In the Moon Garden

Back to writing

So, evidently, I'm not a very good blogger! Oh well, life can take crazy turns sometimes. And my life has certainly taken some turns in the last few years. New job, new home, new relationships, etc.

Most things for the better though! Good life changing desicions and finally following through on getting what we want out of life. The kids and I are healthy and working and living.

We are currently counting down the days for vacation to Florida. Ready to leave these cold winter days behind us! My daughter and youngest son are going along with my fiance and his two kids.

Yep, I said fiance... Surprise! The girl who said "Never again" is recently engaged. My son and I moved in with him a few months ago. My older two are on their own now....of course, I still help them out when they need it.

I miss writing and blogging. I started letter writing again so I thought I would try blogging as well. It's so convenient now with this handy little app I downloaded to my phone. Hopefully my few blogger friends remember me!

Checking in on breaking habits

This sucks!

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Breaking Habits

They say it takes two weeks to break a habit. I hope that's true because I'm gearing myself up to go on a massive habit-breaking run. I know it's probably better to do one thing at a time but for some reason, I've never been able to do things the easy way.

I have started a list and I figure I'll knock them all out at once. Guess we'll see where this goes. I've got a lot of stuff to do over the next few days so on Sunday, my two weeks will begin.

And of course, my list:

1. Break off a negative relationship with a "friend" that has become a bad habit. Yes it's a guy, but I'm so over it, just need to completely break ties. This one will be the hardest.

2. I've gotten in the habit of taking my kids for granted. They are so independent that I forget sometimes that they do still need me whether they like it or not. I need to plan more things to do together as a family. I'm sure they'll love that, ha, I can hear the groans now hehe. This will be a fun one.

3. A simple one ...... maybe. Stop grinding my teeth. Ugh, gives me a headache.

4. Stop worrying about everyone else's problems. I got enough to deal with. I need to take care of me for a while. Selfish, I know, but sometimes you just gotta do it.

I think that's enough for now. Even if I only accomplish half of that, I'll feel pretty good. Well as long as its the right half. Wish me luck, I'll need it!

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So what the hell happened??

Simple answer is that I have no freakin' idea! Little things started changing and not all for the good. Then it all just kind of snowballed and before I knew it I was ready to get out of where I was and go back home. Twelve years ago I left the place where I grew up and lived most of my adult life too. I moved to start a new life for my kids and me and that worked out good but they were growing up and wanting to go their own way and I was homesick.

For people like us who love change, we had just been in one place too long. We needed to get out of there and so we did. Long story short, the house is sold and we now live in an awesome apartment near my hometown. I've gotten back with some of my old friends and picked up some of my old attitude and I'm finally starting to feel like me again.

Now don't get me wrong, it was ok where we had been living but it served it's purpose and it was time to move on. My job went the same way. Got tired of being unappreciated for 10 years so I moved on and finally found a good job that I like and has great benefits. Something I never had at my old job.

There's a lot of little things that happened along the way but I'll save some of that for later.

More big news... Sean is home from the army! I never really liked him being in there and now he is home for good! He is married and found a job as soon as he got back, which was only a few weeks ago. So glad he is home!

Brooke is graduated from high school last year and she will start college this coming fall. She took a year off after high school but is ready to go back to school. That was a seemingly never ending drama that I will talk about later also.....some of it is really pretty funny stuff. She's a little crazy, hehehe.

Kellen is doing good, getting back into public school. He's already made a pack of friends here and I can't keep him at home anymore. When he is home, his friends are with him eating all my food! lol I don't mind, that's just what boys do I guess.

OK, that's enough for now. I have to take pictures of everybody and the apartment...I love it! We have been decorating and I still have a lot to do but it has such great potential. It really is a neat old place and has just as much room as a house.... two floors and big rooms. Wait til you see the living room...so cool.

Off to get started writing some letters. Have a great night!

Wow... surprised this was still here

Logged on to see if my blog was still on here. Yay, I'm glad it survived. Just finished reading my old posts. I miss blogging and letter writing. Miss my friends who I only had contact with through these chanels. Sad that I've lost touch with them.

