He's not fat.

Mark and Sebastian are typical brothers, calling each other names, picking on each other, fighting, brothers.
Well this evening Sebastian called Mark fat, Mark called him a not-so-nice name back, and then a little bit later when I was in my room stretching out, Mark came in to talk to me.

He asked me if he was fat, did I think he needed to be on a diet, cutting out carbs, taking some sort of diet pill like Fentraphen or something like I was taking.

I emphatically said NO.
I told him that he's still growing, he's not fat, he may be a little overweight, but for his height, a few workouts and it would all turn to muscle.
I told him if it concerned him, that he should ride his bike more, or go and see if he can get back in the weight room at school again, join a sport or something, but no, in my opinion, he is not fat.
Fat to me is really overweight, which he is not, he has love handles, small ones, but he's still growing, and he'll be fine, but under no circumstances did I think he should take any supplements to help him lose weight.
We talked for a bit longer about food that he likes to eat, maybe not eat so much of them, that we could go shopping and buy more fruits and veggies, get outside and ride his bike, do more stuff, and he seemed to be ok after that.

I really hate that both boys and girls are plagued by the word "fat", that it weighs so heavily on their minds, that they see all these images of "perfect" bodies and think that they are somehow less than those images, not good enough.
I'm not sure how to help more than that, how to make him see that he's not fat, but he certainly doesn't have to try and be the perfect body either, because those bodies are airbrushed and photoshopped, and even people like Beckham get a sock stuffed in their underwear to sell more Armani.
No body is perfect, every body, has flaws, but you have to live as healthy as you can and be happy for yourself, not other people's ideas of perfect.

He's taking guitar class.

Sebastian is.
He signed up for introduction to guitar this year, and because we can't afford to buy one, we're renting one from the school.
It's not expensive at all, just $50 for the year, but I don't have the whole amount right now, so they said I can send in whatever I do have every month or every week, whatever works best for me.
So on my next payday which is next week, I'll send in $20 of it, then pay my bills with the rest, and then on the next payday, I'll pay the other $30 off.

Because we're renting it, if it gets damaged, we are responsible for the full price which is like $300, which I definitely don't have, so to prevent it being damaged at home, he's just going to leave it at school every day.
The school said if it gets damaged on school property by another student or the janitor or whatever, then we won't have to pay for it.
So I told Sebastian to just go ahead and leave it at the school.
I do not want to be responsible for it being broken at home, or stolen from our home, or because they walk home, have some jackass kid try to beat him up and steal it or something like that.

But I do think it's cool that he's taking lessons.
He loves music, he's always been interested in the guitar, so I'm hoping he takes to it pretty easy.
Once he gets good at it, I'll have to try and buy him a used one so he can have one all the time, that is if he likes playing and is good at it.
That's another reason I'm renting.
Kids are fickle, especially him, if he hates it, then I'm not out a huge amount of money on an instrument that's just going to collect a lot of dust.

Learn something new every single day.

Joana and I were on a forum we both frequent this afternoon, when the subject of Quinceanera came up.
Being from up north, I had absolutely no idea what that was, so I asked.
Joana posted a bunch of information about what exactly it is.

Basically, when a young girl from a Spanish or Mexican family/culture, is coming of age, the family sends out these beautiful Quinceanera invitations to family and friends to come celebrate the girl turning 15, the age at which she goes from being a girl to a young woman.
They are huge elaborate parties, and a special Catholic mass for her, and the whole thing is usually paid for by her godparents.
The girl wears a very formal dress almost as elaborate as a wedding gown with a veil, and she will have attendants, other girls who are also dressed in formal white gowns, and who will lead in for her at both the ceremony and the dance afterwards.
Most of the guests are family, some friends will be invited, but it's mostly a ceremony and function to announce the new young woman to society.

According to the information Joana posted, it's a pretty big deal.
I always enjoy learning new things about people and their cultures, their ceremonies and stuff, so thanks Joana for teaching me something new today.
I would have probably never learned about this otherwise as my sons and I would never have a reason to be invited to something like this.

Trying to get things done.

Now that the teens are back in school and not laying around the house making messes, I'm attempting to get the place cleaned and organized so when people come over while I'm in the hospital and when I come home, they aren't walking into a pig sty.
I've scrubbed the entire bathroom today, the shower, bathroom, and kitchen faucets.
I will scrub and bleach the kitchen sinks the night before I leave.
I'll mop the floors too.
I really have to tackle the table of death, again.
I swear, the kitchen table is just the perfect spot to dump the mail and everything else that I don't know what to do with right away.

