Wash, Rinse, Repeat

My life in three words.  I seem to only bitch about the same damn things over and over again.  I can pinpoint no memories in my mind of when things have changed enough that I have begun to bitch about something new.  It just hasn’t happened.  I feel like my life is a constant re-run and I haven’t the power or guts to change the channel.

Everyday nothing new occurs.  Sure, occasionally an outside event will inspire me, a new thing will happen, or something miraculous occurs, but at the end of the day I am still the one to clean up the shit, wash and put the kids to bed and then get nagged at because I spent money somewhere.

When I go through this blog alone and filter out the many posts that are tagged ‘Duckass’, it’s only a mere twenty-two that come up.  I guess that’s not bad, but if I go back and read them all, the common thread is surprising to me.

He said something today that completely threw me off, and in front of my parents no less.  I can only imagine what they are thinking.  My parents stopped by and we ended up just mentioning that dh was finally doing the forms for the patio that he ripped up two years ago (he tore out the grass and laid out gravel so it is unusable for anything but a patio now).  He spouted off that if it were up to him he’d wait two or three more years, to which my mother asked why.  He said to just piss me off.  Nice.  So of course, me being the smart ass he is I say, ‘oh hun if that was to happen I’d just hire someone to do it’, to which my mom said, ‘and that would piss you off’.

He looks at me with a straight face and says, ‘well then I’ll just cut up the credit cards and close all the bank accounts and where would you be?”.  My face just dropped.  It was malicious, and really pointed out that I’d be somewhat screwed for a moment if he ever went that route.

I am just floored.  I haven’t said more than two words to him since, and it’s not because I’m completely pissed and want to act like a child, but I am seriously floored and slightly wounded from it.  How do you get up from that one?  How do you respond when it’s a true statement, he could close all that shit because it’s all in his name.  I can’t get a credit card because I have no income.  I actually have shitty credit because of it, even though I’ve never been late on any payments in my life and have had a few loans, credit cards and am on a mortgage, but that’s not how the credit industry works in Canada.  If you’ve had no activity in three years, your credit is shit, which is exactly where I am.

What to do?

Just a stats moment on the tags I have on here:

Beyond Love – 3 posts

Happiness – 1 post

Dh-ness (which is often me praising him or just not bashing him) – 16

Sad, a sad realization.

Families, ughh

I love my family, I really, really, do.  And I doubt that mine is the only one that does this, but I just found out my dad’s ‘cold’ is a lot worse than I was ever told.

I’ve been finding out more and more snippets of my dad’s week.  He has a pretty serious heart condition, it’s a type of atrial fibrillation that they discovered a few years ago.  Although Wikipedia says it’s not a serious condition, they don’t obviously have someone living and suffering with it.  So this ‘cold’ has put him in the hospital twice, and I just thought it was another heart thing that has happened before, but the cold had aggravated it.  I was wrong.  It seems he’s even on diuretics and has lost 20 lbs in a week.  Yes, twenty pounds in a single week.  He’s lost so much water weight, as well as fat from being so sick with this cold (he couldn’t eat much but soup).

Why is it we families don’t reach out to help one another or reach out to let loved ones know what the hell is happening in our lives?  Why is it a week of hell for my dad and I am finding out only when he’s thankfully on the mend?

This topic came up in my mind because I also found out my cousin is a bit worse off than before with her cancer.  I mentioned her before in my previous cancer rant about how it has been affecting more and more people as of late.  Well, she has finally had an official diagnosis, but hell if I can remember the exact title.  But it is a type of Leukemia that they love to see as it is completely treatable.  However, here’s the kicker.  This leukemia is the secondary cancer, there is still a main cancer in her body that they cannot find.  Her oncologist here is a fantastic doctor, but is absolutely baffled by her predicament.  Lucky for her, he is a partner to a very good doctor researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona and he forwarded on all of her information, and then some and if they cannot get something done, they told her she should come to the clinic itself.  Of course she laughed as no one can truly afford to go Stateside to get the proper care … *ahem* to get more than what you can get here.  Then he said, oh no, you won’t have to pay for it as you’d be research because of the nature of her cancer, which means the Alberta government would pay a portion and then the Mayo Clinic research part would cover the rest.  Again, lovely story, but I didn’t find out until yesterday, quite a while after she knew the problem.

I get the idea of privacy when you’re sick as I wouldn’t want anyone around if I’m puking my guts out, but give me something to do, anytime.  I guess I just don’t understand the idea of never contacting the family for anything.  I just don’t get it.

