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.)

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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.

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At Times Like This, You Need Chocolate. Or Pizza.

Ever have those weeks where you want to bury your head in the sand? Literally? Just to see what would happen? Knowing me I'd probably surface with some rare form of mold that eats all your hair. Anyway - I've just had one of those weeks.

Since I'm addicted to lists and firmly believe list posts are easier to read, let me list you my crappy week.

1. I'm addicted to food. I know it, you know it, the world knows it. My taste buds just refuse to listen. I wish I could just numb my tongue for a month and be done with it. remember when people used to wire their jaws shut and drink liquid for x amount of time? Yeah, I'd do that. then I'd probably break all my teeth trying to get to the Halloween candy. Such is life.

I really would do this to lose a few pounds...

2. Saturday morning at 1 am my neighbors were having a drunken idiot fest party across the street. I went to go get Wendy's (refer to item number one for why in god's name I left my house at 1 am for FOOD.) The rejects across the street saw me leave, saw me come back. Someone else (read: not me.) called the police on their loudness. Twice. Then at 3am, one of the drunk diptards walks up to my house, opens my screen door, and tries to open my door. Twice. Without knocking or anything. I thought someone was ready to add a new ventilation system to my forehead by way of the gun - so I creep to the side of the door and watch the jackwad go back to party central. I had never been so scared in my entire life. I run upstairs, wake up my ex-marine husband (just saying that makes me feel better...) and call the cops. Not 5 minutes later they come screeching up my street and start hollering at all the party animals. Hollering. Loudly. Hooray for police brutality. I'm all for it at this point - I wanted one of them to beat someone up. I was pissed. Anyway, party breaks up, I can't do anything about the pseudo break in because I didn't know which moron to point the finger at. Shame. The police and the retards left and I was up till 5 am trying to not have a heart attack from fear.

I felt like this was going to happen and I was going to die. Or be beat to a pulp.

3. Sunday morning, at 6 am , I am taking my brother to the hospital. He has kidney stones. Lots of 'em. I woke up, after about a half hour of sleep (because my husband snores. loudly. In stereo.) and crawl in the passenger's side of my car because frost has frosted my door super shut. After about 20 minutes of thawing we're on our way, and I'm thinking - "I hope I don't do anything stupid, because I'm really tired. My normal superhero-esque reactions are not up to par this evening night morning."  Five minutes later I run over a dead deer in the middle of the highway going 70 mph because I'm trying to get my poor brother to the hospital asap. A big dead deer. In my little 96 Honda Civic. I get to the ER, my engine is smoking, and I have a panic attack while trying to check my brother in and be there for him. My family is all sleeping, I have no one to call and I look like a moron in streaky left over mascara from the night before. To add to the fun and games, I hurt my shoulder and back muscles. Which I had to deal with for 6 hours while the moron doctors decided my brother had kidney stones. Um - to quote a favorite cartoon, "you just earned your - Uh, Der - badge."

ALL OF YOU.

So life is.....

I don't know. My car is in the shop, I'm broke, and I'm afraid of my neighbors. I'm not really complaining, mind you , I'm just in shock. Fortunately I have Xanax and Codene to cope for the week. And I ordered a pizza. Veggie Lovers from Pizza Hut.

Don't judge me.

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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'.

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Petco Lets Animals Die In Flood

I live in NY, near Binghamton. If you haven't heard by now - our area was flooded this past week. We had a lot of rain from tropical storm Lee - which caused historical flooding throughout Broome County.

There is a Petco in Johnson City, NY. It's in a plaza that houses a few stores - Toys R' Us, Party City, Christmas Tree Shops - to name a few. This plaza has been flooded a few times, most memorably in the Flood of 2006. Keep that in mind as you read what I have to say.

We had had heavy rains that started the night of the 6th. By noon on the 7th of September, the schools were being dismissed and many areas of Broome County were bring evacuated. Highways were being shut down, some were losing power, and almost every store in the area was closing. Including Petco.

The one difference here is that Petco shut their doors - and left the animals inside to drown. We have several pet stores around here, but Petco obviously takes the cake. Pet Depot was flooded too - and were out rescuing the animals, kayaking them out of the store if necessary.

