LilCherie'sWorld

....in bed!!

2008-03-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

Only three more days until Depressionista and I get to go see Lesley and the LYs
I am so excited!! I mean how could you not be excited to see this woman in concert!!!

Powe

So--can I be a high class prostitute for politicians too??

ok...So I am being pathetic with these quizzes. I think I have hit the Jackpot on finding the "lazy man's blog" tools.

The sad thing is it is only Tuesday and I feel like I have already worked a full week!

Funny thing my kid did this week: I was helping my son get dressed quick this morning. Granted, I stopped in the middle of getting dressed myself to help him so I was in my bra and undies. I get him all dressed and I asked him for a hug. He looks at me in disgust and says "Um, no, Mom, I'll give you a hug after you put your clothes on". Guess I have to start having better boundaries myself!

Good to know..

2008-03-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

I thought this was an interesting little quiz:

$4225.00

Don't Point that Coat at me!!

2008-03-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

Today, my six year old son, a kindergartner mind you, was sent to the principal's office again. He got one of those lovely behavioral modification sheets sent home with him. His father and I are still trying to process the reason why. Apparently, he was "pretending his coat was a gun". And when his teacher asked him about it, he lied. But he admitted it to the it to the classroom assistant.

Ok...I understand the fears around guns in schools and maybe redirecting him immediately in the classroom when this happens. I would understand it more maybe if he was say in 4th or 5th grade and he was pretending something was a gun and he was pointing it at someone else. But my understanding from the behavioral modification sheet and from talking with the our son,is that he was not even pointing his dangerous "weapon" at anyone else. I also understand the concern about him lying to his teacher...but shit, I imagine that I would have denied it too had I been in his shoes because I can only imagine the horrified look on his petite, proper little teacher's face when she saw my son standing there, probably pretending to defend our galaxy from attacking aliens with a weapon of minimal destruction.

Well...as parents, we took the situation very seriously. After all, we dont want to become the parents of the next Columbine-like psycho. Sheesh, whats next--you never know--he could use his shoe for a machine gun or his back pack as a machete. We sat him down and explained to him that he cannot pretend anything is a gun at school. And as his punishment/discipline for the situation, he was not allowed to play video games for the evening. Which actually turned out to be a pretty damn productive evening for him. We cleaned his room. He is now actually able to use the desk in his room and he set up his own little craft/art area at his desk and he spent probably around an hour making things by himself--a major miracle.

Current event--this is probably one of my new favorite stories. The lady that sat on her toilet seat for two years. The toilet seat had to be removed from her body at the hospital. I have so many questions that will probably never get answered. Did she clean her body? Was there another toilet in the house that her boyfriend could use? Did she have any other family members or friends who wondered what she was up to lately? Did she have a lot of reading material in there? My ass gets sore sitting on the toilet for half an hour...how sore was her ass?? Did anyone get any pictures?

Darwin Award Runner up

2008-03-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

Today I encountered one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. A woman had a hysterectomy, a full hysterectomy. She goes home from surgery. Proceeds to have sex on day 3, day 8, day 11, and day 13 of recovery. Now I can not imagine having sex for severalmonths after a complete hysterectomy. It took me a couple weeks to have sex after I got my tonsils out and that is no where near my vagina. She ended up with a horrible infection and was in the hospital for two weeks straight, "I almost died" she says...then at the end of our conversation she admitted to having codependency issues and a sex addition. No shit, Sherlock...

Lunch at the Cuckoo's Nest

2008-03-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

You know your family is fucked up when you work in the human service field and the most stressful part of your day was having lunch with your own family members.

My dad loaned me his laptop while I was recovering from my tonsillectomy. He wanted to pick it up and have lunch at the same time on Tuesday. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before my sister lives in the same town that I do. My “crazy Dad calls me last week and says “Your mother made me call your sister and invite her to lunch too”. I thought “OK, its just lunch, how bad could it be?”

It was two worlds of dysfunction in my life colliding at once—and exploding in slow motion. Dad had told me before that he had some stuff he wanted to talk about. I thought after he invited my sister he wouldn’t approach topics of any depth. You can’t have a coherent conversation with my sister. It is literally impossible. It becomes free association of what ever you are talking about with whatever physical ailment it reminds my sister of—like if you mention a food, she has to tell you how sick it makes her or how allergic she is to it.

We met at local café here in town—one of dad’s favorite places to eat. We get a booth. One of the first statements out of dad’s mouth is “how come three out of four of my children are in therapy?” It all goes down hill from there. My sister doesn’t remember that our brother was in therapy in for depression...she immediately asks why our other brother, the sanest of all of us is in counseling. I have to tell he is not. She launches into how she is at least not on any kind of psychological medications like me or our brother. I say “why would it be so bad if you were on them?” She says “ I can’t be on them. They make my tremors too bad”. Apparently they interact with the myriad of other medications she is on for her tremors, fibromailgia , bone spurs, allergies, high cholesterol, asthma, migraines, and number of other ailments I don’t remember.

Then dad decides to touch on what I think is the worst possible topic to touch in the presence of my sister—his codependent, fucked up relationship with our mother. I think it was some sort of attempt to see if she could possibly be another ally for him. He says “A couple of weeks ago your mother said to me, if it came down to me or the house, she would take the house”, indicating that she would be more than willing to tell dad to get out if she had to. Dad had never discussed anything like this in front of my sister. She looked dumb founded. She went into some sort of spiel about how when she was living at home yet, mom would go into her room on Friday night after work and not come out again until Sunday night”. She thought it was because of the pain from mom’s fibroid tumor that “they did not have the $10.000 to pay for the surgery to remove”. Dad had no memory of this and believes that this may be another psychotic memory created by sister. The tumor was real—but he doubts Mom spent the whole weekend in her room. I could go either way on this one.

I am not even sure how we got to the next topic…could have been anything with my sister present. My sister and her husband tend to “see ghosts”. Now I would be less skeptical if it was just at their current residence but everywhere they live, there is some sort of apparition that appears. Usually several. She went into an elaborate description of a little girl ghost that lives in her current residence. Somehow, my sister knows the entire name of this thing-Pauline something Lemckee. And that this was the neighbors daughter and she died like 40 years ago. And that the people that use to live in her house didn’t have any children so they liked to have her come visit. And there is some adult male ghost that comes over to call Pauline back home and he is really mean and he has to be her father. And that Pauline was pushed down the stairs in the basement of her home and broke her neck. I asked her if she did some sort of research on this, if that is how she knows all of this detailed information. She says “no” she just knows. WHAT THE FUCK!! She says that she has had a repair guy that won’t come to the house without her there because he has seen her to. She says that she has seen our grandmother who died almost two years ago from the knees up doing dishes at her kitchen sink. I say “why don’t I get to see grandma”.

Then my dad mentions that my mom doesn’t want to stay at my sisters house—he thinks that mom already told my sister this. My sister has no clue of what he is talking about and at that second dad realizes he messed up and says he cant tell us why—because mom wouldn’t want him to. Then, of course, I really want to know. My sister swears she will never tell mom. So Dad tells us that when they were staying at her house after my sister’s gall bladder surgery and mom was sleeping on the couch and mom felt someone/something pick her up by her feet and drop her back on the couch. He said that mom was really freaked out by this—more scared than he has ever seen her before. Mom doesn’t want anyone to know about this because she doesn’t want anyone to think she is crazy—can’t say that I blame her either. I have no idea of what to do with that information.

So about 50 minutes into lunch, I'm ready to go back to work. Work was easy compared to lunch—the unfortunate thing is that I had a long day ahead of me. We go to leave and my sister says “I hope you don’t think I am crazy” and I say “not any more than usual”.

Dad calls me after getting into his car to debrief. He says “How does she survive? I cant believe I fathered that child! She is going to end up institutionalized”.

I get back to the office and my coworker asks how lunch was with my dad. I say “as fucked up as usual”.

I HAVE SURVIVED!

2008-02-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

A week ago today, I had my tonsils removed. What a long, strange week it has been. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions, pain, appreciation of my loved ones, and amazingly enough, some kind of sick learning experience, a crazy gift thrown at me by the cosmos. What the hell.

It started out last Monday, with my husband, R and I heading out to the Surgery Center without checking my phone messages before hand. We get there, and the receptionist tells us that the doctor is snowed in in Kansas City and that they had left me a message that morning on my cell. She was right--I had no idea this could even happen. There I am, totally as prepared as I thought I could be for this procedure. We went out the night before to Red Lobster for a great "Last Supper"--I had a fridge stocked up with after surgery food, jello, pudding, yogurt, ice cream. I was caught up with laundry. Had an awesome presurgery Girls' Night with Depressionista. The receptionist might as well as just went ahead and punched me in the gut. The most appropriate thing about that moment is that I was wearing my "grumpy pants" Depressionista gave me for my birthday while I was balling and feeling pretty certain that this whole thing had been discussed at the last "World Against Lil'Cherie" meeting. I took two weeks off from work...now what do we do? Luckily, they were able to figure out within a couple of hours that they could get me scheduled for the next day, if the doc could get back from Kansas...so I was really trying to not get to set on the idea since he was still not back that afternoon!

Luckily, we woke up the next morning and I checked my messages--no messages. We headed back to the Surgery Center and we were good to go! Doc was running a little late...I imagine trying to get caught up as an ENT after being gone an entire day is a challenge. But he was so sweet...He said he was sorry for "ruining my life the day before". The surgery went off without a hitch. I came out of the anasthesia without as much difficulty as usual...kind of a like a happy drunk as opposed the usual suicidal bartituate addict. They gave me liquid Loratab and liquid antibiotics for drugs. I initially thought thiere is no way I will take all of those pain killers....I believe one bottle is 473 milileters...at this point I have taken almost two full bottles of liquid loratab...I am gradually trying to lower the dose.

I have to say most of the warnings/horror stories you hear about having your tonils out as an adult are true to extent. It has been week and I am still primarily on a diet of pudding, yogurt, jello, water, gatorade and anything that does not cause an immediate, very intense burning sensation in my throat. I find that it takes me a long time to eat anything. It is really making a change in my eating habits and at the same time making me realize that I don't need to eat as much food as I was before my surgery. In fact, I feel a bit nauseous thinking about eating that much. One down side to that is that until today, I had not taken a shit since last Sunday--over a week and two days ago. Now, I am use to being atleast a daily shitter. I have to say that I was pretty damn excited when I pooped today...probably as excited as Depressionista is when her Bubba shits in the potty without throwing a fit--which I was pretty close to doing myself. All it took was me going to Walgreens and just buying the laxitives....I didn't even get a chance to take them.

I have also decided to try to quit smoking at the same time. And atleast at this point, it has been pretty darn easy. I started taking Chantix--which is not covered by my insurance I might add and is a heafty $133--but that is whole nother blog entry. The thought smoking now is painful in itself...like using an electric sander on my throat. So I have not had a cigarette since last Monday. Over a week. I think I have gotten through the three day hump. Now the challenge will be going back to work and hanging with Depressionista...if anyone has any healthy alternatives I would love some ideas!

Just like my birthday, I have been truly impressed with the support I have gotten from my friends and familly! Depressionista has been absolutley wonderful. She made the guys several meals to eat. She took the D-Boy on Saturday night so that R and I could have a break and she really seemed to enjoy it. She has just been awesome. My work spouse brought me over a present flowers and is taking a day off of work this week to hang with me. My dad came out yesterday and spent the day with me and left me his lap top...so I have been watching netflix movies and surfing while I am off. I go back to work next Monday.

THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT! I love you guys!

