My Single Mom Life

I went to check on my child support payments, nothing so far this week, and then I wanted to check the balance on the State of Florida child support card that I never wanted to begin with anyway, and found that they redesigned the site.
Badly.
It doesn't work in FireFox, only IE, and it's just done really stupid.
Type in your username and hit submit.
Taken to a page where you have to enter your password, type out your own security question and answer, pick a picture, name the picture whatever you want, type out the security code captcha, and hit submit.
Except when I hit submit, nothing at all happens.
Nothing, it just sits there, the task bar says done, yet nothing happens.
But go over to IE, and it works, takes you to your account so you can check on deposits and balances.
Like I said, it doesn't work in FireFox, only IE, which I hate using, but entering all that stuff every single time you use it?
I have to type out a security question and answer every single time, pick a picture and name the picture anything I want, every single time, and then the security captcha every single time too.
I can see having to answer the security question, and then entering what I named the picture, and the security captcha, but doing it all every single time?
What the hell was the designer of that system thinking?!
I could write a different question and answer every time, I could choose a different picture and name it something different every single time.
I just don't understand how they think that's secure.
Idiots.

Posted by Kat at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The teens and I ended up going to Ross because I totally forgot that the Beall's by our house closed down a few months ago.
Oh well, we still got some good deals.
They both got 2 brand new pairs of Dockers shorts, normally $45.99, on sale at Ross for just $12.99.
We also found Sebastian a pair of sneakers that are normally $89.99, on sale for just $16.99, for a total of $73-something after taxes.

We also stopped in at EB Games and traded in a bunch of games that they have played and beat, to get a game that they really wanted to have.
They traded in enough games to get a used copy of Resident Evil 5 for $53.73, and they still have about $10.00 left over on their card for another day.

Then we went to Panera so I could get a Frontega chicken panini that I have been craving for ages, and then onto Publix to get the teens what they wanted to eat, chicken tender subs, some more soda, and then home so I could put my foot back up again.
I will be posting a picture of my hobbit-looking foot on KatScan in a few.
It's really gnarly looking, and I'll also post an update on how that is going.

Posted by Kat at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night was a really rough night, for Mark.
He could not fall asleep no matter what we tried, and I don't give the teens any medications other than what their docs prescribe, so I didn't give him 1 of my sleeping pills to try and help.
It was far too late to try that route anyway.
Poor kid was awake the entire night though.
I finally drifted off to sleep around 4:30am, and woke back up when the alarm went off to find Mark just sitting on the other couch with giant bags under his eyes.
I asked him if he got any sleep at all, and he said no.
I feel so bad for him, insomnia sucks big time.
So he stayed home from school today, and finally fell asleep around 10am.
I'm not going to let him sleep all day, I'll wake him up when Sebastian gets home at 2:38pm, and hopefully he'll be able to sleep tonight.

The teens start spring break this coming Friday after the school day ends, April 3rd, and don't go back until April 13th.
It's basically 9 days in total including the weekends.
That should be fun.
Two totally bored and nitpicking at each other teens for 9 whole days.

When Sebastian gets home, we also need to head down to Beall's and pick them up some new shorts.
They have grown so much just since school started, they both need new shorts again, so we'll take a cab down there and pick them up a couple of new pairs of shorts each, and Sebastian says he needs some new shoes, so we'll see if they have any there in his size and that he will like.
Should be interesting hobbling around shopping. ha ha

Posted by Kat at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just found one of those digital picture frames I covet, on sale at Buy.com in their weekly deals, and I want it.
It's an Aluratek Hi-Res Digital Photo Frame, normally $139.99, their price is $99.99, and after the rebate, just $79.99, and free shipping.

It has a nice quality wooden frame, built in speakers so it can playback music while you run your pictures in a slide show, or have no music at all, up to you.
It has 256MB of built in memory, which is great because a lot of the digital frames I have looked at need memory cards, or have to have a usb thumb drive attached in order to show the pictures.
The LCD screen is 10.5", so your pictures display in a really nice size, and it's true color, so however you took the pics or cleaned them up, is how they will look.
It also has room for a memory card in case you want to have more pictures in it than just what the built in memory will hold, but 256 is pretty darn good for most jpegs.
It supports all kinds of formats, too, like picture / video / audio formats such as JPEG, MJPG, AVI, and MP3, so you can have just pictures, or play a little movie, and have music too.
And the other cool thing is that you don't have to just have it on a table, you can hang it on your wall, and turn it on only when you want it to run through the slide show.
So it will look like a normal picture in a frame on the wall, nobody would really notice it until you turned it on with the remote control it comes with.

I have been wanting to get one of these for a really long time to not only have for myself, but to test it out so I can buy one for each of the grandparents, and then fill them both up with pictures of the teens, and then send them with the instructions on how to turn it on and off with the remote.
Make it as easy as possible for them to use, so all they would have to do is turn it on and enjoy the pictures.
There are much cheaper ones out there, but this one has the built in memory like I said, so it's the one I would definitely like to buy for the grandparents.
When I go to buy theirs, I have to make sure it really is as simple as turning it on and off, or they could get frustrated with it and never use it.
Well, not my parents, they are pretty good with their computer, but Great-Gram is very old, refuses to use a computer, and does not have any electronics in her house that are harder to use than a VCR.
We all (all the kids and grand-kids) wanted to pitch in and buy her this email to phone machine thing, so that we all could send her emails over the phone, and the machine would print them out when she pressed a single button.
We would have always supplied and replaced the paper and ink, Aunt Heather sees Gram several times per week, but when we discussed it with Gram, she said it sounded far too complicated to use, so no, do not buy it for her.
*sigh*
So now that I have my taxes back, have paid back my loan and paid off a bunch of bills, I think it's finally time to get one for myself and test it out so I can buy the Grands theirs too.

Posted by Kat at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's very boring when you can't do anything but lay around with your foot up, I should be used to it by now, so many surgeries and recovery time laying down, but gah, the boredom gets to me after awhile.
Not being able to do much of anything drives me nuts.
I have tons of dishes to do, but can't.
Must stay laying down with my foot up, so sorta as a joke, but kinda hoping someone would say 'hey! I could use $50 bucks!', I posted to Twitter that if anyone in Sarasota wants to make $50, they could come do my dishes.
So far, no one has tweeted back.
*sigh*
The way I'm going on with my health these days, 2 major surgeries, tons of colds, quite a few illnesses of unknown origin, another surgery coming up, and now I'm starting to randomly break bones just by moving, I really think it's time for me to seriously look into getting some low cost term life insurance.
I am always saying that I'm going to do it and I never do, but it's starting to be one of those things I really need to do, like right away.
I mean, what if my next trip to the bathroom results in some sort of freak accident, and I end up dead?
And don't say it couldn't happen!
Kali (1 of the kitties) is always following me in there and tripping me up.
Just last night, she followed me in there, and when I started to stand up and get off of the toilet, she practically threw herself at my legs, causing me to plop my ass back down on the seat, grab the sink counter with my right hand, and the towel rack with my left, to prevent a fall.
All 4 of the cats are always getting underfoot, and let me tell ya, they are not fond of me walking with my dragon cane at all.
I think that may be the cause of the increased underfoot-edness since yesterday morning.
All 4 of the cats have been following me around when I get up to use the bathroom, go into the kitchen, or in to see how the teens are doing, and each of them has been rubbing on my legs, or dashing directly, like within an inch, of me as I walk. .
Damn cats are trying to kill me!

I got our new Netflix movies in today's mail, I hope they will relieve some of the boredom for a few hours at least.
We have, Punisher: War Zone, the teens wanted to see that one, and Twilight, so I can see what all of the fuss is about.
I never read the books, and I know, the movie is not the same as the books, and I did watch a copy of it online, but it was really grainy, it was skipping, all pixelated, and the sound kept going in and out, so I didn't really 'see' it.
I'm sure that as soon as I put it in, the teens will haul ass to the other room and shut the door.

Both the books and the movie have been all the rage with like every single girl at school for a long time, and the teens are totally fed up with it.
They make fun of it at every chance, so I'll either get to watch it in silence by myself, or they'll be out here giving their play-by-play sarcastic commentary as it goes along.
But hey, at least I won't be bored anymore.

Posted by Kat at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wednesday morning when Mark and I went to get my script, food, cat food and litter, I also needed to pick up a sympathy card for my Uncle Bill's family.
On Tuesday morning, my cousin Billy, Little Billy as he was called, Uncle Bill's son, was taken into a hospital in Pennsylvania for kidney failure and cardiac arrest.
He was not a good candidate for kidney transplant, and dialysis would have only prolonged his suffering.
By 2pm that same day, he passed away.
That's why I needed to pick up a sympathy card.

