I so need a job.

Just like last year, I am house hunting again.  Why you ask?  Oh, didn’t I tell you?  To keep health insurance, D’s doing nasty guard for at least 3 years.  So we’re staying in Cat Box.  Boo.  But, I’ve found something REALLY promising, even more than last year’s finds – 4 bedrooms and a pool.  A POOL.  And there’s a fence around it.  I really want to be moved in and settled before D gets home.

In addition to transitioning to the nasty guard, D’s going to do some training for a new job.  So it’s unknown if he’s going to be home before or after the kids get out of school.  No matter, he’s coming home.  The Daddy jar is constantly emptying; I really don’t want to have to add more to it on the sly, but I will if I have to.

The oral steroid I’ve been on has lowered the swelling in my forearms to almost normal again.  Which is amazing to me.  The pain med, on the other hand, is HORRIBLE.  It knocks me on my butt about 90 minutes after I take it.  And then I sleep for HOURS longer than I should.  And I DO mean hours.  The day is lost by the time I get up, the kids destroy what they can on the sly, and I feel as if I’ve got a hangover…  I’ve never had a hangover, so I’m not sure. 

My migraines are back.  Seems my dad has been getting cluster migraines, too.  His wife asked me tonight how I handle mine, and I told her “a dark room, food that B can feed the little kids, Excederin migraine, and lots of water.”

So Squish brought up a viable thought for a job…  Becoming a housekeeper.  I mean, yeah, my house looks like a bomb hit it a lot of the time, but I’m amazing at cleaning other people’s houses for some reason.  It’s a sickness, it really is.  So I’m going to discuss it with the hubs and see what he thinks about this, see if he wants me to wait, etc, and maybe put up a Craig’s List ad.  Add that to the tutoring and free-lance work, and maybe things will get a little easier finance wise?  G-ds, I hope so, cause this is getting crazy.

Too much month at the end of the money

So tonight I had the first set of two MRI’s on my arms.  Despite the MRI being one of the open ones, I found myself feeling claustrophobic…  I’m lying on a table, the machine is making my bra move of its own accord – MRI’s REALLY like underwire foundations – and the machine is loud enough that I have to wear sound-blocking headphones.

MRI’s on forearms are unpleasant for EVERYONE.  You have to lie down on the table all the way to one side or another with your arm palm up.  No big deal, right?  WRONG.  In positioning your arm that way, your elbow locks.  And it seems to go on FOREVER.  The sound of the machine keeps you from distracting yourself from the fact that you’ve got a huge machine not even six inches from your chest in breath sucking pain.  Yeah, the arms are bugging the hell outta me.  Enough that the only time the braces are off is when I’m typing or doing REALLY messy cleaning.

I hate the long months… 5 weeks in January, five weeks to stretch an allotment that barely makes three and a half.  This two households stuff is really so so old.  I hate it.  It makes me really mad at everyone that D serves with that should’ve helped him but instead giggled behind his back (I swear that’s what they did.  Really.  I know that they did.  Jackasses.  Add a few other choice blue-faced obscenities…) as he slowly descended into depression and border-line alcoholism.  Jerks.  Makes me thankful for his friends, L & I, who basically made him detox on their couch and don’t let him isolate himself.

Tonight I tried to teach the little kids how to play Jenga®.  Marion freaked out, yelling “I don’t wanna lose, Momma!  If I lose I will be saaaaaaaaaaaad!”  Oh and best of all?  Both little kids have started saying “I hate…”  Hate is a word that’s one of my peeves.  It’s a wild peeve, as opposed to a pet.  Huge, ugly, ill-mannered, and most definitely not fit for company.

Sigh.  Even less time till he’s here with us again.  Wow.  I just can’t fit my mind around it.  The other half of the parenting team back where he belongs; G-ds I really hope that the acclimation process is as painless as possible.

Yeah, I'm a slacker

I know I know, I’ve slacked off on the whole blogging thing AGAIN…  I’ve been SUPER busy, though, honest!

