My Quiet Space

Photography

2011-05-21T14:42:00.001-05:00

Cathy's Photography

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A little update... a long rant..14 oz of confusion.

2009-10-09T11:43:00.004-05:00

Wow.. nothing since May. Facebook has taken away my will to blog. LOL

Hmmm.. Summer consisted of Heather healing quite quickly from her surgery.

Bethany has a skating/swimming party in late June. Hannah came home from college for the summer. Crista had a very chaotic birthday party which ended in the police parked outside our locked gate.

I started my first job since Hannah was a baby in early August. I'm waitressing at a "fine dining" steak and seafood restaurant. I have some issues with things expected of me at $2.50 an hour (such as hostessing while the owner/hostess eats, ringing up tickets, bussing my own tables, and being left alone at the restaurant lastnight to sweep the entire dining room alone. That involved stacking all of the chairs done the center aisles..) but it's crazy close to home.

I actually wanted to vent about a customer that came in yesterday.

We'll call him "The Swede". He was a very tall, large, man with a blonde chili bowl haircut.
He was in a group of 4. Two couples. When they first arrived I was serving as hostess since the owners were eating in the bar. I led them to the dining room. I noticed one of the women carrying a pack of cigarettes in her hand, so I asked if they'd prefer to eat in the bar, since they could smoke in there. They were pleased, and agreed. On the way to the bar "The Swede" apparently stopped by the counter where we pick up our orders. He saw two Ribeye's up there. The sous chef said he kinda made a face, then walked away. Meanwhile, I was passing out menus, and silverware to the rest of the group. "The swede" while looking at the menu, asked "are those the 14 oz ribeye's they have over there". I had no idea what he was pointing at, because I didn't serve the owners. I asked "Where? Another restaurant around here?" He got gruff, and said "NO, those people eating over there!" I said "Oh, I'm sorry. I'll find out." So I asked the owner if they were having 14 oz ribeyes.. he said "yeah." I should have realized I needed to SCREAM my question to him because apprently all he heard was "mumble mumble, ribeye?".
I told "the swede" that it was indeed the 14 oz. ribeye. He rolled his eyes, and said "I need a little more time to see what I want now."
I left the table to go check on another table, across the restaurant, in the dining room. On my way back towards the table, the owner stopped me and said "Of course we have ribeye! That's one of our best selling cuts of meat.." I said "No, I know that. I was asking if y'all were having the 14oz." He said "OHHHH.. No, we cut those for us. Those were probably only 8oz."
Geez.
So I go to the table and explain to "the swede" the confusion. They all order. Two sauteed chicken, two ribeye med. I could tell you the whole order, but I'll spare you. LOL
tick tock tick tock tick tock... ding.
I deliver the food. "the swede" says "psh. that's smaller than the one they had over there." I ignored the comment, smiled and asked if the gentlemen could cut their steaks to make sure they are cooked to their order. "The swede" grumbled, "Not that it's going to make any difference." I smile. "Can I get any of you anything else?".
I go check on my other table.

I come back to check on them after talking with the sous chef about how he's cantankerous, and unable to be pleased. (The swede, not the sous chef.)

"The swede" says "I thought these were hand trimmed of excess fat? There's a huge strip of fat running right through the center of this steak." I smile and say, "Hang on sir, I'll let you speak to the owner, he's the one that trims the steaks."
"Grumble grumble, undiscernible grumbling"

The owner explained to him that these are prime cuts of beef, and he does trim the fat from the outside.. etc... etc.. etc..

Anyway, after lots more visits to the table, delivering bread, refilling drinks, taking away other guests plates. He sat there looking down at his mostly empty plate. I asked "Sir, would you like a to go box?" "He said "I guess if I'm going to have to pay for this whole thing, I'll give it to my dog." The owner came up to the hostess booth while we were tallying/separating tickets and asked if he was happy "I said no, he cannot be made happy." He told his wife/co-owner/hostess "print him up a gift certificate for $25." She rolled her eyes out of his view. LOL
I delivered their tickets, and informed "the swede" that she had included a $25 GC in the ticket folder. I apologized that he was not pleased. He said "I just won't come back." I smiled, and walked away.
When they all left we opened their ticket books to find the GC with a note saying "You can keep this." His ticket that was over $60. included a gratuity for me for $2.90. When I saw it I was pretty furious. Then I realized, he's just cheap. I feel sorry for the woman that he's with. I hate to think how he treats her if he treats people that serve him so crappy. Not to mention, he's gotta be embarassingto go anywhere with. The people he was with had a ticket at least $10. less, tipped more than twice as much, and they didn't like the creamed spinach (new recipe the sous chef is trying)... LOL
Anyway, I told the manager that I wanted to pull $2 out of my purse and chase him down in the parking lot. "Sir, you obviously need this more than me." She told me I should have.

End.

.....

2009-05-11T08:02:00.001-05:00

Heather's ileostomy reversal surgery is scheduled for June 2nd, 2009.

A day late.

2009-04-30T08:15:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was "Scotty's" birthday. Scotty is Heather's ileostomy that she recieved a year ago after a lost battle with ulcerative colitis. She named him Scotty after hearing him "poot" for the first time a few days after surgery. She says "Scotty shhh!" (Think Austin Powers movies)

Heather's liver is doing quite well. In fact, it's doing so good that her transplant Dr. believes it could be quite some time before she gets a transplant.
For her quality of life he believes that she should get the ileostomy reversal.
We spoke with the surgeon that performed the colectomy, and ileostomy, Dr. Schindle.

He told us of all the risks, including, but not limited to, major blood loss requiring blood transfusions that could put a major strain on her already sick liver.

First we had to get an upper GI done to make sure her small intestine was long enough to reach to her rectum. Something I hadn't even thought about was that when she was an infant and had her cholecystostomy (bile drain surgery) performed , they took a section of jejunum (last part of small intestine) to form her stoma. Resulting in less length, a major concern for Dr. Schindle. After the upper GI they determined that there was plenty of length. Now there's a concern of blood vessels that anchor the small intestine.

After scaring the crap out of all of us, which I'd rather be scared, than caught off gaurd, he said that he believes that for Heather to have any sort of happiness, and quality of life, the risks are not too much to proceed.
We don't have a date yet. The scheduler could have scheduled for May 25th, but Heather's having her 16th Birthday on June 7th (Her birthday is June 8th). She would not want to be healing during her party. Last year she was wearing a wound vac at her 15th birthday party. Her incision site had become badly infected because her liver was so sick from coping with all the blood transfusions. The liver manufactures healing proteins, at least in my understanding.

Heather got a 24' pool from the Make-a-Wish foundation two weeks ago. She's planning a very large swimming/karaoke party.

Dissenchanted

2009-02-24T11:04:00.006-06:00

I've been following this love story for months on Flickr.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29164894>

Amazed by their love through a long distance relationship, and both of their amazing artistry.

I'm sort of at a loss for words right now since it seems Rosie was copying other peoples work from another photography site and not giving credit.
www.rosiehardyplagiarism.tumblr.com

Imitation is the best form of flattery, but not if you don't give credit where credit is due. I still think they are both amazing artists.

I really don't think it's necessary for all these other photographers to lambaste her, or Aaron over the whole scandal. Grow up and let them deal with it.

Wow.. this really is a quiet space.

2009-01-07T11:50:00.002-06:00

I got the DSLR that I've been wanting for about 4 years one week before Christmas. YAY!

I started out wanting the Canon XT, but it wasn't even carried at the store by the time we got around to buying, so I got a Canon Rebel XSI. It came with a kit lens, Mark bought me an extra 75-300mm lens, a big memory card, and a card reader.
You can see some pics on my flickr.. I'm still learning.. so much to learn!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathyt71/

Listed...

2008-12-03T12:49:00.002-06:00

Wow.. can't believe I haven't updated since August.

I got a call yesterday from Heather's transplant coordinator yesterday afternoon. She has been listed for her liver transplant. I hate to think what it means for another family for us to get the call.
Heather is anxious to get things over with. She really wanted the colostomy closed up first, but she has some pretty sever portal hypertension from the liver damage. Doing any other surgery before the transplant would result in major blood loss. So.. transplant first.

Haven't mentioned this here, I hate to even talk about.

Crista has been in serious emtotional turmoil since Heather's hospitalization.She claims it has nothing to do with Heather. She had a lot of responsibility thrust upon her while I stayed at the hospital with Heather. She "coped" by cutting herself. After bringing it up with her ped. at an athletic exam, her ped suggested getting her psychiatric help immediately.
Turns out she's got suicide ideation, and self harm tendencies, as well as severe depression. She's 13 and taking prozac, and seroquel. The prozac was increased to 30 mg before she started acting worse. It has been reduced to 20 mg now. She wasn't telling me, or her therapist that she sees once a week what she was feeling, so the psychiatrists recommended she be admitted to a psychiatric hospital right before Thanksgiving. She was acting "normal" so we decided do it after Thanksgiving. It's so hard to take her in, because she seems OK most of the time, but I know she needs something different than prozac.
On a side note... Shad a UIL competition for 1 act play on Monday and was AMAZING. She won best actress out of all the competing schools.

That's all for now..

Woohoo!

2008-08-25T13:56:00.003-05:00

She got to go to school! Yay!

She was ecstatic..

She decorated several masks. They masks are not required, but I feel better about her being there with them.

Here's a pic of all the girls that went to school. Misty is still a little bummed out about not getting to go to pre-k, but I don't think it's a choice we'll regret.

A very ADD update..

2008-08-20T13:37:00.003-05:00

Feeling really bad about the 4th of July now that I know who called... It was a neighbor who lives pretty far up the road. Apparently one of the neighbors is a miserable pregnant woman. Mark found out from a longtime customer of his that happens to work with her husband.

Hannah went back to college the 15th. She's staying in a VERY nice quad. Here are a few pics...

Heather is doing fairy well. She's been having some problems with her white blood cells. They are VERY low. She didn't get to go to the dentist with her sisters, and there was talk that she may not get to go back to school. We'll find out for sure tomorrow when we visit the hematology clinic at Children's Medical Center in Dallas.
If she does get to go she will be required to wear a mask from the time she leaves the house in the morning, until she gets home. She may decide, depending on peer reactions, whether or not she wants to continue on, or be homebound.
Heather made this little rope swing in a secluded little area on our property... she's quite the little engineer.

She has gotten to reduce her sodium intake to 6 grams a day. She was taking 14 grams, then down to 10 grams for a while. The renal Dr. is hoping to wean her completely off the sodium chloride tablets. Just FYI.. The recommended upper limit of sodium for adults and children more than 4 years of age is 2,400 milligrams per day. There are 1,000 milligrams in each one of her 1 gram tabs. Unfortunately for her kidney's, and blood pressure, the salt is necessary for staying hydrated after losing her large intestine, which a lot of salts, and liquids are absorbed through.

The hottub is no longer being used. We had set it up right before july 4th in hopes of relieving Heather's arthritis pain that's pretty hard to handle as most meds irritate her already damaged liver. Unfortunately, when you are sitting in water, you have no idea how much you are sweating.. when you are running around with dad to get parts, and playing with friends... trying to be a normal teen... you don't drink quite often as you should. In Mid july she had to be admitted again to get her rehydrated. She was dangerously close to renal shutdown. I wasn't with her when she was admitted.. all of the girls had gone for the first time in years to stay with their paternal grandmother. I've always been able to tell when she looks like she hasn't been drinking enough. I could tell that she wasn't and told her she had to promise me to drink plenty while she was gone. She had been putting off a lot of bile, and apparently all the bile loss was making it impossible to get hydrated. No matter how much she drank. I believe being dehydrated from all that caused nausea.. Once she started vomiting it was out of control. I asked my MIL to please take her to the ER ASAP.. I felt horrible because she was already exhausted from her trip home, stressed about what was going on, and Crista, Bethany, and Misty had to stay at her house alone.

Misty will not be starting pre-k... Her daddy is just not ready for her to go just yet. Quite frankly, I guess I'm not ready for my baby to grow up yet either.

4th...

2008-07-08T12:49:00.002-05:00

Mark invited a bunch of his friends over for the 4th of July while I was at the hospital with the girls on Wednesday. Thursday he and Heather repaired the hottub that we got from Freecycle, or Criaglist for free many moons ago.( The one that we got in a wreck going to pick up... )
I'd bought quite a bit of food for grilling, and nobody showed!
We went and got a mess of fireworks. On the way there we stopped at Crista's ex boyfriend's house and invited them over since we get along great with his parents.
We karaoked until ungodly hours.. the cops were called. LOL! Nothing like the police crashing your party in the boondocks to make you feel a little less old.
Pictures..

Hottubbing..

This picture cracks me up... I call it "Bright idea"

Me with Donna.. I was slightly....inebriated.

Donna with the cop..

fireworks..

Whew!

2008-07-07T15:12:00.002-05:00

After a lengthy visit to orthopedics at Children's Hospital in Dallas, we found out surgery is NOT required for Bethany's broken collar bone. YAY!

They say the bone will reform, and even though there's a step in the bones (as seen in x-ray from prior entry), they will reconnect. There'll probably always be a little knot on her collar bone, but I'm just ecstatic that no surgery is required!

What's next?

2008-06-29T10:00:00.004-05:00

Bethany broke her collar bone at her 7th birthday party on Friday.

She was having a really good time, playing with some boys from down the street. The boys were chasing the dogs around the yard, and in the party area under the trees. Tsavo, my border collie, barrelled into Bethany. She was screaming, and crying. Her left knee, left cheek, and left ear all had road rash on them. She wanted to just come inside and lay down. She opened all of her presents, and blew out the candles on the cake all from the couch in the livingroom. I was concerned with the way she was just hanging her arm and wanted to take her to the ER. Mark, my Mother-in-Law, her boyfriend, and the mom of the boys that came to the party all reassured me that she was fine, and it was probably sprained, or just bruised. I felt like they thought I was just over reacting because of all that has gone on with Heather.
Honestly, Bethany has become quite the drama queen here lately, so I had a hard time telling how bad it was as well. I just wanted to find out for sure.
The next morning, Saturday, I took her to the ER. She had an xray.. sure enough, it is completely broken, and overlapping. She has a figure 8 brace holding her arms back a little, and she's taking a tylenol codiene combo. I'll have to take her to an orthopedic Dr. after getting a referral from her Pediatrician on Monday.

Here are some pics from the party... pre chaos.

After the incident..

Her sister's weren't done singing outside yet..

The x-ray, and the brace..

Her cake

Thanks for looking!

Update Mid June

2008-06-13T09:37:00.004-05:00

Heather is doing excellent. The wound from the infected incision is almost completely healed The wound vac was removed about two weeks ago. Her PICC line was removed the same day since she no longer needed IV antibiotics.
That all led to a very happy birthday for her.
We had a pretty good sized karaoke party. Not as many friends as she had hoped showed up, but she had a blast anyway.
She even went to the races with her dad the next day.

