My Single Mom Life

One of my longest known blogging friends, Kate, and her family, are coming here to Florida tomorrow for the Disney vacations they have been planning for a long, long time.

The weather here is going to be so perfect for their vacation.
It's not going to be scalding hot while waiting in the ride lines, and it won't be bitterly cold here either.
They're from New Jersey, so the weather will feel so good to them, they will probably even feel like wearing shorts because of how nice the weather is going to be.
Just take a look at the extended forecast for the week they will be here.

I really wish I was physically feeling better and had a way to get up there to meet with her, it would be the first time we would have met face to face.
I've been blogging with her, emailing, chatting, and even talked to her by phone a few times, for like 8 years now I think?
Yeah, a long, long time knowing her.
It's ok that we won't get to meet, it's their vacation and I know they are going to have an absolute blast here especially with the weather being so nice while they are here.

Posted by Kat at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My sister Jo is really good at anything artsy, pictures, photoshop, clay, painting, all kinds of stuff, but one of the things she does that I just love are these multi-action photoshopped pictures.
She took some pictures of the girls, and then photoshopped them in sequence.
I just love them, they look so cool, and I'd love to have her do some of the teens at some point doing something.
I also wish I could find the one she did of her sister Janice riding her horse in all her equestrian riding apparel, in sequence riding around the farm and even doing jumps with her horse.
I posted one of these she did of her stepdaughter Kayla before, but she just did these ones.
She'd love to be able to do this as some sort of business, people could take a whole bunch of pics in as close a sequence as possible, and then she could fix them like this, and then the people could frame them and hang them up.
They are really neat, check them out! *clickable for biggie size*

Posted by Kat at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My ex-neighbors showed up again today and wanted to take Sebastian with them tonight to go to a haunted house down near the arena.
The arena is used for all kinds of things year round, but mostly for farm and animal shows, so at Halloween when they fix up the whole grounds for haunted houses and all the various food vendors and games to play, (think state fairs and carnivals) they have to move most of the cattle supplies around or remove them completely to make room.
They actually use the cattle barrier fences to help make the maze-like patterns in the haunted houses.

So anyway, Sebastian is gone to that, he'll be eating with them, and he'll be home around 10pm or so.
Mark didn't want to go, he said he was too tired.
He gets like this every "winter", the cooler air just makes him wickedly tired and drained until he gets used to the weather and the difference in time and daylight hours.
It is dark out when they leave for school, and dark around 7pm every night, so it always feels more night-time-ish than it really is, and it affects him for a couple of weeks.

Dinner tonight is deli-meat sandwiches for Mark and I, and hopefully I can go do some grocery shopping tomorrow to get more food and the food supplies I need to make on my new George Foreman grill to do a product review of.
I tested it out today to make a ham and cheese sandwich for my lunch, and it works awesome!
I love the little grill marks on it, and it tasted so good.

The grill was wicked easy to clean up too.
A little bit of the cheese melted out and onto the grill plates.
Once the grill was cool, I just used the little scraper/spatula things that are included, and the cheese just slid off.
Then I just wiped the plates down with a wet paper towel, and bammo! It looked as good as new, like I didn't even cook on it at all.
I freaking love this new grill and am so excited to show you how awesome it works.
I absolutely love kitchen cooking gadgets, love love love, I would buy every single cooking gadget out there if I could afford them all and had a much larger kitchen, and I have confessed this for eBillme's new shopping confessions contest.
Did you enter it yet?

Posted by Kat at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Have you ever thought about the history of a product?
Like for example, band-aids.
Ever think about how those came to be?
Johnson & Johnson has been at the head of
healthcare innovation since the 1800's.
It was in 1920 that one of their employees thought up and developed the first ready-made adhesive bandage that people could apply themselves.
Before that, people had to make their own from cut cloth and tie them on.
The very first band-aid went on the market in 1921, and people have been using them since.

In 1887, they came up with the very first sterile surgical sutures.
When you think about that, you have to wonder what doctors had been using to stitch people up back then, and how many infections people got and died because of it.
But because J&J came up with sterile stitches and dressings, (bandages) the survival rates increased and many more lives were saved.

In 1893, they developed baby powder.
In 1898, the came up with dental floss, and it was made from leftover suture silks.
In 1897, they developed sanitary napkins. An invention that literally changed how women handled their feminine hygiene needs forever.
They created Listerine mouthwash in 1879. Another invention that changed personal hygiene needs for people, keeping their teeth and gums healthy, and also bad breath.
The first-ever first aid kit was sold and marketed in 1891 under the famous Red Cross logo and trademark.
In 1955, they made Tylenol elixir without aspirin for children, it was available only by prescription for 5 years, and then it was available over the counter, and has become the #1 pain reliever recommended by pediatricians.

Johnson & Johnson have been the innovators for so many products that we use every single day.
They are the ones who made disposable contact lenses which I use and love, birth control in 1931, and RhoGAM for babies of mothers who are Rh-negative like I was, they made the first hip and knee replacement implants, and they made the first test to detect the spread of breast cancer into the lymph nodes which got their test named GeneSearch, named as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2007.

Johnson & Johnson has been at the forefront of medical and personal hygiene breakthroughs for over 120 years, that's a long time, and they are the most trusted company and brand for millions of people.
They care about the human community and the environment by not only complying with regulations, but reducing their environmental impact in the communities in which they work.

I needed to go get a band-aid for Sebastian, he had a blister and it hurt, so while I was getting one out of the first-aid kit and bandaging him up, when he asked how they made band-aids.
I honestly and no clue, so I decided to look it up.
I had never really thought about it before, like most of us do with stuff we use every day, so when I looked it up and learned about how long they have been in business, all of the things they invented, and what they do every day to help people have better health, I was impressed.
I mean, something as simple as a band-aid was brought about by the need to prevent people from getting infections and dying, and now we use them all of them time.
Imagine if they had never been invented?

Posted by Kat at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark called me from school today to ask if he could go to his friend Jeff's house after they got out, and if Jeff's grandmother could give Sebastian a ride home.
I said yes to both, and so Mark went to his friend's house, and Sebastian came home.
When he got here, I needed him to run up to the ATM for me and get me $20 because I have to go take care of some stuff tomorrow.
So he went and did that, I let him buy himself a soda and a snack for doing it, and then he played some video games for a couple of hours before our old duplex neighbor called.

Bobby (my ex-neighbors son) wanted Sebastian to come to his house and help him install WoW on their computer, do some of the updates after the initial install, teach him how to do the rest of the updates, and while they are waiting, play some games on his new Wii.

My old neighbor, Letty, loves to play the scratch-off lottery cards when she has the extra money, so yesterday she had $10.00, so she bought a $10.00 scratch-off and won $1,000.00.
Yup, $1,000.00.
That's not the first time she's won big money on those things either.
One time, she bought 1 of the $20.00 holiday cards, it was last Christmas, and she won $2,000.00.
She's won anywhere from $1.00 all the way up to $2,000.00 on scratch-off lottery cards.
Every single time she buys a card, she wins something, I've never seen her get a bad card in the years I've known her now.

So anyway, she won $1,000.00 yesterday, and because Bobby has been wanting a console game for the longest time, all he's ever had is one of the first generation PS2s, and she bought it at a yard sale, it only worked for a couple of months before it died, so she asked him what system he'd like to have, he said a Wii, so she bought him a Wii.
It was a pretty good deal too.
She went to Wal-Mart where they have all kinds of video game bundle deals for Christmas, so she got the Wii and a whole bunch of games and different controllers in the bundle pack for a little over $500.00 she said, because she also got another Wii fit game for them to play.
Letty said she was so happy that he chose the Wii console because when they were at a friend's house for dinner one night a few weeks ago, they all played their Wii after dinner, and she absolutely loved the Wii fit games, she could actually play them and it made her feel good to be active and having fun, so now that they have one, she can do some "exercise" and play video games with Bobby.
There are no kids at all in that neighborhood for him to play with, so now she can play with him, he won't be quite so bored anymore, she won't have to listen to him say he's bored, and she won't feel bad that she moved him away from Mark and Sebastian, he misses them so much she said.
I told her once again that he's welcome here on the weekends, he can come spend the whole weekend anytime he wants to, and vice-versa, Sebastian can go there too, which is what they are going to do this coming weekend.
Sebastian is going to help him finish the WoW installation if he hasn't completed by then, teach him how to set it up right, and give him some of his gold, and teach him how to be a gold farmer or something like that.
I have no idea, I don't play the game.

