My Single Mom Life

This is the message that all local Sarasota residents have been seeing on channel 40, WWSB ABC 7 since 5pm today.
WWSB ABC 7 claims that they will be shutting off their analog signal on Sunday February 1st, because they need time to finish construction at the transmitter sites, yet they actually shut it off today, January 30th 2009 at 5pm.

They claim that their digital signal IS broadcasting, but it's a very weak signal due to the same transmitter site construction, but it's not.
They also are claiming that Brighthouse cable is not picking up their signal relay, and blaming Brighthouse for that error.
But when I called WWSB ABC 7 at 11:05pm tonight and spoke with some guy who answered the phone, he fully admitted that they are not broadcasting a full signal at all, but will be on February 17th.

Between February 1st and February 17th, the digital signal for them will not be very strong at all, but they keep saying that it is working on both 40.1 and 52.1, and Titantv.com does indeed say that they are supposed to be transmitting on 52.1, but no, they are not.

11:00 PM, 35 min
Fri 01/30/2009
WWSBDT 52.1 (40)

It pisses me off that WWSB ABC 7 has decided to shut off their analog signal completely before February 17th.
There are so many people in Sarasota who do not have cable, cannot afford it, may not even have a digital converter box yet, and rely on the local channel for news and more importantly, weather for our immediate area, and now we cannot see it at all.
They claim they shut off the analog signal after the 6:30pm broadcast, but I have been seeing that above message since 5pm.
They were also talking all week long, about a report that was supposed to air on tonight's 11pm news broadcast, all about the digital switch, and how they were going to have some tech person on to explain it all.
Well a lot of good that did telling us about the special report, NO ONE COULD WATCH IT!!!!!!

There are several local stations who I am having trouble picking up with the digital converter box and the digital antenna that I bought, and I am desperately trying to get someone to come install the antenna on the outside of the house for me, I cannot do it, the teens cannot do it, because time is running out for me, the switch is happening whether I'm ready for it or not, and other stations may decide to shut off before the 17th as well, which really is NOT fair at all.

Hell, the government was discussing delaying the switch until June, because there are still about 6.5 million American households that rely on analog televisions, and are not ready for the switch, but the delay didn't pass the house.
Not everyone can afford to get cable, not everyone can afford the digital converter boxes, and those coupons expire, a lot of stores that were supposed to stock them didn't even have them in stock at all, and so those coupons expired and people cannot get any more at all.
As of Wednesday, more than 47 million coupons had been sent out, but only 21.8 million had been redeemed. While 14.3 million had expired, 11 million were still active.

This whole switch to digital has been a huge pain in my ass.
Stations stopped broadcasting in analog, like channel 28, ABC Action News, a few weeks ago, and now WWSB ABC 7.

I can't afford cable, even if I could I wouldn't get it because it's far too much excess crappy channels.
I can't afford Fios either, because even though Verizon says it's only $99.99 a month, my old neighbors bought into that supposed deal, but never had a bill less than $200 the whole time they had it living next door.

I should be able to plug in the converter box, plug it into the digital antenna, and it should all work beautifully, but it doesn't because I live in a concrete block house, so it needs to be installed on the outside of the house, on the roof, and I can't do it.
You have no idea how frustrating this all is to me.
I am so used to being able to do all this technical stuff, I fix everything in this house myself, well, I used to.
All I wanna do is unhook the digital antenna from the wall where we attached it thinking it would work, take it outside, attach it to the roof, run the cable line through the air conditioner area, and plug it in.
But I can't.
I can't raise my head up to undo the screws holding it to the wall, I am not allowed to get on a ladder and climb it to attach it to the roof, I'm not alowed to do freaking anything and it sucks so freaking much.
I hate relying on other people, I hate it!
And I hate that tv stations lied to people tonight, they are running a message that says the switch is taking place Sunday, and yet, they shut down their signal today, and are not broadcasting a signal strong enough to even be picked up by a local cable company.
Screw you WWSB ABC 7!
Fuck you!

Posted by Kat at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I won a book from Ms. Single Mama's blog a few weeks ago, called Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You've Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted, it came in today's mail, so I'll probably start reading it soon.
I really don't want to start dating anyone, no desire to, especially not with how my body currently is, more upcoming surgeries and stuff, it really wouldn't be fair to anyone, but it did get me thinking about all of that relationship stuff, "getting back in the saddle" as they say, and whether or not I even feel comfortable enough with my body to get naked again or even wear some sexy lingerie.
I have so many scars now, over 28 inches of scar running down my back, a 12 inch scar on my stomach just to the left of my belly button, a scar on my left butt cheek from the bone graft, and a scar under my right breast from the chest tube when my lung collapsed during surgery.
And then I think about the upcoming surgery, and all of the new scars that will be added.

Not exactly attractive ya know?

Anyway, I was on Twitter last night checking out what everyone was up to, noticed I had some new followers, so I went to check them out.
I check out every single new follower, I read their bios, I click on their links, check out their sites or blogs, whatever.
I came across one that sorta annoyed me, so no, I didn't add them back.
It was a Florida divorce attorney, sorry, too late, I'm already long divorced, but as I was checking them out, reading some of their tweets, I saw a word that was just like the final straw for me.
"Momflict."

I am so sick of these types of stupid words!
Momflict is NOT a word, conflict is, but no, momflict is not a real word, and I'm tired of seeing people use made up words to describe their or someone else mommy blogs or problems.
I see the stupidest words on people's blogs and on Twitter all of the time, made up words, and it annoys the crap outta me.
I get it, momflict, it was used to describe a problem a mom is having, but it's not a real word, and honestly, when people use these types of stupid made up words, I am immediately turned off.
I don't know why, maybe it makes me think they are stupid, they probably think they are being super clever or something, but it's not clever, it's stupid, and I refuse to add people who use stupid made up words.

Posted by Kat at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The news has been so depressing lately, all the lost jobs, companies closing, people losing work and homes, and some people so desperate, they take their lives or the lives of their families.

I read that there's been something like 11 family murder-suicides since this whole thing started, and another one happened in Ohio the other day.
It seems the father's are falling apart, the men, the heads of households are crumbling under the weight of this crappy economy.
A father in Ohio shot his wife and 2 small kids, and then himself, over being unemployed but got his job back anyway.
Was the burden of the building debts far too much for him to deal with anymore?
That's what they're saying about the family out in California, that the father simply couldn't handle the amount of debts, and killed his 5 kids, wife, and then himself.

And then I'm surfing around today, and I see this site, Director of Fandemonium, it's a job search site, they say they have over 330,000 jobs, 100,000+ employers, so it got me thinking.
Are there really no jobs left out there?
Can a company say the have work, say they can help you find a job, if there really aren't any?
Are people panicking so badly that they don't even try to see if there's another job that they can do?
Is the stress of listening to the nightly news and reading the newspapers, which are laying people off left and right, just too much for people to deal with?

I watch the news every single night, and even though I don't own my home or have an outside the home job, I sit here watching with my heart racing, listening to Brian Williams tell it like it is, (with a little spin of course) and think to myself, no wonder people are freaking out, I'm freaking out.
All I can do, all any of us can do, is hope that things turn around and get better.
Soon.
I look at the new stimulus plan, and all I can think is how it's not going to work.
If you give people money in this economy, there will be some who spend it on frivolous crap, but most people, smart people, are going to hang onto that money, stick it in the bank, because things are way too bad to just go buy something that you don't really need, not when we're watching more and more companies laying people off and closing up shop.
And then I think, instead of taking our money and then findng ways to give it back to us to stimulate the economy, why not take less of our money, take less taxes away from us, let us keep more of our paychecks so that we have more money to pay our bills and buy things.
We'd be able to stimulate the economy naturally if we had more money from our paychecks to do what we need to do.

I've been told that's crazy thinking, that the liberals see handing people more money is far easier to do than to take less away from us.
That just doesn't make sense, my brain doesn't register that as a logical thing to do at all.
Take more money away, then give us more money that they took away because they all screwed up and realize that they need to give us more money.
Just take less away from us to start with, and there will be none of this taking and giving back.

