What Goes Around...

A few weeks before Thanksgiving my b-i-l hit a friend's car in our driveway and didn't leave a note or didn't say anything until she approached him 2-3 days after the accident. Several of us explained to him about what a hit-and-run is and how nice this person was not to call the police etc. This weekend we had quite a bit of snow and my b-i-l parked at the end of our driveway so he could get out easier. The people across the street from us often use our diveway to turn around in and did so without looking or even thinking of looking first and hit his car and drove off without leaving a note. A different neighbor watched them do it and called us to tell us what happened and hen sent her brother, a cop, over to tell us what happened. When the b-i-l hit our friend and made his poor choice, I explained about "what goes around comes around" and gave the ever faithful "how would you feel if she'd hit you?" talk. I think it's poetic justice that he's dealing with this now and will NEVER make that same mistake again. Last night he was out taking tag info and pictures when the people came out of the house and made up a story about a different car hitting him and the police coming around etc. The b-i-l asked them if they knew anything else and they said no, so this morning he called the police and I suppose gave them the witness info and his side of the story. He felt guilty about not telling the people across the street that there was a witness to them hitting him before he called the cops, but I reminded him that they had ample opportunity to do the right thing and didn't. Now they'll probably get tickets and fines etc. to go with their other legal issues. One day, when I have time I'll tell you all about the lovely people who live cross from us, they make my family look downright classy.

Beware of the Brown Juice

wednesday night i went to an open house at a school i'm interested in sending mandolin to. it's k-8 and looks good. she's 28 months, but some schools require you apply at 3 for a placement at 5, so it's best to look now, plus, it doesn't hurt to start saving now for the tuition, book fees, before and after care fees and uniform fees. I know it seems hypocritical, two public school educators sending their child to a private school, but our local school system is broken seemingly beyond repair. children are murdered in these schools and teachers beat up with little response from the government, and i just don't want to send my baby girl there. I took my best friend V on the tour with me. She went to a private school similar to this one, so she was a good set of eyes to have along. At one point I asked about hot lunch. My friend V explained to me that private schools don't have hot lunch, duh! I explained to her that some private schools do have hot lunch and promised to tell her my hot lunch story later on after the tour. Mandolin liked the place, and i liked it and it's very affordable at around $510 a month for 10 months.

Here's my hot lunch story:

I used to attend a specific UMC church that operated a school. The UMC women rule the church, and the biggest baddest UMC woman is THE BOSS of the UMC kitchen, it's like being THE QUEEN of the church. I, being under 60, was a lowly grunt in the UMC women, and a nobody in the kitch. I was okay with this, because it's stupid to fight over a kitchen. As I stated, this church ran a school and also had a summer school program. The UMC women provided hot lunch to people who paid for it ahead and snacks. One day I was helping with lunch and then going to teach some art stuff afterwards when a little girl in the 3-5 range called me over. "miss! miss!" she shouted. "yes?" I said. "I don't like the brown grape juice, it hurts my tummy." she explained. I'd never heard of brown grape juice and was worried it was spoiled, so I took a sip. those old broards were giving 3-year-olds prune juice. No wonder their stomachs were sore, mine would be errupting after that too. Most of them didn't make it through recess.

watching a trainwreck

So far 2010 has been better than 2009 was, but it's too early to tell. We've been having ongoing troubles with a tenant that are stressing us out. Things had been great for the longest time, but over the past several moths, it's been pretty rough. Because I'm not working, this is hard for us to deal with. It was always the plan that over the summer/fall of 2010, I would go back to work, possibly back into education, but now it seems like I'm going to have to get a job sooner. We're not in a bad place yet, but we're afraid of what the situation with the tenant could become and feel it's better to head off the situation before it can get bad. If the situation doesn't degrade, then we're in a great place, and if it does degrade, then we're not in a bad place. Over the past few months of being home with Mandolin, she's really improved in some areas that were a concern, so I do worry that going back to daycare full-time, she'll start to fall behind again. The women at daycare love Mandolin like family, but she's not getting the 1-1 care that she gets at home. There's nothing like applying for jobs to really make you feel down and out.

Back in the Saddle

Tomorrow I go back to water aerobics for the first time in like 6 or 7 weeks. I am not looking forward to it because I've been slacking in my personal fitness recently andknow Wednesday will bring PAIN. On friday it was 58 degrees outside, so Mandolin and I went on a walk/run around a local lake. It took us about 45 minutes to do the complete path, and we finished at the same time as some people who started jogging when we did, so I think we made good time. I had on my ipod and was in my special zone and Mandolin was in her stroller while we zoomed along. I challenged myself to run up and down every hill we met, and by the end of the circuit, I'd completed my challenge. It felt nice to accomplish a goal. If it's nice this week, we'll do it again, but I'm going to try to run longer distances than just up and down. My new bra isn't a jogging bra, so I need to get a new sports bra if we're really going to give this running crap a real try. Mandolin loved seeing the ducks, geese, swans, and other wildlife. We went in the morning, so many people were out walking dogs and some other stay-at-home moms were taking their kids around the lake too and then to the baby playground next to it after.

