Memorial Weekend is Over

Okay, I had a three day weekend, and I had a long list of things I wanted to get done.  Guess how much I got done.  Not a whole helluva lot.  *laugh*  I read a couple of chapters of Harry Potter book 1 with J, I went to the school playground with the kids, I played outside with the kids, worked on my truck a little bit (damned bolts on the steering column were so loose that they fell off!), went out to Fort Richardson’s cemetery to put flowers on the SO’s friend and grandfather’s graves, did a little bit of laundry, cooked a bit, did some grocery shopping, went to Blockbuster and bought Hal Sparks’ “Charmageddon” dvd (as seen here: http://www.amazon.com/Hal-Sparks-Charmageddon/dp/B003F674A0) and generally just tried to relax.

Did I relax?  Yes and no.  E is still refusing to potty train completely.  Occasionally, he’ll use the toilet.  Most of the time though, he’s happier in his pull-up (we did get him out of actual diapers).  If he poops, he sneaks and changes himself, and the last few days – has played with the poop.  Much to the giggles of his older brothers, which only encourages him.  No amount of swatting has discouraged him because hey, his brothers laughed, so it must be something great to do.  Getting 8-12 year olds to NOT laugh at one large “poop” or “fart” joke is impossible.  Absolutely impossible.  I’m hoping that once I’m back from taking J to NJ, I can send the older two to my mom’s for a weekend and spend it breaking E of wearing pull-ups and force him to use the damned toilet.  Save about $100 a month. 

Thanks to running around this weekend with the kids, one of the discs in my lower back is leaking again.  I’m taking my oral steroids, but it makes me want to eat.  Of course, mix that with some of my other medications and it makes me queasy.  What a fun combination!  Near-constant hunger and the desire to throw up.  I’m trying to not eat all the time while I take my steroids.
Since Murphy’s Law is ALWAYS in effect around me, I’m also lifting and moving boxes at work.  I worked a little bit of overtime today and I have to be at work an hour early tomorrow.  I don’t mind the overtime.  What I don’t like is the necessity of the extra pain medication and the itchy eyes and runny nose thanks to all of the dust (I’ll be in the basement in the morning, and depending on how things go – the afternoon too).  I am not too happy with the dust.  Either that or I’m allergic to work. 

In any case, I have more laundry to do and I need to get some things done before I go to bed.

School’s Out, and Work is Frustrating

In Anchorage, school let out on May 17th.  Next week, I take my 3rd son, J, across country to NJ to spend the majority of summer break with his father (my 2nd ex-husband) and my former in-laws.  In two weeks, for 10 days, my company has a big national certification going on. 

Needless to say – I’m busy.  I’m stressed.  I’m extremely frustrated.  Some days, I feel like once I get one portion of my life in order and another starts to go wonky. 
Right now, no portion of my life is completely in order.  It’s all a little shaky.  With the near-constant sunlight, I am staying up later, and waking up earlier so I am always tired.  With the stuff I’ve been working on this week, plus the rain, I’m achier than usual.  I’ve been having more flare-ups, and while they aren’t extremely painful, the pain is spreading.  Instead of just the lower back and my neck/shoulders, it’s starting to spread more into the upper part of my middle back.  I guess I’ll have to mention it to my doctor the next time I see him.

With my oldest now heading to junior high, it makes me remember my junior high experience.  I realize that my son is not me.  That he has lived a more sheltered life than I did, and that there were different circumstances in my life that led me to do the things I did at his age that I did.  But, I can’t help but worry.  In the 7th grade, I was selling drugs, having sex and doing other things that I’d rather not mention.  I really doubt he would do that at the age of 12, but… I can’t help but wonder. 

I am glad for the 3 day weekend.  The SO will be off work on Monday and so will I, so we’ll have a full day off together.  We’ll spend some of the day cleaning the downstairs of our house.  Pulling the furniture away from the walls and wiping down the walls, scrubbing the staircase, vacuuming the couch, washing the windows, laundry, beating out the living room rugs, reorganize my bookshelves (did I mention that I REALLY need to buy new bookshelves because my current ones are overflowing?)… yeah… it will be a busy Monday. 
I also have to pack J for NJ this week.  Get all of his laundry together and have it all clean before it gets packed up.  Make sure all of his paperwork is together (birth cert, SS card, prescriptions, insurance card), the “fun” stuff like that.  It will be a whirlwind trip for me.  Leave on Friday afternoon, land in NJ on Saturday morning NJ time.  Leave NJ in the afternoon and land in Anchorage late night Saturday.  Recover Sunday and go back to work on Monday, just in time to deal with the certification person.  Fun times.

For now, I am going to relax.  Enjoy the sun that is filtering through the clouds.  Pet the cat that keeps pacing across my computer screen in an attempt to get my attention, and point out to me that her cat “box” is full of junk that a kid stored in there (seriously, who else would put a 2lb weight and a toy airplane in the cat’s box bed?).  I’m going to read a book and just chill out and not stress for a while.  I’m re-reading ‘Wizard’s First Rule’ by Terry Goodkind.  I do love the Sword of Truth series. 

