My Single Mom Life

Right now my sister and the teens are out having dinner at a Japanese steak house to celebrate Mark's graduation and Sebastian's birthday tomorrow, and I'm at home because I'm in far too much pain to go do anything.
Yesterday's graduation sitting in really bad chairs did a number on me, and I can hardly move today.
*sigh*
I really hate this, I hope someday to be better, to not be in so much pain after doing something enjoyable.
All I can do is hope that it gets better for me someday.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to look around and see if I can find some really good discount faucets so I can replace the broken one in the bathroom.
It's really starting to get on my nerves now, and if it's bugging me now, it's going to annoy the crap outta me when I get home from surgery.
I need to find a cheap faucet, replace it, and be done with it all.
Ok, back to the couch I go.
Later dayse.

Posted by Kat at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While we were sitting all that time waiting for graduation to start, my sister was showing Sebastian and I all of the stuff her Apple Ipod Touch can do.
Then she realized it had wifi in the arena, so there must be some really good cell towers around the Robarts arena neighborhood, because Sebastian went online, watched a few videos on youtube, and some other stuff.

But she had this wicked cool game on there, it's an app called Pocket God, and it is absolutely hysterical!
You are god and you are in total control of all these little islander people, and you get to kill them in a ton of totally funny ways.
Lightening, sharks, volcano explosion, and turning your ipod will make them fall off the island, and so many other funny things.
We were all just sitting there laughing our asses off over all the things you can do to the Oggs.
Check out the video below.

Posted by Kat at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Out of the 20 or so pictures we snapped, that was the best.
Yeah.
It was extremely difficult to get good pictures because of how the whole thing was set up.
And don't even get me started on his hair, but it is his hair so I deal.

We got there early, like we were supposed to, at 7am so that the graduates could go in at 7:15.
They were supposed to open the doors for guests at 8am, but instead they started letting in guests at 7:15am!
So if I wanted one of the coveted handicap seats, we had to go in then.
So we went in, got good seats right at the floor level on the right hand side where Mark was going to be.
We had to sit there from 7:15am until it started at 9am.
The people sitting directly behind us had a 2 year old boy with them, and they let him do whatever he wanted to do.
The seating at Robarts, I swear, it's been there since they built the arena in the 1970's, so the seats totally sucked.
They were hard plastic bucket seats, close together, and that kid crawled behind me, kicked my seat, cried, got snot everywhere, and grabbed my hair, pulled my hair, and swatted at my hair.
Repeatedly.
His parents did nothing about it.
I was ready to turn around and beat the snot out of him with my cane.
That was before graduation even started, so I was in quite a bit of pain between having to sit in that miserable seat, even with a pillow it was absolutely miserable for me, and the kid pulling my hair and head backwards, which it doesn't do, I was in agony.
My sister went and found an administrator and asked if once Mark walked, got his diploma and picture taken, could we leave, that I was simply unable to sit there the entire 4 hours, and they said yes, that we could take him.
So we did.
Seconds after that picture was taken, we grabbed Mark and left.

My sister took some pictures outside, well she tried to.
My camera doesn't have a view finder, only an lcd monitor, so the screen was very difficult to see, so the pictures came out kind of bad, but she tried, so we will buy some of the professional pictures that got taken.

Then George took Mark and Sebastian out to eat, my sister brought me home, and then she had to go to work this afternoon.
I came home, took some pain meds, and passed out.
The boys came home and took naps too because of how early we all got up, the heat, and everything, it was just a very bad setup for graduating 950 students.
Yes, 950 students got their names called and diplomas handed to them one by one.

Anyway, it's all over, he is officially a graduate, and I am so proud of him.
I did end up getting him that watch.
He earned it.

Posted by Kat at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

We're all getting ready to head off to graduation, should go well, I hope...LoL
It's going to be a very long, very busy day, and I am hoping that I can physically make it through the day.
I'm going to need to come home and take a wicked nap after graduation before I do anything else like we're supposed to.

Ok, gotta finish getting ready.
Later days!

Posted by Kat at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mark is off at graduation rehearsal right now, expecting him back sometime between 1pm-3pm.
The school doesn't know.
They said if the students learn what they have to do and don't screw up or goof off, they should be outta there by 1pm.
If they screw up and goof off, they could be there till 3pm.
Let's hope they all just get it right, but I am not so sure that's going to happen.

The school's automated system called all of the parents and reminded us that this is dress rehearsal, to make sure the students bring their caps and gowns.
They sent notes home, make sure the students bring their caps and gowns.
Mindy dropped off Jeff and Mark, and they were the only ones who brought their caps and gowns from what she could see.
Then Mark called me about 10 minutes later, and said they were the only ones who brought their caps and gowns.
*sigh*
It appears that neither the students or the parents paid any attention to the phone calls or the notes.

Posted by Kat at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thursday night, (it's now very early Friday morning) the teens Aunt Heather (ex-sis-in-law, but she'll always be my little sis) sent Sebastian $50 for his birthday by way of PayPal.
When my friends Dustin and Stacey came by for a visit, Sebastian asked Dustin if he would take him to McDonald's, and Dustin said yes.
Sebastian bought Mark a Quarter Pounder with cheese, some fries, and a vanilla shake.
He bought himself a Big Mac, fries, a chocolate shake, and a chicken snack wrap.
It was about 9pm I'd say.

About 2 hours later, he said he wasn't feeling well and rushed to the bathroom.
A half hour after that, he rushed back to the bathroom.
This repeated about every hour or so until he went to bed.

When he finally said he was tired and went to bed, I thought he may be feeling a bit better.
Wrong!
An hour after he fell asleep, I hear this, "MOM! MOM! HELP!"
I rushed in there and he was ripping off his t-shirt and telling me that he was sweating, dizzy, nauseous, his stomach hurt, and his body felt weird.
If it's food poisoning, the worst thing you can do is give something that will stop the diars.
You want the bad food to get out of the body, and if you stop the diars, the bad stuff will stay in, and you or your little patient, will be sick longer.
So I got him up, gave him a glass of cold water to sip on and to swallow 2 Tylenol, and I got the shower to the right temperature so he could cool his body down.
After his shower, he said he felt a bit better, and went back to bed.
Then he got up, said it was just way too hot in his room, and now he's laying out here on the couch because it's cold out here with the AC.

While he was in the shower, I hear the other one yell, "MOM! It's hot!"
So I go in Mark's room, he's got the fan blasting at him, but he's laying there covered up in his comforter.
I said it's no wonder you're hot, you have a down comforter on.
He said he had to have something over his body, so I went and got him a top sheet, spread it out over him, and took his comforter and folded it up in a chair.
I asked him if the sheet was ok, he said yes, and now he's back to sleep.

I really hope that Sebastian falls asleep and stays asleep, I need to get some sleep too.
I have to get up at 9am and wake Mark so he can take a shower and head out to his graduation rehearsal at 11:30am.
I also hope that whatever it is that has him feeling like crap, passes very quickly.
We have a very busy weekend ahead of us.
Mark's graduation on Saturday, graduation party Saturday night, a combination graduation and birthday lunch at Oriental Buffet on Sunday, and then Sebastian's birthday on Monday.
This is very busy for us, our lives are very calm and boring most of the time.
It would totally suck if he's sick on his birthday, he has terrible luck on the actual day every single year.
It's rained on his birthday every single year since moving here to Florida 12 years ago.
It either rains right at the hour of his party, or it rains all day long.
His birthday is on the day that hurricane season starts, June 1st.
He has always had something interfere with his day, and it would suck if he's sick, so I'm hoping it's a case of bad food, (yes, I'm actually hoping it's food poisoning) because it will work itself out in 24-48 hours, and then he can have fun on his birthday for once.
So far the weather report is looking good for Monday, only a 20% chance of rain.

Posted by Kat at 2:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We went and got the graduation clothes shopping done.
We went to Walmart.
Ugh.
I would have gone elsewhere, but I needed really cheap, and really cheap just isn't happening at any other stores in Sarasota.

I just really hate shopping at Walmart, but it's a necessary evil in these hard economic times.
Not only do I hate them for what they did 2 Christmases ago, but I hate them for their very unethical business practices.
Example, Walmart sells a pair of women's black pants for $20.
The girl in Indonesia who makes them all day long, only makes $278 for the entire year, and all she does is sew those pants together for 17-18 hours per day.
Yes, the cost of living is much different there, but what she makes for an entire year still has her living in absolute poverty, and most of the time, she lives in a room with 15 other girls who also work at the factory and are basically slaves to the factory owner for the room they share so that they are not homeless.
They pay him to share a room with 15 other girls, so her pay is handed right back over to the factory owner.

I hate how once Walmart moves into a town, all of the small stores that were in business for ages, lose business and end up having to close.

I hate how little Walmart pays it's employees, how little they care for them, and the hiring and promotion practices of those employees.

Women who are far more qualified, who have been employed by Walmart longer, have a much higher education than their male co-workers, are often passed over for promotion, and earn less.

* female hourly workers earn up to 37 cents less per hour than their male counterparts;
* female full-time employees working at least 45 weeks earn on average nearly $5,000 less than male employees in yearly salary;
* women make up 72 percent of WalMart's total workforce, but only 33 percent of its managers;
* and women make up 92 percent of WalMart's cashiers, but only 14 percent of WalMart store managers.
Walmart gets around having to offer or pay health insurance for a majority of it's employees by keeping everyone but the managers, working part-time hours.
Part-timers are not eligible for health insurance, so most of their employees are on some type of welfare.
About the evil that is Walmart, watch this video, The High Cost of Low Prices.

