Insomnia

Not much going here. I can't sleep. I hate when this happens. I keep having the same dream over and over, related to some item at work; I toss and turn, until finally I'm forced to get out of bed to putt around the house. Tonight I got to walk down the street to check out why there were 3 fire trucks, an ambulance, and a police car on my street. It was "just" a rescue call, but since we use volunteers around here, everyone comes out of the woodwork, which I suppose is better than the alternative - no one responding to a call.

Of course, that doesn't help my sleeplessness. What would help would be a new mattress. Our mattress is the same lumpy one we've had since we got married. I bought it at the PX, not for comfort but affordability. After all these years and all the moves it's had to endure, I think it is time for a new one. I hate to spend so much money on an overpriced piece of foam and metal springs. I just have to remind myself that this is where 1/3 of my life is spent, so it is a good investment.

Fall out

Well, the joy in my promotion has been short lived. The woman who was passed over quit today. The promotion thing was the straw that broke the camels back - she has has several months of frustration, non-appreciation, and aggravation that has built up to this. So, I'm now faced with having to do her work along with my new responsibilities. Joy oh joy. It will be temporary, but since I've already been stretched quite far as it is, and I'm not elastigirl, I don't know how much more I can take before I break. It should be very interesting come Monday morning (I don;t work there on Fridays). I can't wait to hear how things have turned out

Promotion

Lucky day for me, I got a promotion at work. I'll be doing the same job that I've been doing, only now I have a different title and more money to go with it, plus a little more power thrown in for kicks. That is definitly a positive.
The negative is that another individual at my work should also have been offered a promotion (which she would have turned down) but it wasn't offered to her. Plus, my boss in his infinite wisdom chose not to speak to her first before doing the promotions. So now at work we can all stay cool from her icy gazes. Let me just state for the record that she is totally justified in her anger, but it takes away some of the thrill and excitement for myself and my coworker who was also promoted. We should be celebrating with cake, not tip-toeing around the office.

New neighbor

It looks like we have some new neighbors at the house across the street. It will be difficult for their friends and family to find them, since the street sign/stop sign was knocked clean out of the ground last night. I mention this in relationship to our new neighbor because their garage is showing some indications of a tramatic event as well as their car is showing a rather pole-shaped dent in it. There is also a remarkable lack of any skid marks, which is scary in its own right.

I've only seen one of the people who live there, a businessman by the looks of it. He drives an SUV, not the car that tried to defy the laws of matter. Should I go over and welcome our new neighbors and then nonchalantly ask about the half-raised crushed-in garage door? One thing I defintely know I'll be doing - parking off the street.

UPDATE: It turns out the teenage son crashed into the door this morning when he was moving cars around. There is still a mystery as to whether or not the sign post is the kids work.

First day of school, part 2

The rest of the day went a little better. Although my son did not enjoy his first day, he got through it. He came home saying he had a bad day. To quote him "recess was too short - they kept blowing that whistle. Line up, then go play, line up, then go play, then line up and go inside, no fair". Plus they had some writing assignments to do and he was unable to complete them (he can't focus long enough to come up with a story and write it).
Luckily, we were able to change his bad day to a good day by going out for ice cream after dinner. It was a long standing traditional in my family to go to the local ice cream parlor after first day of school, report cards, dance recitals, etc. and I think it is a nice one to continue. It always put a smile on my face when I was younger and it worked for my son as well - he walked out of the ice cream place saying that ice cream was a great reward for a good day.

First Day of School, part 1

It's the first day of school here and it's already off to a shaky start. Why? Because my dear son, having gotten himself up and dressed early, has now decided to have a meltdown over the placement of the transportation sticker on his shirt. This is occuring even as we speak, while his breakfast of scrambled eggs is getting cold and my patience is getting short. My reiteration over and over again of the phrases "we don't have time for this" and "you need to eat breakfast" is not working, so I felt it was the perfect time to update this blog. Either that or I may need to choke him, which is not a good start to the school year. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

quote of the day

The best portion of a good man's life are the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
- William Wordsworth

Monogamy

I was just reading how Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn's daughter) does not believe that monogamy is a realistic goal in a marriage, and that if her husband Chris, who is the lead singer for the Black Crowes, cheated on her she would not want to know. She did state that she believed couples have the "power" to be monogamous and that she would not disrespect her husband by cheating on him.

