Did they change the format in this thing? It looks different. Anyhoo..

I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown or something, I think. I mentioned before how I've been so moody lately. I started my period yesterday so I chalked it up to that. I guess it could still be. I just go from not really in a good mood, but just normal to either mad or upset in the blink of an eye. Everything Darrell does lately just drives me up the wall, makes me mad at him. Today I was trying to clean up, the bedroom was a disaster because Darrell was cleaning out the closet yesterday. I just kept finding more junk with nowhere to put it. My house is so tiny, it's like living in a cracker box. We have no storage, no organization. Money is really tight this week, I mean no groceries kind of tight. We aren't finished Christmas shopping, and all of December's bills are due. I guess it just all got to me at once and I just started crying and couldn't stop. I mean it was a huge, sobbing kind of cry. I just feel so out of control emotionally lately, and I really hate it.

On to brighter subjects, if you can call it that, I think Shelby is entering the terrible twos. She has had as much of an attitude that a toddler can have lately. It's hard to describe, just really cranky I guess is the best way. At first I thought she was jealous of the dog, because she started it like the very DAY we got the dog. I think that was part of it, she doesn't seem to be so jealous now, but the behavior hasn't really abated. It has some, but not completely. She's not like that all day, but when she is it's incredibly annoying.

My house is a wreck, I've absolutely got to get it cleaned up completely tomorrow. I started on it today, I got the dishwasher loaded and ran it, cleaned the master bathroom and dusted the living room. I need to do laundry but my washer and dryer are piled high with junk out of the closet. There's an old treadle sewing machine in my laundry room in front of the back door that I really don't want to get rid of but have nowhere to put it. It needs to be refinished. My kitchen table is covered over with computers and computer parts where Darrell has been working. And now the kitchen is dirty again from us eating lunch and supper today. It's not disgusting or anything, just really cluttered, which makes it look a lot more dirty than it is. I hate clutter, and living in a small house guarantees that you'll have it. God, I wish we had a bigger place. My car is making funny noises today too, wouldn't it be wonderful if it went out? (/sarcasm)

Oh, remember in my last post about the prayer thing? Well, in the newspaper this week, there was a thing about the PTA meeting, sort of like a minutes. It told everything that happened, who the speakers were, the 2nd grade did a program, etc. Anyway, it actually said that Mr. so and so did a little talk of rememberance. Bullshit! LOL He said: let's bow our heads, and then a lot of Lord, Father, etc. were in there. He did talk about keeping the soldiers safe, etc., but it was not a rememberance, it was a PRAYER. That pretty much convinces me right there that they are not supposed to be doing that. I guess no one has ever spoke up before though. I remember going to graduations when I was younger and they'd do a prayer at the beginning. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, but as I've gotten older and started questioning what I was taught growing up, I do. Honestly I'd like to just move from here. I like the small town feel on one level, but I think the pros of leaving outweigh the cons.

I hope everyone reading had a good Thanksgiving holiday!

Today has been a good day. I got up and cooked all morning, we ate around 11:30. It was so good, if I do say so myself. After dinner, Darrell and I cleaned up the kitchen and put away the leftovers, then the kids and I went down to Granny and Papa's. I wanted Darrell to go, but he wouldn't. He said he would if we only stayed for 30 minutes. He irks me sometimes. I know his family is like the polar opposite of mine, as far as size and noise level, but he could suck it up once in a while and just go. He didn't go to Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve dinner last year, it's not like I force him to go to all these functions. But anyway. We drew names for Christmas, I got my mom and her boyfriend, Richard. Coincidentally, they got us as well. Ha! Hunter got Jacob, Mackenzie got Rebecca, and Shelby got Destiny. Jacob and Rebecca are my neice and nephew, and Destiny is my cousin's daughter. She and Shelby were both born on 2-28-02. Destiny was born in the morning, Shelby early afternoon. They're birthday twins. :)

Wow, I summed up the whole day in one paragraph. Hehe.

Mom and Richard didn't get to come for dinner today. Mom called around 6:30 this morning and said Richard's dad was in the hospital, so they were there all day. They thought he might have had a stroke originally, but it turned out to be double pneumonia. I was going to go pick up Sara to eat with us, but she was running a fever and was sick to her stomach, so she stayed home. Mom's supposed to come get leftovers sometime, probably tomorrow.

