Family Vacation #2, Part 1

It's happened again. (cue Jaws theme....da dum, da dum.)

My family nightmare vacation was a complete train wreck. Oh sure, I had a few good times, a smattering of fun amongst the chaos. But the majority of the whole debacle was a flippin disastrous kerbobble of  "holy crap get me out of here!" ness.

Let me start out by saying that the very beginning of the thing was plagued by terror and and angst. Yes, I said plagued. We had planned to leave on Friday, July 19th. We were going to fit 7 people into my sister's Minivan and head to new jersey to pick up my son - who was at Ocean Grove with his father's side of the family. Then we were to head down to South Carolina for a family reunion. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, you would be completely, totally and utterly wrong. You see, the Minivan is my sister's van, and she had offered to take me, my mother, my son and my brother along with herself and her 3 tornadoes children, because her husband wasn't going to go, because he had college classes he couldn't get out of. (You follow all that?)

So instead of renting a car with just the first 4 of us, we decide to depend on the stability of the plan to use the minivan. Big mistake. My sister's semi-psycho husband finds out about the plan and gets all ticked off because it turns out he can get those darned college teachers to give him the time off for something as amazing and special as a family reunion with his precious wife and darling children. Huh. Right. And before you hummina wha? me - this man is pretty much an asshat to his wife most of the time. Doing things which I will not mention here, because a lot of it is unmentionable. The few things I can mention are these: He spent that entire week yelling, threatening to slash the tires in the van, taking the license plates and trying to bend them up - all so we can't go, because my sister is going without him.

Anyway, because of Nut Job, we come up with this cuckoo plan to sneak away a day earlier while he is at school. And then, to be really clever - we decide to double cross our double cross by leaving a whole 3 days earlier - just in case. We thought we were so awesome. I ask my exhausted and lethargic sister when Nut Job is in class this week, and she says Wednesday. So we plan to leave Wednesday. Then she tells me she was wrong and it's Tuesday. So we plan to leave Tuesday. My mother scrambles to find people to cover her shifts at Pizza Hut, I run around packing like a Tasmanian devil in heat, and my brother does what he does best and says "eh, whatever" to the whole thing. Then the sister calls back and says she's wrong, Nut Job has college on Wednesday. After a long moment - during which I seriously considered throwing my sister into oncoming traffic - we decide to leave on Tuesday anyway. Because what the hell, vacation is fun and you should make it a really long one when you're packed into a minivan like sardines with lots of small children and 2 semi invalids and one crazy mess of a woman. And my mother.

This is what it took to pack up that van. Every few days.

So, Monday, while Nut Job is at college, we super fast pack all the stuff we can and bring it to my house. The theory was that we would have all the stuff here, so that we could quickly pack the car on Tuesday morning. My sister says she'll show at about 10 am. So I spend the entire night worrying about if we are going to be able to leave or not. The next day, I text my sister at about 10:30, "???". She replies that she needs more time and she doesn't know how to get away from Nut Job. I tell her to figure it out, since she has a set of her own brains, because at this point I don't know what to say and if NJ will even believe any of it. She finally shows up at 2 pm, and says she told him that she was going to try and do a practice "pack up" of the van, since he spent all week whining about how 8 people would never fit in the van, and it was illegal. (It wasn't - we called the police and checked) I thought that was the most obvious lie in the history of lies, but hey - we finally got in the car and got it packed and on the road. We ninja pick up my mother, and I have to go 20 miles in the opposite direction to give my husband money for work and say goodbye. At 4 pm, we aren't even on the road and my sister wants to take this kids to say goodbye to their dad. Let me give you a small example of what the texts are like: (S is my sister, NJ is the Nut Job husband)

NJ: Where the @&*! are you?
NJ: If you come back here for anything I"m going to slash the #($^@)^ tires. 
NJ: I love you
NJ: I just want to see the kids and say goodbye
S: leave me alone
NJ: #($^ you. 
NJ: I love you
NJ: I just miss you
NJ: It's my (*&@^$( van bring it back
NJ: I'm calling the cops
S: we'll see you in a week, if you hadn't been such an *^& I would have brought the kids to say goodbye
NJ: $&@^ you

And that would have been a 2 minute text-conversation. All that in 2 minutes. It's rather sad. Anyhoo....we veto the saying goodbye thing, based on the aforementioned text/conversation and we hit the road. We find out Nut Job is on the road as well, looking for us. We get stuck in traffic right outside of our town, and we don't breathe a sigh of relief until about 50 miles later, when we know he must  have given up and stopped trying to find us.

this is what we all felt like

Officially on our way to Atlantic City.

End of part one. (I'm serious - it was that stressful from the get go.)

Tweet

How I Ended Up Promising To Go On Vacation With My Family. Again.

I'm going on vacation with my family. I haven't decided yet how I got tangled up in this grand plan, but it's happened. I mean, I'm pretty sure my mother managed to guilt me into the whole thing, all I heard for 2 weeks was -

"Please?"
 "I can't drive all that way by my little ol' bitty self, but I will if I have to"
"Do you want me to die in fiery car crash because I was too tired to make it and couldn't keep my eyes open?"
"Pretty Please?"
"I'm so old and tired but all I want to do is see my family this year and I won't be able to enjoy it if I have to drive all the way to South Carolina by myself"
"After everything I've done for you..."
(insert big blinky blue puppy dog eyes here)

Can someone explain to me why I've signed on for another round of this?

That's pretty much what it sounded like in my head anyway. So now I'm roped in and committed to a two day drive to from New York to South Carolina. At first it was all like - 'I'll pay for everything', and now it's - 'How much are you chipping in?' And somehow the "I'll rent a car" has changed into "We're going in a mini van with your sister and her 3 children", but I'm still going.

