PMS-The Manic Kind.

Yesterday I started cleaning and doing laundry at 730 am and was still at it at 1030pm. I even washed clean clothes cause they had a few wrinkles and why bother...just wash'em again...

I am just mere days away from paying my monthly bill and this PMS can be very productive. Unfortunately, a day like yesterday is rare and is usually followed by "I am tired as hell, don't ask me to do ANYTHING!!". (Of course this is followed by me explaining in detail everything I did yesterday to audience members that do not care). (Of course this is followed by me telling everyone that I work and work and no one CARES!!).

Brooke did not go to school today. She did not go Monday either because since last Friday's "circus day" she is totally freaked out. I so needed her to go school today, but instead we went shopping and to McDonald's for breakfast. Then, upon the teacher's suggestion, we sat and waited for her classmates to be released. Then they took her to her classroom and gave her their little craft projects from Monday and today to complete at home. Then the little neighbor girl came over and they screamed and fussed over all the toys, she took Brooke's crackers, Brooke cried, the girl left, then she cried some more and come to think of it...she is still crying.

I have darts tonight and, though, I should see it as a GIANT break and a way to escape this crying...it just seems like something I have to do and I already told you all, "Don't ask me to do ANYTHING!!"

E-mailing Tourettes

Well, Ryan is still not playing at Washington and Jefferson College as was promised in many kiss up attempts by several coaches during the recruiting process and during the past year.

The first week he was told that he and the other QB would take two series each. He got one series after the 2 from the other QB, that got to start, btw, and then he got in there, scored a TD on a QB keeper and was never put back in. Even after the other guy threw TWO interceptions. Hmmmmm.

Next game they tell him he is definitely "starting" and that they will probably, again, rotate a bit, but he will get most of the game. He not only DOESN'T start, he gets about 3 minutes total playing time, with two of those minutes being the last drive of the game.

The next week the coach has a meeting with the two QBs and says, "This is what we are going to do, you guys will bring in the plays and rotate each and every play". Ryan rotates in the first series, then is taken out for the rest of the game.

Last week Ryan did not show up at Monday films and was pretty broken about being lied to, not being given an opportunity no matter how well he has performed in his limited plays thus far and just tired of the whole business. A new coach IMs hims to see what the issue is and encourages Ryan to talk to the head coach. Ryan does, he does NOT quit the team and is told he cannot promise how much time either will get, but stay with us and blah, blah, blah. This past Saturday, we learned how much time he got...ZERO, NIL ,NOTTA, NOTHING!

So, after each of these games, I cannot help myself.... I write letters to the coaching staff like like some crazy ass, stage mom. I do not curse or name call, though one of the coaches I dislike is a fat bastard piece of shit and the other is a fungus growing in a dumpster, I still maintain class while expressing my displeasure with the outcome...just little sentences, made with limited restaint, show my unhappiness in a pretty clear way.

They do not respond, they do not acknowledge said e-mails and they do not change anything because of them. I did get to talk to one of the coaches and he was all "Yeah, we think he is about ready to start., we are just working on a few drops..." and then smiles and gives me a thumbs up, like all is well and all the while I am thinking about where he can stick that thumb!

It does not matter how old your baby is, whether he is 8 months or 19 years old, when someone wrongs your baby, you get PISSED! Especially when they talk your baby into giving up several full rides to attend their far more superior college that costs 37,000 a year, 15,000 a year that you will take on in debt after all the grants and fake aid they come up with to get you to commit. Cause he is soooooooooo going to get the greatest job ever as a graduate of this college and those icky state degrees are just not worth the paper they are printed on......and here he is guarenteed three years of being the starting QB and those D1 schools prolly just want him for the scout team cause he is so athletic and he may never really start, but here, yes, here, he will be an all-american three years running, no doubt and pick us..PICK US!!!!! The moon and stars?? Okay, we will give him that to, just PICK US!!!

He was told he was the most aggressively recruited player for then ever and then we meet the other QB's parents who tell us the tale of their son being the most aggressively recruited player ever and then we see the parents of an incoming freshman who say they are so excited for their son and they really wanted him cause they said he was the most aggressively recruited player ever!! OMG, get a new line, parents talk, fat bastard!!

