Clean slate

Do you ever feel like it'd be easier if you could just start over with a clean slate? No history? No past phone numbers or addresses so people can find you. No past emails either. No spam folders, nothing. Just start over from scratch. Sure you couldn't get a cell phone or rent an apartment because you don't have a credit history but really who cares? I remember renting a room in college by shoveling out stalls in a barn, did just fine with out a phone. Still survived. God life was sooo much simpler then. Of course I didn't have a husband or a kid either but I did have school and health insurance so there was some stress. I think my mom co-signed on the car loan. Somebody had to have I'm sure. But I didn't have a phone or a computer and life did go on. I did shovel a few stalls on the weekend for a reduced rent, I worked afternoons as a vet tech to pay the rest of the bills and then there was the student loans to pay for school and the bulk of everything else. No my parents paid for nothing. I was not a trust fund baby, my parents were poor. They raised me in a hippie neighborhood and smoked a ton of weed throughout my mom's pregnancy and my childhood years. The doctors said my AVM and resulting aneurysm was a birth defect, I wonder if my mom actually feigned surprise when the doctors told her that? My guess would be no. I'd ask the dh but bets have it he was not looking at her face plus she's not worth the effort.
Still the point I was getting at was that the older you get the more crap you gather. What's the phrase? Something about gathering wool? Or the stone and moss? Damn I totally forget the phrase...help me out here people!!! I was trying to get the kid to try some of her clothes on this evening so we could figure out what clothes we need to buy her in preparation for the new school year. She grew like 15" over the summer but at least all the pants we last got her were capris so they all still work! Sadly though she had emptied out all, and I do mean all, of her toys out onto her floor. Sometime at the beginning of the summer. And has not put them back in. All of the games she has disassembled, things with cards like Cranium, and spread out everywhere so they are all useless. Her dad and I have been awful about keeping up with her and riding her about cleaning. It's our fault for not being more strict about being clean, we let her get away with it. If we made her be neat it would not be such a horrid chore. Now it's like a serious punishment and no one can handle it. Too much to handle for any one much less a 6 yr old. There's too much crap and no where to put it all. I try to put it away but you can't throw any of it away when she is there or she has a fit. The dh is terrible about it, he will stack it all in a pile and then leave it there. One time like 6 months ago he put aside all the shoes that did not fit her anymore against one side of her room. And guess what happened to them? They sat there until they got thrown around into the rest of the mess that is her room. Why bother? What was the point? Why waste the time and energy?
Can I just go back to shoveling out horse shit from a stall please? It's way easier than the kid's toys. The kid went to the zoo today and I think her feet smell worse today than the manure.
Can I return the crazy dog, the stupid dog, and the incontinent dog? Cause the wet spot in the stall is easier to clean than dog pee in this frackin carpet.
And the dh, he's just plain old hard to train. I get him close and then he thinks joining the military is cool or some odd shit and I have to start looking for a divorce lawyer. Do you have any idea how tiring this is getting? I am getting way too old for this game. I was over this a decade ago.
Can I start over again please?

I got this call this morning...

From a 320 area code. Like I know anyone from a 320 area code. Uh no. Do I answer it. Well duh I'm a girl, hell I'll talk to any one! It's a Minnesooota number and it's Angela the owner from Unity stamps (yeah, it's a stamp link to the right, I've mentioned it about a thousand times before at least). She's real good abooot customer service and I've confused her no less than 3 million times. This was bad enough she felt the need to call me at 8:30 in the morning. Hey at least I had already made it in to work. I had emailed her earlier because I had gotten a confirmation email from them 8 days ago saying that I had been charged for something and I still had not received it. I know Unity and they have mega fast shipping, those girls are on it when it comes to getting us addicts our stuff. Now I have confused Angela so many ways from Tuesday she doesn't know which way is coming or going (I won't bother going into details or you'll be just as confused, trust me on this one, it's a shipping, bubbled free stamp, cc, etc fiasco, no fault of hers). So she called me to make sure she knew what the hell was going on. It took all of 3 seconds to get it straight, my card was charged before, they just needed to send me my stuff, it was all good. But oh my that accent. It's so cute! I remember going to visit my mom when she briefly lived in Wisconsin. We went to this place in the Dells called The Shoe Box. I could have listened to the shoe people for hours their accent was so damn cute doncha know! I really can't tell you why I like accents. It doesn't matter if it's southern (Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, whatever) or British, Scottish, what have you but man do I love accents. There are a few discordant like Asian and Russian that don't flow well to me and those don't float my boat but the rest just do it for me.
I had a part of my instrument at work go down and it was made in Scotland. The service engineer was from England. He shows up, I point him in the direction of the broken part and tell him to let me know when he has an idea of how many days he'll be so I can call the other installation engineer when he should book a flight to come back. He says to me, in that lovely King's English accent, that he should be done by early afternoon. He hasn't even looked at the damned thing. Of course I totally believe the man. Why? Well because he sounds like James Bond of course. Duh. He was done by 2pm. I emailed the installation engineer that I had the guy with the British accent in and he seemed confident that all was well in the world and to book his flight out to come on back. And it was so there ya go. An accent can make everything right in the world. Well unless you were one of the Revolutionaries right?

Incognito....

I hadn't blogged today, how odd is that? Did ya'll think I'd been abducted by aliens yet? Were you ready to send out the calvary? I actually had a bit of work (and I use that word very very loosely) to do at work. Really I had an engineer in to do a bit of training and he took me out to lunch so I couldn't even steal away to worship at the computer temple then. So here you have me, 8:40 at night, with nothing but geek speak to ramble about. I did come home to the dh hooked to the computer. He and the child had not left the house all day (oh such a huge surprise, when I had called right before 2pm they were still in pj's. Zero productivity from them. WOW.). He was on a chat server with some friends in San Diego and I got on (seemingly as him, hehehe) and put up a website (again, seemingly as him), specifically this website. Hehehehe. Why? Because everybody needs some entertainment in their lives right? I got it from my friend Alison and thought I'd share the 'love'. Hey, it's good clean fun in my husband's name. Hehehehe. I later passed the computer onto him and told him that he had caused a rukus on the forum. The spoil sport then proceeded to push all blame onto his evil satanical wife and THEY BELIEVED HIM. The gall, can you believe that? They actually took his word for it? Now you people know me, would you believe that I would do such a thing? Cause such scandal? Just for the sake of entertainment 1500 miles away? Pleeeaaase.....
Tomorrow I'll try to wreak more havok in the name of cleaner fun of some sort. I'm sure I'll come up with something. World peace by way of mass destruction or something of the like. I tried to rearrange LA today by sinking it into the ocean but it didn't work damn it. Must shake it harder next time. I really hate Los Angeles.....

