I’m a grumpy ass

Oh boy look out anyone in retail today, what a jackass I am.  I’ve been in a grumpy mood since dh lovingly talked down to me about where he left a receipt (not in the place he told me and tried to logic his way through why it was in the wrong envelope).  It just set me to the grumpy level I’m at.

We get a call saying our new blinds are in and to pick them up within a week or they’ll be sent back.  Not knowing if I’d have the time again I packed up the 4 short beings in the truck and headed off to the store knowing my mood wasn’t peak.

The poor girl at the counter I’m sure thought I was absolutely insane.  I stepped up with said receipt from above (you know, the one that wasn’t in the envelope he told me it was in) and asked for my blinds.  When she came back with a smallish package I panicked.  I told her there was supposed to be 5 blinds and told her I didn’t care if her computer said there was supposed to be 3, we ordered 5.

Well frick if we didn’t already take home the first 2 before.  I have no real excuse for my stupidity or forgetting that we already had those other 2, it was just a plain old dumb moment.  I apologized 4 times to the poor being helping me as I screetched across the store for my kids to return to me.  We had to flee the scene quickly before I stammered out yet another apology.

Thank God I don’t have to go out again, I only wished I had remembered that I was supposed to stick around for the 11:30 mark for a freecycle pickup.

Rumor or not

No, I’m not talking about Bruce Willis’ daughter.  Hell, I don’t even know if rumor is spelled right in the title.  Hello spell check.

I have an extra body in my house this week.  An extra kid staying with us provides us with more entertainment, larger grocery bill and plenty of older girls for my 2y/o to play with.  This morning just before said Kid’s (future reference, this will be her name throughout) arrival, I heard some disturbing news that her mom is supposedly considering adopting.

Yes I know, for most people the idea of a person adopting is lovely, and self-sacrificing, blah, blah, blah, but I can guarantee if it is true, and word gets out, I won’t be the only one concerned.

This particular mom’s stepfather is a convicted pedophile.  Convicted before our registry so his f’ing name doesn’t have to be on there (ours wasn’t retroactive, nice huh).  He was convicted because Kid’s older sister told on him for taking pictures of her.  A very, very brave move on older sister’s part as well as mom’s because mom was the one to call the police after the story was told (immediately following the assault from what I understand).

Now.  In normal households, once a pedophile is discovered, distancing occurs from family members.  A wife will leave a husband, children will no longer talk to parents/step-parents, etc, and with complete understanding from me.  Kid’s household isn’t normal then.  Grandma is still married to said convicted pedophile, still living in a neighbourhood 4 blocks from many schools and Mom still visits Grams.  What?!  Yes, I completely mean the mom that initially called the police and had charges pressed.  In that continued action, that mom says the act didn’t occur, or wasn’t important or devastating, or horrid enough to stay away from sicko paedophilia family.

I truly hope the rumor isn’t true.  And what am I to do about it if it is true?  Really, she is endangering her own children and because of our sick system, said bastard pedophile is probably not even on probation anymore (we protect dogs better than children in Canada).  So should this woman really be able to add children to her brood who have possibly already been down a road she seems so willing to take?

I really hope it’s just talk.  I don’t like her enough to ask her about it.  I feel like I should do something, or at least make a suggestion to someone (CPS) if she does go this route.

I’m troubled

I sometimes go through a tag surfer thing here on WordPress and often I rather enjoy reading blogs that aren’t on my roll.  I’ve got it narrowed down to mostly adoption tags and that’s fine.  I’ll laugh at some, cry and some, but never have I been so horribly shocked by any to entice a blog out of myself.

You’ve probably heard of that Presbyterian church in the States that has offered to have any babies raised by them.   A thoughtful gesture, a loving response to the sadness of abort!on*.  I haven’t any idea what the local response is there because I don’t pay enough attention, but I thought the idea itself was great.

I was reading this guy’s blog, a bit mouthy for my tastes, but I enjoyed nonetheless until he came to the conclusion that he would rather see children abort#d than raised in the hands of a bunch of Christians.