Things were a little rocky with Crista for the first two weeks home. She was jealous of the attention that Heather was getting, and particularly the laptop that MIL got Heather while she was in the hospital. I asked her why she was so angry.. she said "I just don't think it's right that she made herself sick by not taking her medicine like she should have, and now she gets all this stuff." I explained to her that Heather's meds had nothing to do with what happened to her. Before all this happened I had been nagging Heather for not taking her meds when she told me she had.
We thought it was the reason she was so jaundiced, but the infection in her intestines is what was causing the jaundice. Her bilirubin levels had gotten as high as 17 in the hospital. I'm pleased to report that on Monday, June 9th, her bilirubin was an 8! Crista understands a little more now, and is less bitter, and more empathetic.

I don't have the time, or patience to resize pics, and figure out their order, so if any of my readers care to see pics of Heather, and Misty's parties, click on the Photobucket link...
If you aren't squeemish, you can check the progress of the healing of Heather's wound, as well as a variety of other pics, on Flickr...

HOME Sweet HOME!

2008-05-26T08:42:00.001-05:00

We're home after 71 days. Heather was discharged on Thursday, May 23rd!

Day 64

2008-05-15T21:25:00.002-05:00

They didn't do the flush this morning. Her bilirubin levels dropped from 17 to 14 overnight. She put off about 50 more cc's of bile through her pouch than she has been putting off. Hopefully the antibiotics they are giving her for her incision infection are helping the possible cholangitis (infection of the bile ducts)that may be causing the decreased flow, abdominal pain, and INTENSE jaundice.

She got the wound vac put on today. Hoping this thing does the trick. It's pretty complicated looking. I'm hoping we can get a home nurse agency to come out to help with it if she's sent home with it.

She has wayyyy too many accessories on her body now.

She's in good spirits in spite of everything. She cracks jokes with the Dr's, nurses, c-techs, and housekeeping ladies. She's truly an inspiration.

Day 63 of the Dreadful GI Hostage Situation.

2008-05-14T13:46:00.002-05:00

That's what Heather's dry erase board says. It's been two weeks since the surgery and we are STILL here. Her bilirubin is up to 17. Her bile ducts have decided they don't want to drain into her bag. However, the new ileostomy is working wonderfully. The incision is infected. It looks pretty bad. I haven't gotten the guts to photograph it yet, but I'm sure I will. Anybody easily grossed out would do well to avoid my Flickr album. After doing some searching through Flickr, I was pleased to see I'm not the only weirdo that photographs post-op pics. There's plenty of us out there.
Tomorrow they are doing a procedure to try to flush her bile ducts to get things flowing.

She's eating a low fiber diet, and loving it. She's requiring 4-5 GRAMS of sodium a day to keep her electrolytes in check. She cannot drink any "free" water at all.. it washes out her sodium.

There's been talk that she may be sent home while the PIC line is still in place. This terrifies me, but not near as bad as the gaping hole in her tummy that I will be dressing a few times daily.

Hoping we go home soon... hope my next blog is from home.

Heather update....

2008-04-30T17:13:00.003-05:00

Her surgery began around 1:45 Tuesday, April 29th. The day after her daddy's 37th b-day.
The surgery lasted a little over 6 hours. The surgeon, Dr. Shindle, had a nurse call us and update us in the waiting room regularly. He had originally planned for 3 hours, but in light of her liver disease, and bad portal hypertension, there were a lot more blood vessels than he had anticipated. We aren't sure whether or not she will be able to have the future operations to close the ileostomy, or not. We just have to wait and see if her sick liver will heal enough to get her through the other operations before she gets her transplant. It's probably not likely to happen if she has to get the transplant first. The immunosuppressants would make it hard for her to heal, from my understanding.

She went straight to the ICU post-op. While it's nice to get all this one on one care for her, there's even less privacy than on the GI floor.... I slept in my clothes, but was called directly after laying down by the charge nurse for the gi floor. I needed to come move all of Heather's stuff out of her room. Two large rolling carts, and one big red wagon filled with clothes, stuffed animals, books, magazines, plants, balloons, etc.. We've been waiting all day to get back to her normal floor.

hmmm

2008-04-24T20:52:00.002-05:00

Her latest colonoscopy on Tuesday showed horrible ulceration. The ulcers "mine" through her intestines. The Dr. said "It doesn't get any worse than this."

This Tuesday Heather is having her large intestine removed, and a "temporary" ileostomy formed. If all goes well, she will get a j pouch formed out of her small intestine in a few months. Then, a few months after that, they will connect her small intestine to the j pouch, and remove the ileostomy.
She's had an ostomy for bile diversion since she was 1 yr. old, but the contents of the new pouch is offsetting to her. I hope all goes well and she will be able to get it temporarily. Strange that she's going from having one bag her whole life, to two bags for a little while, and potentially NO BAG after her liver transplant once all this intestinal stuff is cleared up.

Here's a possibly better description of what she'll be going through...
http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=digestiv/10295

There's some pics on my photobucket.. some of Heather's stay here at Children's Hospital in Dallas, some are pics I've taken when home to see my other sweet girlies on the weekend.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v284/Cathyt71/

Blah...

2008-04-18T11:19:00.002-05:00

Still at the hospital. Remicade was the wrong choice. She tested postive for CMV over the weekend after they already had the super strong immunosuppressant in her system. She's received immunoglobulin, cytogam, gangcyclovir, etc.. trying to fight the virus, in spite of remicade fighting to suppress her immune system.
She's still passing blood.

Her H@H (hemoglobin, and hematocrit) were 7.5 this morning... not the lowest it's been, but not conductive for healing.

She's slowly gaining back some of the 30 lbs lost, but it's taking a highly caloric TPN dose.

No pictures... I'm blogging from Heather's laptop (compliments of MIL) and I lack the patience for dial up since getting DSL at home. Not to mention putting pictures on her laptop is very time consuming.

More on Heather

2008-04-05T12:04:00.003-05:00

She's still there.. started remicaid two nights ago.
She got a PICC line on Monday. She's been getting TPN (total parenteral nutrition) through the PICC line for about 4 days. She's slowly gaining back some of the 30 lbs she has lost while on IV fluids, and nothing by mouth but a few of her meds that can't be mixed into the TPN, or given in a bolust through the IV pump.
I feel awful everytime I leave her for a few days. She's been trapped in her room since March 13th.
She's got to have one more negative stool sample before she can leave the room and look at something other than the damn brick wall outside her hospital room window. She's got the biggest room on the floor, but the crappiest view ever.

Update on Heather

2008-03-30T15:11:00.002-05:00

Heather has been at Children's Hospital in Dallas since March 13th. They have determined that she needs a liver transplant once they get her colitis under control. She had C diff. Her large intestine is seriously damaged, and the bleeding is not going away with steroids.
She has lost over 20 lbs in 2.5 weeks.

Please keep her in your thoughts, and prayers.

Heather.. warning of TMI, for the sensitive.

2008-03-10T08:06:00.003-05:00

Heather had an u/s last week after the GI dr reviewed her labs. Her bilirubin is up to 6. It was at a 3 when the Dr's recommended we up her does of ursodial to 3x a day 3 weeks ago. The u/s showed some gallstones. Most likely there is one plugging a bile duct.
She is very yellow, almost green. She complains very little, but sleeps a lot. Her body isn't absorbing anything anymore. Everything she eats comes out as a bloody watery mess. She's lost 10 lbs.
The Dr's are FINALLY listening to me after hounding them on the phone, and insisting that there is something very wrong. Her endoscopy, and colonoscopy got rescheduled for Friday, March 14th. She will be admitted on Thursday. It seems like a long time now, but it's better than next Friday, and she doesn't have to spend her spring break on a low residue, low fiber, followed by clear liquids, and an insane amount of Miralax diet.

Please keep her in your prayers, thoughts, well wishes, etc..

Greetings

2008-02-26T12:20:00.002-06:00

Please keep Heather in your thoughts/prayers/wishes. She's going through a difficult time with her liver disease. She got sick with the flu, along with the other girls. Crista, Bethany, and Misty are over it, but Heather's liver has a hard time healing after illnesses. Her lab tests showed that her liver is very inflammed. She's yellow, and has sores all over her body from uncontrollable itching.
She's having an endosopy to check for portal hypertension from splenomegaly, and her liver damage, as well as a colonoscopy for another problem that she'd be very upset if she knew I talked about on my blog. So I won't. The procedures will take place on March 21st, at Children's Hospital after a week of low residue diet, followed by a liquid diet containing medicines designed to clean her out completely.

P.S. Imagekind now has an option for buying greeting cards. You choose the piece of art you like, and select it to be printed as a greeting card. You can buy it as a single card, 12 cards, or 24 cards, and they come with envelopes.

Is it tacky that I mentioned this on Heather's post? I'm such a basket case right now, and my mind skips around from one thing to another. It's probably for the best that I haven't been blogging much.. I'd hate to have more crazy posts on here. I cringe when I read through some of my older ones, and have deleted quite a few.

Howdy...

2007-11-02T12:39:00.000-05:00

I'd appreciate anybody interested in any of my photography to please visit a new site I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about.

You can buy prints, select your own mat and frame, or buy using the default frame and mat I have selected.

Things are going well around here. Crista was playing volleyball, but is moving on to basketball now. Bethany was in drill team, but for some reason we weren't contacted for the last few weeks of practice, she wasn't really upset that I know of, but I was upset about the wasted money. We were charged for registration and uniforms. They NEVER got uniforms. The school says they have nothing to do with it. They wouldn't give me a number for anybody that does. Just a name that I couldn't find a number for.
I don't hear much from Hannah. She seems pretty depressed, says she sleeps a lot.

Heather seems irritated that Crista is in the same school as her. Heather would love to be in athletics, but her health problems limit her and she doesn't want to slow down her team.
Unfortunately, in a small town, if you aren't in athletics you aren't "popular".

I am so sick of cliques. I honestly believe it's why I wasn't informed of drill team practices. We are new here. I haven't lived here all my life like most of the moms. They all know eachother, their kids, their husbands, what they drive, where they live, etc...

Mark's shop is pretty much finished. He's moving in equipment now. Just in time for gas prices to climb on back up in the ridiculous range. $3 a gallon. Yikes!

Here's a few pics from the last few weeks.

Bethany practicing drill

Older pic of mark's shop. I need to take some currant ones with the trim in place.

Hannah and Jeffrey took me out to Red Lobster for my birthday in early october. Hannah has pierced her nose since then. We were not amused AT ALL.

Heather and Crista went to Homecoming.

Misty watched the game from a tunnel.

And here's a mess of halloween pics.

"cake walk" cake I made.

Misty was in love with this pirate..

Trick-r-Treating. We had a hay ride around town. It really cut down on adult whining to not have to walk so much for candy you don't even get to eat.. LOL

Summer review...

2007-09-12T08:01:00.000-05:00

No blogs since very early summer?

Yikes! If you're on dial up, you may might to turn and run right now.

Bethany had her b-day party in July, despite the fact that her b-day was in june. We had a lot of issues in the family. Mark was having problems with high blood pressure, and his grandmother passed.
We had a small party with the only child guest Bethany wanted to come. Her boyfriend from Kindergarten.
Her cake.

Blowing out candles.

Bounce house.

Testing her new make-up on misty.

Next, was Crista's birthday in early August.
I had decided to attempt fondant. I was leary not knowing how it tasted. I googled around until I found a recipe that assured an easy recipe, with great taste. Here -->
Marshmallow Fondant 101 It didn't work out that great, but I have to say, Hannah was helping me and it was VERY hot, and stressful. I knew better than to try something new for a party.
My mistake, I'm pretty sure, was using crisco on the counter in the rolling stage. I should have used cornstarch. Also, I think the "dough" could have used more water. It wasn't very elastic. However, it tasted WONDERFUL... seriously. I will try again.
Here are some pics of the cake we lovingly refer to as "Frankencake", since I had to piece it together. Crista said she loved it, and it was very "preppy/punk" looking.

Crista told me she was planning to invite a bunch of friends, but I had NO IDEA there would be close to 25+ 11-14 yr. olds running around our 40 acres. Thankfully, one of her friend's parents had nothing else to do that night and decided to stay to make sure we survived. We also had My mom, and MIL there for assistance.
A portion of the group spent time swimming in the pond. While others hung out in the house, absorbing A/C, and trying to figure out how to play pool without the pool sticks ( Hannah had hidden them because of rough play on the table ) Later, she put the sticks out, but hid all the balls. LOL!

We set up the karaoke system again, and rehung the lights. We had been trenching, and running electrical underground for days so we wouldn't have extension cords everywhere this time. The kids (and adults) always have a blast with it.

Electric Slide.

I took a break from mid august to... uhh.. present day??? to be depressed about Hannah leaving. I'm still feeling very disconnected. I'm just trying to do something a friend described as "fake it till you feel it." I'm not ok. I know it could be worse, and she could have enlisted, or gone out of state, but it still doesn't make my pain any less. There is a college less than 10 minutes from here, and she chose to go to one that took at least 3 hours to get to (of course that was with my mom driving.) However, I'm very proud of her. She has a 4 year scholarship, and her future is wide open. I think she's having a hard time trying to pick where she wants to go from here.
Here she is in her dorm room, she's been there since the 19th. She really isn't as unhappy as she looks in the pic. LOL! She's really happy, and it is a very nice college.

Heather, Crista, and Bethany all started school the 27th.

Looking through my pics in my

This one I refer to as "tree hugger erotica" LOL

These are not for the faint of heart.. tree bondage. (I really wonder how long these trees have been wrapped by barbed wire for it to be growing around the wire?)

Crista joined the volleyball team.. here are some pics of Heather and Crista practicing in the yard.

Thanks for looking!

uhh... yeah

2007-06-29T17:43:00.000-05:00

We had three graduations. Hannah is going to UNT despite our objections.

Misty turned three, and Heather turned 14.

My garden is doing AMAZING.

Here's some pics.

Misty's 3rd.

pic of her dinosaur cake with volcano.

bethany graduated kindergarten.

heather graduated 8th.

hannah graduated high school.

Megan (hannah's best friend), Mrs Gifford (hannah's favorite teacher in the world), Jeffrey (hannah's boyfriend), and Hannah

I finally got a lavender rose bush to grow. I've planted quite a few bushes only to have the wrong color bloom..

We had a huge bash outside under the trees I cleared in the fall for Heather's b-day. 5 picnic tables that had been slightly weathered, a flatbed trailer with microphone stands, a TV, and a huge karaoke sound system all made for a great party for the kids, adults, and teens.

girlies singing on "stage"

rednecks dancing

cake

garden pics

This is the garden after I stepped on a thorn in early june. The thorn impaled the ball of my toe and left me useless for weeks. The weeds and grass completely overtook my garden after torrential rains that have recently returned.

corn

zucchini.. apparently our soil is VERY well suited for zucchini. We have had an abundance of mutant zucchini.

monster zucchs

one of MANY loaves of zucchini bread... yummmmm

cantalope

I'm a little less than amused about my hanging planters. They aren't doing nearly as well as I was led to believe they would. Here's a hanging jalapeno.

What the hell.. two more random pics
Scary storm cloud from a day or two ago.

Pretty little lola. A Bassett Hound pup.

Another Hannah Post.

2007-05-14T20:58:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'll talk about somebody else once the graduation is over..

