974 and 195

974 is the number of text messages my husband had on his cell phone for last month's billing cycle. More were received than sent, and all of them were from and to my SIL. 195 is the dollar amount that said text messages are costing us on our bill. Pissed doesn't even begin to describe me over this. Like we can afford an extra $200 charge on our cell phone bill right now. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy the $30/month unlimited texting plan because the stupid bitch doesn't listen when she's told not to text anymore. What is so wrong with dialing the number and actually talking? Get an IM program if you want to type out your conversation! JHC!

What is so fascinating about the shampoo?

What is it about shampoo that is so fascinating to a three year old? Maggie has this thing with pouring out entire bottles of shampoo and/or conditioner. In the past week, she has dumped out two family size bottles of shampoo and one of conditioner! It's driving me insane! I try to keep the bottles put up out of her reach, but sometimes I forget after I give baths. That's what happened with the first bottle of shampoo and the conditioner. The other shampoo was Hunter's, and he didn't get it and put it out of reach when I warned him to.

We have tried time-outs, talking, reasoning, explaining, taking away treats, and even spanking for this and she still does it. Why do kids think bathrooms in general are such fun places to play? Maggie and Shelby's bedroom is right outside of a bathroom, so Maggie is able to sneak in there when I think she's playing quietly in her bedroom. I'm thinking seriously about having them switch rooms with Hunter. His room is right outside of the laundry room, but I could put some childproof lock on the cabinet in there.

I hope she grows out of this soon!

Movies to blubber at

I am so chatty lately. I just keep thinking of things to blog about. I think it's my boredom showing.

Anyhoo. Tonight Darrell and I watched The Bucket List. It has Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. They meet in a hospital where they both have cancer, and they create a list of things to do before they die, and then go and do them. It started out great, Morgan Freeman does some narration and I could just listen to his voice for days. It was funny, and the two played off of each other so well.

Then something happened. It turned sad. Horribly sad. I admit, I cried like a little baby. I don't think I've cried at a movie like that since Steel Magnolias. The grave scene does it to me everytime. Darrell was looking like he was getting a little worried about me there for a minute.

If you've seen the movie, the part where he marks 'kiss the most beautiful woman in the world' off the list is where I officially lost it. Now I must buy this movie. If you haven't seen it, you must go get it now!

*Ring, ring* It's Avon NOT calling

I had requested some information about selling Avon recently. I thought it might be a good way to earn a few extra bucks, and I wouldn't have to do anything like home parties. I get a call from a lady wanting to meet with me to well, let's be honest, get me to sign up. She's not from here, but she had a meeting today in a nearby town, so I agreed to meet her at McDonald's in my town. We were supposed to meet at 3:30 this afternoon.

At a quarter to 3, she calls me, telling me she's leaving said nearby town and I gave her a little assistance with directions. She gets part of the way here, and calls back to make sure she's heading the right way. I assure her she is, and she is only about 20-30 minutes out -- tops. This was around 10 after 3. We get off the phone, and I wait until 25 after 3 and head to McDonald's.

The kids and I get there, I buy them an ice cream, and we sit down to wait. They eat their ice cream, we rent a movie from the RedBox, and she still hasn't shown up. I take the kids out to the play area to wait a little while longer. Finally, at 10 after 4, we have to leave to go pick Darrell up, and she's had plenty of time to get there. Even if she had to stop for directions to McDonald's once she got into town, she's still had plenty of time.

So, we left. I get home and she hasn't called me back at all. I realized I should have taken her cell phone number with me, but I forgot. Oh wait, now that I think about it, she gave it to me last night and I put it in my purse. I had it with me the whole time! D'oh! Oh well, too late now. I don't know what's going to happen at this point, I'm kind of turned off from the whole thing. I don't really see why someone that sells in this area couldn't have contacted me, since they would know their way around, and wouldn't be asking me to drive 40 miles to come to them.

I think, at this point, I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I'm still looking for an evening job out of the house. I'd really like to get out of the house by myself some. I'm bored, remember?