I didn't find one at the Walgreen's or the Publix we were at, and didn't really have a whole lot of time to look that morning either.
So when Sebastian and I did the shopping yesterday afternoon, I had more time to spend, so I looked through all of the cards they had, it would have been totally wrong to send online greeting cards at such a time, but my regular Publix had some nice ones, and I found a really nice one to send to my Uncle Bill and his family.

The last time I saw my Uncle Bill and Little Billy, was like 21 years ago I think.
I know that it was Thanksgiving, I was just a little kid, and we had driven to Pennsylvania from Maine for the annual gigantic family holiday dinner.
We'd spend about a week there visiting everyone, I do remember that it was always a lot of fun and there were so many people there.
The table would stretch all of the way from the front door to the dining room stairs, it was huge.
I do remember that the yearly trip down there was always so much fun, Nana, my Aunt Josie, Aunt Ruthie, Aunts Barbara and Lorraine, all of the Uncles and cousins, just a really wonderful time every year.

While Mom and I were chatting back and forth through email about Little Billy, I started remembering all of those good times.
Little Billy's death was a sad way to recall all of those great times I had as a kid.

Posted by Kat at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Early this morning, I posted that I needed to call our families 4 doctors and set up appointments.

Call my cardiac doctor and set up an appointment for surgery clearance testing.
Call my primary care physician and set up an appointment for surgery clearance testing.
Call Sebastian's neuro and ask if he can call something in for breakthrough hellish migraine pain.
Call the teen's doctor and set up an appointment for Mark, because he's getting wicked back pains again.

So out of the 4 calls I made, only my cardiac doctor called back, I have an appointment on April 6th at 10:30am for a cardiac stress test and surgical clearance, as well as see if I have any type of blockage or something because of my feet swelling.
My surgeon saw that my feet were swollen on Wednesday, they weren't even that bad really, he asked if that happened a lot, i said no, but when it does they get pretty bad.
So he said he wanted the cardiac doc to run some sort of dye test that would determine if there's any blockages in blood flow, and if not, then it's a water issue, and my dose of high blood pressure meds may have to be upped.

After waiting as long as I could, I decided to go do the shopping that we needed to do.
I left Mark in charge of taking the phone messages, gave him a notepad and a good pen, told him to take the first date and time they offered if they called back, and I'll work out transportation to those appointments later.
When we got back, no one had called back.
Gah.
Now I have to call them back in the morning again. *bangs head on keyboard*

When we went to Publix, it was a nightmare!
It was like every old, mostly dead, blue-haired, snowbird was in there shopping, and they were all in a wicked bad mood, maybe in need of a deep and thorough enema, because yowza, they were all just really snappy, grabby, pushy, and yelling at everyone they came in contact with.
They didn't take a number at the very busy deli, but demanded to be waited on, they stopped to chat with other old, mostly dead, blue-haired, snowbirds, right in the middle of the aisles totally blocking shopping traffic, they knocked things off of shelves and didn't pick them back up, they made the poor woman in the bakery cut a loaf of bread 3 times because the "thickness wasn't exact", and they kept trying to cut in the checkout lanes.

Ok, this turned into a rant and I didn't intend it to be that way, but I'll be glad when season is over.
Hurry up Easter!
They all go back up north after Easter...LoL

Posted by Kat at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't like it when people try to pull the wool over my eyes intentionally, or claiming ignorance, that they didn't mean to beat around the bush, so to speak.
The economy is in the crapper, we all know it, it shows signs of wanting to get better, the DOW has been slowing climbing, but millions of people are still out of work, many more are still losing their jobs, homes, cars, etc.
I mean, what kind of crazy is it that a car company is advertising a "deal" that if you lease a car from them and lose your job in any time during the lentgh of the lease, that they will let you out of the lease, no questions asked, no money owed on the contract?
Yeah, it's kinda crazy, scary economic times.

So yeah, I don't like it when people try to get me with stuff.
I received an email in the wee hours of the morning, I was still awake, (still am too) and it was a very brief email offering me nothing at all in the way of information other than an opportunity for me and my blog readers, and other single moms, we'd all be helping each other.
I'm always on the lookout for my fellow single moms, and the email was very brief, the person wanted to set up a time to speak with me by phone, so my skeptic alarms are going off already ya know?
Any time someone says something like opportunity and speak by phone in the same sentence, you can pretty much bet on it that money will be involved, either them wanting to sell you something, or get you to sell something.
So I emailed back a very detailed list of questions that I wanted answered before I agreed to any kind of phone call about this way to help my single mom readers.

The reply I got back was just as short as the first, and just as I had suspected, it was an opportunity for "affordable life coaching for women".
You can either be the person needing the coaching for a monthly fee which goes from $19 per month, $39 per month, and $59 per month, I almost needed some adult diapers when I read those fees for it, or you can be the one selling these monthly life coaching packages to other women on commission.

I had asked about 10 very specific questions, none of them were answered in the reply, not a single one.
That upset me greatly, it was a waste of my time to even write out those questions even though the first email they sent said that if I had any questions, to ask.
I don't like having the wool pulled, and I don't like having my time wasted.
But the person did include in the second email, a link to their site, and from there, I found a link to the site for the life coaching.
I had to click around to find the information that this person should have told me.
If they were looking to make money, they should have at least answered my questions.
I know they probably do their best work verbally, and that's why they wanted to pitch to me by phone, but I never give out my phone number to anyone I don't know, first of all, and second, until I know why I'm giving out my number, I need to know why my time is about to be spent on the phone.

After getting the second useless email, having to go searching for the information myself, I was kind of irritated.
I really felt that my time was wasted by someone who is obviously wanting to make money either by selling these coaching packages, or by getting a commission for getting new sellers to sign up, yet they offered me absolutely nothing in the way of information about this supposed grand thing that they wanted me to post about here on my blog for my readers, and really push it to my single mom readers.

I wrote back after that second email and having to spend time to learn what it was all about, how irritated I was, and what a crappy job they had done trying to sell this to me, probably wanting to sell me a life coach package, and also getting me to post about it on my site for free for them, and even after my semi-scathing email, they still had the nerve to ask me to post a link to their main website.

That pretty much appalled me, and I'm so steamed at this point, that I have not even replied to that email.
I can't.
If I do, every word I type will be every not-so-nice word that I know of.
It would be a very ugly email, and even Great-Gram who has said some pretty vile words in her days, would probably fall over dead reading the words I want to say to this woman.
She wasted my time.
She didn't answer a single question I asked, yet wanted to sell me, and get me to sell, her product for her.
And then she had the nerve to ask for another free link to her site.
Yeah, not a happy Kat right at the moment.

Posted by Kat at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's gotta be an exit sign around here somewhere, I want to get off of this ride like right now!

I had my surgeon appointment this afternoon, er, on Wednesday afternoon, you can read all about that over at KatScan.

I had a rough start to my Wednesday though, because I had to go to Walgreen's first thing in the morning and get my pain meds refilled, because on Monday when the new pain doc wrote out the scripts, it was 2 days too early for my insurance to cover them, and there was no way in hell I could afford them without the insurance.
Without insurance, just 1 of the pain meds is $595.95, my part D drug coverage insurance costs me $20.00 per month, and then my script co-pays run between $2.40-$5.80 depending on what the medication is, so yeah, I totally waited till this morning to go have it filled.
I cannot imagine being without insurance the way pharmaceutical companies price medications, it's really no wonder some people have to choose between food and their meds.
Crazy!
But I digress.
I had called Walgreen's on Tuesday night to verify they had the generic in stock because my insurance only covers the generic, they said they had it in stock.
So Mark and I walked down there this morning only to find out that whoever had told me that Tuesday night, was wrong, they didn't have it.
So the pharmacist called a ton of other branches, most of them didn't have it either, but the 1 that did in the entire city, was clear on the other side of town.
I called a cab, spent $18.00 to get there, stand in line with like 90-gazillion blue-hairs who were trying to cut me in line, being pushy with their shopping carts, and here I was in a major time crunch.
It was now 10am, I had to get my med and get back home to take a shower, and be ready to leave for my surgeon appointment at noon when my sister would be here to pick me up, because it's (the surgeon's office) on the north side of Tampa, in Safety Harbor up near Mease Countryside Hospital where I had my first surgery, and where I'll be having this next one.
The pharmacist said it was going to take 30-45 minutes to fill it, (ack!) so Mark and I decided to run next door to Publix and pick up the much needed cat food, the even more needed toilet paper, a sympathy card, and some food and sodas for the teens to eat and drink while sis and I were gone, because I knew we wouldn't get back home until around 6pm because my appointment was at 2pm, and we would be dealing with rush hour traffic in Tampa on the drive home, snowbird traffic on the interstate, and even worse snowbird traffic once we got back here to Sarasota.