I'm pretty sure I did this 2 years ago and it ended up disastrously. (Part 1 and Part 2 for your reading pleasure) And that was without the screaming children. I can see it all now -

We'll get on the road 2 hours later then planned. Ten minutes into driving someone will have forgotten something vitally important so we will argue for another 5 minutes about whether we should turn back and go get it or maybe we should find a Wal Mart along the way, but by the time we figure it out we will be one hour into our journey and won't be able to turn around because no one wants to waste gas. Then the complaining person will complain about having to spend money on something they could have gone home and gotten. After another 25 minutes arguing about that, one of the kids will have to go to the bathroom, while the other two fight over the Nintendo DS and the bag of chips. The chips will spill and the youngest will cry. As soon as that's over, one of the adults will be too cold. The other adult will be too hot and then I will yell at one of them to put on a jacket and the other one to take off the dang sweater. As soon as that's resolved the oldest kid will be hungry, and so will I, but we don't want the crappy food we brought - we want Burger King because it's fun and yummy. So we will find one, commit to getting dollar menu items but then spend $30 on greasy french fries and soda when we have sandwiches and cans of coke in the cooler. After that two of the kids will fight about something else while the littlest one falls asleep and the adults whine about what music to listen to and one of us will have a headache so we shouldn't listen to music at all. My mom will stop us every 3 minutes and tell someone to pose for a picture, or make us stop the car so she can get a shot of that beautiful tree, or sunset, or blade of grass. And we will all alternately smile and yell at her for the duration of the trip while she snaps crappy pictures of us and posts them to facebook so all our friends can see pictures like this:

Thanks for the triple chin angle, Mom.

 And this:

The inevitable "shoving food into face" shot.

 And this:

What the heck? You wasted film on this?

I swear I am feeding the kids benadryl with breakfast that morning, and bringing lots of cheap vodka in a flask.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tweet

Slap A Bitch

During all this time that I haven't blogged because I'm lazy for personal reasons, I have learned a few things about myself that I'd like to share.

1. "If there is food, I will eat it."

I hear this in my head throughout the day, with a Field of Dreams whisper - "If you cook it, Flabby will come." Truly. So now I have this weird baseball/Kevin Costner/food connection in my mind that just won't go away. I am now associating food with dead baseball players and corn fields. Lovely.

What I've learned, though, is not to buy snacky food and keep it in the house. Not for the husband, or the kid. They can all eat healthy right along with me - because if it's in the cupboard, I will eat it. Period.


2. Being fat colors every aspect of my life.

 Usually it's the color black. Anyway, I took my son to the movies Sunday for some mommy time. (I'm awesome. I know. That and I really wanted to see Real Steel again.) The whole time we were watching the movies, these horrible, awful , rotten teenage girls kept kicking my seat. I'm pretty sure they were using it for a footrest. It was extremely annoying, but I never said anything. The only, and I mean only reason I said nothing was this: I didn't want to hear her yell "fat bitch" at me. Or say anything that included the word fat in it. That is my singular fear at the moment. Being called fat when I stick up for myself. It plays out in my mind like this:

Me: Excuse me, could you stop kicking my chair please?

Stupid Teenage Girl: Shut up you fat bitch.

Then the scenario gets ugly because I punch her in the face and break her purty teeth. That part is fun to imagine.

You know you want to...

But it's sad I won't say anything because I'm scared of being called fat in public. Like they didn't already notice, because I wore my skinny jeans that day.

Whatever. The point is, I'm tired of being scared to live because of my weight. It's getting old, and the more I sit around at home, the fatter I'm gonna get.

Lessons learned.

Tweet

The World On Your Shoulders

I am so very frustrated.

I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to be positive, and upbeat.

It's not working very well.

You know that scene in a movie - where someone is standing on the edge of something very tall? Like a building, or a bridge, or a cliff. Then they close their eyes, spread their arms wide, and just sort of.....fall backward, into nothingness. All peaceful like, with a sad, strange smile on their face.

No? Well, I'm sure it's in some movie somewhere, and if it's not - it ought to be.

I feel like that person. Like I'm on the edge of nothing. I am nothing. I feel nothing. I accomplish nothing. And nothing is waiting for me at the bottom of the black hole.

I could try and list everything, but it may depress you. It involves money, lack of willpower, money, lack of motivation and...money. Yeah. I think we've all been there.

I need a plan. I'm just...lost. There's hundreds of little things swirling around in my brain but I just can't get a grip on any of them. Elusive little things - ideas. Where do I start? What do I do? Eat healthy - with a $200 a month grocery budget? Join a gym? When I can't even pay my rent? I feel weighted down with worries and cares, and I would like it to stop now.

Please, make it stop.


PS - I kid you not. As I finished typing this - my mom called. My sister is in the ER and I have to watch her 3 (small) children at 6am. And I watch my 1 year old niece today. And I have to homeschool my son, deal with my landlord, catch up on all the laundry that was in my flooded basement - and God knows what else. The hits just keep on comin'.

Tweet

My Bro and Me

I'm sitting here in the wee early hours of the morning, going through my usual banter with my brother.

Brother: This sucks.

Me: You suck.

Brother: I'd rather be poked in the eye with a stick.

Me: You are a poke in the eye with a stick.

Brother: You suck.

Me:  Look who's talking, loser.

Brother: I'm going to bed.

Me: It's about time. Leave me alone.