Later on when she was bringing Sebastian home, it was about 8 o'clock or so, Sebastian called and asked what Mark and I wanted from McDonald's, (Mark had come home around 7pm) and I told Sebastian that I didn't have money to spend on hamburgers, I have to do other stuff with my pay this week, and he said no mommy, (he still calls me mommy..LoL) Letty said it's her treat and she won't take no for an answer, so what do you want?
I could hear Letty in the background saying "Tell your mom if she doesn't tell me what her and Mark want, I'll just get them what you tell me they like to eat. I'm not taking no for an answer, we're already in the drive-thru line so she better hurry up or they're both gonna get quarter pounders!"
So I said ok ok! and told Sebastian what we wanted, and about 10 minutes later, they were here, and that's when she told me about buying the Wii and all that, and then her and Bobby went home, we ate, the teens took the trash to the curb, played video games, and I watched Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill and stuff.

But it was wicked nice of her to buy us Mcky D's and have Sebastian over her house most of the afternoon and evening.
The teens are in bed sound asleep, it's after 1am, and I'm still wide awake.
Insomnia again.
I never frigging sleep.

Posted by Kat at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I do, I love kitchen cooking gadgets.
If it's some sort of machine that can cook, chop, blend, deep-fry or whatever to food, I am all over it and I want it.
I have a sandwich maker, I WANT an Infrawave Speed Oven, I have an older model George Foreman grill and am getting a new one, I have a mini-chopper, a Betty Crocker Bake n' Fill cake pan set.
I have entire sets of some of the best bakeware you can buy, I love Corningware products like their casserole dishes that can go in the fridge, freezer, microwave and oven! I have a bread machine, a sno-cone maker, popsicle makers and all kinds of things.
I want one of those Bullet blenders and any other kitchen appliance you'd see on late night tv! So when I saw that eBill me was having a shopping confessions contest to win prizes, and all I had to do was confess a shopping addiction or tell them about an item that I have to buy all the time, I jumped at the chance.

My shopping confession is my love of kitchen cooking gadgets.
I covet them, have to have them, I stay up late at night and watch all the infomercials about them and just drool over the gadgets and all the super cool and yummy amazing foods I could make if only I had the latest one!

Do you want to confess a shopping addiction?
All you need to do is head over to Shop and Confess to register, (It's Free!) and then
please add my blog's URL (just right click and copy link location, and then right click and paste it in. http://www.mysinglemomlife.com/blog/) where it asks you for a URL.
That's how they will know that I referred you** to enter this contest, and when you are done registering, tell them by text or make a video of your shopping confession.
That's it!

eBillme is giving away $33,000 dollars in prizes to maybe do some holiday shopping, and YOU could win some of that simply by registering, using me as your referral, and then either write out your shopping confession, or make a fun video and upload it to youtube.
That's it!
Don't believe me?
Just check out the contest video and see for yourself!

** details are below, click

**
The referral part is not open to all bloggers, so if you post about this on your blog, you cannot ask people to use your url as the referral, but you can post about the contest and use my blog as the referral link!
I am doing this as a promotion for eBillme, so they need to know what blogs are sending people to sign up for the contest.
Sorry you can't get the referral stuff, but you can enter to win prizes, like cold hard cash
from eBillme, so go register for the contest and put me down as the blog that referred you!
Please?!
I'll um, uh, I don't know what I'll do in exchange for you, but I'm sure we can work something out right?
You could win money to do some online shopping for the holidays, or just some fun money, so come on! Enter!

Oh, and if you feel like stumbling this contest, that would rock!

Posted by Kat at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wanna feel even cooler about yourself in your Wayfarer sunglasses and know you helped some animals?
Download and play an interactive and educational game called Pet Pals: New Leash on Life!
It's a game for kids ages 8+, and it teaches them all about taking care of sick animals.
They get to be a vet at an animal hospital, and help all kinds of animals get better.

As a new vet at the Pet Pals Animal Shelter, it's your job to make sure that the animals are not only healthy, but also happy. In this sequel to the award-winning Pet Pals: Animal Doctor game, you can treat and diagnose 35 new cases that were written by real vets! Take care of over 15 different types of animals, including cats, dogs, parrots, chinchillas and iguanas, using more than 40 different medical tools. Take part in each animal's story by playing, caring, and preparing them for adoption into their new homes. Grateful families thank you for the healthy, well-trained animals they adopt.

Help the animal shelter give sick and disadvantaged pets a happier, healthier life. Learn about animals while having fun.

*Fun and educational for children 8+
*Emergency situations that need to be addressed immediately
*Interact with pets in real time 3D by playing games and grooming them
*Minigames, career information and interesting animal facts included

"A Portion of The Game's Sales has been Donated to The Humane Society of the United States. In Pet Pals: New Leash on Life players will get the opportunity to see what it's like to be a vet, have fun, and at the same time feel good about supporting a great animal protection organization."

Sebastian has been playing this game for awhile, and he asked me if I'd pay for the full version for him.
I went to the site to look the game up just like I do with all the games he plays, and saw the part about money going to the Humane Society, and thought that was very cool of Legacy Games to do, so I paid for the full version.
Sebastian has been having fun playing it and learning about different species of animals, treating them, and I feel good knowing it's educational and it's helping real animals in real life.

Posted by Kat at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mark was sitting out here a little bit ago while I was doing some Google searching for weight loss product reviews, and so he asked me what I was doing.
I told him that I was searching for a review of the current product I'm using, and all I'm finding are reviews of other products or places that have weekly meetings.
Tons and tons of search hits were coming up for Hydroxycut reviews, and places that help you track your points, or prepared meals, or drinks and shakes, but nothing for the one that I am using, and it was starting to frustrate me.

Mark said to me that he knows how much it bothers me having to be so still, that all these past years of not being able to work, having so many restrictions on what I can and can't do, and how hard I struggle to just move my body normally to get in and out of bed, stand up from sitting, or to lay down on the couch, and how much it bothers me that I struggle to lose weight, but he thinks I look just fine.
He said, "You may feel like you are really overweight, but you don't look it mom. You look good to us, not fat, you have a belly but you've always had a belly, but you've actually lost weight since being in the hospital, but maybe you can't see it. We can though, and you shouldn't worry so much, just do what you can, keep eating what you have been, the weight is coming off, you just don't think it is."

Kids are good like that.
They love their "mommas" know matter what, and they always seem to know what to say to make you feel better when you need it.

Posted by Kat at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So I had insomnia again last night, and Mark wasn't tired either, so he stayed up playing WoW, and Sebastian and Bobby (ex-neighbor kid slept over again) fell asleep by 1:30am after we finished watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

So anyway, Mark is in the other room playing WoW, Sebastian is on one couch, Bobby is on the other, and I'm sitting here at my computer blog and forum surfing because I couldn't sleep, and I also have the tv on tuned to like channel 38 or something, just for the noise really.
So the tv is on showing some old cheesy 80's horror movies and stuff, and breaking for commercials about every 7 minutes, and the commercials are just cracking Mark up from the other room.

There's those commercials for Live Links with the hot chicks, and the gay mens version of Live Links with the Latino guy with the lisp, and then commercials thrown in the middle of them for things like Relacore, some special green bag that keeps your lettuce crispy for like 6 months instead of regular plastic wrap, that annoying but super rich guy Billy Mays selling all kinds of products, the latest is some hand-held clothing steamer or something, and I swear to you, Mark was just howling with laughter in the other room.
He was doing impersonations of all of the voices and products he was hearing, and then cracking up over his own impersonations.
I can't even write some of what he was saying because it was bad, oh so bad, and half of it I could barely understand because he was laughing and doing it at the same time, and snorting with laughter too.
I really wish I had gotten up and taken my camera in there to film him doing it, it would have been hysterical to show off.

Posted by Kat at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yup, I'm bragging about my youngest son, because he is truly awesome.
I decided that I would try my hand at doing the grocery shopping today, him and I like we used to, but we had to cab it there and back as I can't walk that far yet.
But I did it with his help.
I can't lift stuff, or see the high shelves to get food items and stuff, so he helped me the whole way through the entire store, and didn't complain not even once.
I ended up very tired when I got home, it took a lot out of me to just get what little bit we did get, but it felt really good to be able to do the shopping again.
I have been getting a little depressed here and there over my neck stuff, so doing something as boring as the food shopping is a big accomplishment for me, and lifted my spirits up quite a bit today.