Happy Mother’s Day

These are my boys on Christmas morning.  The reasons why I get to celebrate Mother’s Day every year.  My oldest, M, was born the day after Mother’s Day in 2000.  He will be 12 on Tuesday.  Next to him is E, the youngest, at 3 years old.  He was born on a Friday the 13th.  Everyone was so mad that I didn’t wait one more day so we could have a Valentine’s baby.  Honestly, I don’t like Valentine’s Day, and Friday the 13th was much more appropriate!  G is the 2nd born.  June 11th, and will be 10 this year.  On the right end is J, my New Year’s baby.  He turned 8 this year. 

Whether you are mom to a child by blood, adoption, marriage, fostering, to a fur-kid, or a mentoring-bonding relationship, birth mom who gave up a child for adoption, lost a child, or even an awesome dad doing the job of both – Happy Mother’s Day!  Your kids may not always appreciate you on a day-to-day basis, but one day, they will.  It’s worth it.  I promise.

Anchorage News

It saddens me to say that yet again, my city can be shown in a bad light.  An airman went missing not long after the body of 18 year old barista Samantha Koenig’s body was found.  Her father even volunteered and helped this airman’s parents search for him.  They found his body and have confirmed it in the news this morning.  Senior Airman Clinton Reeves went missing after going to look at a vehicle to purchase because his original vehicle had been totaled out in a collision of some sort (I don’t have the details).  He was the only child of Judy Davis and Terry Reeves.
Another airman has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of Airman Reeves, and while charged with numerous crimes, has not yet been charged with the murder.  I think that’s because they hadn’t confirmed that the body they had was Airman Reeves at the time.  But, uncharacteristically of our police force, they are being tightlipped about things.  Honestly, I think that is a good thing.  Usually they give away so much information about ongoing investigations that everyone knows the entire case before it ever goes to trial and in many cases, before they ever catch a perpetrator.

We are also still dealing with the aftermath of an election, that, in my opinion, was botched.  The deputy clerk was fired yesterday.  They are not going to have a “re-do” of the election, and things have been confusing.  First they are going to certify thing, then they aren’t, then they are, and I have no idea what is what anymore.  The issue is this:  The poll calls prior to election show that Proposition 2 should have passed, but the day of elections… well, it didn’t.  There were issues.  I’ve mentioned them before.  Places ran out of ballots (I had no problem when I went to vote), an anti-Prop 2 proponent was telling people they could register to vote on election day and still be able to vote (that’s not true), anti-Prop 2 folks telling people they could vote in other areas even if they weren’t registered there (and in some cases, not even city residents), the safety tape on the counters being sliced open (tampered with) and the deputy clerk telling them that it was okay because it happens all the time, etc.  A recount is supposed to be happening, but the thing is, some of those hand-counted ballots are probably suspect in and of themselves, and many of them are photocopied because of the lack of ballots at the polling places.  It is hard to trust any of them.

Of course, this does bring me to my next topic:  Obama’s announcement that he is okay with gay marriage.  And our resident national “political figures” (note that I have put that in quotations).  Look, I really am glad that a politician thinks that gay marriage should be legal.  But the timing is suspect.  Why couldn’t he have been working on this instead of that abomination of a clusterfuck he calls a healthcare bill?  This is an election year.  And our economy is still sagging.  This is a conversation piece meant to distract people from the real issues.  And it’s working.  Of course, idiot Bristol Palin has to come out and say something.  “Children need a mommy and daddy”.  Sweetie, you are really one to talk.  Shut up, sit down, and go play with your dolls kids.  Last I checked, you were’t married.  Last I checked, you were still feuding with the father of your (publicly claimed) son.  Last I checked, you were still using your son, your mother’s name/notariety/fame to exploit yourself and your child to attempt to make money (reality shows?  Really, that’s like porn/prostitution with clothes on) and had the gall to complain when your son’s father wanted to do anything remotely similar.

Please note folks – I am NOT affiliated with any political party.  I am not known to or known by either the Palins or the Johnstons or (knowingly) any of their associates/family.  What I am, however, is tired of them making Alaska the laughing stock of the political and entertainment arena. They make the rest of us look like imbred hillbillies.

Insomnia Strikes!

It’s nearly midnight, and I can’t sleep.  You’d think I’d be able to.  I am sick and have night time cold medicine in me.  I was lifting things I shouldn’t have and am “paying” for it now, in the form of pain.  Obviously, I’ve got my pain medications in me as well.  You would think that it would be enough to make me drowsy.  Nope.  One of my medications has this lovely effect where half the time you take it, it acts like an upper rather than a downer.  It always seems to do this when I would LOVE to be sleeping.

So, here I am listening to Craig Ferguson on CBS (love Craig!) and reading ‘The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul’ by Douglas Adams.

I admit, I am a big Douglas Adams fan.  For those who don’t know, Douglas Adams wrote The HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series (5 books plus a short story, the 6th was unfinished and Eoin Colfer finished it with permission of DA’s wife), the Dirk Gently books, and created the computer game “Starship Titanic” (he asked Terry Jones of Monty Python fame to write the book to go along with it).  For full details on DA – I highly recommend you google him.
Anyways – I love DA’s writing style.  He is one of the funniest people I’ve read (not counting actual comedians).  Whimsical, unique, and highly entertaining.  His books cannot be considered “light” reading.  He confuses many a reader.

