Ahhhh...sleep!

Meg, Beth, I would love to get together with you all for a margarita!

DH came home a bit earlier than I expected yesterday and was up for a trip to Chili's. I had the Chambord 1800 margarita. I think I like the strawberry-mango better. The boys were actually very well behaved. Though Havoc did scare us half to death a little later when he just vanished in the Lowe's. He came back to the cart while we were off looking for him. Apparently he had seen something he just *had* to examine. We told him he has to ask us from now on. Priced stoves & washers & dryers. I didn't realize you can get stackables with front load washers! Our current side by side set is 11 years old. The dryer has been having issues but the washes is good for now. We just wanted prices. But now that I know they are available I told DH to just plan on buying the stackabled. The price is the same as a standard front loader (about $800) and I am adamant about getting a front loader when the time comes.

Went to bed at 11pm and no little boys joined us all night long!! First time in 2 weeks! Havoc got up sometime between 6-6:30a. He came in the room about 6:30a talking about Little Bear & we are not sure if he was talking about a dream he had or a show he watched. DH got up, got him some breakfast & dozed on the couch for a bit while Havoc ate. Mayhem got up at almost 7:30! Then DH got them dressed & took them for McD's and to the Tractor Supply store to look for a part the Kubota needs. I slept until 9am! It was beautiful!

The secret of getting there is knowing where to start

I've known since April 1 that I had to have that mini album done by the 30th. I started working on it when? The 26th? Starting is very often my problem. I nearly always plan to start something 'later'. I'll even give a specific date sometimes. "I'll start that diet Monday." "I'll start that new budget on payday." and I usually do start when I say I will. I just rarely start something right away.

I suppose I do need to figure out when to start the carpet cleaning or it will never get clean.

I had about 3 hours of sleep last night. Mayhem came in the room about 2:45a and was restless until almost 5:30a,when he finally fell asleep hogging almost half the bed (which is amazing considering he is 2 and not even 3 feet tall). Havoc came in about 4:45a and never really settled down to sleep again. He just played until I told him to go in the living room around 6am. Then he popped in and out of the bedroom every 20 minutes or so to tell me what was on TV. He finally woke Mayhem up about 7am & they both demanded breakfast. Mommy was NOT happy for a long time this morning. Coffee & cinanmon rolls helped eventually.

I want to go out to dinner tonight but DH will be getting home around 5 and I doubt he will be in the mood to go anyplace. Maybe I will go out to dinner all by myself. I haven't done that in ages. But then I can't have a margarita...

I believe...

...if these boys don't nap soon I am going to start pulling my hair out
...this is possibly the longest I have gone without creating a layout since I discovered digi scrapping in Aug 05
...there is a Higher power & many ways to connect with it
...that we are going to have a great Beltaine ritual & party on Sunday
...that little boys can be just as cuddly as little girls
...they are probably stickier than girls though
...Kerry wouldn't be doing much better of a job if he'd won (I voted Libertarian)
...our county administrators are a bunch of self-serving idiots, by & large, who are afraid to make any actual decisions because it might make a few people upset with them. Everything has been refered for 'study' AGAIN. I don't care if they decide the opposite of what I want, just DECIDE ALREADY!!
...my kitchen floor really needs scrubbed & my carpets shampooed
...that I will do cross stitch this evening instead of cleaning floors
...I am not going to get much sleep tonight with DH being gone camping
...that I deserve a couple nights alone away from home too
...I will make reservations at the Marriott an hour away for next month
...I am procrastinating finishing those last 4 pages of my mini album

My life

I think I would call it routine. It's also fairly quiet & occasionally a bit dull but I like it that way. When things get exciting it usually seems to involve a trip to the ER. So I prefer boredom. :)

The women in my MOPS group always tell me "You always have everything so organized in your life. You are right on top of it all." I guess I appear to have it more together than I actually do.

and typing this post just reminded me that I was supposed to call a woman for MOPS on Monday & find out what she would like in her gift basket, so I can get it bought for next week's meeting. But I had my day to make dinner for another MOPS mom who just gave birth, switched around on me to Monday, throwing my plans off. I am organized but only as long as nothing alters my plans.

What physical item can make or break your day?

That would be coffee. I must must must have a cup of (non-instant) coffee with real milk & real sugar. No subsititutes allowed. It can be decaf, I don't need the caffine. I need the familiarity, the ritual, the taste & the smell of a cup of coffee. Or I am going to be cranky at least until noon.

I *need* to get my brag book quick pages done this week. Yet I am doing everything I can to put it off.