Of course you have to understand that all this is punctuated with laughter, including snorting because it's stoopid early. We love each other, really. Promise. We are two totally sarcastic idiots, and we spend most of our days trying to outwit one another. I think I won this morning.

Just a slice of life, courtesy of Me. Capital M.

Tweet

Smoke And Mirrors

In case you haven't noticed, I hath completed my bloggy makeover. You like?

Anyhoo - I was browsing my Yahoo news stories and came across a most excellent article. It's about a lady who has sworn off mirrors for a year. Yes, you heard me right. No mirrors for one year.

Let me link her and her blog real quick like. The blog is called Mirror, Mirror....OFF The Wall, and her name is Kjerstin Gruys. Here is the Yahoo article I read.

Now before you double you tee eff me about all this, hear me out.

I love to go out with my friends. I love to go on dates with my husband. I spend lots of time getting ready - makeup, hair, the works. I have just lost about 15 pounds total now, so I have found a whole new wardrobe lurking in the recesses of my basement. I have fun going out now - it's not torture anymore. So to sum up - I have fun going out. I get ready, and I am totally in love with myself. I dance, joke, smile - I live. I live.

Then I look in a mirror. And somehow, always - always! - the image I saw in my head does not match up with what I see.

How I feel vs. what I see

And it's all because I spent too much time reading beauty magazines as a child. Well, not only because - but you get it. The world does not think I am as beautiful as I think I am.


And to that I say - screw you world. I am beautiful. I am gorgeous. My husband adores me, my family loves me - and I need to learn how to do the same. Not because I want to stay overweight and unhealthy - but because I am tired of people I don't know telling me what to think about myself. I'm over it.

airbrushed - nobody looks like that!

So, I am seriously considering not using mirrors for a while. I need to reset how my brain works about myself. I am very curious to see what it does for me.I have a feeling I will learn to love myself - like I always should have.

Tweet

Longest Week

I meant to post this last Tuesday, but it's been a long, sad week.

My cousin, Nicole passed away Thursday, Feb. 24th. She was only 29 years old, and leaves behind a husband and four young children, ages 5 to 12. She had had breast cancer, and had a double masectomy to get rid of it. She was in remission for a while, but the cancer came back - agressively and eventually spread to her whole body. She fell a few weeks ago and collapsed her lung. Because the cancer had spread so far, she was unable to recover. Although her death wasn't unexpected, the whole process happened rather fast and has left me and my family rather upset. She was her mothers only child, and I can't even begin to understand what my Aunt is going through right now. It's a hard situation to deal with all around. Her funeral was Tuesday morning, hence the no posting.

On top of all that, my whole family has been sick for a week. We had strep and me and my son also got impetigo. How thrilling for us all. We spent a week in the house, doing the best we could for my cousin and her family.

So, that's what's been going on. Needless to say, I have not been paying attention to what I eat. if anything, I've been indulging in comfort food. I'll see you all again soon, hopefully in a better mood.

Tweet

Catching Up

Huh. Been a while.

Between the holidays, babysitting and my all important video gaming, I've been to busy for blogging. But I'm trying to force myself back to some semi-normal habits.

Such as...cleaning the house. Or...playing with my son. Or...taking down the christmas tree. Yeah, that's still up. I've been uber lazy. It's sad.

I've been pretty depressed lately. It's something I struggle with on a regular basis, and it usually hit me pretty hard around this time. Mostly because I miss Christmas, and partly because it's so damn dark outside all the time. This year, it's because I'm broke and I'm waiting for our college/tax/tap money. Then we'll be rolling in the dough and I can take a little vacation/road trip to boost my spirits. Looking forward to that!

Until then, I've just gotta stick around the house and play my video games clean the house.

Tweet

Subway, Brothers, Gertie and Teeny Boppers.

So much time, so little to do.

Wait - strike that, reverse it.

But I do have time to tell a funny story. So let me begin -

About a week ago now, me and my brother decided to go to Subway for a little bit of nutritious lunch. After a long day of appointments and registering for college and what not, we thought we deserved a treat. So, as tired as we were - we went into our neighborhood friendly Subway.

Except, it weren't so friendly. I ordered my sub, no problems. Then my brother orders his. He gets the same thing every time, chicken bacon ranch, with lettuce, tomato, green peppers and cucumbers. He got a six inch this time and was getting his cucumbers put on, and he asks for extra. Two paper thin quarter size cucumbers weren't gonna cut it.

The employee - I didn't catch her name, so I'll call her Gertie (cuz that's what she looked like to me - 5 feet tall, short grey curly hair, glasses...) decides to get a preemptive snotty attitude, slap on some cucumbers, and says:

"Oh, we have to charge you for extra cucumbers."

My brother had a 'o rly?' look on his face and asked - when that had started?

So Gertie says: "That's the owner's policy, we have to charge you."

This woman picked the wrong day to get on my brother's bad side, because it all went down hill from there. It went a little like this -

Luke: "For 2 little tiny cucumbers?"

Gertie: "Yup. That's the policy. Sir."

Luke: "Oh yeah? Then I don't want them, put them back"

Gertie: "Whatever you want sir. (throws cucumbers back in bin) Anything else you would like with that, sir?"

Luke: "Oh yeah. Let me have some tomato."

Gertie: "Ok, anything else?"

Luke: "Mmmhmm. Throw some green peppers on there."

Gertie: "Anything else?"

Luke: "Ok, I'll take onions." (Luke never eats onions)

Gertie: "Anything else? Sir?"

Luke: "Yup, banana peppers."

Gertie: "Ok, anything else?"

Luke: "Pickles."

Gertie: (who is beginning to see where this is going) "Anything else?"

