I'm feeling kind of bummed. The appraiser's report was supposed to come in on Monday and then I got an email saying we'd have it tomorrow. The problem with that is that if I do have to put windows in, I won't have enough time to order the damned things, much less install them.

I have the feeling we will be stuck with the original loans, not the good one, but I don't know.

God does what he does and I am just around for the ride.

Today felt like Tahiti, which is good for tomorrow it cools off again.

Russell lost his damned winter coat somewhere and I'm fit to be tied because it was supposed to get him through the rest of the season. There are several K-Marts going out of business, but I didn't find any winter coats at them. I found one cute spring/fall coat for Genny and a buttload of clothes for her. I found some clothes for Russell, but not tons. I found a lot of clothes for me that would work for a more professional look for me until I've finished losing my winter weight to fit into all my other stuff. I'm almost there on the weight, but not quite on a couple outfits. Soon, though, soon.

Russell has been driving me crazy -- medication changes have been really rugged. I was ready to check one of us in last Friday, so I wouldn't bloody my floor with him.

On Friday, I wrote:

Being a parent of an ADHD kid is a lot of work even on a good day, but with
the upcoming move, Russell has become intolerable. That hour every morning
between him having no meds and having the meds kick in is a brutal death
defying (because I want to kill him) experiment every morning and it's just
been getting worse lately.

This morning he started screaming, talking back and pounding walls and
floors, and I simply wanted to tie him up in shipping tape, put an address
tag to Alaska on him, set him by the mail box, and put the flag up. We had
simply asked him to get up and get dressed. *sigh*

Mike and I had to ground him -- for two weeks -- because he continued to
scream and tantrum. When he was 4 or 5, this wasn't that big a deal, but
now that he's 9 almost 10, it's hideous. Mike started to feel guilty and
wanted to know if I thought it was too much. I told him, that no,
regardless of his medication, Russell still needs to be held responsible for
his behavior. If he decided to pound a hole in a wall as an adult, he'd be
responsible for it, the fact that he's too young to put the hole in a wall,
doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for his behavior.

I can get him a medication that's new that would be 24 hour and I had passed
on it, frankly, because the doctor said it would still leave some of his
attention issues swaying in the wind. Russell's grades are really important
to him and he was adamant he did not want to change his meds while he was in
school at the doctor's. Admittedly, without the ability to pay attention,
he's well nigh impossible to get through schoolwork and other things, but to
have a peaceful morning -- just once -- would be worth a couple F's to me.

Tonight, his meds wore off faster than they did yesterday, so we had him in
full glory screaming at the top of his lungs in the car because he didn't
get yu-gi-oh cards for his report card grades. (He gets the cards for all
the A & B grades leading up to his report card grades and I had told him
that I would give him a $50 gift certificate to buy something he really
wanted, if he pulled his grades over a 3.0, which he did not.) While out,
we had purchased cards for a friend's birthday gift, for a party he is
supposed to attend tomorrow and he wanted to open the multi-pack to take out
cards for himself. We told him that the cards were a gift for his friend
and that report card grades were not grades that we used for yu-gi-oh cards
because we'd already "paid" for them. Because he did not get what he
wanted, he then threatened that he would get crappy grades and/or run away.
(Don't let the door hit your butt on your way out!) We offered to let him
stay home from the party and he got strangely silent.

What was worse is that when he said he was going to run away, right now, I
am filled with so much anger and frustration, I'd like to pack his doggone
bags.

When we got home, there was even more horrible drama, so I just sent him to
bed early, mostly for his own protection.

I keep wondering if I am doing this right? I know that he's classified as
severe ADHD, but is this all I have to look forward to? More and different
drugs and more severe and difficult behavior? I just keep telling myself
that if I couldn't do it, God wouldn't be asking me to.

If tomorrow even vaguely comes close to this, I'm going to the mental ward
and checking one of us in.

This morning, we tried something new. At 7AM, a half hour before he's required to get up, Mike brought him his meds. At 730, he got up and we had a blissful, quiet morning. I don't think his evening dose is right because he's still just unable to sit still, concentrate, etc. I don't want him up all night, either, though, so it's a rock and hard place kind of thing.

I'm just tired to my bones. I know I love him right now because no other person on earth would take this shit.

After dropping everything off at the mortgage office, the loan officer called me later that afternoon to tell me that this woman came into her office saying that she had an enormous amount of money to get rid of in a special farmer's loan program. My loan officer asked about what locations were included and the woman mentioned portions of our area were part of this. The next day, after checking our address on the USDA map, the property is sufficiently rural to qualify. However, this loan is a lot like an FHA loan, which means there may be some hoop jumping. We're waiting on the appraiser's report to determine how MUCH hoop jumping, but it could be several thousand dollars worth. *sigh*

I'm overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, and laden with homework and house-buying issues. With all the money in the bank, I'm seriously contemplating a trip to Tahiti. I need it.