2 friggin 50 am

Yeah that's right, 2:50 am, that's when I was up this morning. That's just after the hubby's alarm goes off to get going in the morning. We have 3 dogs and like us, each of them has their nuances, or shall we call them foibles? Yeah, lets call them foibles. Jaynie's you know, he's a loon, a ticking time bomb. Corbie is an adorable moron raised in a kennel which makes him just this side of impossible to potty train perfectly. And Roxy is our stray we adopted from the ghetto pound totally emaciated that was obviously back yard bred 60 times and dumped. She's terrified of thunder storms and hand guns, why we don't know. Just the sight or smell of a hand gun gets her trembling. We think she was a back yard breeder dog of a gang banger that was beaten a lot, poor thing. Anyway last night we were going to bed and the stupid little dog decides he's going up to bed and realizes that he needs to pee. So rather than coming downstairs to the back door to be let out with the other dogs he goes to the carpet in front of our master bedroom bathroom door (why? why not go into the bathroom where it's tile?) and pee. And while I'm letting the other dogs out to go to the bathroom I her the dh swearing about the little dog peeing on the carpet and him having to bust out the carpet cleaner and blah blah blah the high light of his evening etc etc, yeah. OK. And the night goes on. One of the only things that keeps the dogs alive in our household, the Bissell. We have carpet upstairs. If we were rich it'd be hardwood or laminate like we have downstairs, until then it's the carpet that came with the house. And the ever faithfull Bissell. Side note, for whatever reason while Roxy is house trained she is also vindictive. When we leave she finds carpet and pees on it. She does not do this to hard wood or tile, only carpet. Dog trainers tell you that dogs do not do vindictive things. I would believe this if she did this on tile or hard wood but she only does this to carpet. She's a bitch. So she's gotten in this habit of asking to go out at 2 whatever in the morning to go potty when the dh gets up and I'm ok with this. I mean she's probably had 50+ babies in her life and her girlie parts are probably just not what they used to be ya know? Hell he's up anyway what does he care right? We've got a baby gate in front of our bedroom door to keep the dogs in our room so they don't wander out in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning and wake the kid too early (they know if she gets up we have to get up, damn Jaynie). This morning I notice at 2:45 that Roxie is doing the pee pee super dance in front of the gate and the dh is in the bathroom and the door is closed. The pee pee dance is getting more and more frantic by the second and there is no way anyone is going to be able to get that dog through the gate down the stairs and out the back door. Oh and the alarm turned off too, nope not going to happen. Oh and me up out of bed? At 2:40? Huh, no. So I mumble, loudly, HUUUNNNYYY! And he stumbles out of the bathroom, WWHHHAAT? As Roxy is squatting and peeing on the floor of the bedroom. He then begins to swear again and curse our incontinent dog household or somesuch which I find terrible humor in at that hour. Not like he's going to clean it up, he's got to drive 64 miles to some piece of shit job and play with the convicts for the next 12.5 hours. Pfft I'll take dog pee in the carpet for $500 thanks. I managed to lay in bed until exactly 2:50 until I couldn't take it anymore. The thought of that pee soaking into the carpet pad just freaks me out. So I get up and put the carpet cleaner back together, it was already set up and clean from what, 5 hours ago when Corbie last pissed on the carpet 5 ft from the new spot anyway right, damnit? I was done cleaning by exactly 2:55 Damn bitch, why do we own dogs again? I should have her urine checked, she probably has a bladder infection or something because it smelled HORRID. I was a vet tech for 5 years in my college days, one of the things you learned is that things have normal and abnormal smells. I could tell by the smell that came up through the carpet cleaner that something is NOT RIGHT with that dog's pee. TMI right? It's my blog, ya'll should be used to that by now.

Me, the circuitous route

If you read the post below I mentioned that if you readers wanted even more back story into my history you could ask and I would blog. If you haven't noticed (and the dh has let me tell ya) nothing is sacred here on this blog and while I'm not as vivid and x-rated as the Redneck Mommy (hey, at least I'm not Canadian) I am more than happy to owe up to a less than smart choice of first husbands. Yeah like I'm the first woman to make that mistake, pleeease. Anyway one of my friends and few faithful readers came over this morning and requested that I post said follow up story. OK then lets get started shall we (don't worry, it's the super abbreviated version)? Oh and let me just note this at the very beginning, because the dh will have me edit it back in if I don't, that NOTHING WE DID IN HIGH SCHOOL COUNTS. Or at least he thats what he says. Got that? 'K? 'K. So we'll go all the way back to... hmmm dang, 1988? I think it must have been 88 when I first met Jason. Yup that same Jason I have mentioned before, the one I punch in my sleep. He's the one on the blog list, m0to. He had just transfered into my graphic arts class, long blond hair, Oakley sunglasses, you know the wrap around kind, denim jean jacket with Metallica on the back or some such thing on it. You know, one of those long hair guys. You do know what I'm talking about right? So I thought he was cute and started talking to him. And so we got to talking and he was not my type and he had a girlfriend anyway. But he invited me to hang out with his friends and listen to his band play etc so we got to be friends. One of his friends turned out to be this guy that I ended up dating (the future DH). Well the future DH had this rule that he never dated a girl for longer than 6 months in high school so I eventually got dumped. It was to be expected, it was, after all, high school. And we wonder why the dh claims nothing counts in high school. Moving on, I got this boy friend after him and ended up marrying him. Remember the first rule of dating? Never marry the rebound guy? Yeah? Well it's true, I proved it. And he was military, just going into boot camp when we married. My present DH was in our wedding party actually, no lie, he was one of the 4 guys holding the chuppah, how funny is that? That first bad husband, he was army. We were not right for each other, at all. We were stationed in Nor Cal for a few years, then Washington DC and that's where I divorced him. One day I woke up and thought "That's it, I'm done with this idiot." and he was brushing his teeth that night I told him I was done. And he said "Really, you sure?" damn that man was stupid. And I said yes and then he told me he was sleeping with his best friends fiancee. Of course there was a long list of other stuff that led up to this but I can't be bothered to remember nor do I care about, it was...1994 by then maybe? I don't know, long enough ago that I no longer give a hoot. I have since visited his step mother (a wonderful woman, unlike his mother,that woman, ew) when my dd was 2 years old or so and found that her dd had married my dh's neighbor's son, a boy my dh grew up with. And also found that my ex was still a loser and had not fixed his jacked up ass and even more of his family had disowned him. Sad, sad, man. He had issues. Big issues. I'm not saying all our problems were because of him but he was broken in ways I can't even begin to explain and nothing I nor his family could do could fix him. Does that tell you something? Did I mention that his dad was a child psychologist too? I don't know what was wrong with that family but I was happy to not be around their problems any more let me tell you. At least with my family I am just limited to my freakish mom....

The glass is half empty

I am a certified pessimist, it's a proven fact. I also don't trust anyone. Ever. Really. I try to trust my husband, I do. And for the most part I've done really well. We are able to sleep at night with lights off and I don't punch him in my sleep. Really I don't. Now Jason I still punch him in my sleep. I've only slept with Jason on the occasional cross country trek though so he's only been beaten up on occasionally and I'm a small woman so it's no big deal. Poor man, we always try to get 2 beds and end up with one. Gads, the last one was this god awful murphey bed in Vegas (no we weren't there to gamble, we were buying a racing bike for him) that was just terrible. It was so weak that we both ended up in the groove in the middle smooshed into each other and his nose got bashed that time I'm pretty sure. Sadly I never remember beating him up, he does though and I totally believe him.
Regardless Friday the dh had a few things on the schedule that did not work out the way they were supposed to, and let me do a bit of back story so you can understand the importance.
*side note, the dh did not have the day off Friday, he called in to get the day off so it's important to note that he needed to make this day worth taking off and missing.

