances were chairs to be put on the hardwood floor, for fear of scratching the floor. So my children, for whom I usually have to use a snow shovel after each meal, had to eat tacos over the dreaded carpet. My son was told he wasn't to spill or he'd be in big trouble, which is pretty stressful for him because this is a child that can't tell that he has crap smeared from one end of his face to the other unless he sees it in a mirror. He lacks the sensitivity around his mouth for that because of all the speech problems, but he did okay. I was told I should hold Genny on my lap and feed her. I said,"I can't eat neatly myself, much less feed a child neatly whose face I can't really see." Grandma decided she'd feed her.

The wedding was only worse.

For the wedding, I made sure that we all wore similar clothing. Everyone had something purple on. Genny and I wore purple velour dresses, Mike wore a lavendar shirt with matching tie, and Russell wore a tie with some purple in it. I got Russell one of those little clip-ons because it was what there was at all the stores I went to. We all looked fantastic. I curled Genny's hair and bought special ties for her, so we could fancy her up. Genny screamed and squirmed through the whole thing, but she was cute as a button and you could tell she thought so, too. In the pictures of the wedding party, however, pictures were taken of my husband, my children, but not me at all. I thought it was kind of rude, but what else is new?

Genny flitted from place to place as children will do at a wedding. This was a small wedding and mostly family, so Genny seemed to be okay flitting from lap to lap. Unfortunately, Genny came and got Mike because the toilet had overflowed. She never plays with the toilet at home and I don't think she'd start, so we don't know if she came in, peed, and then flushed against someone else's plug or if she actually plugged it. She's two, so we can't ask her, but of course, she was blamed. Mike shut off the water, got the groom -- to get towels, and things seemed okay.

The next day, we left Russell with his uncles to play and we took Mike's brother and girlfriend with us and Genny to a local beer factory. While in the parking lot, I twisted my ankle on my way to buy batteries. It seemed okay, so I didn't say much and we did the factory tour. After sitting at the tasting table, when I got up my ankle was stiff and I was limping a little. We went to the gift shop and then back out to the car and we drove and got some food on the way home. I called to check on Russell, his uncles said he was fine, and I noticed that my ankle was throbbing. After we ate, we drove back to get Russell. My ankle had started to throb and I was hobbling badly to get back into the car and had slipped off my shoe to drive. I realized about 10 minutes from the hotel that I was shakey and starting to go into shock. I told Mike I was going to stop at the hotel and go to bed because it was pretty bad. When I got out of the car and tried to stand, when I put weight on the ankle I had to stop myself from screaming, so we got directions at the hotel to the nearest emergency room, while Mike's brother and girlfriend took Genny upstairs to their room.

When I got to the hospital, I was fully going into shock. I started to get the shakes and I was beginning to feel detached from myself. They wrapped me in a blanket and got me on a bed and elevated my foot. Then, they got me vicodan and x-rayed my foot.

It was not broken was the verdict, though obviously very sprained. They gave me a moon boot and crutches and sent me on my way. Exhausted, I crutched up to the house with Michael after phone calls were made to get kids, cringing at having had to leave them with family (Genny had been taken to her grandparents without a childseat!). This was when the fun began.

I finally got my blood work done...the blood work that I should have had done in July. *ahem* I"m getting the cholesterol, the hba1c, and this time, a test for rheumatoid factor for the arthritis. The PA looked at my knuckles and said she could see a nodule on my middle finger, but in looking at both my middle fingers, they match, so I think that it's just how I look. My rings are tighter though and the aching some days is exhausting, and my hands are swollen, much like my mother's used to be. Apparently, there are new drugs that can stop the progression of the disease, so if that's the case, I'll take that, but only if I have rheumatoid versus osteo arthritis.

It sucks to be in a position to be wishing I have rheumatoid versus osteo arthritis, frankly.

I sent packages out and while all my relatives got cards, none of my friends did. My rolodex is on my computer and with all the brown outs, I couldn't run the computer to get my rolodex. I sent a box to my mom and one to Betty, but I forgot to put in relish, but didn't know if she was a relish person or not, so wasn't sure if I should torture her or not. I did include some organic yummies in there, so she'll still love me. Additionally, I got an awesome box from Harsh Betty -- chile pepper stuff like crazy and really neat goodies. I think my favorite thing was the homemade Christmas tree ornament. I didn't send her an xmas tree ornament, so I suck, but on the up side, I also swallow, which just goes to blow ya that a Merry Christmas can be had by all.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and have a great new year!

