Sometimes I feel like a nut....

Sometimes I don't! Remember that song? For some reason, it is stuck in my head this morning. Hmmmm.... is my brain trying to tell me something?

Slept weird last night. Is that possible? I didn't sleep well, I didn't sleep bad, I slept weird. Weird dreams, woke up scared, had to pee and then psyched myself out and ran back to bed faster than the speed of light because I thought a ghost was chasing me. How old am I again? 29, oh right. Yes, I believe in ghosts.

Hard to believe that today is the 1 year mark of being "unemployed"....was thinking about it this morning it feels kind of nice. Not because I'm not working but because I am CHOOSING not to work. I didn't lose my job, I wasn't fired, I quit so that I could move to Arizona with my husband and make a better life. I am starting to get antsy though......hmmmm, to work? Or not to work?

I'm still about 50/50 on the idea of going back to dispatching. I miss it, on occasion. I don't miss the hours and days of the work week but I miss the excitement of answering 911 and NEVER knowing what is going to be said on the other line. I miss talking an officer through a high speed chase or reading a BOLO over the air when there is an armed suspect on the loose....hmmm....contemplating....

The decisions we make now are what pave the roads to our future.... I'm just not sure what kind of asphalt I want to use....

Whoa, a whole week?

I can't believe I went through a whole week without writing. (typing). Ok, maybe I can believe it. I have had a ton to say but nothing that I wanted to write about. Here anyways.

Yesterday I worked in Joey's 5th grade classroom. It was great. I had so much fun working one on one with the children and learning about them, helping them, and even disciplining a few of them. I can definitely say it was rewarding. A couple of the girls really took to my side and wanted to be my little "helpers". It was cute. It made me remember back when I was that age and a mom would come in to our classroom....I always wanted to be a part of something. A part of their "team" I guess. It's fun to know that kids look up to you and want to "be like you". (referring to my tattoo on my foot). I enjoyed seeing Joey in his classroom environment and am very happy to report he's such a good kid. Even when I'm not looking. I am truly proud of myself for raising such a beautiful boy and am going to continue to brag about him until the day I die! (of course, since he's my baby!!!).

I'm thinking about getting braces again. I had them for a few years back around 2001 or so. I hated them, but love what they did for my mouth and for my confidence. Over the past 7 years or so, my teeth have shifted on the top. No one noticed but me, and of course since I am such a freaking perfectionist, it bothers me to no end. I went to the orthodontist on Monday for an "initial evaluation" and to see what my options were to get my teeth back in place. I basicly have 2 options. I can get wire braces, again, for only about 6 months. Eh. It's only 6 months right? But man are they hideous....I don't want braces again :-/ My second option, which is about $1k more than the wire, is Invisilign. Possible..and much more doable in my day to day life. That, I would only have for about 5 months. At first I was thinking to myself, just deal with the way your teeth are, they are straight and straighter than most people out there! Just get over your darn self! But, I really have always wanted straight teeth. ALWAYS. And I had them, but now they are moving. The Ortho did say that he could put a permanent retainer on the top (as I already have one on the bottom and those teeth haven't moved at all). I really like that idea. So.....gotta really weigh out the whole situation and make a decision again.

I've been working out a lot this week and it sure helps my mood. It helps me get through the day to day battles I have with myself. There are things I just can't quite understand about myself and honestly, working out helps my brain think clearer. It's so addicting and I wish everyone could feel the same feeling I get from a good workout. It's almost like it's cleansing my body and ridding of any bad feelings I've had for the day. I miss my friends. Just a few to an extreme amount and I hope that I get to see them again soon...

I'm done. For today. Going to try to be better about this, really I am.

Olive juice.

More Randomness.

"Randomness" - is that even a word? Probably in the same dictionary as "Stampage".

1. My day absolutely has to start with a cup of coffee. No excuses. If it does not? Watch out.
2. I love Hot Tamales. They are my addiction. Maybe like a smoker needs a cig? I need HT.
3. I am a clean freak. When I am mad, I clean even more.
4. Was told I have a "Type A personality". Don't really understand what that entails anymore other than I am a ... perfectionist. I want everything perfect. EVERYTHING.
5. I make up words. Have been writing them down, going to write a book titled "Neneisms."
6. Will I always want things I can not have? Or will I continue to work towards getting those things I "can not have"??
7. I have a crush on Patrick Dempsey. He's so um, dreamy.
8. My favorite number is 19.
9. I prefer men to women friends. They are less drama and more straight forward. Unfortunately Paul doesn't like that so much.
10. I hope to own a horse, some day. I love horses. Always have.

to be cont'd....(at a later date).

Listening...