Shelby: Gymnast Extraordinare

I had a cute idea for a post. I took pictures of Shelby doing her gymnastics stuff and was going to put them in a post. But, alas! ;p For some reason, PSP is missing from my computer, and we can't find the disk anywhere, so I have no way to resize. So, I can only link from my DropShots account

Anyway, Shelby loves doing gymnastics. She's taught herself how to do cartwheels, one and two handed; head stands, and back bends. I snapped some pictures of her doing her stuff the other day to put in a post. You can still click the link and see the pictures. Just a couple of things before you do.
1. I don't know what is on Shelby's butt in the head stand pictures. I think she got something on her pants from lunch, which she had just recently eaten when we took the pictures.
2. I had to get a head shot, so you guys could see her teeth, or lack thereof. And as of a couple of days ago, she has lost yet another. Right now, she has absolutely no front teeth; all four of them are missing. She's had three of them missing for almost 3 months now! We can finally see one permanent tooth poking through the gums a little, so I imagine she'll have them all in soon. I think she looks adorable with the no teeth look, though. :)
3. Maggie had to get in on the action, so there are a few pics of her rolling around on the floor. After we did those pictures, they decided they wanted to do some posing, so those are there, too. Feel free to look through the other dates as well, I put some newer pictures up there a month ago or so. I really need to get better about taking pictures more often.

Summer vacation has ceased to rock

Yeah, that lasted long, didn't it? I am so freaking bored! I guess the past two semesters at school got me used to being busy and now I have nothing to do but clean the house. It's too hot to hang around outside for very long, gas is too high, and we are too broke to go and do many things.

Mackenzie finished her softball season last night. I got some pictures of her when she was batting, but she never got a good ball to swing at, so they really didn't turn out too great. Of course, the time she actually hit the ball, I wasn't down there with the camera.

Something funny happened at the game last night, too. This year, the girls can steal bases. So, we had a girl running bases and she was at third, running towards home. The catcher got the ball and was coming towards her, so our girl started running back toward third base. The catcher threw the ball and the third base girl caught it, so our runner started running back to home. The third base girl threw the ball back to the catcher, and she caught it, so our runner started running back to third base again. The catcher threw the ball back to the third base girl again, but this time she didn't catch it, so our girl ran for home again and made a run. It was so funny, though, it might have been one of those things you had to have been there for. All the parents for our team were yelling, too: "Go back! Go back! No, run to home! No, go back! Go back! No, home! Home!" Etc.

It's official! Maggie's in preschool!

I got a call yesterday telling me that Maggie had definitely been secured a spot in the Pre-K program for next school year, and asking me if I wanted to go ahead and come in today to get her enrollment papers and have her testing done (They do some academic tests on them at the beginning, and then at the end of the school year. Of course, testing so early may skew Maggie's results, since she won't be four until September. They'd usually do the testing in August. But, anyway).

So, we went in this morning and got everything. The teacher that Shelby had was the one that did Maggie's tests, so Maggie was somewhat familiar with her. They finished the tests before I had finished going over everything with the director, and Maggie actually went off with Mrs. K again to play and wait for me in another room. I was pretty surprised, considering Maggie will generally not look at, talk to, or allow anyone she doesn't know well to touch her. Which does concern me for her starting school, but I can't keep her home forever.

Anyway, all I have to do now is return the enrollment packet after we get her physical done, and a copy of her shot record. My baby is going to school! Hold me.

And around....

Now Mackenzie's sick. :/ She's got the same symptoms the other kids had; fever, chills, headache, stomachache. She's not vomiting but she feels like she's going to. Ugh!

Yesterday, we went to my sister's house for a cookout. My other sister came, my grandparents, mom, uncle, and my sister's fiance's mom and stepdad were all there. We started it in late afternoon (around 4), since my sister worked yesterday. We visited for a bit while the burgers and hot dogs were cooked, and then ate. In addition to the hamburgers and hot dogs, we had chips, baked beans, two kinds of potato salad, coleslaw, and for dessert there was banana pudding, brownies, and cookies.