It was a rough weekend with the weather we had. There was terrible terrible wind here. We were without power for 10 hours in the middle of a blizzard on Saturday evening. I drove in sleet to Kmart to lay in supplies and when I drove back it was snowing heavily. Mike had the fire going full blast and cooked sausages on shish kabob sticks for the kids. I stopped at McD's on the way back and bought a cheeseburger for me, as well as $100 worth of foods-we-could-stick-in-the-garage-to-keep-cold, hot dog buns, batteries, water, and a lantern/flashlight. When I came home, I hauled in an armful of wood for the fireplace. I've decided that if we buy a house around here, we are getting one with a backup heating source for winter.

Genny hadn't been feeling better and we took her to the urgent care on Saturday and she had a temp of 104.9 when I took her in. They gave her ibuprofen and checked her ears and low and behold, she had double ear infections again. I went to an ENT on Tuesday and he said that if she gets another ear infection in the next few weeks that yes, tubes would probably be warranted. Ladawn and I have been concerned about her speech and now, the recurring ear infections of late have been making me worry. We have an audiology appointment after xmas and a followup with the ENT.

And it's official, I'm going to experiment with grad school and a substitute credential. I'm talking to profs at the local university about obtaining a special education credential and then following that up with an ESL credential.

It's starting to snow AGAIN. Winterwonderland, my ass. You try shoveling this crap and it gets old fast.

I keep thinking though as I drive by the mountains and see the ever growing heaps of snow all around us, that there's a poem in it, but then again, I could just be suffering from cabin fever or insanity.

We saw the sun yesterday and I felt like a crack whore in need of a fix. It was 40 degrees or colder all day, and I was tempted to tear off all my clothes and dance naked through the snow just to get some sunshine on my body. I suppose when the horrified neighbors came over to ask me to please clothe myself because while the sun was blinding enough reflecting off the snow and they didn't need to see my bright white naked ass prancing about, I'd have had to forego my worship of the sun god and go back to my boring mediocre monotheistic existence, but it was kind of tempting. (Darn that jealous God thing!) Speaking of God, I saw my old priest at Costco today and then realized how much I miss my church and how I'm going to kick my husband's big fat butt out of bed on Sunday and we're going. It's not all his fault. I like sleeping, too, but I really want to go to church. I've missed counting off the advent sundays and the lighting of the advent candles -- a lot. We have an advent calendar, but we haven't been cruising the bible as much as I would like.

Why oh why did I look outside? What am I, some kind of sick masochist? It's snowing a-freakin-gain. There's also wind. I looked down south to these two big peaks and they were just aswirl with wind and snow. This doesn't bode well for this incoming storm. I guess the snow blown all over the roads again should have tipped me off some, too. Aw, sheee-it, now the snow is blowing off the roof, too! What sucks is that it's only December. We still have 5 more months to go of winter and already, I'm sick to death of it. Mostly, I'm just hating the cold because I have a hard time keeping warm. With my feet so dry though, I am enjoying the warmth of wool socks, though feeling like a creaky grandma regarding drafts. If there's even a mild draft from anywhere, I can find it. It creeps down my neck like dry snow and slithers down my back and settles against my spine like a leech to suck me dry of warmth.

I have to go brave the office depot in the next town to send my folks their box ups 2nd day. Maybe I'll wait for the hubbins to come home and we'll eat out, being that I forgot to put in the roast. :)

Russell had the scaries last night. He came in at 5AM and crawled into bed with me, claiming that he'd heard footsteps outside. Mike went out and verified that there was nothing and that it was just the rain dropping heavily from the eaves. We're having a big storm with a lot of wind, so it makes the house sound creepy. As everyone's favorite neighborhood insomniac, I had been awake since 430AM, so it was okay to see him. Of course, him getting up, got Genny up, so I had to send her to the grumpy mo0se on the other side of the bed to get help putting her sleeper back on.

When Russell just asked if everyone could sleep together, mo0se groused on the other side of the bed and growled that everyone was to return to their own beds. He made Genny bawl her head off, so he had to get up and comfort her and tuck her in. Russell asked to keep his door open, we said that was fine, but to close our door (so our alarm didn't wake up everyone at 615. Mike will sleep through the alarm, however, that's what gets me up.