#1 - The Mustang aka the DH's car: Why? Because I am too short to put the clutch all the way in unless I am eating the steering wheel. I can drive it but it's just not a fun experience. At all. The 2 car garages in TX are not really 2 car garages. Unless you don't need to open the doors on one side of either of the cars and the other side of the car you can only open enough to let out really skinney people. Have you seen the average sized Texan? OK I rest my point. Good thing we're native Southern Californians and skinney minneys. OK so the DH is, I'm just short and small. Anyway you also can't put anything else in the 2 car garage if you want both cars in there so we have 2 cars (his on the right) and nothing else in there. One day he pulls out really too quickly, not paying attention and rips off his passenger side mirror. Does this surprise me? Hell no, not in he very least. I didn't even consider putting the thing back on, why when I know he'd just rip it back off. Hell 3 weeks later he managed to rip off the molding on his side of the garage door with his wheel well (talent!) not paying attention. So what does this all have to do with the point? Well I'll tell you. In TX there's this emissions testing thing you hae to do once a year. They don't remind you to do it you just have to remember to do it. Haahahaha. Yeah sure right, uh huh. You're lucky people remember to brush their teeth in the morning. So on his 168 mile round trip commute the other week he gets pulled over for this expired emissions sticker. He's so flustered by this (now mind you we're from CA, they remind you to send in money for any and everything months ahead of time so something like this would never happen) that he can't even find his proof on insurance. Which was there, I found it myself. So he gets a ticket for an expired emissions sticker and no proof of insurance. He's all kinds of bent now, it's like a $200+ ticket in a BFE town in an hour out with a judge he has to appear before with odd ass hours. Oh and to get his emissions sticker he has to have a functioning side mirror. Well kinda. According to the emissions testing place he called he has to have a side mirror, according to the written website he does not. So I figure that my sticker is expired and find the closest place to my work and have it done during my lunch and talk to the guys there and ask them about it. They say he doesn't need the side mirror. Bonus! We buzz the Mustang down there and have it done. Looovely. so all he needs to do is drive to see the judge on Friday afternoon (she's not there in the am) and have it signed off on and pay the $25 rather than the $200+. Alright, things are looking a bit better. OK, next!

#2 - The dd's dance recital: this is the only summer camp we were able to send the dd to this summer, my dad paid for her to go to a ballet fantasy camp (thanks dad!). She had a lovely time and they had a performance at the end on Friday at 2pm. There was a little performance at the end. It was, of course, smack dab in the middle of the day (2pm) which is typical in San Antonio, so that really, only stay at home parents can make it to these things. I find it very typical of this area and for the most part many families have at least 1 stay at home parent. I am thinking with today's economy going down the tubes as it is though it is going to become more and more rare even here. Anyway this was the original reason for the DH to take the day off, he wanted to see her performance and he knew the dd wanted him there. It was very cute and lasted 30 minutes. He didn't even come close to seeing it. We didn't even hear from him until 7 pm.


Now here is the reason I entitled this post the glass is half full and preempted it with the warnings about me being a distrustful wife. I was married before. My first husband was military, Army to be exact. Nothing like my present lovely DH to be more exact. If you'd like more back story on my wild and crazy (it was sooo not) younger years feel free to say so and ask in the comment section, I'll post stories. If you don't ask for it I won't bore you. Some of my friends that read this already know, others like Alison probably don't know the details. Like my ex husband told me he was was sleeping with his best friend's fiancee when I told him I wanted a divorce. Ah I am so glad I left that man. And ya'll wonder why I'm a paranoid untrusting freak of a woman. Yeah well back to where I was going with my wandering ramblings. So the DH last talked to me at 10:30 am Friday to let me know he was going to take the ASVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery test) he had scheduled for 12:30 I thought ok that's cool how long could that take right? The plan was take the test, zip over and watch the dd's recital, then drive south and get the ticket taken care of. OK fine sounds good right? I didn't hear from him again until 7pm that night. So I am thinking....yeah his ass signed up for special forces and he shipped off for Afghanistan right? Bad untrusting wife. Really after this many years I should have a little more faith right? No so much. Hey, I'm honest. In public. I've come a loong way.

So what happened? The Army happened. I hate the Army, always have, always will. They are so FUBAR. So SNAFU that I was having first marriage flash backs. So they didn't even get going over to the base to take the test until 2pm. It took him abut 2 hours and then they had all the other crap they had to go through. So yeah after all was said and done it was 7 by the time he was out.

Nothing else got done but that test. He misses the kid's recital, no trip down to get the ticket taken care of. Now he will still get the ticket done eventually but the recital, well it's a good thing it was just a little week long class and not some big huge long thing like the other dance recitals she's done or she'd be very disappointed. As it was she was ok fine since it was just a little thing. I'd kick his ass myself but he felt guilty enough. I had several of his friends call him to make sure that he knew joining the military was a bad bad bad idea and that his wife would be sure to leave him and take the child with her. He understood and had not signed any papers, he's well trained and a smart boy too. Passed the test with flying colors and for those of you who want to know he can choose any MOS he wants but of course his choice would be special forces. Like there'd be any other choice in his book. Them and their stupid boy penises. Haven't I gone over this before? I sense a repetitive theme going on here....

My husband and his career path

He's never really had one. Well he did, kinda, when he was younger. He was raised by his mom and his mom was an elementary school teacher and a dominant kind of woman (as are all the woman in this poor man's life) and so he decided that he would become an elementary school teacher. He went to college, got his 4 yr degree, did his time and got his teaching certificate and went though all that and became a kindergarten teacher. And so that didn't work out so well, not so much the teaching (it was all right but not all that, he's a smart guy and it wasn't all that stimulating, but the administration) Yup the principal didn't think men should be kindergarten teachers so she drove him out of teaching. So begins the long list of careers that my husband has gone on to try and find his 'career path'. I put that phrase in quotes because I don't believe in that phrase any more, it's so archaic, a throw back from the 50's. I suppose I have a career path but only because what I was trained in straight out of college was so specialized and I have always been able to find a job in that it's just like back in the 50's where I have my own little niche that I fit into and only I can and a few other people can do it. It's my running joke, I'm special, just like Jerry's kids....
Anyway the DH, he's always wanted to do something manly or risky or something like that. Assasin or swat or police officer or what ever. So he ends up as this correctional officer at a max security prison and lo and behold it's not all that. Wow, big friggin surprise there. It's not the prisoners either, nope, it's the redneck ass backwards co workers and the stupid long hours and 168 mile round trip commute. What can ya do? So today he decides to got to the Army recruiters office. Oh yeah, that's the next cool job on the list. With that last cool job career choice I'm just all excited about this next one let me tell you! So this next one is special forces, can I get a Boo Yah from ya'll? Yeah I thought not. I wish I could get excited from one of these great ideas he comes up with I really do because I'm supposed to be the supportive wife right? Right? I'm the bad wife aren't I? I think this goes back to that blog post I did where I am not into that whole 60's crap where we burned our bras and thought it was cool that we got to put the kids in day care right after we popped them out and then go straight back to work and get paid low wages. I think it's all just fucked up and the system is jacked, yup that's what I think. Bitter much? Just a little bit, yup I think just a little.