Posted by Kat at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I wanted to alert you all to some new adverts who have begun working with me in my sidebar through Blogads.
You can check each of these out by clicking on their ads in my sidebar.
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There's an interesting and educational book called "Let Go of Me! You're Not My Daddy!"
It's all about a little girl named Molly who wanders away from her mom while shopping, and is almost taken by a strange man.
This story and its colorful illustrations will teach a young girl or boy what to do in a similar situation.
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There's Regalo Boutique, which is run by a local Sarasota business owner and fellow blogger, and it's a great site for some really beautiful decorative home products, and much more at really great low prices!!
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There's also the whimsical art sculpture of local Sarasota artist George Beiber.
His little sculptures are funny and charming, and he's been featured in some local art shows and exhibitions, as well as winning awards for his beautiful works of art!
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There's also the Combat Fitness Blog run by another local Tampa area man, Donnie Kiernan, who wants to help you get into the best physical shape of your life.
Combatfitnessblog.com is committed to your overall health and fitness by utilizing unconventional strength and conditioning methods. Stop by for training, injury prevention, and nutrition advice. Sign up for our free fitness newsletter and receive a free introduction to strength training articles.
Check out his bio and his blog.
I have several friends who have gone through Donnie's "boot camp weekends", and have come away with a whole new appreciation for physical fitness and their bodies, and they continue to work out with him when he runs his boot camps, they take classes, and he even offers some private instruction based on your personal physical fitness needs.
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So please, swing by, check out my advertisers.
By supporting my advertisers and local businesses, we can all do our part to try and help boost the economy.

Posted by Kat at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I feel like I have just been spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast for the last few weeks.
Everything always happens in groups when it happens around here.
My life is basically boring, it's generally the same thing day in and day out, but once 1 thing happens, every other possible thing that can happen, happens.

As I've posted about, Sebastian has been getting some really severe migraines.
The medicine to try and help control them, Fiorinal, isn't really helping him all that much.
He's supposed to take 1 every 6 hours as needed for the migraines, but they don't last a full 6 hours, so I called the doc and he said he can take 1 every 4 hours as needed, but no more than that.
Well they still don't help him much, they wear off rather quickly, but if he could take them at school, maybe he'd be ok.
The problem with that is the school's zero tolerance policy against drugs, even prescribed drugs, they said he cannot have them at school.
Not even in the nurse's office with her dispensing them as he needs them.
They do not allow any type of narcotics, even prescribed ones, to be on school property at all.
Heck, students aren't even allowed to have Tylenol at school.
I argued with the school nurse for over an hour on Tuesday morning when they called to tell me they were sending him home due to his migraines.
We went back and forth over the issue, it's a prescribed medication, he has a script, a note from the doctor, he has to take them, he will be seeing a neurologist after February 16th, please, please, make an exemption, or tell me who I have to speak to about getting an exemption.
They said I'd have to take it up with both the principal, and possibly even the school board, if the principal feels the medication is too strong.

Here's what Fiorinal is:
Aspirin, Butalbital, and Caffeine.
That's it, that's all that's in it, but because the main ingredient is in a class called barbiturates, the school will not allow him to have them.
If he takes even 1 pill to school in his pocket (because they won't allow them in the nurse's office under her supervision and dispersion) to take when a migraine comes on, and he gets caught taking it, he will definitely be suspended, and possibly expelled due to their zero tolerance policy.
Even though he has a prescription and they will not let him have them in an adult's care.
It makes me absolutely furious that he is suffering and has medication that helps somewhat, yet they will not allow him to have or take them as medically prescribed.
So tomorrow, I'm going to call his doctor and see if he can help me force the school to allow him to have his medicine when he needs it.

The way they are handling it is, if his migraines come on and get too bad for him, to where he's putting his head down, near tears from pain, they are simply sending him home so he can take his medicine at home, but not allowing him to return for the rest of the day.
He's sent home, so it's an excused absence, but how ridiculous is it that they would prefer to send a student home for the day rather than give them their prescribed medications?!?!

Today I had my appointment with my surgeon, and once again, it's all really overwhelming news, more than I even want to think about, but I have about 2 months to think and decide how I want to proceed.
My quality of life now verses a possibly even more degenerated medical state, or a possibly better medical state.
But we won't really know the total risk percentages until a few more specialists have been spoken to, ideas talked about, all of the pros and cons gone over with a fine tooth comb.

But man, getting there today was the pits.
We (Mindy and I) left here at noon, usually takes about an hour and 30 or so minutes to get there, but I blinked and missed the exit which caused us to be just 2 exits off, but with no turn around area, and in a city that does not have cross over roads to get back to where we needed to be.
So I called people for help with directions.
I called my sister who got us much closer, then I tried to call my friend Jimmy who drives a truck for a living and knows that area of Tampa/Hillsborough/Pinellas County/McMullen Booth Road very well, and when he didn't answer, I tried another friend who lives out in the Wesley Chapel area and drives to and from the Tampa area all of the time, only to have him text me rather than call me back, and then when did, he said he never travels on McMullen Booth Road because it's "scary."
So then I called my friend Tina, who practically lives near my surgeons office, drives to and from work up and down McMullen Booth Road twice a day, who couldn't tell me actual directions because she uses landmarks, not street names, and between road signs that pointed us the wrong way, bad directions, roads not even marked, and construction and digital signage pointing us in all of the wrong directions, I was over an hour late for my appointment, my blood pressure was through the roof, it was hot, I was sweaty, we had been in the car for 3 hours and 15 minutes, both of us having to pee like race horses, and it just made me absolutely crazy.
I was on the verge of tears at one point, laughing so I wouldn't actually start crying.
The stress of everything over the last few weeks is just building in me, and then to get the news he gave me, blah, my day was just absolute crap.
Mindy is like a total saint, she didn't get frustrated once, and if she did, she certainly didn't show it, she even joked about how we had now taken the scenic route and how we both should know the Tampa area a little better now.
Ha ha. eh.

There's another cold front coming through, so it will be another few days of being frozen from the inside out, which my surgeon says other patients also report feeling, trying to get Sebastian some help, and trying to teach him some relaxation techniques to help him cope with the migraines.
I know how he feels, I get them as well, so I'm trying to teach him how to calm himself down, to breathe slowly, to take his mind someplace else, trying to deal with the school's idiotic rule about medicine, trying to get all of my health stuff sorted out, trying to deal with work, and people who lie and cause problems, hypocrites, and more.
I wish I could open people's eyes, help them see, but people choose to see what they want, they believe what they want, and nothing will change that for them until they get burned, again.
That bothers me, a lot, because I don't like seeing people I consider friends get burned by other people's lies and hypocrisy.
I need to remember that I cannot take on the weighty problems of others, I need to remember and keep telling myself over and over, that I cannot make others be logical or think logical, that they must get there on their own.
I cannot reason with people who cannot see reason, people who are continuously blinded by empty promises.

Posted by Kat at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Years ago, like when we first moved here to Florida, so 12 years now, my sister made me a clay kitty.
She's quite the artist, clay, paint, photo, sculpture, wire, all kinds of artistic mediums.
Anyway, she made me this clay kitty and I love him so much.
He's seen some bad times in the last 12 years, a fall off a shelf which resulted in his head being broken off, dust, dirt, his real hair whiskers coming out, but he is still beautiful to me.

He's made of clay, he has blue marble eyes, his whiskers are her hair, strands of her real hair, most of them have now come out, he was baked slowly in an oven, had a broken neck which is now super glued, but he is still the most awesome little clay kitty ever.

She is currently working on building a mini carousel, she's started to hand paint each individual clay horse, and she will be building the whole carousel, adding music, and making it spin as well.

This is one of my most fave things she makes, trees out of wire.
This is one that she currently has entered into a local artists fair, and when the judges were going around to just look at new entrants, they all stopped and remarked how they had never seen anything like this.
This is a huge one, but she has made small ones out of gold or silver wire, mostly scrap wire from old electronics that broke.
This is a whole bunch of scrap wire she found in a junk pile, and she made this amazing tree out of it.
I'm almost positive that she will win the artists fair for this piece.

