My Single Mom Life

My super cutie niece Susan is here today, she brought some movies like Blues Clues, and The Last Unicorn, some toys, and her trophies from Tae Kwon Do class, her belts, so that I could see them.
She loves taking it, and she's so good at it.
We talked about her new school, she goes to kindergarten now, amazing.

I haven't seen The Last Unicorn in a long, long time, a true Rankin/Jules classic.
If you've never seen it, you should.
It's just a truly beautiful story line and film.
We're watching that one right now and eating lunch, but we just got done watching one of my all time faves and the one Christine surprised me with this week, The Nightmare Before Christmas (2-Disc Collector's Edition) + Digital Copy.
I of course sang along to every song, the teens did too, we all love this movie.
And the DVD version is a great copy, it's mastered so well, the images so crisp and vibrant, the sounds clear, a really good dvd version.
I snapped this pic of one of the ending scenes (Poor Jack) where Jack realizes that he wasn't meant to have Christmas, that Halloween really is his day, it is the reason he exists, and he the reason it means so much to so many.

Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did!

And for the first time since I don't remember when
I felt just like my old bony self again
And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King
That's right! I am the Pumpkin King, ha, ha, ha!

Such a cool movie, I can't wait to watch all the extras later on.
Danny Elfman is a genius in my opinion.
His words, his music, the motion, it's what makes the movie so special.

Posted by Kat at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the things I like about going grocery shopping with Sebastian, is that we get to talk.
We walk there and then cab it back, but the whole way there, it's just he and I talking about whatever crosses his mind.
Today we got to talking about his new social life.

He got asked on a date.
By someone he doesn't really like all that much, but he was polite turning them down anyway, which is good, is what I taught him to do, but then he told me about who he does like.
Which was even cooler.
I won't divulge her name, he trusted me with this information, he trusted me to talk to me about it all, so yeah, I feel pretty good right now.

Then we got to Publix, checked the vendor coupon rack, and the clearance table where I found a good deal on the conditioner I like to alternate with every few weeks, and I had 2 coupons for $1 off 1 bottle, and 1 coupon for $2 off 2 bottles.
I needed to use the 2 $1 off coupons, they were set to expire on the 31st, so I like to carry my coupons that are set to expire with me every time I go to the store just in case I find deals like this.
Anyway....
They had Loreal Vive for dry hair, 2 for $2.99, so I bought 4, and using my coupons, I got 4 bottles for just $1.98.
They also had some assorted Loreal hair color, not my color, so I passed those up, and they had a big basket of patio furniture covers on clearance as well.
I did notice that they had a whole bunch of patio chairs and tables outside the doors, on sale to get rid of them, it is the end of the season after all, time to get rid of the summer stuff.
They had a whole bunch of other stuff, and I probably would have dug around a bit more but Sebastian starts getting antsy if I spend too much time at the clearance table.

Then I went around and picked up all the food and stuff I had on my list, and then checked out.
We then headed over to Subway to grab some subs to eat at home for dinner tonight.
This wasn't my normal shopping trip, this was just extra food for the long holiday weekend.
The teens eat a lot normally, and with the long holiday weekend, I had to go get more food, plus we're having my niece Susan over for the day tomorrow.
Yay!
I love it when she comes to play for the day!

But anyway, I did have a list and some coupons, so here's how it went down today.
Total price before coupons;
$113.78
Total coupons:
$38.50
Out of pocket price:
$75.28

That's not great, but also not bad considering this was just a small weekend pick-up trip.
On my next shopping trip, it will be the big one, so I'm going through and making my meal plan list, recipes, and all of that like described below.
Ok, off to do more stuff.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Devilish Southern Belle says she needs help shopping for groceries and saving money using coupons, so I told her I would explain how I do it.
I'm not one of those CVS deal getters, or points people, I only shop for food at grocery stores and use coupons.
I probably could save far more money, get more stuff for free if I did did those other things, but I like to get in and get out, not spend a lot of time going store to store.
So here's how I do it.

I make out my weekly meal plan list, what I want to cook every single day for meals, and also add in extra foods like snacks, fend for yourself meals, and desserts and treats.
Then I make out the shopping list based on the meal plan list.
Then I go through the cupboards and fridge/freezer, crossing things off of the list that I already have on hand so I don't buy duplicates of on-hand items. (unless the item is running low and I need it anyway)

Then I go to my store's website to see the list of sale items for that week.
I use Publix, and they publish the weekly sale flyer on line every week.
I go through their list of sale items and add a check mark to anything on my list that is on sale.
If they have my item as a buy 1 get 1, I check it plus add a "+2" next to it.
I do this for the whole list.
Then I go through the flyer again, adding items they have on sale that I just want because they are good deals.

Then I go grab all of my coupons and go through my shopping list and add a "C" next to any item that I have a coupon for.
Then I go through the sale flyer on their site again, and matching any coupons I have to any items they have on sale that are a really good deal.
For example, do I have a coupon for say, Buy 2 boxes of General Mills cereal, save $3.00, and do they have it on sale buy 1 get 1? If so, I add it to my list.
Or they might have buy 1 get 1 on Campbells select soups, and I have a coupon to save $2 off 1 can? The price per can is $2.35, I save $2 + I get 1 can free, making my total price for 2 cans of soup just .35 cents.

I stack all of my going to be used coupons into a pile, grab my list, stuff it all in my purse and head out to the store.
When I get there, I stop at their rack of other sale flyers from vendors, and go through it to see if there are any coupons for anything else on my list I didn't already have one for.
If so, I tear out that coupon and add it to my pile.
My first stop is always the clearance rack or table, to see if any items on the table are on my list, because that's even bigger savings.
It's usually stuff like shampoo/conditioner, soaps, cleaning products etc, so if they're on my list and/or have a coupon, double, sometimes triple savings.

The least amount of money I've ever saved on a shopping trip has been about $20, and the most has been almost $100, so I always use coupons on every single trip to the store, and speaking of, I'm outta here.

Posted by Kat at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know what came over the teens last night, it was an all night battle between them.
They argued over every single little thing.
It carried all the way into bed time, with them yelling at each other from their rooms.

What was it all about?
If you guessed the Xbox you'd be right.
They were arguing over the friends lists to be specific, on whose friends are whose, who each can talk to when it's their turn to play, all kinds of really idiotic reasons for arguing.
I put the squash on it, I had finally had enough, I had been dealing with my own stupid people all afternoon, so yeah, kill the problem between them.
How did I do that?
I told them that the very next time that I hear any type of squabble over that damn box, I'm removing it from the house.
I'll just take it and give it to their Aunt Jo to take home, that way, even if I cave on the grounding, they can't play it, it will be all the way in Bradenton with no hope of getting it back right away.
They both stared at me with a face that said 'you wouldn't dare', but I said oh yes I would, try me!
And I went to bed.