Marianne says to keep a Copic swatch book

Marianne also seems to think we are artists. She's such a sweet pessimist, not at all a realist though. I do love her blog and take her advice very seriously, she is the expert and an artist to boot. She did a post recently stating that we should keep a color swatch book noting things like what inks we used, papers, pens, stamps, etc and it is a great idea but since I am not an artist mine is much more basic. I use 1 brand of paper, it is the only paper I really use for my Copics (Georgia Pacific from Walmart) simply because it's cheap, abundant, and readily available. I only use one ink to stamp with when using my Copics to color so I don't even bother stamping it on my swatch, this card is simply used for color selection (again, I'm not an artist, I'm just coloring here). My one color card is kept on my desk so I can pick it up and say hmmmm, I think I need these colors to color in this stamp. Otherwise you can pick up a pen based on the color the cap says it is and when you put the pen to the paper it comes out totally different. Yuck, who wants that? Dang and I just realized there are only 40 colors on that picture and I know I have 50 pens. Now I have to go up and figure out which 10 I haven't put on there yet. Hmmmm....

This is my budget

So spending is tight. It's like a bad word in the world of scrapbooking/stamping. No woman wants to deal with the fact that her budget has officially been jacked but lets face it, it has. So my answer has been set at $24 plus $5 shipping. Or better translated to The Unity Kit of the month club. Happens every month automatically. That way I am not tempted to buy a whole bunch of other exciting stuff that I just HAVE TO HAVE because there's always something right? Plus I still get a stamping treat, am happy and satiated for the month and don't feel totally like I am working every day and getting nothing. Then I'd be bitter wife and no one likes bitter wife right honey? So for your viewing pleasure I figured I take a picture of what the last 2 Kits of the months look like in my messy messy stamp area that is never clean. It is never clean because I am a horrible messy housekeeper. Plus the 6 yr old shares the space and that just really pushes it over the edge. Not that I can blame it all on her by any stretch of the means! Oh and there are some of the individual Unity stamps in there too, I love those, I think they are some of my favorite things that Unity makes. Biblical quotes right next to Anias Nin, can't ask for anything more than that. Maybe someday soon I can find me a bit of time to create and make something with Unity's beautiful stuff, I really want to incorporate it into a scrapbook I've been working on for oh, maybe 2 years or so. If I really put some effort out I swear I could probably pump it out in a day but it'll be a miracle if I can get it done in the next decade. I even think I have all the materials I need. Ah but the time...does time count as a material?

Stampin Up stuff

So I told ya'll about that SU party I took the kid to. Unwillingly. We made 3 cute projects, I even have pictures as proof! Before the kid deconstructed them...she made her own sock monkey card and colored it too but this picture is of mine, the coloring is a wee bit neater. On the one with the frogs there is a weight on the snail so it moves up and down when you open the card, it's cute and I like the stamp set, especially the saying on the inside "Have I toad you lately that I love you". I like the sock monkey set too but I have no idea what I'd do with it so I don't think I'd but it until it goes into retirement and someone puts in on mega sale. Really, sock monkeys are cute but what do you do with them?

It just ain't right

Having to share and all. At some point I put up pics of my little guy Corbin's bed and one or two of the boxer dog's trying to squeeze their big butts into his bed. It works but it isn't pretty. I have since gotten pics of the relative size and what it looks like when they have to share. Like when Roxy gets in first and Corbie has to make do and get in on top of her. She'll eventually get out and get up on the couch or go to her own bed (we do not suffer from a lack of sleeping spaces in our room, oh please, not in this house, no). But why oh why do they all insist on trying his bed, oh tell me why? For reference realize that Jaynie the big boy is 65lbs (brindle in the bottom pic), Roxie is 55 lbs and Corbie is 22lbs (both in top pic). Jaynie's shoulders stand above my hips and I am 5'1", Roxie's shoulders are about 3" below his and Corbie's legs are maybie 3" long and he's built like an anvil.

I finally down loaded pictures from my camera

OMG it's a miracle! I know, it's a sad sad truth. I never get on my desk top at home and it's the only computer I down load pictures onto, the usb port on my lap top doesn't work. So that's why my posts lately have have been pathetically bare of pics lately. I broke down last night and finally down loaded the few bare pics that I have taken. I don't even have any real good ones, sorry. But those that I do have I will share. So expect a burst of post today. And then probably another few weeks of ramblings that will make you want to bash your heads against the wall, sorry, that's just how my brain works. It's bad I know. And you keep coming back, I just love how the internet works that way!

Dang the world is shrinking

So because of network issues beyond my computer networking skills I can not link my instrument computer to the network at my work. I can not link my work computer directly to my instrument computer. I must now have an external hard drive that I will move between the two so that I can work the data as it needs to be worked on separately from the instrument computer. Yeah, the instrument is picky like that. It's sensitive, all mass specs are female. Sacrifice the right color cat on the keyboard on the full moon and you'll be fine, don't and you tempt the fates of the mass spec goddesses. I go with calico just to cover my ass on colors, it's worked so far. So anyway I had to order an external hard drive and I haven't seen any of these things in awhile. Hell I haven't even ordered a pen drive in 2 years. So I got on Best Buy's web site and looked at the pictures and randomly picked a pretty looking one (beacuse I'm a girl and that's how we pick things) that was 1TB, sounded nice and good sized right? Look at those pics (taken on the iPhone so it's not exactly high quality but these are for dimensions here people). It's adorable! My hands are very small too, very small. It stands 6 1/4" tall 5" deep and 2" wide. It's wee. These things have come a loooong way baby.

Update - we have music

On the iPhone that is. I may not ever be able to see it or my hubby again but that's ok, they're in love and that's all that matters right? That's not entirely true. It does have my phone line integrated into it so he grudgingly let me have it back but if there were a way to sneak his phone line into it I would have never seen them again. They would have disappeared silently into the night. No wait, he'd have taken the kid too and she hasn't shut up for at least 5 weeks (damn that kid has not shut up, I don't know what it is!) so he could not have not been noticed. I would have pretended to not notice though because the incessant noise would be leaving and I'd have been ok dandy doodle fine with it. Anyway last night he figured out quite easily how to get all the music on it and has decided that it iPhone is the niftiest thing since sex. Which is no great surprise to anyone else out there with an iPhone I am sure hence Apple's insane success right there behind Viagra. Gotta love American society and what drives it. Hey, I have music on my iPhone, I'm happy! So now the hubby has one more incentive to find a new job. As soon as he gets paid more he can afford to buy me a new next gen iPhone and he can have this one. Commercialism, it is, after all, what drives America.