*EDIT*
Jo left a comment, she did win first place for the tree!
"I did win a first place ribbon on the tree".

Posted by Kat at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I forgot to tell you all the funny thing that happened while we were shopping at Sweetbay today.

We were in the cereal aisle, it was cramped, the aisles are small, and so there we were, another lady y the front of the aisle, a lady coming up the aisle, and then this really crazy old man in one of those electric wheeled scooters came into the aisle.
He was already mad, sputtering something, he yells at us to get out of his way, almost hit me with his little scooter, and I'm thinking that shopping carts need blinkers, horns, and maybe even some cheap car insurance because of how often I get slammed into while shopping, so I turn around to tell him I can't go anywhere because of the lady coming up the aisle.

He sees my neck brace, and that set him off on the time that ex-vice president Dick Cheney, tried to kill him at the Publix on Bee Ridge road.
See, he was shopping, and Dick Cheney was shopping, had his secret service people with him, and they were pushing people out of the way, and this old guy wouldn't move, so Dick Cheney, according to this guy, pulled a gun on him.
That's when he starts telling me about how Dick is a craaaazy man!
He shoots people all of the time, and he tried to kill him that day right there in the middle of Publix.

By now, the lady coming up the aisle wants to get out, she must have said excuse me 10 times, she's getting mad, and so he gets mad at her, starts yelling at her to move her cart and he'll move his scooter, and he's still yelling about Dick Cheney trying to kill him.

Sebastian and I see him and hear him throughout the rest of the store, crashing into stuff, opening food and drinks, yelling at people, and the two of us are just laughing.
I said to Sebastian that I was going to blog this, and I totally forgot about it until just now.
It was totally funny though, maybe you had to be there, but he swears that Dick Cheney tried to kill him at the Publix on Bee Ridge road. hahaha

Posted by Kat at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sebastian is not getting much relief from his migraine meds, so the doc has referred him to a neurologist to get looked at.
I can only imagine how much it's going to cost, probably somewhere in the same price range as some New York Yankees tickets I bet.
We'll go see the neurologist after February 16th, the doc we have been referred to is out of his office until then.
Poor kid is going to have to go through a lot of testing I think in order to get to the root of his migraine issues.

But for now, the doc called him a new med, so we went to CVS to pick it up late this afternoon, and then we went and did a little shopping at Sweetbay.
I don't like shopping there, but the CVS is over by that store, and Publix is the opposite direction.
I didn't feel like going all the way that way, and then home again.
Wasted trips and time.
The reason I don't like shopping there is because the store always smells dirty, it always smells like rotting meat and dirt, and the employees are never ever happy.
None of them ever smile, they don't say hello, thank you, come again, nothing.
They are a miserable bunch of people over there.
The cashier we had though, said when I asked him how old people had to be to work there, that they weren't hiring any new people because all of the other stores in Sarasota are being closed down, and the employees that aren't being laid off, will be coming to work there.
I don't know why they are closing down the other ones, they should close down that one, it's yucky, dirty, and the other stores are all brand new and much cleaner with happier employees too.
Oh well, I don't shop there often enough to really care, but I know other people who do who might be upset about it.

Posted by Kat at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I so hope that Buy.com is having another incredible sale on LCD tvs when I get my income taxes back!
They have a 32" LCD tv on sale right now for just $399.99, it's normally $899.99, so that's a HUGE savings of $500.00!
And!
They give you free shipping as well!

It's an Arion 32" LCD tv, never heard of that brand name before, but hey, half of the electronics I currently own aren't a "major" brand name either.
I really don't care who makes something as long as it works well.
With the switch to digital tv coming up on me really super fast, and still not able to get the antenna mounted to the roof, I still can't use the digital converter box, the channels just will not come in because of the concrete block housing that we live in.
So, basically, I need to get the antenna mounted to the roof, hook up the converter box to make my current tv work, and/or also get a new tv that has automatic digital tuning which this one does.
It has a ton of features, it uses both the analog and digital tuner, so it would work for what I need, I so hope that they have another really good sale when I get my taxes back.
Then I could move the current tv into my room and buy another converter box, run another line to the RF switch adapter, and have a tv in my room so I can go in their to lay down and rest when my joints act up.

Posted by Kat at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, now both Sebastian and I have the virus from hell.
He had to stay home from school today because every 5 minutes he was cramping up and running to the toilet.
I gave him some antibiotics and some Tums to help deal with it all, but it's miserable and nothing really helps.
You cannot take anti-diarrhea medicine when you have a stomach virus.
If you do, you are only helping to keep the virus in your system.
You have to let it run it's course, run through you, and it usually takes roughly 24-48 hours to run it's course.
If he gets a fever and it doesn't go away after 4-5 days, if he gets dehydrated, I'll take him to the docs, but it should be gone soon, Mark had it and he's all better now on day 3.

I have been sick since yesterday morning as well as dealing with the cold weather that Florida is having.
I moved here for several reasons, one of them being the weather, I knew even back then that my back couldn't handle the cold, and so having this cold front come through here is really no fun at all.
Last night's lowest temp was 30 degrees here, and once again tonight they are calling it to be another "hard freeze warning", meaning extremely low temps again.
I know I complain a lot about the cold weather and the titanium, but if you could only feel what I feel when it gets cold, you'd be complaining too.

I would never ever hire something like a Lexington personal injury lawyer and go after my surgeon for what happens when it gets cold, it may only be me who deals with it, I honestly don't know if other spine fusion patients go through it too.
But what happens when it gets cold is, the titanium rods get cold, they get freezing cold to the point where it feels like I have popsicles inserted in my skin right on my spine and spinal cord.
It is unbearable, I didn't sleep at all last night and the night before, I just tossed and turned, tried to warm the titanium up anyway I could think of, but nothing helped at all.
My doc's nurse Cindy, did call me back yesterday, but she had sent out a new prescription for something a little stronger, so it came in today's mail and I went and got it filled early this afternoon.

Because I'm sick, the smell of food is making my stomach cramp up, Mindy has offered and will be bringing some home made lasagna over tonight around 5pm so that at least Mark and Sebastian can eat if they feel up to it.
She picked Sebastian and I up from Walgreen's this afternoon too after my script was filled so I didn't have to spend another $10 on a cab home.

Anyway, I'm really hoping that this runs it's course very quickly, I have work I have to do and I am sooo behind on it.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not only am I dealing with the cold spell here killing every joint, muscle, and freezing my titanium, I've also caught some sort of stomach virus.
Sorry I'm not around, but I'm really not well.
Doc did call me back, new med is on it's way to help with the pain, but the virus is going to have to work itself out I guess.

Posted by Kat at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was able to get and choose from some assorted personalized books for one of my nieces.
I chose a book that would put Susan's name in the whole story, "Susan and the unicorn.'

The book is extremely well made, the pages are good and sturdy, bright and vivid colors, cute little drawings, nice stories.
Susan's name is throughout the entire story, it's mentioned on almost every single page.

It's a cute little story abut Susan meeting a unicorn and the adventures they have one day.
They go play in the clouds, in the flowers, the unicorn lives behind the rainbow, and then Susan ends up back at home in her bed after taking a nap in a bed of flowers while the unicorn watches over and protects her.
It really is a cute little story, I just wasn't so sure about the ending.

When Susan wakes up after her nap back at home and tells her mother all about her adventures, her mother doesn't believe her.

As an atheist, I don't believe in unicorns either unless I ever see one for myself, but I feel that rather than just telling your child you don't believe the story they just told, you should just nod and smile.
A negative response to a child's imagination tends to hinder the imagination.
I do like the story though, I do think it's very cute and well done, and I would definitely order from them again.
They do all kinds of personalized gifts from coloring books to personalized party favors and posters, and growth charts too.
All in all, I think it's a great little book, made very well, with a cute story that will make a child feel like they are really part of it all.

Posted by Kat at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was a long terrible weekend here at casa Cooper.
I woke up on Saturday morning with a fever of 103, I was feeling absolutely miserable and things just got worse.
Teenagers suck the very life right out of you man.

