6 months and no postings.

Well there went my idea of posting at least every week.  It has been six months since I last posted.  A lot and nothing has been going on.  Still looking for another job.  Can't believe it is so hard for a nurse to find a position.  Of course it would be easier if I had my RN.  Guess I really need to get working on that.

Been  having issues with my 12 year old boy.  Part of it I know is being a boy and an almost teenager kicking in.  He got in trouble at school and had a weeks worth of in school suspension.  I am really hoping that he has learned his lesson.  I don't think he liked the new Mom.  Oh well.

Mom and I have been getting ready for Christmas here.  Has taken us 3 days to decorate the inside of the house, and 3+ days outside.  The outside decorations have been taking longer since we keep "tweaking" the decorations.  There is a contest in my little town that we have entered and are doing our best to win or come in 2nd place.  This has caused me many sleepless nights because I now want to go nuts with the outside decorations.  I have been researching Christmas Light Shows, and dreaming of what I can do with it.  Especially now that I have some help with the putting up and taking down aspect of it.  I have decided on the 32 channel Light-O-Rama system.  Now just have to come up with the money for it.  I am hoping sometime after Christmas to be able to afford it.  It will take me all year to program it, since I don't know what I am doing.  I have been also dreaming up "homemade" decorations for the system.  There are some great websites that walk you through doing it yourself.  Every morning I wake up thinking that I can do it.  There is only 2 problems.  One is that I don't have the money to buy everything I need and two the stores are not stocking very many lights anymore.  It makes it difficult to pick up all the extra lights I will need in the after Christmas sale when they are almost sold out now.  Oh well.  We will see.  Of course I will have to get over my fear of heights to decorate the roof and the roof line for it.  Hubby just rolls his eyes every time I ask him to put lights up on the house.  Why did I get the only man who doesn't like to decorate for Christmas.

That is enough for now.  Have a sick little girl that needs some Mommie time.

Been catching up on the Harry Potter movies on ABC Family.  I forgot how much I really enjoyed them.  I was tempted to check out the first couple of books from the library.  I have the last 4 in my collection but not the first 3.  Was also tempted to make a trip to the book store but had to remind myself that bills come first.  So while at the library I found the 3 books in the Golden Compass series.  I enjoyed that movie and don't understand why they didn't continue with the other 2 in the series.  No accounting for taste, I guess.  I have been on a reading binge lately.  I think it is my escape from the kids.  I am really counting down the days until they go back to school.  The oldest has gotten so lazy this summer.  I don't know what to do with him.  He has hit 12years old with a vengeance and is defiant with every breath of his body.  He knows that he is supposed to be practicing his music but it has been like pulling teeth, and I just don't have the energy to fight him anymore.  I am also tired of being poor.  Have been sending out resumes trying to find another job.

I am trying to find a job with at least some steady hours.  I was contemplating getting a job at the bookstore but am afraid that I would spend all of my money there and not for the bills.  I really love my current job, but I can't swing the uncertain hours anymore.  I don't like living paycheck to paycheck, who does?  But it would be nice to be able to budget from week to week on what I am making.  Lately, since September, I never know what my hours will be.  Will it be 4hours this week or 40?  It is too much uncertainty.  I have sent out a couple of resumes and am hoping to hear something this week.  Until then, I keep looking and keep the resume handy.

     I've been having a bad week this week.  I am going to chalk it up to hormones of the monthly variety. Sorry all you guys out there but sometimes it has to be said.  Work has been scares this week too and it doesn't help when I am looking over the bills and what is in the bank trying to make the two get along.  I have decided to look for another job.  This job has been my dream job, it is what I have always wanted to do, unfortunately, there is little work for me at this time.  I have 2 prospects in the medical field I am going to pursue and if they don't work out, there is a bookstore with 2 locations near me that is hiring.