When my dd was in All Saints Preschool

in San Diego she had this class mate. A total demon redhead named Paris. An honest to goodness demon. One of those children you look at and think "Damn I'm glad that's not my child, have fun with that one lady!". So I'm watching TLC and they're doing a show called Must Love Kids where they have these single moms that are being set up on dates with men that must love kids. And in this case let me tell ya, these guys are really going to have to love kids. Because there she is, Paris the demon and her sweet mom Tracy. OMG, Paris has this hellion look that she gives that makes my skin crawl and that's saying something. Not much scares me, in fact I'm not sure I can come up with something that scares me. I'll have to ask the dh about that one. Honey when you read this put something that scares me in the comment section, there has to be something, not related to housework or the dog that eats poo. Anyway so I'm watching Jon & Kate plus 8 because I love that show. I figure if they can survive parenthood anyone can. Really, they can go on a vacation and get on an 8 hour flight (that took 14 hours) with 8 kids that gets redirected to friggin Idaho and survive. I think I'd just throw myself off the plane. Kids are on the aisle screaming, Kate is bawling, it's terrible and yeah, I've got one kid and I don't like getting on a 3 hour plane trip with her. OK back to this other show that I'm so recording to watch. I have to see what Paris is going to do to further ruin her mother's life. You reap what you sow. I mean the kid could not have gotten this bad all on her own could she have? Really this child is a monster I swear! It's going to be a train wreak and I want to record it! Is that horrid of me? Yes? OK, just making sure living this close to the bible belt hasn't softened me up. It's on tomorrow night, be there or be square! If not then I'll be sure to give you all an update when I get around to watching it...

Feeling like I'm running behind today

I must not have remembered something today. I probably won't remember it until I go to bed tonight, or maybe not at all. Who knows. Anyway. Still sitting at work, torturing my boss with more stuff that needs to be purchased in preparation for when my instrument is up and running and they teach me how to use this brand. I had forgotten just how much prep work is needed for the running of one of these behemoths. This is 'complex' science and to get the sample ready to go onto the instrument the amount of work up can be considerable. Plus toxic so I have to get the darn chemical hood set up which requires some alteration of the building. And I'm on the bottom floor. Of course. So they go up on the roof, find where there's no intake fan, figure out where they can put a blower fan and figure out what is under that. A reception area, perfect! So 1/3 of a new reception area is now being walled off and becoming a hood room for me and only me. Ah, me, a woman of mass destruction, literally. That's was mass spectrometry is you know. We take an object and break it down into it's mass components. No, really, I'm serious, they pay me good money for this. Right then the hood. I have ordered the blower as of today. $15,000 and that's just on the hood end. That doesn't include the construction work of the walls, the venting and the blower on the roof. Or the hood itself and the cabinetry. I told you I'm expensive. I haven't told anyone at work about my blog, I'm afraid they'd be bitter about how much money that I cost because I'd be if I were them. The doctors knew this going in though and I fully plan on making this worth their while. I want to publish here, I'm going all the way with this one and while I'm at it I'm getting another instrument too. Oh and pimping this instrument out to every doctor I meet. I mentioned it to my neurologist and ob/gyn. I think they'll both be able to send patients over...all kindsa potential.

Well Fook

Just when I think I'm all that. I do think I'm a certain degree of computer literate, I do. I can build my own computer and install my own operating systems. Even do a certain amount of trouble shooting and when I can't figure something out I know when to stop and who to call before I jack the system beyond all recognizable repair. Yeah I know that point, I've been there and it ain't pretty. It can be fixed but it makes my repair guy cranky and it's really unnecessary. Anyway the dh is not the techie in the household no that would be me. I set up the computers and the dvd player and the cable/tv system, etc. And I'm ok dandy fine with that. But the music, that's all him. And I'm ok with that too, really I am. If I need a disc burned for the car I just hum a few notes of the song or maybe throw a few lyrics out there (if he's lucky because I really don't listen to the words, that's his job) and he burns it, ads in some other songs and we're good. Everybody in the family has their job and it's good right? Right. Ok. So, today roles around and I get all full of myself and totally try to overstep my role in the family. Bad idea. Need a few more ibuprofin now. brb.
'k. now. 30 more minutes and maybe I'll be able to see through my left eye again if the brain pain goes away from the pissed off'edness from the pooter angst. Yeah so I manage to get the iPhone situation straightened out. AT&T phone call sends me to the Apple store who sends me to the AT&T store (which is where I need to go to buy a little card thingy, no problemo) so I can set said old gen iPhone up (thanks Jas!) and I do. I connect it up to dh's comp because he's the music guy and his comp is the one with iTunes on it (side note, my comp does not have speakers, the sound drivers don't work, funky mother board, long story, home built, don't ask) and you need iTunes for the iPhone. Yeah whatever. So I manage to set up the iPhone which I think it kinda did on it's own because I didn't really prompt it to....anyway it works and I can send and receive calls, tada! OK but I can't figure out how to get the music on iTunes onto it. That kinda pissed me off a wee bit but I just blew it off as something the dh can figure out pretty simply because that was his thing right? Right. OK so moving on. This entire time, in the background I had a bouncing 6yr old squealing and going on about how she wanted her new Hannah Montana CD downloaded onto her Barbie Girl (mp3 player) also connected to dh's comp and it has it's own pink little file system and game system that they both do together, very cute and it's just a pen drive so it can't be that hard right? Oh damn did that thing piss me off. Yuppers skeedoodles I think that's what pushed me right over the edge. By the end of that nothing made it onto the iPhone or the pink Barbie girl and I couldn't see out of my left eye and the kid was crying in the shower. Yeah fabooolus evening. Daddy's going to be thrilled when he gets home, no doubt in my mind. I know he loooves working weekends when he gets to leaves his two lovelies home to grate on each other's nerves. Oh and did I tell you that I think Jaynie has it in for the little guy STILL? I am keeping my eyes peeled on that big dog. He's going to swallow Corbie whole as soon as I turn my back.
And was that one run on sentence or two? Sorry about that, should've taken the pain pills earlier I spose.

Well it's a good thing

I wear scrubs to work. You see that smoosh face up there in my banner? It produces a bunch of scmutz in the crevaces that should be a face that really is just a flat pancake of folds. So as I held my Corbie's thick head in the crook of my arm so that the doc could scrub out the mess that is his ear, the face scmutz was smooshed into the sleeve of my scrubs. And this my friends, is why the medical field wears scrubs to work. This is also the only real field work my scrubs will ever see since I am , realistically, an instrument operator. Thank the gods above I no longer work in the veterinary field.
So the Corbinator is fine. We have to clean his ear up good every day for the next few days and make sure a scabs don't form over and it doesn't abcess. His eardrum looks good. They gave him a shot of penicillin but he didn't need to be on pills. Oh he did not like the thermometer! He squealed for that one. The tech was like "Oh what!" and the doc said "Oh don't worry this breed are Prima Donnas". Dr Williams has only 3 frenchie patients and she's already caught on to that one! He did well though considering he is not feeling his best. On the way out my mom was feeding him the treats they had out front. I told her to stop because I noticed on the way there he was already getting car sick. He's the only dog I've ever owned that gets car sick poor thing, drools like a nut and pukes something awful. So we get about a block from my work and he heaves up all over the place. Big ol chunks of dog treats all over her back seat. Hehehe. Why is it my mother thinks I have not a clue in the world and needs to prove it by torturing my little dog?