And I slept like crap.
I have to take water pills to help with my blood pressure, and even just taking one per day in the morning, means I'm up all night peeing.
I feel like in order to get any sleep at all, I need to buy myself some incontinence supplies and just pee myself instead of getting up and down all night long.
Ya know, I could get rid of the Xbox all together.
The next time they fight over it, I could just take it in the bathroom, lay it down in the tub, ventilation holes up, and pee on it, fry the motherboard.
I could do this at a moments notice, I'm peeing more than a dozen times per day now on thse dang water pills.

Posted by Kat at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every night at bedtime, the teens and I usually get into a deep or disturbing conversation.
I really think they do it in the hopes that I'll be so involved in it that I'll lose track of the time and they'll get to stay awake longer.
Tonight's conversation was about pooping, more specifically, getting it all out by whatever means necessary.
They wanted to know about stool softeners, asked exactly how a colon cleanser works, why it is sometimes a different color, all kinds of crazy poop questions.
I swear, they did it to stay up later and be funny, and also have a moment of extreme grossness.

So I decided to gross them out.
I told them all about what happened to me during my last surgery, and the 3 times per day every day, stool softeners I was given.
I explained how the anesthesia combined with the constant IV injections of high dose, mega strength opiate pain relievers, turn the contents of your bowels into cement bricks, so they make you take a lot of stool softeners to get you moving again.
Well after 3-4 days of taking them 3 times a day, things certainly did get moving.

I started to explain exactly how well they worked, the color, the consistency, the smell, the hour of the night it happened, and that was as far as I got.
They both stopped me from going any further, Mark said "Oh! Look at the time! It's 11:39pm! We have school in the morning!", and they both darted off to their beds.

I think I've finally figured out how to stop the crazy conversations right before bed every night.
Just gross them out with stories of my bodily functions.
I really should have thought of this years ago.

Posted by Kat at 2:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Just wanted to update this entry.

I kept calling my ex-neighbors cell phone and not getting any answer, and her voice mail wasn't answering either, so I just kept calling about once an hour since she left.
She just called me about 5 minutes ago, said that she made it home ok, she was very very tired the whole way, so she cranked the AC, the radio, and also drove along with the windows rolled down, kept smoking cigs one after the other, and she had a diet soda with her, so she kept taking drinks at every red light or stop until she made it all the way home.

Once she got in the house, she kicked off her Crocs, put her purse and stuff down, she went to her fave chair, and she said as soon as she sat and got comfortable, she fell asleep, like just passed out.
She stayed asleep until just now.
She said her husband and son just let her stay sleeping and they ordered pizza for dinner, because she so very rarely sleeps, they figured she needed it.
She apologized for not calling me to let me know, and said her cell was in her purse so neither her husband or son heard it ringing, otherwise they would have answered it and let me know she was ok.
Then she started crying because she felt bad that she made me worry, and how much it sucked that we lived so far away now, she's scared about having something like this happen at home and have no one around, how I was always around for her when her diabetes would make her all sick and dizzy and stuff.

There's not much I can say or do about that, but I told her I was glad she made it home and was safe, that's all that mattered.

Posted by Kat at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was doing a combination of sitting at my coffee table and standing in the kitchen, working on my list of need to get items from Publix this week, listening to my mp3 player.
I was going through coupons and singing along, matching up the coupons I have with the items on my list and hoping that when Publix puts out the new weekly sale flyer tomorrow, that what's on my list and what I have coupons for, will be on sale so that I can get the most possible best buy on everything that I need.

So here I am going back and forth and room to room, opening the fridge and cupboards to check for needed items, seeing what I already have on hand that I can take off the recipe/shopping need list, flipping through recipes and jotting down what I want/need to make for each recipe for each day, seeing if I have coupons for those items, (thanks mom for the new envelope full you sent this week!) and be-bopping along, singing loudly, when I realized I have some fairly embarrassing songs on my mp3 player.
Like if a friend came in and picked it up, turned it on, and started scanning through my playlist, they'd probably start laughing at me.
I mean, I have a Kelly Clarkson song on there!

But then that got me thinking that we all probably have some songs on our ipods and players that we'd probably be a wee bit embarrassed if our friends found out, so tell me, what's the most embarrassing song you have on your mp3 player?

Blog title is from Kelly Clarkson's Since You've Been Gone.

Posted by Kat at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My ex-neighbor called me a little bit ago, wanted to swing by and pick up any mail that was still being delivered here until the post office completes the change of address switch, and she said she wanted to talk about something important.
Now knowing her as well as I've come to know her over the 4.5 years they lived right next door, my mind wondered what she wanted.
Did she need help at her new place to finish unpacking?
Did she need me to watch her son, did she want to sell me something because she had a bill to pay?
It could have been anything knowing her.

She finally gets here, honks the horn on her minivan, I grab her stack of mail and head to the carport.
She's disgusted she says, just look at this house!
Look at how clean the outside is!
Why didn't the landlord come pressure wash the house when we lived here?!
Damn him!
I just shook my head, shrugged, and said he's just been doing outside cleaning, gotta keep up on the lawn and stuff I guess.
But in my head I'm screaming, "He couldn't come pressure wash the outside of the house you crazy dirty woman! You had stuff, crap, boxes, weight benches, Halloween decorations, fish tanks, Gar-bage, all over the place out here, not to mention your actual garbage from inside your house that you'd pile out here, stack it as high as you could, use my trash cans when yours were overflowing and teaming with rancid meat and gallons of rotten milk! You wanted him to move all of that crap so he could pressure wash?!"

Then she starts telling me about the new house, they've only been living there for about 1.5-2 weeks now, and already, just as I suspected, she's already found multiple problems, leaks, the toilet runs, one of the windows doesn't close all the way, the air conditioner makes this weird rattling noise every night at like 3am that wakes her up from her sleep, when she can sleep that is, because she keeps hearing things she says, like an animal, maybe mice, or rats, in the walls. (This was said oh so dramatically, so I used multiple commas for effect)
I nod, not really sure how to respond to that.

She then starts telling me about her day, I'm patiently waiting for her to get to the "important" thing she needed to talk to me about, and she says that she just came from her new diabetes doctor, the one she waited 3 months to be able to see, and how when she got there they tried to tell her they couldn't see her, that they tried to call and reschedule her appointment, but when they called, her phone had been disconnected.
Here it comes I'm thinking to myself, she needs to either borrow some money to get it turned back on, or wants to sell me something so it can be turned back on.
She says she refused to be shuttled out, demanded to be seen, she had waited 3 months for this appointment and wasn't leaving until they saw her.
So they saw her and confirmed that her diabetes was seriously out of control.
They checked her levels and it was bad, so they wrote her a script for glucose and a monitor, but she told them she couldn't afford the monitor, so the doc gave her one for free, and then they gave her an injection of glucose and told her to go get her scripts filled immediately, taught her how to use the meter, how to inject etc, and then she left and came straight here.