     Hubby says, why get a retail job that may only pay you $8 an hour.  I told him a steady 8bucks an hour is better than $19/hr and I never work.  Besides, Mom and I have been talking about opening our own used bookstore.  In the town where I live, there are no bookshops.  Well, there are 2, one is Wally World with a crappy small selection and the other is on the top floor of a coffee/healthfood/yoga/etc store.  There are a few really good shop possibilities here in town.  I have been doing a lot of research on it and making some decisions about names, layouts and getting a lot of information from people that have been there/done that.  It is not something that is going to happen in the next 6months or year, but I figure if I do my research and take notes, when we are ready we will be really ready.

     I will be going over my resume and making changes once again and send them out to these 2 prospects.  Having my fingers crossed something good comes of these.  I know what I don't want to do and that is going back to the nursing home to work.  It is too depressing for me, there are too many people that don't care about what they are doing and who they are doing it for.  It just upsets me to work there.  I know there are many people working there that do care but they burn out so quickly and leave or just give up and join the masses.  If one of these prospects turn out good then I may be able to keep my "night" job as well, we will see.

Another few days without posting anything.  Guess I am not doing as well with this blogging as I thought I would.  My mother has started writing her book.  I am so proud of her!  She is really moving along this past week and has a couple hundred pages done already.  The only downside, and it is a selfish one, is that she is locked up in her room all day.  She wakes up, lets the dogs out, feeds them, grabs her breakfast and then off to her room to start writing. I don't see her again until dinner.  Oh sometimes she pokes her head out, but not often.  It almost feels as if I have another child in the house, as if the 2 real children and my husband, who acts like a child most times, and 2 dogs have sucked her into their vortex.  I know she feels bad but she is so inspired right now, that I just feel petty even thinking it.  I got so used to her and I working together, its as if she just disappeared.  I know.  I am not being fair.  Like I said it is very selfish, and I apologize.  She has had me reading the pages she has typed each night and it is really good.  I look forward to her handing me the new pages and keep harassing her to give me more.  I was just used to having another adult to talk to.  My husband doesn't talk, doesn't do conversations, so most of the time I only have the kids to talk to.  It is not stimulating conversation with a 12 year old and a 6 year old.
Anyways, off my "poor me" horse and back in reality saddle.  Gotta get ready for the kids to come home from church.  Is it bad of me to enjoy these couple of hours when they are gone?  If so, I don't care.  I enjoy it, I really do.

Haven't posted in a few days.  They have been hectic around here.  It was my little girls birthday on Wednesday and I worked days on Tues and Thursday as well as my oncall work Monday thru Thursday night.  The birthday went well.  She wanted to go to the movies like her older brother did for his birthday.  She decided on Toy Story 3.  It was awesome!  I cried for the last 15 minutes of the movie like a baby.  Don't know why it hit me so hard but it did.  She also wanted the dreaded Zhu Zhu pets, and she got them as well as quite a bit of their accessories too.  I have been hearing those things "talk" for the past few days, too bad they don't have an off switch.  She also got her own set of dominoes, she is a terror playing them.  She creams us all almost every game.  Mom made her a sparkle set of flip flops too, she loves them.  She sure cleaned up this birthday.  Of course now she keeps talking about what else she wants for her birthday.  I keep trying to tell her that her birthday is another year away but she can't quite grasp that concept, so we have been telling her to make her list for Santa since Christmas is the next time she will be getting presents.  At least with the Zhu Zhu pets I have something to tell the family to get her.

My son the con-artist.  Don't get me wrong, I love the guy but he is and always has been a little con-artist.  It started when he was a baby.  Most babies by 4 months are holding or trying to hold their own bottles, not my son.  He wouldn't even try.  And before you think that I just took over too quickly, know this, everyone who ever watched my son said the same thing.  He would rather cry, scream, whimper, and put than pick up his own bottle.  Yes I waited, 10, 15 30 and even up to an hour and he wouldn't even try!  This has translated, as he gets older to other things.
For example, let's take today.  He decides that he will ride with my mother when we pick up my care from the repair shop.  My mother has to make a couple of stops before she comes home.  One of those stops is at Wally World.  My son tells my Mother that I forgot to pick up a 24 pack of Coke for him yesterday when I was at the store.  He asks her to pick it up and I will pay her back when they get home.  Thank Goodness my Mom knows him well.  There is no way I would pick him up a large pack of Coke and he knows it.  Both kids get one 2liter of Coke Zero or Sprite, about once every month and that is it.  Why?  Because that is all they will drink and will drink it up in an hour if they are not watched.  He knows this and knows why they can't have it.
I know this doesn't seem like much of an example of a con-artist, but trust me, this is just one small example of a long list of things he has done.  I hope that my continued vigilance on his behavior will teach him good lessons for later in life.  Right now I just have my hands full making sure that he doesn't get away with it.

