Lucky 13

Hubs and I have survived 13 years together - married. It's been 18 years overall. Amazing.

My mom is the beast

S has really started to sound out words and do some decent reading. He was reading sentences to me and came up with this gem. Clearly it should have been best. hehehehehe

A silver lining

In decluttering yesterday, I came across 4 stained glass ornaments that get melted in the oven. The kids and I started working on ours. S made his a nice art deco snowman. Trinks make a cat coming out of a multi colored stocking and I made a Christmas tree. We must have sounded like we were having fun because hubs left the Eagles game and made a Santa face. Then we set up the inflatable Frosty, and all three trees. The kids each get a tree in their rooms and the big one goes in the office. I got a wreath tonight, so things are starting to look a little festive around here.

Stress, stress go away!!!

I have been so stressed out about work that I've been having nightmares. Bad timing, now that we're getting into the holiday season - a season I have hated for years. This weekend I have been tackling some of the issues of why I am stressed out and I seem to be winning. I did a lot of holiday shopping online and I am prety much done. Hubs has to get his presents, but this year I am checking to see if he shopped BEFORE we get in the car so I won't be embarassed when he has nothing.

I think the best thing I did this weekend was to pull out tons of crap and box it up for Goodwill. I am about to head upstairs and get more stuff out of Trinks' room. I even parted with BOOKS! Three boxes worth. I can probably fill 10 more boxes, and I'm pretty excited about getting these dust collectors out of my house. I just feel like I am suffocating and stuff has to go. I have challenged myself to removing 1/2 of our possessions this year. We did it in the living room and it is by far the easiest room to take care of. I look forward to paring down to the bare necessities. I'll try not to beat myself up about buying stupid things - apple peeler slicer corer, anyone? - and just get rid of it. What isn't appropriate for Goodwill will go in the trash. Things like good china will be sold on E Bay. If I haven't used something in the last 1-3 years, it goes. I feel better and I can breathe better. The stress is leaving my body.

Well, break is over. Back to packing up the crap!

Trinks' next weapon

Can you picture Trinks swinging this???? Class starts next week!!!

I want pizza for Thanksgiving

S mentioned he wanted pizza for Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up getting pizza for dinner tonight for two reasons. First, he's an only child for the week and deserves a couple of perks. Second, we passed a pizza shop that had pizza for $5.99 on Mondays. So we ordered the pizza, hit the library (we desperately needed the 5th Magic Treehouse), and then picked up the pizza. I advised him that now he has to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

Where I want to be

Instead, I put the mattress warmer on and set it to stun.

Trinks got her ears pierced!

S turned 5 on vacation

I can't believe my baby is 5! We celebrated with a Mario birthday party. Yes, I ordered Luigi cake plates and mushroom napkins to bring with us. He got Mario Kart for his DS from my in laws, and I picked up some small Mario things, like action figures and a stylus.





And S celebrated with a drink with his cousin. We had dinner at the Poop Deck (ok - laugh, get it out of your system). It was fabulous.

The US Preventive Task Force is made up of morons

And, apparently, not of oncologists. Fuck them. This team of 16 idiots, came to conclusion that mammograms do not save enough women, so they don't believe women without a risk factor should get mammograms. For every 1900 mammograms, only 1 woman's life is saved. That's just dandy if you are one of the 1900. But if you are the ONE, it freaking sucks. It means people like Kathi are more likely to die because they won't get a mammogram. She didn't know she had cancer until it appeared on her routine mammogram. There were no other signs. So she was the ONE in 1900, and I am grateful every day that I still have her in my life. I am NOT willing to lose a friend because the US Preventive task force believes their lives aren't worth anything.

Am I going to rely on this uneducated group to dictate my health? FUCK NO! I'll be getting squished in the next few months. I think I go in December. I don't care if I have to lie about risk to get insurance to pay for it. It's necessary. There are too many people I know who have breast cancer (prayers and happy thoughts to NJ teacher's mother who had a very successful surgery and is now waiting to hear the staging and treatment plan). Early detection is key to successful treatment of this disease. In defiance of this study (which I am sure was funded by insurance companies) I am checking my boobs EVERY DAY. Peace of mind is more important that some unqualified dr's opinion. Join my movement and check the girls, the ta tas, boobs, melons, breasts, whatever you want to call them, EVERY DAY. Heck - check someone else's boobs for a change of pace. JUST CHECK THEM!! STAY SAFE!! Your life is important to ME.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

As usual, our trip to the Bahamas was fabulous. The weather was wonderful and we missed hurricane Ida, except for some wind and rough seas. It was good to have some down time to refocus and destress. The last two weeks have been a little tough for me at work and things won't get better any time soon. It's all good - just a lot of new things for me. Somehow, I became a manager of four wonderful people. I am used to doing all of the work myself, so this is a change I need to figure out soon. But, here are some great pictures of our adventures.

Dad "caught" some huge Bahamian lobsters for our first dinner. YUM!


The kids had to dress up to get their Christmas present.


The kids in the wetsuits, waiting to go meet their dolphin.


S was a little timid between the depth of the water and the rather large dolphin, but he ended up having some fun.


Could not wipe the grin off Trinks' face. Dolphins are her favorite animals.


If you do not have the tools or patience to build one yourself, steal someone else's.


The wobbly bridge. I took a video of us crossing this. If you ever need to throw up, let me know. I'll send it to you.


The cousins had a blast swimming together.

A decent picture of us.


We tried a new pool when the wind blew us off the beach.


Already dreaming of the next trip.

Still breathing

Tonight we celebrated my dad's birthday. The restaurant provided a great carrot cake, chock full of nuts and raisins. I was feeling rather brave, bolstered by the epi-pen and benadryl in my purse, and told S he could have it. He's never reacted to walnuts before, so I was ok with him having it. He took a bite, sighed, and then announced, "still breathing".

Swimming with the dolphins

Merry Christmas from Mom Mom and Grandpa. It's the perfect size and it won't crap up my house any further than it is already crapped up. S was a little hesitant, but Trinks couldn't stop grinning. We have some limited video, as we were shooting directly into the sun and couldn't see. And bless my sister for taking on all 5 kids alone since some of us wouldn't even consider getting into a wet suit.

And I can't seem to post pictures from here. It's either the crappy connection we are paying for (Mom is working) or the crappy computer, or (and most likely) the amount of alcohol I have had today.

Oh Canada!

Went to Canada tonight for dinner. Had a lovely steak dinner. Listened to Rush in the bar. Got harassed by the border guard. Came back and can't get into Facebook at the hotel! Good night.

Halloween

I posted these on Facebook, but then they disappeared. Have I mentioned how much I HATE the new Facebook? I can't find a darn thing. And YES. I moved the status thing up to the top and I still don't get everything. And it's out of order.