She said for a few minutes, she didn't feel anything, but then it started to hype her up, that the whole drive here, she felt like she was on speed.
I started thinking about the one time my dc gave me a glucose injection, how it made me feel, and how other diabetics I know who have injected too much, have the same reaction I had that one time.
You get all hyped up, feel like you could run a marathon, lift a milion pounds, you feel awesome.
For about 20 minutes and then you crash hard.
Because the crash can hit you quickly and you get wicked way tired, almost to the point of passing out, you really have to be careful.
I didn't tell her any of this, she's still talking about her appointments, the bills, how her son is doing at his new school, when I see it happening.
Her eyes are rolling in the sockets, her eyelids start drooping, she's slurring her speech, and has started to drool.
She goes to start the car back up to go home, says she'll call me from her cell later on, but she was starting to feel tired so she wanted to get home, but oh yeah, she needs to go grocery shopping and her son is at school, so can I go with her. *slurr, drool, eyeballs rolling back*
I ask her to come in the house, cool off, take a short rest, she's not looking or sounding good I tell her, she's sugar crashing, she shouldn't be driving.
She says no, she's fine, can I go with her to Publix right now.
No, I tell her, come in the house, you shouldn't be driving, your eye lids keep closing, your falling asleep sitting here, please don't drive, come rest, it'll be ok but you need to rest, please come in the house and I've got some juice, you need some juice and to sit for a little bit.
No she says, she's slurring really bad now, cranks the key again but the car is already on, says she's got to go, go home and nap, she'll call me to go shopping later or take her son when he gets home.

Their new house is about 10 miles from here, you have to go down some really busy 8 lane roads to get there, lots of traffic lights etc, and all I can think is she's gonna crash, she's going to get in an accident and be the cause of it, and somebody is going to get hurt and I know she let her car/travel insurance lapse, it hasn't been paid since May, they couldn't afford it, and so when she gets in an accident and hurts somebody or really bangs up their car, she's going to be in trouble because of the no insurance thing, they will either give her a ticket or arrest her, most likely arrest her because this will be the 4th traffic stop, the 4th time being caught with no insurance, and they warned her that the next time they caught her, she'd go to jail.
I told her if she insisted on leaving right now and going home, to please call me and let me know she made it in the house safely.
She hasn't called yet, I tried calling her cell and got no answer.

Posted by Kat at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am so incredibly tired right at this moment, my insomnia from last night is catching up big time right now, but no, no time for that!
I need to get out to the kitchen and finish the silverware, then start dinner, and then help Mark figure out which of his secret hiding places, he hid his new pens that he got for his birthday.

My sister got him this really cool pen and digital pencil set for his birthday, he's a connoisseur of fine writing instruments, he finds some really nice pens sometimes, so sis got him his very own set.
They are heavy weighted, and wrapped in a silk red and black dragon print.
They are very nice.
But he put them in one of his secret hiding places, then took them out and used them, then put them in a different hiding place, took them out of there and used them, and then put them in another hiding place.
And now he can't recall which of his many little hiding places around this house he hid them last.
He wants to take the pen to school tomorrow, so he wants to find them and is freaking out because he can't remember where he put them.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to help a kid find his stuff in secret hiding places, if he won't tell you where the secret hiding places are?
See, if he tells me, then they won't be secret anymore, but mom, omg, help me find them!
Hahahaha
I have to laugh every time he says help me because he won't tell me any of the spots.
Then he gets mad because I'm laughing, and I'm trying to help him see how illogical he's being.

"Son number one-o, how can I help you find them in their secret hiding places, if you won't tell me where any of the secret hiding places are? You're getting mad at me for not helping you, but I can't my funny little man with the multiple secret hiding places, because I don't know where the secret hiding places are."

And then he got mad, stormed out of the room, and yelled, "You're not helping me any!"
And I laughed again.
I couldn't help it.
So I did the only logical thing I could think of without having to make him tell me any of the spots.
I asked him to try and re-trace his steps from the last time he used them.

That's when he gave me the teenage eye roll of death.
Moms, you all know that eye roll, one eyebrow up, one down, and the eyeballs go so far back in their heads, you think they're about to pass out.
We've been off and on looking for about an hour now, no luck yet, I hear him in his room mumbling something about mom, my special pens, dammit, where did I put them, crap, and a few other choice words.
I'll go back to helping him find them after I finish the dishes and start the burger for the enchiladas in the skillet.
Yup, enchiladas for dinner, Sebastian insisted.
Okey dokey pokey.

Posted by Kat at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I posted last night, Mark has a head cold, well, it was just a head cold.
Shortly after I posted last night, Mark sort of stumbled out to me, leaned over, said feel my head, and then said I have to go to bed mom.
His head was warm, his eyes were all glassy, his skin was pale, and off he went to bed after I gave him two more cold tablets and some more water so we could try to keep him from being dehydrated.

I went in to check on him a little while ago, woke him up to make him take some more water and ask how he was feeling, and his head was still warm, his eyes still glassy, and he just said "feel bad mom" as this sad little frown curled up his lips.
So he won't be going to school today, when Mark gets sick, he really gets sick.
And he rarely gets sick so I know that this is a serious, non-faked illness.
Mark only gets sick about once per year, but when it happens, it knocks him on down, and he's just useless.

Because all of his classes are modules, meaning he controls his own pace, and as long as the required amount of modules get completed every single quarter, he can take a sick day.
I know that when he's well enough to go back, he will do twice as many modules to bring himself back up to the pace that he set for himself this year.

Sebastian however, will be going.
He's done getting dressed and he'll be leaving for school shortly.
Mark can just stay sleeping until I'm ready to leave for my lab work, I'll check on him before I go, and then when I get back I'll check on him again, make him drink more water, maybe some juice if his throat is up to the acidity, and then I'll just let him get as much rest as needs to so he can get back to normal.