Most of the kids were swimming for a while, too. After we ate, we went to a field down the driveway and played a game of baseball, and then some volleyball. We kept playing until it got too dark to see. We all had a blast, though. I did something to my finger when I hit the volleyball, though. The area between the first two knuckles started swelling and bruising. It is still swollen today, but not nearly as bad as it was, and it's just a little discolored, not horribly so. I don't know what the hell happened.

ALL the kids went down to my other sister's to spend the night. Well, except Shelby & Maggie. But my two older kids, all three of my one sister's kids, and my cousin. She had two of her three kids home, so in all, she had 8 kids at her house. :O No way, I say! Of course, she ended up with 7, since we had to go get Mackenzie at almost 1 o'clock this morning. She came home, I gave her some Nyquil and put the mop bucket beside her bed, and she slept until around 11 this morning. I just gave her a piece of toast and some applesauce, and she's resting on the loveseat and watching tv. I hope this is the end of this damn virus that's been going around all the kids!

It just keeps going around...

In my previous blog post, I said that Maggie was sick. Well, she was better by that weekend, and by then Darrell was sick. He was also being a big baby about it. I know he felt bad, but come on! I just thought Maggie was whiny. Heh. He went to the doctor on Monday, and has a severe sinus infection, so he's on antibiotics and some other meds. Monday morning, Hunter got up saying he wasn't feeling too well, but he went on to school anyway (it was the last day!). We had to pick up report cards yesterday morning, and he was still feeling bad. He went back to bed when we got home, and then started running a fever and vomiting. So, now he's sick. Geez, this shit can go the hell away any time now!

Mackenzie's softball schedule is well underway now. They've played three games and had one canceled due to rain. They've lost all their games so far, too, unfortunately. They are a good team, it's just a few sloppy plays that seem to lose it for them. They've lost two of the games just by one and two points, and the other one was the second game in a doubleheader. They were tired, and the pitcher kept walking the other team, so it was finally called after they got so far ahead.

Mackenzie is wanting to learn to do fastpitch, so we've been looking at instructional videos and stuff, but she doesn't want to practice the techniques, so I don't know how it's going to turn out. If she wants to learn to pitch properly, I have no problems helping her learn, but she just wants to go out there and start throwing the ball instead of practicing the wrist snap, and making sure she's holding the ball correctly, etc. I'm not going to push her, though. If she really wants to learn, she'll put the effort in.

Summer vacation rocks!

I have been thoroughly enjoying my summer vacation so far. To start with, I got As in Spanish II and Sociology, and a freaking B in Algebra. Hallelujah! The first week (last week), I pretty much laid around and did nothing, just relaxed, enjoying not having to study or complete homework. Woot!

This week, I went to the library and got some books, plus my sister gave me a big stack, so I've been reading a lot. I wasn't able to read much while I was in school, so I'm making up for it. I've read four books this week already.

The kids' school year is winding down as well. In fact, Monday is their last day of school, and we pick up report cards Tuesday morning. There is no school on Fridays this month, so they only have one whole day of school left. They haven't been doing much the past week-week and a half, either. Just things like field days and picnics and free recesses. Basically the teachers are killing time. Hunter had his D.A.R.E. graduation today, so I went to that.

Darrell would have went with me, but unfortunately Maggie is now sick. It appears that she has the same stuff Shelby had. She spiked a fever this morning, and it hasn't went away yet. She's complaining of the same pains Shelby was, which are headache and stomach ache. She's being dosed with Motrin and is laying around sleeping off and on, inbetween whining sessions. (Poor kid is very whiny when she's sick)

Mackenzie started softball last week. They only had a couple of practices before their first game. There was another game scheduled for tonight, but it rained off and on all day, so it was canceled. She is doing really well so far, though. She's a much better batter this year than she has been in previous years. She's playing centerfield again, that seems to be "her" spot. She is fast though, and has a very good arm, so she can get the ball back to the infield when it's hit way out there. She has been talking about trying out for the middle school softball team next year, but I think I'm going to encourage her to play with the park league until she's in 7th grade. 6th graders don't get a lot of playtime, and playing with the park league will give her another year of practice and experience before trying out with the school team. After this spring, she'll have played for 5 years, so she'll have 6 years of playing under her belt by the time she tries out for the school team.