I've been seriously thinking about joining a parenting group. My issue is that the moms are either furry hippy chicks or mean plastic fake women like the the women on the various "house wives" shows on TV. I'm too mean to hang with the furry hippies, but I'm not mean enough for the fakers, so I don't really fit in with either group. I did think about one of the support groups for mothers of children with disabilities, but most of their kids have profound disabilities and would look at my "struggles" as a walk in the park and I wouldn't fit in there either. It's hard to make new friends.

I'm an idiot

last night I kept hearing a knocking sound for the better part of an hour, but the screen door was closed, so at first i didn't think anything of it. Eventually, I crept out of my nice warm chair and peeked out the left window, saw nothing, peeked out he right, saw nothing, and went and sat down. Shortly thereafter, the pounding started up again in earnest. This wasn't the knokcing you'd do on a firend's house, this was frantic beating on the door. I sat in my chair watching the door thinking about who could be knokcing on my door at midnight? We live in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, so something odd usually means something bad. Our immediate area is "safe" (as safe as any place here can be), but that doesn't mean anything. Needless to say, I wasn't in a great frame of mind by this time. So, I got up and approached the door and got up the courage to open the door. Nothing was there, but literally seconds before hand, somehing was pounding on the door like crazy. I was really starting to freak out, because besides Mandolin, I was alone in the house. I closed the door and once again sat down, thinking about what to do. After the next round of knocking started up, i ripped the door open and heard a noise. Looking down, I saw that it was the cat banging on the door with his head. Here I sat for almost an hour terrified that someone was messing with me or trying to get into my house and do us harm, and it was the fucking cat. When I told my guy about it, he laughed so hard I'm shocked he didn't pee himself. New rule: All cats inside the house after dark.

take 3

this passt week we've suffered through the third stomach flu since christmas. I don't think we're getting the same thing over because each batch of stomach flu started and ended differently. Mandolin is a real trouper and hasn't gotten sick at all, but the rest of us have been knocked out every time. i had the poor luck of being sick all through my brother-in-laws college graduation and the celebration after. everyone else got sick the next day. i had to pull myself together enough to go to the store and get some gatorade and soup. my guy passes out on the couch and bitched like a whiney little baby. At one point we had group nap time and i passed out next to him in bed for a few hours. He regained his senses quicker than i did, but when i got up about an hour after him, i was pissed that he'd left the baby in her bed and didn't help her out. He just looked at me like i was speaking chinese when i explained FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT DAY that one cannot leave a baby in her crib all day and call it parenting. Every so often, you need to change her pants, sit her on the potty so she can try to go, give her some juice and maybe put her in her chair and feed her. You know, take care of the little person, that looks just like him, who can't take care of herself, i like to call it parenting.... This is why I'm the stay at home parent.

IF IDIE, those of you with my address should send many VERY DETAILED care instructions to my guy so that my child has a fighting chance at life. Stalk the man, because he'll need all the help he can get. Remember, my mom thinks going to a doctor is a waste of money and his momma has alzheimer's and hoarding disorders, so they're as useless as him.

Bra Quest

I went to buy a new bra this weekend. I had no real care for where we went (I hate clothing shopping and I really hate doing it alone), it was decided that my best friend V would meet me after my hair appointment and we'd go into the mall to victoria's secret because they were having a sale. I'm cheap, so a sale sounded good to me. When V showed up, she had my daughter and brother-in-law in tow. He had to take his car to be fixed, so she picked him up and brought him along shopping to watch after Mandolin while we accomplished the hard task of finding a decent bgra. It's some hard work to find THE BRA. I didn't find THE BRA, I found an okay bra that will do for now. I was in the middle of picking THE COLOR for the okay bra when my b-i-l started flipping out. I looked up and saw my kid strip in the middle of Victoria's secret and pull on a pair of women's lacy panties and then look at him and say "I'm pretty." I hit the floor laughing. He was practically panicking over what to do. V was no use as she was rolling on the floor laughing, so I had to cease my quest for THE COLOR to yank the lacey thong off my 2 year old, get her re-dressed in her outfit (aqua pants and turtleneck with a large pink tutu that she lives in) and shoes and suggest to him that perhaps he should go wait outside the store while I paid for my bra.

second time's the charm?