Hmm.

I've often had this conversation with my girlfriends. If your husband cheated on you, would you want to know, or would it be best to never know; and if you cheated on him, would you tell or keep it a secret. This is actually a relevant question for my friends, since many of them have husbands who travel for weeks to months at a time, and some are still in the military, where deployments can make for lonely nights. I have a very good friend whose husband did cheat on her while he was on deployment and she found out about it by emails left on the computer. She confronted him (unfortunately, it is very common to find one of the couple in a military relationship being unfaithful). So every since, she has had that nagging feeling in the back of her head wheneve he goes away, not quite trusting him even though it has been over 5 years and he has been faithful since then.

With that thought in mind, I agree with Kate Hudson and would not ever want to know. As long as it was a "safe" encounter, it would not benefit me to know about it. True, there would obviously be something lacking in our relationship in order for him to feel the need to stray, and I would want to fix that, but I don't think finding out about an adulterous affair would help that. I have a long memory when it comes to injustices and slights I've experienced over the years. I would never be able to trust my spouse again if he did that and I would be forever suspicous when he worked late or was out of town.

Would I admit to an affair? I would probably feel the need to tell, since keeping secrets in my relationship is not something I can do easily, especially ones that are harmful to it, even though I know that it would be the end of my relationship. My sweetie is a very forgiving caring man, but there are somethings he would never tolerate and that is one of them. He has had experiences in the past that would make that sort of action unforgivable. Luckily, he doesn't have any need to worry.

We all have the "power" to be monogamous, it is just a matter of whether or not we choose to use it.

High Cholesterol at age 7

I just got my son's test results back from his yearly physical. His bloodwork shows an elevated cholesterol level- 206 - which I find so hard to fathom. We are not junk food eaters at my house, nor do we eat out that often. Ask my son to choose between a slice of watermelon (or an apple or a peach) and a cookie and he'll choose the fruit every time. Our favorite place to eat out (his choice)- Souper Salad, where you get to choose from many salad items and soups for your meal. When you ask him if he wants to go get fast food, he usually ask if we can stay home instead.

It could be genetics. His father's family has high cholesterol levels on the paternal side. I just found out today that my mother's side isn't that great either. Yet my cholesterol is fine. I don't know about hubby's since he won't call the doctor to get the results from his last blood work (his theory is that they would have called if there was anything wrong).

I feel bad, since he isn't allowed junk food as it is, now we are going to have to focus on those "heart healthy" foods that I thought were for my parent's generation. Anyone have some coupons for Cheerios or Benecol? Looks like we will buying some.

Lost and not found

As you know, we have a wonderful new car. With this new car comes a very fancy key and alarm fob. With it you can program the postioning of your seat, control the windows and a few other things. What you can not do is send out some sort of signal so that it will beep when you have misplaced them. This would be a wonderful add on since my keys were lost on Thursday.

I am a backup babysitter for neighbor, so when she goes out of town, I watch the little girl she normally watches. So on Thursday and Friday I had this 6 1/2 year old girl at my house. She gets along quite well with my son and is normally well behaved. On Thursday, I had to remind her several times to leave my car keys alone, that they were not for playing with. On Friday morning, I was going to run to the post office before she came over, but could not find my keys anywhere. I looked on counters, in drawers, in the dishwasher, in all the toys - they were no where to be found.
So, Lauren comes over and I asked her if she moved my keys. Yes, she admits that she did and that she put them on the counter. Where? The counter near the trash can? Could they have fallen in? Oh no, today is trash day and the bag is already out on the corner - I'll just run out and get the bag. Wait what is that noise, that rumbling sound? The trashmen!!! They don't come until 4 pm, why are they here at 9 am?!?

To cut this story short, I ended up at the dealer on Saturday, having the remaining keys reprogrammed along with my new key and alarm fob. And what did this high tech key cost? $137, and that is at list price with a discount. It would normally have been $164, but I begged and wheedled for some sort of break since we have had the car all of 2 weeks.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Well, got the new Harry Potter book in the mail yesterday and finished it yesterday too. Yes, it is meant to be juvenile fiction, but I figure it is destined to be a classic some day, I may as well get a head start on the reading, since I am so far behind on reading my classics as it is.

