You Can't Always Get What You Want

The past few days I've wanted so badly to say this to my mother-in-law. Oh, to update on her, the chemo was effective and supposedly removed all the cancer from the lymph nodes. The cancer is still in the lungs. She is having her mastectomy on January 3. She waited too long to call to have it done this year and be under this year's deductible. The oncologist told her that she should go ahead and have the surgery done, since the longer she waits the higher the risk of the cancer spreading even more is.

Now then, a little bit of a rant, since my soul needs purging. Let me set the stage a bit. Two years ago, my mother-in-law bought C and his cousin each a Nintendo DSi. She did not buy one for J. D and I had some issue with that, but felt that J was too young at the time, so were willing to overlook it. Fast forward to this year. We have been told that Christmas will be less than typical at their house this year, as they are borrowing money from their 401k to pay for gifts. Not a problem. We have no issue with that, as we enjoy saving money and also being able to give our children the "big" things that they want without being overshadowed by what the grandparents give. D gets a phone call about a week ago. Do we mind if they give C a netbook? He asks me. I tell him that is fine if they want to, since I know he wants one, but that I was planning to get each of the boys an iPad for their birthdays in the spring. If they do the netbook now, C won't get an iPad (since I feel it's redundant). D agreed. He told them it was fine, and did not mention the iPads. He then asks if it's just C getting one. They say no, they bought two, one for C and one for his cousin, K. D tells them that if they give C and K each a netbook and not J, then J needs something comparable and special that he really wants, and such an item is a Nintendo DSi XL. He has been begging for one and has proven he is responsible enough for one, not to mention that he "deserves" one for his behavior and work ethic at school. She then gives D guilt for daring to tell her what to give as a gift. And says that the DSi is too expensive to give a six year old. She then calls me last night... "I was looking at all the gifts and realized that, while J had more presents, I hadn't spent as much on him as I had the big kids (all of four years old, SO big!), so I went out and got him a few more things." Then she tells D that she thought WE were getting him the DSi, so she looked at games for him. SERIOUSLY???

This woman then gets on Facebook and sees where my mom has posted a picture of her and J at the school's holiday lunch (it was supposed to be Thanksgiving but got canceled and ended up being Christmas). J called her the night before and asked her to go. Didn't ask me or D, just wanted Grandma there. His lunch, his call. Mother-in-law proceeds to text D and say, "I saw where she got to eat lunch with J. Sure wish I could do things like that with him." My response, "No, you don't. When you're invited, you don't come. J asks why you don't love him as much as you love C and K. You just got pissy because you see he has a grandmother whom he loves unconditionally and who loves him unconditionally in return." (Of course, I didn't send this to her, I just verbalized it to D.) You can't expect him to want to see you and be around you if you are NEVER happy and never show him the same attention and love that you show the other two grandkids. I don't blame J for wanting his other grandmother there instead.

And they're already buying C stuff for this trip we're taking, but ignoring J completely. So help me, I may go crazy. D has already said he is turning his phone off when we leave. If anyone needs us, they can call my phone, because I have no problems ignoring phone calls. This trip is for US, not an opportunity for us to walk around missing out on things because we''re on the phone with people back home.

There. I feel better now.

I'll write more after the trip. Everyone have a safe weekend!

Give me liberty. . .

I'm ridiculously excited about our upcoming trip. As in, cannot wait! We leave Friday afternoon. We've arranged for someone to take care of our house and animals, rented a car, and I packed our bags tonight. Yes, I realize it's Wednesday. Like I said, I'm excited!

I also created our schedule for the trip. . . well, I'm being modest. I actually micromanaged it down to the last minute. :-) Then I printed out maps, menus, museum guides for kids, "things to do" lists for kids, families, and first-time visitors. I also printed out our tickets and meal vouchers (saved 27% on the tickets and saved about 31% on the meals, so I consider it worth it). I then mapped directions from each location to each location (if that makes sense) so we would have approximate drive times. Those were also printed out. THEN I made a very nice binder... and put each sheet in a sheet protector and divided them by location, meals, tickets, hotel, maps, etc, and made dividers for them. As this made me unbelievably happy, I may be more anal/OCD than I originally thought.

Well, now I'm off to clean the living room and kitchen so the house isn't a mess when the house sitters get here.

Longest days ever

It's only Wednesday. I've clocked 30.5 hours for the work week. I should only have 22.5. I have managed to work an entire extra DAY in three days, all because we have a ginormous report that has to be submitted to the state, we thought by yesterday. Actually, it was by yesterday, but when we went to upload it to the website at 8:00 last night (yep, still at work), the site was shut down... nevermind that the multiple emails we had gotten in the same week all stated that we had all day Tuesday to upload data. MAJOR PITA. (pain-in-the-ass)

To make today even more fun, I got to RE-DO the entire report, since the girl who did it initially screwed it up somehow. I think it was a too many cooks thing. She gave the data to the IT department to compile the report, but it didn't quite work that way. So I redid it today. And in less time, even. Go figure.

Tomorrow we get to input the data to the server. Can't wait.


In other news, I get to use all this time I've accrued and start vacation earlier than planned next Friday. I cannot wait! I'm so excited to be going somewhere fun with my family. We need this!

I could be complaining about my in-laws, but I'm controlling myself. I'll save all of that up and vent in a massive diatribe later. Tonight I'm enjoying the silence of my almost-clean house and the warmth of my Snuggie and cat cuddling on the couch.

Stay warm!

Hell Hath Frozen Over

So, it's been a while....