But before we went into Publix, I sat down on the little brick wall and called my friend Dustin, to beg him to come pick us up because I simply couldn't afford another $18.00 to get us back home, because I had a doctor's co-pay to pay for when the appointment was over.
I was worried about that big time, but really shouldn't have been, because the co-pay ended up being only $9.00.
Why?
I have absolutely no idea, but biggie W00ts! for small favors!

He said no problem mama, (his nickname for me) he was on his way, he'd actually meet us at the Walgreen's because that's where we had to go back to, and Mark and I ran around Publix getting everything we needed, paid, and ran across the parking lot with the grocery cart, Mark waited outside with the cart and food, and I ran back into blue-hair, snowbird hell to hope they had my script ready.
It was now 10:47am.
ACK!!!
They had it ready, I ran back outside, Dustin was there, he and Mark had put the groceries in his car, and he drove us home.
He and I sat and talked for about 10 minutes, (11:15am) he left, I tried to hurry and add just $10.00 to my pre-paid Virgin mobile cell phone because I was running way low and the teens needed to be able to reach me in case of emergency and vice-versa, (I only had $4.65 left) their site wasn't working for just my kind of luck, so I had to call them and add the money, then I ran into the shower and took THE fastest shampoo, shave, condition, soapy clean of my life, ran out, got dressed, and just as I was starting to brush my hair, my sister called to say she was 5 minutes away, she had picked up lunch for all of us at McDonald's, I brushed my hair, pulled it into a pony, slid on my sandals, went outside to put stuff in the mailbox, walked back to the front door, and proceeded to barf on my front lawn.
I hadn't slept at all on Tuesday night, I hadn't eaten anything more than 2 yogurts all the sleepless night, I was wicked way stressed out from all of the running around, with no sleep or sustenance, my body decided to show me who was boss just 2 minutes before sis pulled into the driveway.
She showed up at exactly 12 noon.

The appointment went well as you can read at KatScan, I came home and just tried to rest before I started calling family and friends to let them know how it went.
After I called everyone, I finally sat down and ate a meal slowly, really being able to eat it and taste it, we watched a movie, Mask, Sebastian had added it to the Netflix, and then I began attempting to catch up with things online.
I didn't get very far as you can see because this post which should have been posted on Wednesday, is now posted at almost 5am on Thursday morning.

***

What do I have to do today, Thursday?!
I have to:

Call my cardiac doctor and set up an appointment for surgery clearance testing.
Call my primary care physician and set up an appointment for surgery clearance testing.
Call Sebastian's neuro and ask if he can call something in for breakthrough hellish migraine pain.
Call the teen's doctor and set up an appointment for Mark, because he's getting wicked back pains again.

All of the stuff that is wrong with me is genetic, so I am worried about him.
He's 17 and has wicked bad back pains every 6 months or so.
I don't think he has scoliosis because I don't see any curve of his spine, nor do I see any rib hump, I don't see uneven shoulders, no uneven shoulder blades or hips, and no preference for leaning to any one side.
But he may have 1 or more of my other genetic screw ups like stenosis, disc damage, and/or a multitude of other neuro-muscular abnormalities that I may have given him through our genes, or maybe he has some nerve impingement going on, but all I know is that when he and I went for a walk to the corner store, he couldn't even stand up straight, he was leaning forward, said his back hurt wicked way bad, and trying to stand and walk upright, was really painful.
Because of my medical history, because doctors now know that scoliosis is indeed genetic and hereditary, it concerns me a great deal when he has bad back pain.
With his dream of becoming a police officer, if he does have scoliosis, we need to get him treated now.
They have come so far in treating this disease, far more advanced than when I was diagnosed in 1982 at the age of 12, and if caught early enough and at a younger age, he would never, ever, have to go through any of what I've been going through for all of these years.
Children, teens, and people under the age of 25, recover from the surgeries faster than adults do, usually within just 6 months, whereas adults, age 30 and up, can take anywhere from 1 year all of the way up to 5 years, to fully recover from spine fusion surgery.
He could have it now while he's young, it wouldn't interfere with his career choices, and he wouldn't spend his middle years in horrific pain and multiple surgeries like I've had to do.
Making those phone calls as soon as doctor's offices open at 8 or 9am this morning, is my #1 priority today.

***
Carmine and Mark sleeping together last night.
Mark's hand near the chair where Carmine loves to sleep, and Carmine right on the edge of the chair, so that he can be as close to Mark while he sleeps as he can, and stretch out every few minutes to touch Mark's hand with his big bunny-soft paws.
And every few minutes, while he was sleeping, Mark would stretch out his hand and pet Carmine.
It was the cutest, most adorable testament to love that I had seen in awhile.
Two living beings, sound asleep, knowing the other was just a small stretch away from the comforting touch of the other.

Posted by Kat at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I woke Sebastian up at 6am to take his shower for school, he immediately started crying and clutching his head, said in a barely audible whisper, that he had a wicked bad migraine, and he had big giant tears streaming down his face.
He'll be staying home from school today, I can't send him when he's like this, it takes hours for these bad attacks to go away, so there's simply no way he could go to school like this.

I have my appointment with my surgeon this afternoon at 2pm, and an errand to Walgreen's and Publix this morning before I leave here at noon to head to Safety Harbor for the appointment, so it's a good thing that I have been giving Mark every Wednesday off.
He'll be here to take care of Sebastian, give him some Tylenol every 6 hours, make a cold compress if he needs it, and he can also call my sister's cell phone, or my cell phone, if it's a true emergency and we need to rush home as quickly as we can.
I don't think it will get that bad, I gave him his every morning prescription migraine medication and 2 Tylenol, made a cold compress, and I have him laying on the couch so I can keep an eye on him.
Someone suggested that I give him Excedrin Migraine when he has an attack, but it rips his stomach up he says, makes him feel nauseous, so I have a whole bottle of it sitting here.
Maybe it will work for me when I get a migraine or even just a headache, who knows, but what I do know is that with all of the prescription pain medication that I take, not a single one of them work on regular headaches, never mind a migraine.
I usually end up having to take about 4-5 Tylenol to kill any migraines that I get, so maybe the Excedrin will work for me.
I'll give it a try the next time I get one.

I have been awake all night long, I couldn't sleep no matter what I did, I even took some Wal-som, Walgreen's version of Unisom, a sleep aid, and nope, no go.
As a matter of fact, it wired me up even more, I had so much energy that I was seriously thinking about washing all of the dishes and vacuuming the rug in the living room around 3am.
I decided to do the laundry instead, it's a much quieter chore to do that late at night.
It's amazing how loud doing the dishes sound when the whole house is dead quiet, it sounds as loud as a restaurant kitchen during the dinner rush.

I am going to be so freaking tired by the time we leave here for my appointment, I'll probably be nodding off in the car which is bad because I'm the co-pilot, the person with the directions, the person who always gets lost no matter how many times I've been there, but I think I've found the absolute most perfect route this time, so hopefully we'll get there with no screw ups on my end.
Part of the route takes us through some really old parts of Tampa and Safety Harbor, and I love all of the old buildings, I am always looking out the window on the way up to doc's, (probably why we always get lost *grin*), and the route I have mapped out for today takes us through some of the older areas, so I'm hoping that I get to see some of the really super old buildings, some of the historic hotels, the old factories and other buildings.
If I do see some of them, I'm going to have my camera with me and ready, so I'll try to snap some pics as we drive through.
Hey, maybe having a goal like this will help keep me from nodding off.
If I fall asleep, sis will probably kick my ass or turn the radio volume all the way to scare me awake. ha ha ha

Posted by Kat at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There hasn't been a whole heckuva lot happening around our house the last few days, same old same old I guess you could say.
The teens have been getting up and going to school, coming home and helping me out around the house because I haven't been feeling well, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with Mark.

Mark took his graduation test, but we don't have the results yet, so he has to go to school every day by law.
The teachers though, tell him in a round about way, that he doesn't have to be there except for Mondays and Fridays, because those are the 2 days that the test results might come in.
So they say to him,
"Mark, I can't tell you that you don't have to be here because I could be fired and lose my pension and all of that, but technically, you only really need to be here Mondays and Fridays for the test results, but by law, you have to be here every day. Do what you think is best for you to do."

So, I've been sending him Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, and giving him Wednesdays and Thursdays off until we get his test results back.
He doesn't do anything all day long as far as education goes, he can't.
Well he can, but whatever he does, it doesn't count toward anything because he already took his graduation test.
He's basically taking up a desk, eating lunch, taking naps, and playing video games on the computers all day long.
The other students ask why he doesn't have to do any work, and the teachers say that Mark is done with school but fulfilling his attendance by law, but none of the teachers want him there because he's not doing anything and the other students see him not doing anything, so they want to do nothing, too, so the teachers repeat the above to Mark, and so I let him stay home as much as I can get away with.
So far, no truancy officers have shown up at my door, and if they ever do, I'll explain what's going on and they can confirm it with the school, that we are simply waiting for the results of his graduation test.
These results are totally holding him up though.
He can't apply to the tech school until he gets the results, so that means he can't sign up for the summer classes that he needs either.
They said it would only be a few weeks, but it's taking a long time, and I really hope they get the results soon so that when he goes to the tech school, the classes he needs won't be full up.
That would really suck because he really wants to take those classes over the summer so he can go to college in the fall.