My 37th Birthday

2008-01-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

I had a great birthday this year. In all realms, it really was one of the best. My actual b-day day was a week ago Sunday, Jan 20th. I had Depressionista and Pioneer Girl over. We started the evening off at Michael's Craft store. They were having 40% off sticker sale! We went nuts. Depresisonista had a gift card. We bought stuff to decorate bird houses later in the evening. Then we went to Biaggis for a fine dining experience. I should back track a moment. Depressionista brought some cakes for my birthday of her own creation--something we had discussed before but she made it a reality...Afro-American Vulva Cake--to say it in the most politcally correct manner. You can only imagine what we really call this cake and you can email me if you want the real, official title for this. Anyway, its a chocolate cake, with the top cut out and layered up a bit with some sort of red fruit filling and whip cream in the middle and the most delicious fudge frosting....she brought two, one raspberry and one cherry. So anyway--we were telling our poor cute young male waiter, Bartholomew (spelling??) about the cake we had at home and went into some detail. He said "I gotta go back into the kitchen and throw up now!!" It was a yummy dinner!

Then we went to Barnes and Noble for s0me uninterrupted time at the book store! Followed by our regular junk food run to Walgreens!

Then we came back to my place and hung out. And I got my presents! They all were awesome!! Pioneer girl gave me a home made apron--50's style done in pink and black skull pattern with LilCherie monogrammed on it--I absolutely love it. She also gave me a charm bracelet, flamingo kleenex pack for my purse and funny cartoon notepads. This year Depressionista really outdid herself. I don't know if I will get everything written down but Depressionista went through our Snickle Snackle chronicles and found several ideas that we had written down previously and made them realities--she made me a pair of Grumpy Pants, my "fat american woman with period" t-shirt, my "this is art!" stickers that I can put next to my collages, the Thomas Kincade Crack House post card, and other things that are just too personal post. I have to say that I loved everything I got...And I was so impressed with how much energy both Pioneer Girl and Depressionista put into my birthday!! You guys are the best! I LOVE YOU BOTH!!

I had myB-day family visit yesterday....which was great--but I don't have enough energy to post that as well....so that will have to be another day.

The New Year--2008

2008-01-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

Its been well over 8 months since I have posted anything. Where do you begin in this situation, anyway?? I have managed to keep the drama in my own life to a minimum. I figure I have enough of that at work.

My son started kindergarten this past fall. That has been a trip. In early December, I came upon an envelope stating "To the Parents of D" in very "teacher-like" handwriting. I open it up and it is a "Behavior Plan Sheet" from Dagan's principal that was from two weeks before. Somehow, it had gotten buried in his book bag and I never bothered to really dig. So of course, I felt like a real loser of a parent--not only did my kid get into trouble at school, enough to go to the principal's office but I didn't notice the note until two weeks later. Apparently, when a child gets in trouble at my son's school, they have to do one of these sheets where they describe the bad behavior and how they will change that behavior--through a drawing! There stood a stick figure with his hand sticking out with one little finger sticking up. My child gave another child "the bird" at lunch. Of course, I run to D and asked what happened. He said that this little girl pointed at him and he responded by "pointing" back at her. He didn't even realize that he had done what all of us adults know as flipping someone off...but now he knows!! I asked him if he was frightened about having to go to the principal's office and he said "no". Oh the beauty of blissful ignorance. Well, we got the "first trip to the principal's office" out of the way. If I was a bit more motivated, I would scan that "Behavior Plan Sheet" and post it on here....but for now you will just have to imagine it.

A Little Smokey....

2007-04-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

That is what my cyst toe looked like last Thursday morning. I woke up at 3am with tremendous throbbing pains in the damn thing. The cyst had reared its ugly head a couple of weeks ago and then, somehow, it got infected. It is truly amazing, how much a toe can hurt. I spent Thursday morning trying to find some freakin' doctor to go to for it. All of the podiatrists in town were in Chicago for some sort of Podiatry Seminar all weekend--This of course, would only happen to me. I was forced to go to the family doctor's office. It was lanced and I was given a perscription for antibiotics. I was never ever so greatful for having something poked with a needle. And today, roughly four days since, my toe is no longer red or oozing or painful....

I have started to feel much better about my existence lately. Yesterday, the in-laws came over for an early Easter celebration. I have to say it was an awesome visit. My husband's father and his brother helped him build a banister/railing for our upstairs. I know I have said this before--I did not marry "Mr. Handyman". His father has great woodworking skills. I have to say I was a bit fearful about the visit. My husband's mother has "a touch of the OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)"--her house is "museum quality" clean as I call it. And I really like to live in my house (translation--I am a slob because I have other things I enjoy doing way more than cleaning). They worked on the railing for awhile then we went out for a late morning brunch at a cheesy little family restaurant. We came back home while the "men" worked on the railing, grandma, future sister-in-law, my son and myself, colored Easter eggs, baked cookies and watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". I was proud of myself--I planned ahead and had activities ready. I think that may have helped keep the OCD under control. We never heard one thing about how we should paint the house or make any other improvements on it or how we should do anything better....we truly got to enjoy each other's company at the visit. Wow--just simply enjoy each other's company...what an amazing concept.

Saturday, my brothers came down so that we could go to a wedding reception. My former boss's son got married. The crazy thing is about 4 years ago, my boss came back from taking her son to college and tells me that that when they walked into his new apartment, his two roommates just happened to turn out to be my brothers. I think I have heard her tell that story about 10 times....she usually focuses on how my brothers quickly tried to hide their beer cans. This time I I got to hear my brother's side of the story--not only were they drinking beer when their new roommate and his mother walked in, but they were also watching porn so they were fumbling to turn off the tv at the same time. They have been friends ever since. The actual wedding had been the previous weekend in Wisconsin. This was a reception for those of us that didn't feel close enough to drive several hours but wanted to join in the celebration. I had yet another good visit with family members. I got to talk to both of my brothers and my sister-in-law freely. In fact, my youngest brother admitted to me that he has been smoking since he was 12 years old. I am amazed that he has managed to pull that off living with our mother. If she only knew...thank the gods, she doesn't!

It has been nice to have some good, relaxed time with family over the weekend.

Life Sans Headache

2007-03-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

This evening is one of the first times in over a week that I have not had a headache. I still have, what I call, a bit of a shadow of a headache...but I no longer feel like I have a turniquett tied around my forehead. After having a headache over most of the weekend, I decided to go to the family doc. I have had a history of highblood pressure. Typically, people don't have physical symptoms of high blood pressure but I can usually tell when I don't take my medications and I had been taking mine. The telltale headache. I had my mom check my blood pressure when I was visiting on Sunday. It was 125/88--bottom number was high for someone on medication. So of course, I was thinking I was having some sort of cerebral hemmorage. But I also get headaches when I have strained neck muscles or have been clenching my jaws....obviously, much of my tension exits my body through my head. The doctor on Monday checked my BP and it was 120/90--so she decided to increase my medication. She also gave me a muscle relaxers just in case my headache was being contributed to by neck muscles. I took one on Monday night--It seemed to really relax my muscles but nearly made it impossible for me to wake up the next morning.

Those were the physical issues that appeared to be contributing to my headache. Tuesday morning I had therapy. It had been several weeks since I had gone. And of course, I had been feeling like I was doing pretty well. Perhaps a bit of denial on my part...Issues of my father reared their ugly head. I told my therapist about several conversations I had with Dad over the last couple of weeks--usually centering around how awful he feels like my mother treats him--He told me how he "lives in two different worlds", the reality of living with my mother and his other fantasy world. How he does not think that if he left my mother that he could take care of himself because he has been having people care for him his whole life. Dad quit going to therapy, of course. Mom would give him crap about going--I believe, because if Dad gets healthier that would mean she could no longer be abusive to him--she would lose her control. So what do you do when your father tells you all of this stuff about feelings for your mother when your parents are still married and your mother has no idea of how your father really feels. (For the Love of the Gods, how do people live to almost the age of 60 years old and continue to remain this fucked up, in an unhappy relationship--all I know is it will NEVER HAPPEN TO ME). My therapist pointed out to me that YOU PROBABLY GET A HEADACHE. Well, damn. Guess that might make sense. What really struck me in the middle of this and brought tears on for me is that my parents try to live this facade--a nice house, a beautiful garden, living way beyond their means and underneath it all, I know my dad, and more than likely my mother, are not happy. Its all a show. And to top it off, what really hit me upside the head is that it makes me feel pretty shitty realizing that I came out of this relationship--I am the product of two people in this extremely fucked up relationship. And, when I am in "survival mode" --as I told my therapist on Tuesday--I go back to that little kid I was over 20-30 years ago, wondering what I can do to fix my parents, to make everything all better and stable...because I was that third parent. Just trying to make it all better--but you know what. I can't make any better. If I could it would be absolutely fucking perfect by now.

Then the really fucked up thought hit me...what do I do for a living?? I am a social worker that facilitates family meetings. Everyday I go to work and try to fix families...hmmm...wonder how I got into that line of work.

So my therapist thought maybe it would be better if I came more often to see her again...I had to agree. She reminded me that I am an adult now--that I am not back at home with my parents, as a scared little girl, and I have control of my thoughts. That I need to work on staying in the moment and in my adult life...And I need to continue to work on building a healthy daughter/father relationship.

.....and my headache is starting go away....

A Clogged Root Chakra..For the Love of the Gods

2007-02-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

I intended to take yesterday off for the purposes of a "mental health day", to regroup after working a couple of full work weeks. My morning did not start the way that I wanted it to. It started at about 3am when my son woke up and felt "kind of warm". I gave him some Ibuprofen and he went back to sleep. I hate taking temps in the middle of the night because, first of all, my son gets really warm when he sleeps and I just hate to bother him with that then. So when he woke up at 7am, he wasn't hot any more. I was really, really hoping he was fine. I took him to preschool, with the thought in the back of my mind that he really had a fever and I just masked it with Ibuprofen. I told staff at preschool to keep an eye on him and to call my husband in the morning if there were any problems....because I had a massage scheduled about 30minutes away. I didn't mention that part but that was my reasoning. I hate mother guilt. Any other morning, if I would have dropped him off and just went to work, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

The massage was wonderful. The person I see for massages is great because she is very "wholistic". She always tells me about these great "visions" she has while giving me a massage. Lately, I have been having a lot of hip and lower back pain. She told me that she felt like my "power was bunched up in my first chakra"--which explains part of the hip pain. She gave me some great ideas for stretching my hamstrings and legs so that I can even out my pelvis. I have been rolling it under when I stand, causing me more pain. When I left, I felt like I had had a lot of "negative energy" squeezed out of me!

Then Depressionista went out for lunch, which was awesome and probably good because we more than likely will not be able to get together in person due to the crazy weather, sick children and being sick ourselves. Both of our weeks were kind of nuts so we could bitch to each other about the whole thing!

After lunch, I drive home and decide to take a nap. I get home around 2pm. At about 3pm, I hear, "mom are you up there" coming from downstairs. At which point, I am catapulted out of my relaxing afternoon. Apparently, preschool had called my husband and had him pick up our son because he had spiked a fever again. My kid really was sick. And I dumped him off that morning to go selfishly have a massage--shit.

Today, my husband and I split the day to take care of our kid. I went to work in the morning. I had a family meeting to do for a family that I had cancelled on previously because I had been sick. I came home and my husband went to work. I took our son to the doctor. The doctor took one look at his throat and diagnosed him with good ol' Strep Throat! My work spouse's kid had that earlier in the week. I got antibiotics for him and a prescription for myself as I am starting to feel shitty too--bit of a sore throat, headache, achey...and with the winter storm of 2007 coming at us I didn't want to have to worry about getting it tomorrow.