Pet Depot rescue, Vestal NY

Petco's response includes so much spin - it's making me dizzy.

They claim that:
"The flooding was not from the Susquehanna River itself but from a back up in the town’s sewage/drainage system."

Petco is between the blue sign and the red brick

Does it look like that to you? We had record flooding in areas that had never seen water. The places that usually flood saw much more water than normal. Anyone with half a brain could have figured out that Petco would flood. Businesses are required to have insurance, right? Then the insurance people would have surely told the company that the area was prone to flooding. And to place the burden of responsibility on the Johnson City? Shameful.

In the second paragraph of the blog entry, Petco says:
 "We want to stress that this was not carelessness on our associates’ behalf, but a communications lapse from the city to the store in evacuations orders."

Yet in the next paragraph they say:
 "We have a hotline for associates to use if they ever feel an animal is in danger and no calls were made to the hotline suggesting that the associates feared flooding would impact the store and endanger the animals."

So...were the employees careless, or weren't they? Is it their fault they didn't call, or Petco's fault for not making the decision themselves? Surely someone from Petco was aware of the flooding.

The thing that makes me the most angry is this gem:
 "An associate went by to check the store at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday night and there were no signs of flooding or a flood warning in effect."

Are you kidding me? We had flood warnings in effect from the night before. The night before, people. By 11pm Wednesday night, the place had to have been flooded - so how could an employee check on it? And there were most certainly flood warnings in effect by 11pm.

I myself live in an area that never floods, yet I had 6 inches of water in my basement. So a flood-prone area.....you do the math.

Road at the bottom of my street

Shame on Petco for being so careless and irresponsible. Shame on them for not just issuing a simple apology. A nice heartfelt "I'm sorry" would have worked wonders. So now there is a Boycott Petco page on facebook. I believe there's a demonstration/protest coming up, and I'll be there. The local news is all over this, and I'm hoping national news will pick it up.

Articles can be found at WBNG, and Press and Sun Bulletin.

Hey, Petco...did you get the cash out?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Electric Bills and Exercise

I'm so tired I need to prop up my eyelids with toothpicks. Or Q tips, but I don't think my eyelids will stretch that far. I would ingest some caffeine, but that doesn't really work for me. What I will probably do is go play video games all night until it's a proper time to go to sleep.

 Like, midnight. Or 2am. If I make it that far.

I had to pay my electric bill this morning, so I wouldn't get shut off. Technically I had to pay it Friday, so I called the robbers company, and found out that they don't do shutoffs Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Or holidays. Or the day before or the day after a holiday. You think with all I pay them they could afford to send people out everyday. Anyway - I thought, 'hey, let's pay them online this weekend!'.

Dumb Idea. I was going to use my brothers card - because it was his money we were using (we still have none) and too late, I realized you have to attach the whole bank account to the electric account. Not happening. Then I thought we'd pay over the phone. Not open. Jeez.

So I stayed up all night and drove over there and paid it this morning at the crack of dawn. Eight o'clock in the morning to be precise. Life is just dandy.

So, I'm tired and I really should go to the gym. But there's no way - I would fall off of the elliptical so fast you'd need a high speed camera to catch it. I have been doing horrible on my 'diet'. I had 2 peices of frosting covered brownies yesterday. And that's just yesterday. The last few weeks have been a joke. Chips, cheese, meat, food and more food and junk and sugar. Yeah. That kind of eating. So, the plan is to head back to the gym this week - but I gotta do it before my husband goes to work at 3 pm.

We'll see. Wish me luck!

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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!!!!!!

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Flabby Goes To The Hospital

Ok, so some of you have already read about my very long week.

Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning?) I went to bed at 5am. I couldn't sleep - I've been hacking up a lung. Not a pleasant experience. My brother wakes me up at 7:30 and tells me he has to go to the hospital. Now, my brother would never wake me up unless he's next to dying in pain, so I got up and we went to the ER.