When I grow up

When I was little I knew exactly what my dream job would be. I wanted a desk job. That is right. I wanted to be an office worker. I wanted a 9-5 job that when 5pm came around I could walk away from it, not bring work home. I wanted weekends off, 5 sick days and 2 paid weeks of vacation every year. Occasional overtime was acceptable but I did not want a job that would be my life. There was just nothing I felt that passionate about. I wanted a job to pay the bills & finance whatever interest I currently had. I wanted regularity of hours so I could plan my 'real' life easily around it.

I went to work in an office at 23 and held several intersting and not so interesting positions beofre I found my dream job. I worked as a telecom analyst for 800flowers in one of their call centers for 3 years. I was responsible for the call routing & system monitoring the agents performace. I analyzied the systems reports, helped plan staffing needs and the budget. I was paid well for my time 8:30a-5p and paid very well for any time after that. I could surf the web to my hearts content & as long as my work was done no one could ever really say I was goofing off because most of the people near me had no idea what I was really doing. I really really enjoyed my job, even the frustrations were amuzing, because it was exactly the job I had always wanted. I left it when my son was born & I don't regret it. I had planned to go back to work but my child care arrangements fell through & I realized I was actually kinda happy about it.

Now I am a SAHM. My oldest starts school 3 mornings a week this fall. My youngest will do that next year and the year after that both boys will be in school all week. I have started thinking about what I will do then. My old job is gone, reorganized away a year or so ago. So I can't go back to it. Having already done what I wanted to do, I am sort of at a loss on where to turn now. The 9-5 thing no longer answers my needs.

Pets

I have 3 cats. 2 of them are 13 years old and one is 10. One of them, not sure who, has decided that my bathmat & the towel hamper are their litter box. Needless to say, I have been *very* unhappy with the cats. The 2 olders ones are the prime suspects as they have done it before with other objects in the house. If the little has done it, I have never caught her at it. They have just been to the vet so I know nothing physical is wrong with them. There is no way to totally wash out cat urine, so cats can't smell it, so I have thrown out the hamper & the bathmat. This makes 5 bathmats in less than 2 years, in just my bathroom. I've tossed at least one in the main bathroom as well. A couple of times they did get shut in there by a toddler so I view it as an accident but this time I *know* the door was open because I've started propping it open. The vet says it may be psychological & if it becaomes a constant problem there is feline prozac available. One of them already takes thyroid meds. I don't think it is financially possible for us to put 2 cats on prozac. They are indoor/outdoor cats & now that it is warm again Ithink maybe they will just spend more time outdoors.

I haven't scrapped in 10 days. I want to scrap, but I am not feeling inspired at the moment. I've got a bunch of sketches & layout for lifiting & several interest me but none of my photos are saying "pick me! pick me!" So I have been playing with my camera. Its an Olympus Camedia5000 Zoom. I've had it for a year now. I just discovered how I can control the f stop & ISO. I didn't think I had that much adjustment ability.

It was my idea to square off & widen the area where our ring pool sits. So it is me who has to dig out the trench for the new edging (more railroad ties). Then I get to rake around the sand already ther & level it for the new pebbles we are going to use. The cats use the sand as a litterbox outside so something else needs to be used. Apparently they find the pebbles uncomfortable. Then I have to dig the trench for new edge of the yard/parking area. So it will be me, a pick axe and a shovel this week at naptime.

forgiveness

That is the topic for this weekend's prompt. That got me thinking about the last paragraph of my previous entry, which I wrote not knowing there was a prompt this weekend. Can you forgive people for frequently irritating you? Do you need to? Is it a big enough issue to warrent a 'forgiveness' as a opposed to just shaking your head, accepting that this person irritates you, and moving on. Is accepting & moving on in itself forgiveness? That is more or less what you do when you forgive someone. You accept what happened & move on. I can't say that I have often said "I forgive you" to anyone. I've said "It happened, its over, lets move on". Which is sorta the same thing, but not quite. There is no absolution in it, the way there seems to be in saying 'I forgive you.' I have said it when people have apologized, but I have never really though "i forgive that person for thier actions." without them saying they were sorry. I've let a lot of stuff go. I've trusted again where I have been betrayed before. I have accepted certain things are the way they are & that certain people are the way they are & gone on.