The nice thing is we have a whole weekend ahead of us with nothing planned and possibly being stuck at home. Its like a blank slate. I think I am going to be doing some more "healthy living" planning. Earlier this week, when it was much warmer out I started walking. My work spouse also gave me this great article on "indoor walking". Its designed for the individuals that don't feel comfortable going to the gym. It includes things like walking in place, kicks, etc. And you only need to do it for 30 minutes a day that can be broke up for 10 minutes at a time. I have been trying to take advantage of this when I am at work. My goal, at this point, is to become more physically active. I have signed up for a belly dancing class that starts in early April and I want to participate in a 5K walk/run to benefit crime survivors in middle April. I am hoping that these activities will keep me motivated.

JUST TWO BEANS

2007-02-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day Card that I went with:

Outside--"So I guess you wont be getting that Valentine's Day blow job"
Inside--"But if you are really nice, I might let you fuck me"

I almost went with "I might let you fuck me up the ass". But I was afraid he might really take me up on the offer and I was really not in the mood. I told him that--he thought that was funny.

My week was filled with work. Many funny social worker stories. I had a coworker who went out to a house that was highly infested with cockroaches. A male coworker that normally is pretty tough. He went as far as to buy cockroach spray and spray the toxic shit all over his clothes. He wasn't expecting to find the bugs since it was a domestic violence incident. The little kid in the home, probably around three years old, comes up to my coworker and says "Daddy's hiding in the closet". The police were with my coworker so the guy got arrested and on his way out of the house in hand cuffs, the only thing he says is "we were trying to get rid of the cockroaches".

My work spouses first case of the day on Valentine's Day was a domestic violence case as well. Oh, the irony.

When does the food issue get easier with kids anyway?!?!? I made a decent meal of chili for dinner. I served it to my five year old. I was so proud--I managed to make a good pot of chili out of stuff we happened to have in the cupboard. He absolutely refused to eat it. He would take a bite and spit it out. I did what I thought I would never do. I made him sit there until he ate some. He cried, he said he had a headache, he said he hated it. Finally, about 25 minutes later, he agreed to eat two fucking beans. For the LOVE OF GOD!! I think my husband and myself were two seconds away from committing child abuse and having one of my coworkers at my door. My husband even came down and did an internet search to find out the best way to handle this situation--kids not wanting to eat on the internet. He found very little info on this--pretty much that it is incredibly frustrating and no one knows how to handle it. My big fear is that I am going to cause my child to have eating issues...I don't want him to get fat...which I know is tied into my own issues...but I really don't want to give into him either....any ideas out there?

Chocolate Martinis and Tootsie Pops

2007-02-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

I am sitting down to blog after consuming a chocolate martini sans vodka. Thanks for the drink idea, Depressionista--even though I couldn't bring myself to add vodka. It was so yummy without it and I think it had plenty of alcohol in it anyway. After the second sip I was already calling my husband "Baby"--the first indication that my inhibitions are leaving. My husband and I just finished helping our preschooler get his Valentines together for Valentine's Day on Wednesday. Valentines Day is one of the most commercial holidays ever. I stopped at the store and picked up some Tootsie Pops to put in the Valentine's Day. Of course, they make special cute Tootsie Pops in pink wrappers with hearts all over them. We stuck those in his Power Ranger's Valentines. I will never understand my kid's fasciniation with Power Rangers. He always wants Power Rangers stuff and we never watch it at home.

I was thinking about buying my husband a Valentines Day card when I was picking up the Tootsie Pops. They had some funny ones but I am always shocked at how much they want to charge for greeting cards....when I could make something up myself. I don't really feel like spending $5-6 on a card when I could get half a meal for him out somewhere for that. Plus, he is a man--initially, he appreciates getting the card but then several months later, I see it sitting on his table under a pile of bills....

I think I am going to make my own card this year. And say whatever crass, perverted thing I want in it. I am sure that you ladies out there would have some good ideas if you want to throw them at me. I am getting this thought out there a bit late but better late than never.

You know the very unfortunate thing but really not that surprising ( since I get them often) is that I got a coldsore two days before Valentine's Day. I guess my husband won't get that blow job for Valentine's Day. I think we can work around it though!!

My first Valentines Day card idea for my husband:

Lucky for you Aunt Flow just left (outside)...Because a coldsore just arrived! Happy Valentines Day (inside)

Wow--that says it all for me this week so far!!

Happy V Day to you all!!

Illness Everywhere

2007-01-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

I have to say that it has been a relaxing weekend. I really have not done much of anything. We had "forced" relaxation. My son came down with 102 temp yesterday and it pretty much held steady through the day. I hate to admit this but sometimes its kind of nice when things get to slow down a bit when your kid is sick. The part that sucks in not knowing exactly what is wrong and hoping it is nothing life threatening. So yesterday evening was a bit nerve racking. But today we made the trip to Urgent Care. The Doc said that his right ear looked a bit infected and his throat was really red. The only thing he had been complaining of is a headache. My own diagnosis: He has had a cold for about two weeks. I think he really has a sinus infection that has been draining down his throat.

He seems to be feeling much better now...Still slow moving but over all, he is starting to get back to himself...doing things like farting, then laughing and saying "I farted".

The Moron's Guide to Childrearing

2007-01-27T17:51:00.000-08:00

This morning, I was watching a cartoon with my son. One of the girl characters was reading a book called The Moron's Guide to Babysitting. I thought that was a title I could put to use. And it made me think of work yesterday. I have been a social worker for almost ten years. I would like to think that usually I am a pretty empathetic, caring individual. But every once in a while, I think you really got to lighten up some situations...because if we don't we'll go nuts. Plus, I think I have put my time in, so please forgive me and if there is a hell, I figure I got my room reserved.

Anyway, yesterday I was meeting with a family, that is somewhat lower functioning, along with the counselor that works with them regularly, and a few other people. We were discussing some of the progress the family has made. The counselor says "The home is a lot less messy lately. I have really been working on portion control with Mom with what she gives the kids." He elaborated a bit more and said that previously, Mom, had been giving the kids who are 3 and 2 years old a family size bag of potato chips. They would run off with the chips, take them into the livingroom, and proceed to open the bag, pour its entire contents on the floor and stomp on them--on a regular basis. I thought, "yeah, no shit, I would probably do the same thing if I was a little kid, it sounds like fun". But the counselor and Mom, were proud of themselves because Mom has now learned that it WORKS MUCH BETTER TO GET OUT A BOWL AND POUR A SMALL AMOUNT IN FOR EACH CHILD!! Now, being the mother of a preschooler, the thought has never crossed my mind to just hand my kid a huge bag of chips and let them run off and eat it somewhere else in the house. Its moments like that that make me realize that we really have messed with the natural order of existence and have totally fucked with Darwin's theory of Survival of the Fittest.

How Bizarre, How Bizarre...

2007-01-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it is amazing to me what weird little connections happen in my daily existence. As an example, I have been in a "John Waters" mood lately so I did I blog search for "John Waters". I came upon a website about Liz Renay. She was one of the stars of the movie Desperate Living, that I just happened to watch for the first time last weekend. She died this past Monday. What are the chances of that. She sounded like quite the character. And we also got our latest movies in the mail from Netflix, one of them happens to be the latest John Waters movie--I had put it on our list before last weekend.

Then, I got the book by Amy Sedaris for my birthday from my work spouse. And again, from Netflix, Strangers with Candy, starring Amy Sedaris, must have happened to be at the top of my list because that came in the mail today too.

I am always amused by these little threads that run through my life. Somehow, I must cause them to a certain degree, but at the same time they seem like some kind of crazy little mishap that I can chuckle at.

Update on work spouse's friend for Depressionista: This friend had cancer on her vulva and she had surgery to remove it. She still has her clitoris!!! and her right labia!! that is the good news of the day! Like I said to my work spouse; Every woman needs her clitoris!!

The Best Birthday Ever...

2007-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

I believe that I have had one of the best birthdays ever. I would like to thank all of my "sisters" who helped make it happen.

The festivities started last Friday with lunch at a new pizza place here in town. My work spouse and Karma Girl took me out for lunch. It was good food and conversation.

Friday night, my husband left town with a friend of his to sell some some merchandise at a big concert in Minnesota. So my son and I spent Friday evening at my work spouse's house. My son got to play with her children and I got to talk with her.

Saturday, I took my son to his grandparents home for an overnighter! They were so excited to have him and he was excited to go! It doesn't get any better than that. I came back home, stopped at the store and got snack items for the upcoming Girl's Night. I laid around the house that afternoon and started watching a really crazy John Waters movie, Desperate Living. A truly demented movie...as soon as you think you are adapting to how crazy it is it only gets crazier.

Then the girls arrived around 5pm, Depressionista and Pioneer Girl. They brought snacks and gifts. I got some way cool stuff. Pioneer got me this awesome statue at a consignment store. A man and a woman kissing, naked, I might add. She also gave me a collection of old knitting pattern books and knitting needles she got from the home of her recently deceased Aunt Barbie. Depressionata got me the Gopher. On our Walgreen's excursions we had encountered the Gopher. Depressionista decided that I needed it due to being "vertically challenged".

Then we started our entertainment for the evening--a double feature of bad exploitation films; Bad Girls Go to Hell and Another Day, Another Man. Lately I have been really enjoying the bad movies--they make for great mocking material and because they are from the 50s and 60s its like a whole different world. We played Boggle, ate food, sat around with no men in the house all night! It was great.

Of course, the biggest snow storm this year happens the night of my birthday, with just about every person I love having to be on the road the next day. My husband from Minnesota, my parents bringing my child back, Depressionista's husband had to come and pick him up. But they all reassured us that they could make it back fine while Depressionista and I got to do what we wanted all Sunday morning and early afternoon. I have to say, once we got passed the worrying it was a very pleasant time to ourselves. I started a knitting project. Depressionista did a very cool drawing. And we got the house very clean.

My parents arrived at my house. They had picked up my sister on the way over. She was in great form. We got to hear about all of her physical ailments, how her husband wants to move to Russia because he is a communist and he thinks we have "too much freedom here", continual questions regarding if my kid's ok. She was completely neurotic. And I was not alone it witnessing it. I have to say thanks, Depressionista, it took quite a load off of me!!

Yesterday, my work spouse gave me my birthday/Christmas presents. They were great. She got me the Amy Sedaris book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. Absolutely love this book--it makes fun of everything. Crafts you can make out of pantyhose. How to cleanse your privates...its all there. She also gave me a metallic pens, paper, a handpainted box.

I just want to say to you all "thank you" so much for being great friends and "sisters" to me. You all mean so much. And I am looking forward to the next 36 years with you all!!

A bit fuzzy...

2007-01-18T18:29:00.000-08:00

that is my brain this week. So last Friday, I saw the Licensed Nurse Practioner at a psychiatrists office for my "picking issues". It was a good appointment. I did not feel like a complete loser. He helped "normalize" some of my picking behaviors and said that it is a basic human behavior. But of course, I had to tell him that I suppose it is...but it might not be if you don't allow some sores to heal for months because you can't help yourself and you pick at it until it is a bloody open wound. So now I am diagnosed with: Depression with Obsessive Compulsive Traits. He was trying to make sure I was not Bipolar at the beginning of the session. He gave me the basic "Bipolar" questionnaire that included questions like "Do have times of extreme energy?" "Do you ever talk non-stop?" "Do you have problems sleeping?" Now come on, you that know me know that "Manic" is not something that happens to me all that often. Of course, I have a few seconds of pure excitement here and there but no bouts of pure, elated mania...sometimes, I think that would be nice.

Since I was already on Prozac, Mr. Nurse said that is what they typically perscribe someone with OCD traits. So he increased my dose 20 milligrams. I started that on Sunday. By Tuesday night and Wed morning I was a walking fucking zombie...It got rid of my urge to pick....and to do anything else for that matter. I talked with Depressionista on Tuesday night...or rather I mumbled some basic responses to what she said to me. Luckily, my therapist saw me on Wed morning and told me that I should probably call the doc's office back and ask if there is anyway I could cut back the dose. I did that yesterday. I am going to increase 20mg's every other day...not every day. I feel better today. I go back and see him in six weeks.