Sebastian had a friend sleep over on Friday night, on noon Saturday, they went off to play with another friend a few streets away.
Around 5pm, I get a call from that kids mother that the boys got into a fight and Sebastian had threatened to come back home and throw out all of the kids things.
Sebastian came home, started yelling and screaming about the fight, I told him to go back to the kid and sincerely apologize.
Instead of doing that, he went up there and said, "I'm sorry I guess, but let me tell you my side."
That's not a sincere apology, that's being disrespectful and also disobedient.
So I grounded him for his disobedience.

Things simply escalated from there.
The yelling got worse, things were said, it was complete chaos here for hours and hours.
Finally, around 9pm, Sebastian left the house with no shoes and no jacket, it was cold out, and he went to another friends house.
That kid's father called me, said my son was there, they saw him standing in their yard just crying and shivering, so they let him in.
Sebastian begged them to not call me, but the dad said if it was his kids, he hoped that another parent would call anyway.
I agreed and explained what had happened.
He said he'd bring Sebastian home in a few hours, it was far too cold and too dark for him to walk back home.
I can hear this father's kid in the background spouting off, and the father yelled that if he ever puled this stunt, he'd kick his ass.

So Sebastian comes back home around midnight, he's still yelling and screaming, we go another few rounds, it's awful, I'm just not getting through to him about respect, obedience, greatful, thankful, he just doesn't get it.
Mark is upset because I'm upset, he tries talking to Sebastian, doesn't get anywhere with him either.

Sunday morning I wake up and take away all the video games and disconnect the internet from their room.
I decide to teach them about respect, about being greatful for what they have.
No, we aren't rich, but they have a lot more than they should have, they get a lot of things, I never go to a store without buying them something, yet I rarely ever hear a thank you uttered.
Their rooms are a disaster, they don't do their chores the first time they are asked, so I tell them that today this house will be cleaned top to bottom by them and them alone, it will be done to my satisfaction, they will learn to respect what they have, what they get, and the home we live in if it kills me.

They clean everything, they spend hours upon hours cleaning it all up, taking care to put items on shelves, folding their clothes, doing all of the things they should have been doing all along.

Anyway, almost the entire weekend was spent arguing and fighting, and cleaning, and telling them about being respectful and greatful, and I don't know if it sunk in or not, I just don't know, but I tried, I'm trying.
And I still feel like shit.
I'm behind in my work, I still have a screaming migraine, and I'm still doing everything else that I always do for everyone else.

I apologize for not being around, or being short in my replies, but I was dealing with home life and that takes a front seat to everything and everyone else.

Posted by Kat at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have been on a winning streak lately!
First, I won a diamond pendant, then I won 4 more pieces of jewelry, and now I won an 18 piece food storage set from Rubbermaid!

I had entered a scavenger hunt on the Gracobaby blog, and had a choice of 4 different products.
The teens and I don't like omelets enough for the pan, I don't need a humidifier, and as cool as the Dymo label maker would be, I just don't have enough use for something like that, even in my "get organized in 2009" state of mind.
So I chose the cheaper but far more useful to me, 18 piece set of Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids prize they offered.

With 2 teens, I've lost quite a bit of storage containers and lids.
I currently have a whole bunch of containers with a whole bunch of non-matching lids, so getting an all new set is a much better prize for me.

There are many companies on Twitter these days, and if I hadn't been following the Rubbermaid people, I would have never found Lindsay Lebresco and the Gracobaby blog where she posted the contest.

So thank you to Newell Rubbermaid, Gracobaby, and Lindsay, for the fun contest.
I enjoyed playing it and really enjoyed winning it!

Posted by Kat at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I took Sebastian to the docs so he could be looked at for his headaches, he asked Sebastian all kinds of questions about what triggers the headaches.
When do they usually start, do lights and sounds bother him, what makes it go away, does Tylenol work, darkness, cold etc etc.
Sebastian answered all of his questions, and the doc said it does sound like he has been dealing with migraines, so he gave him a medicine to take when they come on.
I don't know what it is yet because I have to go to a different pharmacy to get it.

We left the docs and went straight to Walgreen's where I was told that they no longer take Sebastian's insurance membership card, because CVS bought the rights to anyone who uses that particular insurance.
So now I have to get up to a CVS and get his medicine.
Ugh.

But after we left Walgreen's, the friend who drove me needed to do some grocery shopping, so we all went and did that, I picked up some more stuff that I didn't get last night, and then we came home.
When we were getting the groceries out of her car, Sebastian accidentally brought the van trunk door down on my head fairly hard.
I was stunned, shocked, in pain, I dropped the bag of food and grabbed my head, spinning around out onto the grass.
I was dizzy, my head spinning and throbbing.
I am ok though, it didn't hurt my neck, just my head, I have a pretty decent sized egg on it now, but I'm ok.

Poor kid felt absolutely awful, he was crying, he thought he really hurt my neck, he ran in the house and threw himself down on his bed and cried, he really thought he hurt me badly, but I swore to him that I am A-o-k, fine, just an egg, it's ok.
I'm wicked tired though, I barely got any sleep again last night, so I'm gonna go lay down and watch my soaps and chill.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Every couple of days for the last few months, Sebastian has been getting some pretty bad migraines.
His head pounds, lights and sound bother him something fierce, he ends up laying in my room for hours in the dark with a cold compress on his head, Tylenol ingested, and just waiting for it to pass.
He sometimes gets them at school too, which interferes with him getting an education.
He's in so much pain he can't focus on the text books or computer screens, he comes home and goes straight in to lay down.

The doctor's office finally called me back this morning, they can see him tomorrow morning at 10am, I already have transportation worked out, I just hope that the doc can figure it out and help Sebastian.
I hate seeing him in so much pain and suffering.
I get migraines myself, so I know all too well how badly the hurt.

Posted by Kat at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I know I can't really complain about the cold here, it's not as cold as up north in Maine where I used to live, and the temps in winter are like -10 with a wind chill of -20, but dammit, it's cold here and my joints are not freaking happy.

Yesterday, it was the beginning of the cold front coming through, a 70% chance of rain coming in the late afternoon they said.
Just as the teens were 5 minutes away from home, it started to downpour really badly.
Then the weather got really bad really quick.
The boys came home, they were soaked, and right after they changed out of their soaking wet clothes, it was like a hurricane had come through.
Initial reports said it was a tornado, but they are now saying it was "straight line winds" with gusts up to 50mph, and it did cause some real damage to some people's homes and property.

We heard things hitting our house, winds whipping, rain hitting the windows, so naturally, we ran outside to the carport to look. haha
Stuff was flying all over the place, palm branches had come down everywhere, our trashcans which were under the carport and empty because the trash guys had come in the morning, were rolling around the driveway, 1 had gone all the way across the street, and Sebastian ran out in the rain and winds to get it back, and it was just crazy for about 5-7 minutes.
Then, just as quickly as it started, it ended.
I did take a quick little video of it, I may upload it later on and add it to this post, it's just me in the carport watching it all and Sebastian going after the trash can, but you can see all of the debris that got blown all around.

Posted by Kat at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

As I've talked about, I'm really trying to get my finances, and my life, better organized and on track this year.
I'm paying down old debts, keeping a very close eye on my finances, keeping my urge to splurge in check, and using coupons every single time I go grocery shopping.

I always try to use coupons every single time I go grocery shopping, there are times that I forget to grab them, get home and kick myself, because right there on top of the microwave in my coupon holder, was a coupon that could have saved me $2.00 on an item that we use all of the time.
We don't get many coupon booklets in the Sunday paper here, my mom sends me a lot of coupons, and at least once a month, I get an envelope jam packed with tons of coupons, and I use every single one, and if I can't, I give those ones away to someone who can use them, or I leave them with the item on the store shelves.