Today is the day that the money leaves our hands and goes before the loan underwriters. I keep correlating underwriter and undertaker. That's how I feel -- like it's life and death. Last night, in a hopeful note, however, I bought boxes and we started packing. We pulled down my curtains and put the blinds back up.

We fell asleep talking about all the cool stuff we want to do in the new house. Sweet dreams.

I started to completely freak out today when I started verifying what I had for class and then realized that I was better off afterall than I thought. Isn't that always the case?

All our money for escrow is coming together this week. We should have official loan approval next week, providing my ditz, I mean mortgage broker doesn't fuck anything up. Mike gets paid Thursday, so I'll have to drive up to town, get his pay stub and run it over there and remind her to get off her butt and start getting everything done.

The sellers were so impressed we were willing to take some stuff over off the inspection list that they are going to fill up the heating oil with a few hundred gallons. I guess we didn't cost them as much as they thought. They would have cost us a bundle if they'd done them is all. I don't want the lino in the bathroom sealed. I'm just going to yank it up anyhow and replace it with tile. I don't want them to screw with the lighting because I'm going to replace some of the fixtures anyhow and stick a fan in the livingroom. Mike can better wire the garage door opener than anyone, so there's no point in having them hire someone. In addition, I can make him throw in a few more outlets for me, while he's at it. I'm crazy like dat.

Tonight, I'll be the one at the library, buried in books for homework and assorted presentations. *Gack* My epitaph will read,"Book Worms Crawl through This Coffin."

We have serious mouse problems. I mean there was mouse poop on the counters. I should mention that the counter were otherwise clean, it wasn't like there were festering piles of crumbs out there, but I'd come out after wiping the counters down in my nightly ritual and there'd be mouse poop -- a small mouse taunt.

I was pissed off and figured I'd take my ever so effective 59 cent mouse trap that had effectively caught several of this mouse's relations earlier this year and load it with peanutbutter and kill me some rodentia.

So I loaded two of the traps with peanut butter and I put them on my clean counters.

I came out the next morning and the traps weren't sprung, but all the peanut butter was gone. And there was mouse poop on the counter next to the traps. Serious Mouse Taunting. I just had this vision of the mouse carefully licking all the peanut butter off and then crapping on the counter and then doing a "neener neener neener" dance before heading to the next trap to do the same thing.

So yesterday, I got serious and went to Lowes and asked where the rat poison was. The guy pointed me to a plethora of rodent endangering devices and poisons on Aisle 23. I was impressed by Aisle 23. I didn't know there were so many ways to kill mice.

There were, of course, the apparently ineffective 59 cent wood and metal traps reminiscent of cartoons, some of which were mega-sized, which made me think about how big a rodent they were designed for and shudder. There were a variety of poisons, usually of the slow-acting variety. You know -- they'll eat some and take it back to their nest and die. Of course, I've heard nothing but stories about people finding dead or near dying rodents in the middle of the floor or something, so I know that that whole "take it back to the nest" thing is a big fat lie designed to comfort the shriekers (people who scream like a girl when they see a mouse). I won't use poisons because of the kids and our other animals, but never in my life have I seen so many varieties of mouse death in a box. I felt like a creepy serial killer, examining all of these products.

I was looking for the boxes of mouse death that said, "will not harm children or pets" and found several varieties. One was a new improved mousetrap (who says they can't build a better mouse trap) that basically puts a hood over the bait holder which is the hypersensitive trigger that flips the bar on the mouse's back, like the 59 cent variety, only more effective. It also claimed to be reusable, though I know for a fact that I would never reuse it.

They had this one that was the size of a shoe box. You were to turn a crank and it would spring load the thing so that the mouse would stick it's head in and get sucked into a cargo hold with up to 9 of its friends. You could then observe how many of its friends were in there through a see through cover. I don't mind seeing mice, but I guess I didn't want to pay for the privilege of seeing up to 10 of them, especially for 10 bucks. The package said you could then "safe release them" if you wanted, but I want them all dead. With Cowboy gone, our one great mouser is history, so they aren't afraid of our living space any more. I want them to fear entering the premise while we live here because I'll be damned if I will take them to our new house with us.

After picking out a two-pack of the improved mouse trap, I saw a sticky trap. This is just a big sheet of goo that they get stuck on. And then you just chuck them in the trash. They were cheap and I was all over using cheap traps if they worked, so I bought three boxes of four each.

So we laid out two of the new and improved traps and a bunch of the sticky goo traps on the counters, behind the fridge, and in the drawers -- wherever we'd found "sign." I discovered something unpleasant about the sticky goo traps, however, this morning upon finding a mouse severely adhered to one: it doesn't kill them. So the poor pitiful mouse is stuck to this and is struggling valiantly to get out of it to absolutely no avail. At first, I closed the drawer and went back to bed to celebrate capturing one of the little Shitters with Mike, but then told Mike I felt bad because the damned thing was still alive.