Genny, I'd expected to see because she had her flu shot yesterday and was running a bit of a fever last night and she was content to curl up on Daddy's lap, while Russell played video games.

This morning, I got a relief -- I got "terminated." When the shit hit the fan at Thanksgiving with recent events, I was sorely wishing I didn't have to work and with as little as I've been sleeping, my customer service skills were certainly less than stellar, I'm sure. They apologized profusely for having to let me go, but I talked to my boss afterwards and told her all the stuff that had been going on and she said she was glad that I could stay home and take care of kids. I am, too. They both said that if they heard of stuff, they'd let me know, but with all state budgets as tight as they are, I am not expecting much. I keep thinking I should be upset, but I'm not. The biggest problem is when we discovered that Mike had a huge raise it was after I'd already made the commitment to work.

I have been tossing around substitute teaching, and I think I'm going to stop tossing it and start doing it. I have my CBEST from years ago, which still should be valid. I have to pay for my fingerprinting, but once it's done, it's done. I can choose my hours, go to school part-time, work part-time or stay home with the kids for the time being until Russell calms down. I don't know what I want to do, but for now, I'm planning on a quiet holiday. I'll start putting things together for the sub credential and then try it for a bit and then see if I want to add anything more to the mix. I'm also going to talk to this place that does skills evaluation and helps you find your niche in the world. I feel so lost lately, so this would be a good thing for me to do.

I woke up at 330AM sneezing in my sleep with my nose running like a sieve. I got up and took sudafed and crawled back into bed.
I am taking my sudafed, and have started to bulk up on my asthma meds. I just hope I don't end up on prednisone, and thus, insulin because I don't want to have to take insulin and syringes with me to work. It freaks people out a lot. Hell, it freaks me out.

I also hope I don't drip snot inadvertently on someone while I'm helping them with their computer, as that would be just icky. I already had a snot slip up once this morning, when I bent over to get a spoon in the kitchen. As I bent over I could feel an un-snivelable steam of snot go slipping willy-nilly out my nostril. You know you're in trouble when you've got snot leaving your body involuntarily.

And last night, we had the family conference about my new work schedule in January. We talked about how my hours would change and that I'd be working 9-6 or 10-7, daily and that that would mean that we'd have to work as a team together to make things work. We also talked about the fact that the more overtime I get to work, the more money we can put against a house and the more likely it is that we can stay where we are and not move Bear out of his school.

We're talking serious incentive here. We all agreed that we'd just keep telling ourselves that it was for the house and we could all hang in there for six months, if we knew at the end we could buy a house in the town where we are and not have to move elsewhere. I offered to print out a picture of a house, so we could keep the goal in mind, but everyone was positively drooling over the idea, so I think we'll just use it as our family mantra until my session time is up.

I think I've done everything I can towards our safety. I've done all the physical stuff and I'm praying. I pray that God chooses to keep us safe because we've done all the sensible footwork in the interim.

Bruno and I met last night, and I felt more empowered as a result. And that's a good thing. Work's been busy, so I don't have time to dwell on how scared I feel, thankfully.

I love my husband, my kids, my family, and I'm just counting each daily blessing as I go. I got to have lunch with Genny and Daddy today. I got to make Russell laugh this morning, after he'd had a complete meltdown. I got to eat a BLT for lunch, which is a guilty pleasure. We're broke again, but most of the bills are paid, so I don't care. If I got the check I'm supposed to for the contract work, we'd be in much better shape!

I found out yesterday that I can put our address on a hazard watch, so if we call 911, they'll automatically send out a sheriff. And Russell and I had a conversation about him being scared in which I said, it wasn't likely that we'd see him, but it was possible, so therefore, we had to warn him. He wasn't totally thrilled with that, but it seemed more comforting to him, so it was a start.

Genny cut up two of the squares I'd done the night before, so I spent hours last night trying to redo them and I ended up with three squares, one of which was correct, the other two had fabric faced in the wrong direction, so I'll have to pull them apart and redo them again. *the sound of hair being ripped from a scalp*

I should have just quilted the other quilt, but I was really mad about her wrecking these squares, so I just started redoing them. Of course, the fact that I couldn't find yet another spool of cream colored expensive quilting thread probably contributed to me not quilting and continuing to struggle valiantly with the square directions. I am thinking I might just blow off the original idea and put the non-directional fabric in the crucial directional location, so that I can ignore its direction. I could use the blocks I have, I am sure and just slip them in there and then go the easier route for the rest of the quilt.