But I really had no choice, I had to go where it's cheapest.
I try to avoid them like the plague, because I absolutely hate to think that my money helps support what they do.
Every time I step foot in a Walmart, I feel like I'm screwing the employees, hurting the city I live in, and putting an even bigger financial strain on the welfare system, because I know what they do and how they operate.
I know that how they run their stores hurts the towns they build their stores in, it hurts the people who work there, and it ruins the lives and business of other smaller stores that are forced to close because they cannot compete with Walmart's low prices.

Walmart forces artists, musicians, to edit their music or else they will not sell it in their stores.
That is their right to refuse to carry a product, but it forces artists to censor their music, to put out albums that have been totally edited, if they want to be able to have their albums sold in the nation's largest retailer.
They basically have artists over a barrel.
Edit your music or we won't sell it.
Green Day is refusing.
Good for them.

Walmart will no doubt win this battle, they have the money and the lawyers to win it, but it still sucks that because they have the money to fight it, and they promise jobs and tax revenue, that cities often cave in and let Walmart build wherever the hell they want to.

I hate myself for days after shopping there.
Mark now has what he needs, but the $75 I spent is helping to support an evil company, and I hate that.
I very rarely shop there, like once every 6 months, if not longer, but I would seriously love to never ever have to shop there again.
I need to find a cheap store here in town that can compete with Walmart's low prices, and just boycott them and their evil forever.

Posted by Kat at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Mark and I are getting ready to go shopping for the clothes he needs to wear for graduation.
White button up shirt, dress pants, tie, new shoes.
I've opted to not get him a pair of expensive dress shoes, and instead just getting him a brand new pair of all white sneakers.
The info paper simply says shoes and socks required, no sandals, and he grows out of stuff so quickly that I would be wasting my money on a pair of dress shoes.
So he's getting new all white sneakers, which he'll probably grow out of by the end of summer, khaki pants, the white shirt, and a tie.

I need to go get myself ready.
I woke up kinda late, need to take a shower.
Later days!

Posted by Kat at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't watch a lot of sports, occasionally I'll watch some football, I do enjoy hockey, I check out a few games on tv every now and then, but I have never understood golf at all.
Whenever it's been on and I've stopped clicking through the channels just to check it out for a few minutes, I am amazed at teh self control of the audience.
They are all quiet, they don't make any noise at all until the golfer sinks his ball.
Then they just clap politely.

From playing some mini-golf a few times in my life, I do know that it's a hard game to play, you have to have good concentration, good hand and eye coordination, and I do know that you have to try and sink your ball in as few strokes as possible.
I've never known anyone who was totally into the sport, but I think if I had a husband or boyfriend who was totally into it and spent a ton of money on golf training aids, ($7600???) I'd be pretty dang annoyed.

I know that everyone has their "thing", the hobby that they just love to do and the cost is way down on the list of concerns to them when it comes to doing their hobby, but I just can't see spending thousands on that hobby, unless of course you have a ton of money anyway and spending it on your hobby is not going to affect the family food budget.
I am a huge movie lover, I love to watch movies and I buy the movies that I totally love.
But I don't spend a lot on them, I try to find them on sale, I'll even buy them second hand, I get them at yard sales, and I've found some great deals on movies at stores that were going out of business.

Do you have a hobby that costs a lot to do?
Does your spouse/partner have an issue with how much you spend on your hobby?
Does it affect your relationship because of it?

Posted by Kat at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Carmine sleeping on pile of clothes. his fave spot., originally uploaded by onecattykat.

Posted by Kat at 1:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just testing flickr from cell. it doesnt always work for me., originally uploaded by onecattykat.

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

Today was the last official day that Sebastian had to be in school.
He had 1 last final exam first thing this morning, and so he went, took his test, and they released him by 8:30am, said he was done, so he came home.
He was totally stoked, still is.
Then Mark had to go up to the school to pick up his cap, gown, and his 5 tickets for the graduation, and Sebastian remembered that he still had 1 last book to turn in, so they both walked up to the school to take care of those things.
When they got back, they were so happy, "It's over!" they yelled as they came through the door, and they've been just kicking back all day since.

Tonight we decided to watch the last 2 Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, because we're all getting excited for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to come out on July 15th.
I swear, we've watched every trailer for it at least a dozen times each.
We've seen all of the Harry Potter movies in the theater since the very 1st one.
This year and this Harry Potter movie, may be the 1st time that we won't be seeing it in the theater.
I was going to say that it would depend on how I'm feeling after the surgery, but I realized that surgery is June 29th, and I may still be in the hospital on July 15th.
I know that sounds like a long time to be in, but with my 1st surgery, I was in for 18 days, the 2nd for 9 and a half, and this one all depends on how things go, if there are any complications and stuff.
So I'm hoping that the movie will still be in theaters for at least like 5-6 months after it comes out so that we can keep up with our tradition of seeing these movies in the theater together.
________________________

I was also really hoping to be able to send the teens to Maine for the summer or part of the summer, to visit with my family and work at Funtown like we had been talking about, but it's simply not in the cards this year.
But my sister is still hoping to go up for a quick weekend or a full week, in August I think she said, and so she's starting to get all of that stuff ready again.
She needs to find a good deal on the tickets for her and the girls, make sure her car seats are ok for whichever airline she decides to go with, and get some travel health insurance for her and the girls, some car insurance through her credit card for the rental car if she decides to get one, and make plans to try and fit in all of the friends and relatives who want to spend time with her and the girls every time they go up.
She still doesn't know which airline she's going to fly with.
Ever since Allegiant Air no longer flies in and out of the airports closest to where our parents live, finding really cheap seats is a challenge.
We used to fly out of the Orlando airport, and land in the Portsmouth New Hampshire airport, but now the closest airport is in Bangor Maine, which is actually in state, but it's like a 5-6 hour drive to my folks house, whereas the Portsmouth airport was less than an hour away, less than 45 minutes depending on who's driving. *wink*

I really wish I could send the teens up, but it's just not going to happen this year because of my surgery, lack of money and time, and some other stuff.
But I am going to try like hell to get them up there next year.
I'm aiming for February or spring school vacation time, or summer if that's all we can do.

Posted by Kat at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Has anyone out there ever had any experience with Bob Knight Photography from Tallahassee Florida?

They are the company hired by the school to do the graduation pictures, and because of the class size, the number of people in attendance, I am afraid that they will prevent parents from getting close to the stage to take pictures during the ceremony, and that we will all have to rely on this company for our pictures.

I scoured their site looking for prices and testimonials, but did not find any.
I Googled them for reviews, and found nothing.
I need to know if they will do a good job, first, and second, what the prices will be like.

If anyone has any experience with them and event photos, please leave me a comment telling me what your experience was like, and how much the photos cost.
Thank you!

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

I called the arena where the graduation is going to be on Saturday to find out whether or not I'm allowed to bring a pillow or cushion with me to sit on, and a bottle of water or soda so I can take my pain meds if I need to.
The ceremony begins at 9am and ends at 1pm.
The graduation is going to be 4 hours long because they have something like 950 students graduating, and each student was given 5 tickets for family and friends, so there will be about 2,000+ people in the arena on Saturday.
While the arena is air conditioned, they admit that once you put that many people in there, it tends to get a "bit warm."
That's a direct quote from the girl I spoke to when I called the arena.
The girl did not know if I can bring anything with me, so she told me to call the school.

I called the school and spoke to the guy in charge of the graduation, and he said that I can bring a pillow and something to drink, that I may get stopped by security, but to just tell them or show them any proof of my disability/need for the items, and it won't be a problem.

He also told me that they have special seating for people with disabilities and can't climb the stairs.
But it's first come, first serve, so if I want to be in one of those special seats, I need to drop Mark off at 7:30 when they students have to be there, and then just wait until the doors open at 8am in order to get one of those seats.
Definitely need to bring my meds and be ready for a long day, but it will be worth it.

Mark just got back from picking up his cap and gown and the tickets.
I need to get him to try it on and take his picture.
I am so proud of him.

Posted by Kat at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My sister brought my nieces over this afternoon around noon, and we babysat them until about 4pm or so.
We had a really good time with them as we always do.
We watched The Little Mermaid, and they are finally at an age where not only can they sit through it, but where they can understand it and like it.
They did like it too, especially when I told them that it was one of my favorite movies, and then I showed them my URSULA.

My sister bought Ursula for me in 1998 for my birthday because of how much I loved the movie, and because Ursula is my most fave Disney villain ever.
After the girls saw it, they wanted me to open it so they could play with it.
They were a bit disappointed that I wasn't going to open it, and quite surprised when I said that it's never been opened.
They asked me why, and I told them that I love her so much that I don't want her to get ruined by playing with her, that once the box gets opened, dust will slowly get inside and she'll get dirty, and not be as pretty anymore.
My OCD is pretty crazy when it comes to this doll, I have never opened it, I keep the box dusted, and it's on a shelf with all the rest of my Disney toys and Little Mermaid toys that I've collected over the years.

