Random thoughts...

Why are commercials 10 times louder than the show you are watching?

Why am I a sucker and spend way too much money on Sonny Boy's Halloween costume? - I know the reason, I'm a sucker for Halloween and the costume is cool.

Why is it the year 2009, almost 2010 and I'm handwashing dishes?

Where am I going to put the remaining furniture that is in WI in this little house? Ever try to stuff a 4 bedroom, 1800 sq ft house into a 2 bedroom (don't know the square footage but it's not enough) house.

I really hope the leaves hold off dropping from the trees until after the house closes. I really don't want to turn it over needing two solid days of yard work but I really don't want to do the two solid days of yard work.

Why do people on Facebook feel the need to post about everything they eat?

Is it ever going to stop raining?

Will I have to put on rubber boots to do laundry tomorrow? (the answer is probably yes)

Why do I live next door to the crazy cat lady? I like cats ok, but putting 50lb sacks of food for all the local strays is a little much. Landlord loaned us a live trap and we are down one. The trap works better than Hubby's shoe which merely scared said animal. Landlord said guy down the street had enough and started shooting them earlier in the year, killed close to 30 cats. Don't know if that's an actual number or not and can't imagine him shooting animals in the middle of town, but this is Korn-ton IL so anything goes.

Why do I always seem live in a house within earshot of RailRoad tracks? This is the worst one, when the train goes by the house shakes and you can not hear the tv or each other. Basically conversation stops while the train is blowing it's whistle. Oddly does not keep me awake at night but the occasional train must go through town at 2 mph and feel the need to blow it's horn the entire time, when that happens it even awakens Sonny Boy, the child that could have an entire marching band go through his bedroom and he would not wake up.

Is excited to see Igor at Halloween this year. Sure he was here for Trick or Treat last year but he had no clue. This year he can say Trick or Treat and has figured out what candy is for sure. Next year he'll probably want some outrageously expensive costume too.

Thinks that Sonny Boy will eventually get the hang of getting up and getting ready for school without it starting WWIII, however I'm beginning to wonder if it will be in my lifetime.

Is wondering if Igor will ever learn his colors or if he's color blind. Do you know anything about this?

Wishes she could turn her mind off and fall asleep instantly like Hubby does. The man can crawl in bed and conk out in less than 2 minutes. I'm jealous, the only period of time I have ever done that was my last semester of college and I was student teaching 40 hours a week and working at Wal-Mart 20+ hours a week. Hubby tells me I would fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. My mom took me on vacation a week after graduation and I basically slept in a motel room for 18 hours a day.

I wonder about the socio-economic average of the children in Igor's Pre-K classroom and thinks that if you combined their entire edcuation you might get a high school diploma. I know that's mean but you should see the line-up when picking up the kids.

How do you know if your kid is getting his IEP pull out services when he can't really tell you if it's happening or not? Makes me wonder what's happening at school and I don't totally trust them to follow the IEP.

Well that's my random ponderings and thoughts for the night. Do you know the answers?

thou shall not covet thy neighbrs wife or toys.

I don't really covet anything of my neighbors or even anyone I know. I want an expensive new electronic toy. While I'm content with my pedestrian cell phone (don't really know how to work it) and I certainly don't need the camera feature but it appears to be standard on all phones now days. I don't have an I-pod and if I did I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have the patience to put many songs on it and I really can't walk around with ear buds in all the time because I really need to make sure the kids are not killing each other (though sometimes the ear buds would be nice). My laptop while a brick and has some software issues will work. What I REALLY REALLY want is a Kindle. Have you heard of a Kindle? The best way to describe it is a an I-pod for books. The newest version will let you download books from a 3G network (if your in range of course) the books cost about $10 or less even for just realeased best sellers, it will hold up to 1,500 books, thinner than a pencil, contains a dictionary too and is just the ticket for a reader like me who now lives in a town with possibly the most underfunded library that only orders one copy of a book regardless to it's popularity. I'm likely number 247 on the list for the new Dan Brown book. I may get my chance at it this time next year. Can you talk to Hubby for me?

Igor seems to have bounced back from his crud. All the test results came back normal so it was just some strong viral bug. He is still battling a little cough mostly at night but nothing terrible. Somehow I think the rest of us have missed this round of sickness.