Obviously, it was a fast read. This book concentrated more on emotions than action, which is not necessarily a positive. My feeling is that there could have been more details about the daily activites of our threesome, which would have made the story a bit more fun to read. Plus, some of our favorite characters did not get as much attention in this book as they have in the past. We barely get to talk to Hagrid at all this time around. Of course, if J.K. Rowling had done this there probably would have been another 300 pages added on top of the 600 plus that are there already, which would would have made the book more likely to be used as a stepstool rather than read. On the other side of the coin, the story line did move along quickly and I am already waiting patiently for the next tome.

Maxima 2005

I bought a new car the other day - a 2005 Nissan Maxima. For all those of you who have had bad experiences with this car; don't tell me, I do not want to know.
This car was the "surprise" for the sweetie that I mentioned in a post back in January. I have been working since January, saving every dollar to put toward this car. I had originally planned on not telling my husband I was working so that I could buy the car and just put it in the driveway for him. There were several kinks in that plan. One, I had no clue what specific details he wanted in this car, and two, I could not keep up appearances at home while working. So I broke down and told him back in March that I was working for the past three months and had he even noticed.
He said that he had not noticed, although it explained why I was so tired all the time. He did notice a few things around the house. One, that all the laundry was not done by the weekends. He said he thought I was just being less anal retentive about getting it done. He had also noticed the more thrown together striaght from the can meals that we were having, but he thought it better not to mention them. Smart man.

Twister

Today I experienced my first official "non-confirmed" tornado. We had a thunderstorm move in quickly and with it gale force winds. It came in without much warning, and it blew my neighbor's Rainbow playground set (this is the big, $1000+ set made of wood that has the fort, slide, triple swing option) right over, upside down onto it's roof. It was destroyed and shattered part of a plastic table it landed on. The scary part is that my neighbor was weedwhacking around the play equipment when the storm came in and his 7 month pregnant wife was cleaning up the yard toys at the same time. They almost didn't make it inside in time. We were lucky, it just blew our portable shed's roof off and our heavy gas grill went for a small trip into an iron fence.

The reason why we suspect that it was a small tornado that touched down - the neighbor on the other side of me had nothing destroyed, not even the 5 gallon jug of sun tea she had left out on her patio. In fact, a candle she had placed standing up in a plate of rocks was not disturbed in the least bit, it was still standing tall.

My Sister's Keeper

I just finshed reading a wonderfully engaging book called My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. It is the story of a girlnamed Anna who is conceived in order to save her sister Kate through the donation of her cord blood. Only as time goes by, Anna finds herself being asked to give more and more of herself, literally, to keep her sister alive. We meet them when Anna is thirteen and is now being told she has to donate her kidney to her sick sister. We get to see all sides of the family and the author truly makes you understand each member of the family's viewpoint on these events.

As a parent, I can identify with needing to do anything and everything to save your child. As a twin, I know what it is like to be feel responsible for your sister's health, to feel the guilt that goes with not wanting to be self-sacrificing all the time, and the self doubt that you are the cause.

Read this book - it is worth your time!

Independence Day

Monday is Independence Day, were we Americans celebrate our "freedom" from England, with bar-b-ques, parades and fireworks. It is also my son's birthday. From his excitement over the day, you would think his birthday is the reasong why everyone celebrates. He began the countdown to his birthday this Monday and has gotten more ramped up with each passing day and I can't understand why. We are not having his birthday party this weekend, it's next weekend; his dad won't be here, he's out of town for work; and I've told him I have no presents for him since I'm giving him his dream party (more on that in another post, although I do have a small present for him).

Don't get me wrong, we will do something to celebrate the day. In fact, he has already made out an itinerary. First, he had planned on playing legos with his dad (this was before he knew that dad would be gone), then he was going to play a game with me, my choice. We could go rent movies and watch them and then go to Souper Salad(a buffet style salad bar restaurant) for dinner . The only thing is, this is all normal stuff that we do on the weekends. In fact, aside from renting a movie, it is the exact same thing we did last weekend.