Lots has happened in my life for the past 18 months. Crazy times that are just now settling down. More about that later. Off to "catch up" on what everyone else has been up to.

Our new Furbaby...Bailey

WooHoo 2 posts in one day, I'm on a roll!

Brooke has begged forever for me to let her have her own little baby. Brooke is very irresponsible so I decided that since I was fine with taking care of a puppy if Brooke slacked off (which she has), I would let her have one. We found Bailey and everyone in the house fell in love with her. Even Star, the meanie old grouch cat, likes her.

Bruno didn't want anything to do with her for the first week but now he is her favorite playmate. Matea loved her the first second and plays very well with her. She has learned to be careful with smaller dogs because Bruno only weighs about 15 pounds. It is funny seeing them play and watching Matea's patience with a mouthy sharp-toothed puppy.

Oh, sorry, you don't want to hear all of this stuff. You want the pictures! She is about 3 months old now and a little over 3 pounds.

The first time I saw her, I told Brooke that she is the one to pick because she is so darn ugly! Of course, now we all think she is adorable! I'm sure I'll have plenty more posts about her antics, especially when her and Matea get to running around the house. It gets a little crazy!!

On the job front...

Let's get this update out of the way so we can move on to happier posts...

So, I walked into work a month or so ago and my boss informs me that because my back went out and I missed a few days of work, he can no longer rely on me and is going to hire someone else. WTF??? Now I normally don't use that type of language or I guess, initialism in this case...BUT it made me so mad! I have worked here for crap pay for 9 years. No benefits, no sick days, no paid holidays and only one week vacation!

Oh well, he'll never find anyone to replace me because even he doesn't know how to do half the stuff I do. So I told him it was fine with me, get someone in here part time and they can cover when I can't make it. So far, he only has someone who can answer the phone and take messages. Of course, I'll be expected to train the guy.

THEN, a couple of weeks ago, he tells me that someone will be calling about selling the company. He met with some business broker on my off day to talk to him about helping to sell the company. So that means, if someone buys it, I'm totally out of job. My boss keeps telling me that if the company is bought, they would be stupid not to keep me on because I know everything. Well, that's all fine and dandy if they could keep the business here, But that's not going to happen. Right now we are on my boss's property, the company will definitely have to be moved. I already drive 30 minutes to work. People are already coming in a looking things over, and they aren't from around here.

I know what he is thinking. He is hoping I keep my job so he won't feel like he has to give me severance pay. I knew he would probably retire 2 years from now but this has been dropped on me within a few weeks time. I am making some life altering plans right now! More about that later.

So now for the Karma

After spending a nice week with no work and doing whatever I wanted (for the most part), I was kind of ready to return to work on Monday. We were invited to a friend's house on Sunday evening to grill out and hang with some other friends of ours as well. Before we left, Kellen and Brooke got into a fight. This was no surprise since they had spent a lot of the week together. This turned into a fist fight and Kellen punched Brooke and Brooke punched him back, I stopped it and the whole thing was like 10 seconds.

Later, Kellen shows me that his hand is swollen and starting to bruise. We iced it and he seemed OK, but still swollen. I figured he sprained his finger when he hit Brooke (she ducked and he barely got her on the back of her head). So we went on the our friend's house. The next day it was still swollen and looked like it had gotten worse.....off to the hospital we went. Turns out, his hand was broken just under his pinky finger. They call it a "boxer's fracture" because if you hit something and just barely catch it with the side of your fist, it jams the little finger into the hand. I guess this happens a lot for boxers. They splinted it, gave us the bone doctor's number, and sent us home. I got him in on Wednesday to get the cast put on (he got a blue one, they took it off this past friday--he's fine).

Meanwhile, my back had started hurting during the week I was off and I had become numb around my torso on the left side. Now I have had back problems before but it was the numbness that sent me to the doctor. I got in on Tuesday (the day after Kellen's hospital trip) and the doctor told me to get an MRI done. I did this on Thursday. Remember now, I have used all of my vacation days, I don't get paid sick days so I am not getting paid for any of this off time running to doctors and hospitals.