My vet

And the sacrifices she makes for her patients. Today she has a funeral this afternoon so her schedule is already booked. But my little dog is still not quite right this morning and he needs to be looked at . Because, ya know, my mom decided to feed him to my big dog yesterday. Damn parents. Anyway she was kind enough to forgo lunch and will probably pass out during the funeral this after noon but people will probably find that endearing anyway. This is Texas. So I called my mom, told her she's picking up the little miserable Corbinator, who was left on the top step of the stair case this morning moping because he wouldn't come down to be put in his crate. He was too mopey to get himself in any trouble anyway so what do I care. So there he was left and I suspect there he will be when my mom goes to get him for his appointment at 11:30. I am having her swing by here to pick me up and I will take them over to the vets which is near my work rather than trying to tell where it is located. The woman couldn't figure out directions if I pasted them on the inside of her friggin forehead. There's no way I'm going to try and give her directions and trust her to get there with a sick dog and myu kid in the car, no way in hell. Nope just pick up the dog and bring them here to me. I'll get ya'll there just fine. It's like a block away from my work. I do have half a mind to make her pay the damn bill though. It so pisses me off that she doesn't know that "Put Jayne in the crate" actually meant "Put Jayne in the crate" and my dogs have to suffer in pain because she is just that god damn stupid. I mean that is STUPID. Just plain DUMB. God gave you a brain so that you can use it. Not so you have something to fill up the hole on the inside of you skull. Friggin morons that run around like chickens in this world. And before ya'll criticize me and the way I speak about my mother you really need to know about our history together and the fact that she left me when I was 8 and it was the best thing that she did for me in my entire life. Really, it was. The people around me in my life use to try and tell me that I should really be a little less harsh about the way I talked about her. Then the got to know her and the way she behaved. They stopped criticizing me after that. She has this way of doing nice things and then screwing up so badly that all the little nice things she did could never ever make up for all the horrible stupid unforgivable things she does. She's so jacked up I can't even begin to fathom explaining it, you'd just have to experience her and I don't like inflicting her onto other people unless it's called for and it's rarely called for. If you don't know her consider yourself one of the lucky ones.
On that wonderful digression from the point, I'll let you all know what goes on at the vet's office, I hope it's something simple like a popped ear drum.

My mother

and the death of my little dog. Well not yet but maybe soon. She's not the brightest of people and he's not the the toughest of dogs. OK rather, she doesn't do directions well and his nemesis is 3 times his size and unstable. So mom lets my dogs out every day, easy task and it's nice of her to do this task. My big dog is mental, this is a known fact, that's why he's on Prozac every single morning. I'd give it to him twice a day but then he's catatonic and a catatonic 75lb dog is really damn hard to move. No really, it is. Trust me, I've tried and it hurts. Anyway he's wired wrong and sometimes he feels the need to kill other dogs or strangers. He's ok with most people just not strangers. If he's trying to kill another dog it's usually resource guarding and he won't try and bite people if they are peeling his psycho ass off of another dog he's trying to kill. In the world of psycho dogs he's not one of the really bad ones. No, I'm serious, there are worse. You can't talk him down or distract him, you have to peel him off and separate him but you can bring him down if you hose him off or change rooms. He's bad but not that bad. He will eat the mail man/UPS/Fed Ex guy. OK so today the little dog Corbin (little super duper submissive dog) was sleeping under my mom's chair outside and Jayne (big psycho dog) decided that mom was a resource that needed to be guarded. So he attacked the little sleeping dog. Man what a way to ruin that little guy's morning. Anyway mom turned the hose onto the big guy and got him to let the little guy go. She called me and I told her to keep them separate (duh) which she had and if she had to put the big guy back in the house to put him in his crate. By the time I got home at lunch to drop off the car seat that I forgot to leave for her and the kid she met me at the door to let me know that it was a mess. I asked why and she said that Jayne had tried to kill Corbie again but she had problems getting him off of him this time. Of course I asked why and she said she let Jaynie back in the house. So you ask what about the crate? Oh she put him in there for like 15 minutes. It takes something like 3 weeks for the adrenaline from the first fight to get out of the system, why would 15 minutes suffice to calm the dog down? What part of put him in his crate did she not get? Did she think she could peel a 75 lb crazed dog off of a 25 lb dog? The woman is 4'9" tall and weighs less than 100 lbs and no, she has no muscle mass. Yeah she has a brain. No, sadly we have not seen evidence of it's use in many many years. So I have no idea how she got the 2 separated but Jaynie was in his crate looking very distressed and Corbie was on the couch looking very traumatized and a little bloodied and rough around the edges. He may sleep in the king size bed privileges this evening. I sat next to him on the couch and he snuggled up to me and he was so relieved I seriously considered calling into work and not coming back in he was so pathetic ans so relieved his mommy was home. You could just see the relief fall out of his shoulders and he fell asleep happy, poor guy. It's like when you pick your sick kindergardener up from school after they spent the whole morning throwing up at the nurses office. You know the kind of relief I'm talking about? He was so tired though that after I spent 10 minutes sitting with him I got up to eat lunch he didn't even notice so it was alright. Even when I left he didn't get up when the alarm chimed as I opened the door. I suspect he'll sleep hard when I'm gone today. I figure as long as he doesn't die of shock when I'm gone he'll be good to go. We'll give him a bath this evening to get the Jaynie slobber and crusty blood off him this evening and he can sleep in mommy's bed and he'll be fine. Our poor doggy family, they have such a hard life. None of them are right in the head and they all have to deal with each other when one is just a wee bit off that day.

Nothing to do today

No really, I mean nothing. My instrument at work is being worked on when the engineer gets here so maybe someday I'll have work to do. Please, start your prayers now your your god of choice that the thing works. I have been working since the end of May and have not had an instrument to work with since then. The internet is only so interesting people and blogs are only updated only so often and for me that's not often enough. Idle hands people idle hands! So I have lots of time and nothing to do, the people here think I'm nuts. I tell them I am so they leave me be. It's nice and it pays well but I'm bored people BORED!! And for those of you that know me you know that can only mean trouble brewing. What trouble lord only knows but it's coming so lets all hope the installation engineer gets here soon and has good luck or else the end of the world may come about at my hands. It can happen.

Today's music choices

My lab mate is at an Excel course today so I brought my own music in today. Normally I wouldn't torture her with my music. I prefer what I like to call 'angry white male' music. Because, well, it is. Today's choices, Nickelback (ok, they're from Canada but I'll forgive them that b/c the music is good), Linkin Park (American but from Agoura Hills CA), and Creed who I thought was a christian band but apparently just having recovering christian roots or some odd thing. And since both my bosses ended up working in my lab today (WTF is happening to my free time lately?!?!?) I have Bittersweet. Female and 40's James Bond sexy in nature but only overtly sexual so I started with it and when 1 boss left switched to Creed. Some day maybe they'll get my instrument set up at work and I'll have something to do here. Damn mass spec is a dull job when they have no instrument working...