Last Friday we went to the awards ceremony for all the high school students. Hannah, Jeffery, and Megan were commended for all of their extracurricular activities. NOSB, Robotics, and UIL. Then the scholarships were awarded. Hannah won three scholarships. One for $250.00. Another for $1,000.00. And the best one, a semester paid in full.

Bethany graduates Kindergarten on the 18th, Heather graduates 8th grade on the 24th, and Hannah will graduate highschool on the 25th.

Prom Week

2007-04-30T07:36:00.000-05:00

Finally! Now we can concentrate on graduation preparation!

We went through three different shades of brown hair color before finally finding a shade that we all agreed looked good on Hannah. My mom keeps asking why she wants her hair colored so dark. I think it's her way of separating herself from me in preparation for leaving. *sob*
The color we ended up liking is called "cinnamon". Anything that was ash brown, had green undertones, and the lady at Sally's Beauty Supply made sure to let Hannah know that her hair was indeed green.
Anyway, My mom came out on Wednesday, while Mark was in Houston at the Space Center with Crista. We went shopping at Town East Mall on Thursday. Hannah found a bag a Icess Bridal fashions. She found hair clips at Claire's, and we exchanged a ring that my Mother-In-Law had gotten her as a birthday present for a bigger size. We had Misty with us, and was amazingly well behaved for a bored almost three yr. old.
Later that evening she took up Hannah's dress because it was a little loose, and a little long.

Thursday she colored her hair. Then, she went home. I took Hannah and Jeffrey to a friends house to take some pics for graduation invitations. I will probably have to retake, because it was just a tad bit past the "magic hour". Mark got back from Houston around 9:00 and left immediately to go work on some heads for a customer who had been calling him the whole time he was gone.*eyeroll*

Friday, Mark left around 10am to catch a flight to Talladega to go party at the redneck version of Mardi Gras. His friends had RV'd up there while he was in Houston. Crista rode the bus home with a friend, Heather had two friends over to stay the night. One of which has a mom that has a garage that has been converted into a nice little beauty shop. Lisa just had a baby boy on April 13th, but is still doing hair and nails for many of the girls around here for prom.
Saturday, we got up early, made breakfast, showered, and got ready to head to the beauty shop. She wanted to get her nails done. She didn't want fake nails, just a nice paint job. Hannah has a nervous habit of chewing on her cuticles, and Lisa assured her that she could "dress" her cuticles. Boy, did she ever! You honestly couldn't tell she'd ever had a problem after Lisa was done. I wish I had taken a before pic.

She drove with her fingers splayed apart after making me fasten her seatbelt, and put the car in gear.
We headed to Megan's house where they would get ready, and meet up with their dates. Megan is Hannah's best friend.
Megan and I had curling irons going on both sides of Hannah's head, and got it fixed up in no time.

The girls weren't quite ready when Jeffrey showed up looking very handsome. Megan had been calling her date trying to find out where he was. He was very late, and driving all the way from Garland, to Sulphur Springs.
Once they were dressed, and decided he just wasn't going to make it there, they decided to have him meet them at Jeffrey's house, which was half way between there, and where they were going.
Megan's mom, and I decided to take pics before they left. I feel awful for Megan, but she handled it well.

Then we went outside and took some pics. While standing out front of the house, I noticed the neighbors yard across the street had some beautiful roses. Megan's mom yelled to the kids "go stand over by those roses!!" LOL They REALLY didn't want to. Her mother assured them the neighbor would not mind at all.

After a couple of shots by the roses, I could tell they were getting irritated with posing. I said "Ok.. now pose however you want.. cut up for a few shots."
And here's what we got...

I almost cried on my drive home all alone. My eyes start to sting, and my heart swells in my throat as I think about how fast her life has flashed by. She's grown up sooooo fast.

It's good to be the king.

2007-04-07T23:39:00.000-05:00

While anxiously awaiting the return of the final season of "The Sopranos", I started watching "The Tudors". I HIGHLY recommend it. It's a nice little medley of gratuitous sex with a gorgeous king, extravagant costumes, betrayal of loyalty, and marriage.
It has also served to make me very anxious for our annual trip to Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie. They opened their gates April 7th, and will run through May 28th.

Weeee!!!

2007-04-05T19:15:00.001-05:00

So glad spring is here. I think this last little cold blast we are having is going to be it. Then, it's time to get everything in the ground. Apparently, I have some inkling of intuition about these things! *wink*

Today we had to have our house jacked up. The ground had done a lot of shifting and settling since being put here 2 years ago. We had windows that were stubborn to open, and doors that were hard to close. The nice guys that came to do it saw my little tomato plants and asked if we had ever grown them upside-down. Mark and I looked at each other kind of funny. Then, we decided to listen to his story. He said that years back he had worked at the campbell's soup factory. Nearby he met an old african american gentleman that showed him this technique of growing tomatoes that led to a HUGE crop of tomatoes. I'm very anxious to get mine started. I'm thinking of trying the growing technique with blueberries as well.
Read more Here

Prom time!

2007-03-14T15:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Hannah and I went shopping with my mom. We started out at a nice little shop in Collin Creek Mall. Hannah was less than enthused about all the embellishments on all the dresses.
When Hannah was little, I dressed her in dresses all the time. As she grew, she liked dresses less and less. She became a "tom boy" by 6th grade.

Hannah spotted a dress that wasn't overly embellished. It was a dark forest green. We chased down the cute little asian lady that was tending the store. I said "She'd like to try this on, but we aren't sure on her size." The little lady circled behind Hannah, placed her hands on her ribcage, waist, then hips. She announced rather loudly, "ohhhh you a laahhhhge". Hannah looked at me with disgust in her eyes. The little lady walked over to the area where more sizes of the dress hung and announced even louder "ohhhhh.. we no have a laaahge, you try extra laaaahge?"
Hannah turned to me and said flatly, "I want to go somewhere else, right now."

We tried Dillard's, Foley's, and Macy's. No luck. We went into Claire's because my mom needed to pick up something for one of my nieces. We saw a girl working there that was about the age of 20. My mom asked her where in the world to find a good selection of prom dresses. She mentioned Whatchamacallit Fashions on Preston, in Dallas. We got there and it was like a dance club with dresses of every color and style imaginable hanging on the walls. There are some dresses out there that I really have to wonder wht the designers were thinking. Hideous. Seriously. At first Hannah was trying to stick to just trying on dresses of orange, pink, or green. She wanted something that would be very girly since she is usually anything but girly.
Here is the first dress she tried on. She was less than impressed that I had a camera whipped out.

Here's a mossy green one that I found that was going to need some serious repairs before leaving the store. There were a lot of sequins missing.

I had to beg her to try on a lavender dress. I've always thought lavender looked amazing with her blue eyes. I almost sobbed when she opened the door. She didn't like the way it fit her chest.

Being laced into a very barbie pink dress.

Another two shots of the barbie pink dress that became a contender in the battle of dresses.

The contending dresses.

Nana and Hannah discussing the two contenders.

Hannah calling her best friend Megan to discuss the dresses, ask for direction.

Shopping for dyeable shoes.( I thought the converse off to the side was ironic.)

Here's the winner. It's champagne. Not gold. I think it'll look great with her hair that she just dyed a very dark brown.

A sunday drive...

2007-03-12T14:50:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I found 2 free hottubs. One on http://dallas.craigslist.org/ in Corinth, and one on Plano's freecycle, in Anna.

We left Heather and Crista to babysit the youngest two, Misty and Bethany. We took Hannah with us because we figured it would take the strength of three to lift the tubs onto the trailer we had borrowed from Marty, a close friend of Mark's.

It was a tight fit in Mark's little S10 pickup. Mark was driving, i was squished in the middle, with my body twisted and my legs pushed off to the right, next to Hannah's. Hannah was squished against the door. We were seated legally, all with seatbelts on. Thankfully, we had completely emptied the back of the pickup of all engine blocks, pistons, heads, carburators, and whatever else pieces of heavy metal that would have smashed in our heads upon impact.

We stopped at a stoplight in Princeton Texas. We were sitting for a good 10 seconds when I heard Mark say "OH SHIT!!!" Then the impact. My head flung forward and hit the rearview mirror. Then immediately flung back and hit the back window. I didn't even know I had hit the mirror. Most of the pain I felt was in the back of my head.

Anyway.. our friends trailer was pushed up under the backend of the truck. His car appeared unharmed, but apparently had a lot of internal damage. There was radiator liquid all over the ground. He had hit as at approx 60 MPH. That's quite an impact. I'm just glad Hannah wasn't in the middle.

Anyway... here's some pictures I took with the new camera I got. My old camera finally died. I got a newer model of pretty much the same camera. It's a Kodak with 6 mp. The old one was 2 mp. Mark still plans to buy me an slr, I just haven't decided whether to go with the Canon rebel xti, or a nikon d80, or better.

Here's the guy's car.

Two shots of the truck

Here's the guy's car going onto the tow truck, and some of the help that arrived. There were a lot of very nice and helpful paramedics, and policemen.

Update

2007-02-12T11:17:00.000-06:00

I don't have any idea where the rest of that blog went, or where the hell I was going with it. Whatever. The computer started having issues again. I've been jonesing to check my regular internet spots for days. Blogger isn't letting me use the picture adding feature, but Mark was able to upload some pictures from my camera by taking the memory card out, and sticking it in the camera we got Heather for Christmas. We bought a new USB cord for my camera saturday night at Frye's. Unfortunately, the problem is with the USB intake on my camera not the USB cord, like we thought. While we were at Frye's I decided I had better get serious about choosing my future camera since mine is pretty much useless now. How depressing.
So anyway.. I'm sort of back online.

Pfthhh.. blargh

2007-02-09T10:57:00.000-06:00

Can't add pictures through blogspot again. Grrr... Not that I have any very recent pictures to add.

Last weekend we were all invited to a Superbowl Party. I decided to make a cake. Mark asked the host if there was anything else needed at the party, and he requested my potato salad. I was later told that he loves it because it reminds him of his mom's potato salad. (Awwwwww)

I stayed up late saturday night decorating the cake, and making potato salad. All the while sipping on margaritas.. yum. The cake turned out pretty cute. I decided I should take a quick picture and put it in my photobucket to show my mom, the football aficionado. Since it was late, I decided to just take a pic of it in the fridge. Thinking I'd take another one in the morning when the kitchen was clean, or at the party. Mainly, I just wanted to make sure I got at least one picture of the cake in case little people happened into the kitchen before I could wake up to guard the fridge doors to prevent them from digging little fingers into the icing.

So Sunday morning I sat down with the intentions of loading pictures. I plugged the USB cord into the front of the computer.Then, I plugged the other end into the camera. I heard a strange beep, looked at the monitor and saw in the bottom right corner a little pop-up that read "USB SURGE". I freaked out and turned the power off to the camera, followed by unplugging the USB cord quickly. Still beeping. HORRIBLE BEEPING. I held down the power button on the computer. A big nono, I know. I felt anxiety wash over me. I turned the power back on... beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. It was locking up at the boot. O M G.

We went to the party, everybody raved about the cake. The potato salad was well liked.

When we got home, Mark tried to fix the computer. He said he was pretty sure it was "fried". I pictured three years worth of digital pictures lost. I haven't taken hardly any film pics, and printed only a few of my digital since my youngest was born. Since October '03 I have

My, how fast they...

2007-01-17T08:25:00.000-06:00

I decided to go ahead and get this out of my system. I've been lamenting over it for some time, but if I hold it in until the last minute, I may implode.

This is Hannah as a baby. An amazingly intelligent baby, and toddler. She did EVERYTHING early, according to the stacks of Parent's and Parenting magazines that were delivered to the apartment of a teen mom living with her parents.

Growing into a sweet little girl that handled the births of man siblings with much grace and tolerance. Most children surely would have become total asses when faced with all the changes that occured in the 2 years before she started Kindergarten.
First, her mommy that use to spend all of her time and attention on her started dating, and then married a man. Next, she became a big sister for the first time. Not just a big sister, but a big sister to a child that had a mystery illness that required constant hospital visits, and took all attention away from her.
Next, her "papa" finally got caught being a screw-up. He was a total jackass to me growing up, but a pretty decent grandfather to her. He was put in prison for many years for selling marijuana to an undercover agent.
Finally, her "nana", who had always been an alcoholic, and we still laugh, (even while cringing) at some of her drunken stories. Like the time Hannah was staying the night with her, but couldn't wake her up. So she called us at the age of 4, to come get her. We didn't wake my mom. We just took her and left. My mom called my sister when she woke up to see if she knew where she was. This was actually a pivotal moment for our whole family. I told my mom that Hannah could not see her anymore. My mom got sober, and has been since August 7th, 1994.
Three more children were born after that, but this story is about Hannah....

*sniff*
This is my baby almost all grown up. CRAZY smart, and amazingly mature.
She's graduating high school this spring. She got an impressive score of 27 on her ACT.
She's going to the coast for an aquatic science competition in the next few months. I'm very proud of her.
Yet...
Despite the fact that we live very near a College, she wants to go to a college farther away, in Denton.
We only recently started letting her drive without one of us in the car. She hasn't had a job yet, she CAN'T be ready. How can she be ready? *sigh*

I'm certainly not.

Oh yeah.. I'm putting this in here just in case he ever happens to google his name, maybe he will find this.
Hannah would like to meet her father. She's not expecting a great relationship after how things went when I met my real father, and stories she's heard from friends that met their dad.
She just wants to meet you. She's also curious about other half siblings she may have.
So.. Frederick or Fred Gillman Carpenter, Birthday September 20something, 1971. From Lubbock, Tx., Plano, Tx., and possibly the Sugarland, Tx. area. Please contact me.

Thanks

Imprint

2007-01-13T11:17:00.000-06:00

I received a copy of Masters Of Horror's "Imprint" from a friend a few months back. I did some googling to find out just why Showtime had decided not to air it.
I read that there were quite a few visions of aborted fetus' and I just wasn't ready to see that. Well, Lastnight I got brave and decided to watch it. OHMYGOD.
I woke up thinking about what I saw. Takashi Miike is a sick and twisted genius. I think he thought to himself "Self, what is the most disturbing thing I could show these desensitized American's?" He definately found it. Even Mick Garris, creater and executive producer for MOH, and co-creater for the Hot Blood Anthologies, was quoted as saying " "It's definitely the most disturbing film I've ever seen." Read some reviews here at Amazon

umm... yeah

2007-01-12T11:16:00.000-06:00

Around Thanksgiving Crista's Hamster had 9 babies. Around Christmas she gave away three. Yesterday 5 were attacked by mom, and 1 is being nurtured back from near death by Crista, and is doing quite well. They were just too old to be living with mom, and she lost her mind..
I was exercising with 4 of my 5 girls and thought it was definately a kodak moment.
Hannah made her boyfriend a birthday cake. Yes, it's quite graphic. There's a long story behind the cake, and it has nothing to do with pregnancy. I was proud that she did it by herself.
Mark has always had Boston Terriers. We got one right before Christmas. They aren't the cutest pups, but they grow up to be loyal family members. Obviously, he will be an indoor only pet. He and Tsavo get along great. Tsavo thinks he is his dad.
Mark got the slab for his shop poured right before Christmas. The girls were writing their names in the concrete.

I didn't make any New Years resolutions. But if I had to make one it would be to blog more.