I am totally blowing off making the dress until after Christmas. For $15, I bought a pretty velour dress at JC Penney outlet that should do fine for the Christmas party this weekend. I could just wear last year's dress, but a pretty princess dress doesn't work at a Speakeasy party theme thing as well as velour could. Mind you, I'm not titless enough to wear a flapper dress, so I'm not going to try. I do have a super long string of faux pearls I can wear that will work toward that thematic thing and then I've got a dress I can use a million times through the winter and it's purple, which next to most shades of teal, is up there amongst my favorite colors.

Speaking of purple...

I told Mike I wanted a purple hat and he got me one, but it was not what I wanted because it wouldn't stay on my head and then had this long tassle coming off it with heavy beads. Never mind that it just was something I'd never wear, though if it'd stay on my head, I'd keep it, but mostly, it wasn't functional. It had no means of remaning on my head because of how it was knitted and then the heavy bead tassle would have either been pulling it off my head or thwacking me upside the head as I walked, neither of which would be cool. He got it because it had won a prize and with all the beads, he thought I'd like it. If it hadn't cost $70, I'd have kept it and been quiet, but he had to tell me how much it cost because I'm the bills person and I just said, it wasn't worth it to keep it for that much money because it wouldn't do what I needed which was to keep my head warm. Then I felt like a big awful bitch because he'd tried, but he didn't seem upset about it and said for the money, I should get what I want.

I have a very cool husband.

Nightmares abound in our house.

I have been having this one where a strange balding man with longish blonde hair and bulging blue eyes shows up at our door and he's grinning through the window and I smile back thinking to myself,"What does this redneck want?" As I get to the door, I realize that Mike's dad is with this man and I simply couldn't see him through the curtain and shadows at the door. I tell Mike,"Call 911!" and my whole body goes into fight or flight mode. Invariably, I wake up shaking and terrified.

I always get up, pee, and check the kids and shuffle back to bed, where I toss and turn until I have to wake up for work. We've told daycares, the school, and our employers. We are doing everything to protect the kids. We had the stranger danger conversation with Russell. He's scared, but he knows what to say if he's alone for some reason. There have been two times this fall where he didn't listen to the instructions and he didn't go to daycare like he should and he was home alone. He had the good sense to call Mike at his number on the fridge and Mike came home and stayed with him, so all told he was only alone for 20 minutes, but it sure scared the crap out of us. So we told him what to do, if someone called. We told him to tell them that we were out in the garage working on something and to take a message and we'd call them back.

Last night, I went and saw The Santa Clause 2 with my friend, Mel. It was a cute movie, but it meant missing the kids goodnight rituals. Neither of them slept well. Mike said Genny got up until 10 looking for me. At 11, Russell came out claiming he needed a drink of water, which is something he never does. He saw me there and said hi and went back to bed.

Mike and I were in bed, having our nightly good night giggle and snuggles, including something where he said he wanted to rub my butt and I told him he could rub my feet because they were ice cubes. He claimed that wasn't possible and then I put my icicles on his thighs whereupon he cussed and covered them up to warm them up and we were both giggling. Enter Russell sobbing and telling us between tears he wasn't sleeping because he was having nightmares. I lifted up the blankets and had him get into bed with me and cuddled him. He told me that a man shot him. Wow.

So, I had Mike get up and lock all the doors, I told Russell to ask God to keep him safe and let him sleep, and most of all, I told him I love him.

I'm seeing Bruno on Wednesday and I told him I needed help formulating a plan of safety.

I think I might be brewing a strong cup of depression -- not sleeping and not interested in sex are good indicators of that. And the sex is totally unrelated to Mike. I just don't care. Even if I get to caring, the strength of my response is pretty luke warm. And to get me to care, Mike has to do cartwheels, which hardly seems fair to him. It's also not fair to me because I have to sort of force a reaction, kind of like you would if you walked into a surprise party that you already knew about.

Part of it, I realize, is that I haven't been working out much in the past week or so and LaDawn has asked to put our exercising activities on hold until January. I asked Mike if he would mind dealing with kids alone three days a week, so I could get to the pool and work out. He said yeah, but I know it's going to suck for all concerned. He's such a grumpy bear in the mornings and the kids are a handful, even with both of us there, but if I don't do this, I'm going to feel like shit and my sugars will go to shit. I can already tell I've put on some extra belly in the past couple weeks, so this is not good.