I think with the board situation forgiveness is not going to work for me. Mostly because it is a constant thing. Things happen, people overreact or screw up or use poor judgement, that is to be expected. You make mistakes but you learn from those mistakes. yeah, soemtimes you have to make the mistake a few time sto really learn the lesson. But to do it all the time, to always overreact, to always belittle people, always be as nasty as you can in certain situations, is another thing. Forgiveness for me requires some regret in the other person, some sign somewhere that they know their behavior hurt someone & they don't like that they did that. If you never show any regret, or always making the same excuses for your behavior with no attempt to change, I can't forgive that. I can let it go personally & accept that you are just not a very nice person IMO, but I can't really forgive you for it.

random stuff

I've got the non-disc reading DVD drive swapped out with my old CD recordable drive. It's reading the discs & copying them at 8x on average. Which means the problem is my DVD-RW drive & not iTunes. I was hoping it was iTunes because it's free. I just got that DVD-RW in December, putting it a month out of warranty. I also have the cover off the PC at the moment so possibly the problem is that things were getting overheated. I suppose I should try copying things with the DVD-RW & see. But 4:50 from Paddington I think is the last one that will fit on the DVD, with everything copied & converted so far. I'll have to test it again & see.

DH's truck won't start. We have no clue why. Not good. I set the oven on fire this morning while preheating if for cinnamon rolls. Probably grease from the mini meatloaves on Thursday. However the oven has been having heating issues. Not good either. I have it running the self-clean cycle now.

I'm really getting tired of a message board I have been on for lo, these many years now. Most of the time it is a great site & I am quite fond of a chunk of the people on it. But it has these cycles of arguments where certain people seem determined to prove they are the biggest jerk on the board (or, in their terms, they are right and they can be as offensive about it as they want because they are being *real* & the board is all abut being *real*). Actually the board is about open exchange of ideas. You can make your point without being nasty, but that does require you use you brain. So much easier just to get snarky & jump people. These cycles irritate me for a variety of reasons, mostly because it is the same people trying to prove themselves the toughest, baddest member of the board. It's somewhat intimidating the first time you read it but so incredibly predictable & pathetic the 386th time you ready it. I keep thinking it is time to move on. These cycles come more & more frequently lately. But i continue to hang, partly because of the people & partly because I have been there for so long. Habit I suppose.

now that that is over with

and I can think beyond the dental horror I want to get back to scrapping. I copied all the Top 10 CK layouts to my desktop & I think I will do some scraplifting tomorrow. I'd like to finish copying Under the Tuscan Sun to my cd to convert it, but my DVD drive seems to be having issues. It will copy 1-2 discs ok, at its usual speed, but about 2/3 the way through the second disc or when I put in a 3rd, it slows down to a crawl. It goes from a rate of 5.8x to 0.8x and suddenly needs 100% of the CPU to do it. I have to turn off the PC and walk away for awhile, then I can reboot, and copy 2 more CDs, then repeat. Tuscan Sun is 10 cds long. I have 5 done so far. Needless to say I cannot open PSP at the same time. I'm not sure what is going on. Also my other older DVD drive seems to have stopped working all together. I put a disc in, any disc & it doens't see it. I guess I need to replace it with my old CD drive. I hope I didn't toss it in my last cleaning frenzy.

This is a photo of my DH, taken at 4:15pm today. He is taking a well deserved nap. He worked late yesterday, came home, put the boys to bed, and then continued working until 2am. While he was working Mayhem was up for about 90 minutes of that time due to his cold. Then DH got up with Havoc at 6:30am, while Mayhem slept with me until *a. DH did not go into the office today but worked from home so he could watch the boys while I was at the dentist. He planned on staying home after I go back because I am usually a bit 'fragile' after dental experiences. The boys went down for their naps at 1p and DH worked until 4 when I asked to used the computer. He sat on the sofa & promptly fell asleep. I've got the boys watching Backyardigans in our room to keep them from waking him up.

The root canal went well for the most part. Thanks everyone for your good thoughts. :) I did start crying as soon as I sat in the chair but the endodontist (I think that is what she is called, she specializes in root canals) was really nice & we talked for a bit about my past experiences. She numbed me up good. 2 shots that hurt like hell, but i was numb until 3pm, a good 2.5 hours after she was done. I had an abscess & an infection so she was not able to fill the root this visit. I have to take meds for 2 week & then go back, get numbed up, get the root filled & a temp filling put on. Then I have to go back *again* (and pay $108 more) and get numbed up *again* to get a permanent filling. But the root is gone now so the only pain I have to really fear is the needle, which I do fear a great deal but is something I can cope with. The actual procedure didn't hurt this time, which is a first in 4 root canals. However, the tugging & scraping sound of her grinding away at the inside of my tooth with her different little files, is going to linger with me for a loooooooonnnnnggggg time.