We also finished up our Girl Scout meetings this past Tuesday. We did spring registration, although we didn't get nearly the amount of girls re-registering that we started with this year. Which is actually fine by me. We had 8 girls re-register, which is about what I expected. We have two more that are unsure, but I'm waiting to mark through their forms until I get ready to mail the stuff, so they can make up their minds for sure. I still have to meet with the troop leader over the summer to come up with about three projects for the girls' bronze award, so they can choose when we meet again in the fall. But we have plenty of time for that.

I guess that's about all that's going on around here. I am definitely enjoying my rest, and the less stressful pace of life right now. I have until mid-August before it starts back in full force!

My dishwasher is fixed! Yay (and I am drunk)

Darrell got some bug up his ass today and fixed my dishwasher today, and our toilet (thank god, I was tired of using the kids' bathroom). So I don't have to wash dishes by hand as much anymore. Woohoo!

I am also totally drunk right now. Today is my sister's birthday. Her fiance is out of town, because his grandfather died, so we went over to her house tonight. It was just my two sisters, my mom, and me. I brought two six packs of Smirnoff ice and then I did seveal whiskley shots. My sister who has the birdthday and I were totally smashed. We were playing singstar, a ps2 game, and I'm sure we sounded horrible, but we had a great time. I am goin to call her tomorrow and say 'where you going with the mask I foudn?' Haha. My head is reallys wimming right now, i probably eed to go to bed. I think Darrell is mad at me, but I don't care. I had a lot of fufn, and it's been so long since I got drunk. Like before I hd Hunter, that's how long. This is probably lthe worst blg entry int he history of blog entries, so I'll stop now. See you all later.

Update on Shelby

Shelby is still sick. I took her to the doctor this afternoon. Her temp is running about 103, and I can't get it to come down. :/ They did a strep swab, which was negative. Then they drew blood, and said she's fighting a "strep-like" infection. Whatever the hell that means. The doctor said she was calling it tonsillitis, but uh, Shelby has no tonsils. If her fever hasn't broken by Friday, I have to take her back in. They gave us antibiotics for her, and told me to keep her home from school tomorrow, which of course I would anyway since she still has a fever! Duh.

As of now, her fever is still very high. She is being dosed with Tylenol every four hours, but it doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. I don't know what they plan to do if she still has a fever on Friday. I just hope it breaks before then.

So, that's all I know at the moment. Hopefully the antibiotics will start working and her fever will break and she'll be good as new soon. :)

Shelby's sick. :(

Shelby came home sick from school today. She was wearing her jacket when she came out of the building, and it was 77 degrees this afternoon. She said it was cold in the school, so I didn't think much of it. Then she told me that she had slept the whole nap and Mr. H had to wake her up to leave, so I thought she was still groggy from having just woke up.

We went by the grocery store before we came home, and she was shaking and shivering the whole time, saying she was freezing. She even had chillbumps all over her arms. When we got home, I carried her into the house, and her legs were burning up. I put her on the couch and she laid down for a while, and gave her a chewable Tylenol. At one point, she got up and went outside, saying she felt better, but I made her lay back down. She fell asleep around 5, and she's still asleep. She's woken up a few times, including once to take more medicine, but she falls right back to sleep. When she woke up a little earlier, she told me her stomach and head hurt. :/ So, I guess she'll be staying home from school tomorrow; I'm not sure if I should take her to the doctor, or wait it out and see if it's just a virus. Decisions, decisions. I feel bad for the poor girl, though.

Drama in la clase de espanol

(Sorry, I can't get the tilde over the N)

Today was my Spanish final (as well as Algebra), and it started out boring enough. I was there about fifteen minutes early, and a few other people and I were just chatting. Everyone started coming in and we were just talking about how nervous we were, etc. The teacher was about 5 minutes late, but she came in and we were talking and joking around with her.