I need to call FPL and Verizon, and the water company, and see if they can do like a one time payment type thing, because the day I normally pay my bills, I'll be in the hospital.
I don't know what kind of shape I'll be in when I get back, so I don't know if I'll be in any shape to sit up and pay the bills.
I need to call them and ask, it can't hurt to figure out if they'll help me out with that.
I'm going to try that before the teens get back home.

Normal schedule finally?

Both the teens have now gone back to school again, hopefully there will be no more gaps between days.
This entire house needs to get back on the school schedule and stay there.
It was a long summer of staying up late, sleeping in half the day, and basically being as lazy as possible, but now we all need to be back on schedule and get cracking on what needs to be done.

I'm happy to report that the acne products I bought for Mark over the summer have worked really well, his skin looks good and clear, he's happy, so I'm happy.
The both of them have started taking more interest in their appearance over the summer, so hopefully they will keep that up all year.

When they get home this afternoon, we might need to go to the store, I haven't decided yet, but I bought hurricane supplies, not actual meals, so I think I may need to go back and get some real food for dinner.

Fay fail.

Fay? Fay?

I think tropical storm Fay forgot to turn on the rain faucet for this area.
It never fails, they call school off, they open the schools as shelters, and then the storm never actually hits, and so the county is now out millions of dollars because the storm never even came close so they can't get the money back from the federal government.

They called school far too early yesterday, they should have waited until 6pm to make that call because at 6, they knew it wasn't coming here.
But the panic that the local weather people create every time there's the possibility of a storm, just drives me nuts.
I hate it.
As late as 1am, they were still telling people to get into their interior rooms when the winds start, yet they knew and were telling people, that the storm was going to make landfall far far south of us.
And now on the noon news, they are talking about the damage that we didn't get.
Pure craziness.

Not enough time, not enough money.

I finally got some affordable term life insurance quotes that I can afford, but now that I found them, I don't have enough money to make the first monthly payment right now.
With how fast time is passing until I have my neck surgery, I just don't have enough time or money to do everything that I need to do.
I still have so much to do and take care of.
I have to go get a pre-surgery physical to clear me for the surgery, it has to be done by a primary care physician, not my surgeon, not my pain doc, and because my old primary care doc is so busy, there are no available appointments before my surgery. I begged them to just squeeze me in, but they said they just don't have any open slots at all.

My pain doc gave me a name for one that they use, and I do have an appointment for next Monday, the 25th at 10am.
My surgeon is faxing over all the details of the work I've already had done as well as what the new surgery is so that she knows why I have to have the physical, and then yee haw, I get to go be poked and prodded, and put in stirrups, and all that jazz.
I really hate the pre-surgery physical.
It's so detailed.
No body par is left untouched or not looked at.
But it's ok, I'm dealing with it all and I know that things are going to be ok.
The teens have gotten a lot more accepting of the whole thing especially since I'll only be gone for 4 days.
They are really happy about that, and so am I.
I'm very greatful that it's nowheres near as long as the first spine fusion.

Bye, thanks for the mess to clean up.

My neighbors have officially moved out.
They were mostly finished on Sunday evening, they came back today for just a couple more things, and then her husband came back over supposedly to clean up all the trash.
Wanna see his idea of cleaning up all the trash?
You can click for bigger.

He pushed all of their trash cans over near mine, and just dumped a bunch of stuff on top of them.
Broken garbage bags, pool floaties, moldy wet carpets, all kinds of crap.
Then over on that side of the duplex, is all the rest of their garbage.
There's no trash pickup tomorrow, it will come on Wednesday instead, but they aren't going to be coming back to put theirs to the curb.
Her husband said to me after I went out and told him about the no trash pick up due to the storm, "Well your boys can take care of this on Tuesday night then. You were good neighbors, the wife is really sad about leaving you, you were a good friend to her. All she's done is cry because we're moving away from you. Call her every now and then would ya? She really cares about you and your boys."

She is a good woman deep down, no matter how messed up their lives were, she did try to be a good person, she did care, and I know that when we said our goodbyes on Sunday, she was really choked up about moving away from us.
She said she didn't know what she was going to do now, what will happen to her when she has another diabetes spell, I was always there, I always heard her and came over to help, what's she gonna do, she just kept saying.
I told her she could call me anytime, I couldn't go to her, no car, but she could talk to me whenever she wanted.
She just cried even more.