But the sex is something else. I don't know if I should be rabidly reading a Cosmo for cool ways to spice up my love life or just running to my nearest mental health professional.

I called Bruno, as he helped us with Russell. I know I've been feeling really overwhelmed and ambivalent about being a stay-at-home mom and even about working, so I need some help sorting this stuff out. I'm sure that insecurity I'm feeling about what I want to be when I grow up is playing a role in this, too, but I'm not feeling okay and I don't know why.

I have been really contending with my age lately and that's been difficult for some reason, too. I've also not been to church since Easter, which I miss terribly. I just feel full of regrets and grief lately and I am not sure where it's all coming from.

Today, I've been singing "Java." I got a good night's sleep, and I didn't have to do kids today, so I was just so destressed.

I love coffee, I love tea. I love the Java Bug and it loves me.

I figured out the books today and the more amazing news for the year is that we should have all of our credit cards paid by the end of February. Yesterday, I got all cocky and filled out one of those mortgage things online. I was just curious...can we actually qualify if we have a buttload of credit cards paid off and we have nothing but a car payment and student loans. Of course, between us, we have three-fourths of a house in student loans.

We'll see if curiosity kills the dream.

And the sick baby is home. She was home for Thanksgiving, I believe. I have been quilting madly to get the hand stuff done and hopefully will have it all pat by the weekend. I'm also piecing a quilt for a co-worker. I do some piecing, take a break and then quilt the other one.

I know, I know. I swore I'd never piece again, but I got this good idea and I made my own design and picked out the coolest fabrics and I just don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I sure do enjoy it a lot more when I'm doing it for myself and not some ungodly deadly for nazi quilt teachers. I'm also finding that the cutting is so much better now -- I do it as I need it and I am a lot more accurate. Practice makes Perfect.

I do enjoy hand quilting, but I feel rather inept at it and I really desperately need a smaller loom to work on for my short arms.

I just wish I had a lot more time. I'm so short on it lately.

I just figured out our percentage of debt versus credit offered and while right now it's 70%, we're getting this big fat check next week that will change that to more like 50%. This amazes me. A year ago, it was 91%.

Total wow.

Dear Sue,

This morning, I saw your boyfriend. He was wearing one of those fake leather jackets, worn open, with his work uniform unkempt and unbuttoned underneath, showing his wrinkly t-shirt. He was chinless and balding. He could be Santa with the right beard. Of course, I have always seen your boyfriends outside of java joints and there he was outside of Joe's this morning looking like you'd already ravaged him.

I got a double mocha this morning and while I was standing waiting for my coffee from the latest example of bohemian 18-22 year olds in the area -- the flaming gay man with the black curly hair just got me off on this brain tangent, remembering the boytoy we hooked Eric up with, who you wanted so badly to be straight because damn, he was cute! You were shattered when I talked to him and discovered what I believed all along, that he was very very homosexual.

I wonder how things turned out for him...if he avoided contracting AIDS because he was kind of slutty and not always careful. I sure as hell hope so. I remember talking to Eric a year or two back and hearing that a couple he'd known and introduced me to, were both dying from AIDS -- Baby was one of the names and then I remembered Dan Foster, the guy next door who did die from AIDS and how he let us be part of his life and his death. I'll never forget as long as I live how he cried when I hugged him because everyone had been afraid to touch him and I wasn't afraid and it had been so long since he'd been touched that he burst into tears. I remember when he came to my poetry reading and that you'd given me the "fuck me now" black dress, so I could be a bit Bohemian because afterall it was a poetry reading in a coffee shop. He'd been able to sit through my reading and we sat through a few more and he just couldn't hack it any more because it hurt for him to be up for too long. I remember offering to share a soda with him and him freaking out that he might give me his disease through saliva because the research was so sketchy still and he didn't want to take any chances and how sobering that felt.

Remember Mr. Kennedy whose poetry was all about fucking his girlfriend and was so hideous that we had to stifle laughter as he screamed it? I still have the limericks we wrote that made fun of him in one of my books.

I will never forget how we found out about Dan. He simply wasn't at the halfway house any more. We weren't family, so they wouldn't tell us anything other than Dan wasn't there to visit. We checked the hospital and he wasn't there either. We both knew he'd gone.