The kids weren't the only one's at the doctor this week. I figured I better get myself in the door as I had no more refills left on my migraine prescription. He went through my medical history etc and noted some things to watch, none of it new news to me. I'm a walking genetic time bomb frankly. Sad to say that even though I take reasonable care of myself ( don't drink much, don't smoke, try to eat decent) though I lack the excercise part, hitting 70 will be pushing it. Luckily there are a few good genes on my father's side so hopefully they trickled down but it's iffy since out of the four siblings on the paternal side 2 died from cancer, and another has recently battled it and hasn't been clear for too terribly long. My mother's side is even worse. Sad odds to contend with.

So far the house sale is going smoothly, the agent expects them to inspect and hopefully appraise next week as that be our biggest hurdles. The buyers have an FHA loan and sometimes those can be a little picky on things. We plan on going to get our junk next week barring any issues.

With the house weight off our shoulders Hubby has the house bug. Drove me out to look at lot he found, and is wandering around looking at rural properties. He's dreaming larger than our budget allows and putting the cart before the horse somewhat. It's very tempting with prices so depressed, there's a 5 bedroom house on an acre lot with a tennis court here in town going for 140K?? Not that I want a tennis court or even that big ole house it's certainly a buyers market.

Well I'm rambling about nothing and everything and not making much sense. Sonny Boy has a soccer game in the am (only a couple more to go, Yay) and then we'll likely watch the Arkansas Razorbacks be stomped on by Florida, but we still bleed hog red -even converted that Yankee husband of mine into a Razorback fan- so we will watch and cringe, but hey, a girl has got to dream! Turn up your sound and put the player on track one - and learn to call the hogs if you are some weirdo who doesn't already know how!

Sold! to the highest bidder.

Yesterday we received not one but two offers on our house. One offer was fairly insulting but the other one was pretty reasonable. My real estate agent figured since we had two offers come in at the same time we would be safe to counter offer the good offer for a little more and we counter offered the pitiful offer up to full price. The pitiful offer came back, higher but still pitiful but the good offer came back approved. We are now under contract - officially tomorrow as we have to fax paperwork around tomorrow but it's simply a formality. WOOO HOOO what a relief off of our shoulders. Making payments for a house we are not living in and don't even want and watching our little nest egg shrink a tad each month as we pay for two abodes was stressful. We will loose money on the deal, no doubt, likely even have to pay some cash but we have avoided a short sale which would ding our credit hard. Now we are stuck in this crappy rent house for a year. After this episode we are very reluctant to purchase another house as many houses in this area are lingering on the market as well. We'll see.

We still have quite a bit of stuff left at the house in WI, some wouldn't fit in the truck, some we don't have room for and some we left on purpose to stage the house. I'm not paticularly looking forward to pracitcally moving again and with our wet basement woes storage is a tricky issue. We will likely have to rent storage unit. It does seem I keep looking for stuff that is in that house. I want my green striped curtains and the kitchen curtains for here. I'd like my little shepherds hook garden thingy to put a birdfeeder on in the back yard. The thing I miss most is the outside sending unit to my indoor/outdoor themometer.

Igor has been battling a nasty bug the last few days, fever, cough and the like. We suspected flu and I took him into the doc today who did a flu test - negative, a strep test - negative but they were concerned with the fact his lymph nodes were very enlarged in his neck so we trotted across the street and had blood drawn to test for both mono and a blood count. We'll get the results tomorrow. I really doubt they find anything and it will just be some unknown viral bug. His fever has seemed better today however but I'll keep him home from school again tomorrow. Luckily the rest of us seem to be avoiding the nastiness so far.

Ups and downs.