It takes two weeks to get the MRI result and get into the doctor to talk about them. I have degenerative discs, a bulging disc and a protruding disc.....nice. Meahwhile I have been in pain a lot and I have missed more time at work. My doctor referred me to a neurologist and I am still trying to get an appointment with them. I have felt ok this week so I haven't missed any work since last week.

There is even more stuff going on at work as this saga continues and I may be out of a job soon. More on that another day.

Sorry for these downer posts but this is all that is going on right now. OH wait! Sean will be here Monday and we are going to Tennessee next weekend. So those are some good things and I will have plenty to post about then.

Thanks to my good friends who listen and are supportive. I am so glad to have you!

Hello Blogger Land

I am so ashamed that I have been away from here so long. I have no excuse, please forgive me.

So my 10 day vacation went well. I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to do it. I neglected kids, pets, home and housework. I feel no guilt at all from any of it! I helped a friend with her daughter's graduation party but I told everyone else NO when they asked for anything from me. I decided that for that week, I would not do anything for anyone who does not appreciate me and thank me for my help. This included my kids!

So the kids survived even though Brooke did everything she could for attention. It was supposed to be her last week of school but she aggravated her teachers so bad, they told her to go home and not come back until the following Monday to take her final exams. Seriously, I had to pick her up from school on Tuesday and she had her work completed so there was nothing else for her to do the rest of the week. She was annoying her teachers because she must be the center of attention at all times. While most of the time she is charming and funny while doing this, she had reached of point of outright rudeness and aggravation....so they sent her home to me...on my vacation....thanks a lot!

I had a nice lunch with my friends that same day and Brooke weaseled her way into joining our "no kids" lunch. But she is 16 now, so we have been including her in some other things too. I did make her only eat half of her food, so she could take the rest home to Kellen. lol she never eats it all anyway.

Most days I didn't come home until late so the kids were on their own. They called me and wanted me to come home and cook for them (I had bought things they could make themselves) because they didn't want to eat what I had left for them. I told them to eat spaghetti, one of the only foods Brooke knows how to cook. She made waaaay too much so they ended up eating spaghetti for about 3 days. It's a good thing they really like it.

My girl, Matea, has been a dog "teenager" lately so it was back to the basics for her. I had a training "boot camp" for her that week. My mornings went to her training and then after running errands or doing whatever else I wanted to do, we had another session in the afternoon/evening. While I was out, she had lots of scheduled crate time and "place" time and we saw improvements by the end of the week. The biggest thing with her is finding enough activities to allow her to burn off some of that never ending energy she has. My time with her by the end of the week was fun and I am still working with her every day.

I know, I know I should feel ashamed and guilty for leaving the my poor children to fend for themselves so often that week. But, I had a nice carefree week and no guilt at all. However, karma comes along and bites you on the butt....the next week was not so good. I'll tell you about that tomorrow (that's where the broken bones come in).

I am NOT DEAD!!

These past two weeks have been crazy!! I will be back with a full report sometime over the weekend....

I have a lot of things to write about.....

vacation, dog training, hospital visits,

Dr. appointments, broken bones, crazy people,

crazy relatives, redecorating,

poor neglected children and spaghetti, Karma.... you name it,

and I'm sure I've forgotten some of it. It's been fun though!

:-)

Stupid things we do at home...

Ever since the kids were babies, we have sung silly songs and as they got older we have done other silly things.

Our favorite song to sing to annoy each other is:

This is the song that never ends

It goes on and on my friend

some people started singing it not knowing what it was

and they'll continue singing it because..

This is the song that never ends

It goes on and on my friend

.........

You get the idea.

Another one I made up when the kids were little

I guess Sean was about 4 and Brooke was 2, I was trying to do dishes and they were both behind me in the kitchen whining about something or other.

So I started singing (to the tune of the Oscar Meyer hotdog song):

My Sean-y has a first name

It's w-h-i-n-e-r

My Sean-y has a second name

It's b-a-b-y

And all day long all he does is cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.

Of course, each kids name can be substituted. HAhahahaha

I still sing the song to them when they are being unreasonable about something silly.

The good thing about it, is once one of these songs are started, everyone joins in and we end up sitting in the living room singing all the silly songs we can think of.