Sebastian is still dealing with the migraines, they aren't happening as often anymore, he was getting them 3-4 times per week, and now he's down to about once a week, so the meds are working for preventing most of the migraine attacks, but when he does get one, it's bad, and so I give him Tylenol and make him lay down in his dark bedroom with a cold compress and wait for it to pass.

Does anyone remember the Airborne class action lawsuit?
They didn't admit to any wrong doing, but they agreed to pay out for a max of 6 packages per person with your proof of purchase from select retailers.
I had filed for it and I had my receipts because I only ever bought it at Walgreen's, and I save all of my pharmacy receipts for my taxes, so proof of purchase was easy to prove.
Well anyway, when Sebastian came home, he got the mail and in it was my settlement check for $34.95.
Saweeet!
And we all got paid several days early from work, so yay!
It's a good money week for me.
I had been panicking all weekend about money because I had a doc appointment with a co-pay on Monday, I have my surgeon appointment with a co-pay tomorrow, and I have several prescription co-pays to pick up tomorrow, too, and I don't have to worry now.
Plus, I'll finally be getting my income tax refund on Thursday the H&R Tax website says.
I have no idea what the hold up was, I filed quite awhile ago, like as soon as I got my forms, but it's finally going to be deposited on Thursday the IRS and H&R says, so yay!
Now I can pay back a loan, pay off some bills, and pay some of my medical bills from my surgery off too.
I don't owe a lot to my surgeon, it's under $1,000 which is awesome, but my refund isn't quite enough to pay the whole thing off.
I'll be able to pay off half of it, and then I can make small monthly payments to pay off the rest of it, and then I won't owe anything to anyone again.
I love it when I don't owe any money, when I'm all caught up on bills, have everything paid off and up to date, it's such an incredibly good feeling.
Does anyone else get all excited when they don't owe any money and are totally caught up on bills? ha ha

Posted by Kat at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Did I ever show you the magnets my sister and the kids made me?

These are just clear pieces of glass that she bought at the art supply store, and some small circular magnets that she glued to the backs after gluing some pictures on the back too.
She just took some pictures from magazines of things that teens and I liked, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and cut out the images, glued them to the backs, then when dry, glued the magnets to the backs.
Every time my nieces come over, they love to go to the kitchen and hang out by the fridge playing with these magnets and all of my other ones, and just moving them around, making up little stories and stuff.
A few of them have gotten broken by being dropped, but all I need to do is just glue the magnets back on, the glass didn't break, but so far, I've been lazy and not glued them back on.

Posted by Kat at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last year I had posted about wanting to buy Sebastian a graphics tablet that Buy.com had on sale, to get him for his birthday.
Well my friend Charlotte had 1 that she never used, it was brand new, so we made a deal, and Sebastian got an awesome new graphics tablet to use.

Buy.com has another tablet on sale right now, a Genius G-Pen F610 Graphics Tablet for $69.99, down from $129.99.
That's a really great price for a really cool computer tool.

These graphics tablets are so cool, I wish that I knew how to make stuff with them, I would love to be able to draw on the tablet and make some cool stuff like Sebastian does, but I just don't have that kind of artistic talent.
This is a digital birthday card he made for me using the tablet and some other tools like photoshop and some other stuff.
I don't know how he does it, but it doesn't take him long at all to make things with it and photoshop.
You can click it for bigger, but it's really big, like 1366x768 or something like that.

He found a cake image online, then he used the tablet and pen to draw some designs on it and also to write the lettering.
He's so good at this, he says it's easy, and he tried to teach me but I kept doing it wrong and got frustrated.
He said "Not everyone is good at this stuff Mom, if you ever need graphics for your site, I can make 'em for you."

The tablet does look really easy to use, and so if you have a kid with artistic and computer talents, these tablets would make a great gift to help them better their skills.
Or maybe it's you who's good at this kind of stuff, and it's plug and play, so really easy to set up too.
I just wish he would spend more time doing this stuff, making things, building up his portfolio for when he goes to college.
He's in all senior classes for computers at school.
He's the only sophomore in the digital design class, the only sophomore in the graphics, design, and marketing class too, and he gets all A's and B's.
If he spent more time on this stuff than on playing video games like WoW and GH3, he could build up one heck of a portfolio for school.
But speaking of GH3, there's a free demo out for the Metallica version that is due to come out sometime soon, like on the 29th of this month.
We downloaded the demo yesterday, it only has 4 songs, but wow, it looks amazing, and Sebastian had so much fun trying to play the songs.
He made me stay in the room and watch him play so that I could warn him when Kirk Hammett's guitar solos were coming up so he could try and be prepared to move his fingers really fast...LoL
The game really does look amazing, the characters really do look like the guys from the band, and even had some of their little gestures that they do, like how James Hetfield grimaces and points to the audience, and how how Lars Ulrich makes weird faces while he plays.
If you have an xbox 360, a live account, and GH3, you should definitely download the demo and check it out, it's really pretty cool and now he wants the game when it's released even more.
I wouldn't mind having it too, the music is really awesome.

Posted by Kat at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Even though the school has a strict no cell phone policy, kids are always bringing them in anyway, sneaking them in, using them quietly, and sharing videos they downloaded with their friends.
They are getting away with it because they use the earbuds that come with their iphone accessories and other cell phones.
If a teacher can't see or hear it, they get away with it.

Sebastian came home from school today and told me that a kid showed him a video that I can't even describe to you because it's so foul.
I mean really foul.
After he told me what it was, I went and looked it up because I didn't believe him, and oh my, it was exactly as he described, and was definitely disgusting.
I am still gagging from what I saw.
Let me just say it involved a man and a glass jar.

Sebastian has come home plenty of times and told me about a video he saw at school on somebody's cell phone, and most of the time they are totally harmless, amusing, and some of them downright funny.
He also saw this one today, and when I told him I had already seen it a long time ago, he was surprised and said that kids at school must have just found it, because a lot of kids are walking around singing it and laughing.
This is funny, and no doubt you've probably seen it already too, because it's actually quite old on the net now.

Big Mac.

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

The teens did it again.
They ran out of shampoo and forgot to tell me, forgot to write it on the list that's on the front of the fridge, and forgot to tell me all 3 times we've been to Publix in the last 5 days.
I'm broke until tomorrow, and they need to wash their hair for school in the morning, so I made some shampoo.

I took all of the freebie sample-sized packets of various shampoos I've gotten and collected over the last 6 months or so, and squeezed them all out into their shampoo bottle.

I had about 30 or so of those packets, all different brands, and just kept cutting them open and squeezing them into the big bottle until they were all emptied out.
I had packets of 3 different kinds of Dove shampoo, Sunsilk, Tresemme, Herbal Essences, and a bunch of other brands too.
I used a funnel to get them all in the bottle and not waste any of it.

When I was finished, I shook it to mix them all together, and I ended up with almost a full bottle of shampoo.
I'd say it's about 3/4's full.
Now I don't have to buy another bottle of shampoo for awhile, so I saved money.
I love saving money!

After I took my shower this morning, I pushed the button on the Scrubbing Bubbles automatic shower cleaner because I know the teens don't ever do it, and it did it's usual 10 beep warning, a bit quiet, but I didn't think much of it until it started to spray the cleaner.
Or should I say, didn't spray the cleaner.
It sort of just trickled out slowly kind of like one of those low flow wall fountains do, just a light stream of liquid came down.
I checked the bottle it's almost full, I just replaced it last week, so it must be the batteries are dead.
I went looking for more double A's in the usual location, nope, none.
So I went looking where they may have ended up.
Yup, 2 were in the guitar for GH, and 2 were in one of the controllers.
Instead of charging the rechargeable batteries and packs for their games, they took the only alkaline ones I had in the house.
Now I need to add batteries to the shopping list.
But hey, at least I don't have to buy more shampoo.

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

I just got back from doing my CT Scan so that my surgeon has the most recent images of my neck for when I see him next Wednesday, and he can decide how to proceed with the next surgery.
I see my new pain doc on Monday, and hopefully everyone will be on the same page and we can get things going in the right direction for the next surgery.

Being in the hospital is boring, once they wake you up from the medically induced coma anyway.
The rooms are blank and boring, and the only form of entertainment is the tv.
It's usually on a wall across from the bed, and the channel changer and volume controls are in the control box on your bed.
The control box makes your bed go up and down, and it's also where the speaker is for the tv.
I'm mostly deaf in my left ear, so having to try and listen to the tv through that little speaker is kind of a pain in the butt.
I have to either lay it on the pillow next to my right ear, or hold it there.
Now, I've been giving some thought as to how this next one will go.
I'll be in that big halo brace, screws and metal attached to my skull, I have no idea how much movement I'm going to have, or how painful it will be to try and hold things, and yeah, holding that speaker control box up to my ear might be hard.