Posted by Kat at 6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That is Sebastian's armpit.
He came to me last night right before bed, all excited.
"Mom! Come see! Come see in the light! I have pit hairs!"
Can I take a picture? Can I blog it?
"Yes! You can take a pic! You can blog it! This is awesome! I have pit hairs! Woo hoo!"
Ok, be right there buddy. Hahaa

So I went in the bathroom and he raised his arm up.
There in his little 15 year old armpits, were a few strands of hair, maybe 6 or 7, maybe less.
But the fact that he finally had pit hairs was a major huge deal to him.
He had this huge cheesy grin on his face, his cheeks were beat red from a combination of laughing and embarrassment over his excitement about "starting to become a man."
He called Mark to come in and see it all too.
Mark laughed, he laughed, and then he begged Mark to show off his manly pit hairs.
Mark took off his shirt, and Sebastian's glee turned to embarrassment and a sort of sadness.
"Mark has more than me, he's really hairy, more man than me."
I explained to him that having lots of pit hairs isn't what makes a man a man, it's the things that man will do in his life that will make him a man.

Then he looked down at Mark's legs which are covered in dark hair, then lifted his own leg up, rubbed it up and down a few times, and then told me to rub it, to feel that hairs are starting to grow there too.
I obliged him and said "Yup, I feel them growing, you'll have lots of blond hairs on both your legs soon enough, this is your year young man."
He got that big cheesy red-cheeked grin back on his face, and then ran to jump in his bed where he waited for me to come in and do the blanket flip to 'tuck him in'.
I've been doing the blanket flip almost every single night since he was 3 or 4 years old.
He lays down flat on his back, I grab two ends of his blanket, and do the huge flipping motion to make it float back down and cover him completely.
He always giggles, gets red faced, and then tells me he loves me, he'll see me in the morning.
I give him a kiss on his forehead, tell him I love him, turn off his light, and go to say goodnight to Mark.
Mark who is older, more mature, and hasn't wanted his blanket flipped in several years now, is already in his bed, blanket on, doesn't want to be tucked in or kissed goodnight.
He prefers instead to high-five me, says "love ya", and I tell him I love him and then pull the string to turn off his light and leave his room.

They are my kids, my baby boys, but they are becoming men right before my eyes with all the teenage giggles and embarrassment of growing hairs in all those places that hairs grow.
They are also as different as night and day, two totally opposite people with different ideas of fun, different life plans are being mapped out, they fight all of the time, yet they are also the best of friends.
They are both kind and respectful towards others, they helped our landlord this afternoon haul the crap from the newly emptied duplex apartment next door, to the curb.

It is amazing how much crap the old neighbors left behind.
A washing machine, a huge rusted out meat smoker that was behind the house, a kitchen table, boxes, all kinds of stuff.
He had to rip out all of the carpeting from every room, they really did a number on that apartment, but he's going to be fixing and cleaning, re-painting, and laying down all new carpeting.
He's been in there every day for a few hours a day, just busting his ass to clean up the property.
We asked if he needed help, he kept saying no, but both boys saw him struggling to haul things out and all the way to the end of the drive, and they just jumped in and started grabbing the ends of the carpet rolls and huge wooden beams that neither the landlord or myself, knew where the hell they came from, and helped him take it all out.

In between helping him haul stuff, they mowed our lawn, and Sebastian even did a few rows near the drive, he can't go all the way into the grass due to some underground hornets nests and his allergies, but he helped as much as he could.
Mark has a head cold, he's all congested, so Sebastian is trying to help him with his chores.
It was hot out there, Mark had to keep coming in, drinking a lot of water, and standing in front of the AC to cool down.
When they finally finished with everything, I gave him a couple cold tablets and told him to lay on the couch with the cold AC blowing on him, and kept refilling his water glass.
I finished making dinner, they ate, and are now playing some video game together.
It's quiet in there, a little too quiet actually.
I fully expect some name calling or some sort of disagreement to break out soon.
That's how they roll.
One minute, best buds working in perfect harmony, the next, shouting at each other and ready to gouge out each other's eyeballs.

It still amazes me every day that these are my little boys, my babies.
They used to be so small, so needy, so cuddly.
They are grown up, growing up, and becoming really cool and interesting people.
I marvel at this whole mommy job every day.
It's constantly changing, my role that is.
It used to be the do it all for them role, cut up their foods into itty bitty pieces, bathe them, cuddle, read, play, tie their shoes and all kinds of other things.
Now my role is basically cook and laundry do-er.
They can do everything else for themselves, they don't need cuddling anymore, they don't need help tying their shoes, they just keep on growing up and doing for themselves, becoming their own individual people and doing it all on their own.

It's been such an interesting ride, at times I feel like I missed a few things along the way, but watching them, having some intense conversations with them, I think whatever I did miss out on seeing or being a part of, I somehow caught up with it anyway.
They really are turning out pretty freaking awesome.
They are mine, they are their own, and they will be really awesome men when they get older.

Posted by Kat at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We've been doing some cleaning all day as I've already posted, we've taken the trash out several times, and just now when we took another bag out, we found our trash cans knocked over and the bags ripped through.
There was a huge mess all over my carport, big nasty freaking trash mess.
So we had to get the hose to wash the driveway down after sweeping up the mess and re-bagging it all up again.

Well the hose is in the side yard, it was tangled up in some weeds, and a huge bees nest.
Sebastian is deathly allergic to bees, wasps, and hornets, and so that left Mark to have to dig out the hose from the weeds, and bring it around to the front so I could wash down the carport.
He had a can of bee killer in one hand, and was yanking the hose with the other hand.
He got stung 3 times.
Poor guy.
But he kept going anyway, dug the hose out, dragged it around the front, I washed down the whole carport, and then he took it back.
Where he got stung again.

He comes back in the house, not mad or anything, and Sebastian throws his arms around him, and gives him this giant hug and yells, "Mark! You did all of that by yourself because you love me! You're my hero!"
Mark looks at him and starts cracking up, then goes back to playing video games.

He's definitely a good brother and son.
I think we'll keep him.

Posted by Kat at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

That is my kitchen table, otherwise known as the table of death.
It collects everything as you can see.
I clean it off, get it all organized, and within a month, the stuff just piles back up on it again.
There's Christmas wrapping paper, Publix shopping bags, clothes, jewelry, kids paperwork, mail, junk mail, an HDMI splitter, flashlights, black lights, tools, shoes, fingernail polish, boxes, lotion, medical papers, all kinds of stuff and crap.

I am working on cleaning that table off slowly.
I'm doing the laundry today, the dishes, I vacc'd all the rooms, and I'll be cleaning each and every room as best as I can between now and when I go in for surgery.
I also bought some Febreze for pet odors, because the cats litter boxes are always smelly, and Nova is a big fat disgusting cat who doesn't clean herself very well, and so when she lays on the couch, I can smell it when I sit or lay down on the couch.
I just bought it yesterday, I don't know how well it works yet, like if it really kills pet smells, but I sprayed it around on the places she lays after I vacc'd the rugs, and am hoping it will really work.
I just don't want the teens to have to worry about getting and keeping the house clean, and I don't want anyone to come into the house, my sister, a home health nurse aide, or friends who may stop by to see me after, to come in here and see the house a total freaking mess.
That table is the bane of my existence though.
I don't know why I continue to pile stuff up on it.
No other spot in this house looks like that, nowhere, every other room is clean and organized, but that damn table, I should just get rid of it and then it won't happen anymore.