I accidentally ended up leaving Publix with 2 of their logo promotional pens because I had to sign the credit slip at the register, and then I had to sign another paper at the service desk giving the teens the right to shop with all of my debit/credit cards if I can't do the shopping myself all of the time.
The manager photocopied all of my cards, wrote down my full name as it appears on the cards, the teens names and ages, and my state ID number, and so I had to sign that for them or they wouldn't let the teens shop with my cards.
Sometime last week when they went, one cashier refused to let them pay for the groceries with my card, she thought they had stolen it and were just buying stuff they wanted, and it probably did look that way.
I told them to go to the store and get dinner for themselves, whatever they wanted, and get me some tomato soup, pudding, and more yogurts to eat, and they bought subs, hot wings, chips and dip, some beef jerky, a 12 pack of coke, and some candy, so I can sorta see how she thought the may have stolen it, and she was a new cashier.
So the teens had to go to the service desk, talk to the manager on duty, and give her my phone number to call me and verify "their story".
The manager on duty knows all of us, but she had to follow protocol, and speak with me.
I explained my health issues to her, read my card number back to her, (I'm like the Rain Man, I have all of my debit/credit card numbers and security codes memorized) and told her that yes, the teens had the right to do the shopping and buy all the food they did, and when I could come in, I would show them who I am and set this stuff up again.
I had set it up before going into surgery, but I guess they lost it.

But enough of that stuff, wanna see some pictures?
Sure you do!
We found this little guy in the driveway tonight, he's alive, no one and no animal hurt him, well not my animals anyway.
He was just taking his sweet time sliding around on the smooth concrete, going who knows where.

This is so cute in my opinion, Kali and Shahiro have taken over the end of my bed ever since I put my really thin "winter" blanket on it now.
Every time I go in my room, there they are, sound asleep curled up with each other.

I have some other pictures I have taken over the last few weeks too, but I'll post them later.
I really should start using my photoblog again eh?
I have gobs of pictures on my pc that I haven't uploaded to that blog in like 3 years now, it's just sitting there wasting away.

Posted by Kat at 3:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That's one of the headlines for a news article out just last night.
And it's a very disturbing headline.

About half of American doctors in a new survey say they regularly give patients placebo treatments -- usually drugs or vitamins that won't really help their condition.
And many of these doctors are not honest with their patients about what they are doing, the survey found.
That contradicts advice from the American Medical Association, which recommends doctors use treatments with the full knowledge of their patients.

Half the doctors reported using placebos several times a month, nearly 70 percent of those described the treatment to their patients as "a potentially beneficial medicine not typically used for your condition." Only 5 percent of doctors explicitly called it a placebo treatment.

Can you imagine going to your doctor's appointment for whatever, and you have total trust in your doctor to listen to you, evaluate you, run some tests, and then if need be, prescribe you the right medication to treat your medical ailment, and after going to the pharmacy and paying the very high prices for the medicine, you find out later on that it was a placebo pill or a different medicine that would not actually work with your problem?

I would be livid!
I trust all of my current doctors except for the new primary care doc I got right before surgery and will be looking for a new one, but all of the rest of my docs I totally trust to take good care of me, to treat me correctly for my health conditions, and prescribe me the REAL and CORRECT medication for my needs.
My doctors prescribe me my pain meds for my spine and joint issues, antibiotics because my immune system is shot, high blood pressure medication because it's very high, and some weight loss diet supplements to help me lose weight because I have physical difficulties with traditional weight loss methods, and muscle relaxers for my skeletal muscular stiffness.
If I found out that any of my meds were fake or the wrong kind of medication to treat my actual medical diagnosis, I would probably file a complaint with the Florida Board of Medicine, and have to find a new doctor to build up the whole patient/doctor trust and relationship with, all over again.

My parents have been going to the same primary care doctor for like over 25 years now, I wish he could transporter beam back and forth between Maine and Florida, because he treated me almost my entire life before I moved down here, and I've never been able to find another primary care doc that I trust completely.
Because of everything I have wrong with me, doctors get all research-y and start trying to diagnose me with all kinds of genetic diseases and abnormalities, like if they find some really rare condition in me, they can write it up for the Journal of Medicine.
They get that look in their eye when reading my records, and I immediately know that they are going to order a huge battery of tests, and start prescribing all kinds of different meds, take me off current meds, and do 1-month tests of all kinds of medications to see if any of my conditions improve.
That's part of the reason I don't trust my current/new primary doc, she got that twinkle in her eye, almost destroyed my neck surgery, and just wasn't very personable.
But if I found out she had prescribed me a placebo or the wrong meds, I'd go postal on her.
No lie.

I think it's absolutely disgusting that doctors are lying to their patients about their medications, and patients are paying outrageously high prices for those medications, and probably don't even know.
I look up every single new medication that I am prescribed, and you all should too if you have to take even one prescription.
I do two things when I get a new med and even refills.
I go to Drugs.com, and type in the name of the medicine, generic and brand name if both are on the label, and I read up all of the side effects, what it's made of, it's chemical name and concentration, everything about it to educate myself about what's going in my body.
And then I click on the Pill Identifier button, and use the pill identification wizard to add all the looks of my pill in to the system, and see if the pill I have in my hand, comes up and looks the same as the one on their site.
That way I can see for myself if what the bottle says, what I was told my doctor prescribed me, and what my pills look like, all match up.
Some medications are made by several different pharmaceuticals, so if your bottle label says who it was made by, Drugs.com will be able to show you all of the different companies versions of those pills too.

Know what you are taking and putting into your bodies people.
Just because you trust your doctor doesn't mean he's being totally honest with you according to that new article.
HALF of all U.S. doctors are lying and giving their patients placebos or a totally different medication that may or may not have any effect on your medical condition.

Posted by Kat at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A 43 year old Japanese woman became so involved and eventually enraged from playing an online game called Maple Story, that she ended up "murdering" her online husband.

The woman is now jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data of her online husband.
She used his username and password to login to his Maple Story account and "kill" her now online ex-spouse, so the now online ex-husband, called the police to have her arrested for hacking.
The 33 year old man and the 43 year old woman, were once happily married in the game, and for an unknown reason, the man decided to divorce her character.
The woman was quoted as saying; "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry."
Perhaps she was upset that the online divorce would force the couple to divide up all of their online assets that they had built up during their game play, and she would lose the car, half of the "bank account", maybe some of the furniture, and probably either divide or completely lose their massive Tea Collection they had gotten from their virtual trips around their virtual world.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
She was arrested on Wednesday, and then taken 620 miles across the country from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sappporo, where the man lives, the official said.

This isn't the first time that a crime has been committed because of a virtual game.
In August, a woman was charged with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life,", and about a year ago, a woman filed charges with police because her character was raped in Second Life, and she was unable to close out of the game and felt like she was being violated because of it.
In Tokyo, police arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of swindling virtual currency worth $360,000 in a role playing game, by changing another player's account portfolio using a stolen ID and password.

I know that virtual games are very addictive, I love playing with my Sims when I can, and am completely stoked about the Sims 3 coming out in 2009.
My sister, her husband, my teens, and millions of other people, are completely addicted and involved with WoW, and that's like all they talk about, but I do believe that this is the first online murder of a spouse done by hacking another players account because the virtual relationship ended.

People need to not take these virtual games so damn seriously.
It's a game people, only a game.
If you are feeling extremely strong urges to murder an online game character, it's time to shut down the computer and go outside and get a real life.

I am really excited about Sims 3, and I promise, I won't make any Sims that look like real people that I know and dislike immensely, and then kill them by drowning, or fire, or a satellite falling from the sky and slamming into their heads!
Well, I can't really promise you that, but I'll try not to do that.

Posted by Kat at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There was a time when the boys would have been thrilled getting an rc helicopter to play with for Christmas, but they've grown up and are into different things now like video games for the xbox360 and their computer.

They added a bunch of stuff to the wishlist a few weeks ago, 6 video games and 1 action figure that goes to a video game, because they want the dog tags that come with it.
And then there's all the stuff they have added over the last year or so.
I let them add stuff to the wishlist whenever they want because teens are so hard to buy for, they are constantly changing their minds, so letting them add and delete things at their will just works best for me when it comes time to buy for Christmas or birthdays.