Luke: "Yup. what are those? Jalapenos? Put some of those on there too. Anything else I can throw on this sucker?"

Those were his exact words. I swear. He asked for every single vegetable - one at a time, mind you - and his voice got louder with each veggie. I had figured out what he was up to by this time and was at the end of the counter shaking with laughter. Gertie looked so ticked off, and her face got more and more snotty with each veggie she put on. I think she would have spit in his sub if she had had a chance. Good thing you actually watch the subs being made.

By now, everyone was beginning to watch and new customers were coming in. So Luke decided to try and make a point, and asks (loudly) why was it he could have "every vegetable in sight for free, but couldn't have two extra cucumbers for free?" And Gertie says again , "It's the owner's policy" and Luke says "What was he thinking of?" and Gertie gets her panties in a twist and says "She. Not He." as condescendingly as she can. So Luke is all like "She? That figures."

So I pay for the subs and I think we're all done.

Nope.

Luke asks for the manager and this little blond teenager comes over and says "I'm the manager." Well - at this point, Luke's mad, I'm laughing and Gertie is huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf. And Luke takes one look at the teenager manager, and laughs. Out loud. I did too. I mean, she couldn't have been more than 19 years old. Then it got really good. Luke asks in a stage voice -

"Where's the garbage can so I can throw away all this crap on my sub that I don't want?"

And Teeny Bopper Manager tells him it's by the door - and he goes to throw all the extra veggies away. He doesn't just nicely toss them away, he picks off one thing and chucks it in the garbage as hard as he can, then the next, and the next. Half of the veggies are falling all over the floor and Teeny Bopper Manager is saying over and over, like a broken record - "You can leave anytime you want to, sir." She must have said it about 8 times in 2 minutes. And he would say back "Yup. I know I can, I know can if I want. But I don't want to yet."

He finishes throwing away all those vegetables, and as a parting shot says:

"I just cost you way more money in vegetables than two lousy cucumbers would have cost you."

Exit Stage Left.

It was beautiful. I'm laughing as I type this, it was so funny to see. If they had just been nice, or smiled, or apologized. Anything but get snooty and condescending. Things may have turned out better. As it stands though, I'm glad he gave them a good what for and made them uncomfortable. I had never been treated that badly in my whole life. I will never go back to that particular Subway ever again.

He went to a different one about 3 days later and got extra cucumbers for free.

Tweet

Dependency

I am sick of people and their crap. I am sick and tired of people telling me to stop depending on everyone else.

For the record, I have made it through my life largely alone. I don't deny that people have helped me along the way, but I have mostly been very much alone.

I have an amazing life right now. I am married to - quite possibly - the most wonderful man alive. He loves me exactly for who I am - stretch marks, bad history, PMS, everything. This man loved me through being chronically depressed, through a bad divorce and worse custody battles, through just about every family issue you can imagine. He has helped not only me, but every single member of my family.

Lately, I have had several of these exact family members tell me that I spend my life depending on others.

If you think that being a stay at home mom is considered depending on others, then you need to either have children, or really raise the ones you have. Being a stay at home mom is a level of work that cannot be explained, only demonstrated. You have to have actually lived it. Nothing else counts. I could give you the long list - changing diapers, making lists, cleaning toys, washing clothes...ecetera, ecetera. I could also try and explain the feeling of being responsible for a little tiny person 24/7, while you're awake, while you're sleeping, while you shop, while you try and relax, even if you manage to get a babysitter - while you're out. It's with you every moment of every day.

Now let me explain something further. I had a very difficult pregnancy, and a difficult delivery. I had to have an emergency C-section. I had a horrible hospital stay, you can read about it in My Story.

Now here's what some of you may not know. My so-called husband (at the time) worked about 30 hours a week at a gas station. He thought he worked oh-so-hard and wouldn't help me. At all. So when my little baby boy cried in the middle of the night, I had to partway roll out of the bed, hold a pillow against my stomach incision, and hobble over to the crib. Then I had to bend over, lift him out, and hobble to the armchair and try and nurse the baby who did not want to be nursed. Then I had to go back to the bedroom, put him to bed and crawl back into my own bed. All as quietly and as quickly as possible so I wouldn't wake up my bi-polar alcoholic (ex) husband. I was alone. As alone as a person can be, maybe more so because someone was there - but wouldn't help me. At all. My younger sister, who partied (she was a teen at the time) helped me out more than anyone else. My mother tried to do what she could, but was married to a crazy (literally - PSTD, schizophrenic) man at the time and wasn't "allowed" to do much to help me. I was on my own. Broke, living in a crappy apartment with plastic chairs and not knowing what to do next. Yeah, I depended so much on everyone - right? You know what - it didn't even occur to me to ask for help, because I just thought that since I was the mother, it was my job. And you know something - I believe I was right about that. To much help renders you helpless.

And when the aforementioned jackass ex husband decided to pick up and leave me - I was left with a little toddler and no income. I was also left with a month of debt, because he had decided he need the money - for drinking and cigarettes. So what did I do? Let me see...I got a job. Waitressing at Pizza Hut. I had to ask family members to watch my son, so if you consider that depending on people - fine. I also found my son daycare when my family could no longer help. And I did all the mom stuff. All of it.

There's more. Ever since I've been on my own, I have been there for every single family member - aside from one brother who lived across the country. I have had my brother, my 2 sisters, my mother and my father all live with me at one time or another. I have driven to WV from NY 2 times to help my brother, Luke. I have lived with Luke on and off since I was 18. When my one sister was living in (what looked like) a crack house, I took her with me to WV to get her away. She also lived with me right after I had my son, because she had no where else to go. I gave her my son's room. My father got kicked out of his house of 17 years by his witch of a girlfriend and he came to live with my sister, then me. My mother was in a situation with her husband a year ago - where he tried to kill her. And who did she live with? Yup - you guessed it, me.