I got a call from an old friend last night. We were best friends from 4th grade up until high school. We kind of drifted apart by then. We never had a falling out or anything, though. She got married in 2000 and I went to her wedding and all. She moved to Atlanta even before she got married and just moved back to Tennessee this year. It's kind of weird talking to her anymore though. She and her husband split up earlier this year, I heard that he left her for another woman, but she didn't really say what happened. I'm glad to be back in touch with her, but she irritates me because she keeps going on and on and on about how much she's changed. I mean, she'll keep changing the subject back to how she saw this person or that one from school and their reaction when they found out it was her. How tedious is that? I mean, she's changed (apparently) dramatically, I get the point!! Geez. I invited her by for lunch one day next week. We'll see if she shows though. Last time she was in town for a visit she was supposed to get in touch with me and didn't.

OH! I have to mention this. Okay, to begin with, when the school has had programs, for instance the Gold Star Mother's program in September, the Veterans' Day program that the 2nd grade was in, and even the PTA meeting I went to this month, they have had a prayer. The person that did them at the programs were local ministers, so I don't know if that circumvents the church/state thing or not. All of these programs were on school grounds though. At the PTA meeting, also on school grounds, I believe it was a faculty member (not sure what he does) that did the prayer. That kind of irks me, but I'm overlooking it. Then, Hunter comes home on Tuesday and mentions that they pray everyday before lunch. So I question him about this, and find out that the prayer is actually done in the classroom before they go to lunch. I ask him if Mrs. R or Mrs. L say the prayer, and he says 'Noooo (like I'm a dolt for even asking), one of the kids do' So I ask him some questions and determine that the teachers have "encouraged" them to pray, but they don't force any of the kids to lead the class. The kids volunteer and if one doesn't want to do it they don't have to. I still have a problem with this. To begin with, what about the kids that are not Christian? I realize they're not forced to pray, but they do have to listen. Secondly, it is not up to the teachers to involve themselves in ANY WAY with my child's religious teaching. I am Agnostic, and I really don't like this. I don't have a problem if Hunter wants to pray, I'm never going to tell my children how or what they should or shouldn't worship, it's just the principle. Of course this teacher also has a plaque that says God Bless America and a picture of the Shrub. GAG! ;p So, I don't know what to do about this. I'm torn, because I want to speak up, but I am, quite frankly, afraid to do that in this town. You'd just have to live here or somewhere similar to understand, but I don't want to start a lot of unneccessary strife for my family over something like this. Ugh, moral decisions suck ass sometimes.

Wow, I haven't written in here since Sunday. I need to do better than that. Of course with the holiday, I've been busy. The kids only had school two days this week, and on Tuesday the 1st grade went on a field trip, so I went with Mackenzie. We went to the movies and saw Brother Bear. Real educational, eh? Those moose cracked me up though. It was a pretty good movie, and Kenzie's first time in a theatre. She was scared at first. Before the lights went off and the movie came on, she kept saying 'I'm scared. I shouldn't have come. I want to go home.' Of course, once the movie started, she forgot all about it and had a good time.

Today was quite the eventful day around here. First thing this morning Darrell screwed up the television. It took him all damn day to fix it, and we're not even sure it's permanently fixed. In the middle of all that, he walks into the living room, and there is about 3" of water missing out of the 6' long, 125 gallon tank. Guess where it was? All over my floor! He had a sump set up under the tank, it's a type of filter. It's just a smaller fish tank, the water cycles out of the main tank into the sump, it goes through a few different compartments full of different types of media (carbon, bio-balls, etc.), then gets pumped back into the tank. Well, the pump quit working, so the sump got full pretty fast and overflowed. He had a float valve on the first compartment where the water first comes into the sump. It is supposed to stop letting the water come in if it reaches a certain level (think of a toilet here), but it didn't work either. So Darrell said he is getting rid of the sump. LOL We already have two 330 hang on filters, and a canister filter. He just has to have more, more, more with that tank.

I did a bunch of prep work today: pie baking, cleaning, etc. I started getting pissed around suppertime. I had been up since early this morning, cooking and cleaning, and I didn't really feel like cooking supper. I had planned on pizza casserole, easy enough, but I was tired and sore. I asked Darrell if he'd help me, he said he would but of course he didn't. After supper, I asked him if he'd help me clean up. He said he would, but ended up going over to his sister's next door while I cleaned up. He couldn't even get down the lid for the bowl I put the leftover casserole in. AND he put Shelby in the tub after supper and said 'I'll run her water, but I'll let you give her her bath.' Yeah, because I haven't done anything else today.