Tsavo

2006-11-25T16:41:00.000-06:00

We've gotten yet ANOTHER dog. We seem to have really bad luck with pets since moving out to the boonies. At first, in an attempt at humor to lessen the sting of the heartbreak, we jokes that sasquatch was taking all of our pets. It stopped being funny.
Since moving here we have lost Ziggy, Daisy, Opie, and Bubba.
We live on a fully fenced 40 acres. There are escape holes, but the dogs stay on our property for the most part. The problem is a neighbors dogs. They come onto our property every morning. We discovered one of our pups dead earlier this week on their property. We're assuming the pups followed the pack over to their place and met their demise on their land.
I don't know if this is considered premeditated murder, but we have plans to shoot any other animals discovered on our property.

Anyway, While reading through my email I got a message from my local freecycle. Somebody was giving away a Border Collie. Her post mentioned that he showed up on her porch in really bad shape. We decided to go take a look to see if it was really a Border Collie, check out his disposition, and what shape he was in.
I was AMAZED. I have always wanted a Border Collie, and he was gorgeous. Less than a year old, yet housebroke, and very well mannered.
He's very tolerant of being laid all over by the girls. I was very opposed to an indoor pet.

But......

"I wanted a Guinea pig"

2006-11-20T10:39:00.000-06:00

That's what Bethany told us friday night after we rushed a little over 62 miles from Plano to Cumby to retrieve two popcorn kernals from her ears.

Mark and I had gone to the Karaoke store at Collin Creek Mall. We were getting ready to meet his mom at El Paso for an adult meal with adult conversation. Just as we were getting out of the truck, Hannah called. I hear terror in Mark's voice..."She did WHAT?!?!" "You have GOT to be shitting me!?". (For some reason he will never interrupt a phone conversation to tell me what he's freaking out about. I have to wait till he has hung up.) My heart pounds as I resist the urge to grab the phone from him.
He shuts his truck door, gets ready to dial his mom to tell her what's going on,and to cancel meeting us up there. I stop him. "WHAT'S GOING ON?!?!"
There was a lot of anger in the first 20 minutes of the trip home. We called back a few times to instruct the older girls to keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn't rubbing or poking, thus pushing them in farther. Another call to ask what everybody was doing while she was putting the popcorn in her ears. Yet ANOTHER call to tell them to locate the bulb syringe for when we got there.
Our monstrosity of a pool table served for our "operation" table. a very BRIGHT construction light illuminated the area. A pair of curved tweezers, and a vacuum cleaner with a few modifications served for extraction. The bulb syringe was useless. She had already been trying to remove them before telling her big sisters who were beside themselves with guilt over the whole situation.

On the ride home we had contemplated going to the ER. We realized that it being a friday night, and not that big of an emergency compared to what else may be rolling in, that we should give it our best shot at home.
Mark got pretty frustrated at a few points as he was the extractor. We almost gave up to head out for that hellacious waiting room. I just had the task of holding her still. We finally got them out and I have to tell you, the relief of them coming out was darn close to the same relief of getting a child birthed.
We asked her why she did it, she said "I wanted a guinea pig." I'm sure there's a logic in there that I'm missing. But.... yeah. Me too. A guinea pig would be much easier.

BTW, I'm feeling much better.. thanks for all the support.

Anti-Social

2006-11-05T20:41:00.000-06:00

I guess I don't do well with the end of summer. I've noticed a trend for the past two years. Almost like clockwork. As soon as the temps drop, I get depressed and anti-social. I contemplate deleting my blogs, message board accounts, and my local yahoo moms group account. I did it last year. I convince myself that everybody hates me and pretty much just tolerates my presence.

It's not just online "relationships" either. After the Halloween party that I mentioned in my last blog, there were apparently some rumors going around that my oldest was up to no good at the party. Somehow she was confused with other groups of kids that were up to no good, but for some reason she and her friend were the ones that all of the rotten stories were constructed around. All of the stories from the night have been matched with the right kids, but the damage is already done IMO. Im amazed that full grown professional women of high standing in the community would spread rumors all around town without knowing the facts. I've seriously contemplated not seeing any of these "friends" anymore because the women that were spreading the rumors are close friends with them. I'd really have a hard time not kicking somebody in the face.
I don't think my children are flawless by any stretch of the imagination, and I know a lot of moms say this, but my daughter tells me the truth about everything, whether I want to hear it or not. I know what they were and weren't doing at the party, and to hear the outrageous stories and hearing from friends of friends what she supposedly did, well.. it pissed me off.
Soo... I'm going to do my best to not delete anything. If I do, I'm sure I'll get over my funk come springtime.

Halloween!

2006-11-02T12:40:00.001-06:00

Hope you had a safe and happy Halloween. If Halloween isn't something you celebrate, I hope you weren't annoyed by trick-or-treating kiddos. I honestly had no idea this was a problem for people until I was cruising the Rants and Raves section on Craigslist. For the people that don't like little ghouligan's knocking on their door, leave your porch light off, and don't open your door. Sheesh.

We started celebrating on Thursday night. Mark and I had cocktails while helping a friend decorate for their annual Halloween party that we attended for the second time this year on Saturday.
Here's some pics from the Halloween Party.
In the slideshow (that I'm hoping will work) is pics of Hannah and her bestest friend ever as 1950's pin up girls, Misty and Bethany as faeries, Heather as a dark faerie, Crista as a devil, Mark as a vampire, and me as a french maid. I believe there's also a picture of a retired hooters girl with very large sagging breasts, and Marty, the host of the party in drag. LOL Misty use to be really excited to see Marty. She'd see his white truck and scream "MAAAARRRTTTYYYYYY!!!"
Things just haven't been the same between them since she saw his furry face surrounded by a blonde wig.
We thought she didn't know who he/she was, but she saw his picture pop up on the monitor as we were loading and viewing pics after the party. She shook her head in disgust, and said "marty......"

Slideshow

On Tuesday, we took the three youngest girls trick-or-treating. Heather walked with us, but after a heated mother/daughter argument before leaving the house, she decided she was going to punish me by not trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, I really think this is the last year she could have gotten away with it. Hannah stayed home and cleaned house for me since the chaos seemed like an omen for WAYYYY too fun of an evening in the forecast.
Since we had a cold front, the girls wore different costumes than they had worn the warm night of Marty's party.
Bethany was a skunk. Misty was a pierrot clown. Both were costumes made by my mom way back when Hannah was little. They have held up well through the years.
Here's Misty as the clown.

Bethany as a skunk.

We love love our little bitty podunk town. The girls saw their teachers and many classmates. Where we use to live, the kids went to all the larger towns in hopes of getting more candy, and avoiding weirdo lake-people, christian's that preach to the children about how wrong it is to trick-or-treat, and the "penny guy" that forgets to turn off his porch light and hands out change in lieu of candy.
I got a picture of something pretty offensive while we were out trick or treating. I won't post the pic here, but if you comment, and would like to see a picture of what's funny for the youth in our little Texas town to dress as...... Comment with your email address in the comment and I'll send a pic. Just know that you were warned it *IS* very offensive.

MOH2 Tonight!!

2006-10-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

'nuff said.

Abandoned

2006-10-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Wow, has it really been two months? Funny thing is, my last blog as on August 28th. Mine and Mark's 14th anniversary.

I've been watching Dexter, as mentioned in another blog. It's ok, but I apparently had it built up in my mind to be sooo much better.
Still looking forward to the new season of "Masters of Horror". The new season starts the 27th oc October. I've already set my DVR to record it.

We've been busy with lots of construction around the land. Mark has been leveling an area of land with a dozer to pour a slab for his shop, and working on a 2 story monstrosity of a storage building at the same time.

I've been trimming up little random forests on the property. We have thorn trees everywhere and it makes spelunking painful. Unless you are a 2' tall person trying to run from a 5'+ person, you will not come out without looking like you were attacked by Freddie Krueger. Once all the piles of brush have been carried off, I will share pics of the transformation.

Hannah was in a Robotics competition on the 21st of October. She and three other seniors designed, built, and learned to operate a robot that placed 9th out of 22. The other teams were considerably larger and had coaches that came from Raytheon and other technical businesses. The competition is sponsored by Raytheon every year.
I'm really amazed at what they were able to accomplish between the three of them in only 6 weeks. AMAZED.

Here's a pic of the robot.

The "L" Word

2006-08-28T09:36:00.000-05:00

No.. not another Showtime series.

LICE.

*shudder*

One of my biggest phobias. My girls and I all have very long hair. Needless to say, treating for lice would be a tramatic experience. We don't have it, but Mark's friends daughter was sent home after one nurse said she did, another nurse said she didn't, neither mom nor dad could find any evidence, but treated her anyway.
Next thing you know, dad brings her over here. WTF?? Give it a few days after treating to make DAMN sure.

This is the same girl that came over and brought a pukey/diarrhea bug with her just a few months back. We were living in the one bathroom house at the time. Picture 6 out of 7 people fighting over the toilet.

KEEP YOUR KIDS AT HOME IF THEY HAVE COMMUNICABLE ISSUES.

Oh YAY!!

2006-08-26T10:32:00.000-05:00

Showtime will be starting a new series this fall called "Dexter". It stars Micheal C. Hall. You know, from "Six Feet Under"? SFU is one of my favorite cable series EVER. Tied for a close second are "Tales from the crypt" and "Masters of Horror".

Hall plays a very likeable forensic specialist that moonlights as a vigilante type serial killer. At least that's the take I'm getting from previews I've seen and read.

AND......

"Masters Of Horror" Will be airing 12 new episodes in October! Woohoo!

Guilty

2006-08-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

Yikes, been forever since I've blogged.

Hannah came home from school yesterday telling me about a video she had watched on a PSP in one of her classes. She said it was HILARIOUS, and I just had to see it. So, after a quick google search we found it and began the torturous dial up wait. The video fetures a man that supposedly has been without antidepressants and is losing it on a bunch of cats.
I think it's a bunch of crap and the guy is just an ASSHOLE. If he was truly having a bipolar moment, he wouldn't be filming it for prosperity. Despite my loathing of cats, I felt sorry for them when the clip played fully without the pauses. It's too much to handle in one flowing clip.
Although, the scene that really had me rolling was the scene in which the cat is lying in a chair glaring with narrowed eyes at the videographer, then the guy screams and the cats eyes grow to saucer proportions. I feel REALLY bad for laughing now though...
Here's the video (if this works.)

Shape of a Mother

2006-07-28T17:03:00.001-05:00

This should be recommended viewing/reading for all female pre-teens, teens, women TTC, pregnant women, and women in their post partum.

Shape of a Mother

I visit at least every other day and there is always a couple if new stories with pictures that make me feel a little better about my body after 5 children. When the media is full of starlets with perfect pastpartum bodies.. it's kind of hard to not feel alone in what you think is a world free of cellulite and stretch marks.

I could go on for hours about the horrible self image I had as a teen despite having had a body that I'd love to have now. We never appreciate what we have till it's gone. I am so thankful a friend of mine sent me and a few other friends a link to another site that linked to "Shape of a Mother". I have a really hard time convincing my daughters that they are beautiful no matter what flaws they may think they have when I am so unhappy with myself and display a poor self image.

Kudos to the creator of the page, and Kudos to the women who are baring their bodies and souls.

What evil is this?

2006-07-11T23:55:00.000-05:00

Looks like an innocent little toddler, huh? Well, as innocent as a 2 year old can be anyway...
The evil that dwells within her is well hidden by her chubby cheeks and sparkling brown eyes.
Despite having four girls older than her, I have NEVER experienced the type of horrifying messes that she can produce in a very short time.
She's lost all interest in potty training. In fact, I think she's either in some sort of rebellion, or has become possessed by the golgotha demon.

A quiet moment for her means time to have a BM in secret, sit down or bounce on the bed or couch till the poo is sufficiently squished inside of her diaper and every square inch of flesh covered by diaper is now covered in poo. Thanks to modern technology, diapers have velcro on them now. Something not available for my first 4 daughters. Misty can rip open the velcro with great ease and toss it. The diaper will invariably land poo side down, much like the buttered toast effect. If I'm lucky, I'll hear the diaper hit the floor or a sibling screaming "EEEWWWWWW, GROSS, MISTY!!!". If she's not caught she morphs into the golgotha shit demon from "Dogma" and is completely covered in poo and slinging poo in all directions as you try to capture her from behind with fingertips only, so as to keep as little poo from touching you as possible on the way to the bathroom. Thank god for a detachable shower head.

Sorry my blog has been so crappy lately...

Hmm... The penny was a no show. At least I think it was...

2006-06-29T16:34:00.000-05:00

Very soon after the penny incident we contracted the black plague from the daughter of one of Mark's friends. Last week she came to play with the girls while her dad went to work on a customers car with Mark, and her brothers rode horses. She asked if I had anything for stomach upset . I said "No, why?". She said "I'm having really bad diarrhea.. it's been happening all day." Not too long after that she was asking for a blanket because she was cold...
Two days later, the day before Bethany's scheduled B-day party, I was awakened by Heather calmly stating "Bethany just puked all over the bed."
From then on I wasn't following Bethany to the bathroom, and Misty was infected pretty soon after. I'm sure if Bethany hadn't passed the penny she wouldn't have been able to poo.. and she did that plenty.

2006-06-21T21:18:00.000-05:00

Still waiting for the penny to pass....

Is it insane for me to consider cleaning it off, (assuming it's easy to access) bag it in a ziplock and keep it in her baby book?
I ask this because she was appalled when I mentioned doing this to her daddy. "I DON'T want a poopy penny in my baby book!!!"

Maybe I'll hide it with all the teeth the tooth fairy has collected over the years..

2006-06-20T17:07:00.000-05:00

Bethany swallowed a penny today.. She was pretty upset about it. When she told me she had swallowed it she had that look of "crap, she was right about not putting money in my mouth. I'm freaking out, but I'm not sure why, or what's going to happen, but now I'm going to have to admit it." The nice man with poison control said to let her drink and watch for signs of obstruction.
She's been able to swallow lots of water, a peanut butter/jelly sammich, a grilled drumstick, more water, and some milk. She's very anxious for things to pass on through.

2006-06-06T18:43:00.000-05:00

Bethany is convinced that she can make "Heart eyes" at us. She will look at us and stare real intently, almost as though she's straining her whole body. The first time she did it, I thought she was fixing to go to into a seizure of some sort. I said "Beth, are you OK?", "Yup! I'm loving you with my heart eyes!"
We tell her that we can see her heart eyes.
The bad thing is, when we have a visitor and she gives them heart eyes, they don't know why she's looking at them like a psychotic killer.

Speaking of psychotic, todays date has brought about a lot of controversy. The release of the remake of "The Omen". I checked out Babycenter.com's June 06 board. I saw that quite a few moms were concerned about delivering on that date. I started picturing headlines. (I'm weird like that)
"Scientoligst's wife who delivered on 666 suffered PPD and was convinced child was the devil"

2006-05-31T10:49:00.000-05:00

I need to purge...WARNING!!!! This will be a VERY long blog.

We will start with the letter my asshat of a dad wrote my sister. The communications between the two of them occured in Early May.