I was heartbroken.  I know that doesn’t seem like an appropriate response.  Anger, resentment, disgust seem more applicable, but no, for me I feel heartbroken.  Not because of his whole nonchalant stance on abort!on, but because of his hatred toward me as a Christian, not because I’m a bad person, but solely because I’m Christian.  Call me naïve, but I truly did not realize that such hatred was out there from the Atheist group.  I know for certain that this person does not speak for the entire group, so it’s not really fair to say that, but it sure made me wonder if that is a common thought.  I thought it was just the extremest Musl!m* group that hated us, or the Jewish that thought we were nuts, but just an average guy who believes no God exists to just hate me and feel that a child should be murdered to keep my religious beliefs from influencing said child is so incredibly sad to me.  What a scary existence really.  Commit murder rather than allow a Christian to influence another child.

I just cannot fathom that kind of hatred I guess, and for no real reason.  Oh sure, past history tells us that Christians (actually Catholics) were crooks, but does that mean I automatically fall into that category?  I would never place an atheist into a category based solely on their beliefs (or non-beliefs, however you want to look at it).  In fact I have a few atheist friends.  I can’t even tag this with words because I have no words for it.  I suppose I can equate it with the ridiculous beliefs of the K.K.K.*, their pure hatred based on something so stupid.

I’ll never forget this, I really won’t.  I can’t even say it hasn’t scarred me a bit, made me a little reluctant on a lot of fronts really.  I have the same views as that pastor that spoke those words.  I want to save all those babies from death.

*Yet another word altered, I don’t want searched out onto my blog, it leaves the debate to someone else.

Colour me crazy

As a fat girl, it is highly recommended by many, many fashionistas that I wear black, and a lot of it to cover up my unsightliness.  Top or bottom, black is best, but if I refuse black, dark blues, and browns will work too.

I say fuck that, and I say it loudly (although in my mind the f-bomb sounds so funny coming out of my mouth irl).  I hate black.  I loathe that fashionistas look at fat people as the bane of their fashion lives and want to treat us as a scourge and be rid of us from their view by throwing a horribly depressing colour on top of us.  Yes, we shouldn’t be fat, but people shouldn’t smoke, be rude or wear speedos but they do anyway.

A lot of women fall into a trap with dressing exactly they way they are ’supposed to’.  A friend of my mom’s will not wear any kind of red or pink because she’s a red head and the rules say she can’t.  She would look awesome in either, but it doesn’t matter, because the rules say no.  What a boring way to live!

I don’t even pretend to know what is in fashion, nor do I fret about what I wear everyday.  I’ve been known to go out with a red shirt, light yellow pants, a brown vest and purple crocs (yes, those fugly shoes that are über comfortable).  It’s not even about seeing how much colour I can put on my body, it’s about grabbing the first thing in my closet I see that is comfortable.  I’ve even been known to shop for shorts in the pajama department because all they had in the regular department was dark colours.

With all that being said, I find myself being more and more drawn to timid colours.  Not drawn as in loving, admiring, longing to be in less colour, but shamefully, forcefully being lured to those darkened colours.  It could be my current mood, but it’s also because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find anything in my size with bright colour.  It’s like they are winning, those fashionistas not only want to make me only wear no colour, but have the power enough to only make larger sizes in bland, dark and depressing colours.  Fuchsia?  Not to be seen.  Lime green? Not on your life.  Azure?  Never.

So instead, I start replacing old tattered, bland towels with the funkiest colours I can find.  Purple, bright pink, orange and lime green so far.

I have come to the difficult conclusion that the only way I’m going to be able to wear clothing in my beloved bright colours is by losing a bunch of weight.  That shouldn’t be right, I should be able to wear colours all the time, but alas, I am quite alone in this regard.

Unimportant dates to me

What day of the week is it again?  And that would be in what month?

Since we’ve been homeschooling, I’ve been finding myself caring less and less what time of day it is, what day it is, what month it is, etc.  Truly, time has never been a big issue for me, I’ve never dwelt on whether or not I was wasting it or if I’ve lost it or if it marches on my face.  I just don’t care.  In fact, a lot of times I embrace time passing rather than resisting the aging process so as to not miss the experience of it.

With this frame of mind comes some complications.  If I were a guy, my girl would be pissed at me non-stop because I don’t necessarily forget important dates, I just ignore them, I miss them and rare is it I even acknowledge them.  The only ones I truly try not to miss is my kids’ birthdays and that’s because I know it would hurt their feelings if I skipped it.