The only Little Mermaid toy that I don't have is Ariel herself.
I scoured every McDonald's in like 3 cities when they were doing the toys with the happy meals for the release of the DVD.
Anytime we've gone to like Goodwill or the Salvation Army thrift stores, I've dug through their toy bins for her too.
Still haven't been able to find her to complete my collection.
*sigh*

Skye was such a little stinker today, but I think one of the teens put her up to it because I don't think she would have done it on her own.
I came out of the bathroom, and Skye was sitting on my office furniture chair, with her hand on my mouse, her feet kicked up on my foot stool, keyboard on her lap, and when I walked in the room, she said, "Look at me! I'm Aunty Kat! I'm sitting at my desk doing my work!" and then she giggled like a little hyena. hahaha
That got Susan cracking up too, and both the teens were rolling laughing at her too.
Little buggers. hahaha

We just always have such a good time when they are here, I love playing with them and spending time together, it's going to be awhile after surgery before I'll be able to play with them again, so I'm spending all of the time that I can with them now, as much as we can anyway.
I'm going to miss them tons when they can't come over for awhile.
Sis told me they are always asking for me too, always asking her when they can go see Aunty Kat, when can they go to Aunty Kat's house.
They love being here and I love having them here.
When they get older, much older, I'm probably going to give them a huge part of my Disney collection.
I have these huge shelves with tons of Disney toys from all the different movies, so I'll probably give them a bunch of them and then save the rest for any grand kids that I may have someday.
Not rushing the whole grand kid thing, just thinking about the someday when I'll be old and my kids have kids, hopefully at least one girl, so that I can give her all of my dolls.
Yup, I'm a totally sentimental mushy mush.

Posted by Kat at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The fabulous Alaina of Ms. Single Mama, has worked with a jewelry designer on Etsy to create a gorgeous necklace for all the single mamas out there, to wear and not feel so alone.
The artist is Tres Joli, and they have done an incredible job on this beautiful piece of jewelry.

Quoting Alaina about the necklace;

"This necklace represents the growth, passion, love and strength every single mother carries for herself and her children.

Inspired by my readers and their input I worked with an Etsy designer to create this custom necklace. The larger leaf represents the single mother - finding herself again, the open leaf is ready for a new beginning. The second smaller leaf represents her child or children."

I know she won't mind me showing it off, so here it is, our new necklace.

It is absolutely beautiful and I cannot wait to wear mine and take it with me while I'm in the hospital.
It will be a beautiful reminder that I am not alone, which has been one of the fears that I have been dealing with the last few weeks.
Thank you Alaina for the beautiful design, and for everything else too. *wink*

Posted by Kat at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was in the middle of writing a post up when the whole internet went down.
It didn't just go down, we like had a power flicker, my power strip shut itself off, and so when everything came back on and the net came back up, I had lost everything that I was doing at the time, which included a post that was like 1 sentence away from being finished.

UGH.

Posted by Kat at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My ex paid the child support this week, he paid it on Thursday, but it must have been after 5pm or something, because they did not deposit it to my card on Friday, and because it's a weekend, a holiday weekend too, they will not be depositing it until Tuesday or Wednesday.
I really could have used that money this weekend, there's stuff we gotta do, like mail out George and Amy's tickets to Mark's graduation because Mark and George won't be seeing each other before the 30th, and I'm out of stamps and Sebastian used up all of the change in the family change pig, and a couple other things that we needed to do like price some dress shoes for Mark, see if we can't find some halfway decent and reasonably priced thank you cards, and the teens wanted to do something else that I can't recall right now.
Oh well, at least he paid right?

Posted by Kat at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When we went shopping the other day, after making my way through the store getting the cheese, milk, cereal, bread, shampoo, body soap, the acne skin treatment for the teens, and some more ground beef, I made my way over to the frozen food section because I had brought with me a coupon for the new Stouffer's Easy Express Skillet meals.
The coupon was for $1.50 off, so I figured I would at least check out their price.
Publix had them on sale for buy 1 get 1 free, and the price was only $2.99, so with my coupon, that would make it $1.49 for 2 packages.
That's a heckuva deal, so I picked out 2 bags of the Chicken Alfredo flavor, and I cooked them up Friday night for dinner for just the 3 of us because Dustin and Stacey were unable to make it due to an emergency with his grandmother.

Anyway, I do a lot of cooking in my electric skillett year round for a few reasons.
It doesn't heat up the house, it can cook a pretty good amount of food, and it uses less electricity than the regular oven does.
I don't like using a frying pan on a burner on the regular oven, because it heats up the kitchen even though it's just a single burner, and the heat isn't distributed evenly over the pan.
Electric skillets distribute the heat evenly, are also very easy to clean too.

As for the Stouffer's Easy Express Skillet meals, the Chicken Alfredo flavor at least, was very tasty.
It had huge penne pasta, large chunks of white meat chicken, a lot of thick and creamy alfredo sauce, peas, broccoli, and carrots.

I cooked up both packages because it says right on the package that it's meant for just 2 servings, and there are 3 of us, so I dumped both packages in the skillet, (I did read the directions, that's what it said to do) and then started reading the directions again to see how much water I was supposed to add like almost every other packaged meal like this says to do, and it didn't tell me to add any water.
It didn't tell me to add anything as a matter of fact, it was so simple!
Open the package, pour contents into skillet, cook on medium-high heat with the cover on for 8 minutes stirring occasionally, and serve.
That was it, just that easy to do.
After 8 minutes, it was totally done, so I served it up by dividing the contents of the skillet between the 3 of us, giving the teens more because they can eat more than I can, and they gobbled it right up.
I'm not even sure if they actually chewed any of it.
When Mark finished, he asked if there were any leftovers, I told him no, and he was all bummed out and told me that he really liked that one, that it was better then the other chicken alfredo one that I usually buy.
Sebastian said the same thing.
I enjoyed it a lot too, the sauce was creamy and smooth, and the pasta mixed with the veggies was a good mix, so the whole meal had a very nice flavor and texture.
I would buy these again for sure, especially if Publix keeps them at a good price, even more so if I come across more coupons.

Posted by Kat at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I had been awake for about 3 and a half days with only about 5 hours of sleep during that whole time, so I finally went to sleep on Friday night around 12:30am, and slept through until 10am on Saturday morning.
I stayed awake for a couple of hours, long enough to make the teens some lunch and then start watching some old, but fun and cheesy movies, on a new station that we have here with the digital tv thing.
We have a station called This, and all it does is show old movies, classic tv shows like The Outer Limits, The Patty Duke Show, and Mister Ed, in the early morning hours, and the childrens' shows like The Country Mouse and the City Mouse Adventures, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, and Wimzie's House, until around noon, and then they show all of the old movies for the rest of the day.

It's a pretty decent station, so my plan was to try and catch up on some more rest by laying on the couch and watch Poltergeist II and Poltergeist III, and then Once Bitten, and then wake up and make dinner.
Well that didn't quite happen.
I fell asleep about 1 quarter of the way through Poltergeist 2, and woke up just as Once Bitten was ending.
By the time I had woken up, the teens had already made themselves some dinner.
They decided to just let me sleep because they knew how long I had been awake, and there was plenty of easy things for them to cook for themselves in the NuWave.
They didn't make a mess or any noise, so it all worked out ok.
Around 9pm, we decided to take a walk to the store to get some more food, we were out of lunch meats and needed some more milk for breakfast.
I'm still not totally caught up on my sleep, I feel like I need at least one more really good nights sleep, and then I'll be ok.

During my wide awake for 3 days and my sleep on Friday and Saturday, it seems that all of the blogs that I follow decided to do a lot of updating.
A whole lot of updating.

It's either going to take me a very long time to catch on on all of those, or I'll end up marking them all as read because of how long it would take me to read through them all.
But while I was doing a quick scan of my feeds to see if there was anything that I should definitely read first before marking them all as read, I did notice that one of the female bloggers that I read, had a post all about shoes.
I saw a wicked lot of pictures of wicked cool looking women's shoes.
High heels, low heels, flats, chunks, flip flops, oh so many cool looking shoes that I will probably never be able to wear again.
I've been stuck wearing flip flops for quite a few years now, and it's starting to get very depressing.
I miss wearing heels so much, and chunks too.
I still have 3 pairs of my fave shoes just in case I can ever wear them again, but it's not looking too much like I will.
*sigh*

Posted by Kat at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, so I got up, went pee, got a drink, folded the last load of clothes, and then decided to clean the bathroom up a bit.
I noticed that the toilet wasn't as sparkly as it normally is, and that's when I noticed that the Kaboom Scrub Free was totally gone.
Not just used up in the tank, but I was out of refills that I keep below the sink, too.
Dang it.
The Kaboom Scrub Free really, really works.
I found below the sink, a really old package of 2000 Flushes Blue Plus Bleach, so I opened the package up, cut open the bleach packet, dropped it in the tank, and then cut open the blue pill package, and went to drop it in the tank, when it slipped out of my hands and fell in the toilet bowl.
Uh, er, crap!
I wasn't thinking clearly, remember now, I've had like hardly any sleep in the last 2 days, my brain is totally sleep deprived and fried.
So what did I do?
If you said "Kat reached in the bowl and grabbed the blue toilet pill", you would be correct.
Ack! Oh no! No! No! No!
I reached in and grabbed the blue toilet pill and hurriedly dropped it in the tank but it was too late.
The blue was already on my hands, but I scrubbed and scrubbed anyway.
I did get most of it off, but my hands are a light blue color, my finger tips are a slightly darker blue.

Only me, only I would do something that freaking stupid.
gah!

Posted by Kat at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So uh, yeah, I've been up all night with insomnia again.
I did finally get some sleep yesterday afternoon, I was able to sleep for about 3 hours, and then I just woke up, and was totally ready to go again.
It's now a little after 4pm, and while I'm tired, I cannot sleep.

I had so many things that I wanted to do today, I have all this work that I wanted to do, I wanted to get it all done, but did I do it?
No-o-o-o!
I spent like the entire day just answering emails.
The whole day, answering emails.
That is not what I wanted to do today, but that's what I did.
I kept saying to myself,
"Self, as soon as you get done with this email, you need to get crackin' on all of that work that you need to get done or it's never going to get done."

And I would even answer myself,
"Self, I KNOW that I have work to do, but these emails, these are important, they must be answered. These people took their time to email me, the least I can do is take the time to email them back. As soon as I get done with this one, I will get started on the work that I need to do."