First for the up part. When Hubby and I first married I started work at a horse farm in exchange for dressage (English riding for those not familiar) lessons. It wasn't my main job of course, I had one that actually wrote me a paycheck but this was the job I lived for. I spent many happy hours in the barn shoveling poo, lugging hay bales, and filling water buckets and once or twice a week the owner would have me saddle up Max -who was in his mid 20's, quiet elderly for a horse - and teach me to ride. I loved it and spent tons of time at the farm and worked there even after Max went lame and there was no longer a horse for a beginner to ride. Soon life took over, we moved from the outskirts of the city and were quite a ways from the farm, my mother became ill and had to be taken care of for several months and the owner of the farm sold the place and moved to the Houston area. I haven't been on a horse since. Well looking around and in boredom one night I googled and found a very nice dressage facility nearby and decided to e-mail them with the proposition to work for lessons. I didn't hear from them for a couple of weeks and figured that they were not interested, however today I got an e-mail from them and they are! I'm so excited and can't wait to start work and riding. My husband says I'm a little girl that never grew out of her horse phase and I guess he's right. There's just something about a soft muzzle and the nature of a horse that calms me from the craziest stresses. My only worry is that my old body won't hold up to the stresses of riding anymore. My left knee has gotten cranky, not from any known injury but just seems to hurt occasionally for no apparent reason and I fear riding will aggravate it. I also know the first few weeks of lessons will near kill me in relation to soreness. I know that my very first lesson years ago the next day even my hair hurt. That passes as the muscles grow and learn however it's tough.

The downs - Sonny Boy had decided he wanted to be an astronaut for Halloween. Oye! Anyway I managed to scrap him up a helmet on e-bay that was reasonably priced (because of course you have to have a helmet) and sprung for the expensive astronaut costume. Everything was ordered and should have been hitting the front porch any day now until I checked my e-mail this evening and the helmet I had ordered would not be shipped due to some snafu. The e-bay seller did refund my money but there were no more inexpensive helmets to buy and now I had the expensive costume on the way! Well I sprung for the expensive helmet which cost as much as the costume because Halloween is only a couple of weeks away now. So now Sonny Boy will get to wear the costume for Halloween - he better not do any damage to it - it will go in a box and next fall I'll auction it off on E-bay in hopes of getting at least close to the miserable amount of money I paid for the thing back. The things we do for our kids.

The downs - there has been gobs of rain in the area for the last couple of days. Today it has rained non-stop. Guess what has happened to my basement. Yep leaks and several boxes have gotten wet. I don't think anythin is ruined but there is a mess down there. Hubby I went and piled things on top tables, the ironing board and some shelves that were built in down there to get things up off the floor. I hate this house.

More boring tidbits from our lives...

Since no one will give me a topic I'll bore you to death with daily life. I know your reading or at least looking at the blog - I see the map!

Yesterday I took Igor into the city to pick up his shoe inserts. I hit the trifecta of city nightmare. Heavy traffic coupled with road construction in front of the hospital campus and a parking gargage full of circling idiots made me thirty minutes late for the appointment. I wandered into the building I was told to enter knowing I would be linking into another building somehow, when I got to the first building the lobby was packed with people lined up to get free flu shots. Anyhow I asked and received directions to the suite I needed and walked the back recesses of the hospital complex to get there, the appearance of the place went downhill quick, carpet ended, no windows, etc very instutional and I saw signs that said things like "Lung Transplant Education" and printed signs giving directions to classes that were being followed by groups of young adults in lab coats (there's a med school there as well). We ended up in the bowels of the medical campus in what must the crappiest suite of offices there to get the insoles for Igor's shoes. Ten minutes later we walked out. All that for a 10 minute appointment!

Since we were there and they were free we lined up for the flu shot. Having a young child with me actually helped as there was a separate line for people with kids and we didn't have to wait, while the adult only line was miserably long. Wish I could have had Sonny Boy with as well and the whole family would be covered under the seasonal flu shot since Hubby's work gave him one the other day. The county health department is supposed to give H1N1 vaccine at school in a few weeks when it becomes available to them, I haven't decided if I will let the kids get it or not. My common sense tells me to vaccinate them, however I've heard a lot of rumours about the vaccine I'm not sure of. I have to think on it some more.

The betta fish has now started eating so he may last a little while. Still pretty dumb and we don't turn the light on in the little tank as tries to attack himself in the reflection.

Please call / write your Rep in the house and ask them to support The Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009, HR 213 right now the bill is in the House Ways and Means Comittee. This is the 10K tax credit that adoptive parents are enjoying right now, however it's set to expire and this bill will make it permanent. This is especially important if your rep is on the Ways and Means Comittee right now. The link will give you this info. I know we would not not been able to afford Igor's adoption without the tax credit.