"Tina I owe you a major apology. I left saturday because I was extremely depressed to realize you actually knew Frea was a rotty/wolf cross breed and still let it live. I have no first hand experience with them but I read a tremendous selection of articles and this breed although tiny in comparison is responsible for close to .05 % of total injuries to people by canine crosses considered "dangerous" by section 822 of the texas codes. Considering you were bit by a tiny dog please consider what it could do to Jessie or Katy in a new york second before you could even have time to yell NO. It was eating me up and I felt I had no business saying anything and after 10 years in the airforce I learned to keep my mouth shut unless asked and never volunteer for anything. I am not a confrontational type of person, and I still feel like more of a guest or visitor than a family member, and I let it get me so upset I felt I had to leave or I was going to explode on you or Nate, I had even considered putting the dog down to just do away with any arguements over its potential for erratic behavior not minimized by "training". And then your efforts to "train" the girls to not play with a dog of any breed on the dogs level is unreasonable in my opinion. Please consider dumping Frea on some mexicans and let her go nuts on them not my grandchildren. There are dozens of other dog breeds much better suited for homes with children and infants.
I am not particularly proud of this next item but it is me and I can't change my feelings on the subject. I have a major problem with tattoos on anybody. Nates crude behavior such as blowing farts gained him no resemblence of respect. I am sorry to be such a bigoted asshole but I have been around a long time and see nothing but immature behavior by him and am concerned if he doesn't mature a lot he won't have much of a future, his assinine demands regarding not buying anything from walmart is from an erroneous assumption we are "financing" communist china. When in reality we are using them as slave labor for slave labor prices for digitial cameras, dvd players and recorders and cheap but functional clothes He is forgetting a major point!! By buying products from other countrys including crude oil and cameras we are making them use up their resources instead of ours so when they start running out we still have our reserves to fall back on till new technologies are developed. If he were smart he would be buying every thing he could at wallyworld and drain the other countries dry. I do refuse to buy exxon and mobile gas and all the generic gas stations that get their supplies from guess who? Exxon and mobile.
My apology to you is for my not saying anything to you or Nate but to just slink off like a thief in the night and leave you to wonder why I left with no explanation. I am truly sorry for my rude behavior."

Here is her reply.. (gotta love the spunk of a daughter scorned twice by a shithead dad)

"You can keep your apology.

I'm not sorry I meet you at least I know what your like now.

I'm sorry for you! that your life has been like it has. Maybe if you would have had a family you could have learned more about what is really important about people. How they act and treat their kids matters most- not what color they are or how they look on the outside. Tattoos or no tattoos, Nate would die before letting one of his children get hurt.
Nate farts loud is the best you could come up with! The man has so many more actual faults you could have attacked with stunning success Come on you can do better then this!
That your complaining about another man's gas when you're the most gaseous thing next to the planet Jupiter. OMG do you have to burp loud enough the neighbors hear it?

Shop at Walmart= destroy other nations resources!! Wake up the only nation shopping at Walmart will destroy is the good ol' U. S. of A. I know you watch PBS for the antique roadshow watch anything with substance like frontline? You would have seen this then http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/ .

You read an article on the interwebs? Amazing you must know everything there is to know about dogs now! I bow before you greatness! My eight years of handling literally over a thousand dogs is worthless in comparison. Give me a break. My job was to determine an animals capacity for violence and prevent that from occurring. I restrained animals for a living. I got bit once because I wasn't doing my job. I learned a valuable lesson. I would NEVER put my own children in a position where they could suffer the pain and scarring of a dog bite or attack.

To allow a child to put their face into the face of dog that hasn't been in the family for years is insane! You ridicule me for teaching my children how to handle a dog it would be irresponsible to own a dog and not teach your children the rules regarding pet ownership!

You have insulted me. You have insulted my husband. You have threatened my Husband and my dogs life. I think your brain must have melted from all the drugs or old age one!
You call my husband and me "Village Idiots" and state that I must be "mentally retarded" for living with mom. I like living with my mom. We all live together because we share a common goal- raising healthy well balanced children. This would be a foreign concept to you- but I hear there are excellent articles on the interwebs - you should read one then you can be an EXPERT in child raising just like you are in DOG training!
OH wait I forgot you already are an expert in child raising. What was it you said?
"I've raised all the children I wanted too!" I believe. Since you raised ZERO children that's about right.

Living with my mom is the whole of the problem for you. You see Nate and I as competition. How many times does some one have to say 'No I don't want to get married' before you actually comprehend it?

Be sure and save this message! Maybe if you just reread it over and over and over it can make it past that mushy part of your brain where the short-term memory cells used to be (be sure and thank the THC for that) to where a few long-term memory cells are struggling to store as much as they can.

Honestly I think you just ran out of money and pot and had to run home. I don't buy this crapfest about the dog you've been trying to feed mother more then I buy anything you've been selling. You're an immature and irresponsible and most like semi-senile old dope-head.

It's the grand-kids you worry about? Don't worry they won't remember you anymore then I ever did."

And then he sent this. He's a bleeding idiot, *I'M* the one that found him. He is so fucking selfish and ignorant.

I do not have one single problem with your living with mother. If it were not for you she very possibly could have passed away from her SVT. I left because I couldn't say anything due to me feeling like a visitor or guest not as family. I am aware I was a failure as a parent and can't change that. I am concerned for your kids with frea around As I said I have not one thread of first hand evidence the dog is inherently dangerous but why take the risk if not necessary. I'm sorry my belching offends you My meds are one problem that is supposed to help but obviously not. Yes I insulted you and Nate I am not proud of it but as you have pointed out I have lived alone for 30 years due to my lack of faith/trust in people. Just how would you two get around if it wasn't for your mother letting you use her car since the purchase of guns and ammo is more important than having your tauruses window replaced. She has been freely giving with you all and it seems to me you are still sucking on the money teat and letting or expecting your mother to pay for katys child support since your disposable income is going for weapons for Nate to protect our country. When your mother and I separated it put me into depression for a very long time.
Both yor mother and another friend with a family told me in no uncertain terms I had to tell you of my concerns, that I was an asshole for leaving in the middle of the night with no explanations. I was in tears almost all the way home, you seem to have taken extra delight in making denigrating comments to me from the gitgo. In reality the only thing I ran out of down there was patience. Tina Your intolerance for my choice in pain management is typical for people who are unable to do any thing in moderation, it would appear you fried the reasoning portion of your brain cells from your druggie days. It broke my heart to discover that your moms family had alcoholism genes that could be passed down, I was completely ignorant of the passing of that gene to family members and was relieved to hear it apparently skipped you and your sister. I am truly sorry for ever saying anything. I should have just ignored the advice I got and let it ride. Considering that your mother doesn't even like dogs It was certainly thoughtful of you to bring one into the family.But I guess you couldn't be aware she wasn't a fan of dogs, after all you have just lived near her your entire life. And she is so secretive about it to the extent she won't even let them touch her but her actions must be so well concealed just the air breathing individuals notice that small fact.
If I was ridiculing you for teaching your kids how to protect them selfs from their own pet injuring them it was from the point of, why put them in that situation if not necessary. I hated to discover you had been bitten by a dog you were handling, your mom told me it caused you to quit the job due to the trauma( or you told me), I assumed you would be extremely cautious about any further interaction with toothy critters. I am sorry for insulting your family. I am not sorry I got to meet you. I have no doubt Nate wouldn't let anything endanger your children. As I said I am aware my prejudice about tattoos is unreasonable but that is due to my upbringing. I have never said anything to Nate about his, but I had hoped you could understand why I am not comfortable around him if I explained my hangups about them. I apologize for confirming what an asshole I am. I am overjoyed you are the perfect mother and companion who knows everything and has no need for any suggestions that might suggest your not the perfect mother and homemaker. I am still your father and I want your life to be so much better than mine is. I know I have made boatloads of mistakes in my life but I only have one major regret and that was not working hard enough on my marriage with your mom.
You ridicule me for mentioning Nates farts when according to you he has so many other "actual faults" Tina, first impressions last and to me it seemed he wanted to give his worst impression right up front, I can see Jessie is the light in his life and can also see Jessie adores him, for that is so important . Your moms and my marriage failure is totally my fault and I was surprised you even wanted to contact me. I'm sorry for my ignorance and my intolerance.I hope your life is all you want it to be.

Then he sent this little tid bit of ignorance. Apparently, he forgot I was the one that found him.

"I evidently need to remind you it was you who looked,found and contacted me. I have never ceased being your father whether I was absent or not. As your father I have the right and the responsibility to give my opinion if I see what I perceive to be a problem. You and your sister are the most important things in my life and I had no intent to insult you but express my concerns. I am guilty of freely speaking my mind, damn the torpedos. I am offended you are continually commenting on my ALLEGED choice of smoking material. Unless YOU have first hand evidence of that. it is still called libel even tween family members. I don't and haven't made comments about your inability to handle wine ( bottles).( That was an attempt at humor.) Please don't be offended at what I say to you I am only wanting the most and best for you. Oh and I had enough money to carry me till my next SSDI check arrived. It doesn't really matter what you perceive as to my reasons for having to leave with out any explanations but it still boils out to my concerns over the dog and the girls safety and the wisdom of introducing that particular crossbreed. I don't have the animal training you do and freely admit it but wild is just that and no matter how trained it might be it has the potential of reverting if only for a nanosecond and it would hurt you just as much if it"tagged" Jessie or Katy even if it was just a reflex thing. Tina, it just scares me to consider it. This My opinion and you have no obligation to even consider it but please don't be mad at me for saying my piece. You have the same right to say your mind regarding me but please be honest not just hurtful OK??"

On May 24th I decided to forward a chain letter to him (sorry for anybody else that reads this that recieved it as well. I needed to send to 20 people.I wanted to see if he would respond, continue pretending nothing happened, apologize.. whatever. So anyway, he replied with this.

I Got a window saying I don't have a file associated with it and to ?create an association in the folders option file. Unfortunately I don't have the slightest clue how to do that. This isn't the first time I have had this problem, for a while it seemed every image anybody sent me triggered the same problem. I wish I knew how to "create an association in the folders option files"
I am sorry for leaving before the scarboro fair. I got worked up and overstressed at Nate for the incredible ignorance he displayed in bringing a wolf/rottweiler into the house with small children . I left to prevent me starting a knock down drag out fight over his stupidity and Tinas arrogance to think she could "train" an animal like that. My apologies for being an asshole but I learned a long time ago that telling the honest truth pisses a lot of people off. If I was going to live with my self I had to lay my cards on the table and let the chit fly. Your mom is no longer talking to me so my moving plans are in limbo now. I still am proud of both my girls and ashamed that I caused all this dissention. If you have any suggestions I wish you would share them with me. My main objection to that animal is I am afraid it will injure one of the girls before it attacks Nate."

So I replied with..

"I don't know what all happened, I just know that I have been deeply depressed over feeling abondoned once again. I don't understand why I didn't deserve an explanation for a month. I also hate seeing mom and Tina so upset. I feel responsible for all their heartache. If I hadn't searched you out and had Tina contact you, (I was scared of being rejected) nobody would be hurting right now.
This situation cannot be mended. We were already broken people from the life we spent with Dannie. The emotional pain you inflicted on Tina, and mom byproxy, is irreparable. My only advice: In the future, think about what you say and how it will affect others before you say it.
Yes, you held your tongue while you were at her house, but the immaturity you displayed by taking off in the middle of the night has astounded everybody.
I'm curious as to why you acted as though you thought Daisy was a good dog and agreed with me that there should be nothing to worry about if you were concerned about her being a dangerous mix as well?

I would also like to address the fact that you are so intolerant of Bethany's behavior. On two seperate visits you were aggressive in your attempts at trying to discipline *MY* daughter. I let it slide and defended you to Mark who was VERY upset because I was so scared to damage the relationship we had just started, looking back, I realize I was ignorant. My children love me more than you ever have or will. I need to protect them.
If you need an example. One event, you grabbed her up with her arms squeezed to her sides, sat her on the bar, got up in her face and stated "you are going to be responsible for daisy being sent away!"
The second was on your most recent trip. I wasn't privvy to see this, but Hannah was. Bethany called you a liar and you flipped out, grabbed her, and said "nobody calls me a liar!" She's 4 years old. She says words out of context.
If things hadn't blown up like this, I wanted to tell you that I'd prefer you not to discipline my children. We just wanted you to be a "fun time grandpa". Our children are lucky to have two contributing parents. They don't need grandparents intervening. We choose our battles. Proper tightening of velcro straps on tennis shoes is not a battle that needs fought with a 4 yr old.
You have no knowledge of how to raise a child. Why try to start with mine?
I heard about the comment you made to mom when the two of you argued about TV. She asked "how many kids did you raise?", you stated "as many as I wanted." You have no idea how that upset me. Can you even comprehend how hateful of a statement that is?

Please, in the event of future letters, don't call my sister names. I love her, she has always done her best to protect me."

Ignorance...

"You are totally correct about my poor to ignorant behavior, and I have been beating myself up ever since bolting from the house. I was so upset I felt like I was in a rage and I was obsessing over the pup and (in my mind) how dangerous it is going to be when it's fully grown, I realize miracles do happen but I couldn't get my mind off of that dog and to prevent the troubles if I opened my mouth I just got out of bed and packed the car and left, I called your mom once I was in makinly? and tried to explain why I had left but I had to talk and cry at the same time, I will not intrude on you anymore, I am sorry I have no experience in dealing with children. I wouldn't hurt any child intentionally. I had told your mom about my correcting beth on the bar and she had already told me to leave the parenting to the parents. I just wish Tina had not been placed in the middle of my idiotic obsession over that puppy. I am so sorry I just inflicted more pain on all of you, I guess it is best if I remain alone so I don't repeat this. I probably developed my interpersonal approach from the military and the working world since I didn't have the family life except from observation of friends away from work.. Ye shall reap what you sow. I am paying for my own stupidity and thoughtlessness. I guess I can be thankful I wasn't around for your formative years or you would have ended up hating me a lot earlier. I need to practice what I preach, engage brain before putting mouth or in this case fingers in gear. I will read your email again and again. and get it through my head I am an idiot that just doesn't "get it" I am so sorry"

Wait, he's not done yet. I only sent that one reply. But he had to send a few more one line replies, then this final "woah is me"

"I must thank you for being honest with me. You have saved me from doing something stupid. A fishing buddy had invited me to visit him and his family and to get some fishing in. Now that I am aware of my lack of social skills around children and people in ganeral I can let them know I won't be coming out and why. I would have undoubtably pulled some stupid and hurtful gaffe or worse. I only wish you had said something just as soon as I "corrected" Beth and told me in no uncertain terms to not try parenting or correcting one of your girls. I am realizing I have absolutely no parenting skills at all, it was probably for the best your mom and I divorced and let her get on with the impossible(to me) task of raising her two daughters."

I haven't heard anything from him since then. I've been "cycling" through moods and I feel bad for everybody around me. I'm trying to just keep it in and heal quietly. But maybe this will help.

2006-05-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

......and now, for something completely different.

Ok.. it's not Monty Python, but it's damn funny.

If you haven't seen Anchorman , See it!

