Sending an electronic newsletter (which is pretty cool, if I do say so myself) and killing time until my noon meeting, so I thought I would write a quick post about our summer in general. It has actually gone by really fast.

We couldn't afford for B to go to his usual summer program, so he has been going with L some, staying home or with friends once in awhile, and swimming every day. As a compromise, we managed to work in a couple of things to keep him entertained. He went to Space Camp right at the end of the school year, which was apparently awesome. (I still have to get three disposable cameras developed!). He went to church camp at the beginning of the month, where he had a girlfriend! This week, he is here. Actually today is the first day, and I can't wait to hear about it. Friday is my day to take him and I am hoping he has as much fun as I would doing this. He has also spent some time with his grandparents, who have at least one more camping trip planned, and then of course my mom and aunt will be coming right before school starts.

It has been way too hot to do much of anything this summer. I am hoping when my mom is here it is not too hot, but I expect it will be. Most of what we will be doing is indoors, at least, and then I can finish the rest of it on weekends as the weather cools off. I miss working on my house and different projects. Other than Kayce G, I am the only person I know who relaxes by sanding furniture :) I am hoping to take pictures, and plan a post about what I am working on. I won't get to start on it just yet, though. This week will be busy getting ready for RL, Saturday is the film showing, then next week getting ready for a week off.

Anyways, the next couple of weeks will hopefully be the good kind of busy, where I am occupied enough to keep my brain from thinking too much, and have something to show for it when I am done.

Boo Hoo

Last night my friend Rob posted something in advance of the President's TV appearance. Unable to resist, I challenged his comments. This led to a heated debate between another "friend" and me that went on for a while. It actually ended up with Rob and me on a completely different riff that had other people cracking up.

Today, out of curiosity, I looked to see if Lisa had posted anything else. Ha ha ha, I have been unfriended. This is the second time this has happened after I dared to disagree with someone. I was actually sorry about Tony, as I actually liked chatting with him and would never intentionally offend him. I am not at all sorry about Lisa, as she is an uptight, self-righteous pain in the ass. I mean c'mon, if an ex boyfriend with whom I am on opposite sides of almost every thing you can name and I can at least be Facebook friends, why not her? The only thing I will miss about her is that she posted good links.

Note to self: ask Rob to be sure to repost the good stuff :)

Relentless

The word of the day is "relentless". It describes the headache I had all day, as well as the thoughts that are keeping me awake. So, to think about anything else but that...

• The possible move to DC is off the table, but not permanently, just for now.
• I am about to embark on kicking the caffeine habit again. Wish me luck.
• My mom and my aunt will be here the week after next. Actually excited about it. Check again in a couple of weeks.
• I don't have a Facebook account, but continue to get about 5-10 friend requests per day. Apparently, someone who shares sexy pics and has an email similar to mine DOES have an account. I can't solve the problem without creating an account, so I spend 5 minutes a day deleting friends I don't have from an email I rarely check.
• I heard a song today that reminded me of someone I used to hang out with. We worked and partied together when I lived in Denver. Our nicknames were The Queen and The Princess. We were groupies of a local bar band and put these down as our names for their mailing list. Then we would drive all over town to listen to them play so-so cover songs in crappy hotel bars. One particular night we drove halfway to Thornton in the snow to hear them play at a Super 8. The two things I remember from that night are that my hot pink pants clashed very badly with the green and orange patterned carpet, and that a mirrored wall is good for practicing dancing if you dance like Axl Rose (me) or like someone who would have this song dedicated to her (Sandra):

Road Trippin'

I have had a post in mind where I did an inventory, if you will, of my life now vs. a year ago. I finally decided that the reason I was having a hard time getting started on it was because nothing has changed much, and certainly is not much better. I decided that rather than spell out the details, I would leave it at "another year older, another year wiser".

All that wisdom didn't keep me from taking on a last minute road trip. We decided late in the day on Thursday that we would go to OK after all. We left after work and got there late Thursday night. Of course my kids don't sleep in, so we were up at our usual time. We spent the afternoon at a water park, and went out to dinner. Afterward, my nephew and I stayed up until 2 a.m. just talking, then up the next morning to get ready for more family stuff. We left about 5:30 Saturday night and got home after midnight. Up again on Sunday for church. Up late on Sunday waiting for B to get home with grandparents. Now it is Monday afternoon and I am sitting here feeling 20 years older and none the wiser.

Gone are the days when nothing interesting ever started until at least 9 p.m. Gone are the days we thought nothing of driving to Dallas or Memphis just because we had friends there and we could. Gone are the days when a few hours of sleep will get me through most anything but a Saturday night bar shift. (Gone are Saturday night bar shifts). I don't miss most of that stuff, and I had a great time with family and friends, but I am definitely too old to pull it off as often as I used to.

Now to get my head together enough to get some work done so I can take Friday off again ;)

More Busyness

I was lamenting the fact that the only social event on my calendar for months in either direction was an upcoming family reunion (bor-ring). Latest news is that we might not be going after all. This kind of sucks, because I was actually looking forward to having something to do, even if it was just a family thing. But it's OK too, because I will probably work on a project at home. My mom and my aunt are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, and I was actually trying to figure out when I was going to get everything done before they came (next weekend is the last day of B's film camp). So no excuses, this weekend I will caulk the ceiling in preparation for painting. Whoo-hoo, and I thought I didn't have anything interesting to report.