Books

Good topic since I am currently immersed in converting my audiobooks to mp3s.

My favorite author of all time is the late Douglas Adams. The 42 in my various user names is in his honor and my second son is indirectly named for a character in 2 of his books. Mayhem was going to be named Dirk, for Dirk Gently, but he just didn't look like a 'Dirk' so we named him Mayhem.

I have been reading a lot of travel anthologies lately. I just finished A Woman's Europe and am now reading A Woman's Path which is a collection of essays about spiritual travels/pilgrimages made by women around the world. I have "the Best of Travel Writing 2005" waiting to be read next.

I am currently listening to Dave Barry Does Japan on my iPod at the gym & in my car. Next up is 'A Year in the World" by Frances Mayes who also wrote Under the Tuscan Sun. I have both the paperback & the audio of Under the Tuscan Sun. I only listen to unabridged books. Mostly because I tend to listen to books I have already read & I hate it when parts are missing. But Under the Tuscan Sun's audio version could benefit from having the recipes abridged out of it. I have never seen the movie, but from what I have heard it is a different story than the book.

Inspiration

Most of scrapping inspiration comes from scraplifting or sketches. I don't usually follow them completely; you might see something of the original in what I end up with but I never follow anything totally (which is why I cannot crochet a sweater pattern to save my life...always fiddling with things, even wheni am really *trying* to stickto the pattern). But they give me a starting point. A color, a alpha, a way of organizing photos or placing journaling, that I then work around.

I haven't been very inspired lately though by anything. I have this big sword hanging over my head, blighting my life & taking over my mind (I exaggerate for humor, god knows I need it) of the ROOT CANAL on Friday at 10:50a. I cannot really do anything in the least creative right now & I have tried. I'd love to get it off my mind for awhile but it seems to have sucked up all my inventive memory with replaying moment by painful moment all the worst parts of my 3 previous root canals in an endless loop. Quick flashes of horrendous pain when the lidocaine wears off, the horrible horrible time the dentist had to actually stick the needle in the root in my tooth to numb it, the agony of having the hot post jammed into the tooth after the nerve was out. If I have to relive even one of them that is absolutely it for me. I am just having the damn tooth pulled & porceline one put in. Seriously. I have to have crowns on the teeth with root canals and by the time you add it all up, a fake whole tooth will cost me about $400 more and I'd be asleep for it.

The guy doing it is a specialist. That is all he does is root canals. He comes in special to the office on Fridays just to do root canals. Please God let that mean he is quick & efficient & that I can convince him I am not BSing him about the lidocaine wearing off quickly. I had to have 3 shots of it while my doc stitched up the tear from Mayhem's birth. I don't think it took him 20 minutes to stitch it. I don't know how much he was using but even he commented "You can feel that now?" I just want as little pain as possible. I hold out no hope for no pain, but if the root could just stay numb while they were drilling it out that'd be good. And if they could find a drill that didn't make that ear shattering whining noise that'd be good too.

Projects

Where to begin......There are so many projects in the works around here. On a house wide level, we are working on the yard. We have a 5 year plan for the yard. This is year 4. When we moved in we had no front yard. We had a huge gravel parking area. Over the past 3 years we have converted a chunk of that parking area to grass, built a covered patio, built a playyard & gotten one of those 15 foot blow up ring pools. This year we are framing in & backfilling an area off the side of the driveway to be the new pakring area. We also have to dig out part of the hillside onvthe other side of the drive & put up a low retaining wall. We will then reclaim the final part of the old parking area in front of the house and move the playyard over to it. We are using railroad ties for the framing & retaining walls. Next year we will run the ties all the way down to the road (have to dig out a trench to set them in) and then put up one of those metal carports over the new parking area. Then at long last we will have covered parking. Only 10 years after we moved in.

Also in the works, after the spring yard work is done is the drawer/cupboard unit DH is making for the bedroom. And the new desk for me.

Personally I am in the midst of a project converting my audiobook CDs to .mp3 format & burning them to DVDs. Then I am going to sell the original CDs. I am also working on some elements for a kit I am working on. I have various pieces that I gave out as prizes at chats I hosted when I was a mod at Scrapmommies. I want to make a complete kit out of them to give away.

That is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others. DH & I sit down once a season & make a list of what needs done, otherwise known as the "Things to Spend Money On" list.