It is nice that he does not have wild expectations for his birthday. He is a down-to-earth kid who appreciates time spent with his family. We're still cool in his eyes, although I don't know how much longer that will last. He is already giving me my morning hug and kiss outside the daycare center, rather than allowing me to get them once we are inside in front of the other kids. Still he is a sweet boy and hopefully we will follow his plan for a "fun filled" birthday.

The Second Coming?

Ah, it seems that Tom Cruise has been ranting again about his "knowledge" of Post partum depression and ADHD. I never knew that he was a psychiatrist and a pharmacist. What am I talking about - the interview he gave with Matt Lauer on Friday's Today show, where Tom defends his criticism of Brook Shields, and extolls his extensive knowledge of medications. This man is either the second coming of jesus, or a sad little man going through his mid-life crisis. Run Katie run.

1st Day of Summer

Ah, a new season to enjoy. Well, here in TX it is the same season 9 months out of the year. Looks like we'll have our consistent mid-90's temps for the next few months. All my lording to our New England relatives about the great weather we have during the winter comes and bites me in the ass when it comes to the summer time.
They at least get some partly cloudy skies to dull the heat. Not us -looks like it is going to be one of the driest Junes on record. Time to put some more 45+ sunblock on so I can safely walk to the mailbox without getting a sunburn.

Bark Bark

"Bark, bark, bark." "What the hell is that sound?" I asked wearily at 1:30am this morning. Turns out it was my son with a raging cough from croup. Poor kid couldn't understand why it wouldn't stop. Luckily, I took him outside into the every so humid Texas air and that seemed to lessen it's effects a bit.
He seems fine this morning, other than the lingering cough. Luckily, he's pretty good about getting sick on my days off, which is nice since I don't have to call into work for the day. Yes, I know he doesn't plan it, but it usually works out this way.
Plus, an added "benefit" to this cold, he's lost his voice. He normally chatters on continously, all day long, like the birds twittering outside. Now his chattering just sounds like a bird that is twittering 2 miles away, rather than right in your ear. I'm such a mean mom. :)

UPDATE: His voice is back to normal and is chattering away like a squirrel defending his horde of nuts.

Neighbors

My neighbor's boy just came over to "borrow" an egg. I love that I have neighbors that feel comfortable enough to do this. With the amount of food my neighbors and I have "borrowed" from each other we could have a 5 course dinner plus dessert. Never mind all the sincerely offered shared meals.(These are those times when you are talking to your neighbor and mention that hubby is away or won't be home and you don't know what to cook and they insist that you eat with them.)My hubbie doesn't necessarily appreciate them - he often wonders when we became the neighborhood market. He finds it odd.

I've lived in many different areas, and I've never had this closeness with my neighbors. When I lived on Long Island, I didn't even know the names of my neighbors that lived in the illegal apartment in the basement, and they're the ones who got to see all my clean sundries hanging out to dry. Conneticut's neighbors were better, but I still wouldn't trade groceries with any but one of them.

No, I am truly lucky to be living where I am. Of couse, I say that now - the house across the street is empty and I may be changing my tune when new neighbors move in.

Migraine

Migraine pain is the worst pain I have ever experienced. This includes my experiences with natural childbirth - that was only a 9 out of 10; while the migraine I had yesterday was a 10 out of 10.

I now know what is meant by the phrase "to writhe in agony" as that was what I was doing for several hours yesterday.

Usually I can catch my migraines before they come on full steam, but no luck yesterday. I actually thought I might be experiencing a brain aneurysm. I was going to call 911, but didn't want to walk my son to my next door neighbors house - it was too painful to move. Then I was going to wait until my husband came home so he could take me and watch my son, but that would have involved movement in the car - more pain.
My poor husband came home, found the door locked but ajar, couldn't find my son (he was hiding) and heard me moaning in pain. He was ready to storm the stairs, guns ablazing. His more rational side kicked in and he decided to check things out first. He gave me some cold compresses, more pain reliviers, and got my son out of the house. Luckily, the pain medicine finally kicked in and brought the pain down to an 8 out of 10. With that type of pain, I can use breathing techniques to help get me over the hard part. By about 9pm (6 hours later) I was able to get out of bed and eat something for dinner. I'm still feeling the after-effects today.