Let's see. . . got a job. I'm about to be too smart for my job. I am too logical for my job, and I regularly use too much common sense for my job. We'll see what happens. The good thing is my bosses are also logical, smart, common sense-having people. It's my coworkers that aren't always those things.

We are taking our first family vacation that is just the four of us and no one else. Typically what happens is D and C go somewhere with D's parents, or just C goes with them. J and I go with my parents. Occasionally we all go with D's parents. But, in the SEVEN years we have been married, we have never gone anywhere just us... so this will be nice. We are taking the kids to Williamsburg, Virginia. I'm super excited. I've been once and absolutely loved it. D and the kids have never been. I'm excited because the last time I went was a middle school class trip, so it's going to be new to me too. And we are going for Christmas when everything is decorated, so it will be beautiful. My cousin works for a hotel chain and was nice enough to get me his rate for our hotel room. He had one problem - the hotels in Williamsburg were booked, so he had to get us a suite about 30 minutes outside of Williamsburg... ON THE BEACH. Too cool! We're going to do Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, and Busch Gardens.

There are so many things on my heart that I should be posting about, but, at the end of the day, I just want to seal it off and not dredge it all up again. I find myself compulsively looking at photos on Facebook and blogs of wonderful people I know and tearing up at work because my heart just aches for them and what they are going through right now. I read about my friend from church, whom I've known for years, and her struggle with cancer and it appears to be nearing it's end. I see pictures of her children who are around J's age and my heart breaks. I read about J's friend (who is the child of my friend) and his fight with leukemia and anything I do or think of doing just seems so inadequate and stupid. My heart is hurting so deeply for these wonderful people and I find myself in constant prayer for them.

I feel so torn, especially lately, because of working. I am missing out on things I feel I should be present for in the lives of those I care about. I don't like being a grown-up! To quote one of my best friends from high school, "I quit!"

I'm a slacker

I know, I know. I've failed miserably at blogging.

Today is the end of my second full month of work. I'm enjoying it more than I expected to, to be honest. There are still many days when I don't want to get up and get dressed, or when I want to be with the kids instead of at work, but mostly I enjoy it. The work isn't hard, the people are nice, and I have plenty of time for Facebook.
I have, however, forgotten my blogger password and have to blog on my phone where the password is saved. That's my excuse for the delay.

I don't have much today. J lost his first tooth on Sunday. He pulled it out all by himself! I was so proud.

I won't make any promises, but I'll try to get on here later and post more soon.

My son, the fish

J has been taking swim lessons, and he LOVES them! He has learned so much and has such a good time. One of the benefits of my job is a membership at the university's rec center and discounts on lesson fees. I'll confess, I enjoy sitting here and ogling the college-age lifeguards.
In other news, one of J's best friends has been diagnosed with ALL leukemia. He is going to need a bone marrow transplant. I urge and beg you to register to become a marrow donor. It's easy, painless and free.
My mother-in-law is still fighting her cancer. It has been very responsive to the chemo, and all the tumors have shrunk. Her attitude, however, continues to worsen. I doubt J and I go over there this week. I no longer have the patience to be around her and hold my tongue.

I have decided to give up my iPhone. This is a hard decision for me, but one I believe I need to make. I will keep it and use it as an iPod touch, but my phone will be a blackberry. (I know, I know). I can't give up the smartphone all together, but if I have a crackberry D and I can share chargers. And it let's me use my iPod again, like in the car. Plus, and this is the big part, it's cheaper.


Oh - by the way, J started first grade. Today was his first full day. Today was also C's first full day of seventh grade, and the first day of riding the bus to school. I feel so old! To make things even worse, my niece started high school today. Yikes!!!!

You, Me, & Dupree

I'm deviating from my song titles and lyrics and devoting the theme of this post to a movie... if you haven't seen You, Me & Dupree yet, I encourage you to rent, Red Box, or Netflix it. It describes my life. D has a friend... he is our Dupree. Only not as cute. Or as funny.

He shows up daily, before I even get home from work. He expects to eat dinner here nightly... but doesn't offer to help cook, buy groceries, or clean up. He likes to claim to be "part of the family," yet he doesn't pull any weight around here. We store his extra "stuff" in our barn - for free. We let him keep his jet ski here - for free. All of this happened when he moved out of a neighboring rental house and into an apartment. He stores his lawn mowing equipment in our barn - you guessed it, for free. He "helps" D coach baseball, and bums rides to all the practices and games with us... yet never manages to help buy gas. He is single, he is employed (thanks to D getting him a job), and he mooches off of us. D and I have to tell him that we are going to bed at 9:00 to get him to leave by 10:00 in order to have ANY time together alone. Time alone for either of us happens at work.

I'm a little frustrated by him. This month, things are tight. Probably the tightest they've been in years for us. I am working daily, needing lunch for a change (when I stayed at home, I nibbled all day long). J is in ESP, which costs tuition plus field trip fees weekly. D still needs to eat while he's working. I am using three times as much gas driving J to the back-up site for ESP (no idea why our school isn't available again yet). All of this costs money. Money that, in theory, we are both earning. In reality, I do not get paid until the last business day of the month. And I'm having to feed ANOTHER grown man on my tiny food budget?!? As it is, I'm not sure what will happen next week when C is home from camp. I'm hoping he spends most of that time with D's parents, because he won't eat all vegetables and fruit like J will.

Off to tend the latest crisis... it appears that Daisy, our beagle, has had an anxiety attack or something worse.