Unfortunately, it got its body stuck to one trap and its tail stuck to another, so we had to dump the drawer into a big garbage bag. Mike took it outside and as he said,"...couldn't let it suffer" with a shovel.

I was feeling kind of lousy about it until we started to scrub out the empty drawer, which still smells strongly of mouse pee. Ew.

My chores for the day include buying a loaf of bread and a jar of lysol.

I'm going tile shopping today. I found a guy who could probably do my bathrooms and kitchen in tile for the price I was quoted for doing lino in the two bathrooms, so I'm hitting the discount tile room of the big tile place with my friend, Donna.

I talked it over with Russell and he doesn't want me to do the childcare because he wants to go do fun stuff like go up to the lake, the water park, hikes, maybe a camping trip or two and I would like to do that with him, too. I can't very well do that with a bunch of daycare kids if I don't have a car to hold them all. I am also worried about which kids I'd get. I know for a fact, one of his occasional playmates, would be one of my likely kids and he's essentially got untreated ADHD and I can totally see him doing stuff like letting himself into the pool when I had my back turned. He's a real problem child. With a two year old, it's likely my back would be turned a lot, so I don't want to deal with that nonsense. One Sunday, his parents had him call us up and invite himself over and as his father dropped him off, I realized I'd been had because he said that Mom was gone and he was trying to get stuff done, but the kid wasn't letting him and that they'd pick him up in 4 hours. All I could think is "Gee, thanks!"

As the kid was here, he griped about how bored he was, as if we should all jump up and entertain him. And he wouldn't stay at any one task for any length of time. I had stuff to do and it ain't my job to entertain someone else's kid. When I checked with Sylvia, we both started giggling about what a difficult kid he is. When I told her I was thinking about doing summer care and that I'd probably have to deal with him, she exclaimed,"Oh, no! Don't do it!" I realized then, I couldn't deal with him 50 hours a week. Also, his mom said that she works long hours, which means she'd want longer hours, too, and I'm not doing it. I think it's one thing when you have a really solid idea that they are going home at a particular time, as in school, but I know that daycare isn't like that -- people like to take advantage. If the parents are needing breaks from him on the weekend, I can only imagine what it would be like during their busy seasons at their jobs.

I'd rather enjoy the summer with my kids and as long as I have the combo of contract work and unemployment, we'll be okay. About the time my unemployment runs out is about the time Mike gets a raise, so it'll work out. I could also work as a substitute while I went to school in the fall. I'm just not worried about it.

Every time the war news comes on TV, I find myself curled up in a ball, crying like a baby. Phrases like "minimize civilian casualties" "unfortunate aspects of war" and "making progress" send me over the edge.

I have a picture in my head of a family in Baghdad huddled in the safest space they could find in their home, holding and comforting their children in "Shock and Awe." But then I wonder. I wonder how they are eating and living and getting by. I wonder how devastating it is for the children. I wonder if they have power or gas to cook by. I wonder if they have stocks of water, food, and candles. I wonder if they hate all Americans for scaring them so much. I wonder if they hate me. I wonder if they are praying. I know I am.

Right now, I am praying that whatever happens, ends soon. I am praying that no one gets hurt. I am praying that all the soldiers come home. Soon.

Two nights ago, I woke up at 2AM to the sound of something rubbing against the house, rather loudly. It had a rather rhythmic sound to it, as if it could be wind, but it was also too intermittent a sound to really be the wind. I listened carefully and couldn't hear any of the telltale signs of wind, such as the whoooooo-ooooo sound of it rounding the eaves.

I elbowed Mike and said,"What the hell is that?" He woke up grumpy and listened and said,"The wind or something." The "something" was muffled as his head re-hit the pillow. I said authoritatively,"It's not the wind!" He said,"It's the wind." I said,"Fine, if it's the wind then there' s a big piece of siding banging against the house that's going to keep me up all night. If I am going to be up all night, be assured you will be, too, so you better go out and tuck it back in."

Loud grumbling and cussing from Mike's side of the bed.

A very loud BANG on the outside of the wall.

"THAT was NOT the wind!"

"Okay, Okay, I'm getting up," his majesty said from a supine position.

I sprung out of bed and looked out the window in time to see another face, a horse face, looking back at me in the dark. I stood there dumbfounded,"There's a horse outside our window, Mike."

As I stood there, the horse kicked the side of the house again...WHOMP! I pounded on the window and as I did so, two horses that had been hanging out lower in the yard in the dark, suddenly whinnied and took off galloping through the sagebrush and then circled way back up behind the old barn and then came ripping down the driveway, heads held high. You could tell they were just giddy with excitement about being out. The one still penned horse whinnied a greeting to them, and they whinnied back and then slipped down on the side of the fence to eat the neighbor's lawn and hang out with the one prisoner that hadn't escaped.