And so now I sit on Monday thinking I am done with this crap, I am not going to say another word to those idiots and then Saturday will come, they will make him feel bad again, leave him on the sidelines, and my disease will once again take hold and the e-mail tourettes will likely show up again on Sunday..............

Well, I am getting so fired up, the disease could worsen and I might say shit.....or damn...or hell....or FAT BASTARD!!!!

I need an intervention.

Snotty, Coughy, Chest Cold

I started a cold about ten days ago that made my head feel like it weighed 100 pounds and my notrils were totally shut down. No nose breathing led to a killer sore throat. Then it finally started opening up a few days later and it turned into a chest cold, but I could breath!

Now, just as I thought I was getting over it, it came back last night full force, all cold symptoms engaged from the annoying couch attacks, alternating stuffy/running nose, sore throat, chest congestion, eyes watering and sinus pressure causing a killer face/head ache.

I have a bunch of junk to do today and because I slept maybe three hours last night, in broken up spans, I feel like doing nothing at all. Bob is all on this hyper jag, yelling at everyone, fake cleaning and acting all put out with my lack of movement. I may launch an attack on him with my pile of snot rags before day's end.

I have to work this evening at a place I cannot bring myself to discuss because it humiliates me and because during my first day there someone kept asking me, "Why are you HERE??? Aren't you, like, smart??".

Apparently not.

Bob's Turn at Memory Lane

Not sure how old he is in this picture, but I assume old enough to be embarrassed to be wearing the plaid suit, though the smile indicates otherwise. Did they not have garanimals back then? Also, notice the fresh comb down, cause back then, on picture day, they gave you that little black comb in line.

I bet they thought they looked really groovy on this night. He may have even told her what a fox she was and how her new Dorothy Hamil cut was, well, really groovy and foxy. Can you not just hear "stayin' alive, stayin' alive" in the background?

Do I spot the same burgandy shirt from prom? Pretty slick. I think it showed great intelligence to not wear that funky pocketed jacket thing twice. Of course the prom was after the senior picture, so maybe he didn't have those groovy threads just yet. Yeah, nevermind that intelligence thing, lets talk about the brownish yellow dead grass on the old dirt road background, umm, was that the budget screen? Did you have to pay more for real outdoors with living greenery??

My parents spared no expense and I was really outside. They obviously, however, denied me the hot oil treatment I so deperately needed.

Speaking of Blast From the Past.....

Okay, how funny and absolutely scary is that?

Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seven____.

I remember back in the ol'days when my mom used to drag me out of bed on Saturday mornings to attend dance class. I would protest and she would tell me I had to finish what I started. She was NOT paying all that money for me NOT to go!!!

But back in the ol'days all the good cartoons were on and ONLY on Saturday mornings! It wasn't a hard choice after a few years of dance class to realize that cartoons were much more important to me, also the teacher told me my back was not limber and she thought the gymnastics thing was a "never gonna happen" for me.

So, there I was ,again, happy as a clam with all my favorite cartoons and the Banana Splits.

La, la, la La, la, la ,la La, la, la, la , la ,la ,la

One banana, two banana.....

Wow, did I just age myself or what?? Saturday mornings were the shit though back then. We had little choice on what to watch and it was actually a good thing. Tweleve channels and always something to watch, instead of the 200 channels now and not a damn good thing on.

My dancing career ended suddenly, but my love for a good cartoon still carries on. They even made them with humor for us grown ups from the 70's and 80's. So, now you can sit with your toddler and actually enjoy the show.

Oops, gotta run. Sponge Bob is coming on!!

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea...........

Reruns for Syd..........

Ryan.............

Travis....




Brooke...

Cassie....


Blast from the past!!!!

By the way, just for you, it always amazes me how our connection stands the test of time and how the very morning I write about you......... that evening you call. All that static in the backgorund is just noise...we are still fabulous, Ms. Peebody!!!

Mon Prince, Don't Give Up On Paris.