But one of the best coupon and freebie finds in the last 3-4 months, was finding the Cheapsk8mom's blog.
She is constantly posting links to either print or get snail mailed awesome coupons, sales and shopping club cards for stores like CVS, the best weekly sales at Walgreen's and WalMart, Target, pretty much every single store, she knows what's on sale and how to get the absolute best possible deal on those items because she even matches up the coupons for you!
She also posts all of the best freebie deals you can imagine, like a free Chipotle burrito, free Starbucks, and coupons to get free hair care products like this one that just started today at 12:01am, for a free bottle of Suave Shampoo, Conditioner, Hair Spray, Styling Aid, Body Wash, or Body Lotion, and save up to $3.00 by mail.
I saw that one in my feed reader, and immediately signed up at 12:12am.
Hey, if it's free, it's for me..hahaha

But seriously folks, if you're trying to stretch your families food budget farther, health and beauty dollars farther, and even those splurge items like expensive Starbucks coffee, you totally need to add Cheapsk8mom to your feed reader, your blogroll, and your bookmarks, whatever way you remember to read blogs by, because she posts the best ways to save money for your family.

I sign up for almost every single by mail coupon she posts because Publix doesn't take computer printed coupons due to people printing thousands of fake ones, but if Cheapsk8mom posts a link to print one, she almost always prints a link to get it sent by mail too.
I absolutely love her site and her for doing this, finding the best deals and the best coupons.
In today's mail, I got a coupon for $2.00 off Velveeta, a coupon for $1.00 off some Lindt chocolates, and a whole bunch of other ones that I had signed up to get too.
I'm planning out my weekly menu and shopping list, and coordinating it with this weeks sale, and from the looks of things, I'm going to save a really big chunk of money.
So thanks Cheapsk8mom!

Posted by Kat at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was just checking out when my hosting account is due, and saw that I need to pay it on February 16th, 2009, and that made me remember just how long I've been doing this whole blogging thing.

I moved here to Florida from Maine on June 1st 1997, Sebastian's birthday, and when the boys and I got our own place, for my birthday that was coming up on March 1st, my sister bought me my first brand new computer and internet connection on dial-up in January 1998.
I started a blog on Tripod on January 11th, 1998.
I've been blogging for 11 years now.
Blogs had just begun, the term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997.
Very few people were doing them, I didn't even call what I was doing "blogging", I hadn't even heard the term or seen it, I was just writing to my "diary" on Tripod.
It was free, I hand coded the whole thing, but the name was always My Single Mom Life.
I started the whole thing as a way to have a cheaper way of keeping my parents and friends back home in Maine, updated on how we were doing down here.
Calling from Florida to Maine was too expensive, so I started an online diary talking about the ins and outs of our lives, my job, and the boys at daycare and summer camp, and starting to go to school.
I didn't even have comments on the thing, and because it was all hand coded, I had to start each page moving my older entries down by hand so it would be in descending order so the newest entries would be at the top.
It took a bit of time to do that every day.

I started seeing more and more people doing the same thing but calling it blogging.
They had actually started before me, long before me, but they called it blogging.
I was fascinated and absolutely hooked.
One of the very first blogs I ever saw in real blog format was TampaTantrum.com, it now resolves to Robyn's Shutterblog.com site where she talks all about her photography work.
Another was Promoguy.net, and through his comments, I met Rain-Cloud, who gave me some space on her hosting and gave me my first MT blog.
The Blog Tree.com lineage of my "parent bloggers" has currently exceeded it's bandwidth, but I'll keep checking it.
They were my parent blogs, they all took some time to explain things to me, teach me how all of this worked, and I've been hooked ever since.

I missed my own blogiversary a few days ago on January 11th, but that's ok.
Over the course of the years, I've had multiple hosting, the Tripod thing, then my first MT install, then some free hosting on a site that shall not be named, then paid hosting with a reseller who shall not be named, (it all went very very bad with all of the blogs being shut down with less than 24 hour notice) and then I finally went and bought my own domain name and hosting on February 17th 2004 with ICDSoft.com, and have been using them ever since.
I pay $96.00 per year, but it's worth every penny to me.
There's no downtime, ever, except the few times that I have screwed things up and ran to their help desk begging them to fix my mistakes, which they always do with the absolute best customer service ever.
They answer support tickets within 15 minutes, keep you constantly updated, and in 24 hours, they contact you again to make sure that it's still fixed and working right.
The one time it did go down and wasn't my fault, was because of a massive ice storm in the north east, and they posted to their main site every hour on the hour with status updates, and they rented some servers from another company to get us all back up and running within 8 hours.
They didn't charge us any extra for any of that, they are constantly giving us freebies like more space, more bandwidth, all for free, I love them, so when the 16th rolls around, I have no problem paying to renew my hosting.

11years doing this.
I can't believe it's been that long, and blogging is so popular now, it seems like everybody is doing it, and everybody has their own unique way of doing it, and it's still as fascinating to me today as it was when I first started.
So happy blogiversary to me, even if it's a few days late.
But today is someone else blogiversary, Julie of JuliesJournal.com, has been doing it since October 2004, so hop on over there today and wish her a happy blogiversary too.
I think she's still doing all of the blogging conventions that are going on in Vegas right now, but I'm sure she'd like to get some happy blogiversary comments.

Posted by Kat at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I got hit with a computer virus yesterday that wiped out my virus protection.
I was using AVG, and the virus attacked it and wiped out every single file.
Because my computer relied on AVG, when the virus wiped it out, it made my pc start acting all wonky, so it took many tries to get my computer stable long enough to go into add/remove and get rid of AVG.
Once I did that, my pc was fine, it worked correctly.

So I've spent the whole day cleaning my pc, running syware, adware, and greyware scans, virus scans, defragging, etc etc etc.
I've got it all cleaned up and good again, I even went inside of it and made sure all memory sticks and the video card were securely attached, the video card cable was a little loose, so it's good that I went in and checked it all out.

But anyway, it took so much stinking time doing all of that, that I lost a lot of online time to work and other things.
I have like 350+ blog feeds to read and catch up on, I have work to complete, emails to answer, and I did most of those already, so I just have to get busy doing everything else.

Posted by Kat at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The people who create and implement computer viruses should be killed, or sued.
Yeah, hire some big time kill 'em all Chicago injury lawyer types to go after them for pain and suffering, damages to the full extent.

I've spent the last several hours trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer, and I discovered that some icky person created some sort of virus that wiped out my virus protection.
Seriously.
It wiped out every single file in there, it took them all away, all the program files were totally gone, so because my pc required that program, it was doing all kinds of weird stuff, shutting down on it's own, starting in some sort of safe mode, reboot, reboot, reboot.
I finally got it to stay on long enough to delete the program, and once I did that, ta-da!
No more problems at all.
Now I have to find another virus protection program that's free.
Gah.
At least I'm back up and running, but this has seriously slowed down my ability to get other things done.

Posted by Kat at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I am slowly tackling every room in this house, cleaning it out, throwing stuff away, scrubbing what needs to be scrubbed, and tossing out completely what cannot ever be cleaned again.
I have to take things slowly, but so far in the last couple of days, I have cleaned off the table o' death, cleaned off the shelves in my bedroom, put away all the xmas decorations, and cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, and this morning I cleaned out my desk.
I threw away so much old and useless crap, it feels awesome to open the drawers and not see all that junk.
My house will never be as clean and as fancy as some of those las vegas hotels, but it's comfy and home to us.
Our stuff, paintings the kids did, family photos on the walls in mismatched frames, and stains on the carpet that will never come out, but it's home to us.

Some day I'll buy another steam cleaner and take care of the living room carpet, or heck, I might just rip it all out and put down throw rugs.
I've ripped them up from every other room of the house and the landlord didn't care.
They all had water damage from the multiple toilet flooding that we've had in the 11 years that we've now lived in this duplex, and he had no problem with us ripping them all out.
He's been ripping up the carpet in the empty unit next door for months now, picking off all the wood trim that held the rugs down, and scraping carpet glue off of the terrazzo flooring.
Apparently, he's not going to take any chances with the next tenants ruining the carpet with dogs, cats, and whatever other kind of damage my old neighbors did to it.

Posted by Kat at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So many people ae losing their jobs, their homes, everything.
Companies are shutting down left and right, it's a mess.
It seems that the only semi-stable jobs are the ones that do extreme service work like jobs in health care, hazmat cleanup, repossessions, and other stuff like that.