Sometimes, being an adult is hard. I feel odd walking into my java shop in my suit and hose. I want to scream at all those kids dressed in black with purple hair reading poetry,"This isn't really me! I am just as Bohemian as you!" Then, I add sarcastically,"Yeah, and look how I turned out. Married to an engineer, two kids, and a suit job." I have a hard time reconciling my old life with my new life, as the married computer nerd domestic goddess meets the Bohemian poetry writing political activist ex-prostitute.

Anyway, I saw your boyfriend today and thought of you over mocha.

Love,
RN Ruby

Overall, Thanksgiving went well, though the kitchen didn't actually regain pristine levels of cleanliness til about 10PM last night. We still have a few small loads of laundry to finish, but hey, we're getting there.

I did get the house Christmas decorated. I got lights strung outside. I just put the usual icicle lights across the front and I have this cool angel which I really dig, which also got hung. It looked pretty cool, actually. I've got two light up candles in the window -- just plain clear lights, and the tree of course.

On Friday, Mike went with LaDawn's husband to get firewood. I had jokingly mentioned he should get a Christmas tree while he was out there and then told him, no, nevermind, I'd get one at a grocery store for $20, after remembering last year'sfiasco. He brought home a 12 foot tree. I reminded him that we only have a 7.5 foot ceiling. He said he'd chainsaw it down to size. On Saturday, when he finally brought in what was left of our Christmas tree, I suggested that he take it back outside and I'd go buy one as I had originally planned. He said,"But it's a Charlie Brown tree and we shouldn't fall victim to blatant commericialism." I said,"That's not a Charlie Brown tree, that's firewood. It has no bottom, honey and at this point, only one-third of a front." He tried to tell me that the branches would relax and it would fill out. I gave him that "you've got to be freakin' kidding me look" and got in the car and drove to Raleys, where I bought a nice bushy tree for $24.99.

I have decorated many Charlie Brown trees. I'm good at it. I've spent years broker than hell, so I'm the Queen of the Bargain Christmas Tree, but this was beyond repair and there was no amount of decorating that would have brought it back from the abyss. We're talking about one good branch, here folks. We spent Saturday evening with Genny breaking lots of glass ornaments, decorating the store-bought tree. It was Sunday, before Mike admitted that indeed he'd butchered the tree and that the store-bought one was really nice.

Yesterday, our last day before returning to work and school and the same old routine, we went to the cheapy breakfast place -- 99 cents for eggs, toast, hash browns, and bacon. We walked across the street to the ice rink and rented skates. Mike decided after making it about 20 feet hugging the wall that he was too fat, tall, and old to learn to skate. I was in agony with the figure skates that squished my feet, so I asked a woman wearing hockey skate if she liked them and traded my figure skates in for hockey skates and did a lot better. It's not quite like riding a bicycle, but after a few rounds, I got more steady on my skates and had fun. Genny really couldn't hack the whole skate thing and Mike and I were unsteady enough to not really be able to help her much. I tried to skate a little bit with her, but that was when I had the figure skates and the pain was unbearable, so next time we're going to buy her those adjustable strap on skates for kiddies and let her hang with momma that way. I just don't skate well with a 35 lb weight around my knees, regardless of skates, and honestly, I was terrified that I'd fall on her and kill us both. The mercy was that a woman who was really good on her skates, grabbed Genny and let her piddle around on the ice and took her on little "rides" and Genny loved that. We'd tried hanging over the side and taking her up and down, but she really loved the rides. Russell did pretty well on his own, once he got past the initial bitching, and he made several circuits of the rink.

Then we braved the mall, which was a bit crowded, but not bad. I had to go to the body shop and get some shampoo and while I was there, I picked up presents for folks. That's kitty corner from the Disney Store, so of course, I went there, too. We ate lunch and headed home.

Truthfully, I could have stayed out longer, but that's only because of my escapism. While Grammy and Pop were here for Thanksgiving, the parole date for Mike's dad was mentioned. He'll be out in 10 days from today. No hearing, he'll just be released. We've already discussed that we'll start locking the house, something we've never done where we live because we're out in the middle of nowhere and everyone knows everyone. We're also going to have to inform daycare and Mike's employer, so that no information inadvertently gets released. We've been very careful whenever we've been up by his grandparents not to use my last name for anything. We've either paid with Mike's credit card or with cash.

They are going to limit what county he can reside in, and we're hoping that he'll actually stay there, but that's only for 2.5 years. He could learn a lot about us in the interim. He may even learn that he's got grandchildren and that's what we fear most.