I am so bitchy and moody lately, and Darrell is feeling the brunt of it. He does some things that legitimately irritate me (see above), but I'm also really short with him lately over stupid things. Like last night I made french toast and bacon. I decided to have BLTs instead, so I cut up some lettuce and tomato, and made toast. When I went to make my sandwich, and I tore a piece of bacon in half, he grabbed the other half and it irked me. See?, stupid stuff. I don't know what's up with me, but it's been about a week now. Maybe it's PMS, who knows.

The damn dog shit on Mackenzie's backpack this evening. She had just took the little fucker out before bed and it peed and pooped. Then she came back in and set Princess on her bed while she brushed her teeth. She came back in and she'd walked onto Kenzie's toybox (at the end of her bed), and shit on her backpack, which was on top of the toybox. Nasty! She tried to clean it and just smeared it, I had to wash the backpack. I didn't even know backpacks were washable. Learn something new everyday. Heh.

On that note, I'm goin' to bed! ;D

Hee hee. I am laughing here. I typed in www.blooger.com Yes, I am juvenile.

I needed a laugh, this has not been a good evening. Darrell is being an asshole in the worst way. I went to pick Hunter up from my sister's at around 3:30. My sister lives about 10 miles out of town, and I had to stop by the store for his precious Coke too. I got back at 15 after 4 and he says we have to go to Rhonda's (his aunt). She had a bunch of computer stuff he could have. I didn't want to go. The only thing I do while we're there is chase Shelby around, trying to keep her out of things and away from the road. What fun! I told him to go by himself, but nooooo, I have to hold his hand for everything. He whines about going for a while, then says he guesses he'll just call her and tell her she can throw it away. Nice ploy to try to get sympathy. He does that all the fucking time. He has a license, he knows how to drive, there is no reason not to go if he really wants to. But he doesn't liiiiiiiike to drive. So fucking what? I'm not a fucking chauffeur.

The reason I mentioned the time is because he made some snide little comment that he didn't expect me to be gone for 45 minutes to an hour. Give me a break! It takes 15 minutes just to drive to her house. Ugh.

Shelby has been extremely cranky today. She wants to hold the dog, but she doesn't know how to be gentle. Instead of showing her how to handle it, Darrell just yells and threatens to spank her. She's a baby, for christ's sake. I think she's jealous of the dog too, because she's not normally this grumpy. This evening was just the worst. She just kept going for the dog, pulling it out from under the table by it's ear, picking it up by it's neck, etc. Mackenzie flips out everytime this happens, which gets on my nerves. These people expect Shelby to be told once and then know and remember. She's not even 2 years old, that ain't happening. Darrell was cooking supper, and if he's trying to do more than one thing at a time he freaks the fuck out and acts like he has to give one single thing his undivided attention until it's finished. With kids that's damn near it impossible. After supper, Shelby went to crawl under the table to get the dog again and Darrell smacked her leg. He seems to understand that spanking doesn't really do any good for her until he gets frustrated, then he smacks her. Which of course means he's just taking his frustrations out on her.

More later.

Ugh. Now I've had time to cool off and I just don't have the energy to finish this rant. I'm going to have to talk to Darrell about showing a little more patience with her. She is a baby, dammit! I know she's not a helpless newborn, but she's still a baby. She may understand you at the time you tell her to stop doing something, but she won't remember later. She WILL do the same irritating things over and over, and you WILL have to keep repeating that we don't do that, and explaining. It's part of it. I wonder if maybe we didn't wait too long between Mackenzie and Shelby. Darrell seems to have forgotten what a toddler is like.

On a different note, the dog is doing much better today. She ate really well when we got up this morning, and peed. She ate again at lunch, but I was starting to get a little worried because she hadn't pooped all day and her belly looked really bloated. After we picked Hunter up we took her outside and I made Mackenzie put.her.down and she finally went. And it was like the floodgates were opened. She pooped like 4 or 5 times this evening, she was making up for lost time! ;) The last time she went it looked like diarreah, though. :/ BUT, after that she has really perked up. She's not running away like she's scared when we walk by. Mackenzie took her out to pee before bed and she was actually running and jumping around the yard, and then she barked for the first time! It was more like a little yip, but she's a small dog. Then she was chewing my finger and licking me, just like a normal little puppy. Whew, that's a relief! :)

I am so boring. It's been a couple of days since I wrote in here, and I still really have nothing to say. I never have been very good at keeping a journal or diary though. I'd let weeks go by without making an entry. I only kept up with one diary my entire life, when I was a teenager, but then I started suspecting my Mom was reading it and stopped. I still don't know whatever happened to it. I hope I tore it up and threw it away. Heh.