I realized at this point that there's someone with a very bright flashlight across the road, shining it on the horses, and I get annoyed. I'm thinking,"That son of a bitch is looking in my window." Of course, it is 2AM, so I'm cussing my ass off, anyhow. I then realize that SOB is in a cop car.

The wallkicker, despite the other excitable two, however, ambled ever so slowly down the hill across the yard, across the road, and down into the driveway of the neighbor's house, like he was just going to go home.

I get on a robe, flip on the porch light, and go outside. I walk down the driveway to talk to the officer. He said that one of the horses was bleeding and that it was probably foaling. Then he said that he thought they were wild horses. I told him I thought they were the neighbors's horses that had gotten out and that he should go knock on their door. He'd called the brand inspector to try to identify them. He was a young cop and very excited. I'm sure in this neck of the boonies that three, not just one, horses getting out was a big deal to him. The blood on the road made me think that the horse probably got hit on our rather blind curve.

Finally, the brand inspector arrived, by which time, I had gone back inside because I was just too damned cold. I watched from the bedroom as they finally woke the neighbors and the neighbors rushed out with ropes and rounded up the horses. I fell asleep after that and was woken up at about 4 by the neighbors banging on the paddock gates.

I went out in the morning and talked with the neighbor because the horse had put a hole in the siding. I let him know I had to call the owner about it and asked after the horses. The wallstomper had been hit by a car and his butt was split open. The poor gelding wasn't foaling. (A gelding is a castrated boy horse.)

In the afternoon, the kids and I walked down to check in on the wallstomper and offer him an apple. He slowly made his way over to the fence to say hello, but didn't eat the apple. (I'm sure there must be a Garden of Eden analogy in there.) I scritched his head and thought, as only a mother can, that he seemed fevered to me. His legs were pretty banged up. I hope he nailed their speeding car pretty well.

The whole thing gives the phrase, "A horse's ass" a whole new context.

My old neighbor, Donna, is one of the most resourceful people I know when it comes to decorating a house and knowing how to fix things and stuff like that. So yesterday, I finally had the good sense to call her. She had a lot of good smart things to say.

First, she told me that tile was probaby cheaper than linoleum, especially after the flooring guy quoted me almost $900 to put linoleum in the two bathrooms and I expected half that. I started pricing tile and it's a whole lot cheaper. Most lino is starting at $3-5 a square foot and tile...the stone stuff...that's $1-5. Donna knew a store that has a discontinued tile room that she told me to check out and she told me I could get a coating thing that would make it easy to clean.

We talked about the paint and she told me that if there was paint on the ceiling that shouldn't be there that I should just rent a sprayer and hose everything down with white paint to get it cleaned up and get it done. Mike thought that sounded good, but I really want to decorate, so I think we may do that to just get a coat on, but that we'll also still just buy the regular paint we'd meant to order and paint that as the second coat. She told me instead of stenciling, that I might consider using rubber stamps to do the peppers in the kitchen. I think I would have to make them myself, but it's certainly an option.

We talked about ways to fix the mismatched fixture thing. Apparently there's some kind of paint/surface stuff you can buy that will resurface your tub for you, so that you can have a white tub, rather than the yellow and mauve tubs we currently are looking at. Anyway, we talked for two hours about all the possibilities on the phone, and I think about a week before escrow closes, I'm going to make a date with her and bring her out and get her ideas and then go buy them all up.

Her other idea on the windows is that Pella is not worth the money and she gave me the number of a good window place in town. I talked to the guy and I can get most of the work done for substantially less, have similar results, and not have the name brand.

Things to do, people to see, places to go...like the University to study -- bye!

This weekend I spent hours pouring over wallpaper samples and paint chips. I stopped at a flooring place. At 215, I am going fully armed today to my future home with all samples in hand. I spent the weekend, putting the different samples on the pics of our house in the graphics program. We priced pella windows at Lowes and somehow I have a hard time justifying $1000 in labor for our back slider, though I'm sure Pella thinks it's justified. Their work is warrantied, but somehow, if I pay a handy neighbor guy in a small town, if it isn't right, I can call him and he'll come fix it til it is, too. For the front window on the house, I am willing to pay Pella. That's the wind side of the house and that has to be right and the workmanship guaranteed and the windows guaranteed, etc. If I think there are distinct differences between having a workman do the work and Pella doing the work between the two items, I will probably then ask Pella to come do the rest, but I'm doubting there will be that much of a significant difference.

After all of this mumbling about a new house, I suppose you'd like to see pictures, huh? That doesn't have all of them, but I'll try to remember to take more today between samples and paint chips. For my final project in the learning disabilities class, I have to do something from a book without any other help, so if escrow closes on time, I'm going to put in a terraced garden/retaining wall in the front yard. I already know how to do the gardening part, but the terracing is new. I have an idea about how to design it and everything. Should be fun. It'll be entertaining if nothing else.