Monday's prompt

How do you cope with a change in plans? Not very well actually. I like for there to be plans. I like for those plans to be followed. I like to have backup plans in case the first plan falls through. It does depend on just what the thing is. I'll roll with a restaurant being closed unexpectedly or toddler tales being cancelled for snow. I'm disappointed but I can work with it easily enough. But something big like a flight getting cancelled or other travel/vacation plans getting changed throw me pretty hard at first. I get upset (angry or sad) for a bit, but then I move on to solving the problem. I'll probably complain about it for awhile afterwards too. I have my spontaneous moments, but they are few.

Meals so far

Tuesday we had the leftovers
Wednesday we had pasta w/metballs (leftover mini meatloaf from last month, frozen)
Thursday we were going to have the chicken strips but it turned out they were fish strips. note to self - Label the stuff before putting it in freezer.
Friday we had Osaka carry out - steak & chicken hibachi plus sushi & miso soup
Today we had steak & spinich salad. Steak onthe grill. YUUMMM! and just enough left over for a steak sandwich for lunch on Monday.

Tomorrow I don't know what we are doing for dinner. Maybe we will go to the Chinese buffet place in C-ville. I'd assume most restaurants are open even though it is Easter, but I am positive the buffet place is. I have a Jewish friend who, when asked about what they have for Xmas dinner, says "We've gone out for Chinese since I was a kid" Maybe we'll make that our Easter thing.

Weekend stuff

Lots of random stuff this weekend. We don't celebrate Easter & Havoc is just now getting old enough to realize there are Easter baskets. He doesn't realize yet that most people get them & he doesn't. I suspect that will be next year. We do go to the egg hunts & things, and really there is nothing religious about an Easter basket. So I guess it needs to be an all or nothing thing, because I can't really explain why he can hunt eggs with his friends but not get a basket of candy. Tricky thing about being a minority religion. But, like Xmas, the fact that they re on different dates does help me keep a distance between religious & secular holidays. I guess it is just the former Catholic in me, but despite the bunnies & the eggs I have never really viewed easter as a secular holiday. Xmas, oh yeah, BIG secular holiday. Easter, not so much.

I have to go get new curtain rods, the big heavy (and expensive) kind that the boys won't be able to bend easily. They've been ones in the living room almost in half. They are not supposed to play around in teh curtains, but I have no business relying on that edict to keep a 2 & 3 year old from bending my curtian rods.

I have 2 layouts to finish this weekend for ScarpMommies, giving me 4 out of 12. But oh well. New Boot Camp challenge is up too. And I need to get my mini album together for 1hour scrap this month. But I need to check & see if I can do a trading card sized one & if they want 8 or 12 pages for it, since it is so small.

Friday prompt

It is to write about flowers. Flowers...not something I think about much or write about ever. So I think I am going to have go with randomness on this topic.

DH & the boys bought me flowers last week. White daisies that had been died blue by putting them in blue water and some purple flowersas part of the bouquet. I have no idea what sort of flowers the purple ones are.

I have every rose DH has ever given me, dried & stored in 2 large plastic containers. At some point I am going to make rose beads out of them.

I just had to spend as much in shipping as the cost of the bouquet to send my mom flowers for her birthday because I ordered them yetesterday instead of on Monday. Her birthday is tomorrow & they had tobe delivered today.

I used to work for 1-800flowers in a local call center as the telcom analyst & call flow director.

Thursday Journaling

"This too shall pass"

I've been hearing this my whole life from the people around me. Often it is said of the good things as well as the bad, which I think is a bit unique among my friends. Most people just say it when something bad or a struggle of some sort is going on. But we also say it when something good is happening, as a reminder to savor the moment.

Something funny?

Havoc must have had an interesting dream last night

He told me this morning that a cat monster was going to visit us. Just a little baby one, but it was going to drive over to play with us. It lived a long way away. When we were coming home from the gym he mentioned it again & I suggested maybe it would nap with him but he said cat monsters only sleep on pasta, not in beds.

Some of this I can explain. When Havoc went through a phase of being afraid of monsters a few months ago I first told him that monsters only live in California (Dh adding that the whacky liberals out there have all these monster protection laws in place so the monsters like living there best of all places - DH is a little nuts sometimes) Later I told Havoc that even if monsters were around here, they wouldn't stay because they are afraid of cats & our 3 cats would chase them away. He decided that Nefer was the cat who really didn't like monsters (Nefer doesn;t really like anyone) & that seemed to mostly end his monster problems. So I can sorta understand the idea of dreaming about friendly baby cat monsters.

not sure where the idea of sleeping on pasta came from though. And now I have this image in my head of a monsterous cat with a pacifier curled up on a plate of spaghetti.