Wait for Me

By: Theory of a Deadman

You are not alone tonight

Imagine me there by your side

It's so hard to be here so far away from you

I'm counting the days till

I'm finally done

I'm counting them down, yeah, one by one

It feels like forever till I return to you

But it helps me on those lonely nights

It's that one thing that keeps me alive

Knowing that you wait for me

Ever so patiently

No one else knows the feeling inside

We hang up the phone without saying goodnight

Because it's the sound of your voice that brings me home

It's never been easy to say

But it's easier when I've gone away

Knowing that you wait for me

Ever so patiently

Yeah, you're everything I've ever dreamed of having and

It's everything I need from you just knowing that you wait for me

What I'd give

What I'd do

Knowing I'm not there for you

Makes it so hard to leave

What I'd give

What I'd do

Anything to get me home to you

And this time I'll stay

And you wait for me

Ever so patiently

Yeah, you're everything I've ever dreamed of having and

It's everything I need from you just knowing that you wait for me

What day is it?

....the reason I ask is because Paul is at work. Again. He worked yesterday too. Missed Joey's 10th birthday party. Thank goodness I have such great friends, that helped me out. Without them, I would have been a mess. (Thank you to Stacie, Lisa, Sara & Al!!). I'm having a hard time today. I shouldn't be. I keep trying to tell myself, it's not that bad. My best friend April has to overcome a whole year without her husband. I need to shut up and stop complaining about Paul working so much.... learn to be thankful he isn't serving a 12 month tour in Kuwait.

This week was a busy wacky cooky one. Joey's birthday, the cats getting sick (which I'll visit in a moment), the Toby Keith/Trace Adkins concert and Joey's birthday party, which turned out to be a success afterall.

The cats are going to be ok. Turns out Dot has allergies and what happened to her nose was a severe reaction to a mosquito bite. Interesting....apparently the bump she's had her whole life is just a "deformity" and she'll always have it....So, I now have to give her an allergy pill (otc) and put fish oil on her food. Lily has a bladder problem. Had a very severe bladder infection and now has to be on a special diet for cats with bladder problems. Sigh...enough about that.

Trace Adkins and Toby Keith were awesome. As usual. I love both of them, not to mention they are HOT to look at :) They sing great songs and def put a great show for the crowd. Joey seemed to have fun. He was very tired, but still managed to stay awake until the end!

I feel as though I'm a single mom again. Paul is working so much and is hardly home. When he is home he's so tired. Yesterday hit me hard not having his help for the party. Sigh, not going to go on, might say something I dont want put out in public. Sigh.

Today Joey and I are just hanging out, relaxing. He has worked on homework, watched some cartoons, and now he is building legos. We wanted to go to the movies, but of course, Paul wants us to wait so he can go with us, so maybe next weekend. I'm grouchy. I'm going to stop writing because nothing is coming out right and just, yah.

Olive Juice.

I love my cats. I really do.

I've been needing to find a vet here in Arizona for the girls. They are about due for their annual checkup. It always sucks to have to find a new vet, it goes along with a new dentist, a new dr, a new everything....

So among my list of things to do today was to find the girls a new vet, mostly so Dot could get her nose checked out.

When she was just an itty bitty kitten, she had this black dot on her nose. She was born with it, hence her name, "Dot". Not to be confused with "Spot". (which is what some people call her). When I first took her to the vet they said "ahh, it's nothing, it should go away" and it did.....

There has always been a sort of "lump" on the bridge of her nose but just in the past few weeks the spot started to lose hair and grow larger. And purple. Like it was full of blood or something. She's usually pretty good and lets me do stuff to her face (ie: get her eye boogies, pick her nose and look at her teeth). It never seemed to hurt her or bother her so it wasn't really a big deal to us I guess. We knew that we should take her in but, since it wasn't bothersome it wasn't a priority...

I was up and moving around today, it wasn't the best of mornings. I woke up with a headache that my coffee did not heal and the worst most horrible cramps imaginable. Just before I was getting ready to attempt my morning workout I decided to lay on the bed for a minute to stretch out my back and hope that it'd help my aching tummy. That's when I heard Lily making scratching noises towards the foot of the bed....I looked and sure enough she was using her paw to scratch (so totally not normal for her out of her litter box) and as I looked further, I saw it. She peed. On our bed. A lot. (let me reiterate...A LOT). I sat up quickly not even wanting to scold her, but more or less worried about my $200 down comforter and even more so my couple thousand dollar TempurPedic mattress! When she saw me sitting up she jumped off the bed and kind of froze. I pulled my sheets and blanket and mattress pad off of my bed and started them in the laundry....the comforter, sadly, can not be saved :( It is not salvageable and it sucks. Thats not something I wanted to spend money on right now.