I was looking over the weekly deals that Buy.com has on sale this week, and I found this.
An 8GB MP3/MP4 1.8" Media Player, for just $39.99, normally $149.99, that's a huge savings, and it just might be what I could use.

It's called a V-Bop, it's like an mp3 player, plays mp3, mp4, WMA, and WAV files, and it has 8 hours of playback time, just like the better known name brand (think of the fruit) mp3/WMA players, do.
I've compared the two, Buy.com actually has both on sale this week, the V-Bop and the Apple iPod Nano, and while the iPod can hold 16GB and the V-Bop only 8GB, they actually do the same exact things.
Both charge through a USB flash drive, both last for 8 hours, both play the same formats, except the Nano doesn't support or play WMA files.
It doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that the Nano does, but it does basically the same things, play music and videos.
The Nano is normally $194.99, on sale for $169.97, and as I said, the V-Bop is normally $149.99, on sale for just $39.99.
If you're just looking for a very basic player, then this is it.

If Buy.com still has this on sale next week when I get paid, then I'll snap one up so I can take it with me to the hospital because then I could watch movies on it and use my earbuds with it, I'd be able to hear everything really well.
Yeah, it's a small screen, but I could prop it up on the blankets and be able to be entertained while I lay there instead of straining to see and hear the tv.
And most of the stuff they have on tv is boring anyway.
The hospital I was in last time, had a channel that did nothing but show the hospital's church room.
Seriously.
I'd fall asleep watching one thing, wake up, and someone would have switched it to that channel.
Kind of annoying that they did that, and I know it was a religious hospital, St. Josephs, but still, if I fall asleep watching watching the sci-fi channel, leave it alone.
There's nothing creepier than waking up to some guy preaching.
With this, I could load it up with some movies I like to watch and music I like, and not be bored.
I did use my mp3 player the last time, it totally helped pass the time, but being able to watch movies and hear them would be really great too.

Posted by Kat at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A couple of days ago, Rachel from Single Mom Seeking, asked if we mom bloggers ever censor our blogs when it comes to talking about our kids, does their age have to do with how much you say, and do you worry about your kids finding your blog if they don't already know about it?

I left her a comment about what I've done, what I still do, but I wanted to talk about it a bit more.
Here is some of what I said;

I've been blogging since 97', Mark was 8, Sebastian was 6.
I posted photos, stories etc, and as they got older and started becoming their own people, I started asking them what was ok to post, both photos and stories.
They are now 15 & 17.
Every single post I write with them as center figures of it, is written entirely with their permission.

I really think as soon as your child says to you that they don't want you to blog about them anymore, to not post pics anymore, that you need to respect that decision, but also talk to them, find out what would be ok to post, when it's ok to post something, and work with them when it comes to their being a part of your blog.

But anyway, we are all out here blogging about our lives, our kids, the daily ins and outs, the good, the bad, and the downright dysfunctional.
Once you put something on the internet, it's on here forever.
That's why it is so very important, to me anyway, to respect our kids when they come to us and tell us they want us to stop blogging about them completely, or only post about them with their permission.
All of those funny stories about your 3-4 year old son running around the house in a fireman's helmet and nothing else, or your 5 year old daughter singing "Single Ladies" in the bathtub, are super cute, but they are on the net forever and ever, and someday those posts, pictures, and super cute stories, are going to be found by them or their friends, and it could end up being very embarrassing for them at some point down the road of life.

I also think that if your child doesn't know that you have a blog, that you need to tell them when they get to an age when you think they will understand it, so that when they get older they can make that grown up decision to either let you keep posting stories about them, or not.

There's a lot of things that go on here at our house with the teens that I don't post about because they've asked me not to.
I run almost every single post where they are the central figures by them, so they can decide if they want me to post it or not.
I probably have about 30 or so posts in draft status, stuff I've written over the last few years since the agreement was made and then read out loud to them, they gave the thumbs down, so I didn't post it.
I kept the posts in draft status though because this is my blog, my journal, and someday I may want to print it all out, 2 copies, 1 for each of them, because this blog is all stories about them, me, our lives together, and so it's like their own personal history book.
But I respect them far too much to just post every little detail of our lives, of their lives, and share it with the world.
I hardly ever post their pictures anymore because they've asked me not to.
It's totally cool with me too, I don't mind it at all, I respect them and the really cool young men they are becoming, and 8 out of 10 times, they tell me that I can go ahead and post what I wanted to after I tell them what I wanted to blog about.

So what do you do?
Do your kids know about your blog?
Do you plan on telling them, showing them, and if they ask you to stop posting about them, will you?

Posted by Kat at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I finally got some sleep after about 6 days of getting approximately only 5 hours of total sleep during those 6 days.
It was really awesome to catch up on my sleep finally.
I fell asleep this morning around 8am, and then slept the entire day away, and woke up around 3pm.
Yeah, the whole day was pretty much wasted, but at least my body decided that it had enough and let me sleep.
I'm really hoping that now that I've caught up, that I can get back to working, get back to doing the things I need to do.
When you aren't getting any sleep, your brain is in like a constant state of confusion, a fog, you can't think straight, so trying to blog, trying to write, just wasn't happening for me.
I'm really hopeful that things get back to some sort of normal with me so I can get stuff done.

Neither of the teens went to school today, they both woke up in massive pain this morning, so I couldn't make them go.
Sebastian woke up with a blinding migraine again.
I went in his room and woke him, his face immediately grimaced, he asked me to shut off the light, he put his hands over his eyes and head, I asked if it was bad, he said yes, so I got him a drink, his morning meds, and a couple of Tylenol, and sent him back to sleep.

Mark was going to try to go even though it's pointless for him to go because there's nothing for him to do at school, the teachers aren't giving him any work, even if they did, it wouldn't count, because he's taken his graduation test, he's done with school, so he sits there all day doing absolutely nothing but taking up space.

But that's not why I didn't send him.
Yesterday morning when he mowed the lawn, he pulled something in his middle back.
He complained about it all afternoon yesterday, I kept giving him Tylenol, rubbed some Cura-Heat on it, but this morning when I woke him up, he was crying the pain was so bad, bent over, tears falling, crying from the pain, and Mark never, ever cries, so I knew that it was bad and he wasn't faking how bad it was.
I had him take a hot shower, I rubbed on more Cura-Heat, gave him more Tylenol, and sent him back to bed.
When I got up this afternoon, I gave him some more Tylenol, more Cura-Heat, and am just trying to keep him from doing anything more to his back.

I need to get him in to see the doc about his back soon.
Scoliosis is genetic, it can be passed down parent to child, and boys can get it, too, even though girls seem to get diagnosed with it more often than boys do.
I'm not sure if he has it, but he does complain about lower back pain every few months or so, and sometimes it looks like his shoulders aren't level, an almost sure sign of scoliosis.
I absolutely hate to think that either of the teens may have it, everything I have been through because of it, years of pain, all of the treatments, the surgeries, I know that it is genetic, it would not be my fault if they end up with it, but I know I will blame myself if they do.
It wouldn't really be my fault, genetics are genetics, but I would feel responsible for it, so I need to have him checked again, and then again a year from now.
I have both of them checked at least once a year, and his last check was about 10 months ago, but with the pain he gets every so often, and now that he's pulling muscles, he needs to be seen again.
To help with his back and keep him from slouching (a very, very bad habit) when he plays video games, I make him sit with pillows behind his back on the mismatched discount dining room furniture chairs they use in the game room.
The chairs that went with my dining room table were cheap miserable things, fold up wooden slat chairs, no cushions at all, just absolutely miserable, so I bought some mismatched ones a few years ago at a store that was having a showroom sale.
I got each of the 4 chairs, none matching, for $10 each.
Hey, at least they were all the same color, not style, but same dark cherry color, and they all had seat cushions.
Before bed tonight, I'll give Mark some more Tylenol and slap on some more Cura-Heat, and hopefully by morning he'll be feeling well enough to go sit there at school all day even if he's not doing anything.
I really need to talk to the school and find out what can be done to stop wasting Mark's time, the teacher's time, and taxpayer money by making a kid sit there all day doing absolutely nothing at all.

Posted by Kat at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The plan for today was for my sister and her husband to come on by with the girls, (my super cutie nieces) bring us all some lunch, and then sis and her husband would go out for awhile, out to eat, go see a movie, do some shopping without the kids in tow, and the teens and I would babysit.