I have been there for people to borrow money from, I have given my last dollar from my bank account. I have given people rides, offered my car, taught people to drive - and not once said that I couldn't afford the wear and tear on my car. I have babysat, grocery shopped, cleaned, taken depressed people on vacation, gone to the hospital, stayed in the hospital and generally have done everything I can to help.

I have had people be there for me, of course I have. But I don't expect it, and I certainly don't get angry when no one is there. I do it myself, because I have to.

What this boils down to is - I don't expect people to watch my kids so I can go upstairs and do paper work. (if that person is reading this..I know that that was the old you!) I don't expect people to watch my children so I can go to sleep - at night - because I don't like to sleep in the day. I do what I have to do because I'm a mother. And I most definitely certainly do not depend on everyone else to do it for me.

In my eyes, I have earned the right to be happily married, and have a good, stable, happy, easy home life. If you think otherwise, then you must not really love me or care about me. If you think that everything I have ever gone through was fun, and therefore don't deserve a happy ever after ending, then you must either be jealous, calloused or insane. And that hurts me to think that any one of my friends or family would be that way towards me. I love my family, and I would help any one of them any instant of any day. But right now I am angry, and tired, and just plain mad. And hurt. It sucks to be hurt.

Tweet

Life's A Peach

So...it's been an interesting last few days. There's just no other way to describe my life, I think. It's not 'good' or 'bad' or 'fun' or 'boring'.... in truth, it's all of those things. So when I need to describe my life, only one word sums all of that up.

Interesting.

Ain't life a peach?

So, 2 days ago, my Hubby comes home from work, visibly upset. He proceeds to tell me that he got pulled over while leaving home for work. Yup, he was speeding. In a spot where I had told him 84 kajillion times to not speed. Men. Anyway, he finds out that his license has been revoked. Why? We don't know. It just is. He has to call the DMV later today and find out. We think we may have missed a ticket sometime earlier this year. We don't exactly know how...we just...did.

See, when we moved, our address changed got all messed up. Our last name is the same as his parents, and his grandma - and we all lived in the same house. So when I did a family name change online, we started getting his parents mail and they got ours. It took a few months to clear that up. So I think any mail we may have gotten from the DMV didn't exactly get to us.

So now I have to take my husband to work and back for the next few weeks until we have the money to pay off said theorized ticket unpayment. You get that?


That wouldn't be too bad, but my car inspection is like.......7 months overdue. I was supposed to have it inspected in January. So because I don't want to drive an illegal car and get yet another ticket....we had to borrow Hubby's parents van. Which costs waaaay more in gas then a little Honda Civic 2-door hatchback. And since I have to take the Man to work and back...this is gonna be fun.

To top off my interesting week, Time Warner decided to crawl up my butt and start demanding money. Thrill. They want x amount of dollars by, umm...tomorrow. So I had to spend yesterday calling one person, then another to borrow different amounts of money so I can keep my phone and Internet. And I need my Internet. What else would I do? I certainly don't have the money to go out, and I don't have much else to do...so I need my internet.

On a funnier note, my son found a little creek behind our little cul-de-sac. So he goes down to catch fish and crayfish. He caught a pretty big one and brought it back to show me. I got him to pick it up and snapped a pic.

And that's what I got. Love it. He's so funny, my guy. I can't exactly call him little, because he's getting to be as tall as me. But he's still my guy.

Well, that's it for now. Later all.

Tweet

The Fun Vacation From Hell - Part 2

I woke up today with the intention of going to the gym.

Ahhh.......the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So here I am, in my living room, being bored and wondering what I should do. So I decided to finish up my vacay story.So, where was I?

Ah yes, bad trip down, fun time there...now we were on our way back.

Now, I had a plan. My mother had to be back home by Tuesday morning to work her double shift at Pizza Hut. Mind you - we had left Thursday, gotten there Friday and decided to leave Sunday morning afternoon evening. The general idea was that - since we had had such a blast on the trip down - we should leave Sunday and get some mileage behind us. My theory was that my brother would get kidney stones again. I wanted to leave at about 3pm, but my mom gave me the ever annoying puppy dog eyes, and I thought maybe we could stay later, because I'm just nice like that.

Yeah, my plans never go right. Mom had to say a one hour goodbye to family at one house, then my brother had to stop and get his bag - and say a one hour good bye at another house. While mom talked to everyone and generally didn't want to leave.

We left at 9:30pm. Why do I even bother?
We drove for a while, I started getting tired, but got my second wind at about 11pm and decided to push as far as possible. We finally stopped at about 1:30 to stay at a Best Western I had found a coupon for. It had a pool, and my son likes to swim - so I thought it was a good idea.

Wrong again.

We checked in, I asked how much they'd charge for a later checkout, and the guy said they would charge a whole other day. Yay. So, I figured get in, go to sleep by 2:30, get up at 10, swim and leave.

I guess I enjoy being wrong, because that is so not what went down.