I just go through the list when it's a birthday or holiday, and pick out a few items that they have added and buy them.
I noticed the other day that one of them had gone through the list and deleted a bunch of stuff, and added some more stuff.
At least I know what they want.

Posted by Kat at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Pepsi will be changing it's core logo icon as a way to reinforce it's core business.

Changes will include a graphical redesign of core Pepsi CSDs Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist and a rebranding of some products. Mountain Dew will be renamed as "Mtn Dew" on packages, and Diet Pepsi Max will be known as simply Pepsi Max. The brand's blue and red globe trademark will become a series of "smiles," with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max will use all lower-case fonts for name brands. Gatorade will also receive a redesign, focusing the brand on the letter G.

And this is how people are reacting to it:

I'm a diet Pepsi drinker, have been for years, but I buy what's on sale every week, if that's my fave diet Pepsi, great, if that's diet Coke, great, but my heart belongs to diet Pepsi.
___________________________

The other day when the teens went shopping, they remembered to get the Nyquil for me and all the food items I had written on the list, but they forgot to get their acne stuff which was also on the list.
They were in the health aisle of Publix, they got the Nyquil, they just forgot to get it.
So tonight when they went back to get subs and puddings, I wrote it on the list again.
This time they remembered.
It's their faces, this is something they should not forget to get or else they will be icky pimple oozy-faced teens at school.

Posted by Kat at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The teens have gone off to Publix to get some food, and asked if they could take one of my self defense products with them.
The answer was a big no.
Knowing them, they'd start messing around with the pepper spray and blast each other in the eyes with it.
They went to get some subs for dinner for them, and some easy foods for me.

My old neighbor swung by again to see if I was doing any better.
Nope.
I feel like crap on a cracker.
I'm tired, achy, hungry, and annoyed.
Why am I annoyed?
Because it's non-stop Rays coverage on the tv.
The news is on and the top freaking story is the World Series?
The stock market took another dump today, and the top news story of the day is the Rays?
Gag.
I understand it's a big deal, the team had sucked forever it seems, and they are finally in the world series, but the top story of the day?
I don't think so.
Honestly, I'll be glad when this is all over.

Posted by Kat at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm still looking for information and trying to find the very best diet pills out there to help me lose weight.
I have found a product, not a pill, that I've been trying for a few weeks now, and I'm almost ready to start posting about it on KatScan.

It's so very difficult for me to lose weight with my health the way it is.
All the titanium installed in me, the inability to move like normal people, the pain that doing things causes me to be in, so I will always need help losing weight.
I try so hard to eat right, I do really good some days and totally awful on other days, but it comes down to not depriving myself of the foods I crave.
If I deprive myself, I end up going on a binge and gaining more weight than I lost.
It's a vicious cycle with me, and probably a lot of women.
But I keep trying to eat right, to walk as much as I possibly can which is none at all right now.
I'm pretty unstable on my feet lately due to my neck surgery.
Anyway, I will be posting about the new product I found really soon.

Posted by Kat at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sebastian came home from school today and told me that one of his classmates is going to be gone for about 45 days, because he's finally getting the drug treatment he needs to have.
The teacher announced it to her class this morning because "Tim" will be gone for that long, and she wanted to let his classmates know why.
He's gone off to a drug rehab up near Tallahassee or someplace up north in the state, Sebastian couldn't recall exactly where though.
Sebastian knows the kid, sorta, he's heard from other kids that Tim has been doing a lot of drugs lately, and has been smoking a lot of pot, doing cocaine and other drugs, and his parents finally figured it out and sent him to rehab.

I think it's a shame that so many young kids have these drug problems, and it has taken so long for the parents to figure it out.
I know it's not always easy to tell, I hid it from my parents for a long time, they were both working the night shift during my high school years.
It makes me wonder too, how many other kids at the school are doing drugs.
All the kids knew Tim was doing drugs, they knew what kinds of drugs he was doing, so how many of them are doing it too?
I'm just so glad that my boys come to me and talk about this kind of stuff, they tell me everything that goes in their lives and at school.
Sebastian said that seeing some kids come to school really messed up, that he has no interest at all in doing any drugs, especially after last years situation with a student wanting to give him drugs on the last day of school.

Posted by Kat at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The teens are totally thrilled and thoroughly addicted to the WoW, but they are being good and sticking to the chores they all agreed to.
It's been a long day today, just total boredom on my end, but at least they aren't torturing me saying how bored they are.

Next weekend, they will be members of the local teenage free for hire/will work for food, moving companies to help Mindy and her family move into their new house.
Mindy has been like my personal helper for months now, she's taken me to like a gazillion doctors appointments, took me to my surgery, stayed there the entire day through all of it, made phone calls, and cleaned my house, took me shopping, her and her husband spent several weekends repairing and installing a new ac, all kinds of stuff, so my teens can spend a day or two, however it works out, helping them move.
I only wish I could help too, but I can't.
But once I get to a point where I can do stuff, I will have to do something to repay all of the help and kindness they have shown me and my family.

I guess in need to get cracking on those teens right now about dinner.
They need to go hit up the store for some food stuffs.

Posted by Kat at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sebastian and I decided to make a really late breakfast today, we took the bag of Pillsbury Grands Cinnamon rolls from the freezer, and baked them up!

We put them in the pan totally frozen, and baked them for about 12 minutes.

They looked good right out of the oven with no icing!

But nah, they are so much better tasting with it.
We baked up 6 of them, but they were so big, I could only eat 1, and Sebastian could only eat 2.
But they were damn tasty.

Sebastian helped me put them in and out of the oven, still not allowed to bend over to pick stuff up, oven stuff included.
The boys laugh at me for this too, like I just tried to throw a diet coke can in the recycle bucket and missed, and I heard Mark behind me yell "EPIC FAIL!"
So because I can't bend and pick it up, I stomped my foot into the can, and it caved around my foot, and I lifted my foot up, and scraped the can on the side of the bucket to drop it in.
I turned around and yelled "EPIC SAVE!"
Mark just laughed at me, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Posted by Kat at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, there's no school tomorrow because of a "professional day".
Basically, the teachers take a day to prepare the lessons and other things because they say they don't have enough time during the regular school week to do it.
Whatever.

All the teens were really good, they've all gone home now, but they were all well behaved while they were here.
At one point they started talking about Halloween and trick or treating, parties, and what Halloween costumes they were all going to be wearing.
I told them all they were too old to go trick or treating, it's for much younger kids, not teenagers, and they laughed, said they knew, but it's always fun to try.

They weren't too loud which is good, because I was busy trying to fill out some papers for my medical stuff.
I have this huge packet of papers to fill out and get mailed by the 23rd, so I was atrying to finish them all up when it hit me that there was no school tomorrow.
It's going to be a very long weekend around here.
The teens are already at each others throats just 5 minutes after all the friends left.
Great.
Just great.

Posted by Kat at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'll get to that in a second, but first, the teens just arrived home from school with their friends, and Sebastian was wearing one of his funny t-shirts that he got to start school with, and I realized it's on the site I mentioned last night.
The duct tape one.
Silence is golden, duct tape is silver.
Yeah, he's a funny kid, I guess I'm just surprised he hasn't been sent home from school for his shirts yet.

All of the teens are in the other room playing video games now.
Sebastian on WoW, Mark and his friends on the xbox.
They came in and did all of their chores first, so hey, they can play all they want.

Now, onto the new product review coming soon.
I was chosen to try out one of the new George Foreman grills!
Yeussss!
I absolutely love my little one that I have, it's one of the first ones they ever made, the super small one only big enough to cook like 2 hamburgers or a chicken breast on.
But I still love it, it's awesome.
But now that the teens are bigger, I need a bigger grill to cook more food on because teenage boys eat tons and tons of food.
I cannot wait to get it and use it, I'll take pictures and maybe even a video of us using it.
Yeah, I'll make a video of one of the teens cooking us dinner with it, because one of the great things about these grills is that anyone can cook with it.
It sits on the counter-top, it's safe for anyone to use, and really easy to clean up.
Some of the newer models have removable grill plates to make cleaning so much easier, I think the one I'm getting does.
My little one doesn't, and it is a pain in the butt to clean.
I can't wait!
I love cooking gadgets as you all know, so this is going to be perfect for me and the teens!