Posted by Kat at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm still checking the weekly deals at Buy.com and keep hoping that they put an hdtv antenna on sale soon, like before February 2009 when I'll absolutely need it.
It's either that or get an all new htdv like this one, a Westinghouse 46"inch LCD hdtv.

I can't afford that one, but maybe a smaller one at some point.
But that one is rather nice.
Whatever tv I do get, it would need an Integrated ATSC / NTSC Tuner to be able to pick up all the new hdtv signals.
The whole reason I need a new tv or a stronger hdtv antenna is because of the mandatory switch to hdtv that all tv stations are doing.
I kind of understand the whole thing, but not really.
I don't understand why people are being forced to upgrade to hdtv.
Not everyone has cable or can afford cable or satellite, so all of the people like me who can't, are being forced to by new tvs, new antennas, and that converter box, which I have, but it doesn't pick up all the channels.
As a matter of fact, it barely picks up any.
So maybe by February I'll win the lotto or something so I can afford a new tv like that one, or someone will put the kind of antenna on sale that I need.
I need an indoor/outdoor amplified UHF/VHF/HDTV antenna, that can be mounted anywhere, and hold really strong.
I only have wooden shutters on the outside of my cement house, I can't really mount it on the cement, so I would need it to hold to the shutters, and be able to run the cable through the window somehow.
I'll keep looking and hoping for one.

Posted by Kat at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Kat at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Kat at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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.

Posted by Kat at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Kat at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Kat at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Kat at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Kat at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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.

Posted by Kat at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Kat at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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.

Posted by Kat at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by Kat at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

Posted by Kat at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by Kat at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Kat at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

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.

Posted by Kat at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once a month, the teens and I order out for pizza, Chinese, wings or whatever, unless they have earned their own money and decide to order something.
Tonight we decided to try Dominos new Oven Baked Sandwiches, which they are only offering for a limited time.

They have 4 different tastes, chicken parm, Philly cheesesteak, chicken bacon ranch, or Italian.
We all have the same tastes, so we all got the chicken bacon ranch.
These sandwiches come steaming hot, we all had to let them cool a bit before trying them out.

The boxes they come packed in are specially designed to retain the heat, and believe me, they do.
The sandwiches themselves looked so damn good, just full of white meat chicken and bacon strips, a lot of ranch sauce, they looked good, but how would they taste?

All of us bit in at the same time, and it was this harmonic OMG yum!
They were awesome tasting!
This is probably the best hot sandwich I've had in a long time, very, very flavorful, packed full of meat, and they are also really big.
I could only eat one half of a half, of mine they were so large and filling.
Mark, my oldest food inhaler, will et my other half tomorrow for lunch.
And for just $4.99 each and a very good size.

If you like Dominos, and you like hot sandwiches, see if your local Dominos is offering these.
They will only be there for a limited time, so try one out soon!

Posted by Kat at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sebastian has been playing with his Sims 2 game the last few days, and he wanted to see what happens when you get to the last generation, and the last Sim dies.
But he rushed it, he murdered them all, he didn't fulfill all their life wants, so he didn't get the big finale finish that is supposed to happen.

He was really disappointed, so he's going to start all over again.
He went into neighborhood mode, and bulldozed his whole house down in a flash like a bunch of New York movers who don't want to miss happy hour, and started building an all new house, and an all new family to try and do the legacy challenge the right way, fulfill lifetime wants and needs, get all the points needed to get the big 10th generation finale finish.
I told him to take his time this time, not go through all 10 generations in 24 hours, and he may actually be able to do it this time.

He's so impatient.

Posted by Kat at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I had to go use the bathroom, but when I got to the door, it was partially open and the light was on.
I knocked and Mark answered, I said are you almost done, and he said yeah, you can come in, I'm just cleaning my face.
So I went in to grab a couple Q-tips to clean my ears while waiting on him to leave.
That's when I saw what he was doing to his face.
He had my Rubis tweezers and was using them to pop his zits.
I screamed at him, "What are you doing?!?"
He said he was popping his pimples and using the tweezers to do it because he doesn't have any fingernails to pinch the puss out with.
I was all what????
Not only is that disgustingly gross, but so so bad for his skin.
Popping pimples makes scars, it leaves your skin with those pocks when you get older, your face looks disgusting when you are much older.

I explained all of that to him, told him to never ever pop his pimples, to just wash his face really good with the acne bar soap I bought him, then wipe his whole face down with the Stridex pads, and then to dab some of the acne cream on the pimples and white heads, with a Q-tip every night before bed.
Between doing all of those things, the pimples will dry up over night, the white heads will be gone, and the pimples that hadn't formed into heads yet, will just dry up and never turn.
So he said ok, which is what he says every time I catch him popping his zits and telling him what to actually do, and then he just does it again anyway.

But now that I've caught him getting pimple juice all over my good tweezers, I certainly can't use them again to pluck my hairs with!
So I'll be investing in another new one, and I'm thinking that I want this one this time.
These are the ones I had been using and loved.

I'm grossed out now.
*gag*

Posted by Kat at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday we went to Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours for my niece Susan's birthday party.
I ran around with them taking pictures of them having fun playing games, winning tickets, getting prizes, eating pizza, and just having an awesome time.

I spent a lot of time hanging with my buddy niece Skye, she is so stinking adorable!
She is still fascinated with my body jewelry, my tongue ring to be specific.
When she was a baby/toddler, I used to stick my tongue out and she used to try and grab it.
She is still intrigued with it.
I kept dong it to her yesterday, sticking my tongue out, and she'd just stare at it, ask what it was, and then she'd try to touch it, and then giggle.

But Chuck E. Cheese is hell.
That place is absolute chaos.
This is what it says about their kid check program. Emphasis mine.

When you first arrive at Chuck E. Cheese's you will pass through our Kid Check area where parents or guardians will have their hand stamped with a number that matches their child's. This is our special way we try to assist you in helping that everyone who comes together leaves together. (This program is not a substitute for adult supervision.)

And the part I bolded up there about adult supervision is my biggest issue with Chuck E. Cheese.
There were kids everywhere, running all over, pushing other kids, one small child was going around and stealing the little cups full of tokens from other kids, climbing on tables and chairs, just absolute crappy behavior.
And the parents?
The parents were all just sitting at tables talking with the other parents and adults, paying no attention at all to what their heathen brat children were doing.

