Movies and Moving

My morning started off with getting the kids together and heading for the movie theatre. After lightening my wallet considerably buying tickets, popcorn, candy, and drinks, we saw Bolt. Well actually the little two and I saw Bolt while the oldest and her boyfriend chose Madagascar. Bolt was really cute, and the really great computer animation of Hollywood made me homesick.

Then we came home and I made the little two sort through their boxes in the garage, trying desperately to slim down the crap we are going to have to move in what is now 31 days. This is Tiff sorting her stuff.

Notice how thrilled she looks? She was upset that it was taking so long. Do you also see that she is wearing a baby doll bib, one purple glove, an arm band, a watch, and a bracelet. This was before she put on the headband with two feathery antenae and a purple hair clip. She spent more time playing with the stuff than sorting it. She ended up purging one box of stuff.

Next it was Kimberly's turn. She didn't have as much to start with, and still managed to purge a box as big as Tiff did. I didn't get any pictures, because she was finished rather quickly. I think she may be the only one in the house lacking the pack rat gene.

Tomorrow will be Aimee's turn. She currently has more boxes than both of her sisters put together, but since I know she just packed everything she found into boxes, I'm sure once we remove the candy wrappers, garbage, hangers, and dirty clothes we should reduce her pile by half. That's the goal at least.

The Real Reason I Showed Up Today

Ok. I didn't just decide to blog about vasectomies today. I actually logged in to blogger today to update all my internet stalkers on the progress of our move.

We officially have a date. We still don't know where we are going. Nice, Huh? Ya. So on Wednesday I get an email from our landlord that informs me that she finally has gotten an offer on the house and there is some addendum these people want me to sign stating that I WILL be out by December 30th. So there it is. December 30th. 32 days from today.

Yesterday I crawled into a corner and hid. Not literally, but I did read all day which totally pissed off the hubby. We ended up fighting and then making up, after I explained to him that the only way I can cope right now is not to think about it. We don't want to move to Michigan until we have at least the beginnings of some investment in our business. Otherwise we are in Michigan with nothing to do but freeze our asses off. Have I mentioned that the highs there lately have been hovering around the freezing mark? Yeah, the HIGHS, freezing. WTF? So if we don't have some investment in the next 32 days, we are stuck either having to sign a lease on a place here for way longer than we are going to be staying here, or be homeless. I spent a good part of my morning yesterday trying to find month to month or short term rentals here in AZ. After not finding anything that would remotely meet our needs, I was in an understandably shitty mood. Rather than take it out on my family, I decided to leave them all alone and read a book.

So after explaining to the hubby that I wasn't trying to be mean to him, only trying to not lose my mind, he told me just to relax and let him handle it. Yeah, because that's so easy and I totally haven't tried that yet.

No more swimmers

This isn't exactly a new story. It happend about 4 years ago. I decided to post it though, because A. It's funny as hell, and B. My friend Beth mentioned in one of her recent posts that she was afraid that her hubby was going to be traumatized my her dog's neutering and not get a vasectomy.

After 3 kids we decided we were done. I insisted that since I had birthed three children and had spent numerous days in the hospital overnight as a result, that it was only fair that hubby go do the simple little outpatient procedure to solve our little problem. Besides the fact that our insurance in all it's wisdom, wouldn't cover either procedure and the vasectomy was way cheaper to pay for out of pocket. That never made sense to me. I could have 15 more kids and the insurance would not only pay for me to birth them, but then pay for every sniffle and broken bone until they were 18, but they wouldn't pay for a $500 procedure so we wouldn't have anymore. Hubby still wasn't so convinced. His manliness and all that. Blah!

Birth control was making me absolutely loony. I was taking anti depressants for the looniness and those gave me insomnia, so I had sleeping pills for that. Can you see the chain reaction here? I was taking pills for the side effects of my pills. My doctor suggested that if I just stopped taking hormonal birth control, I could probably stop all the other shit too. So one day I told the hubby that I wasn't doing it anymore. We could use condoms until he decided to go.

Fast forward 6 months. By now he's getting tired of me making him use condoms all the time, and a couple of his friends went and got it done and told him it was no big deal, so he finally got up the courage and went. I went with him. Someone had to drive him home and all that. So I'm actually in there with him while the doctor is doing it. They give him a local and a little while later the doc starts doing his thing. Apparently there is some tugging involved and although it wasn't painful, it was certainly uncomfortable. So he's kinda moaning and such as the doc is rooting around in there with some kind of crochet hook contraption and I'm watching this and listening and I pipe up with "You know honey, this does seem to be more painful than I had thought it would be, but compared to giving birth three times, I still win." The doc starts laughing in that it's good he wasn't drinking coffee way, because it would have surely come out his nose. And the hubby says to me "Do you mind not making the guy laugh when he's holding sharp objects next to my nuts?"