I just got done with my Ethics class.  I may have made full points on this one, boys and girls.  It only took me eight freaking classes, but I may have done it.  The house is never going to be clean again, I swear by all that’s good sweet and holy.  D’s set to be home in double digits.  DOUBLE.  FREAKING.  DIGITS.  I’ve got laundry strewn throughout the house.  Dishes on the floor.  I really need to finish putting up the shelves in the kids’ rooms, shovel out my room and re-arrange things…  There’s just so much to do and not enough to time.

On the other side, I’ve got tutoring appointments almost every day.  Every day!  I’m leaving the house nearly every day, and getting paid for it!  My students are amazing kids.  I need to get M into daycare though.  It would open up my availability and she’d like it…  Plus, D’s going back to school once he gets home, so having M at school just like the big kids would be a good thing.

On a serious note, I FINALLY got my hands checked out.  I’m exhibiting 3 out of 3 signs of carpal tunnel, the swelling that I’ve had just above my wrists since before B was born is very likely something called “intersection syndrome” and the soonest that they can get me in to do surgery is the beginning of April.  Oh, and the best part?  I have to get an MRI, EKG, EMG, and get blood work and labs done.  Most of that pre-op crap has to be done at Nellis.  Joy.

I haven’t kept my promise to myself to work out.  I need to do that.  I really do.  I’m waiting for the end of the month; I’ve got a fitness thing that I want to try, but to do that I need money.  No money to really do anything till the end of the month…  Come on February!  Yeah, I know that I will finally have a teenager in the house, but I could really use the allotment.

You are being f*cking childish

STOP IT! STOP IT!  STOP IT!

You’ve got facebook.  I’ve got facebook.  We’ve all seen the breast cancer “game.”  Seriously.  A game isn’t going to bring awareness to ANY type of cancer.  I say this as a “cancer orphan”; my mother died in 2004 from breast cancer that went from a stage 2, which is curable, to a stage 4, which is a death sentence, in under 6 months.

Her father had prostate cancer before he died.  He had lots going on – cancer, emphysema, COPD…  But the big one for me is the cancer, because prostate cancer and breast cancer are caused by the same genetic marker.  Did you know that?  Most folks that I tell that to have no idea.  My birth father’s grandmother had a double radial mastectomy in the 60’s.  So I’ve got it on both sides. 

I started having mammograms in my early 30’s.  Yup.  Early, huh?  It’s because mom’s breast cancer was so sneaky and her doctors thought that it developed before she turned 45 because of the hormone replacement therapy she was put on after her hysterectomy.  She had the hysterectomy when I was 17.  They found the cancer 7 years later.  It’s theorized that the cancer had been lying in wait for 6 years.  So less than a year of premarin and she got breast cancer.  After fighting it for 6 years, dealing with losing her hair, losing mobility because of a broken hip, and missing out on the retirement dreams she and her husband had, what got her was “renal failure.”

This means that the dentist gave her meds, it interacted with the meds she was on, caused her kidneys to shut down, and the doctor didn’t catch it in time.  The thought was that she could wait until her next oncology appointment, which was 5 days after the swelling started.  She died within 24 hours of her appointment with her oncologist.

Playing the cancer game doesn’t do anything.  Posting stuff about bald Barbie dolls and bra colors, and faux pregnancy doesn’t do anything.  Volunteering is effective.  Raising funds is effective.  Holding a patient’s hand during chemo helps.  Owning and donating the time of a therapy dog helps.  Listening, cooking for, and rides to appointments helps.  And, most of all, petitioning drug manufacturers to lower their prices, paying for October mammograms for the under-resourced, and demanding that a cure be found in our lifetime helps.

Early detection is key.  Save the ta-tas.

And with that, I step off my soap box and return to the insane ramblings, poop talk, and gibberish that you are accustomed to.

Act your age! D*MN!

So, come to find out, D’s mood-swings like a pendulum ex has de-friended him on the Facebook, making it so that he can’t see pictures of their daughter anymore.  Her reason?  He’s online ALL the time and never messages the child that doesn’t have a FB account.  Not sharing pictures is just one more violation of the divorce laws here in Sunny Cat Box Nevada.  I’m really hoping that D talks to a lawyer once he’s home.