I don't think I have mentioned recently that MY CORN IS GONE!! This is great....but it means I don't have to go back and see that hot doctor. Unless I can come up with some other foot malady. hmmm....

This weekend I turn 36 years old. Which, of course, calls for a Girl's Night. My child is going to grandma's. My husband is leaving town. So if everything goes right, I will have the house to myself on Saturday. 36 seems so much older to me. I am now venturing into the "late thirties". How did this happen? Oh, well.....I guess I'll continue to enjoy the ride.

Feelin' Groovy

2007-01-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

I have to say that for the past several days I actually have been in a pretty good space. I'm not sure why. Perhaps, it is because I have an appointment at a psychiatrist's office on Friday. I got the gumption up to call and make the appointment. Is it like when you have an appointment to get your hair cut? Your hair looks like shit for days, then the day of the hair appointment, you wake up and your hair looks so damn awesome, you almost cancel the appointment. Well, I am not going to cancel the appointment. I am going to go and continue to admit that "I am a picker".

I have found myself feeling rather spirtitual lately. The imagery that is coming to mind is that I feel like a little girl, standing next to a big mountain and I am amazed at how big the mountain is. I feel like I am in "wonder" lately. I feel like I am a little tiny ant on this big huge planet. Its a thought, that if you take too far, can become a negative one. It could turn to the "I am so insignficant, why do I bother with anything?" thought on a dime. But right now I am really enjoying the mystery of it all.

Earlier this week, my husband and I watched "An Inconvenient Truth". At first, this was a downer for me. It reinforced pretty much all of my thoughts on the stupidity of humanity--on how can we continue to kill the planet that we live. And of course, I know that I contribute to it as much as everyone else with my moments of consumer whorism. But then I started thinking about how I try to put some effort forth already to do what I can. I recycle, I try to by used stuff. I am trying to tread a bit lighter on Earth. The other thing it did for me, is it made me notice that I am attuned to the planet more than I thought. Over the last several years, I have felt like the weather changes and all of the storms were not suppose to be happening as they were. That things are changing too quickly. It made me want to focus more on Paganism and taking care of this planet because this is all there really is for us.

I checked out a book from the library on journaling, Journaluation by Sandy Grason. The book is cool but I was more impressed by the publisher, New World Library. They print their books with soy based ink and 100% post consumer recycled paper. They use solar energy to power their offices and contribute to nonprofit oranizations. I found that to be inspirational and hopeful. Maybe more businesses will follow suit--so our great grandkids will have someplace to live.

Picking at the Layers

2007-01-03T19:08:00.002-08:00

I had a good therapy session today. I went into feeling like I am a bit scattered lately. I don't know if it is coming out of the holidays and off of vacation or what. I also felt like I have worked through several things over the last several months--family origin dysfunction, losing grandma, yada, yada. But the constant issues are still there.

My therapist reminded me today that I am really pretty functional person. I go to work, take pretty good care of my kid, have a fairly decent relationship with my husband, and have maintained some good relationships with female friends. Which, overall, I know but sometimes I don't really give myself credit for these things. I get stuck in the "negative self-talk".

So of course, our discussion today turned to the "weight" issue. This is and will continue to be a life long battle for me. But I came clean with an issue I have never discussed before with a therapist. My "picking" issues. I thought it was time to bring it out because I feel like it is a problem. I mainly pick a few choice zits/blemishes on my upper chest region. I have picked at things I believe ever since I was about 10 years old. I was telling my therapist today about how I received mixed messages about it as a kid. My mom would pick at the blackheads in my ear religously. And then when I got to be a bit older, when I would spend several minutes in front of the bathroom mirror doing the serious zit scan and come out with my face all red, she would tell me I shouldn't do that. I think that may have been when some of the "closet" picking began. Anyway, I don't feel like it got bad for me at least until the last year or two. What I think defines it as bad for me now is that I will not let an area of about 4-5 sores heal. They are rather red and disgusting looking. I know this is not normal and as I told my therapist today, I don't feel that I have any control over it. And it has gotten worse since I have my own office with a door on it now.

My therapist recommended that I get a psychiatrist to address this issue. I have been having my family doctor follow my psychiatric stuff before as I wasn't feeling my mental health issues were getting quite this complex. My therapist gave me a name of a psychiatrist that I have not interacted with--that can be a challenge for a social worker. I am planning on calling him sometime yet this week to get an appointment scheduled. My therapist wonders if it is a brain chemistry thing that may be helped with some sort of medication. I was also given the assignment of taking notes of what emotions are going on for me when I get the urge to pick. And she said this will also be helpful regarding the eating issues as well. So I think I may be journaling a bit about this. She also noted that my job is not one that lets my creative side out so she thought I should take some sort of sketch pad or creative item to work so that I can turn to that instead of picking when my door is closed. The big message I got today was working on being more aware of my thoughts that lead to my dysfunctional behaviors and turning those thoughts around to positive self-talk. I told her that there is an amazing amount of shame that goes with the picking issues for me. After all it took me about six months to feel comfortable enough to bring it up. I said to my therapist I wonder if the shame of it all fufills some need for me as well. I think the most helpful thing to me today was my therapist totally acting accepting of me and my behaviors--and telling me that maybe there is some brain chemistry with this.

I go back in a couple of weeks for my next therapy appointment. I plan "take note" of my emotions/feelings when I get the urge to pick. I also plan on working on a list of healthy activities that I can act upon as well. I am open to any ideas any of you ladies have out there. Thanks for letting me get that off of my chest!

Mindless Entertainment

2007-01-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

Over the last several days, I have enjoyed some real "mindless entertainment". Usually, I find myself always wanting to accomplish something, to have something tangible resulting from my actions. But I really have not given a shit lately. I'm blaming it on the impending full moon.

I have found myself sucked into a video game. This I blame on Depressionista's husband leaving a video game over here. It is called "Collums"--and it is the most mindless, easiest video game that I have encountered. It is very similiar to Tetris--only you cannot rotate the piece, you can only rotate the colors on the piece. You have to get atleast three of a certain color in a row, any direction, to clear the blocks off the screen. And I have to say that I have improved greatly at it over the last two days. The sick thing is that I spent about an hour playing it tonight while my husband and son played together. My excuse was that I had just gotten off of work and my husband is still on vacation so he had all day to goof off.

Another thing has been watching movies. One that I thought was going to be more mindless than it was--"Fast Times at Ridgemont High". Really that was a pretty fun, yet deep movie. And I was amazed at how much it reminded me of my youth. Not the "guys falling all over me" part. Unfortunately--or maybe fortunately, that was not part of my youth. But hanging out at the mall for fun and working at a movie theatre. It really was much better than I remembered it being.

I am currently working on my "dreams, hopes and aspirations for the new year". I may include doing more "mindless" activities on that list. I don't know...but now I think I am going to lay around some more. This has been way too productive....

My Holiday Letter

2006-12-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone!!

Typically, I hate holiday letters. I asked our most evolved pet, Frog, to compose our family's holiday letter. He didn't think his brain was complex enough to perform such a task, nor did he give a shit. So I guess I am stuck writing the fucking letter.

My husband and I continue to live our mundane, adult lives. He continues to work at the same place. I continue to be a social worker, pretending to really want to make a difference in the world, but truly being amused by the stupidity of the human race.

Our son contunes to attend preschool. He has a very diverse class with several "brown ones", one whose "daddy was in jail". He had his first experience with organized sports this year. He played soccer this past spring. He seemed to enjoy it as much as his parents did when they were children--bored out of his mind and almost in tears on several occasions.

The beginnin of the year was also the high point! Depressionista, her husband, my husband, our friend D, and myself went on our first vacation to Amsterdam in January of 2006. We discovered our dreamland of decadance, our own little piece of heaven on Earth. Our kids stayed with grandparents, bless their soles. It was the best vacation ever and we are already trying to plan our next one.

In May, my brother got married in my home town, adding one of the few sane women to our family. She makes the holidays much more enjoyable, as she likes to drink to survive them as well. Our son was the ring bearer as well.

In June, my father came to me, and only me, to share that he had hooked up with an old high school flame over the internet for the past several months. Now he was fearful that she was going to contact the rest of his family and tell them. He was scared. As the family social worker, I think he wanted me to fix the situation. This seemed to trigger every one of my own personal issues and began my journey down Therapy Boulevard.

In July, my grandmother decided to pass on the same week that my father and mother were on vacation several hundred miles away. The the eldest grandchild, this left me as the only one to be with her as she pased on. This was actually a truly amazing experience, and one that I am glad that I got to be part of.

Also, in early July, Depressionista and I flew out to Ohio to visit Itchy Tingle for a week. It was an Awesome Girl's Week. We drove to Niagra Falls, did some gambling, saw the Falls. I got to see first hand how similiar Depressionista and Itchy Tingle's personalities are. Luckily, we all still loved eachother at the end of the trip.

After I returned from Ohio, our son had tubes put in his ears and his admoids removed. For several months previous to this, I had just assumed that he was ignoring me when I had to say his name repeatedly louder and louder to get his attention. That was a classic "shitty mom" feeling I had when he failed his hearing test due to having a lot of thick fluid in his ears.

In September, five years after being diagnosed with pancreatitus, I learned that I had gall stones. Gallstones are the #1 cause of pancreatitus. You would think some one in the medical field would have caught on to that one sooner--but perhaps my expectations are too high. I had my gall bladder removed mid-September. I got to spend a week at home on some good pain killers.

Sprinkled through out the year, were some awesome Girl's Nights between Depressionista, Pioneer Woman, Itchy Tingle, Karma Girl and my work spouse. Those nights help me survive in this crazy fucked up world. Thanks guys!

I hope everyone has a fabulous year--and if not, atleast that you can laugh at just how fucked up it all can get at times!!

Blessed be!

Dysfunction Junction

2006-12-28T20:02:00.001-08:00

Well....after harassment from the Depressionista and Itchy Tingle, I am getting off of my fat ass (or sitting on it, as the case may be) and writing another post.

Christmas is over. The best moments were last Friday night--A fabulous Girl's Night with Depressionista and Pioneer Girl was held. Tree skirts were presented from Pioneer Girl--which can be seen on Depressionista's blog. Bad movies were watched. Food was eaten. No men or children were involved.

Christmas day. My husband, child and I went to my parents' house for the day. Present were my parents, both of my brothers and their significant others and my looney sister. I don't know that I have ever mentioned my sister in blob world yet. Probably because I am in continual denial that I am actually related to her. I can spend about half an hour with her before I go totally looney myself. I had to spend roughly 4-6 hours with her that day. My diagnosis of her is Borderline Personality Disorder. She spent most of the visit trying to tell my sister-in-law how to take care of her puppy. "does he need to go out?" "is he hungry?" over and over again. This was followed by her miriad of health complaints. Luckily, I didn't hear her say "I am thinking about adopting kids because I can't have them because of all of the medication I am on." Lets see if I can do the list of ailments: severe allergies, fibromylagia (spelling??), digestion issues due to having her gall bladder removed, restless leg syndrome, she wears some sort of retainer all of the time which gives her a constant speech impediment, hand tremors. All of this is besides the mental illness which she doesn't even seem to be aware of. And of course, her husband (yes, she is married) did not come to Christmas because he has his own health issues, which I think boil down to bulimia and mental health shit. The man is constantly throwing up and he weighs maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. My sister also insists on ending her first name with a "y" even though a "y" has no business of being there...I guess she thinks it is cute. I just want to puke myself...right along side her husband.