I guess communication is not the best part of my family, we love hard, but don’t talk much really.  Is this a normal family thing?  Can it ever be changed?

A good portion of this post is we had a blast at a neighbourhood party for a neighbourhood I am no where near.  Yeah, I crashed my parents’ block party and it was fun as usual.  It’s a yearly event that usually has a theme of some sort.  Many years have been more along the lines of a certain culture, but this one was on the Calgary Stampede.  Which was perfect for me because if I were to ever attend the Stampede it be in comfy shorts and a tee.  Perfect!  We then slept over and I got bacon and eggs for breaky, what a better way to spend the weekend.  Unfortunately Sweet Pea is still a little Mr. Crankypants and made it so I didn’t sleep much last night.

I’m tired and hungry.

It is finished

Have I had that title before?  I don’t remember, yes, yes I have, geez, I gotta come up with new titles, but it doesn’t matter.  I feel so relieved, but now my hard work starts.

I decided to make this day kinda fun for the girls.  It was the last day, and they were slightly sad because they are going to miss their friends.  And get this, on both of the girls’ report cards, the lovely vice principal of the school wrote a note saying how she was going to miss them and she hopes they’d come visit. How sweet!  Anyway, in order to make the last day fun in previous years, the school had asked the firetrucks to come by and hose the little buggers … err… I mean, hose the kidlets down.  The sheer noise was unbelievable.  In fact I have a video of it somewhere, I’ll have to look it up and post it here, it’s overwhelming the noise that 400-600 or so kids can make.

Found it.  It’s 18 seconds of noise that my poor camera could barely handle.

So since our town’s water fiasco where they were flooded yet again and our water was undrinkable again, we’re on a water ban and the firemen won’t come.  My mom desperately wanted to see it and was sorely disappointed, so we made our own.  While they were at school, I got the water guns ready, filled them and as the bell rang, we were ready.  They walked around the corner of the trailer and we hosed them!  I wish my dad weren’t so sick or we could’ve gotten him to take pictures of it, it was so funny to see.

So they were wet and happy, they thought it was super fun that we did that.  Then I gave them a lunch they don’t usually get.  No, not that place, I didn’t take them out for lunch, I cooked them ichiban noodles.  Yeah, yeah, go me!LOL!  But they loved it.  Then, we made ice cream, jello, will make whipped cream and have chips for supper.  Let me tell ya, if they are going to remember school, I’m hoping it’s not the manipulation but their last day after coming home. *snort*

My fun starts too, I get to try and find some curriculum.  I got a call from a lady who is my facilitator for the summer.  In other words, she’s my summer contact for summertime.  We got talking and I decided that I’m going to do things this year in line with the school.  I know, I know, I’ve said before I’m going to try to unschool them, but I’m not confident enough to attempt that on my first go round, I need structure for a while and the homeschooling isn’t just me teaching them, they will teach me how they need to learn.  What is completely wild is there is about $500 more funding per child, per year if I align (their words) about 55-65% of their homeschooling.  That would entail me finding curriculum for LA and Math for sure, and maybe Art or Science.  I’d love to just fly by the seat of my pants and teach them as I always have, just with life, but I’m not comfortable with that just yet.  I’ll go with the aligned until I am more comfy and then switch over to however aligned I want it.

I’m off to enjoy my kids’ last day of school.

Cancer sneaks up on you

No, I don’t have it.  But I know of quite a few that have it now, and one is dying from it.  We got a call this morning that my bil’s mom is dying from it.  No details are needed but that she’s in pain and they are doing a trial in the States that they hope to get her in.  Otherwise it’ll be just a matter of time.

I’ve been wondering lately if cancer is going to be considered an epidemic of some sort soon.  We’ve always had in history, some sort of contagious episodic disease that tracks it’s way from one person to another, killing thousands, even millions.  These diseases are often violent, brutally quick in their torturous killing, and quarantines were the only means of resisting the spread.  But cancer is a silent one and it’s not contagious, so it wouldn’t be considered an epidemic.  It kills painfully, yet slowly, it’s not a matter of days, but months often (although I know there are exceptions), but the person can often walk around and still live before death, and only near the end is it debilitating.  Then again, obesity isn’t contagious either and people are predicting it’ll be the next big killer or epidemic of a large group of people, pun intended.