We walked into our room and immediately noticed a weird musty smell. It wasn't too bad, so it seemed like we could deal with it. We were exhausted and just wanted to get as much sleep as we could. We had all started unpacking, and didn't want to repack and lug our stuff around. We settled down, and about 20 minutes later, I realize I am having a really hard time breathing. I had just gotten over bronchitis, and this was not fun. I really felt like there was a weight on my chest. My brother got up, and I looked at him and he tells me he can't breathe. He has had lung surgery - so you get how hard it was for him to try and breathe in a musty room. So he calls down to the desk and explains. They were really nice about it, and gave us another room immediately. My brother carries my son into the new room and I grab a few things. Then we go to wake up my mom, and she's half dead asleep and mumbles "no, I'm fine" and Luke (my brother) tells her no, she'll get a migraine if she stays in that room. She finally got up and moved. Then Luke starts moving all our stuff (they had said we could keep both rooms) and I help out. I think we got to sleep eventually....like.....5 AM.

I had set the alarm for 10am (yeah, right) and got up at about 11:30. Check out time was 12. I had briefly woken up at about 9am , to the sounds of my brother calling the front desk to ask for more time. They gave us till 2pm. I took Logan swimming, and my mom comes to tell me she had talked to the front desk and they gave us all the time we wanted to leave.

So we left at 4pm. Only us...only us.....

Generally all went well, it was an enjoyable drive. We stopped for gas, and I couldn't see the name of the station - but I went anyway, and Luke tells me it's a BP. So I acidentally supported the Great Oil Spill people. Then Luke decided he wanted Taco Bell for dinner. Sounded like a good idea - but mom had reservations about Luke eating tacos. He has stomach problems too. But we went anyway, because I wanted me a Mexican Pizza. Yummy. We ate, got more gas, and left. About 1/2 an hour later, 4 hours from home - my brother starts holding his side and groaning again. We're down to 5 bucks and need to get home. There was no question of staying anywhere, no one could afford it.

Luke was yelling pretty loud, and took some Vicodin. He yelled some more and took another one. I felt awful - I couldn't stop, it hurt him to go on - we were stuck. He took a 3rd pill and the pain finally let up. It turned out he had had kidney pain and stomach pain. So that was a bad episode.

We got home at about 2:30 am, without further issues. What a trip. I don't think I'll be going on a 'vacation' again for a while.

I am so ready for Christmas. Really, I am.

Tweet

Let Me Sum Up

Is today Thursday? Really? What happened to the week?

I'm so tired. I can't believe the amount of crap I've been through this summer.

I had a plan.

It was a good plan.

I was going to spend the summer going to the gym, losing weight and spending time with my son, my friends and my family.

So what happens?

I get bronchitis. For 2 whole weeks. I literally spent almost a whole week in bed, laying on my side watching Netflix and playing games on pogo.com. I spent 2 weeks breathing in the Vick's that was smeared on my chest and stuffed up my nose. I couldn't breathe without coughing, so I certainly wasn't spending any time running around with the boy in the back yard.

So, I get over my sickness (mostly - I'm still coughing a little) and I get my period. Not a ho-hum I have cramps boo hoo let's take some ibuprofen and lay down period.

I get a holy crap kill me now take me to the er and let me die now period. I spent a whole evening with instruments shoved up my hoo-hah just for them to tell me nothing was wrong - go home and take some ibuprofen. I wanted to kill people. Ibuprofen?? If I could have taken (over the counter) ibuprofen to get rid of my pain - I wouldn't BE here, you dimwit. Let me chop off your leg and hand you some ibuprofen. Tell me how you feel then. Hmph.

So about a week after that I get a pain in my side. I think I'm full of gas, but my pain level says otherwise and I end up on the floor - clawing it and hollering. I go to the hospital again - and we figure out that I have a kidney stone. It takes the ER 5 hours to figure this out by the way.... I could have just taken ibuprofen and saved them all the trouble, but I thought I was dying and my liver or something had blown up - so I ended up in the ER. For 5 hours. For a 3 mm kidney stone. How something that small can cause that much pain is beyond me. Anyway, they finally finish up at about 4am, and send me home with  - you guessed it - Ibuprofen. This time my mom and I put our foot (feet?) down and make them give me the real stuff. Jeez. You think they'd think I was a drug addict or something. My mom theorizes that it's because I'm fat. I think there's some truth in that, medical discrimination against fat people. My brother weighs like 5 pound dripping wet and he gets Vicodin if he blinks funny. I get ibuprofen. Yay.

Life's Little Cure-All

Anyhoo....after that loverly episode of pain and torture, I get a yeast infection. Digging around your personal parts, smearing them with Vagasil and anti itch cream is not a good way to spend a week. Especially if no one's had sex in about 3 weeks at this point. Then you get horny and itchy and that's not a good combo. Trust me. I never, ever want a yeast infection again. I think I spent about 4 hours a day in boiling hot water in the bathtub. Literally.

It doesn't end here folks. Oh, no. The good Lord has more up his sleeve for me. (thank you Jesus for teaching me about humility and pain - no further lessons are needed, k thanx bai.) At the tail end of Ye Old Yeast Infection....I get my period again. Dun dun dun. Doing the math I'm kind of like What the-?, but hey, who ever said my body was any good at math. So, for those of you who have tried to insert a tampon into an itchy vagina.....I totally understand and sympathize. That's a kind of torture I wouldn't wish on Obama my worst enemy. (is it wrong that I'm laughing because Obama isn't on the spellcheck list?) On second thought.....

Then I have vacation.  A simple, uncomplicated little trip down to South Carolina for my family reunion.

Right. I guess God never got my little memo about me needing a break from...well, from life. You can read all about some of that little trip here. Not fun. Well, fun, but not fun.

So, I get home 3 days ago today and what do I wake up with on Tuesday morning? A freaking head cold. In August. August. Really Lord? Seriously? How can all this crap happen to just one person this summer? Why? What for? Howcome?