But then as soon as I replied to that email, I got another one that my insomnia deep-fried brain told me was just as equally important as the previous 7 emails.
So no, I did not get a single thing done today that I meant to do.
But I do feel like I accomplished a lot though.
It usually takes me like 2-3 days to answer emails, and I did them all today, so that in itself is a huge accomplishment.

All of the stuff that I needed and wanted to get done today is all work I can do on my computer, which is a good thing because my arthritis is flared up today big time.
My right knee is HUGE, it's all swollen and sore from the arthritis, I have been limping around all day long every single time that I needed to get up and pee or get a drink.
Owie wowie, painful.

I am really hoping that I will still be able to get at least some of what I want to get done, done, but I don't know for sure if I will be able to.
Dustin and Stacey are supposed to come over tonight for dinner and a movie, and then when they leave, whatever time that ends up being, I hope that I'm going to be somewhat coherent enough to get some work done.
I have a couple of product reviews that I need to write up, not telling you what they are for yet, you'll have to come back to find out, but I can tell you that none of them will be weight loss pill reviews because I haven't been allowed to take any weight loss pills since the beginning of September.

Ok, I need to get off of here for just a little bit.
I need to pee again, (damn blood pressure meds make me pee like a racehorse on lasix), get another drink, (that could be contributing to the pee thing too, hrm....) and call Dustin to find out what time they are coming and ask about what they want to eat for dinner, and also fold the last load of laundry in the dryer.

Ok, really gotta go now.
Later days!

Posted by Kat at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night my sister and my girls (my nieces) came over for a little while, and my sister had called me on the way to tell me to have my camera ready for when they got there.
She said that Susan had a surprise for me, so I made sure the camera had freshly charged batteries, and we all went outside to wait.
Just about 5 minutes later, they pulled under the carport and they all unbuckled, sis told Susan to get out and to "Go smile for Aunty Kat!"
So Susan got out of her big girl seat and out of the car, and as she made her way to me, she was giggling all of the way.
When she got close to me, she stopped, and sis had motioned for me to be ready, and then Susan smiled a huge smile.
This is what she had to show me!

She lost her front tooth! Her first big girl lost tooth!
She was so excited about it, and then told me that mommy gave her $1 for putting it under her pillow last night. (Sis is also an atheist, and we both have raised and our raising our kids without made-up stuff, if you don't believe in 1 fairy tale, you don't believe in any of them)
Sis and the girls also stopped at McDonald's to surprise us with dinner, and the teens were totally happy with that, even though they also wanted what I was going to make for dinner.
When I went grocery shopping the other day, and Mark and I got to the meat department, Publix had packages of huge turkey legs on sale for just $1.99 per pound, so I bought 2 packages with 3 legs in each package, and my plan was to cook them up in the NuWave for dinner.

Well sis brought McDonald's, so I left the turkey legs in the refrigerator and planned on cooking them tonight, Thursday.
They were perfectly fine, as a matter of fact, they were still frozen solid.
My sister and the girls left around 6:45pm, and almost an hour later, Mark asked if I was going to cook them up.
I told him that I could, but they could handle being in the fridge for 1 night and that I would cook them Thursday night.
He gave me the ol' puppy dog, please mom, I'm gonna starve to death if you don't cook those look, and he really didn't have a huge meal like he usually gets when he goes to McDonald's with George or whoever, so I agreed to cook them up.

The NuWave comes with 2 racks, a 6inch that flips over to become a 1inch, and then a 4inch rack, so I grabbed the 4inch rack, and placed all 6 legs on it.
They were packed on a bit tightly, but they all fit in there.

I set the power level to high, and pushed the timer button...

Because they were still frozen pretty darn solid, I set the cooking time for 30 minutes per side, for a total of 1 hour of cooking time.

I didn't even think of wrapping the bony end of the legs in aluminum foil like I normally do when cooking a whole turkey in the oven, I don't know why I didn't, you can use aluminum foil in the NuWave.
As a matter of fact, you can use any type of utensil, foil, parchment paper, or cooking pan in it as long as it fits.
If it fits inside the dome, you can use it in the NuWave.
But I forgot to cover the bony ends of the legs, so of course the skin and meat pulled back, but they still came out so freaking good!

Look at that gorgeous golden brown color!
I didn't eat any, and neither did Sebastian, but Mark took 1 and we will reheat the remaining 5 for tonight, and I will also make the mashed potatoes and gravy that is supposed to go with it.
I took a tiny piece of meat off of Mark's so that I could see how it came out, and it was super awesomely good.
The meat was cooked to perfections, and totally tender and juicy.
I swear, the NuWave is actually making me be a better cook...hahaha

One of the benefits of cooking with the NuWave aside from how quickly and perfectly it cooks everything, is the fact that it drains off the fat.
The infomercial makes a claim that I didn't believe, I know, infomercials are all hard to believe, and I fell hook, line, and sinker, for the NuWave. (But the NuWave really does do what the infomercial claims as far as cooking goes!)
But they claim that if you cook with your NuWave at least 3 times per week, that because it cooks and drains all of the extra fat, greases, and oils out of the food, that you will lose weight and lower your cholesterol.
I've now had the NuWave for 4 months as of today, I received it on February 21st, and I have monthly doctor's appointments where they put me through the wringer and test for everything under the sun.
I'm always being weighed, measured, and tested for all kinds of things, so anyway, because I have only been cooking in the NuWave, and have not used the regular oven even once since getting it, my cholesterol has lowered, and I have lost 12lbs.
I think if I could get my hands on the most perfect and best diet pills for me and my body type, and continue to use the NuWave for every single meal, I bet that I could lose even more weight.
I was shocked when my doc told me that I had lost 12lbs.
She weighs me every single month, and sometimes she tells me if I'm up or down, but she usually holds out for a significant change before saying anything.
12lbs is pretty dang significant in my opinion.
W00t!

And I've been up all night again, insomnia, again.
So I made myself useful while I was up.
I went through the fridge and took out all of the food that was in there in its original packaging, not sealed up good, and was going to spoil if I didn't get them packed up correctly, and so I packed everything up nicely with a whole bunch of my new Rubbermaid storage containers.

I put the deli ham, cherry tomatoes, salsa, the sliced cheese, the block of extra sharp cheddar cheese, the leftover salad from Tuesday night, the tortilla chips, the Werther's caramel and chocolate candies, the leftover sour cream, everything that needed to be sealed up and stored better, into the new Rubbermaid storage containers.
Doing this had an added benefit.
The fridge now looks all nice and organized.

If you're new here or haven't heard about it yet, in the post directly below this one, you can enter to win your very own 20piece set of Rubbermaid storage containers.
Entering and getting extra entries is really easy, so if you would like your own set of Rubbermaid containers, go read the how to enter rules and enter.

And now I think I'm finally tired enough to go to sleep.
If you do enter, I will verify your entries when I wake up and send you a notice that you've been entered.
Please do make sure that you do the required entry or I'll have to disqualify you.
I am only saying this because I've now had 3 people fail to do that 1 thing, and it has disqualified them.
I was even really nice about it and emailed them letting them know that they needed to come back and do that 1 thing.
Oh well.
Good luck and later days!!

Posted by Kat at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm having another giveaway here on my blog, and while it's not a piece of Wilmington NC real estate, it is something with 20 pieces!

Back in January, I won a 20 piece set of Rubbermaid's Easy Find Lids storage containers, and when I got them, I posted about them here on my blog.
It was a 20 piece set, 18 regular pieces, and 2 Produce Savers containers.
They are so great!
They are all stack-able, and because the lids all fit together, you can't ever lose a lid, the big lids fit all of the big containers, the small lids fit all of the small containers.
The lids all snap together, and then the lids snap to the bottom of the containers, I haven't lost or misplaced a single container or lid yet because of this, it's an awesome set!

I use the Produce Savers to store fresh fruit and veggies so they don't go bad.
The design of the Produce Savers does a fantastic job keeping everything nice and fresh.
I use all of the various sizes of the Easy Find Lids containers for snacks like potato chips, candies, salsa and other dips, because let's face it, the packages most of those foods come in, are not really made to keep the food fresh once you've opened them up.

I also use them for any leftovers that we may have, (Ha! With 2 teen boys, leftovers are only a dream! They may get leftover and placed in a storage container for about 2 hours before 1 of the teens polishes it off!) and they are microwavable and dishwasher safe, (I don't have a dishwasher, but it says they are dishwasher safe) and they are pretty stain resistant.
So far, not a single container has a stain in it.
I love my set so much, I use them for everything all of the time, and when Rubbermaid contacted me about another set and hosting a giveaway, I said heck yeah!

This is a different 20 piece set than the 1 I won in January.

This is exactly what is in the set that I am giving away!
The winner will get 2 Produce Savers in various sizes, 3 of the Easy Find Lids containers in various sizes, 3 Lock-Its in various sizes, and 2 of their Premier containers.

This is the exact set that 1 lucky winner will receive!

The prize:
Rubbermaid has offered up 1 of these awesome 20 piece sets to 1 lucky winner!

Rules:
The giveaway is only open to United States bloggers, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. (Sorry Alaska and Hawaii!) *sad*
This giveaway is only open to people who have blogs, this is a blogger only giveaway.
Only 1 entry per person/family/household.
Only 1 person per IP address can enter the giveaway and complete the required entry and extra entries.
No entering on behalf of others, using extra identities or others identities, no automated program entries, etc.
I can check and verify IP addresses and email addresses. *wink*
If you are caught cheating, you will be banned from this giveaway and any future giveaways on my blogs.
This giveaway is only open to those ages 18+ only.
All entries must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Sunday May 31st 2009.
I will pick the winner randomly using random.org on Monday June 1st, and email the winner and they will have 48 hours to claim their prize.
If I do not get a reply within 48 hours, I will pick a new winner using random.org again.