I gotta go make Bear a lunch. Mike told me this morning after I made him up tacos to take that his iron stomach had been less than iron last night, so he may be having F-U-N fun today.

Okay, I'm fully nuts into decorating the new house. Well, it's not only decorating. On the wind side, we need to replace the windows and we've already discussed and decided that those three front windows will be replaced with Pella windows, which while very damned expensive, will be well worth the expense for the energy savings, equity in the house, the warranty that they come with, etc. I've got an estimator coming out next week to measure and give us an estimate. The windows are going to be very expensive, so we're going to start with the front and just carefully work our way to the back in a year or two. Because the wind is on the front, the front windows are the most important. We also have the flooring estimator coming out next week to give us a price on the lino. I could do the lino myself with the cheapo home depot stuff, but after the inspector's visit, both bathrooms need the subflooring replaced and I'm nervous about trying to do that myself. I'm sure it's not hard, but I don't have tools, and I'd rather have someone professional do it and then I can see how they do it and then next time, I can do it myself.

For my learning disabilities class, I have to do something where I learn how to do it from reading only. I've decided I'm going to terrace garden my front yard because I have never done that before, I need to put in some kind of erosion control on the hill, and I like bed gardens. We have lots of bunnies, so I will have to put in marigolds and blood meal as deterrents. I would adore having beds alternating between pink floppy primroses, California poppies, and summer veggies. I also will finally be able to plant my beautiful lavendar flower sedum. I also have some other beautiful floppy perennials in my head. It'll be beautiful and easy. Okay, digging out places to put the terrace wood will be bitch, but I'll be loving the results.

I am so tired. I am not sleeping. My insomnia is reaching epic proportions. I am so overwhelmed. I am one person with three persons' work to do. We have a list of crap to do today and so far it includes none of the mounds of laundry that need to be done, nor the filthy kitchen floor, nor the cleaning of the laundry room. *sigh*

Today is the windiest day we've had in a while. We live in a virtual wind tunnel, so that's saying a bit, but it' really is just amazing in the valley below with these horrendous wind storms tossing fine sand willynilly in their wake. I was getting Genny into the car from daycare and when I finally got to my side of the car to get in and about had my arm torn off by the wind yanking on the door, I realized I had a mouth full of sand. Ptooey!

Tonight is scouts, so maybe when Mike and Russell go, I'll actually get some laundry folded. Genny will tear the house apart, but it's a start.

My latest propensity towards demonstrating my insanity is that I am thinking about running a summer daycare/camp for school-aged kids. What would be cool about it, aside from the kids, is that everything we did to the house would then be tax deductible. Russell thinks it would be cool to have friends showing up every day. I think it would be cool that I could get paid for staying home and working on my house and then be able to make it a tax deduction.

The woman who typically does school-aged summer care is getting out of it, so it would be a good time to do it. I've talked to her and to LaDawn and it just seems like it would be fun and nice to have the extra income.

Yesterday, for my learning disabilities class, I had to read an essay written by an ADHD woman, who suffered similarly to me as a child. I couldn't get through it without crying. It brought up so many old scars.

It also was affirming because I realized that I am making different choices in dealing with my son than my mother made with me and he'll be better for it. I know he's still going to bitch to Dr. Phil as many children do, but that I am working hard and it will pay off.

Today, I volunteered in a special education classroom at a local elementary school. The teacher has been up against a lot and it was heartening to realize what a huge difference I can make. I got several of his most troublesome kids through their work. There were a lot of ADHD-type bouncy kids. I realized that I am really good at this. I also felt so privileged that they let me in their classroom so easily.

I asked Russell after I got dressed, "Do I look like a teacher?" He smiled, and said, "Yeah, Mom. Just remember to be patient." I explained to him that it's a lot easier to be patient with someone else's kids than your own because your kids know all the things to do to tick you off and usually do them! He said, "I don't know all the things that tick you off." I smiled, "You may not think you do, but you do.It's the nature of children and parents to know the things that make the other crazy because they've known each other their whole lives."

He said,"I'm not trying to tick you off." I said,"I know. I don't mean to tick you off either, but sometimes we just do that ONE thing that drives the other nuts a little." He giggled and so did I.

"I love you, Mom."

I love you, too, Bear.

We're in escrow. Which is really like saying,"We've intentionally committed mass murder, so that we'll go straight to hell."

And no, this isn't a hint, but I think I'd rather be pregnant than in escrow. It's so torturous. They told us yesterday that we'd have to come up with $3000 more than we had planned. I keep looking for the flames to lick at my feet. No, I'm not sure I'm not in hell versus escrow.

But oh my god, the fun of planning and dreaming about this new place and putting my own touches on it and making it OUR home! I think I had a decorating orgasm this weekend. We got cable last week, so I got paint chips and started pouring through wallpaper pages, so I could find wallpaper for places in my new house.