I had my annual 3 month cleaning today.  And I’ve got another one in 2 weeks for a cavity and a night-guard.  Seems I clench and/or grind my teeth.  So much so that my back teeth have become pressure sensitive.  The cavity is a HUGE deal for me – I haven’t had one in over 20 years.  The hygienist said that adults my age usually end up with root canals, not cavities; I’ll take a cavity if it’s one or the other.

Once again I got the whole “do you have your wisdom teeth?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Are they impacted?”

“No, they never came in, and I’ve only got three.”

“Are you sure?  Because I don’t see them in the x-rays.”

“I’m sure.  Really.”

My wisdom teeth bug me when I’m sick or have some sort of sinus thing going on.  I’m terrified of having to get them out – everyone I’ve heard of that had theirs out has a hard time with the recovery, something super nasty sounding called “dry sockets.”  Thank you very much, but no.  My wisdom teeth have never given me any trouble, I’m going to treat them the way they’ve treated me.  I don’t poke bears with sticks, harass sleeping husbands after a long plane ride, and I most definitely don’t have surgery on pieces of myself that are minding their own business.

Thinking on the dentist, I’m realizing that once D’s out of the military, we’re losing our health insurance completely unless one of us gets a job of some sort.  Crap.  Okay, one more thing to think and plan for.  Dammit!

Today is one of my days off from school.  I should be cleaning house, particularly the kitchen (‘cause it’s demanding a game of “what’s that smell”), but I really just want to work on my web sites and deal with blogging and all that stuff… No, I’m going to end up cleaning the kitchen and at least doing SOME laundry, cause Boychik’s wearing his last clean pair of underwear.  Boo.

thump thump BANG

So, the upstairs neighbors are adoptive parents to a 3 year-old, and foster parents to a 5 and 2 year old.  The foster kids have been with them maybe a week.  The morning of the 3^rd, I was woken up before 6 by the three year old as he screamed his way down the stairs and out to their car to go to day care.

Every night this week there has been a rousing game of “thump thump BANG” from upstairs that usually wraps up around nine.  As I am writing this, it’s nearly 11 pm at the end of the week, and the noise was enough that MY little guys were refusing to go to sleep.

I went up and talked to the mom; everything was semi-quiet for about 15 minutes and then it cranked up again.  Sigh. 

I truly HATE living in an apartment.  Not having a yard sucks.  Other people’s animal feces left in the rare grassy areas like horrible land-mines is disgusting.  Having people above me that I can’t send to bed or punish for ignoring me is frustrating as all Hell.  As I’ve said before, residential building standards, particularly for apartments should be a crime.  The walls are thin, the windows let in drafts, and there’s always some type of insect wanting to be in your house.  This particular complex doesn’t have a play area for the kids, and last month a twelve year old had a knife pulled on him on the basketball court  it isn’t even 50 yards from my front yard.

I’m very anxious to get to Oregon.  Having to wait out the school year is frustrating – I’ve got the itch to pack up and leave.  But the kids need to finish the year, they really do.  B will want to finish it out with her friends, Boychik’s got an evaluation that needs to be done before we leave town.  I felt pushed to leave California right before we moved here back in ’05.  I met D almost immediately, and look at us now…  Makes me wonder what this move has in store for us.  And the feeling makes me want to leave even more.

no, No, NO! NOT ON THE CARPET!!!! Awwww D*mm*t.

Today B had an orthodontist appointment.  Imagine my surprise and disgust when they told me that last time she had two loose brackets, and this time there were FIVE?!  And they’re $25 each EACH to replace.  So till the end of the month, she’s going without the wire and brackets that are missing, and she’s lost her allowance for the next 5 months to pay for it.  Along with the missing brackets, the hygienist found “white fuzzy fibers” in her brackets.  B’s got a nasty habit of chewing on non-foods, so it could be paper, it would be from a blanket.  Either way, I’m not real impressed.

After we got home, M stripped off her clothes and crapped on the carpet.  Then she came and told me that she pooped in the potty.  I’m not impressed at all.  Children are gross gross creatures.  And super stubborn.  A little further into the living room and she would’ve “hit” the plastic runner that’s protecting the carpet… but no, that would make my life easy.

So now I’ve got another expense before the hubs gets here – I’ve gotta have the carpet cleaned.  This either means renting a shampooer, which isn’t always effective because it IS a rented machine, or bite the bullet and actually buy a shampooer (and maybe a better vacuum) from my sew-vac guy, L. 