It just seems strange that I’ve advanced to an age where the word “cancer” seems to be more prevalent.  The sheer amount of people that have a cancer of some sort is a bit staggering really.  It is estimated that 166,000 new cases will be diagnosed and 73,000 will die in Canada in 2008 from cancer (Cancer Society Statistic).  That’s NEW cases, not what the total is, I can’t find a recent total.  In 2004, there were 853,400 people living with cancer (or dying with it I guess too – same statistic source).  That’s a staggering number from four years ago, yet it’s not an epidemic, go figure.

Only one in my immediate family is currently battling it really.  My grandfather has a bit of skin cancer that they keep burning off, but he’s in the nursing home and would be glad to have it take him, so I don’t consider him to be ‘fighting’ it.  No, my cousin has cancer that they can’t locate.  Yes, it seems you can have cancer and not know where it is.  Treatment can be trickier with that as you cannot use radiation to fix it for that treatment needs a specific target.  She’s in the midst of treatment for it (actually almost at the end, I should phone her and see if she has hair anymore).  A lady in our parish has multiple myeloma, which I’ve sadly discovered just now that it is incurable, our insurance agent has the same disease.  A good O/L friend has breast cancer, and has recently lost her hair due to treatment.  And now, my bil’s mom.  Each of these people, with the exception of our insurance agent, is under the age of 50.  My cousin is only 39 y/o.

Is it just another sad realization of our short existence on here or is something else happening?

11 more hours of the establishment

I am so over school, so over the manipulation from teachers, the crap they try to pull with young impressionable students who believe every word they say.

Punk’s teacher and I have been tense with each other since the first day when she rudely explained to me that she likes having all the supplies there on the first day as it makes it easier to have it sorted all in one day. It wasn’t the request itself, but her manner said to me, ‘i rule your child while you are gone, make my day lady’. I’ve had nothing but snide notes and manipulation of my child’s mind since.

The latest deal has been when I got yet another note saying that Punk had brought a book home and hadn’t brought it back yet. She mentioned the title and asked me to look for it. Instead, I asked my daughter if she had in fact brought it home and she said no. Part of the reason I’m not keen on this teacher is there is no trust or respect for the children whatsoever, she never even asked if she did bring it home, but assumed since it is in fact missing that she must’ve brought it home. I’ve assured her twice that it was not brought home and is not here. We have torn our house apart twice now (actually just excuses for me to make the kids clean up *snort) with no sign of this book, but I know it won’t be here as it wasn’t taken home. I admit I don’t check their backpacks daily as to what they are bringing home. But, everyday I stand at my island counter and wait for them to unload their bags and bring me what they have. At no time was any book but a library book brought home, and none of those in the last few weeks or so.

So guess what I get home today. Yep, another note. Except this time she states that they supposedly searched the classroom (yeah, okay) and it is nowhere to be found, so now we owe the school the $6 replacement. So Punk comes running up to me and says, ‘mom, Mrs. L says we have to pay the money or give a book to the school, so I’ll pay it out of my money’. I shook my head in disgust really, but asked her again if she indeed brought the book home. She said no, but that she also told Mrs. L that she didn’t bring it home and Mrs. L replied by laughing and saying that she did.

Nice.

Will I pay the $6? Hell-to-the-no. It’s not even the $6 really, it’s the fact that I’m feeling highly spiteful, and really loathe this teacher. The novel she is talking about is part of a ‘program’ I’ll call it where they read the book and then do a bunch of worksheets that ask questions, etc. I actually have it in front of me now as they are cleaning out desks at school and sending all the stuff that isn’t needed anymore home. Punk has brought home this workbook exactly one time, and it was the one time she needed my help with something, I remember helping her with the one page. At no time was a book present during this.

I’m just so bloody frustrated and am so thankful that only 11 hours are left. I can imagine how she feels too, but at this point I freakin well don’t care anymore, I’ve absolutely had it. What really sucks is she attends our church and is an active member of the CWL, of which I am joining in the fall.

I now get the pleasure of writing as nice, almost drippingly sweet, note back to tell her to shove it up her ass…err… I mean to let her know again that the novel was not brought home. Oops, and it’s not 11 hours, it’s 10, WOOHOO!

Oh Lord, my God in Heaven, halleluiah

He apologized. He apologized…I’m in a bit of shock actually. Not that he apologized, no, he’s done that before. But usually when he apologizes it’s immediately after, never has it simmered this long.

He peeked his head into the bathroom door as I was getting ready for the shower. Of course my immediate thought was that he was just peeking to peek, if you know what I mean. Men do this, a peek holds them over the entire day. His head was all I saw peeked in at me, but there was no smile, no wiggling of eye brows that tells me he’s about to say something crudely hilarious, something that would’ve broken the tension that has been there since Friday.