So he played up the whole thing for like a week after, sitting in the chair with his feet up, me bringing him food and drinks, and lots of bags of frozen peas, but he lived, and he's no less manly. I on the other hand got my sanity back and no longer had a laundry list of prescriptions to fill every month.

Monday Again

It's Monday and I'm not ready for it. I did manage to get the kids off to school on time, which was a major accomplishment considering that they kept going back to sleep when I tried to wake them this morning. I really need to make bedtime earlier. They also had clean clothes, because we managed to get a few loads of laundry done over the weekend, but it didn't all get done, and several loads are on my couch waiting to be folded. At least they are clean. When I asked Aimee to sort the laundry though, she totally forgot to get the hamper out of MY room though, so I had to do a load this morning, just so I could wear clean clothes today too. The house is a mess, again, because I spent most of the weekend polishing the business plan and being too brain fried to yell at the kids to pick up their messes. Somehow they seem to know when mom is off her game and take full advantage. So now it's the beginning of a new week, and I'm going to spend the whole thing playing catch up. Hubby was supposed to be home tomorrow, and now that's been pushed back until Friday. Who knows if that will stick. Someday I will see my hubby again. I really do miss him.

Things that make me throw up a little

I've spent the last several days working hard on my husband's business plan. I must say, I'm pretty damn good at writing business plans. Things do get a little fuzzy at times, calculating that many figures can make you go cross-eyed, so a few times I took some time out to cruise the internet to decompress. I click a link about Britney Spears, because like all trainwrecks, you just have to look. Don't get me wrong, I love Britney, and I'm rooting for her mental health. I feel for her losing her boys like that. I couldn't imagine only being able to see my kids for two visits and one overnight a week. So whenever I see something about her, I have to look, hoping to find that she is doing well.

So apparently recently she appeared with Madonna in Los Angeles, and there were pictures. Horrible pictures. Not of Britney. No Britney looked beautiful, put together, and DRESSED, in a white blouse and black slacks. It was Madonna who was half naked, wearing her underwear, fishnets, and a gigantic top hat on her pasty body, looking like something out of Nightmare Before Christmas. Some might say that she is in excellent shape for being 50, but she still is 50, and there are some things I'd just rather not see. Put on some clothes Madonna. Looking at these pictures is like catching your grandma coming out of the shower.

Everything and Nothing

I wish I had a nifty excuse for why I'm yet again being a terrible blogger. I don't. I can't even say that I've been busy, because even though there is a ton of stuff I should be doing, fact is, I've been spending most of my time reading books and trying to ignore anything that needs done. If I'm lost in a good book, I can't be stressed about the chaos in my life.

I'm still clueless about where I will be living in a month. The hubby is working on a totally awesome business idea, and if that comes through, we will be moving to Michigan. Until that is finalized though, there is nothing to do but wait. I can't even be seriously looking for a new place either here or there and the stress is making me nuts.

I seriously considered going to the doctor and getting on some antidepressants because most days I wake up and just want to crawl back in bed and hide. Since that isn't an option, I've been trying to make myself be productive. Last week I spent a whole day out in my garage trying to sort out what I need and what I can get rid of. I figured that one way or another, I'm going to have to move somewhere, and when I do, it will be easier without so much stuff. I got through everything on one side of the garage and it is my goal to work on the other side this week.

I also got started on my book. I finished the first chapter and have worked out most of the main story line. So far I'm laughing my ass off, so hopefully others will find it as funny as I do.

Oh, and last week some real estate agent locked me out of my house. My key being in the lockbox, I've been coming in through the garage, and instead of leaving things the way they found them, they decided to lock every possible lock, including the one from the garage into the house and my screen door. Plus there was yet another agent that showed up an hour past the window of time she had given me. I have now started asking all agents that call if they own a watch and can tell time.