So, um, nothing much has went on around here. Mackenzie's teacher sent home her behavior report on Friday and she started putting the smiley face things on there. That woman makes me nuts. I can relate to a certain degree, I am as anal as they come, but damn.

Oh, something did happen today. We got a dog. We took the kids to Wal-Mart for them to buy Christmas gifts for each other, and someone was giving away some puppies. We decided to take one. She's a Feist mix, they didn't know what else she is. She's small, only about 6-8 weeks old, and is so timid. We think she was just weaned and taken from her mother, so hopefully she'll liven up. My SIL knows a good amount about dogs and said she looks pretty healthy to her. We went to the pet store and got some shampoo and a harness. They gave us some food with her, but she hasn't eaten any of it. She hasn't drank any water either, but she peed on my carpet so I know she's got fluid in her. Or, rather, it's now on my carpet. Mackenzie has carried her around since we got her, barely putting her down. The dog is gonna be spoiled rotten. Perhaps appropriately, she named it Princess. Ha!

Hunter is off spending the night at my sister's tonight. Not the one I haven't seen in months, but my oldest sister. SHE got a phone call from the rent to own place the other day too. We're both baffled as to why she would give our numbers out when she knows we don't know her address, phone number, or place of employment. But anyway.. Hunter loves to go spend the night with them. She has three kids too, two boys and a girl. Her boys are 10 and 7, and Hunter has a blast with them. My BIL races lawnmowers, so both boys have their own mowers that Hunter gets to ride. [They don't have a blade, and they go no faster than a regular lawnmower when you're mowing with it.]

Shelby is driving me crazy lately with her eating habits. She used to be an extremely good eater, she ate vegetables the best. She was less than a year old and Darrell wanted to start giving her tastes of his cookies, cakes, ice cream, etc. I told him not to, but it's just so fun to feed a baby junk food for some reason, and of course he doesn't have to deal with the fallout when all she wants is 'cookie!' Of course, that's exactly what happened, kids are pretty predictable like that. I don't press her to eat anything, I keep offering healthy choices, but Darrell eats so much junk food and all the kids want it. It makes it harder for me too, because I have almost no willpower when it comes to sweets. If they're not here, no biggie. But when they're here, I eat them. I think part of it is age, also; Darrell isn't entirely to blame. I'll never understand why people want to shove little baby's faces full of junk.

Wow, this was boring as hell. If you made it this far I'll give you a cookie. If you're still awake that is. Heh.

The other day my Mom calls me and asks me if she can move in with me. Apparently she and her boyfriend had a fight and she said she was moving out. They are so damn weird. She's only been living with him for a few months, and this is the second time she's said she was moving out. If you can't make it work then so be it, but threatening to move out (or saying you want her to move out) everytime there is a fight is just juvenile. I fully expected her to call me the next day and tell me they'd talked and she decided to stay. Well, it wasn't the next day, but it was the day after. Haha!

Then I get another call from a rent to own place, being listed as a reference for my sister whom I haven't seen or heard from in nearly 5 months. I don't know what is up with that girl. She has totally changed 180* since getting with Danny. She's taken advantage of all of us in every way. The thing that surprises me the most is her letting Joey take custody of the kids. She got a lawyer and went to court but I believe that was just a token thing, for appearances sake. From what I heard they were supposed to do a couple of evaluations or classes or something and then he'd make a final ruling. She never bothered with that though, she's just let Joey keep them and sees them most weekends. That, to me, speaks volumes about how she's changed. I would not be okay with just seeing my kids on the weekends. Come hell or high water, I'd do everything in my power to keep my kids with me. I'm just disgusted with her, she is so not the girl I used to know.

On a bright note, Darrell bought me two dozen roses today! I haven't had flowers from him since I turned 16 and he sent me a dozen roses to school. Ha! So they were on sale at Wal-Mart for $5 a dozen, it's the thought that counts. And they're in good shape, not wilted or discolored or anything.

Welcome to My Life. I'm Paula, a 25 year old stay at home mother to three children. I have a 7.5 year old son named Hunter, a 6.5 year old daughter named Mackenzie, and a 21 month old daughter named Shelby. I am happily married for almost 8 years to Darrell.

*I* have no pets, but my son has an iguana he named Herman, and my husband keeps a 125 gallon reef tank.

That's about all I have right now. Oh yeah, this should be real interesting.