I spent the hours of 1am-4am dealing with Mandolin's issues with sleeping. If she wakes up, I usually ignore her unless she's distressed, but last night she was in fact distressed. She's been having problems breathing at night. I recently moved the humidifier into her room and have been putting the vicks stuff in it to make the menthol steam, that seems to be helping a little. I'm terrified that she'll develop my asthma problems because she has the allergy issues. I'm sure when we go see the doctor in a month that we'll be told that she has the beginning stages of it and have to go for testing etc.

I fell into ed at 4am and woke my guy up to tell him that it snowed all night and he'd probably get to sleep in today. He did me the great favor of waking me up at 8am to get Mandolin dressed for her daycare day. She goes to daycare once a week so i can do stuff and so she can still work on her social skills. problem was, i couldn't find her shoes. mind you, i was drunk from lack of sleep, so this was a production. Mandolin has chores and responsibilities. Some of these responsibilities are to put her shoes away, place her used clothing in her hamper, and pick up any trash (usually hers) and put it in the trash can, and put her toys away. I usually supervise these chores heavily, but didn't have time on wednesday night after we got home from the store, because i was putting all the food away. We didn't go anywhere on thursday, so i didn't think to check and see if she did her chores right on wednesday, assuming that my guy had done it. Wednesday night was trash night, so he took all the trash out and did that stuff. Apparently, Mandoln became confused as to what went where and placed her shoes in the trash and some clothing and trash ended up on the shelf where her shoes go. She didn't mean to do it, but since my guy and I didn't think to check her chore performance, her shoes ended up going out with the trash. This means that today, while she's at daycare, I need to go buy her some shoes. She wears an odd size, and so I can't just go anywhere, no I have to go to an expensive store and spend anywhere between $55-$80 on her shoes. She has a small collection of dress shoes that are mainly for play, but they don't fit right. She also has one pair of winter boots that are the wrong size, which is what she wore today to daycare. She spends most of her time there barefoot anyway, but later tonight I have to go to a meeting and she's going with me, so I need to go get her some shoes. I forced myself to become fully awake and am sitting here waiting for the store to open before I go drive out in the snow and mess to get the kid some expensive shoes. I wouldn't be so pissed but this is the second time that we've had to do this, the last time being in August.

Tomorrow morning i have a hair appointment at the buttcrack of dawn and then I have to buy an outfit (most of what I owned was too big so I gave it all away over the weekend) because sunday is my brother-in-laws college graduation. I really doubted he'd get there. He's one of these people that's so smart he can't function in real life at all. He's going to start grad school in a few weeks, and I wish him luck. I don't understand how someone can get a degree in math and do all sorts of math that most people never dream exists but can't figure out what cleaning product to use clean the toilet versus the one used to mop the floor. Needless to day, this is going to be an interesting day and I'm sure my mother-in-law will be at tip-top crazy.

around the round

It's so quiet here without two more children to look after. I only have to wash dishes once a day and make one meal at each meal time.

Tomorrow i am going to make three soups and portion them out for easy-grab meals. One is a navy-bean and ham; the second is a fire-roasted tomato, sausage and potato; and the last is a ham and potato chowder.

I have now lost 45 lbs and have not done a good job with my working out for a few weeks. It was impossible the week I had the kids and the previous weeks were hard because I injured my knee and needed to let it heal before getting back at it. My goal for the rest of this week is to do my 60 minutes a day. I have the time and need to just do it. I don't dislike working out, I even like it somewhat, but i'm letting my lazy nature get the best of me.

I am proud that during the Thanksgiving-New Years food orgy season, I lost weight every week. A lot of that was eating before I went to parties or after and not at parties, or taking food for myself that I could eat and forcing myself to keep away from the stuff I knew I had no business eating. Also, I planed all home-cooked meals to a "T" and had the "if they don't like it, they don't have to eat it" mantra going about cooking healthy foods. I don't know if these are long-term strategies though. I do know that in a few weeks my pants size will be a single digit and that's worth more than cake.

Okay, I'm off to crochet a tea pot & lid, sugar bowl & lid, 2 tea cups, 2 saucers, 2 spoons, a serving plate, and 4 cookies for my daughter. It should take a few hours, so I can at least start tonight. Making toys is a great way to use all the little odd bits of yarn.

I made my own pattern the other day and it came out pretty good. I made a flower hat for my daughter. I started crocheting around the round in dark green and increasing and switched to hot pink at row tenish and kept going until i had a good sized hat. I placed a ruffle around the bottom to make the petals. At the top of the green, i used the tail from the start chain to weave inside the hat and pulled it taught to make a "stem." then I made two dark green leaves and attached them next to the stem. The hat looks like an upside down flower on her head. I used the same green and pink to make a matching scarf. Mandolin has a hot pink pea coat, so the hat and scarf match perfectly. I'm going to make a second hat to test the pattern and then submit it. If i ever get a new camera battery, i'll share pics of all the stuff i've been making recently.

that's it, i'm still boring