There's all this stuff I want to do. I'm sure money will be a limiting factor, but I don't think there's anything more stunning to me than the idea of my own house. My own house, where I can paint the walls, dig up the gardens, and add rooms and shelves to. Michael apparently feels the same because we've been all touchy feely affectionate like newlyweds, which while nauseating for the rest of the world is a source of deliriously happy daydreaming for both of us.

We're having to cash out everything we own to do this. We'd anticipated having a little more left over, but nope, we're blowing it all.

I have visions of terra cotta shades in my kitchen with chiles throughout. My livingroom will be a light golden yellow and so will our bedroom. Genny's getting more Pooh and Russell is getting more planets and space. Michael is getting a large quiet bedroom in the back of the house, and dreams of electricity-producing turbines are dancing through his thoughts. I dream of gardening and landscaping and painting and prettyifying everything. Michael dreams of letting me. We've dreamed together of the sunsets over the mountains we'll watch together in our future. We've dreamed of the parties we'll have and the deck we'll build and the pool we'll get at Costco for the back side yard.

I've dreamed of so many things and thought we'd never get there. And now, we're dangerously close to Redneck Ruby having her own acre of land in the mountains, which as anyone who knows me will tell you, makes the whole world right and ruby.

I have pics at home and I'm at school writing this, so I'll do it soon, just not today.

After all the nightmares that I have endured in my life, it's amazing and freeing and joyful to finally find and follow a dream.

We saw a house we really like and we put a bid on it today. It's a bit smaller than what we thought we'd be OK with, but not too much so, and it's really pretty. From the outside, it looks kind of ho-hum, but the inside is really pretty with lots of natural wood accents. We're really close to federally managed land, so I can do some hiking and stuff. We also have a pretty xeriscape kind of thing going on in the back acre. There's a fenced in back yard with lawn for the kids to play on with a patio and a lot of adjoining corraled type areas with electric fencing. I'll pull down the fencing and stuff and Mike and talked about spending the $250 to get a small pool and just locking the access fences to it to protect the kids.

It's something we can afford, so there's a lot of minor repair stuff that needs to be done and fixture replacements. There are some serious fixture issues in the bathrooms...nothing matches anything. The masterbath has this dark brown marbled sink top, brown and gold swirly tile in the shower, a yellow and green toilet, and linoleum that is yet again different shades of yellow and brown. As the realtor and I discussed, it was obviously done by a man. The kitchen sink is seriously chipped and nasty, so it would have to be replaced. The front bathroom also has nothing that matches, so things would have to be changed out in there, too. The place has been a rental and needs painting, carpet cleaning, minor repairs, and the most expensive thing will be all the windows need to be replaced with more energy efficient ones because they have an oil furnace, too, and the original 30 year old windows. If I have to pay through the butt for energy in the winter, I'm sunk, so it will be really important to do weatherproofing stuff.

The other thing is that the laundry room is in the garage and the garage is not insulated at all, so we'd have to insulate it and put up plasterboard and tape it. Mike was trying to give me crap about how "we" could just suck it up and deal with the cold, however, "we" don't do the laundry. "I" do and I don't like to handle cold wet laundry in a room that is colder than ass 9 months out of the year.

I am having gardening fantasies -- more like gardening orgasms. I weeded the flower beds here today and I realized I have a lot of good stuff to dig up and take me to my future house. *Oh* gulp *God*...YESYESYES!

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's so fucking hard NOT to get my hopes up. I just keep telling myself....God's will, not mine. God's will, not mine. I hope God likes flowers.

This morning is a winter miracle. We went out to dinner at a very ritzy Tex-Mex place with snow starting to fall. I looked at my husband from our plastic and metal chairs and said,"Why do we always end up at Taco Bell in the middle of a blizzard?" He said,"I don't know. I was wondering that, too."

This morning, it is beautiful though. There's fog gathering thickly over the lake and the mountains look as if they have been dusted in confectionary sugar. Each tiny branch of sagebrush is covered in a thick coat of white down feathery flakes.

Most importantly, I can breathe. There's not an allergen out there right now because it's been coated in the sweet smother of snow.

Genny was like a puppy chasing her tail, yipping excitedly about the " 'NO! Mama, 'NO! My wear boots?" "Yes, honey, you need to wear boots and mittens. Don't forget your socks." "No socks! Boots!" "You need socks or your feet will get cold." Grudgingly,"Oh. Kay. Mama." Russell asked me 20 times if school was delayed and then accusingly bitched because I was not up at 7AM to verify the possible delay on TV, despite the fact that I can call them.

Last night, for a class, m y assignment was to watch a movie I was very motivated to see and one I am not. For the not, I had to watch about the stupidest movie made recently, "Super Troopers." I'm not sure of the storyline. It was a lot like watching porn. Whereas in porn, the goal is to see people get naked and fuck, in this frat party-style flick, the goal is to see people get laid, get stoned, get drunk or some assortment of those three items. I had to watch a movie for a class that I would never otherwise select. I had Mike pick it out because I couldn't make up my mind from all the stupid movies I could find. I think it was supposed to be a takeoff on the Police Academy genre, but I haven't been able to sit through a Police Academy flick either, so I can't be sure how close.