Laundry started, next task? Get the girls in to the laundry room so they are confined while I find a vet. The first thing that came to my mind was "PetSmart". They have a vet clinic inside that would be quick and easy and hopefully pretty reasonable price wise. Bingo....she said I could bring them in right away.

As a side note, I knew something was off. Last night Lily was extra snugly and stayed either on my stomach or right at my side all night long. Almost as if she felt something was wrong. I honestly thought she knew I wasn't feeling well so she was loving up to me. I think it was her that wasn't feeling well....

I get them to the vet, checked in, weighed, looked at by the nurse and she says the Dr will be in shortly. As I'm waiting in the room, I look down and notice that Dot has blood all over her paw and on her face! Her little lump burst open a bit. Ok, so my day is not going at all as planned... 1st Lily was the priority and now I'm thinking it may be Dot..... The doctor comes in, I explain what's wrong with each of them and she gives her prognosis...Dot needs to see a specialist. Since it's a "growth" it would need to be biopsied and the place that it's in is not exactly the best place to be removing something. It's right on the bridge of her nose and it's just horrid :( So....she is going to a dermatologist/oncology office tomorrow morning. (While I am typing this I am thinking "what the hell? I have been needing to go to a dermatologist for how long and I don't go because I don't want to spend the money yet I'm going to take my cat without thinking about it? Gonna revisit that one later). Bought Dot an E-collar and brought her home. She's moping around the house, meowing, looking for her sister....who, we had to leave at the vet. Dr noticed she was tender in a few spots in her abdomen and she also felt a lump in her bladder area. She suggested an X-ray and urine sample. Could be as simple as a UTI or she could have what they call a bladder stone (which I still haven't researched online). Still waiting for them to call with the results as I type.

I'm a mess.

1. I love my cats. So do Paul and Joey and none of us want something to be wrong with them. They have been a part of our family for 2 1/2 years now and like I just said, they are a "part of our family".
2. $$$$$$$$$$ CHA CHING! So expensive. I had to have the gal retype the estimate and not have certain tests run like three different times until I got the price to one that Paul and I saw fit to pay just to find out what's wrong. (that's the sucky part, we dont even know what it will cost to fix her...)
3. Joey was not too happy when he came home from school 20 minutes ago to find that Dot was wearing a cone and Lily was no where to be found....nothing worse than seeing your childs heart breaking. (luckily he has since been distracted by more birthday presents that came in the mail)

I'm out of words. I'll probably read this later and it won't make sense. I have to think about what to do. What is right without breaking our wallets. What do people do in these situations? Seriously? We can't spend all of our savings on them.....we just can't, but we also can't just give them away sick.....

Can I have a tissue please?

Birthdays

Today is Joey's birthday. I have a lot to say, just not a lot of time right now....I need to collect my thoughts and how I want to lay it all out. Viewing some photos helps and keeps

the memories alive. I love my son with all of my heart and enjoy watching him grow through the years. I can't believe that 10 years ago today, I gave birth to him. No drugs. (go me!) He's growing to be quite the young man.

This was his first look at snow in December 2001 when we were living in Poquoson, Va. I think he liked it...and has since!

His 1st kiss with Faith. She was his buddy....This photo will always be treasured!

Springtime, 2002. One of my favorite photos of the two of us. Such a little ham (like his mom)

Happy Birthday to my beautiful child. I love you,

Love,

Mom

Really? Are you kidding me?

The weekend flew by, can't believe it is already Monday. Again. Didn't do much this weekend. Went to the apple store on Saturday and played with some of the computers. Was looking for some new headphones for Paul's iPhone but didn't really want to spend $130 on them. While he was looking at those and Joey was playing with iPhones, I fell in love. At first I thought I was in love with the Mac Mini but no.... it's the 20" monitor "iMac". Sigh.... someday.... I'm such a computer geek and I love multimedia applications and the Internet, really really really love the iMac. So...it's on my list of wants. Which is a long list. My dad used to tease me when I was younger because I always had a list of wants.... Maybe I should share it? OK, here goes...

• iMac
• New vacuum
• LoveSac
• Tiffany Necklace
• Bedroom Furniture
• Another tattoo
• (more) new sunglasses
• A new watch
• A new washer/dryer (front loader)

And really....it goes on and on and on....I'll stop there. I'm starting to sound spoiled or something. Maybe I'll just split it up and it won't sound so bad...