Luckily, my sister-in-law was there. I love my sister-in-law who I will refer to as "B". I am so happy that a normal, fun loving woman was atleast wed into the family. B turned to me and said "where is that bottle of wine?" We cracked it open and drank the bottle between the both of us. Out of ear shot, B asked me if my crazy sister was always trying to tell me how to parent my child when he was a baby. I told her that "unfortunately, yes she was" and that, on several occasions I turned to her and said "HE IS FINE"--and this got her to shut up. B was happy to know that I had snapped at her.

You know what really bums me out in life? That you have absolutely no choice in who you are related to. It just happens and you can really get the fucking short end of the stick. I have had to create my own "sisters" and I thank the gods for all of you every day, Depressionista, Pioneer Girl, Itchy Tingle, and my work spouse. You guys are awesome.

A Moment of Stupidity...

2006-11-26T09:19:00.001-08:00

You know, you would think by now, at the ripe old age of 35 I would not do such stupid things. Let me start by saying I spent my morning hemming up what I call "my airplane suit", a very cumfy light blue velour jogging suit. This outfit has quite history. I bought it to wear on the plane for our trip to Amsterdam. And of course, on the plane ride Aunt Flo decided to make an appearance--just a slight drop of red on the underwear at that point. I thought I had time. So I let it go...by the time we arrived at the hotel in Amsterdam the entire crotch was ruby red and I was amazed that I did not have Dutch people staring at me in horror. But I managed to do quite the soaking job and there is no sign of Aunt Flo any more. Anyway--they have been way too long from the get go and have had brown stains at the bottom from walking on them, I trimmed them up and did a nice hem job.

Stupid thing I did this morning. I can't leave burning candles/melting candles alone. I have one of those warming units for candles. Its electric and plugs in. I put a new candle in this morning. I put my airplane suit on. Then decided to push on the candle after it had been in the warmer for about an hour and a half melting. My finger burst through the top of the candle, shooting hot, dark brown, coffee scented wax all over my hand and my awesome light blue velour airplan suit jacket.

I just spent some time looking up how to get rid of candle wax from clothing. I found a web site: http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf489746.tip.html. It has the old iron trick mentioned. I guess I will be spending the next hour of my morning trying to rescue the airplane suit jacket! As my mother would say, "first you play , then you pay". I will let you know how the iron method works.

Eating healthy update: Thanksgiving is a bitch if you want to eat healthy. And of course, my husband's mother had to send half of a cake home with us for his birthday. I need to stop eating it. But yesterday I had sushi, water, and hot tea for lunch and soup for supper. I am climbing back up on the wagon, slowly but surely.

Toe update: The damn cyst is still oozing. Looks like cauterizing may be in my future. I see Dr. C this week. I will let you know how that goes.

2006-11-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

A Light Bulb Moment....

2006-11-14T18:38:00.000-08:00

as Oprah would say. I tend to have moments of inspiration regarding my health and/or psychological well being. Sometimes, they stick around for awhile. Sometimes, they are like ships passing in the night. My thought earlier this week was regarding my physical health/weight.

I have struggled with my weight my entire life. It has never come naturally for me to be a thin person. I have always been envious of those people that were born thin and seem to not have to do a damn thing to stay that way. I have had a "thinner" moment here or there. The last time I really think of myself having one of those was about eleven years ago, shortly after I met my husband. I managed to get down to about 147. This was a struggle. It lasted for maybe about 2-3 years--and that was probably at more of about 160. Shortly after my son, I ballooned up to 225 which is a lot for someone who is 5'2" on a good day. Now I am hanging out at about 203.

My brilliant thought was really quite simple and also made me think, "sheesh, why has that thought never crossed my mind before?". The thought was "I should only eat food that is nutritious for me, that is good for my body". Food that will give my body nutrients. So this week I have really put the focus on trying to eat "healthy". I am on day 2 of "Project Eat Nutritious." I have been noticing this week just how much crap I usually eat. I eat because things taste good, because there is food there and I think I don't want to waste it, because I am tired, because it just feels darn good to eat....Rarely, have I ever eaten before to take proper care of my body, to give it what it needs. What I am noticing is that I almost feel like I am going through some sort of withdrawals, since I am not eating nearly as much sugar or carbs. I have been focusing on eating more vegetables, fruits and meats. I also have not been drinking pop. I have been primarily drinking water. My rationale is that I tend to take better care of myself when I look at it from the perspective of adding things to my life instead of taking away things. Instead of telling myself what I should not eat or can't eat, I try to focus on the good things I can add. Don't get me wrong. I am not going to completely deprive myself. That only leads me to a serious binge. So when I get an urge to eat something "not good for my body" I am going to try to do it but in moderation.

I am trying to look at this as any addict would. One day at a time. I am not making any promises one way or another. I just really feel the need to work on getting healthier, with the side benefit of not being so damn fat...and maybe getting to go shopping for some cute clothes, since the cutest clothes seem to be made for skinny girls (thats a whole different blog entry). And I want to be able to run around with my son and not have to catch my breath. I don't want to become a mother that parents from the couch, damn it--and I have caught myself doing that on many occasion.

This is going to be a battle. It took me roughly 35 years to get my eating habits this screwed up. Hopefully, it won't take quite that long to get them at least a little healthier consistently. I have to say that I do feel better about myself when I am doing something about it.

Dr. C, I love you "TOE" much!!

2006-11-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

A Toe Update.

After continuing to suffer with this oozing, red, swollen toe for several months, I decided it was finally time to seek some professional help. After all, its not sandal season anymore and boots are a real bitch to wear when are having foot issues. I began this quest with my family doctor who decided, upon viewing it, that I needed to move on to a podiatrist. And, luckily my friend, M, happened to have needed the services of a podiatrist in the past. She recommended that I see Dr C. "He is not just a good podiatrist, but HOT podiatrist. He can hold my foot any day” said M. So when my family doc asked me if I had any preferences, I immediately said that I would like to see Dr C , not "old Dr C" but young C because, of course, this guy is a third generation foot doctor. How does being a foot doctor become a family business?? Anyway, they got me in pretty quick—about a week later, which is amazing in the specialist world.

Last Wed. morning was my appointment and Dr. C was not only physically attractive but he had a calm, humble persona. He immediately looked at my toe and I could tell he was excited about what he was seeing. He began squeezing it and asking me if any stuff had come out of it, etc. Of course, on my way to this appointment, I wondered if it was going to be completely apparent that I had performed bathroom surgery on this thing numerous times and made at least one attempt to squeeze it every day—so when he squeezed it, I felt a little less crazy.
He knew what it was right away. He said it was a mucoid cyst. Apparently, I had, somehow along the way, injured or hyper extended the first joint of my middle toe, causing there to be a rupture in the sack around the joint. and it began leaking joint fluid. Your body reacts to joint fluid where it is not suppose to be by wanting to expel it at the closest place which, unfortunately was on the top of that toe. So the weird, ky jelly-like stuff that was coming out of my toe was actually joint lubrication…how fucked up is that. He drew my a nice picture and everything to help explain it all. He said that there were two options of treating it—either shooting it up Cortizone or opening the toe up and cauterizing it. I have to say that I am not a fan of having to “cauterize” anything—it sounds awful in and of itself. We went with the Cortizone shot which was going to help reduce inflamation and hopefully, help the joint sack repair itself…sounds yummy.

I like to consider myself a fairly tough woman. I’ve had a Cesarean section, had numerous teeth pulled and had five or more root canals. But for some reason, having a needle inserted into my foot several times was just a bit too much. Of course, they have to numb you up first. And they have to do it “slowly” which means sitting there for several minutes with a nurse holding the needle in place. Thank the gods, I was already sitting down because I became sweaty and cold and thought for sure I was going to pass out. Actually, I think the numbing shots were the worst part. The shot of Cortizone itself was not bad at all. Maybe that's because Dr. C was down there ever so gently poking my cyst—in all of his glory.

I have to say that my toe feels better now than it has for several months. No more oozing or screaming whenever it is bumped. And, in three weeks, it has to be rechecked by Dr. C—my newest heroe!! I’ll be looking forward to that visit.

Luckily, this has been my most urgent health issue lately. I recovered nicely from the gall bladder removal in September which along with my plain old laziness, has kept me away from "Blog World". And, lately, I have wanted to work on improving my health, since that is probably the only way I will ever get rid of the acid reflux and the high blood pressure--yet again physical manfestations of the stress of our society. I continue to be plugging away at improving my psyche through therapy. Someday I will be fully enlightened...right after, I have a smoke and some more junk food.

Crikey!! The Animal World Gets Revenge!

2006-09-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

I know that I am "insensitive" and possibly even a “feminist bitch”…and I probably have a spot reserved in hell. But I firmly believe in my right to free speech.

I have to say that I was not surprised to hear that Steve Irwin, the great Crocodile Hunter, was taken out by a stingray when I turned on Good Morning America earlier in the week. I had actually thought to myself, on several occasions when I had caught glimpses of him on Animal Planet, “Some day that freak is going to fuck with some really grumpy creature and that will be his demise”. And, I was right. I have always had a problem with the way that he went about taunting animals “in the name of conservation”. Not just subdued, furry little animals. But animals that can actually KILL you. So I have been somewhat surprised by the overall reaction to his death. Atleast, the reaction represented in the media—I have only heard one other person with a similar view as mine and she was crucified for making statements such as this.

I have had great admiration for “nature guys” like Marlon Perkins and David Attenborough. I spent hours watching Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom as a child. Those guys had a real respect for nature. They didn’t have a need to wrestle it or taunt it. Just look at it, and maybe relocate a few chosen animals to a safer location. They knew when they were over their heads and when they needed to take a step back from Mother Nature.

I can’t help myself. I am on the side of the stingray. Most of the time, I find myself siding with the animals. And I find myself embarassed to be a “human being”, as we go about trashing the planet that we have to live on and expect it to keep supporting our decadent lifestyles. Maybe that is one point I would agree with Steve Irwin on—the conservation point. But man, if you think you can be in the face of a crocidile or stingray—or any other large animal with large teeth and/or barbs and an extreme temper, and not get killed or atleast injured, you are an idiot. My home team will continue to be the animals!! Stingray 1-Steve Irwin-0!

A Corn Popper....

2006-09-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is what I have become this week. I have become the proud owner of a corn.
This picture is not of my actual corn....I wasn't ambitious enough to take a picture of my own. But this is a picture of a corn I found on a website when I was trying to determine exactly what this huge, red, oozing, painful thing that has taken up residence on my middle toe of my right foot. I have never, in my life, had a corn before. And I am hope this is the last time.

Those of you that know me well, know that I am "picker"--I love to pick zits, blackheads, in grown hairs, anything that has some what of a rewarding expulsion. It has taken me a good part of my 35 years of existence to take ownership of this. Luckily for my husband, he has strong boundaries against anyone else picking his blemishes. He has never allowed me to pick any ripe ones on his back, and believe me, I have asked and have even thought maybe I could get away with this while he is sleeping. But then I remember he sleeps much lighter than myself and that would be an awfully rude awakening.

So this corn has presented me with a wide range of emotions in the realm of picking. First of all, in my research, I discovered that a corn is a callus that is so thick that the body has decided it is a foreign body and has begun the process of rejecting it. They are usually caused by pressure--shoes that are too tight, etc. That, I guess, is where the oozing comes in...and my overwhelming desire to squeeze the hell out of it. The first few times it has been rather rewarding. A substance comes out like I have never encountered from my body, a clear gel. Not mucus but more like a jelly. It was exciting at first, but now I find it just to be a bit of a let down. I keep hoping for the ultimate explosion. It looks so big...I just think that there has got to be something else good in there.

Depressionista shares my love of "picking". We had a "girls night" recently and she just had to witness a "popping of the corn". Like me, I think she found it to be interesting at first but then there was a let down. Depressionista and I took a trip to one of the local Targets and purchased some corn removal stuff. I have no idea if this stuff will work but it smells caustic, like it could eat through my foot if I happened to get a drop too much on it. It has been a couple of days since I started the "treatment". A looks a little smaller and I guess eventually it is just suppose to fall off.