Well, now that the summer is pretty much over, I plan...wait a second. I plan nothing. If I plan on nothing...then I can't be disappointed.



I am so ready for Christmas.

Tweet

The Fun Vaction From Hell - Part 1

I went on vacation.

I think.

The original plan was this:

We were going from NY to SC. I would take myself, my son - Logan and my brother, Luke. My mom would follow me down in her car. The reason for this was that my mom had to be back earlier, and she also had to meet my other brother, Liam - and his girlfriend, Kaycee - in SC. They had flown there from Washington state. They would ride back up with my mom and I would stay in SC longer and visit.

We were operating on a shoestring budget, and would have to drive about 11 hours straight. No money, or time, for stopping and staying anywhere. We left at about 1pm - no one in my family is a morning person, and that's just how we roll....always late. Anyway, my mom was going to follow me, seeing as she couldn't remember the directions.

(which - by the way - was this: 81S to 77S. Yeah, that's it......)

So off we go. My brother, Luke was riding with me, and my son, Logan was riding with my Mom. Sure enough - we hit some roadwork. There was a highway split, both one lane, surrounded by barrells and cones. You either went straight on 81S, or veered right to go on 80 East. Nearing this split I had a sinking feeling something would go wrong, and my mom did not dissapoint.

She followed the wrong little red car down 80 East. You heard me. So Luke called her, and told her to turn around and get back on 81 South. we would meet up at the next available rest area. Sounds simple enough - right?


Wrong. My brother was trying to explain the plan to my mom over a really crappy cell phone, and I only heard his end of the conversation. So I"m filling in some blanks here - but the conversation went a little like this:

Luke: Mom, meet us at the next rest area.

Mom: Where?

Luke: The next rest area.

Mom: Where is it?

Luke: Just..the next rest area.

Mom: How far is it?

Luke: Mom, just...the next one!

Mom: Will you be there?

Luke: I don't know, just stop and wait for us!

Mom: Will you get there first?

Luke: I don't know, just stop at the next rest area, if you get there first wait for us. If we get there first we'll wait for you.

Mom: Where's it at?

Luke: The next @*$@*# rest area, Mom. The next one you come to. Meet us there!

Mom: But...how far is it?

Luke: I don't @*(%&*%# KNOW. Just drive until you see a rest area, and stop there!

Mom: But how will I know where to stop?

Luke: You see a sign for a rest area and you @*$#^( STOP.

Mom: How will I know when to stop?

There was a lot of swearing after this one, some more yelling, me hollering and Luke swearing some more, and I think she finally got the picture because Luke swore some more and then hung up. It was sort of comical.

Anyway, we get through the traffic and are zipping along, looking for the next rest area, and the phone rings again. My mom's car had broken down and we had to turn around to go get her. She tells my brother that she's next to the exit to Hazelton (PA) and hangs up.

There are 6 exits into Hazelton. We try to call back to see which one she's at, and there's no answer. We call, over and over, and over, and over. No answer. My brother and I start to worry.  A lot. He keeps saying that they've been hijacked. I keep telling him to shut up. (he was scaring me, and I just need to focus and drive) There's a lot of swearing, yelling, finger pointing, and screaming in each others faces. There was almost some hitting and throwing someone out of the car. We were worried. It was hot, and I didn't know where my son was. She finally answered and told us which exit she was at. We find them and get to a gas station, and ask for directions to a mechanic. Needless to say - we get lost trying to find the mechanic, ask for directions again, no one knows anything about anything, ask someone else, and finally find the little tiny podunk place. Fun, fun, fun.

Turned out her radiator fan had broken. It was Thursday evening at about 5pm. The mechanic can't get the part until Monday. The reunion is on Saturday. We make the decision to pack her into my little Honda Civic - 2 door hatchback - and continue on. In hindsight, it was a good thing in a way - because my mom had had a 2 day migraine and was really sick. She was having a hard time driving. Anyway....

Now, me, my brother Luke and my son Logan had each packed a duffle bag and a backpack (for inside the car). We go to get my mothers luggage and try and fit her into the car.

She had - and I quote -

1 suitcase, 1 make up case, 1 small bin of medicines, 1 large bag (her purse), 1 tote bag (personal papers, her Bible), 1 cooler, 1 tote (paper products)1 camera case, 1 fan and 1 tripod. Oh, and 3 bags of food. Which I guess, in her defense, we asked her to bring. There was no way we were getting all that into my car. So , she pared it down and we were finally off. Again.

About 1 hour late my brother tells me he has to go to the bathroom. We stop, he goes in, and - wait for it - comes out holding his stomach. Turns out he was passing a kidney stone. He had vicodin, but was still groaning. He tells me to just keep driving - but by now, it's getting to be near midnight, and we're in Virginia. Virginia is......empty. And the stops are far and few between. And my brother needs a bathroom. So, I finally see a hotel, and I decide to stop for the night. It was a good idea. We got a good nights sleep. We wake up pretty refreshed, and get back on the road at about 2pm.

We drive....and my brother gets a migraine. So, for almost the rest of the trip...he's sick. I feel bad, but we had to keep going. The reunion was Saturday, and this was Friday evening.

But...we finally make into SC at about 7pm. We all head to where ever it is we are staying at, and my brother's migraine goes away. We had a good time while we were down there. The reunion went great, I even played volleyball. My son found the tree fort in the woods, and we all had a blast. I saw cousins and Aunts and Uncles I hadn't seen in almost 15 years. I met all their wives and children. My son even came away from the event with a whole box of Dragonball Z tapes. He was in heaven. We laughed, goofed off, fooled around, ate lots of food and generally made idiots of ourselves. It was awesome.