Earlier, I watched Labrynth with my youngest, E (age 3).  He likes The Muppets, and I wanted a change from the constant Doctor Who that he has been begging to watch.  Over and over again.  So, we told him that Muppets were in Labrynth and he was excited to watch.
I have watched the movie with my other boys.  They were all a little older than E when they first watched it, so I didn’t get the same reactions from them as E.  E absolutely loved it.  He cuddled with me because the SO fell asleep (he’s fighting the same bug as the rest of us now).  E doesn’t normally cuddle with me.  He’s a Daddy’s Boy.  All the way.  I don’t mind.  The older three were Mommy’s Boys, even though I worked full time when they were all little.  The SO has been lucky enough to be able to stay at home (for the most part) for the last 3 years with E.  I make enough money to mostly support us, and he (currently) works weekends.  It would be nice to get more money with him working a full time job, but honestly, the daycare expenses would probably take any monetary benefit, and then some.  Four kids in daycare is expensive.
Anyhoo, now that I’ve rambled on a tangent – E had a blast watching the movie with me.  He is at the age where he talks to the characters.  Warns them of danger, yells at them when they do something wrong, and moans in sympathy when something bad happens.  It’s adorable.  He was quite the snuggle bug tonight.

I love introducing my kids to movies that I used to watch when I was young.  They love Willow, The Princess Bride, all of the Mel Brooks movies, Top Secret!, and all that.  I had to pass on my love of Mel Brooks movies to my kids.  My grandpa got me hooked on them as a small child (I watched Spaceballs with him until I was 15).  I just couldn’t stop watching because I became a parent.  I love the 80s cheesy spoof films.  I find that the newer stuff (starting with the Wayans’ Bros) is overdone, moronic, and insulting to anyone with intelligence.  Just blatant jokes for an immediate laugh.  Nothing with depth.  Brooks was subtle as well as overt.  Subtle humor and jokes within jokes make for a better movie, in my opinion.  At least with comedic films.

Well… I should really log off and attempt to tire myself out.  Perhaps a bath.

Sunitis Strikes!

For those of you who don’t know, “sunitis” is an affliction that I sort of created a few years back.  Basically, if you look outside and it’s super sunny and you lose all willpower to continue working in an office and have the urge to go work in your yard, or lay out in the sun, or even take a drive – you have sunitis.  (pronounced sun-eye-tiss). 

We still have snow in some of the shadier parts of town.  For the most part however, the grass is turning green, plants are popping up, and the trees are starting to bud.  In other words, as soon as it’s sunny – everyone is longing to go outside.  I haven’t seen any rain yet, but we’ve been cloudy enough for it a few days in the past month.

Right now though, spring colds have hit.  J brought it home last week and passed it on to E.  E passed it on to me and M.  In addition to the sore throat, hacking cough (wet or dry, just depends on the person), and runny nose; I am also dealing with fevers, hot and cold flashes, and laryngitis.  I have also been going through boxes at work.  About 50 of them.  Unlabeled, many disorganized, and all heavy.  I’m not supposed to be lifting them because of my back, but there is nobody to help me, and I need to go through these boxes to search for things.  So – I’ve been lifting.  I can feel that one of my discs in my lower back is leaking again.  I pulled a muscle in my leg/hip/groin area.  I’m sore.  Unfortunately, it will be like this until I can get the boxes catalogued, into regular banker boxes instead of the moving boxes they came in, and in some semblance of order. 

Our color copier broke down today.  It is our “big job” copier, so a lot of us are put out at the moment because we all have a lot to do with that copier right now.  Being spring, we’ve got training coming up (next week), and working on a bunch of different things.  When I left the office (early, thanks to pain), the service guy was there.  I’m hoping that the copier gets fixed.  There is just too much to do to have a copier down.

The kids are getting excited to have summer break soon.  The kids get out of school on May 17th.  My oldest (M) will be turning 12 on the 15th.  He is in his last year of elementary school.  To mark the occasion, he is getting his own bedroom for his birthday.  He will be on a different schedule than the other three (getting up early to catch a bus for school), so we figured that it was best that he have a separate room now.  We are working on turning the spare bedroom into his room.  It does require a lot of cleaning/sorting of stuff in the other closets.  There never was a closet door in that bedroom, and we are wondering whether or not to put some in (finally).  I’d like to repaint.  The room is a baby blue color now, and I’d like a tan or off-white instead.  I need to put up a curtain rod, put in some shelving (for knick knacks), find a decent bookshelf/student desk and chair, a floor rug and maybe some better curtains.  He has a Harley Davidson set of curtains (to match his bedset), but those won’t block out the sun at all. 

J is going to NJ this summer to visit his dad and grandparents.  Hopefully, we can afford for all three older boys to go visit at Christmas. 

That’s all for this post.  Just inane babbling.  There may be more later, depending on if I get a chance to get back online tonight.