The kids have been paticularly rowdy the last few days so I've taken some Super Nanny steps and written out rules and posted them on fridge and have been quoting them chapter and verse and punishing left and right. We'll see how that goes - there have been a lot of removal of TV, video and computer and a lot of sitting in the corner or on the bed this afternoon already. Time to NIP IT IN THE BUD as Barney Fife would say.

Fun stuff Eh?

You ask the question...

You come up with a topic, I'm suffering from writer's block and feel I'm the most boring blogger on the web. Ask a question, suggest a topic, tick me off and see what I write about.

Sonny Boy purchased an El Cheapo telescope with some birthday money. Hubby's binoculars work better, he was disappointed but I think he made an impression on the neighbor kids as being cool.

Just some random thoughts on the above picture. Yes those are our house number laying on the porch. I hope there is not a fire, however we simply need to tell the 911 dispatcher "second house from the gas station". I would like to give a good talking to to the ding dong who spray painted something round on the front sidewalk without at least putting down a sheet of newspaper, I have similar spots on the sidewalk in back. Most of the town does not have curbs and storm water drains so everyone has a ditch in their front yard with a culvert to drive over. Our sidewalk has odd cement slabs to cover the ditch, the middle one has fallen in - watch your step.

Today was a little better...

I actually woke up today WITHOUT a headache, I think it's the first time in weeks. Gives you a little better outlook on the day when your eyes open and your first thought is not "Who hit me with the 2x4?"

Sonny Boy had a night game -soccer- tonight. They won again so far they have a 4-0-1 record. I would be impressed if it looked like they were doing anything except mobbing the ball. I didn't go to the game tonight as Igor HAS to hit the bed by 7:00 or he's impossible, heck he's impossible at 5:00 when he's not had a nap. I really don't like the afternoon pre-school schedule, it makes having a life in the evening impossible.

Sonny Boy's teacher is very impressed with his reading abilities and couldn't believe he knew the word "about". I am too as we've never pressed the reading thing with him. I figured he'd learn in school in due time. However the stinker has taught himself to read very well for a kid only a few weeks into kindergarten and can now read most anything in front of him, of course his comprehension is lacking but he can spit out most of the words.

Today we had two verbal offers come in on the house. Both were so laughably low it would make your head spin. We now have the house priced so low that to sell it for less we will either be out cash or be working a short sale. Hopefully with the price so shockingly low something we can accept will come in the door soon. Traffic is picking up though.

Things are looking up somewhat with our redneck neighbors. The little yapping dog that barked and howled all night most nights managed to dig it's self out of the kennel and run away. I saw the dog out in the yard and thought "I hope you run off" but didn't actually do anything as honestly I like dogs, just not one's that yap all night. Anyway we were chatting with said dog's owner and he mentioned that the dog dug it's self out of the kennel and ran away. I just stayed quiet. It's been much quieter since. Now if only the group across the street with the herd of children would move away progress would start being made. Sonny Boy loves to go over there and play but I would rather he not as they are a bratty bunch of kids.

The end of an era has come. Sonny Boy now wants to have scary costumes for Halloween. I knew the time would come but I was hoping for a couple of more years without blood and gore, but I suppose that's what Halloween is. I'm hoping to take Sonny Boy out to see the Toy Story double feature this weekend and maybe hunt him down a costume if we can get out and about this weekend.

Well it's stupid late and I should get in bed - the alarm clock will go off way too soon.

If your my age

You should try watching the Cosby Show from a parent's perspective. Takes on a whole new view once you have kids of your own. Kind of like when you got old enough to get all the jokes on Bugs Bunny.

This week I've been useless. It started with a sinus infection that I battled and started antibiotics for - I didn't go to the doctor but started some that I had stashed and never used from the Ukraine trip. That coupled with my TMJ flaring up which has triggered some migraines and just a general malaise triggered by the rest has made me pretty much useless. I've done the bare minimum to keep us functioning.

I think I finally got all the medical forms for school handled this week. Good grief it's stupid here, I understand shot records but does it really effect my child's ability to learn if he hasn't been to the dentist? Also had to have a note from the MD that states he is not at risk for diabetes. What? my 6 year old who never gets thicker but keeps getting taller? Who literally RUNS everywhere he goes.