Bribery

My middle child has ADD. Getting classwork and homework done on time is challenging. Even with a 504 plan, there are still a lot of things that are REQUIRED. Even though my child does NOT want to do them. She tries to ignore them, she tries to make deals, but the assignments don't go anywhere, they just accumulate. The deadline was quickly approaching for the assignments to be turned in because the teacher needed to turn in grades for the first report card. We had something like 20 missing assignments that needed to be completed, and right before the assignments were due, a nice long 4 day weekend. I didn't want to spend my 4 day weekend yelling at my child to do homework, so I got this brilliant idea. "If you get all these assignments done before the weekend, we can go to Disneyland" I said to my dear child. Ohhh, was she excited. We haven't been to Disneyland in 3 years. She quickly got a couple assignments done and then decided it was hopeless. Somehow the idea of the trip got leaked to the other two children. I had not told them for fear they would kill the middle child if she didn't get the work done and prevented them from going to Disneyland. Now they knew and the pressure was on. "Get your work done, we want to go to Disneyland" they said. Slowly but surely she got one assignment after another completed. By Saturday night I felt that she could get the rest done on the way to Disneyland and back. So we went. Sunday night in the hotel she got more work done, and Tuesday when we returned she completed the last couple pages. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

Everything was all decorated for Halloween. Growing up in California and having been to Disneyland bazillions of times, I had never been there when it was decorated for Halloween. It was cool.

The sign in front of California Adventure was decorated too. The A's were big candy corns. I like candy corn, lol.

Here are my kids standing in front of the R. We took a picture like this the last time we went to Disneyland 3 years ago.

See how much they have grown. Cool Huh??

Here are the kids as we are waiting in line to get in. Tiff was pissed about something, but Kimberly was happy. See the heart she is making with her hands?

Here's Aimee, annoyed that I'm still taking pictures while we are waiting in line. She couldn't wait to get rid of us. Some of her friends were there too. She was excited to spend the day with the other teenagers instead of the little kids.

This is a picture of me waiting in line. It's not the best picture ever taken of me, but since I'm usually not in the pictures because I'm always taking the pictures, I won't complain.

Kimberly and Tiffany got invited into the wheel house of the Mark Twain river boat. Kimberly got to steer the boat and blow the whistle and ring the bell. They were very excited. I didn't even know you could do this. There was a log book we got to sign our names in, and the kids got pilot's certificates when we were done.

Kimberly and Tiff in a cage made out of bones on Tom Sawyer Island.

Here are the kids sitting in a tea cup after we bought mouse ear hats. We just happened to bump into Aimee and the teenagers at the hat place. See Aimee's boyfriend sneaking into the picture?

Here is Kimberly ready to drive her Autopia car. Not too long after someone had to go rescue her because she got stuck out on the track.

Kimberly and a chicken inside Micky Mouse's house in Toon Town. Kimberly has a thing for chickens and ducks.

Waiting in line to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters for like the 4th time.

This is a picture from the parade. They all came out kinda blurry because of all the motion and the night setting on the camera, but I thought I would include this one, because I couldn't help thinking that if they tried to make this movie today, I don't think a hookah smoking catapillar would fly with all the parents groups.

The kids lasted all day at Disneyland, from open to close, but within 2 minutes of our arrival back at the hotel, this is what we had.

This and That

Again a week has gone by without writing. I just didn't have anything monumental to write about. I was all bummed that my little vacation was over and I moped for days. I didn't get much of anything accomplished, but I forgive myself. So here are the few little highlights of my week. Not neccessarily good things, just stuff that happened.

Directv DVR sucks monkey butt

My Directv DVR decided to erase or not record all the season premieres that played last week. I turned on the tv the other night to watch some tube and found my list EMPTY. Not a thing there, and I have no friggin clue why. I'm seriously pissed. I seriously follow about 10 shows, all three CSI's, Bones, House, Pushing Daisies, and well a few others I can't name right now. Ok so let's say 6 shows. The CSI's especially all ended with nifty cliffhangers that I wan't to see the resolution to. Hopefully they are all on the internet. It just reminds me of the fact that Directv used to have Tivo, and Tivo kicks DVR butt. I still have one in my living room, but the kids have taken control of it recording all kinds of kid crap. The only good thing about the DVR was it had WAY more recording space, but what does that matter if it just RANDOMLY erases everything??? The Tivo never did that.

Inconsiderate Real Estate Agents should be strung up by the toenails

People came last night to see my house. Not at 5:30 when they said they would and I was purposely out of the house, because it's just weird watching strangers walk through your house, but an hour late at 6:30 when I was in the middle of trying to do homework with Kimberly and making a salad. Rude! Rude I tell you. It put me in a funk for the rest of the night. It made it all the more real to me that someone is going to buy this house, and more than likely want to live in it, because it is after all a really awesome house, and I'm going to be forced to move to a way less awesome house.