How to enter:
The required entry:
For a chance to win, leave me a comment telling me what you use your storage containers for the most often.
Do you use them for food only?
Or the kids crayons?
Or arts and crafts supplies?
Tell me how and what you use storage containers for the most!

For extra entries:
The following are all for 1 additional entry each, and you must leave a separate comment for each 1 that you do.
If you bundle entries in 1 comment, the comment will be disqualified and deleted.

1.
Blog about this on your blog and leave a comment with the url to your post.
The post must remain on your blog for the duration of the contest.

2.
Post about this giveaway with a link back to this post on Twitter, and then leave a comment on this post with the link to your Twitter post about this contest.
You can Twitter the following if you want to;
Kat is giving away a Rubbermaid 20piece set! Go enter for a chance to win! http://bit.ly/XkVO4

3.
Follow me on Twitter.

4.
Follow Rubbermaid on Twitter.

5.
Follow RubbermaidTwo on Twitter.

So there ya go, that is the prize, and it is an awesome prize, and what you need to do to enter, and what you can do for extra entries.
Please follow the rules, and good luck!!

Posted by Kat at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (74)

When I did the grocery shopping on Friday, I had a $1.00 coupon for the Kellogg's Eggo Bakeshop Twists, Publix only had the 4 count package, they were $2.79, but with my coupon, I only paid $1.79.
I rarely ever buy stuff like this unless I have a good coupon discount, so I felt that $1.00 off was good enough to be able to try these out.
Personally, $2.79 for 4 of these is so not worth it in my opinion.
I can only imagine how much the 12 count package costs.
Ack!
They are not that big at all as you can see, that is a standard 9 inch paper plate, and 2 of them fit in the center of the plate with plenty of room to spare.

They are made for the microwave and heat up in just 25 seconds.
The directions say to then let them sit for about 2 minutes before eating.
You can view the nutritional information per serving here.
Not exactly good for you, that's an awful lot of sodium, calories, fat, and cholesterol, for just 1 of these pastries, but they are kind of tasty.

Mark refused to try them, and Sebastian tried 1 and didn't like them at all, he ate half of 1 and then gave the rest to me.
I liked them, they weren't bad at all, not great, but good enough to satisfy a sweet craving.
At the price per package and the count per package, it's not a good deal in my opinion.
If I didn't have a coupon, I certainly would not have bought them, nor will I buy them again without a good coupon.
The count, price, and nutritional information, is simply not a good value or a healthy breakfast choice for families on a budget.
The taste is not that spectacular either, the Publix bakery makes something like this that has a much better taste and costs less than these do for far more, so if I wanted to buy another breakfast pastry, I would go to the bakery before I would buy these again.

Posted by Kat at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The last few days have been absolutely horrendous for me.
We're beginning the rainy season, and so my titanium rods just do not like the rainy weather at all.
I have been in incredible pain from my tail bone all the way up.
Yesterday was absolutely miserable, and today when it rained again, I just felt like screaming.
I couldn't get comfortable in bed, on the couch, in my chair here, anywhere.
And I couldn't eat either.
Being in that much pain makes me not want to eat, so taking any of my diet pils or something like nuphedra wasn't needed at all this weekend.
The smell of food seemed to upset my stomach, so I've barely eaten anything since late Thursday afternoon/evening.

In yesterday's mail, I got a letter from Cindy, my surgeon's nurse.
The letter stated all of my pre-surgery dates, and the date of surgery.
I'll be having my pre-op testing and meeting with the anesthesiologist on June 10th at 9:30am, and then I have to go back to my primary care on the 17th, and get surgical clearance from her again even though I already got clearance from her, they want some more blood work done from her, and something else.
My surgery will be on June 29th, and I need to be at the hospital at 6:30am with surgery beginning at 7:30am.
It's all scheduled and happening, so I need to start prepping myself physically and mentally for this.
I have just a little over a month to go before I go in, so I need to get myself ready.
I have no idea how long it will be after the surgery before I can come home, and then how long it will be before I am able to get back up and blogging full time again.
Mentally, I am not ready for this one, spine fusion number 3.
My brain is having a really hard time accepting that I'll be in the halo brace for anywhere from 3-6 months, and the possibility of a trach tube.
And I'm afraid that this surgery will cause even more hair loss.
I lost a lot of hair after the last surgery in September, it's very thin these days, and so knowing that they will be shaving off a lot of hair underneath up to the middle of my skull, and also shaving off some spots in 4 places at the crown so they can attach the halo brace with screws, has me a bit worried that I'm going to lose a lot more hair, have it just fall out.
Maybe I should just shave my head before I go in, that would make it a lot easier on the surgeon I know, and it would also make trying to care for my hair much easier after surgery, I have no idea what trying to brush my hair with that brace on will be like.
Naturally curly and long hair gets tangled very easily, so that brace might just make it even more of a pain in the butt.
It's something to think about anyway.

Oh, if I owe you an email, I'm trying to work on it.
It's still raining here off and on, and I'm hurting pretty bad from just sitting here typing this post out, so I think I need to lay down for a bit again.
Later days.

Posted by Kat at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Mark is graduating high school on the 30th of this month, and it's such a huge deal to all of us in our family, and I am personally just so so proud of him for doing it.
Today was actually his last full day of school, he doesn't have to go anymore, the principal said that he has completed his attendance requirement, so he's officially finished, and now we just have to wait a few more weeks for him to march in his cap and gown.
It's probably the earliest any of us will have woken up on Saturday in a long time, it starts at 9am, but the grads have to be there at like 7:30am, so we're all going to have to wake up by 5:30am.
Ack!

Anyway, I've been looking at things to get him, I don't want to give him cash, even though that's what most people will be giving him, but I'm his mom, I want to give him an actual gift, something special from me, so I checked out what Buy.com has on sale, and they have a ton of gifts for grads, so if you have a graduate in your life too, you should check them out, hugely awesome bargains right now!
They have several different digital cameras, quite a few different laptops, some mp3 players, and so much more at really great prices this week!

I've been talking about buying him a really nice watch for a long time, and they have an Invicta Mens automatic Topissimo stainless steel watch on sale for just $79.99, the regular price is $395.00, so that is a massive savings of $315.01 on a super nice watch!

It's self-winding and water resistant, and the red face on the steel is so totally him, he would love this watch very much, and I really would love to get it for him.
I've been looking at getting him a watch for so long now, but I was never able to find one that I really liked at a good price, but man, with a savings like that, I'd be so stupid to pass this up.
Hopefully the sale will still be on when I get paid next week, it should be because it's graduation season for several more weeks, so I'm definitely going to get this for him on payday if they still have it on sale.

Yay! I finally found him an awesome watch at a super awesome price!

Posted by Kat at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark and I went shopping this afternoon because Sebastian wasn't feeling well, and I've noticed something about who goes shopping with me and how much I spend.
If Sebastian goes, I stay on target, to my list, and don't overspend.
If Mark goes with me, I end up buying things not on my list, and spend more than I had planned too.
So guess how I did today?
If you guessed that I spent more, you'd be correct.

My total bill before coupons was $231.94
Total is coupons and in store special savings - $49.15
Total after coupons and savings applied = $182.79

I try to use as many coupons as I can, and take advantage of as many in store special savings as I can, because I only get $349.00 per month in food stamps, and with 2 growing young men in the house, that food money goes very quickly.
I try to avoid buying junk food items when I can, and I try to cook as many meals as I can without buying easy microwave foods because they cost more.
Sometimes.
Publix always has a lot of easy foods on sale for super cheap, and I usually always have coupons to match those items, so sometimes I do end up buying easy foods.

But anyway, whenever Mark goes with me he distracts me, he stands in front of me while I'm trying to look at and compare the costs of items on the shelves.
He's always talking to me about something totally unrelated to shopping while I'm trying to shop.
I ended up buying about 15 items not on my list today.
Ugh.
But, they were on sale, so I can't complain too much about it.
It would have been nicer had I had matching coupons for those items, but oh well.
What did I buy that wasn't on my list?
Chips, dip, beef jerky, some Oreo cookie things, Fun Stix I think they are called, more soda, another pound of lunch meat, some bread from the bakery, canned soup, about 5-6cans, and some canned spaghettios.

Speaking of spaghettios, next month begins the hurricane supply shopping.
I need to stock up on the canned foods that can be eaten without heating them up, and stuff like that.
I'm actually worried about hurricane season this year, not because they have predicted any yet, but because I'm having another spine fusion in June, and with the kind of luck that I have, this year will be the year that we get hit with a hurricane here in Sarasota, and I'll be in a bad state recovering from surgery, in the halo brace, possibly the trach tube, and we'll get smacked with a big one.
Sarasota is weird, in the 12 years we've lived here, this area hasn't been hit with a single hurricane, it's like we live in the outer banks twilight zone of storm free zones.
The most we've ever gotten here is a small bit of wind and rain, just enough wind to blow some trash cans around, maybe take out a really old tree, but nothing major.
But like I said, because of the kind of luck that I have, this will be the year that Sarasota gets nailed, and I'll be completely useless to deal with it, I'll have to rely on other people to help us pack up stuff and evacuate.
So far, the tropics look good, there's nothing at all out there, so let's hope it stays that way all through hurricane season which is June 1st to November 30th.