Another goofy thing is from Sean's potty humor when he was younger. lol it's so stupid it's embarrassing....

OK, when anyone passes gas, ok I'll just say it... when anyone FARTS (who says passes gas?), everyone in the room has to spread their fingers, put their thumb to their forehead and the rest of their fingers point upwards. The last person to do this, "eats" the fart. This has added years of fun to our daily routine.

A side effect to this is when Sean was little he used to try to make himself fart and pooped his pants.

OMG, I am soooo embarrassed to admit all of this stuff! hehehehehehehehehe

My life as a real bee-otch... (yes I know that isn't how you spell it)

I have been in a mood lately.... Not really a bad mood just a "free myself from negativity and bad connections" mood. I have decided that there are a few people in my life that take and take and I give and give only to be treated like crap. Well, guess what????

I WILL NO LONGER STAND IN LINE FOR THE ABUSE!!!!

I'm not yelling at you, but I had to get that out....aaahhhh...I feel better. I'm telling you, I have better relationships with my penpals and online friends than here in my tangible world. BUT, since I started with this new mood...I have been having some fun with it.

So far, at least 4 people are mad at me and are not currently speaking to me. And it's because I told them exactly what I think. I laugh out loud when I think about it because I really do not care that they are mad! I can't explain the feeling...it's a freeing, weight-lifting, happy feeling. And I don't feel selfish or guilty AT ALL. How's that for my new fabulous mood?!

So, if you have that kind of person or people in YOUR life...Jump on my bandwagon baby cuz it's a FREE RIDE!! You'll LOVE it!

I am alive!!!!

Sorry to disappear but I have been sick, sick, sick. I don't know what is going on, I usually don't get sick this often but the past couple of months it seems I am sick every weekend.

Maybe I am just trying to get attention or sympathy or something. lol

Let's see...what's new...

Brooke is still driving me nuts with the car but I make her work for it. I haven't had to clean the house or do dishes in a month. hehehe If she wants to drive I make her do chores to earn the privilege to drive.

Hey, you mothers know you do it too... why else have kids if you can't use them as little slaves once in a while. Besides, it's teaching her that she has to work for what she wants....see...that is a very good life lesson. :)

I finally had to break down and buy a new laptop, mine is going to go and I think the next time it goes will be the last...no coming back from that one. I haven't gotten the new one yet but it is one the way from Dell.

I read a book the other night that everyone is reading and talking about... The Art of Racing in the Rain. I LOVED IT!! I want to get another dog just so I can name it Enzo. :)) If you haven't read it...buy it, borrow it, or check it out at your library...It really is a great book.

I guess that is all I have time for today. My boss was nice enough to leave 3 days of work sitting on my desk from when I was off being sick. It wouldn't be so bad if I got some paid sick days but my boss is so tight you can squeeze quarters out of his ass. oops...did I just say a curse word?? sorry ;) hehehe

I'm here!

I'm tired and grumpy and trust me, you don't want a post from me right now.

I'm at work and haven't had any coffee yet today. I'm about to leave and go get some.

It's Friday but I feel like it is a Monday. *sigh* 6 more hours and then I am going home.

Brooke is driving me nuts with the car. She drives to the store at least 3 times a day. I sent her out the other day and told her not to come back for at least an hour. Her and Kellen went driving around. She is funny about it though, watching her think up reasons to drive the car can be slightly entertaining.

OK, enough griping... I told you, you wouldn't want a post from me right now...

I'll be back when I am in a better mood.

Vacation planning...

Sean finally got his dates for his vacation time. He gets a couple of weeks off this summer so we are going to stay in a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN in the Great Smokey Mountains. I love it there, it is so pretty and clean and peaceful. I found a nice cabin in the woods with a creek running right through the front yard. (not a very good picture but...)

I have to take the boy away when he comes or I will hardly see him. He has a lot of friends he visits and a couple of other family members. Mostly he comes home to go have fun and enjoy his time off. He usually takes Kellen and does something with him and we all do something as a family at least once, but since he is home longer this time, I'm taking him away so I'll have him all to myself for a few days. He can run around when we get back.