Last night, sis called and asked if we'd like some Chinese food for the lunch, we all said yes, of course, and that they'd all be here around 1pm.
Sebastian and I got up a bit early, went to Publix, grabbed some juices, and some snacks that the girls can have, (food allergies) and then we came home and finished the cleaning we started yesterday.
Sis and the girls got here at 1pm, no husband, he's not feeling well at all today, sis said he woke with a migraine and his stomach was bothering him, so she decided that she and the girls would come anyway.
They brought a ton of Chinese food with them, and a present all wrapped up in some really pretty Disney Princesses pink wrapping paper.
The girls had also made me some beautiful paintings, and they came in, handed them to me, wrapped their little arms around my legs, and yelled happy birthday.
It was so stinkin' cute!
They made me open my present before we could eat, Susan and Skye were all excited for me to open it up because they said they helped mommy pick out 1 of them.
Sis gave me some super cute black linen shorts with a nice embroidery on 1 of the pockets, a black peasant style t-shirt, and a black retro-tattoo-ish kinda Betty Boop t-shirt too.
That's the 1 the girls said they helped pick out, and everything in black because it's my favorite un-color.

Then we all sat and ate the food and watched Santa Claus Is Comin to Town again, because the girls are absolutely fascinated by the Burgermiester Miesterburger.
They love that character, Susan said today that he must have had no toys when he was a kid, and that his mommy and daddy were really mean to him, so that's why he hates toys now, hates laughing, playing, "happy".
Interesting idea, maybe she's right, it's never truly explained why the Burgermiester Miesterburger hates toys and kids, but Susan's explanation sounds good.

Then after that, I showed sis and the girls how much the kitties love the video catnip, and they laughed and laughed.
Shahiro was especially funny today, she was back on the side table, watching intently, and then she dove at the tv, paws outstretched, meowing loudly, hit the screen and fell to the floor.
It didn't deter her, she tried again and again, and Nova just kept standing up on her hind legs and pawing at the screen, same as in the pics I posted yesterday.

After that, sis went out to Barnes and Noble by herself for awhile, the girls stayed and played with us.
They ran around the yard, dug through all of the toy boxes, ate some chips and salsa, drank more juice, and just had a great time as always at Aunty Kat's house.
They love coming here so much, that as they were getting in the car to leave tonight, Susan told sis she wanted to live here. hahaha
They are just such awesome little girls, I love it when they come to visit me, it just cheers me up and makes me smile.

Posted by Kat at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Do your pets watch tv?
Our cats do, they love watching tv, I am always catching Nova and Kali, especially, watching certain shows that I watch, or certain commercials, they actually pay attention.
A few days ago, my sister gave me the video that my cats absolutely love to watch, her cat Binky didn't pay any attention to it, so she gave it to me for my kitties.
It's called Video Catnip.
It's all birds and squirrels right up close.
I turn the volume up pretty loud at first so that if the cats are in another room or sleeping, they can hear it, and they come running to watch it.
They can hear the birds chirping and squawking, the woodpeckers chipping away at the trees, and the squirrels chewing on nuts or food, or scratching at a peanut.
They love this movie and it is so funny to put it on and watch them try to catch the animals.

I love having our digital cameras close by, I keep them right on the coffee table, my camera, Sebastian's, and even my cell phone has been used a few times to catch the kitties stalking their prey.
Check these few pics out from earlier this afternoon when I put the movie on.

Here's Nova the fat, no-tailed kitty just watching the birds at first.

And here she is trying to get up and close so she can "catch" 1 on a bird feeder.

Finally, here's Shahiro trying to get the birdie from another angle, from the side table, paw outstretched, trying to reach into the tv and get the birdie.
She kept pawing at the screen every time a bird or squirrel moved to the side of the stump they were on and eating the birdseed that was there, or if 1 of them moved to her side of the tv.

Hahah!
It is so funny when I put the video on for them, one of these days I really need to take a movie of it because all 3 of the cats will try and catch the birds and squirrels.
All 3 of them meow really loud when they try and catch 1 and they can't, they look at me as if to say;

"You saw me grab it with my paws right?! How come I didn't actually get it? I had it in my paws woman! I had it! What the hell kind of birdie is this that I can grab it and not get it?! I wants it! Gimme that squirrel!"

Oh, and they love the squirrels the best, every time there's a squirrel on the screen, they go nuts and will get up on the side table, the tv stand, they will go behind the tv to see if there's another way "in", they get on top of the tv, they jump at the screen, it's freaking hysterical to watch!
I promise, I'll try to get a video of them watching it and trying to catch their prey, it's the funniest thing ever.

*Note.
I, Kat, do not type in cat lol-speak.
I don't know if that's how cats would actually speak if they could.
I think the I can has cheezburger site is quite funny, but I just don't think that's how cats would talk if they could.
Personally, I think cats are a bit more intelligent than that.
They know how to live the best life possible, they have this game all figured out man.
They get to sleep whenever and wherever they want, someone feeds them, someone gives them water, someone takes care of all of their poop and pee for them, and someone gives them treats, cans, and pieces of turkey during the holidays, and all they have to do in return is look cute, purr, and rub up against us.

LoLz!

I freaking LOVE this one!!!

Posted by Kat at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

As I said below, I try not to judge people, but ya know what?
I AM a judgmental asshole.
I am constantly flabbergasted by things other people do.
I just read something that simply stopped me dead in my tracks, I read it 3 times, I read a particular sentence quite a few times, and then I was like, WTF?!

A woman was in a sorta relationship but not really, she admits it, she also admits that they had unprotected sex, is now 5 months pregnant, the sorta relationship didn't work out, she's now all alone and pregnant, about to be a single mom in a few months, and she's dating.
Dating.
DATING.

Am I the ONLY person who thinks this is so NOT the time to be dating?
That NOW is not the time to be looking for a new man?
Is there something wrong with me that I just don't get this, that I am simply not ok with this?!
Am I just really old fashioned?
Am I just old and don't understand all of these new relationship rules?!

The sorta relationship failed, you are pregnant, you immediately want a new man?
You want a new relationship with a man for what reason?
That the new guy will be by your side all through the rest of the pregnancy, hold your hand, go with you to Lamaze class, tell you to push during labor?!
In the hopes that he'll step up and want to play the part of daddy in the families 2009 Christmas portrait?!?!
What?!
For what reason do you think that NOW, 5 months pregnant, is the time to be dating?!?!

What about giving men a break for awhile, how about just taking a big huge break, and taking care of you, your body, your baby, planning for the baby that IS coming, getting your priorities in order, and let me tell you, dating right now, at 5 months pregnant, is NOT a freaking priority!!

Please, someone tell me the new rules, explain to me how this is ok to do, how it's the right thing to do, why someone would do it.
I do not understand it at all.
I get loneliness, believe me, I understand loneliness better than anyone should, but wow, dating while pregnant is not something I could ever do, I just couldn't.
There would be a life inside of me, needing me, my body needing rest and nutrition, a home that needs preparing, things to figure out and plan, and getting a new man wouldn't be on the top of the list, it wouldn't even be on the list.
I really don't understand how a woman can go from dating a man, getting pregnant, un-dating that man, and starting to date a new one.

I am getting old and I am a judgmental jerk, I admit it, but wow, this made my stomach turn.
Go ahead, call me names, tell me I'm a horrible person who "just doesn't get it", tell me I'm an asshole, just tell me how this is ok because I really don't get it.

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

I try to stay out of all of the "blog drama", I really do have enough drama in my own life, but some of the drama on other blogs has been totally unavoidable the last few days.

I may not have been blogging a lot due to pain from my fall and feeling like absolute crap, which caused me to reschedule the MRI was supposed to have yesterday, but I would hop on, check out the work forums, read some blog feeds, check out Twitter, and so the drama was kinda unavoidable.

There was the battle of the bloggers who went to some blogging convention, and 1 mother whose baby was at home and she forgot her breast pump, breastfed another mother's baby who was hungry.
Accusations were thrown out about drug abuse, HIV, and some other stuff, but apparently the 2 mothers in question had spoken about it, questioned each other, asked questions about health issues, drug use, etc, and so they felt it was ok to do this.
It may not be something that I would do, or you would do, but breastfeeding mothers know about this sort of thing and so they did it.
It really angered some people, a lot of nasty things were said, feelings hurt, and the blogger's readers on both sides went out and left comments on the other bloggers posts, which creates even more drama.
After reading it all, I was like *phew*, so glad I am so not a part of this stuff, glad I don't go to these blogging conventions where people are there to learn about blogging, and making money, and being the best blogger possible, but it turns out to just be 1 giant gossip fest ya know?
Every single time people go to these things and then come home and blog about it, there's always some drama to be had.
Someone breastfed another mother's baby, someone got too drunk for someone else liking, someone cried, someone ate too much for someone else liking, someone sat with or talked to a blogger that someone else doesn't like, gossip, gossip, gossip.
If I ever went to one of these things, I'd be the woman sitting out on the patio furniture smoking and drinking, just watching it all.
I would be far removed from it, not talking about it, in no way shape or form any part of it at all, because I absolutely hate it when people do this kind of stuff.
By "stuff" I mean, put their opinions and lifestyles onto other people, expect other people to live exactly as they do, behave exactly as they do.
People are different, we all live differently, and I for one am glad for it.
What a boring world it would be if we were all the same way.