He looked at me, looked down at the floor and said, ‘I had a little verbal diarrhea on the weekend at K & C’s, and I’m sorry”. I’m sure the look on my face said everything. Do you know what I said? I said ‘thank you’.

What do you say when someone says I’m sorry when they’ve hurt you? Do you say the typical words, “it’s okay”? I figured out that we were a society that has been taught that as soon as someone says I’m sorry, you say ‘okay’ as if the thing never happened. To me it almost sounds as if when we say ‘okay’ that we are saying to the person that hurt us, it is okay what you did, I forgive you, you have my permission to do it again now. I’ve always hated saying “it’s okay” because it’s bloody-well not okay what occurred, in any instance, but thank-you for the apology, you are forgiven. Doesn’t that sound better? There is no way I want what dh said to me (it was awful, and in front of my closest sil) to be an okay thing, I want it forgiven of course, and he is, but that doesn’t mean the deed should be repeated ever again because I said “it’s okay”.

“I’m sorry”. It’s funny how two little words can mean the difference of the entire feeling of the household. I feel less tense, my headache is gone, I feel the need to do things around here rather than sit on the computer (*ahem* of course after I post this), and it’ll open things up a little better so we can talk about our ruined … err… future holidays with his parents.

Well, onto another topic. Sweet Pea is still being a bit dorky lately, just Mr. Crankywhinypants. But I would be a bit of course if I were getting two new teeth at once. I wonder if this is a trend with him. He got his first two a few weeks ago at the same time, and then whammo, the top two are breaking through at once. His mouth has to be a mess. He hasn’t even wanted to be eating bananas, his favourite! I have to push a few in for him to get this gist that this is good soft food, and then he’s fine to eat it. Crackers, his all time favourites, are a no-go anymore. He just takes one bites and then tosses it and cries. It’s a good thing he’s enormously cute huh.

His first helmet, notice his sweet floppy ears attempting to free themselves?

His sister gave him a mohawk. See his eyes? That’s as clear a picture I can get of them, and that is their exact colour, the camera picked up the darkness and odd colour of his eyes. That and his seriously messy face and wet shirt (most likely from his sisters trying to give him a drink of their water).

I think my day will be good today.

Repeat after me

One more week, one more week, one more week…

Yeah, one more week of the institutional life.  I shouldn’t say that because who knows what the future will bring for my kids, they may want to go back into school someday.  Yes, I’m talking about elementry school again.  My eldest, Bing, is home right now as our government has these awful tests called “Provincial Achievement Tests” where grades 3, 6, 9, & 12 get bombarded throughout the year by the teachers on how to pass this test with flying colours.  It doesn’t improve funding, it doesn’t dictate really anything but how a school is performing.  When I was a kid, the superintendant of the school board got off his ass and came into the classroom and that is how they found out how the class was doing.  I disagree whole heartedly about these tests and refused to let my dd be a part of it, so she gets to stay home this morning while the rest of the kids are forced to take them.  My kids won’t even have tests when they are homeschooled, why would I allow the institution they are leaving to give them one last item to scar them before they leave?  I’m not bitter at all. *snort*

We’re off camping today, finally.  On a normal year, we’d have been out quite a few times already this year, rain or shine, but because of the ordination and everything surrounding it, we had no opportunities to go.  The trailer has had some kinks worked out of it (the pump works and the music works, that’s the most I care about ), so I’m really excited to go.  I should be packing, but my fingers needed to do some talkin before I went, besides which, we’re pretty much ready to go, just mine and Sweet Pea’s clothes, plus his food stuff (formula).

Got a call from the health nurse about Sweet Pea.  At his six month check-up she was slightly worried about things he hadn’t done yet, like understand some words.  I wasn’t worried, but whatever.  So she phoned to see if he’s improved, and he has, and she’s sending me a nine month screening for him to make sure he’s getting to where he should be.  I got a little pissy with that really.  I’m not into making sure my kid is exactly the same as others.  Sure, if he wasn’t rolling at all by now, or refusing foods I could see being concerned, but worrying whether he’s freakin on a food and sleep schedule by now?  Uh, no.  How about we ask if I care if he’s on a food and sleep schedule?  Uh, no, not so much.  His nightly schedule is fixed, that’s what I care about, day time, hell no!  My older kids aren’t even on a set schedule for eating during the day, why would I try and do that to a baby?  Anyway, I’ll just ignore it like I usually do, and watch for signs of true problems.