My advice to anyone who ends up with a corn would probably be to "leave it alone" as my mother would have said to me if she would have seen me baring down on the thing. But I really dont think you have truly lived until you have had a corn...or at least you have been living and wearing bad shoes....I gotta go check for more oozing...

I love you guys!!

2006-07-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

....add the drunken voice to this to get the full effect of this title.

Anyway, thanks for both commenting so promptly. I also wanted to note to you, Depressionista, that the post I did previous to the one yesterday was written one day AFTER you wrote your last post.

I think the list of rules that you laid out,Depressionista, are good and cover about any situation. Thanks for laying those out there. It is too bad not all friendships/relationships don't start with a list of rules/contract. It might help save a lot of time and/or emotional stress.

Here is my list of general friendship rules....

1. Please don't tell me that I am "a mess"....even if it is true. I don't respond very well to things of this nature and I can not be held responsible for how I do respond to this. You can say to me that you "are concerned about my well-being".

2. Please don't take offense to my frequent laughing. I tend to find many things, including things that are not meant to be, amusing. Sometimes, I can see where this would greatly offend people. I tend to be the one in the theatre laughing at a death scene,etc.

3. Keep in mind that I come from a genetic pool that is full of mental illness. And unfortunately, I am very aware of this. Double wammy. Not that I will use this as an excuse for any of my behaviors...but I do think that it accounts for some of my "oddities". Just take note.

4. Sometimes, I really hate to make decisions about things so I am more than open to others doing that for me. As long as it does not involve me having to ride on amusement park rides, watch football, or go to church....there are probably other things that I may object to but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. I will object if I feel strongly regarding the choice you are about to make but usually I am a pretty open person.

This is a good start...I'm sure I will come up with others. Thanks for being my friends. Hopefully, the rules are too stringent.

No work, no cry....

2006-07-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

My two week vacation is coming to a close. I would like to thank Depressionista and Itchy Tingle (from here on out for the sake of simplicity and because it is kind of funny, I will refer to them as S & M) for a fabulous vacation to Cleveland that started last Wednesday and ended this past Monday. To be honest, I was impressed with Cleveland. I found the people to be very friendly and not nearly as trashy as some of the people here in Iowa. Plus they have those cute accents. The food was awesome.

M, I really appreciated your generosity--letting stay at your house, use your awesome tub and eat your food. And I love all of the fun stuff that you gave me. And I loved hearing about your trip to China.

Here is a question that I feel could use some discussion:
So now that I have come and stayed at your house, M, where does our relationship go from here? And S, how do feel about this? I have never had the opportunity to ask a question like this and I thought the "blog world" is a good safe place to just lay it out there. Where are the boundaries on friendships of this nature? Do I continue to find out how you are doing M, through S, or can I give you a call once in awhile to check in? Are you comfortable with this, S? The whole friendship boundary can get kind of weird in situations like this. I don't want anyone to feel left out. I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic. I guess sometimes, I get stuck in thinking there is a "right way and a wrong way" in friendships when really, it is what everyone is comfortable with...just let me know where all of your comfort levels are.

Yesterday we accomplished another milestone. My son got tubes in his ears and his adnoids out. It went very well--it helps when you expect it to be hell. He didn't cry at all during the morning. I had the best "mom moment" ever after he got out from surgery and was in recovery. He had picked out a teddy bear from the surgery center's collection. The nurse was asking him about it and he said "its for my mom". Of course, that started the flood gate of tears, the kid is having surgery done and he thinks of getting something for me. We came home, he took a nap, and started to eat pretty much normal food that evening. Now that I think about it, I don't think he took a pain killer that whole time. Sheesh...he is more a man than I am.

I apologize for just how lame of a post this is. But I am having difficulty focusing on any one thing in my life at this time. I feel a bit scattered but I am actually enjoying it. There has been a nice sense of tranquility with this vacation!

Entering the world of therapy...again...

2006-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

I have had so much shit happen since, I last wrote--I am not even sure where to begin.
Two weeks ago tomorrow, my father called me and asked me to check my email. In the email, he proceeded to tell me that he was having an internet affair with some woman that he dated when he was in high school. They had primarily been interacting over email and had not talked over the phone...any other details, I really, really don't want to know. That was way too much for me to know anyway. He was not only unloading this on me, but he was in a state of panic because he was trying to break it off with her and he was afraid that she would call my mother. Initially, this was an absolutely horrendous situation. It brought up just about every childhood issue that I have--having boundaries crossed, having to help take care of my family as a third parent, being out of control, keeping secrets...shit, it was all there. A couple days before that call my dad had asked me about where he should go get therapy himself. I was, and still am for that matter, proud of him. My father is a survivor of pretty severe sexual abuse that went on for several years by a male relative. Not many men are able to even admit this, not many sexual abuse survivors are able to go on without some sort of treatment and not offend. My father raised four children without perpetrating on any of us. He was there for us all of the time.

So you ask, where did my father's dysfunction come out, since he never actually dealt with his abuse issues? This is where my parents' relationship comes into play. My father and mother had what I would call, an abusive relationship. My father being the "victim". Of course, like men being sexually abused, men that are victims in violent/abusive relationships, don't announce that to the world...that would destroy all of their manhood in our society. So for approximately 38 years he has put up with mostly verbal, cutting remarks from my mother and some physical violence that I remember as a child. When he told me he was having an internet affair, I had to wonder to myself, "it took you this long?" Of course, my mother doesn't know, and I think it may be best that she never know if she doesn't get any kind of help herself. I know it was wrong of my father to "look for love" outside of his marriage...but was it really that wrong for him to look for someone who would show him compassion.

On top of all of this, my father found his old girlfriend's pictures when he was cleaning out my grandmother's house to sell. Grandma went to the nursing home last April. She has severe dementia. When I go see her now, she usually thinks I am her cousin or some other family member. This has been extremely hard for Dad, and myself, to deal with . He was an only child. He was close with his mom. His dad was extremely physically abusive as well. Now, it is like what he knew of his mother is gone.

As much as I was angry at my father for telling me all of this, I am still proud of him. He has gone to three therapy appointments. And he said to me "do you know that I have all of the signs of someone who has survived sexual abuse?" and I said "yes!!!!" I never thought my father would ever, in a million years, begin to address those issues. Now he is talking about them. He is talking about "feelings". He is finally taking care of himself. My mom is a different story. My dad being in therapy may lead to them not being a couple any more. That would be an adjustment but I remember wishing that would happen many times as a child. They are both still my parents and I love them both very much.

I am going back to therapy next week myself. I thought I could use a bit of a "tune-up" after this incident. I will keep all of my loyal readers updated on my latest "revelations"!! I have to thank Depressionista for her support during this crazy time in my life!!

Sailing the Bad Luck Sea....

2006-05-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

...I feel like that is the best summary for my week. I say that because nothing absolutely horrendous has happened...just some extremely annoying, time consuming things. Like I am "sailing", not "drowning" or "flailing" or "hanging on for dear life".

Wednesday, Nathan, a very nice man from my bank calls me to inform me that "there has been several suspicious transactions on my bank account". Roughly, $1022 worth of "suspicious transactions" that occurred in Italy. Unfortunately, I have been right here in my little old town in the middle of the USA. Somehow, someone counterfeited by ATM card and used it in is several machines in Italy. I got to see a printout with the successful attempts and the unsuccessful ones as well. Four three days, instead of working an honest job, some some sap was surviving off of me. This person withdrew about $255 dollars a day...the max that he/she could. (Somehow, I want to assume its a man, who knows) For three days... he got a little more the fourth day. I am just so happy that Nathan noticed this. I am sure it became a bit more apparent when this made my checking account go about $400 in the hole. So far I am the only person in the real world that I have known this to happen to...what are the fucking chances of that anyway? Luckily, this is one of the reasons that banks have insurance and they charge all of those annoying fees for thing...they were able to reimburse my account with the entire amount. Now I just have to do a credit record check to assure they stole nothing else of my identity and go from there....fucking scary...

Then today, I took my son in to have his hearing retested. Before we got there, I was feeling like it may not go the best. Since I have really had to yell his name to get his attention. At first I thought he just wasn't listening to me. It turns out he has fluid behind his eardrums. He "has the most hearing loss he can have due to fluid in his ears". He hasn't complained of sore ears. He has had a bit of a runny nose due to allergies. Well, that makes a mom feel like shit...I was thinking he just wasn't paying attention to me...I didn't think there could be a physiological reason for him to not respond to me...I was just assuming it was open defiance...luckily, all I did was say his name a bit louder when I was frustrated. So tomorrow we have an appointment with the family doctor to see where we go from here. Tubes may be in his future. But I am hoping we can get by with some allergy treatments.

What really started my week off was a call from my crazy sister. I am not in the mood to go into great detail at this time....lets just say my 31 year old sister called me to ask me if she should go on disability because "her body is falling apart". She was crying...she didn't know what to do. She hurt her back the day before at work. She sees thirteen different doctors. She is on so many medications, etc. etc. I could and probably will do an entire entry on the impact of having an insane sibling...

...but for now I will continue my voyage on "The Sea of Bad Luck"....

"Hey, Let me see your tits!"

2006-05-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I survived the wedding. It was quite the array of events and emotions.
Let me give you some of the hilights of the weekend.

Friday was the rehearsal followed by the rehearsal dinner. Nothing to noteworthy other than my child was at the top of his game. He hit it off with the little flower girl right away and they were so cute walking down the aisle together. And it did not require any bribery.
Saturday, the big day. We all had to be be ready for pictures by 2:30 and of course the wedding wasn't until 5pm. Getting a four-year-old into a tux is challenge enough in itself, let alone trying to get him to wear it for two hours before the wedding and have him still be in a good mood. He was very quickly reaching meltdown point. And it seemed everytime that he left the sanctuary during pictures and was in the bathroom they were wanting him for another round of pictures.
The actual ceremony. A comedy of errors. Nothing too serious. The Bride knocked over a candleabra, a lit, one while walking down the aisle. An usher saved the day by grabbing it. The Bride tripped and almost fell over the alter.
My son of course was on the verge of having a serious meltdown. We somehow force him to walk down the aisle. He stands there briefly. Comes back to sit next to us. And within about 5 minutes of sitting down he is out cold and sleeps through the entire ceremony.
In the middle of all of this my husband, who is suppose to be filming the wedding has set up his camera at the front of the church, focusing it on the aisle. He is getting all freaked out because he is not focusing on anything else. He sneaks up and manages to get about 5 minutes of the end of the wedding focused on the bride and groom themselves.
The reception. We drive out to the bar in a very small town where the bar is. My husband takes a look at the building and says "is this the delapidated building we are having this in?" I say "hell, yeah". The front room is a bar and the back is a reception hall. Myself and both of my brothers are "closet smokers" to the rest of the family. Of course my parents are there as well. So both of my brothers and myself spend time sneaking smokes in the front of the bar with "look-outs" making sure that they dont come out and catch us. How pathetic is that. There is some bumping and grinding on the dance floor while my parents are there but they manage to survive and leave around 10pmish.
That is when the real party begins. My younger brother, the one not getting married, requests "I wanna fuck you like an animal" by Nine Inch Nails and sings over the top of it.
My brothers and myself smoke freely in the bar. thank the gods!
I am sitting next to the bride's sister and her husband sits down next to us. Keep in mind I have not had any real interaction with this guy and I am not really sure that he is aware that I am the sister of the man that married his wife's sister. He is drunk off of his ass. I am wearing my homemade dress, showing off a fair amount of cleavage, feeling pretty good about myself. He looks at me and repeatedly says to me, "Let me see your tits", everyonce in awhile asking his wife if this is ok, and she is so drunk that she says "sure". There are real mixed feelings that go along with some guy asking you if he can see your tits. For a few moments I actually felt attractive, like "hey, I havent had anyone ask to see my tits in a long time" (or maybe ever really). The part of me was totally repulsed and felt like some kind of object. And yet another part of me felt sorry for this pathetic bastard. So finally, I turn to Depressionista and say, "this guy is asking to see my tits, lets go back into the reception hall". I kept thinking "he has to give this up soon" but after about the 7th or 8th time he asked I gave up hope. The funny thing is the next day this guy and his wife (bride's sister) had to come over to my parents' house because the bride and groom were coming over to open gifts. They come in and they are totally standoffish, like he realized who I was and just what an ass he made of himself. Of course, I also took it upon myself to tell this incident to my brother..how could I not!? And he told his new wife...oh, the beauty of natural consequences. I didnt have to do a thing to show what an ass this guy is...it took care of itself...the beauty.
wow, what a wild ride...Overall, it was a good time. I got to see the girls from the bachelorrette party, Depressionista, and party with my brothers...