*yum. I have a big piece of pink cotton candy. *

I do find myself sitting and judging people sometimes too, I am far from perfect, but I try so hard to not be mean about it, I try to be constructive.
I failed at it this time.
A woman fooled around with a man who doesn't even live in her country, he only goes there to play in his extreme sport and womanize.
The woman admits this, she knew what kind of man he was, she also admits that she wasn't on any birth control.
She and the man decided to fool around anyway knowing the risks, and yup, she got pregnant, he doesn't want anything to do with her or his child, and while I do support her, I do know what it's like to be a single parent, been doing this on my own for 16 years this coming June, all I could think (and say) was wow, that was stupid.
It was 1 of those gut instinct comments, it came out, I said it, no excuses at all, I did say it, because well, it was, stupid.
Other people call it careless, and so yeah, if we're going to go with that word, it was very, very careless.

We've all (women) made some stupid mistakes before when it comes to men.
We've been drawn to those bad boys, we've all had unprotected sex at some point in our lives with someone we shouldn't have, and a few weeks later, we are all greatful when Aunt Flo comes to visit.
We can all say after the fact how stupid it was, and when I read her story in her own words, I saw the warning signs, she had known him for 5 years, had known that he's a womanizer and sleeps around, hated the fact that he was a total womanizer, even told herself to stay away from him, but in the end decided to fool around with him anyway knowing full well that she wasn't on the birth control pill.
After the fact, we can all say things like, well, knowing what she did about him and his ways, and knowing for herself that she wasn't on birth control, why did she fool around with him without some other form of protection for 5 whole days?
There are many other methods of birth control out there, the easiest being condoms, which would have not only been some sort of protection against the pregnancy, but also against STDs, which according to her, were a very real possibility because she admits he was a total dog, slept around, a complete womanizer.
That fact alone sent shivers up my titanium spine.
A man she knew who slept around with a lot of women, she slept with him with ZERO protection for herself against any diseases he may be carrying around, not just zero protection against pregnancy for 5 whole days of very careless sex, but nothing, nada, zilch, zippo, nothing to protect her from anything he may have had.
And people said to me, well you know how guys are about condoms, it's a battle.
And I said I know, but no glove, no love, especially with a guy who is a known womanizer.
All I can think is eww, gross, ack, awful, how could she?!
And that is how I failed.
Instead of being sympathetic to her plight of now being a single mother, I judged her behavior and actions.
I think the whole reason I judged is because it wasn't just a 1 time, 1 night fling with this dog, it was 5 whole days of unprotected sex with this dog, totally careless, stupid, irresponsible behavior for 5 whole days.
Part of me can see the 1 night "ooopsie', because oops, many, many years ago, long before I was married and had kids, I had a couple of 1 night ooopsies, but never a 5 day spree of oopsies.
I do feel for her, I am sorry that she is now a single mother, it's hard, it's the hardest job I've ever had, I do wish her all of the best, and just like the rest of us single parents out here, she will get through this, it will be hard, but she can and will do it, she has to, she now has a tiny little person depending on her to do it.

But I still failed at being constructive, failed at not judging, and so I am not perfect, I am not immune from the "blog drama" at all.
I left a couple of comments on a blog post that was already full of drama, and I threw my 2 cents in the hat.
I have apologized for offending her and anyone else who may have read or will read my words, but I still feel like it was a very careless, very stupid, big bad ooopsie, with a man who was a known womanizing dog for 5 whole days.

Posted by Kat at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I sometimes watch Wife Swap when there's nothing else on.
I get entirely irritated with the show because they take families who are extreme polar opposites and slap them together for tv drama.
As much as I could use the money from doing the show, (each family is given $50,000 after the show tapes to do stuff with) I could never do this show.

They'd hook up our little family with a family that doesn't smoke, the mom would be a physical fitness, health food nut, they'd be extremely religious, and be total clean freaks, as well as not be into movies, video games, or computers.
The entire two weeks that other mom would be with my sons, the teens would be in a living hell.
Plus, being disabled and having multiple doctor's visits as well as an upcoming surgery, the date to be decided upon soon, I'm simply not a good fit for this show at all.

But YOU! You other single moms out there might be perfect for this, so if you think you could handle being away from your kids for two weeks, could take care of someone else kids and home, follow other rules and lifestyles, go for it.

ABC's WIFE SWAP CASTING SINGLE PARENTS FOR PRIMETIME

ABC's primetime series "Wife Swap" is currently casting its fifth season and looking for unique families with plenty of personality to take part in the show. Families who participate in this documentary-style program are given a unique opportunity to share their beliefs and lifestyles with another family. It is truly a once in a lifetime experience that can be life-changing for everyone.

Each week on Wife Swap, the mothers from two families with different values and belief systems will exchange lives. It's an amazing family experience and opportunity to learn how others lead their lives. Half of the week, mom lives the life of the family she is staying with. After making her observations, she introduces several "rule changes," where she implements rules and activities that are important to her family. It's a positive experience for people to not only learn but teach about other families and other ways of life. Wife Swap airs on Disney owned ABC television on Fridays at 8 pm- the family hour!

If you are a single mom with at least one child over the age of 5 living at home, and you think your family would make terrific TV, contact us to be a part of this groundbreaking show!

To apply or get information about the show

Please contact:
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Posted by Kat at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sebastian has FCAT testing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then he can stay home Friday because the higher grades have FCAT testing that day, and the teachers have nothing at all for any of the other students in any other grades to do.
That's pretty stupid in my opinion.
It's not like his grade teachers will be doing the testing for the higher grades, so why are there no lessons planned for Friday?
Oh I know, it's because the less students they have in school, the less work they have to do, so they told their students that they don't have to come in on Friday because there will be nothing to do because the higher grades are testing and the school needs to be quiet while they test.
Yuh.
Suuuuure.
Mark is basically finished, so he doesn't have to go to school at all Tuesday and Wednesday, and Friday.
Why he has to go Thursday, I have no idea.

In other news, my brother, niece and nephew, and sister-in-law, Jenna, have booked their upcoming Orlando vacations for this year.
Jenna has MS, and I blogged in the 2007 blogathon for The Montel Williams MS Foundation, and raised a decent chunk of money basically, because of her.
I saw her go from a vibrant working mom with a ton of energy, to a vibrant mom who gets super tired, has really bad days, has days where the effects of the MS completely wipe her out.
She was diagnosed 12 years ago and is now in the secondary progressive stage, but you wouldn't know it talking to her.
She loves life, she lives it, and that's why she's always going and doing as much as she can every single day.
When making their vacation plans, she worked closely with her travel agent, made sure that every bit of their trip would be handicap accessible, they will have someone at the airports to assist with changeovers and transfers, their hotel room will have a roll-in shower, and she made sure that every question she asked, she got an answer to.
I know that they will have a great time on their vacation because Jenna took the time to organize and plan, wrote all of her questions down, asked those questions, made sure that her travel agent knew exactly what her needs were going to be on every part of their trip, and that those needs will be met.
I hope to be able to see them when they come in October, I'm not super far from Orlando, but depending on when my surgery is, recovery and all of that jazz, I don't know if I'll be able to meet up with them.
My sister might be able to take the teens, but we'll have to wait and see if I can go too.

Posted by Kat at 2:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I think it's time to get some of those bathtub stickies or some other kind of safety equipment for the kitchen floor after what I did on Wednesday afternoon.

Sebastian and I had taken a walk to the corner store, come back, I started to make dinner, washed some dishes, we ate dinner, I watched a little tv, and then I went into the kitchen to toss my soda can in the recycle bucket and get a new one, and I didn't see the water on the floor, and I slipped with my left foot, tried to grab the counters, but couldn't stop myself from falling.
I came down wicked way hard on my right knee, heard and felt something like a knuckle popping in my right hip, and pulled like every single muscle in my lower back.
It's been on fire since, I can't lay on my right side at all, my right hip is just so freaking sore.

All of the floors in this house that don't have carpet, like the kitchen, bathroom, hallway, and now my bedroom, are terrazzo, and when they are wet, they are a bit slippery.
The smallest bit of water makes it like an ice skating rink.
I need to put something down on the floors, not throw rugs, because those can slip really easily and then I'll be up-ended and land on my back which is worse than landing on my knees.
I think I just need to get a whole bunch of those bathtub stickies, and stick them all over the terrazzo floors to prevent any more accidents like I did late Wednesday afternoon.
It really sucked.