Until we head home.

But I'm going to make that Part 2.

Tweet

My Fun Summer. Kinda.

I am here. I am still breathing. And yes, I am still blogging.

I spent about 2 weeks in bed - quite literally - with bronchitis. Not fun. Vicks, vaporizers, cough drops...I think my tongue is permanently red from cough drops. If I never see another cherry anything, I will be a Happy Flabby. Ugh.

So now, although I am still coughing, it's time to get back up on the horse. 2 weeks with no gym can make you ...well - flabby. I dread the thought of getting back up on that elliptical, and the treadmill. Funnily enough though, I can feel my body slowly reverting back to what it was before I started exercising. I get more headaches, and I'm lazier and I don't sleep right. I've been going to bed at 5am and waking up at 12 or 2pm. I feel sucky. Really sucky. Plus I've been eating whatever I want, when I want. It started as - "oh, my throat hurts - ice cream it is!" and now it's like "Gimme the chocolate now, dummy!" I have woken the sleeping hunger beast. I thought I had whooped it but I guess I just lulled it to sleep for a while. In all honesty- it'll be there forever I think.

I learned something new today.

I like to sweat. If I do something, household chores, running, playing, whatever, and I sweat while doing it - I feel good! If I don't I feel like I didn't accomplish much. New gym mentality perhaps? I like it.

Life has been crazy this summer. We were a little financially strapped to begin with, and then we found out a few weeks ago that we were in the 'extended unemplyment' bracket - so our unemployment was totally cut off. The sole income on the house has been  my weekly child support payments from the Nasty Ex. A whopping $15 a week has kept us in toilet paper and shampoo. Yay. But things are looking up, we got food stamps (so we wouldn't starve) and my hubby got a job! It actually starts today! It's a temp job - but that's all we need, our income goes back up as soon as he's in college again. GI Bill and all that. I'm done being sick and I plan on enjoying a fun summer with my son.

Cuz we gots us a slip and slide.

Yes!!!!!!

Tweet

I'm Tired

I'm so tired.

Tired of not eating cake.

So I ate some.

Tired of not eating chocolate.

So I ate some.

Tired of not drinking soda.

So I drank some.

Tired of getting up and going to the gym.

So I didn't go.

Tired of worrying about what I eat.

So I ate everything I could.

And now I'm sick. And tired. Now I'm tired of being lazy. And I'm tired of not focusing, and I'm tired of not having any self control. I'm tired of being a bum. And I'm tired of being fat.

My mother always told me - Change only comes when the pain of staying the same is more then the pain of change. Looks like she was right.

Yeah, I'm tired of that too.

Tweet

The Moment Of Awareness

I woke up one warm morning in May, slowly getting out of bed, wearing the customary pajama pants and requisite grubby T-shirt. I was sore, tired, and hungry. I wanted food, but didn't want to cook anything. Heck, I was too tired to even toast an English Muffin. Wearily I glanced at my holey red underwire bra and decided I was too tired to put it on. The shoulder straps dig my shoulders and the wire digs into the fleshy part of my back. I am no glutton for punishment, so I figured that the man in the drive thru window of McDonald's didn't care much about how high my boobs were that morning. Instead I reached for my tattered purple sports bra, the bra that keeps my breasts off of my knees, but thankfully requires minimum effort to wear. Throwing my ancient navy blue hoodie on, I gathered some energy, and went to the car.

Once in the car I realized that it would have taken just as much effort to grab a pop tart. Oh well, I was already in the car - there was no going back. Besides, McDonald's was sounding better by the moment. Wrestling the seat belt around my fat rolls, I started up the car and off I went.

Yum.

Reaching McDonald's in that miraculous time between breakfast and lunch, I saw that there was no line. Glad that there was nothing keeping this fat girl from her food I ordered 2 ham, egg and cheese bagel sandwiches, 1 hash brown, and 1 large Mocha Frappe. Yum. Oh yeah, I got some sausage egg Mcmuffins for the hubby while I was at it. Too make me feel less guilty I grabbed him a Mocha Frappe too. I'm so thoughtful it's scary.

Once at home, I woke up the Man, and left him his food. I went downstairs, plopped onto my side of the couch, and ate one bagel sandwich as fast as I could. I didn't want my husband to find out exactly how much I had ordered, or how much I spent. It was good, but I barely tasted it. When he finally came downstairs I was working on my second sandwich, and he remained blissfully unaware of my expenditure. And my appetite.

It was somewhere in these morning moments that I realized something. I had not seen my bellybutton in about 19 years. If I get a mirror, and lay flat down on my bed - I just may catch a momentary glimpse. But I haven't seen it in forever, primarily because I'm just too lazy to get the mirror out and find it. I realized that I don't know what it's like to have a flat stomach, or what if feels like to shop in a regular store. I don't know what it is to sweat, much less work out. I'm 31 years old, and I'm on 4 different medications, because of weight related health problems. I can't play soccer with my 9 year old son, or walk around the mall with my friends. I realized that I'm scared, and I don't want to die of a heart attack at age 40.

So this is my wake up call, my last ditch effort to take back my life. This blog will hopefully serve at a place to vent, whine, brag and boast. I want to be the success story, the woman who loses 150 pounds (or more) through natural means. I can do this.

My plan? Exercise, I joined a gym with my best friend - who is willing to work out with me 3 times a week. Eat right, I don't know how - but that's what the Internet is for. I can research, and learn what I need to know. So, join me as I try to solve The Case Of The Missing Bellybutton - laugh, cry, snort, mock, whatever you want. Just don't offer me a cookie.

Tweet