Oh, the Life of Domestic Goddess...

2006-05-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

I realized today that it is has been over a month since I have posted anything...not that there really has been anything that exciting to post about but I hate to let my readers down!:)

So let me just share some of accomplishments and quips of the past weeks.

My brother is getting married this weekend--and even to a woman that I am welcoming with open arms into my family...A normal, nice, intelligent woman...I am appreciative of this because there are not many of those in my family already! Someone that does not go on and on about her health issues, interrupt discussions with inane comments regarding how cute her husbands' ears are. Someone who I can truly have a good time with.
Two weeks ago, I went to my future sister-in-laws bachelorette party. Ok, I love her dearly but her choices in bars frightens me. First of all, I am utterly amazed at how many people you can pack into a bar--and then expect them to dance--and that people find this to be enjoyable in anyway. I went with Depressionista--the poor, poor girl...she got through with the help of her anti-anxiety medication and a few drinks. We both realized how old we were...and I felt very naughty when I noticed how cute some of the guys were and that I am old enough to be their mother....When did that happen!
I also felt naughty when Depressionista and I stopped at the adult store on the way to the bachelorette part. It was a pretty nice one along I-80--every vibrator one could imagine. I thought I was being tame and tasteful buying the future bride a small vibrator in purple--one of her wedding colors. I gave it to her at the party--you would think that I gave her a 36 inch dildo with veins, etc. She was shocked. And I was shocked that I was the only one that bought her something naughty...what is it with kids these days?? They could have gone hog wild with that. And the other girls at the party said that my future sister-in-law was saying she was going to be embarrassed seeing a stripper if I was with...sheesh, she has a few things to learn about me yet, huh!?
I finished making my dress for the wedding...and it fits. I think it looks ok...maybe I will do something wild like put a picture up here after the wedding. I also made a matching purse, and a tie for my husband....that's enough to about make one vomit...but I just couldn't stop once I got started.
I also managed to make the earrings that go with the necklace functional again. I picked the fabric for the dress for the wedding to go with a jewelry set from my grandma. (Grandma is going to be at the wedding as well...her mind is so bad that she probably wont remember me let alone her jewelry--sad, but I feel like it is a nice tribute to her) I cut the clip-on portion off of the back of the earring and attached a post with a jumpring. Now they look like a delightful dangling earring set...score!!
My son is going to be the ring bearer in this wedding...he is going to be so damn cute in that tux....hopefully he will willingly walk down the aisle and I wont have to buy an entire Hot Wheels collection for him.
The gardening season is in full swing...not exciting to many people, but it makes me feel better!

So I am sure that after this weekend I will have much more to say...including how wonderful the wedding was and how if I had to spend anymore moments with my family I would have to shoot myself in the head!

I became a "Soccer Mom"....

2006-04-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

...I just had to see it in writing!! Yesterday, my four-year-old son started playing soccer, an organized sport. Groups of young boys, kicking a ball around together, competing...FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! Organized sports and religion....two things that I have had difficulty coping with my entire life.

I have never felt so proud. We have produced a little person that is able to follow directions, interact with others in a respectful manner, and who has a wonderful sense of humor. My husband and I sat on the sidelines watching him and about 12 other little boys and girls kick soccer balls across the field, playing games of "Sharks and Minnows", dribbling the balls with their feet.

As parents, we find ourselves thinking "please god, dont let my kid be the one that doesn't pay attention or do something stupid". He didn't!! He did sat and listened to all of the directions, followed the rules. He laughed and had fun. He had little conversations with the other boys out on the field. He may actually be a productive member of society!! Not that one night of preschool soccer will predict such a thing, but man, it really helps reinforce all of the parenting we have done up to this point. It makes me realize that "hey, we have done something right!!"

I was thinking that after over 45 minutes of kicking, running, jumping and unnecessarily diving on to the soccer ball, that my kid would be totally and udderly exhausted....somehow, it seemed to be just a warm up!! Then he wanted to go play on the playground equipment afterwards...which he did for about another half an hour...we could barely lure him out with the promise of ice cream--just barely. And even then, I think I wanted the icecream more than him. Shit, I should have been running out there on the soccer field too! But that is a whole other blog entry...

I really was not thinking that my child playing soccer would be quite so rewarding for me!! I thought he might have fun but I didn't think that I would feel quite so proud. His dad was proud too. And for a unathletic man that is impressive in itself. I was proud when he said his first sentence, took his first steps, went to preschool the first time, but somehow this seemed to top all of that...maybe because it is an area that I, myself, have not excelled in. He did well AND seemed to have fun. And the season has just become...but I am still not going to buy a mini-van and put a "soccer mom" sticker in the window! I have my limits....:)

How did I get so.......old?

2006-03-25T19:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took the day off of work....at the end of what would have normally been the working day, I realized that I have gotten old. What really brought me to this conclusion was the activities that I chose to do on my day off and that I actually really enjoyed them. I took the entire day off because we "had to take our taxes to the accountant to be done". Somehow I could justify this, when in actuality it took us about half an hour with the tax lady to give her all of our stuff. I started my day off by taking our son to preschool. Then I came home, brewed a pot of coffee and went at a morning of domestic goddess duties. I even changed the sheets on our beds! My mother was a "ritualistic sheet changer"--once a week....I change them when the thought crosses my mind...and I can't even begin to tell you the last time that thought crossed my mind. I straightened our son's room, vacuumed the downstairs, picked up my huge pile of clothes off of our bedroom floor...I was in fact, a true Domestic Goddess Friday morning! It was awesome...the sick part is that I really enjoyed myself...being at home, by myself, cleaning. Damn, I'm old.

Prior to going to the tax lady at 11am, I went to a local fabric store...I was truly not impressed with the selections of materials to make an evening gown for my brother's wedding. Another moment, where I feel like I am being a true Domestic Goddess...taking on the endeavor of creating a fancy dress....WITH ZIPPERS....I will have to keep you posted on how that goes. Then I went to the Dollar Store which was next door Shitty Fabric Store and bought supplies for "Girls Night"--gummy dinos, caramels, sourcream and onion chips, and other mindless activities for children under 5 years of age.

After taxes, my goal for the afternoon...a serious nap. I wasn't fooling around with this one. I had to survive to and through "Girl's night". I allotted myself up to four hours for this nap, starting at 12:30 I even closed the blinds, got under the big blankies...laid there for about an hour, slowly losing hope. Then I must of dropped off into a coma because it was suddenly 3:30pm. Mission accomplished...

I have to say, it was one of my best days off...and I did nothing truly exciting...just the mundane activities of daily life....but in somewhat more of a mindful way....

The best day off was followed by one of the best impromptu "Girl's Nights". My husband had a "Guy's Night" with some work buddies earlier in the evening and told me that he would be home by 9pm...well, he didnt get home until almost 10pm....Shortly before he arrived home I kept having the feeling the evening was fucked...I had called, Depressionista, host of this Girl's Night, there was no answer...a bit of panic...I tried again later...her husband answered and said she was sleeping. He told me to come on down anyway. In true SnickleSnackle fashion, I headed for Depressionista's house, which I should add is about 35 minutes from my house. I get there, she is still sleeping....more panic. But she rallied, and it was awesome. We ate, we drank coffee, we collaged, we talked, we filled the notebook with even more of our brilliant thoughts...It was wonderful and very much needed!! Thanks to our naps....we made it to 4am!! WE RULE!!

And because I am old....I know I need to get some rest before "Girl's Night".

I'm a bloser baby.....

2006-03-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

The title of today's post is my apology to Depressionista for not commenting on every post she has made...I am not as blogliterate as she is and I am still getting comfortable with the whole thing.

Anyway, I feel like I really WORKED today at my job. Not that I usally dont put an honest effort forth...but WOW. As I have said before, I pretty much facilitate meetings with family's to help them make plans to make sure their children are safe, etc. I have to admit that my job is not the bitch that it use to be when I had an ongoing caseload of 60-75 kids I had to make sure were safe on a daily basis. Now I just meet with families, talk about meetings, set them up then actually facilitate the meetings. I have been spoiled lately; I realized this morning. I had the meeting from hell. First of all there were about 15 people present. The parents are not together but are both extremely jealous of one another. Mom has some mental health issues of her own. Enough for it to be difficult to reason with her and for her to continually make snide remarks half under her breath the whole meeting. I spent almost two hours facilitating this meeting...It was constant redirection..."lets stay focused..."...."I understand you are angry and frustrated"..."but we really cant do much about that issue here today"....yada, yada, yada....It was truly emotionally draining. This meeting was bad enough that I decided that we needed to go to the Flying Weinie for lunch...for some reason I find their hotdogs and fries to be the most amazing comfort food. I dont know if there is a bit of a Freudian thing with that. So I drug my poor male coworker, M, and my work spouse, M, met me there. That was a damn good weinie!! It was one of those days that made me realize "hey, my job is not too bad usually!!"

1am...emergency trip to Walgreens...

2006-03-13T18:32:00.000-08:00

Not a good way to start a Monday morning. 1am...my 4 year old son comes up stairs screaming, "my forehead hurts". I scour the house for Children's Tylenol...how the hell do you run out of Children's Tylenol without restocking...so I trudge off to Walgreens...Like Tingle said in her Blog, I love Walgreens! I love the fact that they are open 24 hours and have every kind of pediatric pain killers known to man. I bought Tylenol, Motrin and some other cold thing when I was there just to make sure I had all of my bases covered. So then I came home, gave him some Tylenol and he fell a sleep on the sofa watching "The Iron Giant"....thank gods for that movie. At first I was laying in bed with him, he was miserable, thrashing around. Then I decided "why lay here and be miserable". We might as well get up and watch a movie, one that usually puts him to sleep. It worked like a charm. He only woke up screaming on one more occasion! Then I just rocked him on my lap and he fell asleep on me till 6am...that was kinda nice. I hadn't had him sleep on me for a long time.

He seeme to be ok this morning...so I drug him off to preschool. Part of me was like "should I take him? What if he is really sick yet?" But he made it through the day and was in fairly good spirits when he came home. Just a bit tired.

It is amazing how an unhappy/sick child can really dominate your life at times.

Craziness abounds....

2006-03-09T19:51:00.001-08:00

Wow, another week of insanity.

My husband spent the first two days of this week in bed. Like I did last week. I felt bad giving him this one. It was killer.

It was an odd day...not a bad odd day, just odd...