So it wasn't too terrible

The Stampin Up party with the kid last night that is.
I do wish I had a camera though.
There were 3 projects to do and I helped the dd do 2 of them. One had a piece of candy stuck to the middle of it so of course we started with that one. She did very very well and when I went on to do the last project by myself, it had a little cut out and a thingy that was too complicated and not interesting enough for her I deemed this so, she did not, more on that later, she sat and worked on her own project. She had her own scissors and stamps she brought and pens but she wanted to use some stamp pads there and she she asked our host politely and was helped accordingly. Our host thought she was delightful (as she should, dd knows if she isn't deemed delightful she is not brought back, mean mommy is like that) and gave her full access to the stamp pads. Even though at some point dd thought she'd paint the clouds of the sky using her finger as a stamp, ugh. The dd also came up with this nifty little thing that she wanted to make a slip through where she cut 2 slits and threaded a slip a piece of paper through it with a sun and a moon drawn on it. Of course I was sitting at another table while this was happening and a lady was sitting next to me and pointed out to me that my dd was using scissors and pointing them down at her palm and, quite frankly, freaking the woman out. I wasn't even bothering to look up just going "yeah yeah it's ok" to the poor lady. Apparently this group was a group of home schoolers too so you know this was a group of the uber overly protective kind of moms, I'm more from the school of Darwinism. Mind you the dd is left handed and very small featured. She's tall but looks even younger than she is. (this is where I wish I had a camera for a picture for you all) The combo makes her look uncoordinated and dangerous with scissors. She's been using them since she was 2 and always uses the insanely dangerously sharp kind that children are never given access to, they are the only ones we own. Hey, you get in more trouble with the dull ones, those are the ones that slip. Her grandmother and mother are quilters, her mother is a scrapbooker and her father is a knife buff, if it can't kill or sever in the first swipe we throw it away or sharpen it. Child gets killing implements at age 2 and learns coordination early. Yeah Darwinism see, it works. Nuff said.

So lets just get this out there

So I can clear the air. I wanted a boy. The dh, he wanted a girl. This was all known many many moons before we were all of breeding age, trust me. When we were teenagers we could have all predicted this I imagine. No, really, I'm serious. So when we found out we were having a girl (at the sonogram) the mil went out and partied (it was the girl she never had) the dh patted me on the shoulder and said "Don't worry honey, they're not always right" the sonographer said "oh no, you're having a girl". I'll post the pic, our girl sat on the ultrasound wand. Even I could see that we were having a girl, there were no floating turtles in there, only lips.
Anyway, since then I have been living the life of girlie stuff that I so do not like. My dh has been painting toe nails with the delight that I should be showing but don't because that stuff just does not delight me. He even paints each nail a different color which is very endearing, the dd just does not know how good she has it.
My point being, because I do have one, is that I am an only child and as such, like my alone time. As a parent you don't get much. As a parent of an only child you still don't get much. They have a tendency to expect you to entertain them all the time always when they don't have each other to kill. I wish I had others so they could torture each other. The I could just do what Ebony (my friend) does and hose down the dirt in my back yard, create a mud pit and let them have at it.
So I had a Stampin Up party I wanted to go to this evening. By myself. So I could just have some fun time. To myself. Lord forbid I have some fun time with out a 6 yr old attached to my side. Do not get me started, I know she loves scrapping and stamping. She has more scrapping ans stamping stuff than most scrappers. She has the entire Stampin Up pen set for gods sake. I had no intention of bringing the kid with me so I didn't mention it to her or the hubby while I was at home. Instead I called home and told the hubby while I was at work. So what does he do? He tells her. And it makes her sad. Why? Because she wants to go of course. That's why I didn't tell her about it. So why did he tell her? Go ahead, answer this for me. Why would you tell her this? Don't get me started because I could go on forever but I won't. It was stupid. He should have just said mom had to work late or something minor. But nooo lets say mom went to a Stampin Up party. Smart! Duh.
Ok so I tell him to ask her if she wants to go and so he does and says that she gives him big happy animae eyes and is very happy to go. She wants to know if it'll be a big party or a small party. I say about 15 people and according to her that means it's a medium sized party. Why she asks this I don't know. Probably to figure out how many accoutrements she'll bring along. And she does tend to over pack so it may take a bit to wean her down this evening. Ah this is why I didn't want to tell her where I was going. That and I didn't actually want to buy anything...damnit.

It's always more fun...

to share with every one. So we've got kids here on this floor I work on. It's the pediatrics floor they put me and my instrument on, why I do not know. Anyway the phlebotomist wanted to put some music on her computer so that they could have some kids music to play in the back ground to calm some of the kids while pulling blood. This I can totally understand! So I go and grab my dd's mp3 player out of the car and download High School Musical onto the computer. Today I remember that I have the Curious George CD in the car too so I bring that in too. Of course it's in a different format so I can't get it to switch over. I'll have to take it home and put it on her mp3 player and download it that way again (it's just the easier way of doing it). So the radio we have in here now is playing the Curious George CD (rather than the god awful country that was making my ears bleed last week). Jack Johnson is so soothing. I know he plays like he's in his home Hawaii but it still reminds me of my home beaches of San Diego back when they were peaceful, not like they are now. It's nice. They are also all about green too, reduce re-use recycle. Oh and sharing, that evil 5 letter share word all children hate. I love how old my generation had become. Now all our music has to teach our children lessons. Damn we are old.

Green...ish

Or maybe just an olive tone. So what was once thought of as a hippie thing is now become fashionable. It was bound to happen, the price of gas was destined to go through the roof. I was raised in a peace lovin', pot smokin', hippie town (Ocean Beach, CA) and it was a totally inappropriate place to raise a kid but if you knew my parents the fact that they raised a kid there would not surprise you at all. I remember being less than 5 years of age and harvesting veggies in their co-op garden and stocking shelves in their co-op grocery store. Oh and don't even get me started on that whole carob is the next chocolate and it's better for you crap they tried to pull on me. Was not and never will be, that stuff is nasty.

Anyway we are back at it again but the rich and famous are now on the band wagon so there is now more available mainstream (ie at Costco) which is nice. So it prompted me to take a look at what we have in our home that is green. OK so let's take a look:
Appliances-
Everything is new and energystar, everything, house insulation, fridge, stove, water heater, a/c, water dispenser, dish washer, deep freezer, washer and dryer. The washer is even a German made front loader.
The washing detergent is HE and ecofriendly. Why? Because they sell it in bulk at Costco and the other brand there is Tide and Tide has phosphates and the phosphates aren't good for the environment. OK how many other of you readers knew that fact? Answer that, I want to know if you know!
The light bulbs in the huose are all being switched to the energy efficient ones as they blow out (waste not want not). Why? Because they sell them in bulk at Costco.
I think we have a theme going here...
I do put out a bit more effort than just shopping at Costco though. I recycle. I put a concerted effort into recycling actually. And I have a compost bin. I'd compost more if the hubby didn't complain about the grossness of it. It's not bad but when you open the top to throw stuff in it is rotted compost, not pretty to anyone but a gardener that can appreciate compost. Plus we rarely use it. It requires us (read the dh) digging holes for all of my potted plants, yes I have many, and that just doesn't happen that often. The ground here is 2" of sod and then solid rock until the earth's core. Not so fun.
And my favorite stamps, they are Unity Stamps and they use a system that conserves wood, yeah that's right, they conserve wood. Check it out.
Oh wait and there's one more little thing, I don't use disposable pads and tampons anymore. That's another thing I don't put into our landfills. But that ones just as as self serving as not. Disposable pads suck, I think I already covered that one didn't I?