I don't know if the whole music video will play or not, Photobucket says that videos over 3 minutes are automatically truncated. The video is 3:54. Hmmmmm....... We'll see what happens.

*whistling* Any idea how long it takes to load a video to Photobucket with dial up?

A veryveryveryvery L O N G time.

Hmm.. it's 2:08 pm. The load is 1/2 done..... I need to go handle some laundry. I'll be back with an update.
............................................

LOL!!! Who could have anticipated that my ISP would drop? Apparently, I piddled around for well over 3 hours before deciding to blog today. My ISP dumps after 4 hours.

Ok, so I started trying to load the video again at 2:16 pm....

Going to check on the laundry for real.
............................................

Laundry was still wet.I made a yummy quesadilla. 2:31 and it's a little over 6% complete. LOL
I'm sure this wouldn't be in the least bit humorous if I had ever experienced DSL.
............................................

Did I ever mention being impatient? I noticed it didn't seem to loading any farther and restarted it at 2:38.
It's clicking along. I may have something to post by 6:00pm!

Hey! It's loading pretty fast now! 2:43 and we're at nearly 12%!!

.............................................

If you've never dipped a quesadilla in ranch dressing, you should try it at least once. yumm..

.............................................

ZzzZzzzzzZzzzzZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz

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2:48 22.22%

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I really hope you aren't getting all hyped up for this video. It was funny.. but it's not that damn funny, and this is all going to make it sooooo anti-climactic.

.............................................

Woooo!!! 25% at 2:50! &*&^*&(%#$%#%^

..............................................

2:58 = 40%

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Want to know what's really sad? I'm not even sure if the photobucket link will play in blogspot.

..............................................

Anybody ever wondered what Robby Rotten looks like with no make up? If you find out, send me a link.

3:15 & 70%
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3:30 & 99%

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Ta da!!!!!!!

LOL..

FreeVideoCoding.com

Hmmm.. if that doesn't work, maybe this will.

2006-05-22T19:28:00.000-05:00

Update on my dad......
Interestingly enough, this is the same song that was playing on my blog when I found him back in Oct 05

At the end of May, my dad came down from Tennessee for a visit. We had all planned to go to Scarborough Faire together. Things went horribly awry.

He spent a week with the girls and I while Mark was away in Talladega for the Nascar race. Things went great until my mom came for two nights. He turned into an ASS overnight. It seemed like he was in a pissing contest with me for mom's affection.
They headed back to my mom/sister's house. Apparently, on the way there she told him that she didn't want to marry him, she couldn't afford to marry him. He is on disability for Agent Orange exposure, and spinal stenosis. She is concerned that her retirement funds will be affected by his income (which she doesn't feel will be nearly enough) She never said she didn't want to live with him, or spend time with him. Just that she didn't want to marry him.
Well, he packed up his shit in the middle of the night and took off. He left clothes behind and everything. He called my mother in the wee hours and apologized for taking off. Blamed it on my sis having a dangerous pet "around his grandchildren" Frea is a 1/2 wolf, 1/2 rottweiler.
I wasn't to be excluded from his shit talk either... I had no idea that he had an issue with my 1/2 pit, 1/2 dalmatian puppy. Till my mother and sister told me otherwise. There were many hateful letters sent back and forth between my older sister and him. She finally realized he had done enough damage and marked his emails as SPAM. I have not heard a thing from him in a month.
I honestly don't think he has a problem with the dogs. I think when he realized that mom wouldn't support him, he abandoned us once again.
I flip back and forth between regret for having searched him out and found him. I don't think I'd have been any better off if I'd have been raised by him. So I'm glad I got to find that out.
I hate that my mom has been once again screwed over by a man, and it was my fault.
I hate that I have his eyes. Not only the poor eyesight, HIS EYES.

I hate that I let him in so fully and trusted that he really missed us and couldn't find us. Why was it so easy for his mother to find us and send letters? Why was his brother able to contact us and let us know when Grandma passed? It all makes sense now... he could manage on his own before.

2006-05-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Wow.. I can't believe anybody honors me with a comment. I'm such a crappy inconsistent blogger, and why the hell is the first sentence of every blog the title? Did I screw up the formatting beyond all comprehension?

Anywho... Misty had B-day #2 on Saturday, May 13th. We had the party in hell! At least I think it was.We have no a/c installed yet... Here's some pics.

yumm

presents!

Since we inherited the glutton for punishment gene from mom, we went to Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie on Mother's Day. 4 out of 5 of my girls went, Crista stayed at the land with her Dad. She just wanted some of the "kings nuts". My sister brought her two daughters.

Here are some pics from our day. It really was a blast, despite the the youngest three girls getting pretty miserable near the end of the day, and mom damn near having a heat stroke. I'm so glad we convinced Mom and Tina (my big sis) into dressing up.
Pics.. of course

We saw the elephant swaying side to side and thought it was dancing to the music that was playing nearby. Hannah informed her little sisters and cousins that elephants in captivity sway out of boredom. The elephant was miserable.

Misty LOVED the misting bridge. We could not keep her away from it.

A swarm of fairies.

Tina braiding mom's hair.

Bethany shaking hands with the "ent" that scared the crap out of the other girls. He looked like a statue.

Pretty Hannah.

All of us.
I'll probably be posting more pics from Scarb if my film pics turned out ok.

2006-05-12T12:04:00.000-05:00

Happy 2nd Birthday to my very spirited 5th daughter.

I'm amazed at your personality. I honestly thought you would be very meek after the humbling experience of having the hip harness on your legs for your first few months. I think you knew you needed to be demanding to not get lost in the shuffle with all these sisters.

On the day of your birth. 5/12/04

Batgirl, October '04. One of many at home photoshoots.

Taking a cruise around the lake in September '05

A very brief quiet moment today.

Happy Birthday, sweetie!
I hope you never lose your determination.
I hope you continue to fight for what you want.

2006-05-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

FreeVideoCoding.com

2006-05-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

RIP sweet Angel. You will be missed.

2006-04-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

A few pictures

pretty sunrays

Ziggy, the incontinent monster pup.

Attempted family portrait.

2006-04-13T09:39:00.000-05:00

Happy 17th, Hannah! (Belated post......)

At Hannah's request, Mark and I took her to Six Flags in Arlington with no other siblings. A huge thanks to the poor grandmother's in charge of watching the other 4 girlies, my deepest sympathy for the chaos you endured.

It's been quite some time since I've been to an amusement park. I thought I'd offer some insight for some others that may not have been for some time.

1) You may be required to pass the same series of security checkpoints as you would when trying to board an airplane.
My fanny pack was poked around in with a wooden spoon, and I had to pass through a metal detector. This makes the lines to enter the park take MUCH longer. I highly suggest buying your tickets ahead of time to at least avoid that wait.After seeing that line, I am so thankful we had ours.

2)There are several different types of people you may be standing in line with while waiting for rides.

a. The 20something year olds that are into exhibitionism and basically dry hump each other in line. We experienced this phenomenon in three different lines. Mark got a pretty good show from a couple standing directly behind us. I had no idea what was going on, but smelled an "odd" smell. I said "What is that smell??". I was later informed that I could not have asked the question at a better to time to have led to embarassment for them. The pervy young man had just pulled his fingers out of skanky girls shorts when I inquired as to the offensive odor. Get a room.

b. Apparently April 8th was a big day for choir/band field trips. There were unattended children 12-14 years of age climbing all over the ropes, bars, and various line barriers. They spewed profanity, bumped into other guests of the park, and basically made me want to disable their seat belt on the ride. Who knew band geeks could be so obnoxious???

c. Line Jumpers.. WTF?

d. The "butidon'twannarideit" group. This has got to be some form of abuse. Be it spouse forcing spouse, parent forcing child, child forcing parent, or friend forcing friend. Nobody should be forced into riding something they don't want to, and nobody should have to listen to the scary reasons they have found not to ride it! (loose bolts, wiggly supports, poor braking system, etc... etc..)

3) Parking is $15,Icecream is $5 a scoop, $3 for a bottle of water or soda.
Thankfully, we ate before going to the park, and Mark's gimped up body wore out before we got too hungry to have to buy food in the park.
I have three more girlies that abosolutely LOVE the idea of getting to go to Six Flags with mom and dad alone this summer..
Now I just need to locate that money tree we planted..

2006-03-27T19:02:00.000-06:00

I discovered what Victoria's big secret is. She's a skinny li'l anorexic bitch.

I've not bought any *decent panties since having my 5th daughter in May '04, so I went shopping for skivvies at VS. I could tell by looking that small looked like it would fit my toddler, medium would fit my 4 yr old. But I thought SURELY, large will fit me.
NOPE!
Why call it large if it doesn't fit somebody who wears a medium in everything else?

In the blue jean world, if you pay more for a pair of jeans, they reward you by putting a smaller size on the inside label.
There can be as much as a 4 size variance from one brand/store to the next.

Victoria, kiss my moderately fat ass.

*Not fruit of the loom in a 3 pack from walmart for $5

Amended. Sorry Vicky, I just hate your signature cotton low rise panties, they bite into every orifice and the elastic around the hips could make Callista Flockhart feel like a whale.
However, The extreme low rise from the PINK line are AWESOME!

2006-03-24T21:50:00.000-06:00

My blog is worth $4,516.32.
How much is your blog worth?

2006-03-15T15:05:00.000-06:00

Et tu, Chef?

You will be missed. I have to admit, I was very upset at first when I read the news of Isaac Hayes quitting South Park after 10 years.
Then I thought of all the controversial subjects that they have covered in that 10 years. It's pretty sad to me that other religions are OK to mock, but not the Scientologists. I think he was brainwashed.

Update, they killed chef. *sniff*

2006-03-10T20:53:00.000-06:00

A pretty sunset on poor little dried up Lake Tawakoni. I'm seriously wondering if it's ever going to have water in it again. I really miss getting out on the boat and fishing.

Signs of Spring! The wisteria are blooming. I LOVE WISTERIA!!

This poor little decapitated snake caused some issues in our lives today.
I was running around the yard cleaning up broken tree branches since mowing season is quickly approaching. I passed by the front door and SQUEELED, "snaKe!!!!!!!!" Arghhhh!!!!"
My darling husband dropped his work and came and shot it for me.
Since we were having such beautiful weather, I decided to take the girls walking around the lake bed. (That was this evenings sunset up above.)
We walked up our backyard and saw a police cruiser driving past the front of the house.
Heather, who had stayed in, came out back and said "Mom, there's a policeman here. He wants to talk to dad, but he's in the shower."
So I asked him what the problem was then remembered our CRAZY neighbor. She flips out any time there's gun fire.. THIS IS THE COUNTRY, LOONEY LADY!
I explained to the officed what had happened. He asked where the snake was shot. I showed him the holes in the ground, then showed him the snake carcass. He continued to hang out in our front yard till Mark was finished getting ready.

Mark finished getting ready and told the officer the same thing I did. He also told him she should be reprimanded for false police reports. She claimed Mark was shooting at HER. She lives a good distance from us. He said "that took two shots?" I didn't know if he was impressed or disgusted with my husbands marksmanship. Who cares.. the snake was dead.
The policeman apologized, and went on his way.
The passive-aggressive part of me wants to put the dead snake in the front seat of her car. I could never get by undetected though. She has goats, chickens, dogs, horses, donkeys, roosters, you name it. The poor dogs live their lives chained up rain or shine. But yet, she "used to work for a vet and loves all animals".
One of her horses died when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. She covered it with a tarp next to the fence and left it to rot. Do you know how long it takes a horse to decay? Do you know how bad it smells?? Imagine that multiplied by pregnant nose... a pregnant nose can sniff out sour milk a week in advance.
I won't do a thing about it. But she will get the stink-eye from me every time I see her from now until we move out of this insane neighborhood.
One of these days I'll list off all the crazies in my neighborhood. Make popcorn!

2006-03-02T00:39:00.000-06:00

Hmm.. blame photobucket.

I was trying to add a Bucketstamp into the side column. My whole blog went wonkers.

I decided, hmm.. lets see if another template will make it fit in the side column better.. Great.. now EVERYTHING is gone but my posts!! ARGGHHHH!

So, if you can still hear my music out there, let me know. I'm not sure I got the code in there right.

So, eventually I'll have all my links to my favorite blogs back. grrrr

Here's the silly bucketstamp.

2006-02-28T22:17:00.000-06:00

DEATH * BY * METH: Officers nab 27 for meth indictments (Texas)

This is one of the reasons we are moving out of this county.

A close friend of ours has two teen daughters that were hooked on "ice" and the guy that was supplying them with it was sexually abusing them. When are they going to make it to our neighborhood?? We've tried EVERYTHING.

2006-02-14T18:13:00.000-06:00

Ughh.. here we go again. I can't use the "add a picture" option. I think it's something with the pop-up blocker. I don't dare disable it for fear of the computer exploding..

Daisy
Hope it's resized by the time I publish this. Photobucket can be stubborn sometimes.

Crista

My attempt at a panaramic. (I just cropped the top and bottom off) LOL

The new musical selection, "Desperate but not Serious", comes from "The Essential Adam Ant" .
A Gift from my wonderful Secret mom :)
THANKS!! I LOVE IT!!

2006-02-10T12:13:00.000-06:00

Tagged by Tess. This time the topic is music!

I bet if I were to post on this tomorrow I'd have a totally different playlist. My musical taste changes like the weather. For anybody that has never experienced the joys of Texas weather, that means frequently. It can go from a sunny 70 degrees, to 40's and drizzling in 24 hours.

On to my playlist.

1.)"I burn" by the Toadies, off of the Rubberneck album. Other great songs on that album are "Possum Kingdom", "Tyler", "Backslider", and "I come from the water".

2.) "Have you ever really loved a woman", by Brian Adams, off of the Don Juan Demarco Soundtrack

3.)"More than a feeling", by Boston, off of Boston's Greatest hits Another album with many great songs.

4.)"Hem of your garment", by Cake, off of their Prolonging the magic album.

5.) "Good Riddance", by Green Day, of of their Nimrod album. Is there a bad Green Day album??

6.)"Castles made of Sand", "Angel", and "Manic Depression", by Jimi Hendrix, off of Experience Jimi Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix

7.) "Daddy", by Korn, off of their Korn's self titled album I rarely listen to it unless I have alot of anger building up in me that needs to be released. Listening to it when I'm not already feeling shitty, will surely spiral me into an angry state. But listening to Jonathan cry about the abuse he endured as a child helps me release things I usually keep buried.

8.) "Moonlight Sonata", by Beethoven, I really didn't know there was more than one version of the song till trying to find it on Amazon.com. But here's a link Beethoven

I'm tagging people who have probably already been tagged, but I don't have enough time to hunt around and see who has and hasn't been tagged! LOL
1.) Angel
2.) Big Daddy and Counting_Blessings
3.) Kristen
4.) Natalie

2006-02-07T20:54:00.000-06:00

Please tell me none of my fellow parents are planning on buying a Power Cop to control your children.

What has the world come to if parents don't have enough say in what their children are doing that they need a device to "shut off" the kids.

I'm seriously hoping my husband doesn't see the commercial for it. He may get funny ideas about my losing track of time due to my internet addiction.. shhhhhhh!!!!