Chuck E. Cheese's motto is "where a kid can be a kid."
It does not say where a kid can be a complete jerk and steal from other kids, push them, run around and climb on tables, scream at decibels that would cause a dog's ears to bleed, and the signs do say that parents need to supervise.
But so many parents just let their kids do whatever while they sit there and gab to each other.
I find that it's an absolutely horrible place, I'm glad my sons are grown up and I will never have to take them there for a birthday party, ever.
It was dirty, dirty tables, dirty floors, and the behavior of the kids and the lack of parenting, just aggravated me to no end.
But I made the best of my time with my nieces who I don't get to see very often, I have a ton of pictures of them playing games and having a really good time.
I might post a few of my favorites later on, I did have fun with my girls, but man, that place is just absolutely horrible, it is my version of hell on earth.

Posted by Kat at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

After it stopped raining, Sebastian and I headed out to go to Walgreen's for my script, and Publix for some snackage and sodas.
On our way, we walked through the apartments up the street because our street doesn't have any sidewalks, and I finally got to snap a pic of the violet car.
It's not the best pic, it was taken with my cell phone, but it really is violet, I've never ever seen a car this color before in my life.
It's so purple-y fantastic!

We get to Walgreen's, and we see this mother looking at the big huge display of weight loss pills they have right at the front of the store, there's like 3 or 4 different brands on it, and she's standing there comparing them all while her son who looks to be about 12, is blowing up this big balloon.
We go out back to the pharmacy, hand her my script and my ID, and then sit down to wait the 15 minutes for her to fill it, and start people watching.
The kid has now successfully blown up his balloon, and is now kicking it up and down all the aisles of the store while drinking what looks to be a half gallon of milk.
He's going up and down, up and down, up and down each and every aisle.
Then there's this really loud *BANG!* as the balloon pops, followed by a really loud girly girl scream that came out of the 12 year old boy's mouth.
Sebastian and I are laughing hysterically, 2 old women who are in line at the pharmacy counter are clutching their chests, the pharmacist has this pissed off look on her face, and she calls for a manager to come back to the pharmacy for "a disturbance".
When the manager arrives, she tells him about the kid, and he goes off to find the kid and tell the mother he can't be doing that inside the store.
As soon as the manager is out of her eyesight, she smacks her kid upside the back of his head which sets Sebastian laughing even more now.

We get my script, and the pharmacist tells me to not take these pain pills with the pain pills that Doctor Moreno gave me on Tuesday.
I tell her I know that, and that Doc Moreno only gave me 3 days worth of pain meds until I could get to see Doc Riegel on Friday, yesterday, but I waited until today to pick them up.
She looks at her computer screen, and says oh, sorry, I thought he gave you 100 of the Lortabs, but now I see he only gave you 20 of them.
Yup, he covered me for 3 days, because my appointment with Doc Riegel had to be changed because he was in Philly all week, Friday was his first day back, and both docs are aware of what they gave me and how many they gave me.
I told her that my scripts would probably be changing in a month to the same ones I had taken back in February 2006 through May 2006, the harder stuff, I am going in for a laminectomy and fusion from C1 all the way down to T2, so she may want to go through my records and see what those were to make sure they have them in stock because last time they didn't, and I had to use a different pharmacy.
She said ok, and then typed it all up in my account file on her computer, wished me luck during the surgery, and we left.

Then we walked up the sidewalk to Publix where they are having some sort of kid's day activity things going on.
We grab the snacks and sodas we came for, and are heading out the door to leave, when one of the manager ladies that we've known for like 11 years now, calls Sebastian over to take on of the kids goody bags they are giving away.
He said he doesn't want it, it's for little kids, but she gives it to me and says there are snacks in it they she knows he'll like.
So I take the bag and we leave and start going through the little bag.
There's a coloring book, an activity book, a notepad, some crayons, a balloon, (aha! this is where that kid got it!) an apple, a mini Slim Jim, and a small bag with what looks like one Publix bakery sugar cookie, and a ziploc bag with some popcorn.

I tell Sebastian I want the apple, and he can have the Slim Jim and the cookie.
I think it's a totally fair deal, he gets 2 snacks, I get 1.
Well he opens the bag with the cookie in it, there are 2 of them, and he starts laughing that he got 3 items to my 1 item, that he got the better deal.
We're now about half way up Clark Road walking back home, and he is laughing like a maniac, his face is beat red, he can barely breathe he's laughing so hard.
Then he asks me what else is the bag, I tell him, the popcorn and the crayons, coloring books and stuff, the apple I'm going to eat when we get back home, that's it.
Then I see it, he also sees it, and he reaches in and grabs it before I could.
One package of Sargento cheese and cracker dipping sticks.
I tell him that's not fair, he got 2 cookies and the Slim Jim, he's already had 3 snacks compared to just my 1, he says I can have the popcorn, I don't want the popcorn, I want the cheese and crackers.
If only you could have heard him laughing, seen his face, you would have been laughing too.
He was like a little 3 year old with the most toys, he's jumping up and down, laughing, clapping, and saying he has more than I do, ha ha, his face is red, he's choking from laughing so hard, and now I'm laughing because he was just too cute and funny, and his laugh is contagious.
We both finally had to stop walking because we were laughing so hard, and he tells me to stop laughing because he's gonna pee, and I'm already laughing so hard I feel like I'm going to pee, and then he says, "Oh crap! We have to eat all of this before we get home or Mark will want it! Mom! I'll share the crackers, we have to eat them NOW!"
He has this most serious look on his face, like it's a matter of life and death that we eat them before Mark sees them, because Mark will want them and then we won't have them.
He went from laughing so much he had to pee, to completely dead serious in just a few seconds, and he starts ripping the the cover off the package and shoving a cracker stick in the cheese and forcing it in my mouth right there in front of a little shopping plaza on Clark Road as cars are whizzing by and people are staring at us.
The whole scene just cracked me the hell up, I was now laughing so hard that I had to pee something fierce, then he starts laughing again and crossing his legs telling me to stop or he was going to pee himself, he has little tears running down the corners of his eyes, and I could not stop laughing.
So there we both are, standing there all bent over and laughing hysterically, both of our faces are red, we're both choking and inhaling rapidly trying to breathe through the laughter, right in front of all of these people who are just staring at us big time now, like we're a couple of crazy people.
They were laughing at us which embarrassed Sebastian, but he just kept laughing even more.
Every little thing set him laughing harder and harder.
I finally composed myself enough to start walking again, he's behind me, and I can hear him giggling like a lunatic all the rest of the way home.
We get in the door and Mark comes to greet us and find out what all the noise is, and Sebastian just flies past him to the bathroom, doesn't close the door all the way, and we can hear him in there still laughing crazily while he's peeing, which made me start laughing again.