D wants me to have H and R Block do the taxes, my friend PJ says that I should just use turbo tax.  The issue for me is the mileage from tutoring – how the heck do I enter that???  If I go through an actual tax person, I could get the return sooner… but they charge so freaking much.  IDK.  Maybe I’ll do a test run with turbo tax?  But then how am I going to have last year’s taxes reviewed?  Cause that’s super attractive to me right now; someone reviewing my taxes and saying that I’ll get more from the return that was seized last year?  Oh, yes please!  Especially since, as far as I know, everything’s set so that it isn’t seized this year.  If it gets taken, I think I’ll cry.  Seriously.

Last night was rotten – I ended up with another migraine.  IDK if they’re stress induced or what, but it’s getting annoying.  I’m hoping that once D is back, they happen less often. 

And loverly… The neighbors have come home, and it sounds like the children are trying to collapse the ceiling/floor on top of me, making my headache worse.  Awesome.  I really can’t say anything – they’re good people, and their kids are usually quiet after 8 or 9, but WOW, I really wish that they were quieter.  Especially in the morning.  3 times in the past week their three year old has pitched a fit coming down the stairs, waking me up before 6 am.  IDK if his antics have woken up the other neighbors.  Honestly, I don’t really care.  All I know is that it’s driving me nuts, and I feel like a big jerk getting annoyed about it – they can’t help his behavior.

Mostly, I really just want the pain to stop.  I’d like to be pain free for a few hours while I’m awake.  I feel like that’s asking too much, but what are ya gonna do?

Busy busy busy

So today was the first day of Boychik’s “low-incidence” class.  It went on forever, but I think it went well.  I got some advice on how to combat the screams, and if he brings his “Tony-baby” next week, the gentleman that runs the class will “trade” Tony-baby for a motion activated Spongebob with a soft body.

I’m not super sure about this idea…  He’s had his Tony-baby FOREVER and really loves it.  Tony-baby doesn’t make noise, and he can be anything – Boychik’s baby, Iron Man, a Power Ranger, or Spongebob.  Tony-baby makes Boychik use his imagination.  There was also a “token sheet”.  He chose one with the Wonder Pets on it.  We have yet to use it at home.  I’m thinking that it will be used tomorrow.

Best of all?  The behavioral specialist agreed with me about taking stuff like drawing and TV away from Boychik.  This makes me feel so confident in my own knowledge of kids with special needs, and lowers my already small opinion of Boychik’s principal.  I’m pretty sure she’s been attempting to influence Boychik’s teacher, to back her up, too.  This is the same woman that’s been threatening me with CPS if Boychik misses school, going so far as to say that if CPS gets involved it will “ruin” my life.

I’ve been using the laptop at the dining room table more.  Once things are more organized in my room and the furniture is right, I’m pretty sure that I’ll use the desk top more, or D will when he gets home.  Bex also uses it.

So today I found out that the best cure for a migraine, at least for me, is to take a couple migraine pain killers, and pass out on the couch.  Imagine my disgust when what woke me up was the roller-skating elephants that my upstairs neighbors are foster parents to and my own children trying to displace the dog’s cuddle spot on the couch.  Boychik succeeded, and he cuddles HOT.  It’s like sharing blankets with a radiator.

The daddy jar is even more empty, see?

What does this mean for all of us?  It means that homecoming is getting closer, and my belly needs to GTFO, cause that Ralph Lauren dress is going to look like a sausage casing if I don’t lose some weight.

Life is interesting

The book is here, the drill charger was found and is charging, Boychik passed out before 9, and M crashed on the couch.  But I finally got my shower.

Honestly, NYE was just another day…  Vaca got her walk, the kids got to run around outside, M dressed herself in a skirt and her “tur-doe” shirt (turtleneck), and her sister’s scarf.  It’s actually been warm enough to open up the house, a blessing with three kids, a dog, and the assorted smells and odors that go along .

I’m a wee bit pissed.  Every time that I try to load a picture from the computer to my blog, it shows up sideways.  So I’m going to have to figure out my photbucket and see if I have any luck loading pictures there.  I managed to put myself into a colossal amount of pain and to bruise my hand.  Yep, there’s a purple splotch on my hand, right where I put lots of pressure when I work on stuff.