My sister in law Heather, does hazmat cleaning, mold, mildew, water damage, and suicides and murder cleanups.
Yeah, tough job right there.
She cleans up all the stuff other people don't want to do or can't do, hazardous materials.
She cleans up murder scenes and suicide scenes.
Can you imagine?!
But she loves what she does and it's an industry that will always be needed, she will always have a job because there's always stuff to clean up.
She makes good money doing it too, great money.

My sister Jo was telling me about something her boss told her.
Someone her boss knows in Tennessee was telling her about a murder/suicide that happened, and they don't have hazmat cleaning companies down there, so a family member had to come home and clean it all up himself.
All the blood splatter, pieces, mess, clean it all up himself.
Yuck, I can't even imagine.
So when Heather called me a few days ago to chat, I was telling her about it, and she was like wow, her bosses company could like start a franchise down there, and build up his business because there is no one to clean any of that stuff up, no mold and mildew cleaners, no water damage cleaners, no blood cleaners.
It's all left up to the families to clean up.

Posted by Kat at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in a cleaning mood, part of my get organized in 2009 mood, and so I finally put away all of the Christmas decorations, took the ornaments off the tree, packed them all away, put the tree away, and started in on other projects.

I've got the laundry going, I did most of the dishes, cleaned off the coffee table, and I'm about to dig into my desk.
I really need to go through it and throw away all of the useless crap that is outdated, not needed, broken, the scraps of paper, old memory sticks, old hard drives, and about a gazillion manuals to computers and parts that I don't even have anymore.
I swear, I keep everything for years and years, and then forget that I even have it all.

And in between all of this cleaning and stuff, I've been blogging, reading and replying to forums, checking in on work stuff, reading and posting to Twitter, (follow me dammit ha ha)and trying to get Sebastian and Bobby to get back here to the house before it got dark because this street is so dangerous to walk on during the day and it's worse at night.
By the time I get done with all of this organizing my life in 2009 mood cleaning, I'm going to need like some sort of Seattle injury lawyer to sue myself for totally over doing things today.
The good thing to come out of all of this is that the house is getting clean, things are getting put away, and I'm doing all of the things that I should have done as I went along.
It's like 10 times more work to have to clean all of this stuff months later, in some cases, years later.

Posted by Kat at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Press 10 if you want to kill us for making you push all those numbers.

I had to call a company this morning about an old bill that I am trying to pay off, and so I dialed the toll free number on the statement, and then proceeded to listen to and press the numbers to try and find the right person to speak to.
It took me through 11 different menus and sub-menus to finally get to the right department, and when I did, the person I needed to speak to about making a payment arrangement wasn't in today, and so I tried to leave a voice mail message after hanging up, going through 4 more menus and numbers, to try to speak to someone else, but I was told by the secretary that I had to leave a voice mail message for that person, but their mail box was full.
Arrrggghhhh!
That is so frustrating!

If you have a job and you know that you won't be in the next day, and your job is usually pretty busy, please clean out your voice mail box so that people can leave you a freaking message!
Now I have to try and call the lady back on Monday morning, and I swear, if I can't reach her and end up with a full voice mail box again, I'm gonna explode!

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

I finally did what I said I was going to do for like the last 3 months, I cleaned off the table of death.
This is how it looked at about the halfway point, so you can tell that it was a really big, horrible mess.

I threw like 80% of what was on it, in the garbage can, I filled up 2 whole 30 gallon sized bags with crap that I've just let pile up.
I think I may have thrown away some important stuff though, like a couple of the performance parts for the elliptical, just extra screws, I think, I know I tossed the bag of grease that is used to keep it lubed up.
I also tossed a few extra pieces to the new AC that I got, they weren't needed, or at least I hope they weren't needed. hahah
This is what it looks like right now, I still have a few more things to put away and find homes for, and that's what you see left on the table along with like 4 out of the 5 neck braces that I've gone through since September's surgery.

I'm really hoping to be able to keep it at this point of clean, but it's difficult for me. The table is where I read my mail, report cards, send stuff from, it's my work station, and it gets away from me all of the time.
I start tossing receipts on it, boxes, tissue paper, all kinds of crap.
I had stuff on there that I don't even know why I saved it.

Posted by Kat at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As I said in the post below, I would love to have some nice scrapbooks of the teens, but I suck at that kind of stuff.

Both Leeanne and Christine offered to scrapbook some pictures for me, and I appreciate the offers so so much, but I know Christine's scrapbooking work really well, and we've known each other a very long time now.
Every year for my birthday, and the teens birthdays, and holidays, she has made us THE most beautiful handmade cards, I've kept each and every one of them and so have the teens.

Anyway, I've known Christine for so long, (online now for something like, oh gosh, 7 years. I've been blogging since 1997 as of this month on the 10th, so 12 years blogging for me, and I met her through blogging shortly after that when she started blogging in 2002) and I know what kind of scrapbooking work she does not only because of the cards she has made for us, but I've seen her post many of her works on her blog, and she's even been featured in scrapbooking magazines like this one she did of her beloved Squeaker kitty who sadly passed away.

So anyway, we are going to start doing 2 scrapbook memory books for the teens.
She's going to get 2/ 12 x 12 inch screw post albums, in each, we will have layouts for each year of their lives, from birth on.
At least one two page (facing pages) layout for each year.
So what my part of the project will be is to go through all of the pictures of the teens, (there are so many!) and picking out the 2 best pictures from each year of their lives, scan them at high-res so she has the best possible images to work with, and tell her a little bit about each picture so she knows what kind of pages to make for each picture, and then I'll email the pictures and details to her, and she'll make the pages and memory books.

This is going to be a huge project for both of us, and lucky for me, Christine loves to scrapbook and she's so good at it.
She said it's a lot of fun and that she'd love to do it for me and the teens, so yeah, I'm totally taking her up on the offer.
I will be paying for the albums and any other supplies she may need to get, and if she'd take it, I'd pay her for doing it, but I know she won't take my money, but it won't stop me from trying to give it to her...LOL

So beginning tomorrow, I'm going to go dig out all of the photo albums, boxes, the suitcase, and all of the various packets of photos that I have around the house, and get started sorting them out by kid, and then I'll go through them all and find the best pictures from each year of their lives for their memory books.
This is going to be a lot of fun, but I'll bet you anything that as soon as I start going through all of the baby and younger year pictures, that I start bawling my eyes out and wondering where all of the time went.
I was looking at some pictures the other night and got all teary, so this is going to make me need to stock up on the kleenex. haha

Added some samples behind the cut of the many cards Christine has made and sent us over the years.

Sorry about the kitty hair on this one, Kali kept trying to lay on it.

Posted by Kat at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I have just tons and tons of pictures of the kids, some in albums, some in boxes, some in bags, I even have a ton of them in a suitcase.
I would love to do them up right and do some scrapbooking with them, make all those really nice pages and stuff, but A) I don't have the patience, and B) I don't have the talent for it.

I really would love to, but I can't.
I wonder if there are companies or people who do that for a living?
Scrapbook someone else pictures for them?
If there isn't, there should be.
It would help all of the non-scrappy talent people like me have nice picture books of our families.

Posted by Kat at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am always thinking about how to better myself, how to be a better mother, a better friend, a better human being.
I have faltered at times throughout my life in all of those areas.
When I first got divorced and became a single mom, I didn't think I could do it on my own, I thought the boys needed a man in their lives, their own father didn't want much of anything to do with them, he was far too busy with his band and his groupies.
Heck, he still is after 15 years, but the boys needed a man, or so I believed.
I went from one failed relationship to another, repeatedly.
I then thought I had found a really great guy, we spent 2 amazing years together, he loved my sons as his own, he called them his, they called hm "Daddy A". (Name withheld for privacy)
Then one night he didn't come home.
For 3 days I panicked, worried, freaked out, had my friend with contacts at the police and fire departments make some calls, he wasn't dead or locked up, so where was he?
It seems that he had gone out that night after work and had one of those love at first sight experiences that everyone talks about, and that's why he didn't come home.
When he did, he was there to pack his things.
He apologized like crazy, told me how sorry he was, how much he loved me, but this woman, he knew that this woman was his soul mate, he had to go.