Okay, I’m gone.

Random Again?

Yes, it’s going to be yet another random post where I blabber on about everything and anything, welcome aboard .

Sweet Pea is a different kid, that’s for darn sure. Sometimes when we add to our brood we are almost shocked that they are so different form our others. SP is no different. I wrote the other day about how whiny he was being. Unusually so and there was no signs of much else wrong but the whines. A brilliant mommy I know commented on that same post that her kids whined much the same when they were about to break through on a new milestone, like walking.

I kept watching the little bumpkin roll all over the place to get stuff, or reach and get pissy if he couldn’t grab it. I figured he was on the verge of crawling. Today I was tickling him relentlessly by eating at his tummy and he was full of giggles and I happen to glance up at his open mouth and saw a white line that just emerged in the last day or so. Yup, the poor little bugger just popped out his first two teeth in one whammo a few weeks ago and now he’s starting to pop a top one. It isn’t through the gums yet, so we’re in for a few more days of the whiner. I just hope it doesn’t recede back as that can happen too, which will irk me to no end of course.

I’m still writing my novel. I was slightly, just slightly, discouraged the other day when I read that publishers won’t even look at a manuscript if it isn’t submitted through an agent. Well, it wasn’t exactly true. I read two of the top known publishers in the States (both of them have sub-companies that publish too) and they both stated clearly that not only do they never accept any that way, none of the others do either. Wrong. wrong, and so wrong. Not that I’ve found a ton that accept unsolicited, agent-less manuscripts, but I did find a few, and they had popular titles/authors in their midst too. I hate when I find misinformation on the web and then run with it as if it’s the God’s honest truth, no exceptions. I hate when my brain shuts off and I stop thinking for myself at that moment when I most need to. Okay, I’m workin the words a little too much, but you get my drift. It was just a silly mistake and I’m thankful that I found it out instead of being so discouraged that I don’t continue to write. What it does make me want to do though is when I’m rich and famous, I will make sure to publicize the companies that refuse submissions from new authors . Just a little spite there huh *snort*.

So, I want to adopt again. Yeah, I’m sure you knew that, but wait till you read what dh told me. With the adoption of SP, dh was reluctant at first and then gung-ho after. He puts it as ‘dragger’ (me) and ‘drag-ee’ (him). He’s known since we started looking at adoption that I didn’t want to just stop at one more, I wanted eight kids total, but would be blissful with six. He just shrugs his shoulders and says yeah right.

So, we get SP and not really much changes as we can still use the five seater truck. We buy the new trailer, one with bunks that’ll fit us nicely for a while.

We’re driving one day (brain doesn’t recall which day) and I notice him checking out trailers again. I teased him and said we already have one, why look. He turns to me and with a dead serious face he says that he’s looking for pull-type ones just in case we decide to add a bunch more kids and we need a large van. I swear if it wasn’t sitting I would’ve fallen over. It was just so out of the blue for him. And for him to not have a truck? Oi. Then again, he didn’t say we wouldn’t have one, just that we’d have a van too. I swear, I’ll have my eight kids in no time!LOL!

Have you ever heard of homeschoolers rewarding good behaviour and work done well with merchandise? Yes, I switched topics again, deal. I was talking with a mom about homeschooling and she had all these suggestions (as most people I tell often do ) and one was to have a type of store in the house (where I sure as hell don’t know). In this store is goodies like stickers, pencils, erasers, etc, but all items increase in value right up to something like a plush toy. Each item is worth a certain amount in points and to gain points the student must do the best work and also have the best behaviour. I was just floored that she would suggest I have this. First of all, where the hell would I put this giant board that lists all the stuff ‘for sale’. Then, why the hell would I need to reward my children for learning, the reward is the knowledge gained. I can see where she comes from as she’s a TA in the school my children currently attend (and are free from in exactly eight days and thirty-two minutes). Most people feel that homeschooling is only removing the other kids, but keeping the institutionalized learning. Why the hell would I want to torment my kids more with learning how NOT to think for themselves but learning how to retain the data spoken to them, yet never being allowed to question it? I don’t think people get the concept and I’m truly not that much of an advocate that I’ll sit there and argue with them about the benefits of unschooling, so I just nod and say, oh that’s nice. Sure, I may have a few workbooks, especially in the beginning, but I feel like workbooks will only be used because both of the kids have asked to do so, not because I HAVE to teach them that way.

Better go work on the novel before my fingers get too tired ranting about homeschooling again .