But this gave me a lot of time to watch movies.
We watched and absolutely LOVED Religulous!
Bill Maher is not only funny in this, he's truthful, and he doesn't just go after one or two religions, he goes after every single one, he speaks to a person of every faith, and it's not just a funny movie, it's a movie with a message, a very powerful one.
I highly recommend it.

We also watched Body of Lies which was really good, and we also watched The Princess Bride, (thank you Katy) and every time we watch it, we love it.
I think we've now watched the dvd 3 times since getting it this past week.
It's just one of those movies that makes you smile no matter what kind of mood you started watching it in.

I'm still not 100%, I am having a lot of trouble sitting up here, my lower back is freaking crazy sore, my right hip too, I have a massive headache, and I'm exhausted.
I've barely slept at all in the last few days.
Being in so much pain makes it near impossible to sleep, so I have huge bags under my eyes, and I'm just wiped out, totally wiped out.
I really hope I get some sleep soon, even just an hour soon, I need some sleep in a bad way.
I DO have an MRI and CT scan scheduled for Wednesday morning, so if I did injure something in the fall, they will find it.
That's been scheduled for about a month now, that's why I didn't go to the ER or anything, I knew I'd be getting the proper test done soon, and without all of the hassle of going to the ER.
Every single time I go to the ER, they check my vitals in triage, my blood pressure is always crazy high, they freak out, they don't listen to me about how long it's been this high, the meds I take for it, and so they freak, rip my shirt off, stick all of those little pads all over me, do an EKG, do a sonogram of my heart, they start prepping me for an angiogram which is really invasive, and then they say, "Oh, you didn't have a heart attack", and then they do an xray of what I came in for, they see all of the titanium, freak out over that, and then they tell me I need to see my surgeon, that my spine fusion is far too complicated for them to handle.
It's totally pointless for me to go to the local hospital for anything more than absolutely necessary.

Ok, off to get some more rest, will answer emails and such when I can.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have a friend through my blog, Kelli, who was asking me just the other day about ellipticals and which ones were the best in my opinion.
Well the only one I have ever used for any length of time is the one I own, and it's a Nordictrack, and I love it.
I haven't been able to use it since June 2008, but man, I freaking loved it when I could use it every day.
I was doing so well, I was working out for an hour every single day, I was losing weight, I was toning up my leg and arm muscles, as well as my back muscles which definitely need to be toned up and worked on.
I was having massive pain in my left shoulder for months, and while searching for the answer as to why, they found that whole thing wrong with my neck, told me I absolutely had to stop working out, and that I had to have surgery ASAP.

I do hope to get back to my elliptical someday soon though, I plan on asking my surgeon about it when I see him on the 25th, asking him if after this next neck surgery, if I'll ever be able to use it again, because honestly, the elliptical was the only real exercise other than walking, that i have been able to do since my first spine surgery in February 2006.
It's the best too, I loved it, I really did love it, still do love it, miss it, so I hope that he'll say after the next surgery, that I'll be able to use it again.

Posted by Kat at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sebastian stayed home from school today because he woke up at about 4:30 in the morning, crying his eyes out, holding his head, and begging me to help him stop the migraine.
I got up, gave him some Tylenol, had him take a shower to cool his body down and also calm him down, and then I gave him his script migraine meds and had him lay down on the couch with a cool compress on his head.
It still hadn't eased up by the time it was time to leave for school, so I let him stay home and try to sleep it off.
It didn't go away until almost 5pm.
He took 2 Tylenol every 6 hours, stayed laying down, napped off and on all day, took his scripts on schedule, and it finally passed.
I feel so bad for him when they hit him that hard, and I hate it when they happen in the middle of the night when he's sleeping.
I can't figure out what brings on those ones, the middle of the night explosive migraines.

Tomorrow after school, I'll be taking Mark up to get his hair cut at the barber shop.
It's totally shaggy, out of control, and he looks like one of those big English Sheepdogs.
When I said haircut, he didn't even mind, he just said ok, sure.
I was well prepared for a fight over it, but nope, no fight, so it must be getting to him too if he's not putting up any fight at all.

Posted by Kat at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've had one of those days where the stress level has been so high that I've totally forgotten to eat anything at all.
I don't need to buy diet pills when I'm just a huge ball of stress, I completely forget to eat!

Why have I been so stressed out today?
Because a nosy busybody has been reading my blog and taking extremely innocent posts that I've written, and totally twisted them around to hurt a family member.
I had to stop this from happening, so I spent a better part of the day learning how to block an entire range of ip addresses using .htaccess.
I can't go into any details just in case I didn't do the .htaccess right, I won't know for a few days I suppose, I'll have to watch my stats and see if the person is still getting through, but I do know that blocking that whole range has blocked someone else out.
But it was the only way that I could do it, and I hope that the other person will understand.
Nasty, cruel people bother me, and this has had me so upset today, a totally innocent post, not having anything to do with anyone at all, was twisted around so maliciously, and intently, to hurt someone close to me.

My family member understands that this is my blog, my place to write and vent, share the good and the bad, they don't want me to change anything at all that I do here, so I had to find a way to stop this vile person, and I so hope that it works, I really do, because the thought of them reading any more of my posts and using them against anyone else, or taking any more innocent stories and twisting them around to become horrible and terribly untrue stories, makes me sick to my stomach.
I'm so sick and stressed over this I couldn't eat if I wanted to right now.
Just please let it work.

Posted by Kat at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sebastian has his left ear pierced, and he's been wearing the same earring for like a year, so he asked me to give him a new one.
I went digging through my jewelry boxes tonight to find him a cool one that he could wear.
I have so much jewelry that I don't even wear, just tons of stuff, some old, some new, some just costume jewelry, and some real.
When we had to move my dresser to soak up water from the last house flood and rip up the carpet, someone must have tipped my jewelry boxes over because when i opened them, everything was everywhere.
All of my rings, which had been in ring slots, were all over the place.
All of the sterling silver and gemstone rings I bought, were just rolling around, the 2 engagement rings I have, all of my necklaces were out of their spots and now all tangled together too.
I spent about an hour or so fixing my jewelry boxes again, putting everything back in their spots, and then I found Sebastian a new earring for him to wear.
It's a hoop with a ball at each end, and so now he has a nice hoop with 2 black balls at the ends and he likes it a whole lot better.

I really need to get a better jewelry box, a bigger one with hooks for necklaces to just hang down so they don't get all tangled up anymore.
Untangling them took more time than anything else.

Posted by Kat at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

foot in her ass if she keeps talking to Sebastian and myself the way she does.

I sent the paperwork to school this morning with Sebastian, from the neuro that explains that he does indeed suffer from serious migraines and is taking 2 medications for it.
I wrote on the paperwork that the medications will not be at the school due to other students claiming they steal medications, and that he will be taking them 3 times a day at home.
She called me this morning to yell at me, again, that "There's absolutely no way that any student is stealing medications from the nurses office. It's impossible."

I told her again, how the students say they are doing it, the types of medications they say they are taking, and anyway, the school won't allow Sebastian's medications there because of what they are.
Even these new ones are on the banned list of medications.
She told me again, that it's impossible for students to steal medications.
I told her again, the types of medications that students claim they are taking, other students ADHD meds, bottles of Tylenol, Benadryl, whatever is in the closet, they take it.
She yelled at me, again, that it's impossible, that I need to give her the names of the students claiming they are doing this, and I won't, I refuse, because if I rat out the names Sebastian and Mark have told me, there could be consequences for them from these other students.
She told me that's a lie.
I said, "How dare you call me a liar!? There are students claiming they are taking medications that belong to other students, and because I won't give you their names, you are calling me a liar?!"
She said I need to take it up with the principal if I really feel that students medications are being stolen, I told her that talking to the principal is like talking to a smiling brick wall, she will say anything to avoid confrontation with parents, it goes in one ear and out the other, nothing gets done, quit badgering me on this issue, his meds will not be at school, end of discussion, period, done, and I hung up.

Sebastian has told me that when he goes to the nurses office to come home because his head is exploding, that she has called him a liar, told him he doesn't really have migraines, that he just wants to go home from school.
That's why I made sure to send the paperwork this morning, it has the doctor's signature on it, his name and phone number, the doctor's official stamp with his license number on it, the diagnosis of severe migraine, and the names of his medications along with the amounts he has to take.
I swear, if she calls him a liar one more time, I'm going to go up there and put my foot up her ass.

Posted by Kat at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There was a total of 515 entries including all of the bonus entries, in my celebrate my birthday contest, and Random.org chose comment number 144, which was Jenn!
Congrats Jenn!

I have already emailed Jenn, she has 48 hours to respond or I'll have to draw another winner.
Katy and Gem Affair will mail out the necklace to Jenn as soon as we get her address.

Thanks to everyone who entered, it was by far the biggest amount of entries in one of my contests ever, a great turnout.

Posted by Kat at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)