We love the little go-cart race track there. And they have lots of other stuff for the kids to do so it will be fun for all of us. I'm sure I will take lots of pictures and have a nice blog post when I get back, I can't wait to go (in July)!

Brooke's got wheels!

Well, they are my wheels but she is now legally allowed to use them on the streets of the USA! Watch out!

She got her driver's license this morning and her mouth has already gotten her grounded from the car. (nice to have some leverage on her now besides her cell phone...*evil laugh*)

Wheeee...this will be fun....NOT. I'm not sure if I can handle another teenager with a license. *sigh*

And on another note....it looks like Brooke (my alien daughter -- see previous post) is getting a visit from her "real" family. I saw this video this afternoon. They say it's a meteor but I think we all know better... (press the button :-))

Yep...looks like they've landed in a corn field in Iowa. They overshot KY a little ways but I'm sure they'll find their way here soon. Wait until I show this to Kellen...he'll have a blast with this one.

To-do list and minor rambling

Once again I have gotten behind in everything but I am slowly catching up. I spent this past weekend doing nothing really. My mom came to visit Saturday afternoon but that was about the only event the whole weekend.

This is what I had planned on doing:

My To Do List

1. Finish reading the two extra books for my History of the Holocaust Class (which started yesterday)

2. Get some more of Kellen's lesson plans written up

3. ~~Clean house to get ready for the carpet cleaning Monday~~ (I actually did this...sort of...Sat. morning)

4. Finish up my letters, print, decorate, stuff in envelopes, address, and mail.

5. Clean car

6. Go to grocery

7. ~~Finish cleaning my room~~ and re-organize my closet. (I didn't clean my room, Brooke did...she wanted something that cost money so she had to earn it.)

8. Give dogs a bath...Bruno stinks...he's always rolling in something and Matea gets into any muddy spot she can find so she is no longer white but a dingy gray color.

8. Upload pictures to Blog and Facebook.

9. Oh yeah, and take said pictures first.

I am sure there was more, but I can't remember. Last night I got the carpets done. I am half way through the second book I wanted to read for class and tonight I am doing lesson plans for Kellen and finishing my book. I am also taking another class that started yesterday: History of the American Indian. I have reading for both classes from the textbooks but I will do that tomorrow night.

I am also going to a friend's house tonight to exercise and walk. We are going to be doing this 2-3 nights a week, trying to lose weight together. I also want to get fit....I feel flabby.

I am work right now. I'm sure my boss is wondering what I am doing...typing away on the computer. I suppose I should go and do something. Bye for now!

Adding music to your blog

I've been looking for a simple way to add music to my blog (and Melody's blog...this quest was her idea)

...Go to www.playlist.com and register for an account (it's free).
...Find songs you like and add them to your playlist.
...Click on My Playlist and then Share (under your playlist)
...Choose how you want it to look if you want to add it to your sidebar (you don't have to)
...If you want it to automatically start playing the music when someone goes to your blog, make sure you answer YES to Autostart.
...Click on Get Code and choose Blogger on the next page
...enter your username and password that you use to log onto Blogspot
...Make sure your blog address is correct ( it autofilled my login info but that is different than my blog address.)
...Choose whether you want it added to your sidebar and click on post.
...that's it! go to your blog and make sure it is working.

You can see on mine I have added it to my sidebar. I doubt anyone is on here more than a couple minutes so I figure they can pick which song they want to hear or the can stop any music from playing. I will make a better playlist later when I have more time. I just chose a few songs from the list on the site.

I hope this helps anyone looking to add music!

More fun with Polymer

Kellen and I are still playing with the polymer clay. Here are a few of our new creations.
We still need to put another coat of paint on them tonight but here they are so far.

Kellen's alien...he said he doesn't like it so he wouldn't let me take more than one picture. I think it's cool.

My little ellie, I love her little tail.

And my cartoon bunny. I love this guy! I think I like making the cartoon-ish characters better than trying to make real life copies. I also used some colored clay on this one. I only painted the yellow and I need to go over it again.

Polymer and Puffy

Kellen and I played with polymer for the first time last night. I made a mini-Bruno but I cannot paint (for real, I'm not being modest) but here it is...
Bruno and his Mini-Me