Posted by Kat at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have to go grocery shopping, we have like nothing in the house, and I got our food stamps today, and I'm a wee bit irritated.
My old neighbor called me this morning and had the nerve to ask me to sell her some of my food stamps for .50cents on the dollar.
She knows that I'm broke, and that I have a doctor's appointment and prescriptions to pay for on Monday afternoon, so she thought she would be generous, and offer to buy some of them off me for half their value, like she's some sort of cash drawer and wanted to help me.
It's totally insulting, not helpful, and why on earth she would think that I would do that or be ok with doing that is beyond me.
I asked her why she would think I would do that, if I did that, we'd have less food money, and she was all "Well, other friends of mine who get food stamps but need cash often sell me their food stamps for .50cents on the dollar because then they have cash."
I said yeah, cash would be nice, but then I'd have less food money, a lot less, and I'll find another way to come up with the money I need before Monday afternoon, I always find a way, if I have to, I'll sell something else, like dvds or something that we don't watch anymore.
I'm having a rough time of things right now, I owe out more money than I have, and I'm trying to work so that my next pay is big enough to cover everything that I need to pay for, but I've also been sick, been depressed, and just all around feeling like crap, but I will find a way to do what needs to be done without having to sell off food stamps.
I really can't believe that she thought I'd do that.
No wait, I can.

Posted by Kat at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am still going through all of the pictures of the teens to have scrapbooks made for them by Christine, but I keep getting stopped by the memories the pictures bring up.
I keep finding all of these super cute pictures of the teens when they were little, things they did like pretending a laundry basket is a submarine, or eating a slice of pizza that was bigger than their head.
I have found about 20 pictures so far that I want to use, but in what order, what captions, what things should be on the pages with those pictures?

I know that Christine will do an amazing job, she is so very talented when it comes to scrapbooking, she's even had some custom rubber stamps made up of her kitty Squeaker, and has been featured in Scrap and Stamp Arts magazine, so I know that once I pick all of the perfect pictures, that the scrapbooks will be done beautifully.

I just really need to get my butt in gear and pick the pictures so that she can get started on them.
I need to stop sitting there remembering the moment, getting all emotional, and crying that my babies have all grown up now.

Posted by Kat at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Every Friday from now through September 25th, the Mars candy company, is giving away 500,000 coupons for a free candy bar!
All you have to do is go to the Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act every Friday at 9am, enter your birth date, then email address, and then complete the registration form within 5 minutes, and they will snail mail you a coupon for a free candy bar within the standard 4-6 weeks.

The legal notice:

Offer valid from 9:00:00 AM ET to 11:59:59 PM ET on the Friday only of each week beginning 5/8/09 and ending 9/25/09 ("Offer Period"). Offer fulfilled as a coupon ("Coupon") redeemable for consumer's choice of one (1) single-sized package of any M&M'S® Brand, MILKY WAY® Brand, SNICKERS® Brand, 3 MUSKETEERS® Brand, TWIX® Brand and DOVE® Brand product (together, "Participating Products"). Offer good while supplies last. In order to claim your Coupon, you must submit your complete and correct name, address and email address ("Registration Information") within five (5) minutes of receiving the on-screen message requesting your Registration Information. Failure to submit your Registration Information within five (5) minutes will result in your Coupon being forfeited. Limit: 250,000 Coupons per Friday during the Offer Period. (They raised the limit from 250,000 to 5000,000 after the 1st Friday resulted in the site being bogged down by millions of visitors) Allow approximately 6 weeks for delivery of Coupon, which will be sent by US mail to the address provided as part of the Registration Information. Limit: one (1) Coupon per email address per Friday and four (4) Coupons per household during the Offer Period.

It really is easy too, I got through last Friday, and all you have to do is go to the site at 9am on Fridays, enter your birth date, and then email address, and then fill out the registration form with your mailing address, and then they will send you a confirmation email letting you know that you got in, and they will be snail mailing you a coupon within 4-6 weeks.
Yum!
I love chocolate!

Posted by Kat at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I had a very rough night of sleep last night, I couldn't get comfortable to get much of any rest, and no matter how many pillows I used or where I slept, it just wasn't working out for me.
I want one of those memory foam mattresses or some memory foam bed wedges to try and see if they will help.
This one looks like it would actually work out well for me, for how my body is right now, and would help after the next surgery too.

See how that is shaped?
At an angle like that?
That's how my body is able to rest the best, at an angle, raised up just slightly, but my pillows eventually flatten and squish throughout the night, so I don't stay like that, I end up laying flat by morning, and then my back is all flattened and stiff.
With a bed wedge like that, it could go right at my lumbar curve, instead of at the hips where she's got it in the picture, and then my lumbar curve would have the support it needs to stay curved instead of trying to flatten like it wants to while I sleep.
Now, my back can't actually flatten, my spine doesn't bend because of the titanium rods, but the muscles want to, they want to totally relax at the lumbar curve, and because the rods are there preventing the spine from relaxing, only the muscles relax and flatten out.
Then in the morning, my muscles are totally flattened out around the rods, and it's extremely painful to get them back in place and straightened out so that I can stand up straight and walk upright instead of half-hunched over for the first hour or two every morning.

With a wedge like that, my back would be getting the support it needs in the lumbar area, the thoracic area would be at a comfortable angle, and then with a regular pillow, my head would be getting the support that it needs to stay raised instead of trying to lay flat which it can't due to the collapsed vertebrae at C1 and C2.
Every morning my lumbar is stiff and sore, and my neck and shoulder muscles are stiff and sore from the muscles relaxing and attempting to lay flat, and they really can't either due to the rods.

I'm sure that after the next surgery, the stiffness every morning will be even tighter because I'll be fused to the occipital bone, and so no part of my spine will be able to move all of the way from my tail bone to my skull, but the muscles will still want to relax all of the way down to the mattress and pillows.
I think I'm just going to try and get a bed wedge like this between now and the surgery, or even after if I have to, so that maybe I'll be able to sleep without so much stiffness and pain every morning.
This post is basically a bookmark of the site that sells that wedge so that I can find it easily when I am ready to buy 1.
That is definitely the kind of wedge I think my body needs, it is perfectly angled right how my body is able to rest the very best.

Posted by Kat at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been wanting to write about this particular subject for some time now, but things in my life just kept coming up, and so posting it would have just felt like the wrong time.
It still does feel like the wrong time, but enough procrastination.

I'm part of this huge community of bloggers, all bloggers, and then we get broken down into groupings, and my particular grouping is the single mom bloggers.
But I don't seem to really fit with most of them either.
Almost every single mom blogger I know is either currently dating, looking for a date, dating multiple people, using online dating services, living with a boyfriend, looking for a boyfriend, just looking for mr. right.
And I'm not.
I'm not dating or looking for anyone to date.
I haven't been looking for that for a very long time, and guess what?
I'm happy.
I'm happy being by myself, I don't feel like I need someone to complete me, to fix my broken and single life.
I don't need any diamond rings, I don't need a piece of paper, I'm really quite happy being single.

I've been raising my sons on my own for 15+ years now, and we're all doing ok.
We've had our share of hard times and bad times, the teens have wanted me to be with someone so that I could be happy, but I always have told them that I am happy.
I enjoy being single, I can come and go as I please, I sleep on whatever side of the bed I want, I don't worry about having to please someone else, I don't worry about breaking up or doing something that would cause someone to break up with me, I am just truly happy being single.

There are other people out there who are happy being single too, not feeling like we need to be partnered up like society tells us that we need to, and there's a website that's just for those happy single people, Single Edition.
It's not a dating website, it's just a site for happy singles.
There's articles on travel and leisure for singles, expert advice, tech and gadgets, shopping, money and careers, and single living.
It's a really good site set up for truly happy singles.
There's life beyond dating, living life on your own terms, you are not defined by whether or not you have a partner, you are defined by who you are, as an individual.

Who said that we have to be with someone?
Who decided that we have to be a couple, that the only way to true happiness is by being partnered up with someone else?
You can have a truly happy and meaningful life being single and living life on your own terms.

Posted by Kat at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Like many other bloggers, I've thought about calling it quits, shutting down my blogs, quitting working online, just getting off of here and not coming back.
Every blogger who quits has their reasons, but the most stated reason is that other bloggers had finally gotten to them, and they just couldn't deal with it anymore.

Lately I've been under some fire, some pressure, from various people, other bloggers, because of how and what I post here on my blog, and how I do my job on a forum.
I've read the criticisms about my blog, and while I don't agree with everything that has been said, I do agree with some of it.
I know that I post TMI (too much information) sometimes, I know that I post things that other people would never post about, but I also have my own fine line that I never cross.
Believe me, I've come very close to posting certain things about myself and my life, and then I realized that I was at my own line and decided to not cross it.
What my line is isn't important, but I do have one.

I've been upset for the last 24 hours or so because of some things that are being said by another blogger who knows absolutely nothing at all about me, doesn't even interact with me on those forums, but she's got a bee in her breeches that she has me all figured out.
She seems damn proud of herself at the moment too, she is under the impression that I am committing Munchhausen by internet, committing emotional fraud, always looking for attention, and that I'm always on that forum saying "Look at me! Look at me!" because I post a lot.
I wrote about this yesterday, because like I said, it is bothering me, but not for the reasons people may be thinking it is.
I'm not upset because gosh darn it, she's got me all figured out, that I'm always wanting attention and dying for people to notice me, that I've put myself in a position of authority because I want or like the attention, no, I'm upset because that's what she thinks, and that's not what the facts are.