2006-02-06T22:29:00.000-06:00

Precisely.

I've added all the bells and whistles that I can think of, I'm not a great writer, I have no major political rants or raves. About all I can blog is pics with a sound track.

2006-01-24T13:35:00.000-06:00

We got some rain since my last post about Texas Fires YAY!!!!

The pictures were taken from different spots in the yard, but you can see little puddles forming in the lake bed in the second picture. Hopefully this will bring some relief from the fires.

I heard on the news that people have been being fined big $$$ for taking it upon themselves to lift the burn ban since there was 2" of rain in some areas. 2" will NOT give us the relief we need after getting 18" below average rainfall.

Oh yeah.. my trees and grass are SOOOO confused! I have trees budding, and patches of beautiful green grass. I know when winter really hits in February, everything is going to get killed. :(

2006-01-22T14:08:00.000-06:00

Tagged by Kellee

Four jobs that I have had:
Worked at Mcd's as a teen
Mom since a teen
babysat for friend's kids
Secretary for hubby's business (does it count if you aren't getting paid?)

Four movies that I can watch over and over again:
Dogma
The Princess Bride
She's Having a Baby
Office Space

Four places I have lived:
Champagne, ILL.
Dallas, Tx.
Plano, TX
Lubbock, Tx.

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Six Feet Under
Family Guy
Aqua Teen HungerForce
South Park

Four websites I read daily (or I at least check on daily):
Loose Ends
Serenity Now
Kiki's Blog
Arch Words

Four places I have been on vacation:This is sad...
Disney in FLA.

Four favorite foods:
Crab legs
Fried catfish
Lasagna
Chicken enchiladas w/ sour cream and monterey jack sauce

Four places I’d rather be:
Anywhere warm and near the waterx4.

Four people to tag: Everyone that I picked has been too long without a blog update.Blog dagnabbit!
Heather
Oodelally (Aerin)
Angel
Jeni

2006-01-12T07:37:00.000-06:00

a macro pic of a lady bug on Hannah's hand.

Misty and Bethany checking out the weeds on a warm windy day in January. This is an example of a pic that I did not follow the meter in the camera, resulting in a pic that is too bright.

We went walking around in what use to be Lake Tawakoni. Misty went running off and Hannah sunk in the mud trying to catch her. An example of a time when you should put down the camera and help your child ;)

Misty and Bethany on the 3 wheeler.

Dad bought me an awesome, lightweight tripod when he was in town last. It's been pretty cool, so I haven't gotten to test it out yet. I'm slowly figuring out the camera between talking to dad, reading the user's manual for the Minolta(I'm amazed he kept it for over 30 years), and the Time Life collection of books on Photography that he also gave me.

Mark put me on the defensive yesterday. Apparently, he looked through the pics I recently got developed. He said "not to be hating on that camera, but it doesn't take pictures as good as the digital" I had to explain to him all the mechanics that go into taking a picture with it, and that when used properly, it will capture pictures much better than the digital. Then I started getting seriously depressed that I'll never get the hang of this, it's all a waste of time, and any dreams of photographing for financial gain were stupid. *sigh*

I guess it'll be a fun hobby while I continue playing secretary for free for Mark, and mommy to all my sweet girls.

2006-01-04T13:44:00.000-06:00

So I'm a Texas girl that eats red meat... I've even recently tried wild pig much to my dismay, mainly only to not offend a very close friend/business associate of my husbands. Imagine my surprise when I absolutely LOVED IT!! I honestly could not tell it was wild. I promise that I can not be tricked no matter how you "fix" deer meat. I KNOW the difference. Deer meat is the main reason I was hesitant to try wild pig.

So NYE weekend we go visit his buddy and they tell us they are going down in "the bottoms" to shoot the pigs they trapped. Me, being the redneck wife I am, and not wanting to appear as a wussy agree to ride VIA the glorified golfcart (AKA Gator) to the site of the captive swine to be slaughtered. I also didn't want to appear hypocritical to have eaten the meat, without appreciating the process they went through for us to have enjoyed it weeks prior.
We arrive to find a small pig and a large pig in the trap. I'm informed that they are only shooting one of them. I assume that since they told me when I ate it, that "it's all in how you dress out the pig.. you can't let it lay around" that they didn't want to have two pigs to deal with, and would let the smaller one go. WRONG. I was told to climb up as high as I could because the pigs are PISSED and will attack when they get out of the cage. (Especially because they were just in the cage when a load boom went off and killed the critter next to them)
So I take a quick shot of his buddy aiming at the pigs with my lil digital, then climb as quickly as possible on top of the gator. He took one shot while I was climbing on top with his wife, I turned to see what was still making so much noise in the cage and see the baby pig flopping around.. HORROR!!! The mom is nipping at the baby pig that is lying on it's side but still bouncing around from the nerves. The men climb on top of the trap, and open the front and poke at the mom with a stick to make her leave the cage so they can safely remove the baby. At this point, I'm in shock, but trying not to let it show. The mom licked at the baby's blood before running out of the cage. They were all saying "look how mean that sow is" Well NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.. you just killed her baby right beside her! Ughh..

So we had to drive the gator back to their place with the baby pig in the back. I can't help but feel there's an angry momma pig somewhere in Cumby that want's revenge. I told my husband that it did get to me.. he said "yeah, but did you see how she was biting at the baby and licking the blood? Those things are MEAN!"
I explained that I felt she was nipping at the baby to make it stop jumping around.. maybe we'd all go away. She lapped the blood because she had been trapped in the cage for god knows how long, and was thirsty as hell. All I know is, if I hadn't already tasted how good wild pig was, I would NEVER in a million years eat it again. But damn, bacon is good.
From now on, I want as far from the killing and butchering side of the whole process as possible. It eats at your soul to see that kind of thing...

2005-12-30T10:59:00.000-06:00

This is how a pre-teen babysits.

This is how many septic tanks are required for a five bedroom house with 6 females and one male.

Misty's first wasp sting.. I have a feeling she won't be trying to grab them off the back door anymore. She was pretty pissed at the whole situation.

On our way out of the neighborhood in Quinlan, Mark saw Angel looking all sad about being left behind. He stopped his single cab truck and let her in with him and Bethany. Before we even made it out of the neighborhood, he stopped, called Angel out and brought her to climb into the already stuffed Suburban with me and the other 4 girls. Angel discovered the rat poison that was placed strategically under the house. After 1/2 a bottle of vegetable oil, 1/2 a package of crackers, and about 1 cup of water, Angel puked up a blob containing green rat poison pellets. I gave her some Vit. K when we got home. We conveniently have Vit. K here because of Heather's liver disease. Angel seems fine today. Thank goodness..

This is the first tank in the ground.. Woohoo!! All three are in the ground. Today Mark is out in Cumby waiting for the inspector to come approve their placement. I got to stay home today. After all the shoveling of sand into the hole yesterday, I guess he took pity on me and let me stay here.

2005-12-28T17:32:00.000-06:00

Fires in Texas

I was well aware we were having a very dry winter from the looks of the cracked lake bed behind my house. I had no idea we were about 16" below average until I read about the deadly fires that are breaking out in Texas.

2005-12-26T15:35:00.000-06:00

How sweet is this picture? Mom and Dad were going for a peaceful walk around the lake (probably to get away from the chaos of all my kiddos, and my oozing tension over readying things for christmas eve) I took the picture using digital zoom so it's super blurry. I get really emotional any time I see old people holding hands. While I don't see my mom and dad as "old" yet, I do look forward to watching them grow old together.
He came in the 22nd of December and stayed with us till today, the 26th. He and mom are heading to his hometown of Cumberland Tennessee on Wednesday. They will spend about two weeks together, then he'll drive her back home. I'm going to miss them both like crazy, I know I can just call their cell phones since we are on the family and friends plan with Verizon, it's just weird knowing they are so far away.

Raise your hand if you have a messy house!! (Raising hand)

2005-12-17T22:35:00.000-06:00

I absolutely LOVE this song! A friend that I've known since 1st grade came for a visit with her new boyfriend lastnight. She left about 4am, but not before letting me borrow an awesome 80's CD to copy to my computer. You'd think I'd transport to the 80's when hearing this song.. nope. I think of Family Guy, the episode where Loretta cheats on cleveland and Peter tries to cheer him up by singing Rock Lobster.

So.. this song will play for a while.

2005-12-12T15:15:00.000-06:00

RIP "Berta"

Last year, on this day, a friend of ours lost her life after a week long "battle" with leukemia. She was the mother of 4 children that loved her very much. We were never really close friends. I didn't confide in her, she didn't confide in me. Our husbands were close. Our kids played together, went to each others parties, and we sat in the stands at the racetrack together. I feel guilty for not "letting her in" I'm hesitant to make new friends.. I'm not very trusting.
Now it's too late.

I knew this day was coming, I knew I wanted to blog about her as a sort of memorial. It's just really odd how I got a "slap in the face" reminder today.
My husband called me looking for a number for a company that manufactures septic tanks. Since he writes down numbers on random pieces of paper, I was calling various numbers that I found written down.
Here's how the first random phone call went...
Random recipient of call: "Hello?"
Me: "Hello, who is this?" (with a slight hint of humor and embarassment in voice, since I'm the one making the call, I should know)
Random recipient of call: "Hello??"
Me: Hello???" (crappy ass phone.. I'm so sick of these crappy phone lines!!!!)
Random recipient of call: HAHAH!! Just kidding.. it's me, James, leave a message and I'll call you back"
So I hung up.. it wasn't the septci tank manufacturer. I called dh and told him I had no way of finding this number he was looking for and told him about James' funny message on his voicemail. He said "My mom and I are dealing with something right now, I'll call you back"
So then it hits me after we hang up, today is his MOMS Birthday!! I call him back to remind him to tell his mom "Happy Birthday" and he gets snarky and says "I will.. I'm in the middle of something."
The phone rings and it's James. I tell him that my call was an accident and how he ended up being called by me. Immediately after hanging up, I realize today was the day his wife died. She went to the hospital for heavy "feminine bleeding". She was bleeding so heavily that she was passing out. They didn't think too much of it because she was always pretty anemic and had actually had problems after giving birth to her children, especially her youngest. Within days of hospitilization, they found that her white counts were wacky, they diagnosed her with leukemia. She kept complaining that she couldn't breathe. She went into distress and died very suddenly.
So, I need to call him back. I just don't know what to say.
For all you mommies (and daddies), don't sweat the small stuff, don't put off anything, don't hold back your feelings. You never know when you may lose the chance.

2005-12-04T20:34:00.000-06:00

Is there really a humane mouse trap? We put the little boxes pictured above all around the house and caught nothing. Next, we decided to try "humane" glue traps. Right, humane. Heather came running out of the bathroom lastnight screaming "we caught a mouse!!" she said "it's SCREAMING!!!!" I could hear it from the livingroom. It was horrible. Before I went to bed, the mouse had writhed around enough to tear it's face on the adhesive. I turned on Masters of Horror, took some Tylenol, and left Mark to deal with the mouse.
Here's the story he told me this morning..
"I never want to use those traps again. I took the lil thing out in my shop and sat it on the workbench. I was planning to remove it from the trap then let it loose down near the lake. That didn't work.. every time I tugged on him he'd SCREAM and writhe in pain. I felt awful! I put it back down on the workbench and he followed me with his eyes as i came back in the house. I grabbed the box of franzia, and headed back out in the shop. The mouse just stared at me while I got relaxed enough to be ok with whatever I figured out to do."
I will not tell you some of the sadistic quick fixes that he contemplated, nor how he killed it. I will just say that he killed the adheared mouse in the quickest, least painful or gorey way I could have imagined.

We have issues with the critters in Cumby as well. We had poison there since the kids aren't there to get a hold of it. We still see occasional evidence (droppings) of the mice/rats there.
Hannah and I made up an idea for an indy film. Since the critters seem to be immune to just about any type of poison we put out, we thought we'd throw in a bunch of crack and guns and let them take each other out.
We pictured them all stealing strips of material from the bedding out of the girl's rooms to represent their colors. It was goofy, but funny.

2005-11-30T14:48:00.000-06:00

How very intimidating...

My dad brought all this with him when we met. He thinks I'll have no problem figuring out all the aspects of photography with a manual camera. He mentioned us getting into business together when he moves down. Interestingly enough, he did photography with babies/children.
I'm more than a little intimidated by all of the gadgets that came with it. I love digital because if a pic looks bad, just delete it. It's not like you spent money developing film and printing, ya know?
I guess I need to just go pick up some film and get started practicing... wish me luck!?

2005-11-28T21:41:00.000-06:00

A visit to Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas.

These pictures are out of order, I'm a crappy blogger with poorly managed time.

With all the excitement of dads visit, I forgot to update on Misty's hipcheck at Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas Tx.
After two xrays (the lead disk designed to protect her little female parts was covering her hip socket in the first xray)they found all was good with her hips at last. She was amazingly tolerant of every exam from every Dr that wanted to check her. She has been cleared for another year.

Here's a cute little clip of Misty and her sisters enjoying the amazing interactive projection at Scottish Rite.

2005-11-26T01:23:00.000-06:00

MET MY DAD!!

I can't believe it's taken me so long to blog about this. I met him on Tuesday Nov. 22nd, 2005.
I've been mourning the loss of time that could have been spent with him. He's a very kind and gentle person, I hate that I didn't get to be raised by him.

He's coming over tomorrow, I should be in bed. I'm just wound up. I'm not real hip on him seeing this house.. the state of disrepair gnaws at me. It really doesn't matter how clean anything is, it's still unfinished.. blah.

2005-11-15T12:21:00.000-06:00

A peaceful sunset from Cumby

Misty checking out what looks to be
Hannah helping Bethany fly her Dora kite. Bethany got bored with it pretty quick and Hannah was left holding the kite.

Hannah seems to be ok with moving. She's having a blast putting posters up in her closet using

2005-11-08T14:35:00.000-06:00

Things just keep getting better. Why am I not worried about the come down anymore?

We should be getting into the other house before the new year. Things are happening really fast now! Today we are getting rock spread for driveways so we don't get stuck when it rains.

Mark bought all the materials for his shop yesterday. He still needs to pour a small slab. And we still need septic. I'm so glad he decided to settle for a smaller shop instead of the bohemeth manly man shop he was originally insisting on.

My mom called today and told me that she and dad talk EVERY day for SEVERAL hours. He told her he still loves her. I told her I thought it was great and she seemed surprised at my response. I said "What child of divorced parents doesn't secretly want to see their parents back together?" Unless of course it was a highly volatile relationship. Theirs was not.. I think they split because they were young and immature. How romantic if they do get back together and get to retire together, ya know? She mentioned that he may even move to Tx. I'm totally ECSTATIC!!!!

2005-11-07T14:14:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah.. My mom and dad have been talking on the phone an awful lot lately.. I've been thinking how weird it would be if they got back together. I can't imagine having kids with a man, splitting when they were still very young, then getting back together 30 years later.. weird.