OMG, I haven't laughed like that in ages, just silly nonsensical laughter, and it was awesome.
I needed that.

Posted by Kat at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have to go out today, I have to get to Walgreen's, and it's coming down so freaking hard out there right now.
It's been going like this since early this morning.
I really hope it lets up soon, I have stuff I have to go do.

Posted by Kat at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am dealing with so much right now, people who are not following links like this one have no idea what I'm dealing with.
But it would be really nice if people would try to take other people's feelings and lives into consideration before they bring someone into something they want no part of, nor do they have time to be dealing with.

But in case people are too lazy to follow links, here's the breakdown.
In 30 days, on September 8th, a Monday morning, I'm having a major surgery.
I have 30 days to get my life in order, to make sure all of my bills are caught up, to try and earn as much as I can so that when I come home, if I come home, I have money to keep paying those bills while I recover.
I have to make plans for my sons to be taken care of, I have to also get them ready to go back to school.
I have to find out if I can have a home health aide to help me so my oldest son won't be leaving school to take care of me because he's worried about me, and failing school again.
I have a mountain of pre-surgical testing to do.
People don't understand that I am way too busy, and mentally, I have so much on my plate I'm going crazy.
Every time I have a surgery, because I'm a single parent, I have to sign a DNR and verify my will in front of an attorney, so that if I die during surgery, my kids will be given to the right people, my affairs will be taken care of.
I have 30 days to accept that my life may possibly end.
30 days to tell my sons I love them.
30 days to make sure that my 38 years on this planet have meant something, that it wasn't a complete waste.
30 days to make sure all my family and friends know how much I love them and how much them being a part of my life has meant to me.
30 days to accept my own mortality.

There are people who need to get a new hobby, take up knitting or scrap-booking, spend more time with their own families, buy some golf equipment and learn how to play, take up bowling or something, just do something else other than drag people into something they want no part of.
I've asked nicely, I've said please, but they don't think it's that big of a deal.
It is a big deal to me because it's over, it's been over with for a very long time, and it's not fair, it's not right, that once again, I'm dealing with that crap.
I have a life I'm trying to live in 30 days.
They should try it sometime.

Posted by Kat at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My neighbor called me, they needed a babysitter for a couple of hours tonight, and I said that I couldn't do it, and Mark offered to do it.

So Mark is watching a little baby named Jessie James and his older sister who is 3, named Loren.
They have Fios tv and the closed captioning is turned on, and I have absolutely no idea how to turn it off.
It's kind of annoying trying to watch the opening ceremonies with that on.
I keep going back over there to help Mark out, so he's not alone, but I said no to babysitting because of how much stress I'm under.
But I'll probably be the one doing most of the babysitting.
It kind of figures.

Had to close the comments on this post due to spammers, sorry folks.

Posted by Kat at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The acne cream I bought for Mark is actually working, and it's really working very well.
I bought him a special bar of soap and some cream stuff that you dab onto the pimples and leave on over night, and by morning, the zits are all dried up and gone.
He's very impressed, so much so that he's washing his face every night before bed, and every morning when he wakes up.

His face is clearing up really nicely in time to go back to school.
I hope he doesn't get another massive breakout, that would suck.
But this stuff seems to be keeping new pimples from even forming, so that's a major bonus.
He's taking much better care of his skin, paying attention to it, and because it's clearing up, he wants to wash his face.
It's been so disheartening using products that didn't work, and I really think that kept him from taking care of his face.

Posted by Kat at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Schedule pick up for school went ok, Sebastian's was easy, mark's not so much.
He's in the new view program because he fell behind on his credits when I had my first surgery in 2006, his freshman year, and it's been hard for him to catch up.
They missed a lot of school, he wasn't focusing because he was so worried about me at the hospital and then when I came home, he would be at school, worried I was home alone, and he wasn't doing his work and sometimes he would just leave and come home to take care of me.

I cannot let that happen this time.
No matter how I'm doing when I get home from the hospital, I can't allow him to be more concerned with me than his studies.
I am going to come up with some sort of way to make sure that I am taken care of so that he doesn't worry.
Once I have the dates, (still haven't heard from Cindy yet) I am going to find out about a home health nurse, whether or not I can have one, how often they can be here, and for how long each time.
I'll make it work this time so that Mark can get all of his credits.

Posted by Kat at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good morning!
It's been awhile since I've posted this early in the morning eh?!
Today is school schedule pick-up day, so we all have to get up early despite the late hours we all kept las night.
I think it's going to hurt them a whole lot more than it hurts me, I'm used to not getting more than a few hours of sleep.

We'll be heading up to the school with Mindy and her son Jeff, getting their schedules, and then getting back here because I have a lot of things to do that I've been putting off for a few days.
I have work to complete, a house to clean, dishes to finally do.
I just haven't felt like doing much of anything, and now I have to do all of it because I have a lot of things to take care of.
I'm hoping that some partial supply lists will be laying around by a few teachers too.
I hate not knowing what they need until the first week of school, and I might be a bit busy with a lot of different things.

Posted by Kat at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have posted some very major news on my other blog, KatScan.
Just click that link to be taken to it.

Posted by Kat at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't been able to find the kind of screw driver tool thing to remove the cap off of the lawnmower in order to fix the thing.
It takes a round shaped tool of some sort, I tried a bunch of different tools I had in my toolbox, but none of them worked.

Mark is borrowing the neighbors lawn mower for now, our lawn is very tall thanks to a couple of days of rain.
He's not happy about it, but I've been working on trying to fix that mower for over a week now, and I just can't get the stupid cap open.

Oh well.

Posted by Kat at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Quite possibly the most heartbreaking story of child abuse and neglect, in the St. Petersburg Times, on their Tampabay.com website on July 31st.
The article was titled, The girl in the window.

The family had lived in the rundown rental house for almost three years when someone first saw a child's face in the window. A little girl, pale, with dark eyes, lifted a dirty blanket above the broken glass and peered out, one neighbor remembered. Everyone knew a woman lived in the house with her boyfriend and two adult sons. But they had never seen a child there, had never noticed anyone playing in the overgrown yard. The girl looked young, 5 or 6, and thin. Too thin. Her cheeks seemed sunken; her eyes were lost. The child stared into the square of sunlight, then slipped away. Months went by. The face never reappeared.