Had a lovely conversation with my ex husband yesterday. Very interesting. We don't talk. EVER. I mean, EVER! We don't get a long and I don't know that we ever will. We have been divorced for 5 years now. I'm not going to get into all of the juicy details of our "chat" but I will say that he offered to take my flying. Um, ya, let me think about that, NO! Are you kidding me? You and me in a small plane together? Alone? hahahahahahahahah...not even going to elaborate on that one. If you are reading and you know me well...you know why this is not a good idea! So, we'll just leave it at that. The end of the conversation did go a little something like this:

Joe , "See you don't hate me that much :)"

Me, "I wouldn't go as far as saying that...."

Until next time, which will most likely be later today when I blog about what I got Joey for his birthday, later....

A little less sleep than usual.

It's never good when you wake up to your child yelling from their bedroom "Mama! Mama!". I was sound asleep at 12:46am when I heard Joey calling out for me. So what did I do? I yelled back... "What!?" and his response was "I can't sleep, I'm scared!". So, I got dressed and got to his room. I asked how long he'd been awake and he said a short time of 10 minutes. Well yeah, it does take a little longer than that to get to sleep sometimes, however, when you have really psyched yourself out about a movie you just watched then it's a different story.

We watched the movie Knowing starring Nicholas Cage last night. It is rated PG-13 and we let Joey watch it with us. He wanted to watch it. He said he and some of his friends had talked about it. So....yeah. Long story short, a part of the movie, or the story behind it (I guess) freaked him out a little bit. That's ok. I get scared too. Still. To this day. I walked down the dark hallway to my bedroom looking over my shoulder last night too!!!! He went back to sleep.....and then I dreamt. (is that how you spell that? It looks weird.)

Today is Friday. Yet again. TGIF!! I've been waiting for this weekend to come all week long! Not sure what we are going to do. The boys want to go to the "show" and see GI Joe (since he's a real American hero and all) and I am not sure if I want to join them? Or go see a chicky flick instead. Hmmmm....Channing Tatum is rather handsome to look at....

Paul has to work again this weekend. What a surprise. It's ok, I'm getting used to it. I have my handy dandy friend named the internet to keep me company when Joey doesn't want to hang out with mom. I'm addicted. It's true and I'm ok with that :)

I'm late for my morning workout. Crap.

Until next time.....

Man in the moon??

Not sure if you can tell or not.....but I think there is a man on the moon kissing a babies forehead. I had to look at this picture over and over and over and wondered "Is this what everyone always said was the Man on the Moon?" I zoomed in, closer and closer and it actually freaked me out! Kind of like one of those posters you buy and frame to hang on your wall. If you stare at it for a while you can see something the ordinary eye wouldn't see. This is the case. There is no editing... just a photo of the moon taken in my backyard last night around 10pm. Do you see it? The profile of the mans face is facing around 10/11 o'clock and the baby is just below. Imagine a father leaning in and kissing his son or daughter on the forehead.....

TeCh StUfF

Messing with my computer, some more. Trying to get it back into quick fast running shape. It has been lagging and so I'm kicking it's butt and making it go to the gym! Trying to figure out which browser I like best. I had used Internet Explorer for so many years, I think since 1999? And earlier this year, I downloaded "Google Chrome". I've liked it, for the most part. There are things I like and don't like. Now I'm checking out Safari. So far I like the appearance of it best out of all of them, but it seems to be rather slow. Hmmm. Have also been having problems with our internet lately, called yesterday and got tech support, FROM AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM! Geez, is our economy that bad that we can't even employ techies anymore??? So...it was fixed. Temporarily. This morning, I was having the same issues so I called again. This time I got a grouchy young man by the name of Drew. I think he needed more coffee or something. He was not the nicest of the bunch. He basically said my internet connection is fine and working how it should be and that the fact that I have my internet plugged into a "router" is the problem, -OR- it is my computer. Ya think? So....we'll see. I dunno. It's been working fine for the past 8 or 9 months. It's just been the past couple weeks....which is why I'm remodeling my computer and getting it back to the gym to get in shape!

It's cloudy today. Muggy and hot. I hope we get a storm or two. My house is clean and my chores are done so now it's ME time. I love my life....

Rambling.

Haven't had much to say. Well, actually, that's a lie. I have had TONS to say but just didn't have the energy to sit at my computer and type it all for the world to see.

I've been busy the last few days. Trying to get into some sort of "groove" for while the boys are gone at work and school. I'm excited because next week Joey starts a Science class after school on Tuesdays for an hour. It will last for 8 weeks. The following week on Thursdays, he is starting a Hip Hop dance class! That will last for 6 weeks. I'm hoping it all will help him crawl out of his shell again and really get into after school activities. He doesn't start soccer again until Sept 12. That seems so far away but I know it will be here before I know it!

That's all I got for now. Gonna finish listening to my fav band (Maroon 5) while I finish transferring songs to my new external hard drive....