I am watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" today, which is the one I want to see and I am supposed to write about my motivations for each and then extrapolate that to the motivational interests of learning disabled kids. I've already written up some stuff, so I'll watch the movie and eat breakfast as soon as Russell leaves and then finish my write up. Then I think I want to go march around in the snow in my mountain chick hiking boots.

In other news, I damaged my shoulder sleeping on it badly a few days ago and it was pretty bad. So last night, Mike gave me a deep hard massage on that shoulder and I fiddled with my insulin a bunch to tighten my sugars a bunch and now, my shoulder has actually healed up. I love my husband. I love my insulinR. I wish my lungs would heal up, so I could get off the fucking prednisone. I feel like my health's biatch. Bend over and bark, baby. I had to make a professor take the elevator with me yesterday because I am so bad I can't walk up a single flight of stairs. It's not like I can do that without being out of breath normally, but I like the breathlessness. I like the exercise. Iditawalk is obviously on the backburner until I can breathe again, but it sucks, because it means that I will be making it up forever. I don't think I can start at hour long walks to make up time, which is about what I'd have to do. I'm thinking that I'll just do the best I can and maybe extend my schedule to be more like 40 days from when I go off prednisone and insulin.

This is the bugaboo I always run into with my exercise. I get sick and then it takes forever to get well and by that time, I'm out of the habit of exercising. It pisses me off. A. Lot. It's very difficult to be in great shape or at least getting there, and then suddenly go out of commission for a couple weeks and then try to get back on the horse. For now, I've been tossed off the bronco, so I'm working on mending my bones and then in a few weeks, I'll dust myself off and get back on. Ride 'em!

Maybe I need a cowboy to rope.

Ooooooh, MIiiiiiikkkkkeeeeeeeeeey.

Bastard no good realtor didn't bother to mention to my realtor that the house we fell in love with is in escrow. My realtor found out today because someone in her office sold it.

Shit.

Well, I guess it wasn't supposed to be. We are looking at another place, similar to the one we live in, but it's small and we didn't want small. There will be something else, we just don't know what that is yet.

*sigh* It's that not knowing that's killing me. On the good news front, that gives us more time to clean up credit and stash cash. Big. Giant. Sigh.

Shhhh!

Be vwewy, vwewy qwiet, we're househunting.

We found a house. Now, we just have to find a mortgage. The broker we are using thinks we can do this place we're looking at, but she's going to have to fiddle. It would be tight for us and we already told Russell that Christmas and birthdays would be slim pickin's....not like last year where we spoiled them rotten. We told him he'd probably get one big toy and a few books and that would be it.

Mike and I are both worrying about the money, but I think without childcare this summer and without the huge expense of the utilities we're paying out now, that we'd be in good enough shape through the summer until his raise in the fall. His raise would probably be in the $200/month comfort pad we'd need to get through. Also, for heating in the winter, they're using natural gas and the house isn't as drafty, and it's a lot better insulated, so ultimately, I think we'd be paying less in the long run. In the summer, there are ceiling fans in every room, so it'll be plenty cool, I'm sure. The only thing I am woried about it is the roof on this place. They made repairs and then only on the house part, not the attached garage, they tried to hide the repairs. If they had been uniform in hiding it, I'd think, "Oh, they were just trying to make it look nice." But they did it only on the house, and there are some signs of leaking on the ceiling -- very mild signs, but signs...so we need a good inspector to rip through the place and give us the brass tax on it. The other thing is that a friend said that that house changed hands rather recently(in the past couple years) she thought, so I am going to do a title search to find out what I can. Also, the garage appears to have some repair issues, but we could not get into the garage to see it, so we need to go back and look at it.

We both like this house a lot, though and it would be a really easy move -- just shy of a mile down the road from us. There's corral fencing for horses, but I am not getting into the moneysucking pit of horses, so I think we'll sell that off and I'll plant fruit trees. There's already a cherry tree in the back. There are some raggedy sad bushes in the back, which I would probably dig up, but we'll see. The other thing I like about the house is that the exterior is deceiving because it looks like a nothing house, but there is some beautiful stuff inside and I really think it's an elegant house in a lot of ways. And the kitchen with its dishwasher, convection oven, and slanted shelves for cans, made me spooge. I'm sure the realtor was a bit put off by my writhing about when I saw the kitchen, but SPOOGERIFIC was my one word reaction to the kitchen.

They appear to have done annoying icky landscape things like a fountain. All I could think was,"A fountain? In the desert? With that view? Rip it out!" However, I'm thinking if the water is already there, then I'm all over a hot tub facing the mountains. Hot bubbles in the wintah...hot bubbles in the wintah...