But damn that man for leaving all that fucking trash for us to take care of.
The boys and I will take care of it, I don't want the landlord to have to deal with it, he works so much as it is, and he's going to have to do some major cleaning in there before he can rent it out again, so we'll deal with their trash on Tuesday night.
Well, whatever doesn't get blown away in tomorrow's storm.
I just can't believe they left all of that crap.
At the curb, he put a huge blue sectional sofa and a microwave before I finally realized someone was out there and told him about the no trash pick up.
I should have just let him take it all to the curb had I known he was going to be an ass and not come back to take care of it himself.
Sometimes, I just don't think things all the way through.

Fay makes pretty painted skies.

Tropical storm Fay is no longer a cat 1, but it will still be windy, we may still lose power, but right now, the skies are gorgeous.
Like fire, pinks, blues, it's just beautiful out there.

Hello Fay.

I'm fine, just having my usual freakout spasms and crap from the weather, and muscle relaxers are messing with my head.
School is already canceled for Sarasota county tomorrow, it's a cat 1 or less, not more, no worries.
We have plenty of food an water, we're good.
The power will probably go out, but eh, that's nothing.
I'll be back later on when I feel better.

So much for that idea.

I was planning on going grocery shopping, but then the skies opened up and the heavy rains started. coming down.
And my neighbors who are moving, have parked all of their cars and trucks loaded with stuff. underneath the carport.
Yay.

Birthday dinner and shopping.

Dinner with the family was a really good time as always.
Susan and Skye were so damn cute.
Skye, who hate vegetables, actually ate one of the Chinese green beans in less than 3 minutes this time.
That's a huge accomplishment for her, even though we did have to nudge her a little with other little food treats.

Susan absolutely loved her first aid kit I gave her for her birthday.
I know that's weird gift, but she has a little animal hospital toy I gave her for this past Christmas, and it's her most favorite thing to play with.
She is also always playing doctor with all her stuffed animals, putting band-aids on people, just all kinds of little doctor bandaging fun, so when she saw the kit and opened it to all those different sizes of band-aids and eye patches, and finger splints, and butterfly band-aids, she was in little doctor heaven! It was far too cute.

After dinner, we went to the dreaded Walmart because they are the cheapest place to buy stuff, and with the state not doing the tax free holiday week like they do every year, I had to go where it was the cheapest to buy clothes.
I got the boys all their new shorts, t-shirts, socks, boxers, and new backpacks.
My sister bought their new sneakers for them to help me out.
And I managed to find a new pair of Dr. Scholl's sandals, not the same style, but they were mighty comfortable, easy to get on, and on sale.
Then we came home and Mark and Sebastian started playing the new video game Mark bought with some of his birthday money.

We'll be heading to the grocery store tomorrow morning to stock up on food and stuff.
Tropical Storm Fay is due to head this way by Tuesday, so we'll stock up on all kinds of canned goods and stuff in case the power goes out.
Later days.

He's 17 today.

My first born, my baby boy, is 17 today.
When my Mom and Dad called this morning to sing happy birthday like they always do, they were surprised to hear the very man like voice that answered.
He has a big deep voice, he's over 6feet tall, he's awesome, kind, caring, compassionate, and all around great young man.
I am so proud to be his mother, and wish him a very happy birthday today.

Tonight, we'll be going out to our traditional Chinese buffet to celebrate his birthday, and Susan's 5th birthday too.
It's something we've been doing every year, it's our fave place to go, and I'm sure we'll all have the same good time we always do.
Then we need to go clothes shopping.
Either tonight or tomorrow, because school starts Monday, and it's the last thing we need to get.

Digital picture frames.

If I didn't have to still get the teens all of their clothes, shoes, and backpacks for school still, I would totally take advantage of Buy.com's weekly sale they are having right now.

They have a Nextar 7" digital picture frame on sale for just $39.99.
They are normally $120.00, so this sale price is a HUGE savings of $90 off the normal price.
I want to get two of them, 1 for each grandparent's house, and then every few months, fill up a small memory card with all new pictures, and mail it off to them with the super easy instructions for taking out the old one, and popping in the new one.
It would make it so the grandparents have fresh pictures of all of their grandkids every 4-6 months, that would play in a rotation on their desk, coffee table, or nightstand, all of the time.

It features:
* picture Rotation And Review
* slideshow Functions
* black and Acryllic Frame
* supports Jpeg Pictures
* compatible With Sd", Mmc, Ms Cards And Jump Drives

Buy.com is also offering free shipping on this item, so I could get two of them, for less than the price of one, and pay no shipping on them.
They only have a limited stock, so by the time I do get the money for them, they won't have any left, and then the price will go back up, which is my standard luck.
Oh well.
I will keep looking at the weekly deals.
I'm still waiting for them to put up HD tv antennas.