All of a sudden, the instructor looked over and said "Are you okay?" I looked over to see what she was talking about, and this boy was sitting in his chair, having a seizure! He was leaning over the side of the desk that isn't open, if you know what I mean, and his arms were sticking straight out and he was shaking and foaming at the mouth. It was so freaking scary.

Mrs. B yelled at us to call 911 (there's a group of us that sit at the back of the room near the phone), so my friend Cindy dialed and then Mrs. B ran out of the room yelling for help. A couple of boys in front ran over to him, threw the desks in front of him out of the way, and pulled him out of his desk onto the floor. A nursing student in the room yelled at them when they said something about putting something in his mouth to keep him from choking, and told them to not put anything in his mouth, just roll him on his side.

Another professor came in the room and they turned him on his side. He stopped seizing by then, but he was breathing funny, it sounded like a snore, and he was blowing spit when he breathed. It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to get there, but they finally did, and they asked him some questions and took him out on the cot thingy.

Then, we got back to business and took our test. But everybody was pretty damn freaked out. One boy said, after it was all over, "Well, I won't ever forget my last day in Spanish!" Heh. I don't think I will, either.

Classes are over!

I had my last day of class today, woot! I have final exams on Wednesday and Friday, but that's it. And? I had my last Algebra test last Wednesday, and I made a 93 on that sucker! Hell, yeah! I thought I did well, and I'm glad I did. I raised my average to an 82 with that test and redoing some homework to raise that grade. I just have to not bomb the final, and maybe I can make it out of that class with a B. :D

Darrell took Shelby to the dentist today, and she has cavities. :/ More than one, even. I don't know, she brushes her teeth twice daily just like the other kids, she doesn't eat any more junk than the rest of them, either. She's having one of them capped and the rest filled. Unfortunately, July 13 is the first date they can get her in for this work, and it'll have to be done over 4 visits. :/ We're on the cancellation list, so hopefully they'll call and get her in earlier.

The dentist also said something about possibly having to pull some of her baby teeth on the bottom in the back. I'm not entirely clear, but the way Darrell talked, it sounded like her permanent teeth were taking up more space under the gum than her baby teeth were above the gum, and it would cause problems when she started to lose her baby teeth in the back. I'm going to have to get clearer explanation and then go from there. My first instinct is that I'm not comfortable with them pulling teeth like that.

Pet Peeves

Everyone has little things that bother them. I'm going to share some of my pet peeves now, because I'm PMSing and bitchy. Heh.

• There are some obvious ones, like chewing with your mouth open. That drives me pretty damn crazy, like I want to jam the fork into your eye if you do it.
• Cutesy little words that people use, like vaca instead of vacation, pressies instead of presents, and sammies instead of sandwiches.
• Having to wait on people. When I'm ready to go, I want to go, dammit. Of course, if someone has to wait on me, that's probably okay. ;)
• Lack of respect in general. I don't know if that falls under "pet peeve" really. For example, when you tell someone, oh, say, your sister-in-law, that there was nearly $100 of text messages on oh, say, your husband's phone last month, and you can't afford the bill being that high, and then she continues to text him with the same regularity.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there are more, though. Feel free to share yours!

I refuse to feel bad

To my husband:

Yeah, I know I'm busy. I'm sorry if it seems like I don't have much time for you lately. But I am trying my level best to keep everything in order and running smoothly. You can say that I'm always either on the computer or watching tv, but I think we both know that I am usually cleaning the house, doing laundry, taking care of the kids, cooking, or studying. Yeah, I do have shows that I watch every week, and some days I do spend more time than I should online. But so do you. You're always off in the bedroom working on that stupid machine you're trying to build, and you never offer help when it comes to cooking or cleaning. I have to specifically tell you to do something if I want it done, and if I'm lucky, you'll get to it eventually. If I didn't have to put so much time into keeping the kids clean and fed, and the house clean, in addition to my schoolwork, then I might have more time for you.

I know you're worried about how your back stuff is going to pan out. I, however, am not a fucking mind reader! If you need to discuss something, just tell me. Don't expect me to notice it, when you know all that I have on my plate as well at the moment, and then try to tell me that I'm too busy watching tv and being on the computer all the time to notice. That's just insulting.