Posted by Kat at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark called at lunch time and asked if a couple of his friends could come over after school.
I said yes.
They want to play video games and hang out I guess, I don't have a problem with it as long as everyone behaves and doesn't get too loud.
It'll be like an acne treatment companies dream in here, all kinds of teenage boys with acne covered faces, eating greasy leftover pizza and chips, and drinking soda.
At least the WoW game finally finished downloading so they can all play that and not bother me too much.

Posted by Kat at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everyone hates cleaning the toilet, probably why so many companies are constantly coming up with new products for it, and I didn't have much luck with the last automatic toilet bowl cleaner I tried, so I tried a new one.

I decided to try the Kaboom Scrub Free toilet bowl cleaner.
This product goes in the tank, not the bowl, and it was super easy to install!
The kit I bought, I got right from the site linked above, for a really good price.
It was the unit and 2 refill kits, for just $9.98.
(Hrm, just realized looking at the picture I took, that I actually got 3 refill kits. Yay me!)

You attach the unit to the back of your toilet tank on the inside.
You locate the refill tube in your tank, and you attach one end of it to the Scrub Free unit, and then the other tube gets placed in the overflow pipe.
Then you open the unit and drop in the 2 small, round cleaning tablets, and screw the lid back on.
That's it!
It took me less than 1 minute to attach this to my tank.
Oh, please ignore the griminess of the inside of my tank.
It's some sort of grease that my landlord used to fix something the last time we had an issue with the toilet.

Now, every time the toilet is flushed, the cleaners gets dispersed right into the bowl from the tank.
There's no cleaners to stick in the bowl, no scrubbing to do, it's always cleaning because the cleaning solution doesn't sit in the tank, it goes directly into the bowl from under the rim.
It can even get rid of those old rust stains.
I didn't believe the video myself, but it does actually work.
It's been in the tank for about 3 and a half days now, and it's really working.
I think Sebastian is going to be thrilled that he won't have to do much scrubbing of the toilet anymore!

The cleaning tablets last for about 3 months, and the kit comes with a little sticker kit that you place on the tank or just keep it handy nearby, and then you'll know when you need to place the refill tablets in the unit.
If you want it for the same price I got it, click on the try it free button, click no, click no again, click no about joining the no scrub club, then click yes to add the 2 refills to your order and get the unit kit for free. Click no on getting the Kaboom spray, and it will take you to the checkout where you'll see that the total will be $9.98!
The shipping was quite fast too, the Church & Dwight company shipped it in just a few days, and I installed it and started flushing the way to a cleaner toilet bowl!
Man, I sound like an advertisement for it, Billy Mays should pay me for this post! *LOL*

Posted by Kat at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As I said the other day, I was cleaning up the boys pc so they can play World of Warcraft, and I finally got it all done and began installing the game.
It took like 2 whole days to do this.
The installation is huge, and then you have a crapload of updates to download and install, and it takes forever.
just when you think you're done installing updates, another one pops up that you need to do.
By the time these updates are done, they won't have anymore free space on their pc.
This is nuts!
I have no idea how my sister can play this game.
There are just so many updates, all huge files, that I have no idea how she has the laptop memory to do this.
She must have a huge amount of it, because the boys have an 80gig pc, and these files are just damn huge.
I've got the Sims 2 and 5 expansion packs on my pc, and they don't take up nearly as much space as WoW does.

Posted by Kat at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have noticed a trend in post subjects on a lot of single mom blogs over the last few weeks.
The man posts.

I saw one that said it was time to ask a man out, another that asked about the one that got away, yet another asked if they needed a man to tell them everything was going to be ok in this current period of crisis our country was in, and another that posted about finding an old boyfriend on chat, and now she wants to date him again because of how good they were together.
10 years ago.
There were many more posts on many more single mom blogs too.

I'm all for finding love again, I'm all for getting back on the horse and giving it the good old try, but some a lot of these posts talked about needing a man.
Need a man?
And no, not just for the physical needs, some of these moms feel like they really need a man to either make their life complete, or to "be ok", or to provide the family life instead of the single mom life, to their kid(s).

How can a man make you feel complete?
If you don't feel like a whole person on your own, you're certainly not going to be completed by adding another person to your life.
They are bringing their completed person to the table, and you are incomplete, it won't really work.
It will be a relationship of depending on him to feel ok about yourself.

To be ok?
Again, depending on someone else to make sure that the bills are paid, that someone will take care of you and your kid(s) when the shit hits the fan.
Single moms are some of the most resourceful people I know, they provide for their families on way less money than anybody should ever have to, and they make sure the bills get paid, there's food to eat, and that everyone is ok.
Will a man make it more ok?
Maybe financially he will, but that's not a guarantee.

And doing it to provide the family life is not the right reason either.
You already have a family.
Sure, it may just be you and your kid(s), but is that not a family?

It may be just me and the teens, but we are a family in every sense of the word.
We all do our part to make sure the home is taken care of, we eat meals together, we laugh and play together, we talk about everything, and I can't see myself needing a man to make it a family, we are already.

I don't know why so many women, single moms and single women in general, feel that they need a man, that somehow a man is going to complete them, make it all better, make them feel normal and ok.
If you can't feel complete, normal, and ok on your own, be happy with yourself completely, then how is adding someone to you going to change that?
You are still you, you just added someone who cannot complete you as a person, no matter what the cheesy romance movie says.
You have to be happy and complete first, before you can be happy and complete with someone else.

Posted by Kat at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I don't know how long before they figure this out and fix the image, but this is supposed to be for Summers Eve feminine spray

What the hell is that?
A hedge trimmer? LOL!

*UPDATE*
Mindy's husband says, "That is a pressure washer! and it should work too!"
Bwahahahahahhaa!!!
Oh! I can't breathe!! LMAO

Posted by Kat at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

As I said in my post below, ICDSoft.com sent out emails because MySQL4 was being discontinued, there would be no more support, so we needed to update our databases to MySQL5.
I have never set up a database before, have no clue how to, and even using their tool, it was like trying to learn a whole new foreign language.
I sent in a support ticket to them, they always answer like within 10 minutes, I've never waited longer than 20 minutes in the 5 years I've been with them now.
I now have two accounts with them, a business account and a personal.
But their customer service is seriously the most awesome ever, they go like way above and beyond for their clients.
As usual, they answered my totally pathetic support ticket within minutes,

Subject: mysql5 help?
Oct 13 2008 16:32
Q: kat cooper
Hi,
I got the email about switching over to mysql5, the problem is that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in there, even with your tool.
I'm not the one who set up the databases, so I really don't understand this, and I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up and break my whole site.
Is there anyone who can do this for me, or do I need to find someone who can?
Ack! I don't want to break my site. hahaha (see? Pa-thet-ic!)
_____________

Help?
Oct 13 2008 17:50
A: Support2 Hello,
We completed the migration to MySQL5 and updated your MT configuration script. Please check if everything is working properly.

Best Regards,
Support
____________

Oct 13 2008 18:08
Q: kat cooper Thank you so much!
Everything is working fine so far, thank you.
You guys really are the best hosting company, you're awesome.

Thanks again, and you can close this. :)
_______________

Oct 13 2008 18:11
A: Support2 Thank you for your high appraisals! You are always welcome!

Best Regards,
Support
____________

They did not need to do it for me, they could have told me to go hire someone to do it, but they completed the migration to MySQL5 for me, updated everything in there, and even updated my Movable Type configuration scripts so everything would work right.
They could have told me to do that last part myself too, but no, they did it for me.

This is how they are all of the time, if you need help and don't know how, you ask them and they do it.
They go above and beyond.
Beyond.
They've upgraded their hosting plans a couple of times without upping the prices on their customers.
And last year, they upgraded me to the business plan for 1 whole year, absolutely free.

There's never any downtime unless it's something stupid that I've done, and they always found my mistakes and fixed them for me within minutes.
All of my attempts at trying to do stuff in my control panel, and screwing something up, they've always found it and fixed it, and they've never made me feel stupid for screwing it up.
They've always explained what happened, and how to fix it if it ever happens again, and they are always just so nice and helpful, I can't say enough good things about ICDSoft.com, they really are the best hosting company I've ever been with since I started hosting my own blogs back in 2000.
If you are looking for a new host, or need to switch, or are just starting out with your first blog, go look at their plans and packages, and give them a try, you will not be disappointed at all, they rock!