I didn't put myself in a position of authority, I can not put the name "moderator" under my own name on those forums, the owners of said forum put that there after asking me to do that job.
It is my job to interact in the threads where people are asking questions, where people want an answer to a question.
It is my job to be there on those forums and respond to people.
Does anyone think it's easy being the only person on a forum with the mod title under their name?
Does anyone have any idea how hard it can be?
I have to deal with all of the questions, all of the problems, and I have to try and get answers to those problems, try to get answers to those problems day after day, week after week, and sometimes the answers I'm given are the wrong ones, and sometimes the answers I post are the wrong ones, and I try like hell to correct the wrong answers when I can, when I've learned the right answers.
I have to deal with angry people, upset people, people who think they should get their problem dealt with before everyone else, people who complain, and so on.
But yay, now she knows, now she knows that I'm committing emotional fraud, that I'm a sad, pathetic, wannabe center of attention, and now she feels sorry for me because now it saddens her, and now she'll be more thoughtful, suspicious even, and more understanding in the future when she sees me post in every thread.
And now she'll probably delete that post too.

I know that by posting this I stand to get some flack, some more heat, may have more people angry with me, but I'm tired of people making assumptions about me, tired of people saying untruths about me.
Instead of thinking I inserted myself, why don't they just ask the owners who asked me to do the job, if they did ask me to do it.

Posted by Kat at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The teens just left for the store, I needed them to go pick up something for dinner for us and some cat food for the kitties, and that's when I noticed what the landlord had been doing all day next door.
He planted some new flowers, a bush looking thing, and some nice perennials in front of the empty duplex.
I guess he's getting closer to finishing up next door, so maybe I'll be getting some new neighbors soon.

I used to have some bushes in front of my side, but all they did was attract bees, hornets, and wasps, and Sebastian is like deathly allergic, so we yanked them all out and haven't had anything planted there for about 6 years now.
I would love to have some beautiful flowers out there, but I can't risk him getting stung because of how quickly his allergy reacts to the stings.
His throat closes up, his eyes swell and close up, and we have to rush him to the ER.
I keep a supply of benadryl in the house, and we have to wait for 2 more bad stings before his pediatrician will give him an epi pen for it, but we try to avoid getting stung.

I just hope whoever he rents the place to will turn out to be nice this time.
And clean.
I'm tired of having mean, dirty weird people living next door to me.

Posted by Kat at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really don't have a whole lot to say, no big post about the holiday.
I just wanted to wish all of the moms out there a very happy mother's day, I hope that you all enjoy the day however it's spent and whomever you spend it with.

Posted by Kat at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I really want to take the teens to the Westgate or Westfield Mall theater, or whatever the name of it is, I can't ever remember, and go see the new Star Trek movie.

I'm not a huge trekkie, but I used to watch the original show with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and I've watched most of the other various incarnations of the show too, like Star Trek The Next Generation and Voyager, I wasn't much into Deep Space Nine, and then I also watched all of the movies of course.
The Wrath of Kahn being one of my faves as well as the fave of many others.
I didn't like Nemesis at all.

But anyway, the new movie looks really good, and from what I have been hearing and reading, it's really, really good.
People are saying that when they've gone to see it, that people have been cheering and clapping throughout it, and that the casting is like spot on for every single character.
Knowing that makes me want to see it even more, I was worried about a few of the characters being cast right, but everyone is saying that the actors chosen are spot on and perfect.
I'm sure we'll get to see it sometime, in a few weeks maybe, things are tight right now, so in a few weeks when money loosens up a bit, we'll go.

Posted by Kat at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Their anniversary was yesterday, May 6th, but Mark didn't remind me until this afternoon, so we called George and Amy to wish them a happy 4th anniversary.
I can't believe it's been 4 years already, wow, I remember the wedding like it was just yesterday.

For those of you who may be new to my blog, George is Mark's "Big", as in Big Brother.
Mark and George have been together since he was 8 years old, so 9 years now, and it's a perfect match still.
When we signed up to get him a Big, Mark was very specific, he wanted either a cop or a lawyer, but if one of those wasn't available, he wanted someone who had something to do with law, a judge, a bailiff, a courtroom worker, a prison officer, whatever, as long as they did something with the law.
What's really cool about their match is the day after we signed Mark up, George signed up to be a Big.
We didn't know him, so we had nothing to do with him signing up, it just worked out perfectly that he did.
When the Big caseworker who signed up George and ran the background checks on him told him that just the day before, an 8 year old boy had specifically asked for a cop, George said that becoming a Big was something he had been thinking about for a long time, but on the morning that he chose to go down and sign up, he said he had this overwhelming feeling to go do it that day, to not postpone it again, so he went.
George was a detective in Washington DC for 25 years.
He's seen a lot, done a lot, and been a huge and truly positive influence in Mark's life.
Mark and George have been best of friends since the very first day they met right here in our living room.
Mark was so excited to have him in his life, he took him around the house and showed him every room, all his favorite toys, and introduced him to the cats.
George is highly allergic to cats, but he pet them all anyway, and whenever he comes over, I lock all of the cats in my room and I vac the rugs twice before he gets here, and I take all of the furniture covers off the leather couches so there is no cat hair anywhere so that he can breathe a little easier while he's in here.
George has also helped Mark figure out all of the steps he needs to take to become a cop himself, so that's been very helpful to all of us.
I didn't even know where to begin to help Mark figure out what to do to fulfill his dream.

Anyway, it's their anniversary, and they were planning on taking another trip, they like going on cruises, but George had spine fusion almost 5 months ago, and he's still not feeling quite up to doing too much physical activity.
I talked to him a little bit on the phone this afternoon before I handed the phone to Mark, and that's what we talked about.
He said he doesn't know how I do it, he was only fused in 2 vertebrae, and here I am fused the entire lentgh of my spine and having another one next month to try and correct my head placement.
He asked me how I am in the morning because he is so stiff when he first gets out of bed, he said it takes him about an hour before he can really do anything.
I said to him, "Yeah, I know, that first hour is so stiff and painful, I get up, walk all hunched over to the bathroom, go pee, get a drink, and sit down in my chair to take all my meds, and then wait an hour before I can do anything else physical."
He said that's exactly what he does too, and that he's having some trouble going for walks, his left leg starts to tingle like pins and needles, after about 15 minutes or so.
That will eventually go away, I told him, but it could take up to a year for it to completely stop with the numbness and needles feeling.
I've been sliced over twice now, so I still get pins and needles and the numbness a lot, and I'm sure I'll get it even more after the next surgery.
I told him that the older the patient, the longer it takes to heal up, too, that young patients, like under the age of 35, heal up almost completely 100% in about 8 months, whereas us old folks, can take a full year or longer depending on how big the fusion is.

So anyway, instead of taking a cruise, they are just going to do a small romantic weekend somewhere here in Florida, next weekend.
He has an art project he needs to finish for a client, (he's an artist) and Amy has to complete something she's working on too.
I hope that whatever it is that they do, that they have a good time, they deserve it.
They are such wonderful people and I am so glad that George is in Mark's life.
He's really made a difference, and the Big program is a great thing, it really makes a difference in kids lives, so if you've ever wanted to do some sort of volunteering dealing with kids, wanted to help and make a positive difference for a kid, check out the BBS, you could do something really amazing for a kid by just being their friend and mentor.

Posted by Kat at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can once again put my search for the absolute best weight loss pill on hold for a little while, especially after today.
I spent the entire day, from like 2am until about 4pm, just gacking up my entire insides.
It wasn't fun at all.
When I finally stopped puking, I felt like I was going to die.
After hours and hours of puking, your body is just worn the heck out man.
No clue what brought it on, but I'm glad it stopped.

The teens just got back from going to Publix to pick up some Totino's pizzas, there's simply no way that I can cook or eat.
Yuck.

If I owe you an email, I'll be getting to it after I take care of some must-do stuff that I have been unable to do for a few days because I didn't have everything I needed to do it, but now that I do, that's my priority, and then I'll take care of all the emails.
Later days!

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

Last night when Dustin and Stacey were here, they brought over a laptop much like this HP Presario that is currently on sale at like a huge savings.

Anyway, they brought it over because a friend had loaned it to them for a few days, and Stacey thought she screwed it up because no matter what site she went to, these "weird pop-ups" were appearing.
They asked me to take a look at it and fix it so their friend wouldn't get mad at them.

So I opened it up and connected it to my wireless network, and then hopped on the internet.
Immediately there were pop-ups, but they weren't of the malicious kind at all, it was Norton internet security popping up every few minutes to tell you to be careful downloading things from the sites that Stacey was going to.
Sites like Myspace, Facebook, etc.
I admit, it was totally annoying dealing with those pop-ups, but it wasn't the bad kind of pop-up, so I told Stacey she didn't do anything wrong, it's just the laptops security program trying to warn you about stuff.
Personally, I hate Norton because it's a major resource hog, and because of the annoying pop-ups.

But the laptop itself was extremely nice and I am pretty sure it was like that HP Presario.
It was heavy though, like really heavy.
I had it on my lap and I was like wow, this thing is heavy, and Dustin laughed and asked if all laptops were like that.
I told him no, most aren't, but this one is because of how much stuff it has in it.
It had all the bells and whistles you could possibly want in a laptop, dvd player, cd burner, the works.
I wanted to keep playing with it, it was super nice, but they had to go home and then take it back to the owner today.
I'd love to get a laptop someday just so I can do stuff from the couch when I'm having a rough day or not feeling all that great, I'd still be able to get stuff done ya know?
I don't know if I'd want one that heavy, but I'd want it to have a lot of memory and a cd burner, dvd player, all of the good stuff so I could also watch movies and play games and stuff.

Posted by Kat at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Both the teens stayed home from school today, not sure if it was that they caught what I had, or if it was the chicken at school yesterday.
Both the teens came home and said they weren't feeling that great, and that the chicken at lunch tasted more like fish than chicken, and it smelled like fish too.
Chicken should never taste or smell like fish, ever.
They both had bad stomach upset this morning, so I let them stay home.