I was really angry at first, then it hit me and I fell apart.
I was a giant heaping, sobbing, destroyed mess on my kitchen floor.
Another friend had been trying to call me, it wasn't like me to not answer the phone, so she came over and found me on the floor just crying uncontrollably, my sons in their high chairs eating hot dog and french fries, scared.
Mommy was on the floor, crying, babbling, a mess.
My friend picked me up off of the floor and took me to my bed and tucked me in it.
She got my boys things together and took them to her house for the night so I could rest, cry, slam things, whatever I needed to do.
What I ended up doing was calling my sister here in Florida and asking if we could come live with her, if there was work, help me, my life has fallen apart and I can't deal with it anymore, help me.
I ended up having a yard sale in which I sold everything that I could move from the third floor apartment down to the driveway, bought 3 one-way plane tickets, and left, all in a matter of 3 days.
I ran from my life there.

In "Wake Up Your Life", Doris Roper shares how 1 woman interfered in all of her major relationships, and how it became her wake up call to change her life.
She chose the moment that her life came crashing down around her to do something about it, to look inside herself to find out what it was about her and her reactions to things that played a part in what had happened.
She didn't run from it, not like I did, she looked inside and made the choice to change how she reacted to things in her life, she woke up.

I love reading these kinds of books because they really do help me see all the mistakes in my life, the times that I took what was happening to me and the things that hurt me, and how I allowed myself to run from it instead of taking that pain and changing how I dealt with it.
Doris Roper talks about how to take those rejections and turn it into redirection, change how it affects you, and redirect it into something positive, how forgiveness can release the power in you to be something better.

I am not at that place of forgiveness yet, I'm almost there, but I have a lot of hurt to still deal with not only from that relationship that caused me to run away, but from my failed marriage.
I know now that I was young, it was a stupid thing to do, and I know that at the time I had alarms going off like crazy, and I completely ignored them.
I don't regret my marriage, without it I wouldn't have the 2 most amazing sons a mother could ever ask for, but I know that I ignored all the warning signs that the marriage was doomed from the start.
I thought love could conquer all, love could make it all better, but that only works if both people feel the same way, want it, and are mature.

I will probably read "Wake Up Your Life" a few more times, the words in it are really hitting home for me, helping me wake up and see how I sabotaged myself and still do.
I totally recommend it for any woman who is limiting themselves, ignoring their own inner voices, and wants to change how they react to what's going on around them to help make better choices, better reactions to what may feel like the end of the world.

For more information, you can read more about this book on Amazon by clicking here.

I am so very pleased to be a stop on author Doris Roper's Virtual Blog Tour.
Each time a visitor comments here or on any or all of the other blog stops, they will be entered in a random drawing for a 6 month Gold membership to The Smart Woman's Success Connection.
This membership has everything one needs to know for money management including information about having a financial plan and starting a business, and includes a copy of her book in audio and PDF.
Please share your thoughts and comments today with Doris.
She will try to check in throughout the day to answer questions.
To purchase her book please click here.
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Posted by Kat at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Belle didn't actually tag anyone for this one, she said You, you, and YOU, so I figured she meant me, so here's the rules and my 6th picture folder picture.

1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture.
3. Post it on your blog and tell the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 other glorious people to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog telling them about it.

Here's mine:

These roses are 7 years old, I know, they look like it too...LoL
They were given to me by an ex-boyfriend, and they were so pretty, that when they started to die, I couldn't stand the thought of losing them forever, so I saved them.
I went out and bought a can of Aquanet, and then hung the roses, the whole bouquet, upside down, and once a day every day for a week, I sprayed them with the Aquanet.
As they died, the hairspray kept them from falling apart, no petals fell, no leaves, the babies breath didn't fall apart either.
They are still in pretty good shape, I dust them off once a month with my blow dryer, and the petals and leaves still don't fall off.
That's probably because I soaked every single part of each flower with the hairspray, they are stiff, so nope, they aren't budging.

I kinda think they are even prettier all dead than when they were fresh.

And like Belle, I'm not specifically tagging anyone, so like she said and I'm quoting, "I'm tagging you, you, you, you, and you. Yeah, YOU! And be sure to let me know if you did it!"

Posted by Kat at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Do you know what this is?

No?
Let me show you.

It's my mom's home made blueberry muffins.

Yum!
My sis and nieces spent the Christmas holiday up visiting our parents, and my mom knows that for years I have tried to perfect her recipe for blueberry muffins but have failed miserably every single time.
She doesn't even have this written down, it's all in her head, so when I asked her for the recipe, she really had to think about it, it's in her head, it's just something she does.
Measurements?
Write them down?
She did write them all down and emailed them to me, but still, I can't get the taste and texture just right.

So when sis and the girls were getting ready to come back to Florida, mom had made me 1 whole dozen of the blueberry baked goodness and stuck them in my sisters suitcase.
Jo stopped by yesterday and dropped them off and I couldn't wait to dig into them.
I opened up the package, stuck one in the microwave to warm it just a little, put a small dab of butter on it and ahhhhh, bliss.

Thanks Mom!

Posted by Kat at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My new monitor arrived, UPS delivered it around 3:15, and I set about taking down the old one and cleaning up the desk.
I had the old monitor on this desk for years, never moved it.
I had dusted it and around it, but it was a CRT, huge, I couldn't really get behind it all that well, and man, let me tell you, there was some serious dust going on back there.
Holy dust bunnies from hell!

I cleaned the whole area, plugged this one in, turned on the computer and the new monitor and wow, what a difference!
My CRT was a huge monster of a monitor, but it was only 15inches of viewing area.
This is a 17inch, but it's a major difference in viewing area.
My old CRT couldn't handle anything higher than 1024x768, and this one can go way, way up.
I have it set at 1152x864 because the higher ones caused some major eye strain.
I'll have to build up to the higher ones.
But it's already a big difference in how websites look.
On the CRT, my blog KatScan fit exactly in the viewing area, there was no black surrounding it that I could see at all, as a matter of fact, I never knew there was a black border. hahaha

I think I'm in love with this new monitor, really, it's beautiful.
The colors, the size, I have way more room on my desk, it was worth every penny I spent on it.
It's going to take some getting used to though, my eyes are not used to this size and stuff, but I do love it.
I cannot wait to load up the Sims2 on this later tonight, it's going to look freaking amazing!

Posted by Kat at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That's the UPS tracking for my new monitor, it will be here today!
The Acer 17" flat screen LCD monitor I bought, will be here sometime this afternoon.
I'm so excited!

When it gets here, I'm going to shut down, unplug this one and remove it from my desk, clean off my desk, all the dust and whatever else fell behind this one, and get my desk all pretty looking for my new one to get set up and settled into it's new home.
Every time I would watch the teens play WoW on theirs, I was so jealous because it has awesome colors, good refresh rate, just looks and works amazing, but today mine will be here.
Yay!

Come on Mr. UPS Man!
Hurry up!
I can't wait to get it all hooked up and play Sims 2 on it and then Sims3 when I get it in February!
*Squueeeee!*

Posted by Kat at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I bought a Powerball ticket this morning, just easy pick numbers because I've never played Powerball before, and the guy at 7-11 didn't seem to know too much about it either, they just went on sale in Florida yesterday, so it's all new to most of us.
It was $1, and I figure $1 won't kill me to spend with the jackpot sitting at $105 million already right?
Right!

The teens are off to school, not totally thrilled, but they went along on their merry way in the fog and drizzle.
Well, as happy as 2 teens can be walking to school in the fog and drizzle.

Man, it's quiet in here.
I don't know what to do.
I only slept for 45 minutes the whole night, so maybe I'll lay on the couch, watch some morning news shows, and hopefully drift off to sleep for a little bit.

All you moms of kids going back today, what's your plan for the day?

*P.S. Edit*
I just realized at 7:54am, that I didn't explain why I was at 7-11 so early in the morning.
I woke the teens up at 5:45, Mark took his shower, Sebastian took his, and then they asked me if we could make a mad dash to 7-11 to get some food in case the cafeteria is a total madhouse today during lunch because it's the first day back after Christmas break.
I realized that they were probably right, so I got dressed and Sebastian and I hauled ass up the street at 6:10am, bought some of the freshly made ham subs, a Mountain Dew Code Red for Mark, a Pepsi for Sebastian, a bag of chips each, and 2 sticks of beef jerky each.
No, not the most nutritious, but if indeed the cafeteria is absolute chaos, then this convenience store lunch is better than no lunch at all which is what would possibly happen.
I only wish we had thought of this last night instead of so early this morning.