Posted by Kat at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

First, the site stuff.
My hosting company, which is totally awesome by the way, ICDSoft.com, sent out an email saying that MySQL4 is no longer being supported and we need to change to MySQL5.
I know NOTHING about how to do any of that stuff, even if they do provide a little help tool.

We urge you to migrate your MySQL4 databases to MySQL5 as soon as possible, using the automated tool we have provided in the Control Panel (MySQL section)

MT users!!!
Do I need to change anything in my MT templates to say MySQL5?
I can use the tool, I think, but if there's a template in my MT templates I need to change, please someone tell me, I'm scared to use that tool until I know.

Now for the World of Warcraft stuff.
I have to go in and clean out the boys pc, scandisk, defrag, all that stuff, to get it ready for the installs of the WoW games.
The teens and my sister, my own sister, conspired together to get me to agree to letting them have WoW.
And no, not wait for the game discs to get here, but to download the free 10 day trial today.
So I need to get my butt in there and start the cleaning.
The boys gave up 2 other game subscriptions so that I could afford to pay for the WoW subscription.
They will be as addicted to it as my sister is.
But some pretty serious rules have been laid down for them to have it, there will be no getting around that stuff either.

Posted by Kat at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Friday afternoon, Bobby, the boy who used to live next door to us in the duplex, called and when Sebastian answered the phone, he asked if he could speak to me.
I hopped on and said hey Bobby, what's up?
He said, "Hey Kat, I was wondering, I was hoping anyway, that maybe I could come over and spend the night? Would that be ok?"
I said of course, you're always welcome here, we miss you guys.
And it is true, I do miss them, Bobby and his mom anyway.
Despite all of the drama and problems during the 4 years they lived right next door, he and his mom were good people deep down, they tried to be anyway.

He told me he had to go help his mom do some shopping and then he'd be over.
When he got here, he told us that he and his mom hate the new house, he hates it the most.
There are no kids at all in the neighborhood, not even babies or toddlers, no older kids, no one at all for him to play with, and how much he misses the teens even though they used to get into fights all of the time.
I told him again that he was welcome here, he can come back on the weekends and spend the night, no biggie.
He was so happy.

So the teens and he laughed and played all night, and then on Saturday, Mark went with his Big George, and Mindy was taking me grocery shopping and to get my meds, so we took Sebastian and Bobby with us to help pick up all the heavy stuff that I can't.
We got back home and pulled in the driveway, and Mark and George pulled in right behind us, so now I had 3 teenagers to help carry all of the groceries in the house.
Yay!

Sebastian and Bobby were having so much fun, they asked if he could spend the night again, I said yes, and so they all continued playing and having fun.
But having 3 teenage boys in the house means that it's loud, very loud, so I didn't get any rest at all, no lay down time on the couch for me, and both nights I had terrible insomnia.
I'm completely wiped out today, probably why I screwed up and posted the post below to this blog and not my other one.
I've been doing so good keeping my health issues off of this blog, but after so many years logging in here to blog, mixed with tired, I just started posting here again.
I would have deleted it, but the RSS had already picked it up, so I just left it.
Oh well.

Bobby went back home this morning, and he gave me a hug before he left.
There was a small hint of sadness in his eyes, he really does miss the boys, miss living here, and I think he finally realizes that all of the lying he did, all of the problems he created between his mom and me, may have played a really big part in his family moving away, he's really a different kid, more helpful, more kind, more mature.

Also, having 3 loud teens all weekend, made me unable to keep up with blog feeds and stuff, so I'm trying now to go through them all.
All 358 of them that came in since 3:20pm on Friday afternoon.
Yowza.

Posted by Kat at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My surgeon sent me a new pain script, so I needed to go get it filled.
I went on line to the site for my drug coverage insurance to make sure it was covered, and it wasn't on the list, so I called the 800-number.
It is the same pain med I take now, but a higher strength. Same name, just a higher dose.
They do not cover it at all, they said nope, but my doc said to switch to this one so I had to go get it, and that meant paying out of pocket.

I've paid out of pocket for this med before, the lower dose, and it really wasn't bad at all.
It was like $60 something for 90 pills, so I was thinking the higher dose, less pills, 60 of them, it would be about the same price.
Oh how wrong I was.

Mindy took me down to the Publix that has a pharmacy, and I put in my script for it and we went shopping.
I came back to get it, and the cashier said $239.80.
My jaw nearly fell, but I paid it, I had to get it, so I paid it.

On Monday, I'm going to call my insurance and ask them why they won't cover it, why I have to go to different pharmacies, because Walgreen's that has my insurance on file, the employees will tell me over and over again that it's not covered, and they won't let me pay cash for it, so I have to go to Publix and pay cash.
It sucks.
I mean, why the hell won't they cover the higher dose!?
What is it!?
A class 30 drug?
A schedule 5?
A CAT5e to the finite narcotic?!
It's only 5mg stronger than the old pain med, same name, only 5mgs stronger, I do not understand why they won't cover it.
Paying that much is simply not right.
I'm going to have to talk to my surgeon about it because I cannot pay that amount every single month.
No way.

Ooops!
I posted this on the wrong blog.

Posted by Kat at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I forgot to tell you all what happened here yesterday morning!
The teens were like 1/2 a minute late leaving for school, and as soon as Mark put his hand on the doorknob to go out, both he and Sebastian heard tires squealing, crashing noises, and car underbelly scraping noises on pavement, and they opened the door and ran out in time to see the tail end of a red truck speeding off.
That's when they saw the damage that the driver had done.

I don't know if the driver was drunk and thinking he was on an episode of COPS being filmed live in las vegas nevada, or not paying attention, or asleep at the wheel, but wait till you see what he did to our property.
This is crazy!

This is the ditch he drove into first. If you look at the upper left of the photo, you can see where he first started swerving in. He came inches away from taking out another house's mailbox.
In the lower right, you can see where the underbelly of his truck scraped across my driveway.
These ditches are about 3-4 feet deep by the way, so this truck really scraped in there hard.

This is the mailbox post of my duplex neighbor's side, now in the driveway, with more scrape marks and tire marks as well.

This is my side of the property, the ditch on my side, my mailbox post, the neighbor's side mailbox is in MY ditch, and my mailbox ended up on my lawn. More scrape marks in the bottom of the picture, and look at how deep he was into my ditch, just look at how much he tore it up with his tires and the underbelly of his truck.
He tore up all that dirt at the top of the picture before he finally swerved back out onto the road.

This is where my mailbox landed. I have blurred out my numbers for safety.

If Mark and Sebastian had left on time, just 30 seconds earlier, they would have been hit by this truck at the end of our driveway.
They leave our house and go to the left down the street, to make their way to school.
Can you believe this?!
I called my landlord, left him a message to come by, and he was just shocked.
He's a sheriff, so he filed a report, and also notified a few local car repair places that he knows and is friends with, to be on the lookout for a red truck with some major front end and underside damage.
Whoever did this, suffered some major damage to their vehicle.

Posted by Kat at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I was contacted and asked if I would like to try some new frozen meal products from a very trusted and well known name brand, I, of course, said yes, and I'll be posting about it very soon.

I got some of the products from them today in these really huge boxes.
The UPS man showed up around 9:45am, and just started bringing these big boxes in, I had him place them on my couch because I'm not allowed to lift more than 5lbs, and to also not bend over to pick stuff up off of the floor.
The boxes weren't heavy at all, less than 5lbs, maybe a little more, but I only carried one at a time out to the kitchen, and then I unpacked them.

There was so much stuff in those boxes!
I am so excited about it, and I promise you that once I go and get some of the frozen meal products from the store, they gave me coupons to get these items absolutely free, I will tell you all about it.
I can hardly wait!

They included a ton of information about the frozen meals, a DVD that explains everything, press releases, the coupons, and a whole bunch of printed out recipes to use with some of the other products they sent me, and some blank recipe cards to jot down my own recipes on.
Inside both boxes were several rolls of each of the following: Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnabon to be exact, minis and regular size, some Pillsbury Pizza Crust, and some Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.