Do you ever wish you could open the book of your life and rewrite certain chapters? I think of choices I made that seemed to not be such a big deal, but looking back changed the entire course of my life. I remember having the opportunity to go to Paris and then backing out for some stupid reason, probably because I could not stand to leave some forgetable boyfriend for twelve days, who knows, but whatever the reason was, it was not a good enough reason.

Maybe it is mid-life, thinking about directions you have taken and how maybe a trip to Paris would have heald some inspiration that changed everything. I was supposed to go to college in Virginia. Me and my best friend from high school would live together, me going to Old Dominion and her going to a court stenographer school . We sat for hours on end, planning our future far from where we were, leaving this depressed area and living a life that was one adventure after another. I, again, stayed and went to college in state, because of, what else, my boyfriend.

There are just moments in time where you know that what you turned away from took you to a place of no return. Unfortunately, you only see that years after the fact. Ryan seems to be in one of these moments and it has caused me to really examine mine. It makes me wanna be there to keep him on the path I believe he wants to take, and yet part of life, a giant part, is making those mistakes. And, so, for better or for worse, you are faced with decisions and impacts and you do the best you can, you try and recover, you grow older, you think too much and you want to help your kids understand the importance of decisions and how they should go for everything they ever wish to have out of this life.

And every so often, you think about being young and what Paris would have been like.

The Playmates

Brooke has made some new friends. They live across the street, at least that is their legal address. By time spent, it should be our address. OMG, they will not go away. (You know that one with the ex-wife face and her sister)

They showed up here at noon, they harassed the entire family for hours (8 hours, 23 minutes and 42 seconds to be exact), they handed me potatoes as I peeled them for dinner, they walked in on me peeing, they broke stuff, rearranged stuff, drug stuff over from their house, asked to eat stuff, when I said no they waited til I left the kitchen and made their own stuff, they asked for a weekend sleepover, hot dogs, chips, drinks, and Ryan even took off a little early just to get away from them.

You may wonder why we did not send them home. We did several times and that was followed by a Brooke fit and a Brooke "stopping of a fit" when they returned 2 minutes later, anyway. The older one opened the door every 30 seconds, once we insisted they must play outside, to give us a play by play and ask for more stuff. At one point, we were sitting in the living room and she started opening the door again to which Ryan yelled, "GO AWAY, CLOSE THE DOOR, GO HOME!!!!" Then she only opened the door to bother us every 2 minutes.

Ryan may be quitting the football team. His backside is sore from taking it up the ass since this season began. His coach is a lying stack of horse shit and I almost hate him as much as that older little girl that plays with Brooke. Yeah, it is almost that bad.

We are still waiting to see if crazy, "bitch", land contractee will actually leave the house. I have her in my cell phone under that name. She is listed right under "ass", the mortgage company guy and "a low life", the land contractor that never pays her escrow.

Because I am a forgiving type person, I decided that if I win the lottery, cause I so am going to someday..that I will send them both 50,000 bucks in an invitation to kiss my ass.

The Doomsters

I feel like being close to me must certainly be a burden. I am either talking about cleaning up after a disaster or freshly entering one. My poor friends are, all, it will work out, see it is working out now, and then, OMG, When did THAT happen???? It might be funny if was not so, well, not funny at times.

Anyway, the tradition continues with Cassie. It is a curse, I tell ya! She has these two crazy girls that pick on her constantly, call our home, write mean things to her whenever she pops online and one of of them made a really bad myspace pretending to be her. So, being the parents that do not want to run to the school with issues that are not happening in school, we offered her several ways to deal with it and we carry on. Then, last week one of the girls brought her mom in to school complaining about Cassie bothering HER daughter and then the other one did it today. Cassie is all in shock and the school called to tell me that they have a feeling these two girls "may be lying and tend to be trouble makers". No, really???

It is striking Ryan as well. His football career at the place that promised him everything under the sun has turned on a dime and regardless of how well he plays, they take him out and treat him all third class, second string-like. He also just seems to be stuck between pure shock and WTF??