Posted by Kat at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Laundry is finished, alarms for 5:45am are set, shoes, backpacks, pens and pencils have been set out and replenished, we are so ready to go back to school in the morning.
I have also gone around and locked up the entire house.
Twice.

I have this ritual I do every single night, I can't help it, it's part OCD, and part disabled single mom paranoia.
I have to go around to every window and door, and make sure they are locked up super tight and with all of my little gadgets and stuff to help make me feel secure.

On the back door, I have it locked with the regular doorknob lock, the chain lock, and one of those really loud annoying personal alarm things.
I have it set up so that if the door is opened at all, even just a little bit, the sensor will dislodge from the door and the alarm will sound.
And let me tell you, that noise is so loud and so ear piercing, that when I have to check the batteries and replace them, (I do it monthly) it is absolutely deafening until I get it set up correctly again.
The teens shove their fingers in their ears, the cats all run and hide, and I just cringe until I get the pin back in with my hands trembling because the noise is just so loud and piercing.

On the front door, I have the regular doorknob lock, a deadbolt, and a hotel flip over bar lock.
It's the kind that you close the door and flip over the latch, and it prevents the door from opening once it reaches about 1 inch of space.
Then I also jam a 2x4 up under the door knob which also prevents the door from being opened.
And I won't even tell you how I secure some of the windows, they are little tricks I learned from George, Mark's Big, who used to be a detective in Washington DC for 25 years, and if I tell you, then you'd know, and then I'd have to kill you.

I do all of this stuff every night because I'm terrified of someone breaking in.
I don't have a CWP, (concealed weapons permit) and I don't have a gun, so I feel like I have to do all of these things every single night to try and feel safe so that if I do fall asleep, (insomnia owns me) I can feel somewhat safe actually being asleep.

I wish I had the money to have a security system installed, like an ADT system, and be able to afford the monthly monitoring of it, because then I'd feel a whole lot better about being asleep or just being alone in the house while the teens are at school.
Home security is a HUGE issue for me, like I said, part OCD, and part disabled single mom.
I cannot fight back if someone came in, and I can't shoot back because I don't have a gun or a CWP, and I can't get one until I'm able to take shooting practice and pass my CWP tests.
In Florida, if someone breaks into your home, if you feel that your life or the life of your family is in danger, you have the legal right to shoot to kill.
I know that if someone did come in and threaten us, I would not hesitate for a single second to kill a dangerous intruder in order to protect my sons and myself.

So yeah, I'd love to have an ADT system and the monitoring, just for my own peace of mind, knowing that if the alarm goes off, that someone is watching for my home's alarm, and that they will send help for us immediately.
I also really like the new Safepass system they have.
If you don't want to remember the codes, or have trouble remembering things like when under pressure, you can just wave the little keyfob in front of it to arm and disarm it.
It would make it so much easier for children to be able to arm and disarm the system too, or older people who have trouble reading the displays, or remembering the code numbers.
I'm really good with numbers, I still remember my best friends phone number from when she lived on Ocean Ave and we were best friends for like all of our growing up, but trying to recall an alarm system code number when you're really tired or under pressure, or heavily medicated, or been drinking, can be cause for some false alarms to happen.

But until the day comes that I can afford to have the monthly monitoring without any worries about money and being able to afford it, I'm just going to have to stick to all of my nightly rituals, my strange, but really good ways of trying to make sure that no one can break in.
Florida just started doing Powerball in our state, maybe I'll buy 1 Powerball ticket per week, and maybe I'll get really lucky and win like a mega jackpot.
Tickets just started going on sale today, and the first drawing is going to be on January 7th.
I might just have to buy myself a ticket for Wednesday night's drawing.
Wouldn't that be awesome if I bought 1 single ticket and won?
I could pay off all of my debts, buy us our own home, and get an ADT security system installed.
It would be awesome.
Yeah, I think I'll buy a ticket tomorrow and hope for the best.

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

That's my little blue piggy bank, he used to have eyes and sunglasses, but as of 7:30 this morning, he no longer does, he's been struck blind.
It seems that Carmine, Shahiro, and Kali, were playing a game of kitty cat tag in the house, and attacked the poor little piggy bank.
It was kinda funny, they all had this guilty look on their faces when I came out and picked up the piggy off the floor, ears bent down, looking away, slinking off to hide under beds.

Today is just another lazy sloth day, the teens are playing video games, I'm doing laundry and watching stupid movies on tv.
Once again, not much happening around here.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The teens and I have been total sloths all day long.
We did nothing but lay on couches watching movies, eating junk food, and having a few laughs.
I figure tonight and tomorrow will be more of the same with the addition of laundry so the teens can go to school.

I'm actually just gonna chill out for the rest of the night and play Sims and they are off playing video games.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Carmine is a yarn cat, he really digs the stuff.
I bet if I were to give him a ball of yarn, he'd be in kitty heaven.
We know he really likes it because he chewed a whole in my blanket, and he has been going after some home made ornaments on my tree.

My mom and a few aunts, had made me some crocheted and knitted ornaments over the years, and Carmine has been attacking them constantly.
So much so that I had to take several of them and move them higher up on the tree.
The tree will be coming down Sunday, but he really, really wanted this little yellow peanut M&M ornament that my Aunt Josephine had made, and a Nutcracker one that my mom had made.
I moved both of them higher up on the tree, and he got sad.
I'm not kidding.
He sat below the tree staring up at it meowing mournfully over them.
So I gave him the nutcracker and he's been in kitty heaven all afternoon.

Posted by Kat at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's been a very long Christmas vacation with the teens, 16 very long days, and they go back on Monday.
It hasn't been all bad, but there has been a few moments when I wanted to just choke them both for all of the arguing they did.
For the most part though, they have been pretty decent.
You would think that the older they get, the less fighting they would do, but no, not true.
I think brothers are just destined to fight with each other all of the time.

So they go back on Monday, have school for 1 week, and then they get a day off for a professional day on Monday the 12th.
I don't understand that.
Why didn't the teachers have the professional day like today for example.
The kids just get back in the swing of things, and they get another day off so soon.
I have always found professional days totally freaking stupid and have never understood why they need a day off to do that stuff.

Oh well, it'll be nice to have the house back to myself, maybe food won't disappear so quickly, and it will be quiet around here during the day again.
No fighting, until they get back home again anyway.

Posted by Kat at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the biggest issues with owning cats is that some of them like to scratch things, namely furniture.
Both Kali and Nova were de-clawed years ago, but Shahiro and Carmine have theirs, and they have recently (as in when Carmine showed up) taken to really trying to go at the couch.
Today while Sebastian and I were in Publix picking up some more food and other things we needed, I spotted this in the pet aisle.
The Scratch Rattle Roll Scratcher - Mouse.

This GIANT mouse is made of a really soft fabric like a blanket, it has a sisal spot on it's back which cats love to scratch, it has a rattle ball in it's tail, and the whole thing is FULL of catnip.
It has a really strong elastic so that you can hang it from your doorknob, or you can lay it on the floor for the cats to pounce on.
All 4 of the cats love to do both to it, they love this thing!
As soon as I cut the tags off and hung it from the door, they all went nuts trying to get to it.
They were swatting at each other, jumping on it, licking it, biting it, and meowing like crazy over this thing.

Here's Carmine rolling around on the floor* with it.

The big dark spot on the sisal back is from where Kali started frantically licking at it to try and get the catnip out of it.

*
After living in this house for 10 years, the carpet is less than fantastic looking.
Kids, cats, kids spilling things, people in and out, people spilling stuff.
It sucks, but after my Bissell Proheat Deep Cleaner died, I wasn't able to shampoo my rugs anymore.
I'm so going to buy another one of those or a better one someday.

Posted by Kat at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)