Mom and I have finished my front garden.  YEAH!!!!  It has been over a month since we started to first dig it out and now it looks wonderful.  The first time since we moved in, I am proud of how the garden looks.  It took a lot of hard work, digging and heavy lifting but the wall is built and the river rock is in.  I still have to finish the lattice work around the steps and the outside of the porch, but the heavy work is done.  We are going to go shopping this weekend to the nursery's to find plants for the container garden that will fill the garden.  We had nicknamed the front garden "The Pit".  Since we had to dig out so much of the old dirt, rocks and concrete that was layered in to that mess.  I am still hoping that my Japanese Maple tree survives, I did see some new growth on the main trunk, so I will keep my fingers crossed.
I am disappointed that my son did not help very much, but then he has never been one to get his hands dirty.  I hope he does well in school so he doesn't end up qualified only for a blue collar job and has to get his hands dirty.  I am not sure how well he would do.  Now my daughter is just like her Momma and Nona.  She jumped right in, even if she was in the way most of the time.  But she was willing to help out without the pre-teen attitude.
Well, I am off to bed now.  Took a short nap this afternoon, but am still really feeling run down.  I am hoping that this is just a side effect of the heat and humidity we have been working in.  If it doesn't get better soon, I will have to make a doctor's appointment to see if there is anything going on with me.

I have recently re-discovered the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.  You know what?  It is even funnier after you have a son.  I used to enjoy reading it just for fun, but now having my own boy I can understand where Bill Watterson got his material.  It helps to explain a lot of his behavior when he was that age.  I would have loved to see what trouble Calvin would have gotten in to when he grew up.  Thank you Bill for the chuckles and insight.

I can't believe that it has been since September since I last posted.  I was going to try and at least post something once a month.  What is that saying about good intentions??

If you have been following my facebook postings, you know that there have been many changes in my life in the past few month.  First of all my work for hospice has slowed down considerably.  I have mostly just been working at night doing our after hours calls.  So that makes money a little tight, like turning blue in the face.  Second, this spring my Mom and her 2 dogs moved in.  What is really amazing about that fact, is that my husband is letting the dogs live inside and has been cool with it the entire time they have been here.  My husband has always said we couldn't get a dog and definitely not an indoor dog.  He had a bad experience with a dog living in his home before we met.  I may even be able to talk him into getting our own dog soon.  Of course, it would help if I was working more.  Oh well!

Since Mom has moved in, a lot has changed.  It has been a great help having her around.  She motivates me to get stuff done around the house that I have been meaning to get too but just keep putting off.  One of these things are taking care of my front garden.  We have Bermuda Grass that has invaded my entire yard, especially my front garden.  Now over the years I have tried to keep up with it, tried planting different plants and bulbs in it, weeding it, killing it.  Nothing has helped.  Last year, I was going to dig it all up.  I went out one day and started it, and proceeded to get heat exhaustion.  Then I hurt my back, so that plan went down the drain.  Now that Mom is here, she is like an animal with my garden.  In two weeks we have dug it all up down4-8inches.  We have repeatedly killed off anything growing in there, and I mean repeatedly killed.  That dame Bermuda Grass won't die, no matter what we put on it.  We have started building a small retaining wall and will fill it all in with river rock.  She has decided the only way to get anything to grow in it, without the bermuda grass, is to grow it in pots.

So that is where we are right now.  We are sore, hurting hot and sweaty.  But we are making progress.  Slow but steady progress.  Now if we could only get the weather to cooperate we could get done faster.  Here in the south, we don't really get a spring.  It goes from cold to blistering hot with high humidity.  On a positive note, I am finally getting a tan!!  Yipee!