There are so many printed out recipes for some very tasty sounding foods like, Caramel Apple Strudel, Crab-Filled Crescent Wantons, Mini Pear Brie Bites, Prosciutto Spinach Pinwheels, Rosemary Turkey Squares, and then some recipes for some other things like side dishes, pastas and easy green bean recipes, flavorful mashed potato recipes, and oh my gosh, so so many wonderful sounding foods, and I cannot wait to be able to make some of these and to be ready and able to tell you all about these new frozen meals!
I just need to get up to the only store in my area that carries this new product so far, and then I'll be trying them all out, posting about them, taking some pictures of them too so you can all see them, and maybe sharing a few goodies with all of you!

Posted by Kat at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Tuesday, both the teens were home sick from school, they both had a stomach thing going on, but then they went back to school yesterday and today.
And then the school called me this morning.

"Ms. Cooper? I have Sebastian here in the health room clinic, and he's very sick. He vomited this morning, and we feel that he needs to go home."
Ok, so send him home.

I thought it was all over, but I guess not.
So he came home around 9am-ish, and dropped his backpack, kicked off his shoes, and then grabbed his blanket and pillows, and collapsed on the couch where he's been sleeping ever since.
His kitty Shahiro, must know he's not feeling well because she hasn't left his side.
She hopped up on the couch on top of his blanket, and curled up right next to him.
He got up to use the bathroom a few minutes ago and then went right back to the couch, and she could hardly wait for him to get settled before she was right back on him.
I think it's just kinda cute how our pets know we don't feel well and they do this cuddle thing.
She keeps licking his hands, reaching her paws out towards his face, mewing a little bit, like she knows he's sick and she wants to make him feel better or something.

Posted by Kat at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I want to apologize to all of my blog readers and visitors, for a very odd pop-up for a thing called dg.specificclick.net.
It looks like this, (you probably have already seen it on my site a gazillion times, so so sorry!)

Apparently, this has been well known since like April 2007, but tonight is THE first time I have ever seen it on my site's pages.
I had absolutely no idea, and no one told me!

It was from the site tracking product sitemeter, a stats tracking service that was well known and trusted, I've seen it on many, many blogs over the years, and never saw that pop up before tonight.
I did a view source search on the pages of my blog it was popping up on, for the specific term "dg.specificclick.net", and came up empty, so I googled it to A) find out what it was and B) find out how to get rid of it.

1,170 search results, and thankfully, this guy posted a very detailed post that explains the entire thing, what it is, how to get rid of it, who did it, blocking it's cookies and so on.

Why hadn't I seen it until now?
Because I rarely, if ever, clean out my cookies.
But on Sunday, I was having an issue and so I cleaned out all cookies, it took about 1 full minute before the box closed, so you know that I just had tons and tons of cookies in there.
Because I hadn't cleaned out those cookies for so long, I had never seen the pop up at all.
I had various forms of the sitemeter code on many pages of my blogs, and so after having a totally cleaned out cookie jar, I was now seeing that pop up everywhere tonight.
I had no freaking clue!

So what did I do when I learned that it was a sitemeter related issue?
I went through every page of my blog where I had their code, and I removed every line of the sitemeter code.
I cannot believe that that crappy pop up was on so many pages of my blog, and I never noticed, but my readers and visitors had been subjected to it.
I am so so sorry, I truly apologize for that crappy piece of tracking spyware crap popping up on all of you.
I had been using and loving sitemeter for all of the years I've been blogging.
It was a really good stats tracker, but I've now removed it and tested all the pages I had the code on, or at least I think I did.
If any of you come across a sitemeter code on any page, or get hit with that pop up on any page, please let me know so I can remove it.

I trusted and loved sitemeter for a long time, and when I started my new blog back in July, I was meaning to get around to adding the code to that blog too.
Thank goodness I never found the time!

Posted by Kat at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Both Mark and Sebastian were home sick from school today.
Whatever it was that had Mark puking yesterday, has taken a hold of Sebastian today.

I had my post-op stitches out appointment today, and Sebastian didn't want to stay home, he wanted to go with me and take pictures of my stitches coming out, so I let him. (You can read about my appointment and see those pics at the link)
Mark stayed home and laid on the couch watching tv and stuff.
He said he couldn't eat anything all day, and when we stopped for some food on the way home, Sebastian said about 45 minutes after eating it, that he felt wicked sick.
Luckily, he didn't puke until we actually got home though.

Sebastian loves my surgeons offices, it's all modern furniture in black, red, white, and gray.
Very sleek, very simple and organized, he just loves it in there, and I have to agree, it's very soothing sitting in his waiting room and even the patient rooms.
He carried the theme from the waiting room into the patient rooms, and it all just looks very nice, it's calming.

I want to also tell you all that tonight is the very last night for the Boobiethon.
Picture submissions have closed, but they will be there until midnight taking your donation.
That's right, I said your donation.
They are sooooo close to reaching $9,000, and your donation could be the one that gets them to that amount.
So please, please, please, be helpful, be generous, and donate whatever you can to the boobiethon
They have posted to Twitter, that all donations of just $15 and up, will get access to the naked pay-per-boobies page.
That's a helluva deal folks!! And it will end in just a few more hours, help us make $9,000!!

Posted by Kat at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The school called a few minutes ago, specifically the school nurse.
Mark threw up, needs to come home.
So I said ok, send him home.
She asked if it was ok for him to walk or would I be picking him up.

Obviously I can't be picking him up, and we only live a few blocks from the school, so uh yea, he can walk.
She didn't seem approving of that answer and asked me again.
I had to explain the situation to her, and then she was a bit more understanding and allowed him to walk.
I asked her if someone could notify Sebastian that his brother had left, they walk home together every day, she said she'd make sure that he knows.

I really hope this is just like a food thing and not a flu or virus kind of thing.
Puking is seriously no fun with all this hardware inside me.

Posted by Kat at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just wanted to remind you all, that there are only 2 days left for the 7th annual Blogger Boobie-thon.
That means you have 2 days to make a donation, or 2 days to send in a picture, but just 2 days to do something to help fund the cure for breast cancer research.

As of 9:30pm on Sunday October 5th, the boobie-thon reached 100 donors, 150 submitted pictures, and a total of $7,556.00!
We've beat last years total by $1,890.00.
That's awesome!

Over the last 7 years, bloggers from around the world, have raised over $40,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research.
It's so amazing that a bunch of bloggers have been able to do so much good and have some fun doing it.

If you haven't donated yet, if you haven't sent in your picture yet, you still have time, not much, we have just 2 more days to go, but there's still time for you to help make a difference, to help fund the cure for breast cancer.

Posted by Kat at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I read a lot of blogs, married people blogs, political blogs, funny people, depressed people, and a ton of single mom/parent blogs.
One thing has been talked about briefly on some of the single mom blogs, but almost all of the single mom blogs talk about it.
What is that thing?
Tribes.

What?
What is a tribe?
Why do single moms need tribes?
Why are all these single moms part of tribes?
Is tribe just another word for group of friends?
Seriously, the way it's used when they talk about it, it makes it sound like, to me, that a tribe is just another way of saying friends.
But if I'm wrong, please enlighten me.
Tell me what a tribe is and why I should have one, or be a part of one, or is this some new thing that single moms are doing to make themselves feel not so alone.

I'm 38, I have 2 teenage sons.
Mark is 17, Sebastian is 15, and I've been a single mom, doing it alone, for the last 15 years now.
Since 1997, I've been online blogging, writing it all out, connecting with other people, sharing my life with whoever stops by here and reads it all, and I've found that the "alone" feeling so many single moms feel, isn't there for me.
I am never alone really, I have so many friends here on the internet that I share with, connect with, talk to, that I do not feel alone like so many other single moms feel, and that's the reason they have these things called tribes.
I think.
Look above, I may be wrong, probably am wrong, on the whole definition of a tribe.
So if one of you single moms who is part of a tribe or knows what a tribe is would like to tell me what it is, that would be awesome.
Thanks.