In our second year of marriage, I gave up the notion that I was to remember everyone’s birthdays, anniversaries, etc, because I cared very little about making sure dh’s family was well carded up by us, that’s his problem.  Mine also don’t care enough to even notice if I’ve sent a card out.

My anniversary is coming up.  I don’t forget about it, it’s a memorable day, but it’s not important to me.  Whoa, whoa, let me explain before you start thinking my dh isn’t important to me.  In my mind, that date that we chose for our wedding was a matter of convenience for us.  We were starting school 2 days after and needed the full 4 months of engagement to book everything needed for the party (church, quonset, dj, food, etc).  So it was logical that we chose that date, plus the church was still free that weekend.  So that was the date.

I don’t look at a date in time to celebrate because of what I remember from the past.  I look at a date as just a date in time, a passage of more moments, a means of counting up so when people ask me how long I’ve been married, I can tell them.  My marriage isn’t sound because of the amount of time that has passed or because I instinctively poo-poo my dh on that particular date.

I used to think I was abnormal about this, especially being a woman.  Aren’t women supposed to fawn over the idea of a special day coming up, fret over planning a spectacular event to commemorate it and get all pissy if it goes by forgotten?  But more and more I’ve been finding that people are just like me, they don’t even bother with cards on that day, just like we do.  Hell, my birthday isn’t important either and I often forget how old I am (33 – I calculated just now).

I have given dh gifts or cards (or both) on our anniversary, depending on my mood and if I know he’s been wanting something.  I think I got him his fancy camera one year and he bought me a ring on our first.   I’m sure nothing will be done this year because he doesn’t have anything in mind.

We have however, done dinner on that date.  It may be because once that date comes around we kind of think back and realize we haven’t been on a date sans kids in an entire year so it’s a good reminder to go.

I’m okay with being the odd man out, I really am.  I enjoy not being tied to a certain date every year.   I’m doubly glad that dh is the exact same as I or I’d be in big trouble, no?

Forcing myself

I’m in a strange place it seems.  I have to absolutely force myself to blog lately.  I know I’ve been in a funk, in fact it’s one that has snuck up on me without my knowledge, but I haven’t had such little inspiration or motivation to blog in years.  I haven’t quite figured out what it is as of yet, but I’ll keep trudging on through it.

Our windows are finally done.  All installed, all insulated and sealed.  Of course the work doesn’t end now that their in, quite a bit of work is left to do.  Especially when you have an instant-gratification husband like I do.  Guys will feel for him as I’m sure they would do the same thing.  Here’s the gist of the excess work he has created for himself.  You know that fun spray in insulation.  It somewhat resembles silly string but highly expandable.  You can get all types of this insulation so that you don’t destroy your windows, as too much expansion can press in the sides of your window enough to shatter the glass.  Not fun really, and highly expensive, after all, that type of stupidity is obviously not covered by warranty.  No, dh didn’t smash the windows, but he got a little crazy with the spray foam.  On the sides of each can it states to spray from either 50% full to 75% full, depending on the type.  Beside the windows you’ll do the lesser expanding so as not to damage the windows, so fill to 75 %.  Nope, that’s not what dh does, not at all, directions or instructions don’t know what they are saying.  He filled each crevice to the brim.  Lucky for his sorry ass he only ruined one screen (when the expanding foam spilled out of said crevice and dripped down the screen) and mucked up one window crank (which is now scratched all to shit as he used a knife to get the stuff off).  The outside filler he used more.  The reason he used it at all on the outside is because of the old decrepit siding that was underneath our siding left gaping holes beside the window (I attempted the artistic abilities of Curly Nat and failed miserably, but it shows you what I mean).

You see what I mean?  We’re adding insulation to the house so instead of ripping down old siding for a flat surface we bumped out the windows, which made holes for dh to fill.  If you looked at our house right now, you’d see these beautiful new windows that look like they are holding back the explosion from the marshmallow man inside by the balls of insulation spewing out the sides of them.

But my windows are in.  Yes, he’ll have to spend a bit of time cutting away all the excess insulation, but my windows are in.  Next is to put up the extra 2″ insulation, the siding and then finish up the interior work (moldings and such for the windows).  My painting will be done in between all that as it isn’t that much.