I hate that we passed this strange curse to our offspring. Like me, they get into this attitude of "it will all work out", "no biggie" and "we'll get through it, we always do". Our life sort of follows "every silver lining has a black cloud" instead of vice versa.

It is like during tax return time. We get all happy we have a few extra dollars, then the cars breaks down, a water pipe busts, and we get some crazy gas bill. We look at our account go back to nothing and say, "Well at least we had the money to take care of it, I guess". But lately, I am seeing another side of positive. The side that does not F'in exist!!! The side that hasn't done shit for me!!! The side that can Pollyanna my ass!!

Oh, well. I'm sure it will all work out in the end. That is better than the alternative,I guess. (defeated sigh).

The BB finale is tonight. Seeing Kaysar will make it all better, if only for an hour. Or I could end up pissed, like ever year, that it is only an hour long and I am so wrapped up in what happens to these freakin' weirdos that I get mad that they leave me hanging with major lack of information!!

Shit Creek

Well, the land contractee promised me the money on Friday, never showed up and then after I violently beat on her door Saturday morning(she never answered), she called and said she would be out by the end of the month. Now I get to go clean up someone else's mess again and try and get that house in shape for resale. Sigh...... My life is even making me speechless lately.

I feel so anxious from all the crap. I mostly want to sleep and deal with nothing. I had the flood of tears erupt on my way to Ryan's game Saturday and had to turn around until I could make their involuntary attack stop. The tears did stop and I went to the game. Ryan got a touchdown and was rewarded by being taken out of the game. We can't have him showing up the other QB, apparently. I miss the tears now, as they have been replaced with the inability to cry and instead I have a weight on my chest that makes it hurt to breath, my legs and arms tremble a lot and I can't seem to stop them and I just want to wake up from this nightmare. You can only try to be positive, despite the constant chaos, for just so long...til your mind and body are just not buying that everything will be okay anymore.

I will roll with the punches, but this one may leave a few scars. I just have to carry on and do the best I can to get the house sold and not sink under all the stress. Life goes on and I have to jump back in eventually, preferably after about 72 hours of sleep.

Holy Mother of Christian Pre-School

We took Brooke for her first day. She was a bit cranky from being woken up at 815am, she was bossy, not cooperating with getting her hair combed, refusing breakfast, and whining while getting dressed. I, of course, forgot to buy the gallon ziploc that I must label and insert her drink box and snack each day. I even forgot the drink box and snack and had to make an emergency trip to the store. I'm all organized like that. I forgot to get the regular-sized bookbag and sent her with a half sized one. The other kids were all proudly sporting their backpacks that started at the top of their heads and ended at the back of their knees....note to self, get with it!!

So. we take her in and I am not feeling anything too emotional during the traffic jam walk down the stairs, nor the jammed up hallway or classroom. I direct her to an empty seat and BAM, choked up with tears, totally freakin' can't stop 'em tears are getting ready to explode from my eyes!! But, no!! She cannot see this, I must make a fast exit. Bob is already sensing it and places his hand on my back, gently pushing me, then aggressively urging me out the door. I make my escape without completely making a fool of myself and instead do that in the parking lot while other people are passing me to drop of their children. It doesn't help that I am in my giant t-shirt, grey sweats, period outfit, especially when Bob informs me of a spot of blood on the back of me. It becomes more clear to me everyday that my childhood, the one where proper people raised me to have some class was all in my imagination and I was truly raised by cave people. The uncombed, crazy, bedhead hair only further confirms it.

The two and a half hours passed by slowly today and we left ten minutes early to pick her up to find children starting to exit. We walked up to the door and some parents in front of us where greeted by their waiting three year old with hugs and a giant smile of relief, like "Yay!! Mommy and Daddy!!". Brooke sees us and backs up the stairs, as though her torturers have found her once again and OMG NOOOOOO!! She says, "I stay at school!". The teacher's jaw drops, Bob and I share a panicked look cause we so know that a graceful exit is not gonna happen and this will involve a forceful carry out of the fitting toddler. We were so right and the fit continues for a block til we reach the car where she lay on the sidewalk begging us to go home so she can go back to school. Parents pass, surely making judgements about why a child is so reluctant to leave with her parents and I fear the state will be at the door soon. I shake in horror thinking about Friday at 1125am.