Lastly, I will not apologize nor feel bad for going back to school. This is just how it's going to be until I'm done. Yes, it takes some free time away. As long as I'm in school, I won't have as much free time, but I would have more if you would chip in and help me out. Especially since you aren't working. When I am at school all day, and then have to come home and pick up, start laundry, cook and clean up from supper, when you've been hanging out with Maggie all day, something is wrong with that picture. I do more than my fair share, especially for a household of our size. And I'm sick and tired of you acting like I don't have to do anything school related when I am not at school. Attending classes is not the sole requirement for being in school. I have out of class projects, assignments, and studying, and I'd appreciate a little bit of respect for that fact.


Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. :/

Busy weekend

It was so beautiful here this weekend. We got our tax return on Friday, and we went shoe shopping Saturday. We went to Columbia to Ross, and found Hunter & Mackenzie a pair of tennis shoes and Shelby some sandals there. Then we went to a store called Rack Room Shoes, and Shelby got tennis shoes there, Maggie got sandals, and Darrell and I got tennis shoes. It was expensive, but we all needed the shoes. The rest of the money had to go for bills, of course.

Yesterday, it was something like 75 degrees. We cleaned the house up really well, I did between 10-15 loads of laundry (we didn't do any laundry through the week last week), and we did a bunch of yardwork. We worked in and around the house for about 8 straight hours, doing this and that. We splurged on dinner at the local BBQ place since we'd worked so hard and were exhausted.

Unfortunately, my legs were acting up from all the activity and I had a hard time getting to sleep. I have Restless Leg Syndrome, and it was BAD last night. I kept dozing off and waking back up. It's actually never been bad enough to wake me up before. Finally I massaged my legs for a few minutes each and was able to get to and stay asleep.

Randomness

I'm bored, and don't have anything in particular to talk about right now. I should probably be studying double object pronouns or logarithms, but I don't feel like it.

Darrell got his MRI last week, and we got the results this morning. They're referring him back to the pain clinic, and we'll see what that doctor recommends at that point.

I registered for the fall semester last week, but I changed it this morning to all online courses. I'll have to discipline myself to spend adequate time studying and working on it. I'm taking College Math, Astronomy, Intro to Communication (speech), and Intro to Education. I won't have to drive to the campus except for certain tests, and to turn in my speeches. Woot!

We're winding down Girl Scouts for this year. I think we're going to work on one more patch (that we already have enough of), and then we'll just be doing some planning for the fall. We're going to be ambitious and try to earn all of the last year Juniors the Bronze award. It's a lengthy process though, but a high honor for a Junior Girl Scout.

I only have four classes left before finals. Woot! I have one more Algebra test (next Wednesday) and other than that, finals are the only tests I have left. I am so relieved. I can't wait for summer vacation. My kids only have 5 or 6 weeks of school left right now. I plan to get the house clean from top to bottom after I relax for a few days. Then I'm going to spend some quality time with my children, and try to do some fun stuff with them this summer.

I guess that's all that's going on around here at the moment. I love this time of year. :D

Back on the treadmill.

I've decided to restart the healthy eating and exercising. I feel like I'm at a place where I'm ready to do it. I don't want to go all gungho and screw up shortly after I start, so I'm just making a few adjustments to start with. There are three changes I'm making to start with:

1) Drink more water
2) Pick healthier snacks
3) Be mindful of portion size

I'm going to try to do some of my exercise DVDs at least twice a week to start with, and I can add more later on. I'm not going to weigh regularly for now, I'm not logging my food or anything either. I'm going to attempt going at it from a completely different angle than I was before. I don't know if it's the smartest thing to do, but frankly, right now I don't have time to input all my food into some website. I'm going to watch my portion sizes and my snacks without knowing exact calorie counts.

So, we'll see how that works out. I've got to drop some of this weight so I can feel better about myself. Plus, my sister's getting married in October, and I don't want to look like a butterball waddling down the aisle.