Weird factoid #1. So today, I go out and meet with a family. What I do for a living is try to help families "empower" themselves to develop plans to achieve whatever goal it is that they want to achieve--usually it is to get their children back in their home or to get the "Welfare" out of their lives. I live in a town now that is about half an hour away from where I went to college. I wondered how long it would take for me to encounter someone who I had crossed paths with in college. So I go meet with this family and I am looking at the dad, thinking "man, he looks familiar"--I hope I don't know him TOO WELL, if you catch my drift. Big fear of mine....I sowed my wild oats...luckily, I had only hung out in a lot of the same places as this guy when I was in college...the local smoke shop. He happens to be friends with one of my husbands' best friends. I just thank the gods that I didnt know him that well...It got me humming, "Its a small world after all...".

Weird factoid #2,. A few months ago, I found an old friend of mine, M who also happened to be a boyfriend of about fifteen years ago for a brief stint. During our relationship, I got to be friends with an old girlfriend of his, L. The story is a bit more complex than this but I shall leave it at that. M had told me that she was also working for the state, as I do. I look her up on our address book at work thinking "she probably isn't listed here, she must be in some other branch". There she was listed right on the address book...Then I think, "god, I wonder if she would really answer if I called"...It took me a few minutes to get the gumption up--I mean what do you say, "Hey, I havent talked to you in about ten years, remember me??" Would she even want to talk to me??So I got over that, picked up the phone and called her...and about shit myself because she answered the phone...and she seemed honestly happy to hear from me. She gave me her email. I am hoping that she will become a contributor to snicklesnackle.com and it will be interesting to catch up with her again.

These are the kind of things that happen that make you think a bit. I felt like I was needing some distraction with the shitty weather and the illness lately. Lets see what crazy shit abounds tomorrow!!

Lanny Eugene Vernon Kampfe, gives the best root canals ever but....

2006-03-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

....is definitely not a people person.

So yesterday I had my root canal completed. For those of you out there less experienced in the world of denistry, which I imagine most of you are less experienced than I have had the misery of being, root canals require two appointments approximately 10 days apart. The first day the endodontist is opens the tooth, then with a wire, he cleans out the root and puts a temporary filling in so that the infection can drain. If you are having bad enough tooth pain the root canal can be almost a joyous occasion. Now, yesterday I had the second part of my root canal completed with my endodontist, Lanny Kampfe ( I don't usually use real names but this is for Depressionista's benefit). Lanny is one of the best root canal guys I have ever experienced. I can say this because I had a root canal experience from hell prior to going to Lanny...I cannot even begin to describe the horror here...suffice to say that it was a foriegn dentist who should have not been doing root canals. Lanny can get in there, open up a tooth, clean it out and have you on your way in usually about 15-20 minutes....Which is good, Because this is about all I can handle of listening to him talk. He has the best dental skills ever....his "social" skills suck. I have to sit there with my mouth wide open, with a rubber dam in it listening to him talk to his assistant about what ever sporting activity he went to the day before. Then, I think his wife, Janet, must go to "Bible study" every fucking day because he is always, always talking about Bible study! ....he said the words "Bible study" five times, I counted, in about 10 minutes yesterday. I have had about 5 root canals done by this guy...He has never asked me anything about myself. This time he had the audacity to tell me that "I should make sure I get the tooth that I had the root canal in in early January crowned soon and if I dont have enough insurance, I could do a permanent filling of some kind until I could get the crown"...Have you looked at my teeth or maybe the thick ass file you have here at your office?!?! Maybe I know a bit about dental care and that I need to get yet another fucking crown on that tooth soon?? I was very brief and to the point with the man...Maybe I am too aware of interacting with people due to my chosen line of work...Then to top the appointment off he says "you know the real secret is to not have anything else to fix for the rest of the year" in regards to not using up my dental insurance...I didnt even respond...I did say "well, I do have 2 dental plans"...and wanted to follow up with, "I am having a fucking upper GI next week to help determine what may be causing the acid reflux that is eating away my teeth". But that was way more of a conversation than I felt like I really wanted to have at the time....The moral of the story for me is...they really need to supply people in the medical/dental field with more training on how to basically "interact" with members of the human race in a way that makes those humans want to be around them at all...

Other than the root canal, in my attempt to "get healthier" this week, I have had salads for one meal a day for the past couple of days. Of course, my coworker had to bring in bagels and I felt I had to eat one and another coworker had to bring in this fabulous spice cake--all today. Wed I had three smokes, Thursday I had four smokes and today, Friday, I and my work spouse, Mel, both ended up buying packs of smokes. Mel makes me carry them...for her so I have two packs of smokes in my possession at this time...so for today, I completely fell off the wagon.... My goal is to enjoy myself this weekend and climb back on the wagon on Monday. This weekend I hope to start going for some walks and lifting the hand weights. I need to get more active. I feel better then!! Well, my faithful readers, I believe I am going to go "lay peacefully"...and probably eat something bad for me!! Have a good weekend!

Back to the Land of the Living....

2006-03-01T19:04:00.001-08:00

..or at least the land of the pseudo-living! Sheesh....I am recovering from one of the worst cold/flu illnesses I have had in a long time. I spent the last two days pretty much sleeping. I was home sick from work TWO days in a row. Those of you that know me, know this is pretty rare. I hate staying home sick if I can avoid it. Its like I am coming out of this crazy haze of illness. Yesterday I put a sincere effort into going to work...I actually drove to work, got there and sat at my desk....I sat there looking at all of the shit I needed to do and didn't really understand any of it and thought "what am I suppose to do now". It seemed like anything I would have to do including phone calls, talking to any other human beings was going to be way more work than I anticipated....Like I was in some foreign world. It was at that point that I realized I was way too sick and out of it to be dealing with human beings and trying to help family's keep small children safe...
The only good thing that has come out of this illness is that I have seriously cut back on smoking. During the throws of the whole illness, I smoked on Sunday morning--one cigarette. Then today I had two smokes....Not too bad overall in my move to be healthier. Food was another issue today...I had to have a frosted sugar cookie and a bag of gummy worms from Casey's across from our local women's drug rehab center when I went there for a meeting today...something about frosted sugar cookies that gets me every time.
Tonight, my husband, R, offered to fry us up some dinner, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, the whole works... One of my favorite meals is breakfast for dinner. We recently broke out my Gramma G's old electric skillet...that thing makes me nostalgic. Now, Gramma G was not my favorite Gramma but she was a woman of her era. When I see that electric grill I am reminded of her in her white tank top, big old cleavage with her hanky nestled between her large breasts, smashing potato pancakes for our lunch. She was a gossiper, the kind of Gramma you go visit and she tells you what nasty thing the neighbor has been up to and you have no idea how she could have gotten that juicy bit of gossip. I hate to admit it....as much as it pains me...I got a bit of Gramma G in me....I like a good juicy bit of gossip...So I am a bit trashy at times....I think a true Snickle Snackler revels in her trashy side....Thanks, Gramma G!!!

I have had a vagina for 35 years....

2006-02-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

Hey
First of all I have to apologize to my faithful readers. More than likely, I am not going to be a daily blogger. I am a combination of too busy and too lazy...the unfortunate part is that I cannot use my computer at work for such things....and I have a four-year-old that knows how to use the computer about as good as I do at times!!

My revelation of the week--I need to overhaul my life. Anyone that knows me, knows that the bane of my existence is my teeth. I have very bad teeth. Already, since the first of the year I have required two root canals and two fillings...very sad. So when I saw my dentist for the last root canal he says to me that he believes that I am still having acid reflux...Acid coming into my mouth at night while I am sleeping, etching my teeth therefore making them breakdown. Now he has mentioned this to me before on numerous occasions. It just has taken my about 6 rootcanals and over like 25 fillings to really get off of my ass and do something about it. I have talked to my doctor about acid reflux before and did a short bout of medication. I can't really tell if I have acid reflux by how I feel.

Anyway, I went to see my doctor on Friday for this, for flu-like symptoms and for an itchy, burny crotch. It was one of those doctor's visits where you leave and its like you were never really there or you knew all of the answers all along! The good news is I don't have a yeast infection. Of course I get the speech about not using bubble bath, scented toilet paper, etc--and all I wanted to say was "No shit, Sherlock...I have been the proud owner of a vagina for the last 35 years, if I don't know this crap by now, I would be a complete idiot." Flu-like symptoms--there is never anything that can be done for flu-like symptoms. The acid reflux--well, on Monday I have to go in for a barium swallow. Basically you drink a bunch of barium while they X-ray you to see if the plumming all works. I am interested to see what barium tastes like. To my knowledge, I have never drank anything radioactive before...I will have to let you know how that goes.

Of course, as I suspected by doctor says to me one of the best things you can do for the acid reflux is quit smoking, in addition to losing weight. Gee, I wonder if this is why I haven't wanted to deal with this. And I have started thinking, you know I spend thousands of dollars on dental work--maybe it would be a good idea to really "get healthy". So like Depressionista's mission improve her marriage...this is my mission to save my teeth, my wallet, and more than likely add a couple more years on to my blissfully apathetic existence. I will be taking you along on this exciting journey--I am sure it will be a rollercoaster ride as I have a real oppositional side and enjoy a good amount of decadence. The real challenge will be to be healthy but still nurture my inner Snickle Snackler....but I believe it can and will be done!!

ahh, another week begins....

2006-02-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

"I don't want to be an adult anymore"--my husband at the end of a Monday!

Another weekend came to a close. They go so fast. This one started with a great impromptu "Girl's Night" on Friday night. "Girl's Night" has become a necessity it seems for me and several of my friends. This "Girl's Night" occurred at my friend, S's home. S and I go way back. We have been friends since second grade and now we have reached our mid-thirties. We are pushing almost 25 years of friendship. She has seen me at my worst and she still claims me as a friend. The thing I love most about S is her sense of humor. She can make me laugh until I almost wet myself. And that has happened at a "Girl's Night" or two! Our times together have taken on a life of their own. They have led us to creating our own website, www.snicklesnackle.com, that include our rants about life, twisted with our dark senses of humor. This past "Girl's Night" started with the eulogy for S that I wrote. It was S's idea. We decided that if either one of us should die, that it would be good to have this item prepared. Then we decided that on top of that, everyone should get to hear their eulogy before they die--after all I would think that people never get to hear those things, including all of the good stuff. S's friend, M was present as well. M is a "newer" friend of S's but just as close somehow I think they are cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. If you want to see women cry, read a sappy eulogy!! It was so very cathartic. Then this was followed by an analysis of my love life prior to marriage that I will not go into detail here...But somehow S & M found this to be pretty amusing in itself. We vented and talked until about 2 am.

I spent Saturday being a "Mom". I took my son to see Curious George. It is nice to be able to have an excuse to see kids' movies!! He seemed to enjoy it. We went to Michael's (the store) before hand. Four-year-olds and craft stores are not that compatible. I spose it is like going into a hardware store with your dad when you are a little girl! Poor kid!

Sunday, I hung out with S & M again. We went shopping. S brought her son with. He is an adorable one-year-old. He is at the fun age where he is just starting to interact and communicate with words. We went clothes shopping and to a book store.

My energy levels are rapidly dropping!! I should save some for the rest of the week....and that's sad because it is only Monday!!

Welcome to My Insanity

2006-02-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Not that I think my life is worthy enough for the rest of the world to read about....But I do realize that I am not your normal,Midwestern 35 year old woman. I live in a fairly good size city pretty close to smack dab in the middle of the U.S. I am married to a "not your normal Midwestern man" as well. When I say that, I mean a man who doesn't like sports, fix cars or like to do the manly duties of fixing things around the house. He is a musician and he runs a web business himself. He has a day job but it really is not what feeds his soul. We have been married for almost nine years. We have a beautiful, crazy four year old son that keeps us on our toes, and at times, we believe that he is truly the spawn of Satan. During the week, I am a mild mannered Social Worker, trying to keep the children of the world safe. I am sure that I will expound upon the stupidity of the human race on a fairly regular basis from here on out. I am frequently amused by it.
I don't want to completely blow my wad in my first post...so the next episode will include the stories of my friends--especially S and our crazy escapades.