My other question today is; Igor is getting quite a bit taller, however no thicker in the waist. He really needs to move on to 2T or maybe even 3T pants, but only for the length. Waist wise he's still sporting his 12-18 month shorts just fine. All I can think of is to hunt/buy the bigger pants and start doing some alterations. Sonny Boy is close to the same situation but at least when you get into "big boys" clothes you can buy the pants with the elastic waistband on the inside that can be drawn up and that significantly helps the issue though he has excess fabric around his waist. I hesitate to put a belt on the kid as he always waits to the last minute to go the bathroom and I don't want to slow him down any when he gets there. I really need to dig through the old clothes and get Sonny Boys hand-me-downs sorted out for Igor, Igor's outgrown clothes pulled out of the drawers and to the salvation army but of course that's been low on my to do list.

I'm about to fall asleep, I just need to whine a little.

What a busy week! Whew...

Igor's First Day of Preschool

This week started with a flurry of activity. Monday morning Igor had an appointment with orthopedics at Children's Hospital in St. Louis so we dropped Sonny Boy at school and followed the rude directions given my the lady on the GPS machine and made it to the appointment with just enough time to go the bathroom and fill out all the forms. The nurse practitioner he saw agreed that he does roll his feet inward too much so some X-rays were taken and examined and it was decided he needs custom shoe inserts to support his arch since it collapses when he puts weight on his feet though he has an arch when sitting so he stuck his feet in foam and I nearly passed out later in the day when they called me with the cost of the insoles! $300 + and he'll need them till his foot is fairly well formed at age 6 or 7 so of course they'll have to be replaced as his foot grows. Thankfully it's not a big deal (except to the pocket book) and catching it early probably saved him many problems down the road. Monday was also Igor's first day of pre-school. He was a little nervous the first couple of days being left there but after that has become an old pro giving me a hug and kiss and running into his classroom without a backward glance. The first three days he was a little surly but started getting into the swing of things by the end of the week. I've honestly been a little at a loss with such a quiet house in the afternoon.

This our new family member. He doesn't have a name yet, though Igor has called him Dorothy. Do you know how incredibly hard it is to get a picture of a fish swimming around in a little 1 gallon tank? Also this is not the brightest creature in the animal kingdom either, every time we turn the tank light on he sees his reflection on the sides and thinks there is another fish there and starts attacking his reflection and fluffing up all his gills and fins. I don't think he'll live too long honestly as he's not eaten anything since coming home a week ago, we watch and the food simply sinks to the bottom of the tank.

Sonny Boy had another soccer game this week. His opponents were a little better and it was a tie game. Sonny boy played goalie a good chunk of the game, we think because last game he had some good stops but he wasn't too happy with his new position. The picture above shows his teammate's frustration after a goal was scored on him. I think it's kinda funny.

This weekend there was also a big airshow at a nearby Air Force Base. So in order to fuel Sonny Boy's airplane passion we attended. Above is Sonny Boy and Igor posing in front of a C-5, the largest cargo airplane in the military

Along with static displays at airshows are also LOUD fighter jets - notice Igor covering his ears? Yeah we didn't plan too far ahead and bring ear muffs or plugs for the kids but there were really only about 5 planes that were really loud and running their afterburners. The feature of the show was Canada's Snowbirds - something like the USAF's Thunderbirds. They were fun to watch and put up a good show. Strangely they were much quieter than the F-16 and F-4 single plane demos and there was nine of them in the air at one time. The airshow was fun however leaving it was a nightmare. We were parked a good 1/2 mile from the flightline and walked to the van loaded up, backed out of our spot and sat there for an hour without moving. In the meantime Hubby got out and took both boys across the street for the bathroom. Looked up today and there was an estimated 60K people at the show, I think we were behind all of them leaving.

Today has been quiet. We had planned on attending a little festival they had in town this weekend for a big today, however it rained all morning and we've been couch potatoes to the extreme today. I don't even think the kids had the energy to do much as it was rather quiet today.

If you can't say anything....

nice don't say anything at all. I'm all for the good argument. But as I said in my last post I am not discussing the matter anymore and if you leave comments concerning the issue I will simply delete them.

Due to the nastiness I have also required a signature on posts. Sorry for those of you without accounts, but if your going to be nasty have the guts to at least write your online identity.