I'm of the mind that if we're supposed to have this house, then the money will work itself out vis a vis the mortgage broker. Pray, pray, pray.

I wandered all over campus yesterday and that basically made the infection go deeper into my lungs. Now, I'm taking prednisone and insulin and wishing I were dead. I took Genny to the park, so she could play and just kind of died. I took her to the doctor to check on her progress and everything is good. Her ears are clear. The good news is that with my soul bared to the local grad school, I now am done with essay writing and other sordid chores related to that. I do need to start pursuing the substitute credential, but I figure there's next week because this weekend, I'm going to pull a Rip Van Winkle and never leave my bed. (Oh, the plucking, I'll have to do!)

CG -- I haven't found you online because I'm too exhausted. I love you and I'm praying for you.

Night, night.

We are all sick and crabby. Last night, I finally hit a wall. I just sent the kids to bed early and I sat in my chair and enjoyed the peace and quiet, punctuated by my own coughs. I woke up this morning and wished I could deepthroat a long thin popsicle because my throat was so sore. I'm sure my husband would have preferred something else, but I was thinking pure ice.

I have to go out, despite the snowstorm and march all over campus to get crap printed out and delivered, so I can officially prostrate myself at the grad school door with application in hand. I wish I could sleep until next week. Makes me glad I have hiking boots -- which I am sure will make it a red neck ruby moment.

I have an appointment tomorrow for Genny, because there's no way her ears are clear, as she is crowned princess of house destruction. She is only like this when sick, so I am very much looking forward to the ick of sick ending, not only for her, but all of us. Russell has stayed home for the past two days, and this morning, I rather guiltily sent him to school with cough drops.

I am so freakin' tired.

I occasionally have a bad reaction to peanuts in things. I'm usually pretty careful to try to pick peanuts that are pretty fresh and I can deal with certain brands. Every so often someone uses some cheap-ass peanuts that have aged for a decade in a vat of alfatoxin-ridden mold in some Georgia farmer's silo and then they choose to feed them to me. Peanuts like that do very bad things to my stomach. My stomach was so distended and agonizing, that for two fucking days I couldn't get into my fat pants without wishing for a slow death. I was wearing big billowy dresses and sweats, in lieu of anything fitted. It's not just gas, I also am pretty sure that my intestinal lining actually swells. I ate two rounds of said peanuts before realizing that they were the culprit of my agony. The first round was by far the worst, however, the second round hit last night and was really awful.

I finally freed my body of the last vestiges of said toxic peanuts this morning, but that was after I stayed up until 230AM with more bloating and painful intestinal distention watching Outbreak and remembered that the reason they show it at 2 in the morning is because it sucks. Genny's sick and she was up and whiny at 7AM, while I attempted to pry my eyes open and function. It wasn't pretty. Now, that I am old and crotchety, I really really need my beauty sleep. I have sworn off further attempts at childbirth, thus, I feel that it is my right and privilege to sleep in until 8 or 9 because I am getting old and ugly, thus beauty sleep is getting to be a necessity.

Nonetheless, I am swearing off peanuts unless they've been heavily processed into peanutbutter, and even then, I think I'll just stick to almond or apple butter.

My lack of sleep contributed to a familial malaise today. Genny was all sick and whiny; Russell was talking back in rare form, such that he eventually got grounded for a week. He swears up and down that he took his meds, but I think he is full of shit. He was throwing thermonuclear meltdown tantrums. When you're dealing with that in public from a 9.5 year old, the temptation is to get a rope and tie and gag him. My thought was that if I got a holstein fleece fabric and used a horse trailer, I could put one of those horse blinds on his head, and tie him in there with a fake animal tail hanging out the back, and no one would know I was abusing my child. Mike was barely functional and kept being whiny and cranky and bitchy. And then we started looking at real estate while we were all in such a state. F-Ugly. Fugly, I tell ya.

The good news on the real estate front is that our credit is sufficient to get us an FHA loan and the loan amounts available are sufficient to keep us within 20 minutes of Mike's work. We'll start pursuing pre-qualification in May.

I have to put together the decoration tonight for the cubscouts blue and gold dinner tonight. I mistakenly said something to the den leader about,"Were we going to decorate our table?" at the Pinewood Derby and I was volunteered to do it in abstentia at the next meeting. My husband apparently forgot to mention that I didn't have to do it, but there's that whole peer pressure thing. Now, I have to go find the fucking fishbowl in the ice cold garage, with a two year old present, which is sort of like saying I'd like to drive 2 inch long wooden spikes beneath my nails because our garage is definitely NOT childproof. I have to make runs to town to get decorations together for the blue and gold/American Pride theme. Going shopping with a 2 year old with an ear infection, oddly enough does not appear on my list of top 10, much less top 500 things to do, especially when I have to take her to a party store. *sigh*

Could someone just shoot me now? It'd be faster.

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!