W get in the car and I ask, "Why do we have such weird offspring?". He shrugs as we compare the 2 each we had from previous marriages and how they were so normal and these two we created are so bad for our parent rep. We should be seasoned pros, when did we lose control? It sucks to retire on a losing season.

Speaking of which, my dad calls all pissed about Ryan's lack of playing time and insists he must be released, he is calling the coach right NOW cause he is all spazzy like that. He practically hangs up on me, Bob hurries to call back to talk him out of it, I call Ryan to warn him and Ryan is laughing so hard he can hardly respond. This immediately puts me at ease and all is well on that front...Dad did not quit for Ryan.

The little four year old that comes daily and eats all our food is asking for some food right now and her striking resemblence to Bob's ex-wife is starting to give me nightmares. They have the exact same face..EXACT!! What are the odds?? I find it hard to look at her because it starts making me feel like I am in some unreal dimension where adult faces are on toddler-like bodies and it is some freakish invasion. If a toddler Aunt Dee Dee shows up, I am so outta here!

Check up

Miss Brooke had her 3 year check up 5 months late because it was required before she started pre-school tomorrow. Nothing like waiting til the last minute.

She in the 97th percentile for height. Is there any limits to what my genes can do??? They produce tall girls in spite of a dad with near dwarfism, they had to take most of the burden on intelligence and all those good looking children did not take after daddy! (Poor Bob, the PMS force is strong with me). Unfortunately, as good as they have done in those ways, they are also to blame for several neurosis type behaviors as well. But being a bit weird is perfectly acceptable if you are also realy cute.

Brooke was really good at her appointment and pointed to pictures of houses and circles and did her job well in making us look good. I forgot that giant feeling of pride when the doc is all looking at this little human, checking charts, looking in ears, eyes and mouth, and making you feel like, damn, she is perfect! Good job, parents! She looked so cute too in that little Cat in the Hat paper, noisy robe thingy. She liked that robe so much she ordered us to bring it home and Bob, knowing the consequences of not following orders (I credit myself for that one) promptly folded it up neatly and stuck it under his arm.

By the way, I never mentioned that I did get the dog back that day. I found it hiding from me on the porch of that place it always goes. I yelled for her, she not only ignored me, but tried to look invisible by ducking down and backing behind a pillar. I left, hurt from the rejection and sent Travis to fetch her. I felt maybe we were just not the home for her if she was so into those other people, but then she got loose a few days later and just ran to the front of the house, I walked out and she ran up to me all playful like and wagging her tail. It made me feel better Better as in "HA!!!! I win!!".

The land contractee and I had a long talk, that consisted mostly of me talking, well yelling, and she is supposed to get the money right to me this afternoon. Since 99.9 percent of what she says never happens, I am not holding my breath. I am ready for round two though. She ruins my finances, but she ain't so bad during PMS, the aggression I was able to unload was very satsifying and offered Bob the rare opportunity to not be the number one target for a few hours.

I think it is safe to say, he secretly thanks her too.

Bum, bum, bum bum..........

I'm not sure if it the fact that Ryan was wronged Saturday in his game, that Brooke is now up to 6 full hours of tantruming per day, that I still do not have a payment from land contractee or that land contractor has not paid the escrow part for over four months, but I just wanna crawl in a hole and never come out.

PMS is certaining appearing and will only make matters worse for the next few days. I know this because Bob's chewing, walking, breathing, voice, ear hair, short, stubby toes and his entire existance is on my nerves so bad, I find it hard to breathe at times. It is not bad enough that it is all on my nerves, but there are only two ways to react, bitch or swallow the frustration. I have practiced both extensively today. They both suck.

Brooke, like clockwork, has arrived in one hell of a fit as I sit here writing. Which reminds me, for some reason, that we are out of toilet paper and um, low on bread. I would love to stay and help with this hairy tantrum, but seriously, we are out of toilet paper and all. Gotta run!!!!