Dh said something the other day and he’s probably right.  We’ll get all this work done on the house, spend a fortune on it all and then as soon as we have this place up to snuff, we’ll sell it because we’ve found a nice chunk of land we can afford!LOL!

Who said it was going to be easy

I’m not even talking about our new windows, although those were much easier to put in than I thought they’d be.   No, I’m talking about parenting of course.  I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone say it was easy with the exception of people who didn’t have kids.  We’ve heard the wise words from friends that there is no parenting manual and kids don’t come with a satisfaction guarantee … no wait, that was me that said that last one.

I have a kid that strains me, pushes me beyond my ability.  And don’t go on thinking that stupid refrain in your mind, you know the one: “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”  Yeah right, tell that to the poor person in an insane asylum, or the dad in jail who has shaken his baby, or how about me that just puts on her earphones while her 2 year old screams his bloody head off in bed.

Yep, that’s where I’ve gotten to today.  We put all the windows in, but could not have done it by ourselves as we have that giant picture window that is much to heavy for dh and I.  So in his brilliancy, he asked his parents to come up to help.  They really are a caring couple of people, very giving to drive 2+ hours to help us install our windows.  They also ended up having a funeral yesterday here, ironically, so they had another excuse for coming up.

The only issue that arises is my parenting is undermined at every moment.  I’ve asked mil not to feed my kids her diet shit pop, and instead she sneaks it into a sippy cup for my two year old. Oh, did I mention he’s still upstairs screaming?  I let a few things go, I have to or I’ll go mental trying to parent her as well as my kids and explaining to her simple mind why I don’t allow my kids to behave like complete assholes.  What I don’t get is that she was a serious hardass parent, but she can’t figure out why I am?

Sweet Pea is in a mood, I could tell it immediately when he awoke this morning.  He was refusing breakfast.  It’s what happens when we have people here.  I call it performing, but what it is is his inability to process all the action in the house and not willing to miss a moment of it wasting time doing that mundane stuff such as eating his breakfast.  His favourite meal in the entire world, dad’s porridge, was pretty much non-existent while his grandparents fawned and poo-pooed over the little bugger, who at one point started throwing little bits of food.  I don’t effing think so jackass.

It grates on my nerves to no end how he was behaving so he spent time in his room on his own.  He had no idea what he wanted, or didn’t want, until I asked him if he wanted to go to bed.  At that point he actually giggled and pointed toward his room.  Of course I acquiesced immediately and there is now a screaming match going on because he wants to be out of bed only sleeping an hour, which means out of bed and only in my arms or he’ll scream – which I’d never put up with.

So here I sit.  I did go upstairs to make sure he had his soother and blanket and wasn’t stinky, but all was good so he can squawk all he wants, I’ll groove to some Gaga & Perry, and will hope be able to unprogram the little bugger the rest of the week.

Snot runneth over

Snot, goo, boogers, sneezes, snorts, honks (that’s the sound when I blow my nose).  The day after the family reunion is when Sweet Pea started in with the runny nose and I knew then that it was only a matter of time and we’d all have it.  He’s a kissy and huggy kid and you can’t stop him, and shit he’s quick.

Dh was next to get it, then the girls, and finally me.  I’m not to horribly bad, but the kid never stops passing on the goobers.  How can one little body produce so much slime is beyond me.

In all this snot, we’ve been installing windows every chance we’ve had.  The weather this year hasn’t been much like summer because we’ve had rain every week.  It’s very hard to install windows when the weather won’t cooperate.   We have 8 in so far… 8?  Yeah 8.  Dh and I can handle the normal sized ones (you know, about 4½ feet across, a couple feet tall or vice versa), but the big ones are a bit of a challenge and we’ve had to wrangle a few people to help us out.  Our big picture window (10 ft across, 5 ft high) and my bedroom window are too big for only dh and I to attend to.

I’d take pictures, but I haven’t had a moment to do so, and my house is super ugly right now with the old cedar siding.  I’ll possiblY do the big window.  I’m really happy with them even if I haven’t been able to truly enjoy them yet because of the weather.

Once all the windows are in then it’s on to the extra foam insulation, putting the siding back up.  It never ends does it.