Last night we had some company for awhile too.
Stacey and Dustin came over for awhile, and Dustin and the teens went and ran a few errands to the pharmacy, Publix, Dustin's grandmother's house, and his house, to pick up a few things for Stacey.
Stacey had surgery last week, and so while the guys were gone, I helped Stacey take a shower, her first shower since the surgery, and so I know how awesome that first shower is, it's like pure bliss.
Another friend of hers was supposed to be helping her the last few days, but flaked on her, so Dustin brought her to me because I know what it's like to need help and not want some total stranger helping with personal needs like a shower.

Then we all hung out for a few more hours before they needed to head back to Dustin's grandmother and take care of her for the rest of the night.
She was in the hospital over the weekend, so Dustin needed to be there to help her too.
Dustin is such a good guy, he helps so many people, he takes them to the docs, to stores, whatever he can, I'm really glad I met him and he and Stacey have become good friends to me.

They let us borrow a movie for the night too, it wasn't half bad.
We watched The Uninvited, the story of a girl named Anna who gets released from a mental hospital after the death of her mother.
It has a couple of twist endings, and it's a remake of an Asian horror flick called a Tale of Two Sisters.
Like I said, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that great either, I was hoping for something a little scarier and got something more like an M. Night Shyamalan.
Oh well.

Posted by Kat at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few weeks ago, I saw a thing to sign up to become a product tester for Purex, the laundry detergent, so I signed up.
I never heard anything else about it, so I assumed that I didn't get in.
Today, the FedEx guy knocked on the door and handed me an envelope that said "TOP SECRET", so I opened it up and was blown away by the incredible smell.

I read the letter, and it said, "Congratulations! You are 1 of just 200 people in the whole country who get to try a great new product from Purex to simplify and revolutionize laundry care! You're a Purex Insider!"
See, here's my cute little badge.

So what is this new product that will simplify and revolutionize laundry care?
It's called Purex Complete 3-in-1, and what it is, is 1 single sheet that is laundry detergent, fabric softener, and static control, all rolled into 1 easy step.

This is the basics of it,

I admit, I was so totally skeptical.
1 single sheet could clean, soften, and keep everything static free?
"Yeah right!" I thought.
But I gave it a try.
I took the load of dirty towels from the teens taking showers, some of their shorts, and their smelly t-shirts, and started to fill the washer and dropped 1 sheet into it first.
This is what the sheets look like;

The blue part of the sheet is the laundry detergent and some fabric softener, and the green stripe is heat activated by your dryer, and is also fabric softener and static control.

After you run your clothes through the washer, you move them and the sheet, into the dryer, and that's it, no cup of detergent, no cup of fabric softener, and no static control stuff either, just 1 easy step.

After the dryer stopped, I opened the door and was once again blown away by the incredible smell of the Purex, it really smells great!
I reached in and grabbed a towel, and it was sooo soft!
It wasn't sticking to anything else, and it was just incredibly soft, smelled so good, and was really clean.
I was very impressed, but wanted to try it again, so I did another load of clothes! LoL
The second load came out just as great as the first, clean, soft, no static, and smelled fabulous!
Why didn't someone think of this sooner!?!?
This really does simplify and revolutionize the entire laundry process down to 1 easy step, just 1 sheet does it all, and it does it really, really well.
I absolutely LOVE it!
I have a coupon to get a starter kit absolutely free, and I also got to share it with 3 friends after completing a short questionnaire, and so those ladies will be getting their starter kit free coupons in the mail very soon too.
I can't wait to go get the kit at the store, may have to wait a little bit, they aren't on sale until sometime this month!

Posted by Kat at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It seems that the top two health news stories these days are mesothelioma and swine flu.
Three schools are closing in Hillsborough County right here in Florida this week, after 5 probable cases of swine flu were reported.
They are closing the schools, scrubbing them from top to bottom, scrubbing all of the buses, and every single inch of the schools, and all extra curricular activities are also canceled.
"Freedom High School and Wilson Middle School will be closed because two people suspected of having swine flu attend those schools.
Also, Liberty Middle School will be closed because it shares cafeteria service with Freedom."

Mesothelioma is in the news a lot lately too because they have come up with new and better ways to diagnose and treat it, and because people are starting to win wrongful death lawsuits.
I found the wrongful death lawsuit interesting because of this;
"A Florida jury awarded nearly $1 million to the widow of a power plant worker who died as a result of mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos. However, the majority of blame for the worker's mesothelioma death was attributed to Gulf Power, who was not a party to the wrongful death lawsuit."
Say what?
How can the majority of his death be blamed to a company who was not involved in the lawsuit, but the widow won the case anyway?
I don't understand any of this stuff.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting kind of tired of all of this sickness panic that the media loves to do.
Honestly, I don't know if the swine flu is at pandemic levels, there's only a reported 717 probable case of it world-wide, so does that really qualify as pandemic?
Every single year, 36,000 people die from the regular old flu, and only 20 deaths from the swine flu world-wide so far.
So should we all be panicking right now?
I know we should all be cautious, wash our hands, don't go near people who are sick, don't lick any doorknobs etc, but panic the way the media is portraying this whole thing to be?
Nah.

Posted by Kat at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I went to the cardiac doc on Tuesday morning, picked up some food and came home.
Over the next few days, I started feeling super tired, like no matter how much sleep I got, it wasn't enough.
Then I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck..
Coughing, sneezing, sore throat, headache, body aches, stomach upset and all.
I have no appetite at all, and who the hell needs appetite suppressants when everything you eat tastes bad and then makes a rapid exit 30 minutes later anyway?

Sebastian had spent Friday night with sis, and when she brought him home yesterday afternoon, they stopped here first, picked up my debit card, and then went to Publix for me so that we'd have some food in the house for the teens to eat, and pick up everything else we needed too.
Cat food, toilet paper, lunch meats, bread, milk, cereal, and some cold medicine for me.
Sis picked up some Contac cold and flu, and it seems to be working ok for the cold part, but my stomach is still not happy.
I tried to eat last night, nope, not trying that again for a few more days, not a good experience at all.

The absolute worst places that one can go when you have a lowered immune system is the grocery store or a doctor's office.
Everybody is sick at a doc's office, and sick people go shopping for food and sick supplies.
I need to just live in a bubble with my own self contained oxygen system or something.
I'm so sick of getting sick, but germs are like unavoidable at the only 2 places I ever go these days.
The only places I ever go anymore are the docs and the grocery store, and I catch whatever other people have.
I am so glad though that Publix started putting out those containers of alcohol wipes at the cart entrances.
I grab like 4 wipes, and wipe down the cart handle, the baby seat, the baby seat belt, everything, and then I wipe my hands after locking my purse into the baby seat belt.
I always lock my purse in after almost having it stolen at the store once, so I have to wipe down the whole baby seat, the seat belt, everything, and let me tell ya, people with babies are disgusting.
There's always something nasty on the baby seats, I have to hold back my gags every time I'm wiping the seats down.
*gag*
Maybe I should just buy some hazmet suits for when I have to go out, at least until my immune system gets better..
I'm sick of being sick.

Posted by Kat at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't know what's come over me the last few days, but I could just sleep and sleep.
I have no appetite at all, and when I do eat, everything tastes weird, like bitter and spoiled.
I'm eating the same foods the teens are, and they say their food tastes just fine, but to me, it all tastes bad and I'm not sure why.
I'm just exhausted, and all I've been doing is sleeping and laying down, and I just haven't felt like blogging much, and there really hasn't been much to say anyway.
Meh.
Sebastian is off with my sister tonight, she'll bring him home sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Mark is in the other room playing WoW of course, and the kitties are all sleeping in various locations.

We've been watching some movies in the downtime, like last night, we watched The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke.
It was a really interesting movie, a good human story.
I felt so bad for the character, wrestling was all he knew, all a lot of them knew, they still lived in their glory days of giving people a good show.
Rourke was incredibly good in it, he was believable right from the start, this was his role to play, he was the wrestler.
The supporting cast was excellent too, Marisa Tomei, wow, probably the most gritty and realistic role I've ever seen her do, was also very believable, I know a few strippers, and so yeah, an excellent portrayal of their lives.
When the screen faded to black, we all sat here in silence, and slowly each one of us said wow, tragic, but how he wanted it to go.

Tonight we watched The Burrowers, a horror movie set in 1879 in the Dakota Territories.
When a family goes missing, the hostile Indians are immediately blamed and hunted down, but it's not Indians doing the kidnapping and killing at all, but almost vampire like creatures that live underground, and have the ability to paralyze their victims, then bury them alive so they can come back and eat their rotting organs later.
Another group of Indians, the Ute, know how to destroy the creatures, but an over zealous military leader played by Doug Hutchison, kills the last Ute Indian who knows how to make an antidote for the poison, and our main character has figured things out and can save the lives of other settlers with that Indians help, but it's too late.

This was a straight to DVD release, but worth checking out, just like a lot of straight to DVD releases are.
Most people don't give those films a chance, but The Burrowers is one of those movies you should definitely check out.
They only had a budget of $7million, but it's a very good looking film with some major players in it like Clancy Brown, whom I've loved ever since Highlander.
The scenery is gorgeous, the colors are muted but fabulous looking, and the acting, terrific.

A funny happened while we were watching The Burrowers, a couple of our cats, Nova and Shahiro, kept hearing the noises the creatures made as they were stalking their prey, and they did the same thing they do when I put the cat video on.
They start trying to climb up on the tv stand and tv set, to catch them.
It was amusing to me to watch them do that, trying to catch the creatures in the movie.

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