Everyone was awesome. Almost unbelievable, I know, but the nurses got me coffee, they talked to us, the doctors were actually friendly, and they were kind to both of us. I was very impressed. They admitted my brother, he was passing a kidney stone - one from each kidney. So I spent the night with him. Now, I had thrown on my nasty, dirty gym clothes that I hadn't washed - so I ended up spending the day in them. By that evening - I had broken out in a skin rash (I guess I have sensitive skin) and was miserable. I had also gotten my period that morning while waiting in the ER. Great day.

I'm in pain, itching, dirty and starving - and I finally managed to fall asleep at 3AM. My brother had been passed out - thanks to the morphine they gave him - and I had been tiptoeing around all night, trying to be quiet while scratching myself to death. Of course the nurses had to check vitals at 5 AM, so that was all the sleep I got. I decided to go home and shower and change and then go back to the hospital - my brother was going to have to have surgery to remove the stones. I pried my eyelids open and drove home - and sure enough, as I walk in the door, my brother calls me and tells me he passes one of the stones and they were releasing him. No surgery. That was actually good news, so I threw on some clean clothes (minus the shower) and went back. We then proceeded to wait for 2 hours before he was finally released. I could have had my shower after all.

Later that evening, after a shower and a nap, I got Cramps From Hell. Literally. I was hollering and moaning and groaning. So I took almost 2 Vicodin and passed out. The same thing happened Saturday afternoon, so I finally went to the ER myself. Yeah, they recognized me but I was yelling so much I didn't care.

Here's where the story gets real good.

They put me in fast track, because I guess cramps aren't enough for them to really be worried about. I was alright with that, I just wanted the pain to stop. So they come in, ask me what I'm allergic to (compazine) and start an IV. They tried my hands first, because my veins are always deep, and they hit a valve.

I don't know if that has ever happened to you - but let me tell you, that's a pain you don't want. Someone shoving a needle around in your hand, hitting nerves that aren't supposed to be hit, making your feet fly off the bed and making you yell like a dying cow. Pain. PAIN. I started crying and bawling like a baby. I have a slight fear of needles to begin with, and my worst fear had just come true. I wanted to kill someone.

With my hubby holding my hand and trying to soothe me, they try my other arm, this time in the arm, not the hand. They fiddle around in there for a bit and get the IV in. The nurse comes in with pain medication and my anti-nausea medicine.

Now, I'm allergic to compazine, it gives me - in short - anxiety attacks. SO the nurse comes in, and because by now I'm terrified of anything this woman is going to do, I ask her if she has the right medicine. She says, yeah - it's compazine.

WHAT? I was only one short nanosecond away from ripping the needle out of her hand and kicking her in the nuts. If she had 'em. Then she laughs and says she's kidding. Um, ok. Do you see me laughing? I'm crying and hyperventilating and you want to crack jokes about a medicine I'm allergic to? I almost killed her. With my bare hands.

The rest of the visit was ok. I guess. I was still in some pain, and the nurse comes back in and asks me if I'm in pain, and I say yes - to which she replies, "You'll be in some pain, it doesn't all go away", and I'm like what the HELL?!?!? Why did you ask me to begin with - and I was under the impression that I had a right to pain management. Get me out of here, I'll go overdose on aspirin or something.

Then they send me to ultrasound, stick what looks like a very long dildo up my hoo-ha and ram it into all my innards. Fun, fun, fun. Then we go back and I get a pelvic exam, hoo boy howdy. I was all kinds of excited by then. Finally they tell me everything's normal, it's just hormones and I get to go home.

The doctor then proceeds to tell me to take Ibuprofen. I was like, come again? I came in here on heavy duty narcotics and you want me to go home with over the counter ibuprofen? Did you even go to medical school or did you get one of them there online degrees? Why do all the doctors want to give you ibuprofen?

Having a baby?

Take some Ibuprofen!

Broke an  arm?

Take some Ibuprofen!

Toothache?

Take some Ibuprofen!

I hate Ibuprofen. So we just left. And of course I was in pain agian last night, and did the Ibuprofen do anything? Nope. I guess I should be the doctor. Anyway, I'm home now - still coughing, still having pain, but I have my trusty Ibuprofen. I guess it's a good thing I have some Vicodin left over form last time. We'll see.

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