Retard jr, the laptop, FINALLY started “talking” to the wireless network again.  It only took me restarting it a couple times, going back to a prior version, and then giving up in disgust, turning it on for inventory and seeing that not only did it see the house network, but that it connected to it.  I was pretty happy about that.  D and I got to skype yesterday.  That was rather awesome, even if we had to use the suckish web cam on the desktop.  He finally got to hear the insanity of the house on a “home-day”.  His response?  “Wow, Boychik is loud,” right before backing me up on the demand that Boychik get dressed.

We also talked about the impending move to the Pacific Northwest…  We know that we’re going to be here until the end of the school year, but that comes a little over 7 weeks before our lease is up.  So the question for us is whether or not it’s going to be worth it to pay to break the lease to avoid the rest of a Southern Nevada summer.  Hmmmmmm pay off the lease, or keep the money and put up with a horrible panty-sweating summer?  Decisions, decisions.  Add to that the chaos that is an out-of-state move.  What to keep, what to get rid of, bring all the stuff from the garage into the house to save an extra 100 a month, or keep the garage to have a spot for furniture and filled boxes?  Okay, that one just answered itself, ha ha.

I’m still debating just going to the Laundromat and getting all the laundry out of the way.  The thing is, it’s money that I really don’t want to spend – I mean, yeah, if I do it there, I take the wash out, fold it immediately, everything gets hung up, etc, but I just hate the idea of spending the money when I’ve got a washer and dryer here.  The only plus would be that I could just wash all the bedspreads and couch pillows.

And best of all besides a semi-regular blog update so far?  The kids went back to school today.  So it’s just me and M again.  Hello productivity!

Crap, more stuff I've gotta do?

Okay, so here it is, the first day of a new year, and I’m most likely going to spend it cleaning and constructing a desk.  That is if my drill charges.  Yes, as I write this, I’m waiting on my drill to take a charge so that I can organize a little bit more.  I’ve got shelves to shift, rooms to clean out, and floors to clean…  But that desk is on my mind, like new shoes or fabric.

I’m waiting on my HTML5 book to get here.  Hopefully that will help with the web site that I am chomping at the bit to build.  The computer’s been purged, too.  Kinda.  I’m thinking that I’m going to have to go through EVERY SINGLE FILE and get rid of stuff.  But there’s finally some extra space on all three HDD’s for “new stuff”.  Once D gets home he’ll probably purge more stuff, or add a new HDD, or something…  I know that he’s got SOMETHING interesting planned for the computer organization for the house… 

I ended up going by the Salvation Army right before I picked up the desk pieces; I spent a little under 30 there, but I got a whole bunch of long sleeve “layering” shirts, which I really needed for both home and work – I’ve been trying to dress with only a very small wardrobe since the big lose/gain in 2011, and the result is that I had 2 pairs of jeans, some tee-shirts and nothing else that was really appropriate for tutoring.  I didn’t even have enough socks that weren’t dress shoe friendly.

I have yet to finish a place-mat.  I’ve got the yarn, and the pattern, but none of the interest, ha ha…  There’s just too much to do – desk, cleaning, purging the computer, setting up said desk, setting a blog/school/house schedule (that will be followed for a few days and then forgotten…)

I’m having sleeping problems again.  NYE morning I was up till 6.  I really hate it when there’s two 3 o’clocks that I’m awake for, 4 and 5 are annoying, but two 6’s when I’m not working, having a good time, or getting kids up is just cruel.  When I talked to the doc, he said that he’s not going to put me on sleep meds with D’s homecoming being so close.  It’s FINALLY under a triple digit number, and I’m getting nervous.  I’d like things settled for him so that he can re-acclimate to the family.  To my mind that means a semi-clean and organized house, a clean room for him to “hide” in, things like that.  I’ve got a while, I’ve just gotta get this sleeping thing figured out.

And with that, I’ve got food to start and serve, laundry to conquer, a drill to check, AGAIN.  If I end up having to order another part for it, I’m going to be super pissed, and I REALLY need a shower.