Whiny Busyness

Hmm, I alluded to being busy, and I am, but it is the wrong kind of busy. It is the kind of busy where I fill up my time doing the things that are expected of me, like work and church and family things. It's the kind of busy that doesn't give me time to stop and think about the fact that I seldom do anything I want to do. I feel a bit bad whining about it, but sometimes I need to feel like an adult, not just a cook slash chauffeur. I need to talk to other grown ups about grown up subjects besides parenting. I want to watch TV on channels that don't have Disney in their name. I want to go out to eat and have a cocktail instead of waiting until my kids go to bed to drink a glass of cheap wine. I want time to actually write, or for that matter, time to work on any of the multitude of projects I started with good intentions and then let fall by the wayside. I want to use my vacation days for an actual vacation instead of for the above-mentioned family things.

Since I feel like single parent much of the time, with a budget to match, I don't have the means to do much of the stuff I would like to do. So I keep myself busy. I stay as busy as possible, right up until I fall asleep. That way I don't have as much time to feel sorry for myself, or blame other people, for the cliche my life has become. The downside is that I don't have dreams any more. And with that very pathetic statement of metaphor, I will get back to the things that are supposed to be keeping me busy.

Crazy Busy

I have several things going on that I need to update before I forget, but I can't seem to find the time. Only taking time to post a song I heard yesterday that I have always liked.

No Title - Just Pissed

It has been a couple of hours but I am still so angry I will probably be up for awhile.

I have a niece. She is close in age to the twins, and the three of them get along really well. She has only spent the night with my mother-in-law a few times, but never at our house even though she has been invited. So this weekend there was a funeral for a friend of my husband's family. I offered to babysit so my sister-in-law could go to the funeral, and also offered to keep Lily for the weekend, since L is working and I didn't have big plans. She took me up on the offer and we made plans for Lily to stay with us until Monday night or Tuesday morning, at which point she would go to my in-laws'/her great-grandma's for a day or two.

So yesterday was fine. I had four kids under the age of six, plus random 11 year-old boys wandering in and out. Lily was good all day, except when she was tired. She did fine today at church, sitting with her cousins and going to class without a fuss. Tonight we went to a community picnic with my in-laws. All three of the little kids were hot and tired and ready to go home. As we loaded the car, Lily whined a little about going to grandma's. I had pretty much convinced her coming home with us would be great, because her clothes and her special bear were here waiting for her, and I have promised them all homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast. She was waiting for us to pile in the car, when B comes along and tries to tell her goodbye, have fun at grandma's. I give him the evil eye, while using my best patient voice to say that no, Lily needs to get in the car with me, she's not going to grandma's until tomorrow. She proceeds to start whining again and grandma takes her hand and says OK, you can just come with me, at which point I sort of lost it.

I said something like "whatever, I'm done", when my mother-in-law pipes up and says "I totally understand". If she said more, I didn't hear it because I got in the van and left, thinking you so obviously don't understand, you stupid f***ing cow, or you would have just put her in the car and told her you'd see her tomorrow. So I leave the parking lot, simultaneously yelling at B for opening his mouth, cursing my mother-in-law in my head, trying to think of a suitable answer for my two about why Lily isn't coming with us and ignoring the ringing phone because I don't feel sure I will be able to be civil.

I do answer L's call, and it turns out he needs me to stop so he can get a car seat, Lily is coming with us after all. I stop and let him get the seat, but leave before clueless lady pulls in. Half way home L calls again and says Lily wouldn't get in the car with him but was crying about her bear. He told her if she wanted the bear, she had to come to his house. He was calling to give me a heads up that his mom just might be willing to drive 18 miles to pick up the stupid bear, but I wasn't worried.

Why wasn't I worried?

BECAUSE AS MOST PARENTS OF AN EXHAUSTED PRESCHOOLER CAN TELL YOU, SHE WAS GOING TO F***ING BE ASLEEP AS SOON AS THE CAR GOT MOVING, AND TOMORROW SHE WON'T REMEMBER THAT SHE HADN'T WANTED TO COME, JUST WONDER WHERE THE TWINS ARE.

Thing is, I wasn't surprised that Lily wanted to go to grandma's, so I am not upset about that. I am just upset that after all this time, the woman doesn't get when it is OK to be the grandparent and spoil them a little, and when it is not OK to be the parent. Instead, she traded me one slightly whiny one for two who kept asking questions I couldn't politely answer (Lily didn't want to come to our house - why? + possible tears. Or Lily wanted to go to grandma's - well, I wanted to go to grandma's too. Or Lily needs to learn that whining doesn't get you what you want - that will come back to bite me on the butt). She also showed Lily that whining will indeed get her what she wants. Her gran is sure going to appreciate that by the end of the week.

Speaking of whom, I had one text and one voice mail from her asking how Lily was doing. I was a coward and just texted her back, saying Lily was fine, she was at her grandma's tonight.

So while there were no fireworks at the picnic, there were definitely some angry sparks shooting from my direction. Still a little pissed, and trying not to be a baby, what's best for Lily, blah blah blah.

Now I get to spend the day with mine tomorrow, who were asleep half-way home (big surprise) but who will be very disappointed that Lily isn't here when they wake up. As for Lily, that poor kid already has two addicts for parents, a grandma trying to raise her, a great-grandma who will be on my list for a few days over this, and a day missed with the most normal people in her family. Or at least I hope to be after sleeping on it myself.

I hope clueless lady finds one very pissed off daughter-in-law and three disappointed grand kids to be a good trade for an extra day with the one grandchild she was already going to spend several days with. As for me, I am going to enjoy the hell out of pancakes made with other people's blueberries!!!