I've blogged a lot about my need/desire to lose weight and my inability to exercise normally due to my spine fusion surgeries, and I was contacted by a company that makes weight loss supplements and diet pills, and asked if I would be interested in trying out a new system for losing weight.
Considering that my body is no longer normal, no longer moves the way pretty much everyone else moves, I said sure, why not.
I had to stop taking the weight loss product I was using and having good results with, before my surgery so that I'd not have any problems during the surgery, and even though I lost weight while in the hospital and since the surgery, I'm still interested in losing weight.
I still have excess weight on me, pounds that need to come off, and this product is said to be unlike any other, so yeah, I'm game.
They are going to send me a 6 month supply, 2 month supply at a time, for free, as long as I post my results good, bad, or whatever, on my blog.
I'll do it on KatScan because that is where I'm doing all of my health and personal stuff, and trying to keep this one for just mommy/kid/home stuff.
So when it gets here, I'll post starting weight, goal weight, and all about this new product on KatScan, and if you want to follow that progress, I'll occasionally link it from here.

Almost 1 month out from surgery and my insomnia has returned.
I was dead dog tired the first 2-3 weeks, and now I'm right back being wide awake at almost 2am again.
What the hell is wrong with my body clock?

Posted by Kat at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do any of you shop at or know about Aldi stores?
The closest store to me is going to be in St. Petersburg, which is far too far to go to save money on groceries.
The cost of gas would eat up the grocery savings, but they (St. Pete) will be having a grand opening on October 27th.
I checked the list, and so far Sarasota is NOT on the grand opening list for stores in Florida.
I want one here! You hear me Aldi! Come to Sarasota!

I am going to keep my eye on that site and watch for Sarasota to make the list, and when it does, I'll be up, showered, and heading on over like mover NYC style to save myself some major money on groceries.
Fast and ready to hustle.

If you haven't heard about Aldi stores, check out the site, read up on this.
It's kind of like a Sam's Club, all of the shelves are loaded with the actual boxes the products are delivered in, just cut open so you can get an item out, they have their own Aldi select brands which are cheaper than the major name national brand grocery products.
Most of their select brands cost up to 50% less than the national name brand products.
Why?
Because all the fruits and vegetables are locally grown, the dairy products all come from local dairy farmers, same with eggs, and pretty much every other fresh product like meat and poultry.
All of their canned and boxed food items are all private label, and they only carry the top 1,300 most frequently bought grocery items which is just one of the ways they help the consumer save money.

Another way they help save you money is by not having baggers or bags.
You can bring your own bags or take empty boxes from the shelves, and bag your own groceries.
But they do have bags for you if you didn't bring any.
They have environmentally friendly paper bags for .5 cents, environmentally friendly plastic bags for .10cents, and insulated bags for frozen food for .99cents.
By not having baggers, their employee payroll costs stay low, and so that's another savings passed onto the consumer.

They take cash, debit cards, and EBT cards.
They do not accept checks or credit cards.
If they aren't getting bad checks, they don't have to pass those costs on to the shopper.
By not having credit cards, there's no slow down while people sign slips, and no processing fees from the credit card companies.
And because they have their own brands, there's no coupons for the cashiers to have to scan in and then bag up, and then cash out at the end of the night.
No time consuming-payroll- hours-wasting steps to do.

They also have a cart rental fee of .25cents.
This is so the employees don't have to fetch the carts from the lot.
You put a quarter in the cart's special coin box, that releases the cart for you to use, and when you're done, you simply take the cart back to the cart corral, attach the chain, and you get your quarter back.
They are also open for more limited hours.
9am to 7 or 8pm Monday through Saturday, and 12 to 5 on Sundays.
Being open during non-peak shopping hours adds to the employee labor costs, which then gets added to the cost of your grocery items.

I seriously want one of these Aldi stores in Sarasota.
I would shop there all of the time if it saved me more money on food than I am now.
Maybe when the one in St. Pete opens up, I'll find a way up there to check it out, and if it seriously rocks, I'll start a petition or something to get them to build one here.
I know that Sarasota is a pretty well-to-do community, but we do have a lot of poor sections of town, and a lot of middle class people too.
I'm sure that if an Aldi store opened up here, it would be busy all the time once word got out about how much money people were saving on groceries, especially now in our economic disaster time that Wall Street and banks created.

If you have ever shopped at an Aldi, is it as great as it sounds?
How are their select brands compared to the national name brands?

Posted by Kat at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

It's not even Halloween yet, but I'm already seeing some on line stores starting to advertise for the 2008 Black Friday sales, which start around November 28th.

I know that the teens would love to have Gears of War 2 Limited Edition for Christmas.
It gets released on November 7th, and I'm going to try and pre-order it for them so that they will have it in plenty of time for Christmas.
They love the first one so much they went through 4 discs already.
It's not that they are hard on the discs, I really believe it's a manufacturing issue because after doing some forum surfing, I've found other game players who've also gone through multiple game discs.
Hint hint Epic Games, your products are shoddy.

The teens haven't asked for anything else.
Yet.
But I'm a mom, so I'm going to get them things like new clothes and shoes, boxers, socks, etc.
I'm a meanie mom though.
I get some good medium sized boxes, and I put the boxers and socks in them, and then add some heavy stuff like candy or some smallish action figures in the boxes to make them weighted, feel like they have something big in them, and then wrap up like all the other presents.
Then I watch their faces as they tear through the wrapping papers to find underwear...LOL

I have no idea what I want, I'll probably get myself a few DVDs of movies that I love watching, maybe a bottle of my fave perfume, maybe some new sneakers or something.
I always have to get myself at least 1 present or the boys get upset.
I never used to get myself anything and unwrap it because I'm the mom, the holiday is about making the kids happy, but the teens always ask why there's nothing under the tree for me, and then they try to give me some of the gift cards that they got.
So now I always buy at least 1 thing for me, wrap it, put a bow on it, and I put a gift tag that says it's from them.
It makes them happy and that makes me happy.

So are you already looking for Black Friday deals?
Have you already written your Christmas shopping lists?
Have you started shopping already?

Posted by Kat at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

They, being the teens, and this, is in regards to the home stuff.
I am on so many restrictions from my surgery, that I'm not able to do much at all around the house, which leaves it all on my son's shoulders.

They are doing all of the cleaning, all of the laundry, and all of the cooking.
I'm supervising, or nagging as my sons have said, and trying to teach them how to do things the right way.
Teenage boys just don't really grasp the full concept of cleaning.
To them, cleaning means pick up all of the stuff from their bedroom floors, and toss it on the bed, shelves, on top of the dresser, or on the floor of the closet.
To me, cleaning means fold the clothes or put them in the laundry basket if they are dirty, hang them in the closet, sweep and mop the floors, make the beds etc etc.

But they are doing really, really well at cooking.
Mark loves to cook and he's getting pretty good at it.
We've only had one meal so far which I would call less than appetizing, but he's learning, he's really trying, and that is what is important.

Mark has been the one to make most of the dinner meals, with Sebastian doing the dishes after we're all done, and Mark is trying some of my recipes out and adding his own flair to them.
I don't mind it, I just ask him to keep the hot spices to a minimum because my stomach just cannot handle it very well.
He did ask me if we have one of those popcorn machines though.
He said that he was on line at school today after he finished his modules, and so he spent some time looking up recipes and other stuff, and he found a recipe that uses freshly made popcorn, not microwave stuff.

I told him that I didn't have one, but maybe we can find one of those stove-top popcorn pans like we used to have when I was a kid.
It would be freshly made, not microwave, but not from a machine.
So on our next shopping trip when I can actually go, I'll take a look and see if I can find one of those.
I know they still make them, it's just a matter of finding a store that sells them.

I asked him what he was planning for tonight's dinner, he wouldn't tell me, but he's been in and out of the kitchen for the last hour cutting up some boneless chicken breasts into strips, red and green bell peppers into strips, and some onions, and reading the instructions on the box for the minute rice we have.
I started to tell him how to make the rice and he shushed me, said if he was going to learn to cook, he has to read and follow the directions.
Ooooo-kaaaaay!
So I left the kitchen but told him to be careful with the sharp knives, I don't feel like going to the ER tonight, and to call me if he needs my help with anything or needs me to tell him where stuff is, or if we have a certain spice he may need.

He just finished cutting up all the chicken and veggies he's going to use, put them in a bowl, and then poured some teriyaki marinade over them, and sealed the bowl with a piece of press n' seal wrap.
He said it needs to marinate for about an hour, and then he'll start the cooking part of it.
I'm kind of excited about it, I can't wait to see what he's come up with.

Posted by Kat at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The 7th annual boobiethon has begun, and even though I can't help out this year doing photo-editing, I can still spread the word.
So head on over to the boobiethon and give what you can!

Posted by Kat at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)