It was a man

I'm sure of it. It was a man that created the modern day disposable plastic nasty sanitary napkins. Those uncomfortable noisy, crinkly, diaper rash giving, bleach filled, plastic, sweaty, jacked up things we have to wear unless we want to jam a tampon up our vajayjays? Oi I did it again. I started another tmi post with out giving fair warning. I'm sorry. You all should be expecting it by now though shouldn't you? You poor masochistical dears. You've now officially been warned since it's only going to get worse. Relax though this ones not so bad it's more of a male bashing one. My good friend has been insisting that it's a penis thing. All bad things can be linked back to penises. Today I'm going with that one. Go ahead, read my last few posts and see if the root of their misery is not based in penises. Go ahead, do it.
Anyway today I received a package I had been waiting for from a friend of mine, it had momma pads in it. The one friend I had helped with the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt (online cloth diaper treasure hunt, way fun). She has sent me some momma pads, basically sanitary napkins/pads made from the same cloth that they make cloth diapers from. Holy crap where have these things been all my life? I put one on and wow, instant difference. No really, NIGHT and DAY. I can not stress this point more. This is like the difference between indoor plumbing and no running water and toilets in a house. A total night and day difference luxury. Really. If you have to wear pads (like some of us do). Yeah, I know, I did the whole Diva Cup review but remember my cervix was abused 2 days ago. Nothing and I mean NOTHING is going anywhere up near that area for a few weeks on pain of death or severing. Period. End of debate. So pads it is right now until my body is done protesting the abuse it's been given for the greater good of birth control. Since the dh doesn't want to have any more children (post script, the dh debates this but he can rant about that on his own blog. This is my blog and on my blog he can piss off). I won't be having another one of these put in again though, no no. This one's strings will not be cut down. They will be left so that when it needs to be pulled out no one will need to go rooting for it with 15" hemostats. And if the dh doesn't like the strings on this one like he didn't like the strings on the last one he can just suck it up and deal.
But I digress. So back to the momma pads...a WAHM (work at home mom) made these (from soft soft flannel) and I am sooo going to buy more. (If you want the woman's email let me know and I'll pass it on to ya) I need them for back up for those days I just don't want to wear anything complicated like the Diva Cup. Oh and for those who exclusively wear pads and would look into buying a bunch sometimes they have bulk buys over on the Mommy Forum (see list of links on the right) where they get together to get them for a better price. It's kinda hard to find in the cloth diaper section under co-ops. I know, weird but that's how it's organized. You have to register to view the forum and there is a reason for it but I won't bore you with the details. Or I am also going to be making a bulk order from my friend so get a hold of me and get yourself included!
Back to the original theme though, it was a man that invented plastic pads, trying to make money off of us and not really concerned at all with the comfort of a woman. Them & their stupid boy penises.

You poor dears

I'm sorry, I usually give you all fair warning when I put up a TMI post and that last one was probably a doozie. Well FWIW if you're on my blog now the next post down is a big tmi post. Sorry, it was the pain talking. There was a lot of pain and it was doing a lot of talking. As of the next morning it's much better, no pain at all. Really, no I'm serious. As long as I don't throw up from the antibiotics they gave me (just in case, not that they think I need them but just in case they do it any way) I figure I'm golden for a good 5 years. Or until we decide to have another kid. Yeah right like that's gonna happen. Pfft.

I had forgotten

About the sounding:
▸ noun: the act of measuring depth of water (usually with a sounding line)
Yeah only with an ob/gyn what they measure is the depth of the uterus. With a stick. In my case with 2 sticks. One metal (like the ones in he first picture) and one plastic. A total of 5 times. Yup, you heard me 5 times. They couldn't believe it was that damn deep. Apparently when I healed from my c-section part of the face of my uterus welded itself to my belly wall rendering it incapable of shrinking back down to a normal size. Oh yeah and did I mention that this sounding occurred after the removal of the old iud? With a set of curved hemostats that were no less than 15 inches in length. *See second picture* Yeah no pain killers, just a wildly lucky and talented ob/gyn rooting around for a tiny tiny string on the opposite side of my cervix with that monstrous set of hemostats and a ultrasound wand being smashed into my lower belly/outside uterus by a nurse. Oh my yes that was soo much fun! Only to be followed by the 5 soundings. Oh and then the insertion of the iud, that was just like another sounding only then it left something behind (iud) on the inside. My uterus is very very unhappy with me this evening. The good news is that I don't have to go in for surgery to have this done. Although in retrospect it's kinda like childbirth, scheduled c-section or vbac? Will the vbac even work? Is it worth the try? In this case it was because it worked. The doctor's odds were good, she's done this fishing many times before and has only ended up going into surgery for one once. Turns out the things strings were up top and wrapped up upside down in that case. That must have been soooome fun! Not. Miraculously that was not my case, thank any god of your choice. I am in enough pain as it is and would be less than pleased if they had to root around me more then they already did. Now I'm good for another 5 years and by then I'll be menopausal. Or at least 40 and ready to have the dh snipped for good.

Did I mention

That I have 2 doctor’s appointment’s today? Yeah well one good one not so fun. The first was with the neurologist (finally! A woman I like, her staff, not so much. She thought I had several headaches over the weeks, she did not know it was one headache over 3 weeks. Something her staff failed to mention I suppose.) So we met and this was supposed to be where I am prepping to get weened off of the anti seizure meds (Keppra). Well since we now have this migraine thing to deal with it’s going to work a bit differently. OK fine dandy. We do have an explanation (maybe) of a few things. 1) There’s a type of migraine that you get after head trauma which is due to all the dissipated blood settling out in the brain which can happen up to 1 year out. And 2) Keppra has a side effect, weight gain. Great, I have an excuse now! The upside? The new med, Topomax, is used to control migraines and seizures. Oh and its side effect? Weight loss. Well then maybe it’ll all balance out. Doubtful but one can always hope. I think my weight gain was just normal since I lost so much after surgery. We’ll find out soon enough. So we’ll get me on Topomax, take my blood levels, then start weening me off the Keppra. One step at a time and someday I’ll be nice and normal. Or at least as close to it as I was before.

Then there’s appointment number two, oh that’s going to be a fun one. A real fun one. It’s with the ob/gyn. If you’re a guy just stop reading now, this will all be tmi. I have a Mirena IUD, they last for 5 years. My 5 yrs was up in May so it has to be replaced. They have these strings that hang down and are pulled to get the thing out. Well for reasons I won’t scare people with my strings were cut off. So to get this sucker out I have to be dilated and they have to go up after it. And then stick a new one up there. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Oh yeah, I am so looking forward to this appointment you don’t even know. I’ll post later on tonight or tomorrow to let know all know how well it goes or if we just opt for no sex ever again. You never know, it may just be that bad.