First he saw the girl's eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn't looking at him so much as through him. She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked - except for a swollen diaper. "The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high," the detective said. "The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs." When he bent to lift her, she yelped like a lamb. "It felt like I was picking up a baby," Holste said. "I put her over my shoulder, and that diaper started leaking down my leg." The girl didn't struggle. Holste asked, What's your name, honey? The girl didn't seem to hear. He searched for clothes to dress her, but found only balled-up laundry, flecked with feces. He looked for a toy, a doll, a stuffed animal. "But the only ones I found were covered in maggots and roaches." Choking back rage, he approached the mother. How could you let this happen? "The mother's statement was: 'I'm doing the best I can,' " the detective said. "I told her, 'The best you can sucks!' "

I was ok reading it, not crying but my heart was just breaking, and then Sebastian came out and asked me what I was reading.
I lost it.
I just completely fell apart.
I sobbed barely breathing, trying to explain to him what I had read, I could barely speak.
I simply can't fathom how someone could do that to a child.
To just place her in a room in the dark, in dirty diapers, with more dirty diapers around her, bugs eating her skin, in her hair, never ever speaking to her, never loving her.
My heart just broke in a million pieces for Dani, and I am so glad she has found wonderful new parents who are loving and patient, and a 10 year old brother who is the most awesome little boy.
His heart is huge, it's amazing the sacrifices he's made for his new sister.
Really, you must read that story.
Just get your kleenex ready, you're going to need them.

Posted by Kat at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Thanks to Kali and Shahiro, I now have to buy new sandals.
See, they are always rubbing on, licking, and chewing on my sandals whenever I come home from anywhere and take them off.
I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it may have something to do with my diabetes.
When I get even a little bit sweaty, my skin smells very sweet, like candy almost, it's weird, I've heard it's not a good thing to smell like that, but it's not an unpleasant smell at all.
I find it rather pleasant myself.

Anyway, the two cats have rubbed on, licked on, and chewed on my sandals, so when I was at the grocery store I was having problems.
I couldn't figure out why my right one felt so weird, it just didn't feel right, and I was so busy walking around and getting what I needed, I didn't stop to take a look until we were almost done.
I finally looked down and the left side of one of the sandal straps on my right one, was completely unattached!
I couldn't very well leave it like that, it was driving me crazy, so I had Sebastian undo the stitching on the other side of the strap and take it off.
I placed the strap into my purse, and maybe I'll fix it or just go and buy some new ones if I can remember where I got them.
They are Dr. Scholl's, and they were so so comfy!
I loved these sandals!

I can't be having the kitties destroying my shoes all the time, so maybe I could find and take them to some kind of sneaky vet or a charlotte north carolina dentist, and get their little incisors filed down or coated in like rounded plastic caps or something.
I can't lose good and comfy shoes and sandals because they like the taste of my sweet sweaty feet.

Posted by Kat at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is Nova the fat cat after we just gave her a bath.
I had to give her a bath because she is so fat that she cannot clean herself.

The funny thing is, she really doesn't eat all that much.
Shahiro is the piggy kitty, Nova gets whatever crumbs Kali and Shahiro leave in the food bowl.
Sometimes we do slip her some people food, she is the one who likes Corn Pops cereal, spaghetti, Gold Fish crackers etc, but we don't give her people food all of the time.
Part of her weight issue is her breed, every cat who has been the same as her, has been a big huge fat cat, it's something in their genetics.
She's a combination of Egyptian Mau and standard alley cat.

They need to make a special cat food with diet pills in it for super fat cats.
Like, Purina Fat Cat Chow, now with Fenphedra!
"Help your special fatty kitty lose weight while they chow down like the piggy kitties they are!"
Hahaha!
Some cats do need the help, Nova is seriously a huge fatty, I weighed her the other day and she is BIG.
I held her in my arms and stepped on the scale, and then I put her down and stepped back on the scale, and then deducted the weight of her and I together, from the weight of just me.
Nova weighs 26.5 pounds.
She needs some diet pills!

Posted by Kat at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My neighbors will be moving, yuppers, gone in just a few short weeks.
Not only will it be good to be rid of them, but also rid of some of their friends.

One of them, her name is Nikki, is always coming to my door trying to sell me stuff, like yard sale type items, but she personally goes door to door trying to unload them.
She just brought over some crib bedding and asked me if I'd like to buy it seeing as I have kids.
For the millionth time, I told her that yes, I do have kids, but they are almost adults now, I have no use for crib bedding.
Oh, she says, I forgot.
Yeah, ok Nikki.

It will be really nice to get rid of the whole lot of them.

*Edited at 11:14pm for massive typos and spelling errors*
Yikes!

Posted by Kat at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been randomly surfing around the internet tonight, following links from one blog to a site, then from that site to another site, and then to another and another, and I don't recall what site I was on, but I saw a link for Winter Park real estate, and thought it was for homes in Winter Park Florida, so I clicked on over because it's a really nice area, and if I was going to move to another location in Florida, I'd definitely look there.
It's a nice place.
But the link was for Winter Park Colorado, where it snows, and I don't do snow anymore.
No more cold, no more shoveling, no more trapped in because of a blizzard.
But it looks like a really nice place to live for people who like the whole snow thing.

But I forgot to tell you all that the digital keychain I won from Today's Gizmos, came in the mail the other day, and it's really pretty sweet.

The company that sponsored the give-a-way, Wholesale Keychain, was even nice enough to do custom engraving on them for the winners, so I had them just put my name on it that way no one would want to steal it from me.
Heh.

The menu options look simple enough to use, the screen is bright and very easy to read.
Now all I need to do is load a bunch of photos to it so I can take all of the pictures out of my wallet, and then the next time someone asks to see pictures of my giant teenagers, I can just click and show them in all the beautiful digital glory!

Posted by Kat at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My neighbor was one of the unfortunate people who called me this morning after I had finally fallen asleep after being awake for 39 some odd hours.
These are my duplex neighbors who were planning on suing my landlord.
So I guess I can be thankful that instead of a lawsuit, they are just moving away.
They're going over there tonight to finalize the whole thing, it's a lot more rent, but supposedly everything is included.
Good for them.
But knowing them, they will find a problem or two and start complaining about the new place or the new landlord within a month of moving in.

They will be moving out within 2-3 weeks, and so far she's super excited.
It has a HUGE kitchen she said, huge, all new appliances, the bathrooms all have those rustic looking farmhouse sinks, and big claw foot bathtubs, and there's no carpet anywhere in the whole house, it's all Mexican floor tiles in every single room.
They are renting the entire downstairs of this house, and there are two apartments upstairs, with a few people living in them.
I can almost guarantee that there will be problems with these new neighbors, I pity the new neighbors.
They will be drawn in to their world of anger and issues, and dependency, just like I was.

Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that the next people to move into this other half of the plex will be somewhat sane, normal, friendly, nice.
Keep all your body parts crossed for me.
I've never had a normal neighbor on that side of this plex in 10 years of living here.

Posted by Kat at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)