I'm experiencing some distress over him coming for his visit and felt i should purge here. We're assuming since he's coming Nov 21st, that he will be around for Thanksgiving. I don't want to do it in this house, and we most definately will not be in the other house yet. I told Mark that I wanted to go to Plano for Thanksgiving at my mom's.He got pissy, claims we'll finish the kitchen.... How the hell are we going to have time to finish the kitchen if we are putting up the shop and getting in septic in Cumby?? BAHHHHHHHH
I'd like to take him to see the house in Cumby, but I absolutely don't want him seeing THIS house. It's been in a state of disrepair for quite some time. It doesn't matter how much cleaning I do, I still don't like people coming over. I've alienated a lot of friends over it... pretty pathetic. I know they aren't coming to see my house...
Ok.. vented..

2005-11-07T13:44:00.000-06:00

Why in the world can I not add images without using hosted pictures on photobucket?
It's driving me batty not being able to just browse my computer.

Anyway.... I get to meet and hug my dad around Thanksgiving!!!! He's coming from Tennesee to meet Mom (like he doesn't already know her.. LOL), sis, me, all these granddaughters, and Mark. He also wants to show me in person how to use the camera He's sending. I'm ECSTATIC!!

2005-10-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

Haunted by the past and the sins of our fathers...

Things have been going great with dad. I decided I would give him tiny bits of my past at a time. Just to give him time to digest it all.
In my last letter I told him about Heather's liver disease. For those that aren't aware, Heather is my 12 yr. old that was born with a chronic liver condition. At one year of age she was diagnosed as having Byler Syndrome. 9 years later, the Dr's would just call it simply "PFIC" or progressive familial intrahepatic choleostasis. Soon after the initial diagnosis, she received a surgery called a biliary diversion. Her bile is toxic to her liver, it causes cirrhosis.
We've never known what caused her disease. I didn't drink, do any drugs, and I quit smoking very soon after finding out I was pregnant.
When they initially diagnosed her as having Byler's, they asked if we had any amish family members. The disease Byler sydrome is common among the amish.

So anyway... I told my dad about it. Mostly because he's mentioned a lot of health issues that he's dealing with. He's got a genetic disorder that causes spinal degeneration, and type 2 diabetes. I thought he may want to know.
He wrote me back a letter later on and asked if her Dr's had ever inquired about Agent orange. I've been studying up on it ever since, and I'm disgusted that the chemicals that caused all this damage are still causing damage generations down the line from the soldiers that were told to do a little gardening so they could kill more people. He explained that one of his jobs as an airplane mechanic involved working on the planes that distributed Agent Orange.
The information makes me feel a little to blame for her problems. Just because it came from "my side".

Ok.. that's enoguh for now. I'm averaging about 1 blog a week. Yikes... I need to make mini posts. TTFN!

2005-10-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

I've been on an extreme high ever since finding my father earlier this week. His praise of my photography and how beautiful he finds all of his granddaughters to be makes me very proud.

It's sad that I can't just enjoy being happy without worrying about when the bottom is going to fall out and I'll become depressed about something real or imagined.
It seems that my highs and lows are polar opposites. The higher I get, the harder I fall.

I've mentioned to him that mom was an alcoholic for quite some time. I didn't tell him about the ass that was my step-father. He seems to have a lot of guilt. I'd hate for him to blame himself for anything that happened to me in his absence.

Wow, I'm going to end this now. i've had to backspace over approx 30 lines of text that got WAY off topic due to imbibing a bit of red wine.

BTW.. does anybody know what my dad is signing in that pic???

2005-10-17T22:51:00.000-05:00

The music has nothing to do with the blog.. just a cool cover of a Black Sabbath song by Pantera.
Hope somebody enjoys it...

This is the first drawing by me in over 10 years. I haven't done anything more than a little doodle in many moons. I recieved an awesome sketch pad and a Wolff's graphite sketch set from a "secret mom" many months ago. Not until my second line used for internet took a crap, have I attempted drawing.. it's pretty rough but the girls who haven't ever seen any of my drawings, were totally impressed.
There is nothing in the world like having your children impressed by something you did.

I found my birth father tonight... I haven't contacted him yet. I googled his name earlier this evening along with the word "photography" because that was the only thing I knew that he enjoyed. I have an album full of pictures that he had taken and developed on his own. There are gorgeous close-ups of flowers, pictures of my mother posed beautifully wearing make-up,( something she rarely did in my later childhood years. ) racecars, taiwanese families and pics of him with army buddies. I found a link to a profile for him on a forum for the flashlight enthusiast. (weird.. I know)
I called my sister, and mom to verify a few facts that I read in his profile and it all matched up. My sister called me just a bit ago and said she had been reading posts by him for many hours and said it was "DEFINATELY him". He mentioned having been married, having had two kids, and three grandkids (boy would he be suprised to know he has 7 granddaughters.. especially considering he only wanted one son!!! LOL)
She's going to attempt emailing him and is planning to send the links to my photobucket and her webpage for her two daughters.
She mentioned that it was weird that I was so interested in photography like he was. I explained to her that the album of pics, and the few things mom had told me, were all I knew of him. She was about 4 when he left, so she actually knew him.
I'm so ecstatic to know that he is still alive. Even though he left when my sis and I were very young, supposedly to live an "alternative lifestyle", I want him to know that I was very influenced by seeing the pictures he took.

2005-10-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

I don't have many readers anymore. I'm sure who ever is left will surely think differently of me for this...

I should start by explaining why I feel as I do about religion.
I grew up with a step-father who would get wasted, molest and beat me, then read the bible to me.
I am totally spiritually confused. I'm constantly questioning what I believe in. My youngest two children have never been to church, besides an Easter egg hunt.

I know just enough of religion to make me think there are a lot of contradictions that I can't understand. If Jesus died for our sins and suffered so we wouldn't have to, then why is there so much suffering among the innocent in the world? Why does evil almost always seem to prevail?
We have a very close friend that has had a horrible 12 months. Last Oct 28th, he lost his father to cancer. On Dec. 11th his wife passed 1 week after discovering she had leukemia. She was in GREAT HEALTH 1 week before she died and left 4 children ages 19, 16, 11, and 8 to be raised by their father.
In mid january his eldest son was hospitilized with double pneumonia that prompted surgery to drain his lungs. He was out of school the rest of the year.
Yesterday, the oldest son was driving the younger two to school. He lost control of the pickup, crossed a lane, barely missed an oncoming car, hit a fence, flipped the truck, and the youngest daughter (who was supposedly trying to put on her seatbelt) flew out of the truck window still clutching her brand new purse.Her shoulder was fractured. She wouldn't be at home today if not for the fence supporting the weight of the truck.

I have always tried to focus on the good things that happen. Despite the mental, physical, and sexual abuse that I endured from pre-teen to 13, I try to remind my older sister that was spared most of the physical and mental abuse, that we went on many family vacations.There WERE good times. We had fairly decent holidays when we went to lubbock and our parents had to put on a good front for the relatives... dysfunctional as they were themselves.
%

2005-10-11T19:57:00.000-05:00

A collection of pictures of Misty.

I've been lamenting lately over how quickly she is growing up.
As her older sisters become more independant, I become more clingy with her.

I picked her up to put her in her high chair tonight and relished that she's still small enough for me to easily lift her.

I think I've been a little crazy with the photography of her. We have nearly 3 gigs of pics stored on the computer. Sadly, the majority are of her.

Anyway, here's some pictures to go along with "Pictures of you" by The Cure

2005-10-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh... my blog.. home sweet home!

There's something wrong with my computer phone line today.

I was aware that I had an unhealthy addiction to being online.. just wasn't sure how bad.
I've determined that it is really really BAD. I kept trying to redial every 20-30 minutes just to see if it was working yet.
I finally couldn't take it anymore and hooked up to our home phone line.

Hannah got her license today. Mark kept her out of school so they could do that and work on a few things at the house in Cumby. The roof was blown off by a storm that came after Rita passed. He invited me to go along even the offer of breaskfast cooked by somebody else didn't appeal when considering the rest of the day would consist of me chasing Misty and Bethany around the land while Mark hooked up phones.. etc.

While going through internet withdrawel, I made a movie with video clips, music, special effects, and a pretty little title of Misty's birth. For some reason the music doesn't play.. I'll work on it when I have more patience.

Oh yeah! Happy Birthday to me! Here's the "Beatles" singing "When I'm 64". I'm 34 today..

2005-10-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

"Mary Jane"
What's the matter Mary Jane, you had a hard day
As you place the don't disturb sign on the door
You lost your place in line again, what a pity
You never seem to want to dance anymore
It's a long way down
On this roller coaster
The last chance streetcar
Went off the track
And you're on it
I hear you're counting sheep again Mary Jane
What's the point of trying to dream anymore
I hear you're losing weight again Mary Jane
Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for
Well it's full speed baby
In the wrong direction
There's a few more bruises
If that's the wayYou insist on heading
Please be honest Mary Jane
Are you happy
Please don't censor your tears
You're the sweet crusader
And you're on your way
You're the last great innocent
And that's why I love you
So take this moment Mary Jane and be selfish
Worry not about the cars that go by
All that matters Mary Jane is your freedom
Keep warm my dear, keep dry
Tell me
Tell me
What's the matter Mary Jane...

By Alanis Morisette

For Hannah..
I'm afraid I'm not very good at raising a teenager. I'm pretty sure I'm screwing things up for her at every turn. She has been legal to get her license to drive since early Sept. and we haven't taken her to get it yet. Mark promised her weeks ago that he was going to take her and it keeps getting put off.
Tonight Heather had a dance at her school. Despite the fact that she has been a mouthy little preteen lately, her dad thought she should be ungrounded long enough to go.
Hannah got pretty upset about the whole situation, but keeps it all bottled up.

After the dance, I stopped by Dairy Queen and got the girls all sundaes. Hannah and I had cappuchino moolatte's. While we were in drive-thru, Hannah spotted a bunch of her friends from school. We were still in the drive-thru as they all left the restaraunt. She climbed over the console, into the back seat, rolled down the window, and hollared out the window to her friends. They all hollared back and waved excitedly.
We got our treats and headed down the road.. I couldn't help but feel awful for her that it's a friday night, her friends are all out running around, and here she is having a wannabe version of a starbuck's frappucino with mom. She did nothing all summer but anticipate getting her license. At one point during the summer, I really screwed up. I told her not to get too anxious.. she wasn't going to be out driving all the time. Gas is expensive.
I sorta read on *HER* online journal how badly it hurt her. I felt bad for shooting down her hopes, but even worse for reading her blog. Especially if she didn't intend for me to see it.
I'm not feeling real secure in my ability to raise secure young ladies. I'm an emotional mess myself half the time.
I don't anticipate getting much of a break from the next two upcoming teens..

2005-09-29T11:51:00.000-05:00

It's becoming difficult to find a story to go along with a song I want to play.

If potty humor disgusts you, click your "back" button, or "Next Blog" button.

Misty follows EVERYBODY into the bathroom. If you don't want her to follow you, slide the door shut completely. If she can get the tinyest bit of finger between the door and frame, she's coming in!

So yesterday, she invited herself in while Daddy was going potty. She proceeded to try to yank off her diaper. Mark, instead of helping her calls me in and says "she needs help, she wants to go potty!"

I slide the door open the rest of the way and I'm nasally assaulted. I run to the window, yank the string to open the blinds, and open the window as wide s it possibly can open. He has the nerve to ask "what's your problem?".

So.. here's "Linger" by the Cranberries.

2005-09-27T11:27:00.000-05:00

One of my favorites from Otis Redding.

I've loved this song ever since watching "Duckie" lip snyching and dancing to it in "Pretty in Pink"wayyyyy back in the 80's.

I'm dedicating it to some friends of mine who are having problems with men that haven't figured out "if momma ain't happy, nobody is happy"

Mark goes through spells where he forgets, becomes an insensitive ass, and the terror ensues.. It's kind of like cutting his own throat. The food comes cold and tasteless, the clothes are wrinkled and the option of wearing a clean favorite is out the window. I'll wash all the clothes he'd never want to be seen in first. Then, I'll hang them on pink hangers.. in an attempt to demasculinize him.(He laughs at that one)

And sex, if you are lucky enough to get any, is hohum.

The tinyest things can make your world so much easier... bringing me back chocolate from the beer store you frequent, taking us out to dinner once in a while so I don't have a colossal mess to clean up every night once everybody is in bed. Giving me a hug when you pass by, instead of squeezing my butt.

Finally, if you expect me to not get upset about constructive criticism, try to do the same.

That's all for now. I hope all the men are behaving out there!

2005-09-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

Organized Chaos

I really hope the state of your closet doesn't directly reflect who you are.

I've been tagged byKristen. Thank goodness I have no picture to go along with this.

Picture if you will, a family of seven in a house with 2 rooms, one bath, and 2 closets, one of which is a coat closet by the front door.

Three Random Facts:

There is not a bit of wasted space in my closet.
The light burned out long ago. I haven't bothered replacing the bulb because I don't want to see what all is going on in there.
The sliding closet door is off the track.

Three Items I've Never Worn But Still Haven't Tossed:

Mark's clothes
Very LARGE Dr. Denton footed pajamas in baby blue.
Children's clothes

Three Items I'll Never Get Rid Of No Matter How Ugly They Get:

Black Lame hand-me-down prom dress from sis that I never got to wear.
Knitted off the shoulder blouse
Very odd late 80's early 90's style shirt with sheer sleeves and lots of sparkly beads sewed all over the front.

Three Items People Wouldn't Expect to Find In My Closet:

A wicker basket way at the top filled with "toys"
An enourmous bull whip.. very hard to manage
A vent-a-hood that is part of an "on hold" renovation for my kitchen.

Three Items That Make Me Say "Oh Lord, What Was I Thinking?":

A very odd late 80's/early 90's style shirt with sheer sleeves and lots of sparkly beads sewed all over the front.
A DKNY denim vest in orange and blue tie dye.. yeah, just as hideous as it sounds. FreeCycle, here I come!
Big clunky leather sandles with cork soles.

Three Things That I Have A Suprising Number Of:

Mommy jeans that I don't wear.
Size 3-5 jeans that I *can't* wear.
Sweatshirts that I wouldn't wear.

Three Dominant Colors:

Black
White
Red

Three Items That Put Me In A Good Mood When I Wear Them:

Size 3-5 jeans
lingerie ;)
Well worn blue jeans

Three People To Tag:

Thanks Kiki, that was really fun and a lot less painful than I first anticipated!

2005-09-24T21:13:00.000-05:00

Rita came for a visit today. We didn't see the ugliest side of her, just a little glimpse of how horrible she must have been before toning down a great deal.

The winds had us a little scared due to the tree that fell on our house with no winds whatsoever a few months ago.

We got a lot of rain.. still, I doubt it's going to add anything to the lake. Everything has been so dry for many many months. The lake bed resembled a peeling sunburn the last time we checked the levels.
Even though things weren't that bad around here, most of our area, if not all, has been without power. I'm so thankful for the cool breezes and the generator that we are using to power our necessities.. the TV and the computer.
The song playing is dedicated to Elisa, who reminded me of it.

"Patience", by Guns'n'Roses. I think dealing with the aftermath of the hurricanes, helps teach us all to use a little patience..

2005-09-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

Just testing out some things here.

Can these links be heard seperately from the background music?

More Than A Feeling
Babe, I'm Gonna Leave you