Change is not always good

I bought a new kind of coffee at the store. I'm kinda new to coffee, being like the last 30 something year old on the planet that didn't own a coffee maker until about 6 months ago when after mentioning to my mom that it might be nifty to have one, she picked one up for me at Kohl's for 10 bucks. It sat in the box under my bed for another couple of months until I decided to start using it when I had to give up soda as a means of self medicating myself with caffiene. My friend Alisha was staying with me then, and she actually knew how to make the coffee maker make coffee. She went to the store and bought coffee and filters and taught me how to do it. Ever since then I have been buying the same coffee that she did. Last week I decided to change it up. Bought some kind of Brazilian Blend. It sounded good, but it tastes like crap.

That might make a good book

I got this crazy idea to write a book. Not some kind of auto biography or witty book about parenting like other bloggers are doing, NOPE pure fiction. One day last week this thought popped into my head. "Hey, a book about a talking dog with tourette's syndrome would be really cool" it said. So I started pondering it, and I've since come up with some other great characters and now I'm working on what those characters are actually going to do.

Back To Reality

I'm back from my little vacation and I remember now why I don't like vacations. I never want to come back. It's like a tease. Like life is saying to me "Hey, this is what your life would be like if you were independently wealthy, but you're not, so HA HA, back to the grind you go". For three nights I stayed in a hotel where someone else made my bed and hung up my towel for me. I didn't have to cook because we ate out for every meal. The day I arrived I got to hang out on the movie set and met Kim Cattrall. Saturday the hubby and I went to an amusement park, something we hadn't done alone together since we first dated. Sunday we did a little outlet mall shopping and hung out. Monday the hubby had to be at work at 5:30 am, so I slept a little longer and then joined him at the set a while (like 4 hours) later. They were filming at this beautiful beach, some state park, on Lake Erie. It was gorgeous, but cold. I could have stayed there forever. We had lunch, and let me tell you, I love having lunch with the hubby at work. Movie catering is most excellent. I had some chicken with a cucumber sauce that I told the hubby he needed to get me the recipe for, veggies, and couscous. It was the best meal I had the whole trip. Then it was off to the airport. Sad goodbyes and hugs. Back to the rat race at home.

Emma starts with M

Ack. Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday but I was BUSY!! Kimberly had an appointment with her psychiatrist in the morning. She's gained 10 pounds in the last 6 months, so a little tweak to her medicine was in order. She has been doing very well lately, hopefully this adjustment will help with the issues she is still struggling with. We are also starting therapy next week. She's really excited. She gets to see the doctor who evaluated her for learning disabilities. In 4 weeks she fell in love with him. She liked him so much that she wanted him to be her step-dad. When my mom explained to her that would mean mommy would have to divorce daddy, she decided that maybe that wasn't the best idea after all. Then she decided that he should marry her 3rd grade teacher, her favorite of all time. 3rd grade teacher's husband might not approve of that either, but I can see the connection she is making. These two people understand her. They took the time to get to know her, to help her, and to make her feel good about herself. Obviously they should be together, Right? So next week we start therapy to work on a couple things that she's struggling with. Mainly very rigid thinking. If she gets an idea in her head, it's stuck there like cement. And there is no convincing her otherwise, because that would make her wrong, and she doesn't like to be wrong. As an example, in preschool she told me that her classmate Emma's name started with "M". I said no it starts with "E". She said "No mom, it starts with M, and then pronounced the sylables very sharply 'EM UH', see mom, it starts with M". I'm not kidding you when I tell you I argued this point with her daily for about 3 months. Then finally, realizing the futility of arguing with a 4 year old said "You're right, Emma starts with M" and that was the end of it. Except for the fact that she's not 4 anymore and she is still just as rigid in her thinking. The other day she was convinced that 9x7 was 62, and when her teacher tried (repeatedly) to convince her that it was in fact 63, said something to the effect of "you need to get it through your head.....". That earned her a detention. It's time to work on our rigid thinking.

After all that, I did laundry, it was Washing Machine Wednesday after all, and I need clothes for my trip this weekend. So now I'm off. For me today is Travel Sized Thursday. I need to go buy little shampoos and conditioners for my trip.