This trip has been the thorn in my paw. We've been planning to go back to our honeymoon spot for almost six years now. The plan was to renew our vows and take a nice vacation where we could get away from the kids for a bit.
Well, arranging babysitting has been a bitch. We decided against having one person watch all three kids for several reasons: 1) The only person who would stay here at the house that amount of time is my mother and I don't want to hear about how hard her days were for weeks when I get back 2) The baby won't sleep anywhere but his own bed, so sending all of them to my Father in law's house was not going to happen and 3) I don't even like watching all three of my kids 24/7 for four days, how am I gonna dump them on someone else?
So my father in law and his wife are taking the older two (even though they offered to take all three of them, bless their hearts) and my mom is watching the baby here at my house.
[insert 6468746876874687687 possible problems into this scenario)
FIRSTLY, our original plan was to go from Friday-Monday so Jim would only have to take one day off (b/c of Memorial Day), but he was able to get the Thursday off as well. My father in law's wife had taken the day off on Friday specifically to watch our kids, so asking her to take ONE MORE day was going to be a bit of a stretch. I bring up the possibility to my mom that she may have to watch all three of the kids just for ONE DAY on that Thursday and she starts talking about calling one of her friend's daughter to come and help her that day.
Um....you want to invite someone I've never met to my house WHILE I'M OUT OF THE COUNTRY TO TAKE CARE OF MY CHILDREN???? ARE YOU CRAZY??? So I told her in a very pleasant, nice way that i was "uncomfortable" with that and I would call my Sister in law who should not have a job by that point. My sister in law was happy to help (she's offered to watch the kids for me before, i've just never taken her up on it)
Crisis averted.
Secondly, my mom decided she's flying to Texas to go to my cousin's wedding (that I cannot go to b/c we're spending all our money on mexico) and she has an office to clean every other weekend. Well, b/c she's gonna be out of town, she HAS to clean it the weekend we are gone. So yeah, I had to find someone to watch the baby for two hours on the Saturday so she can go clean the office. **big dramatic sigh**
Now it comes time to actually reserve, book and pay for the vacation.
Piece of cake right? LMFAO
The travel website I was trying to use wanted ridiculous prices for flights, and some of them had us doing over 10 hours of flying for what should be a 3 hour or so flight. Yeah, b/c my idea of a good use of vacation time is spending TWO of my FOUR days flying.
No thank you.
So I call the 888 number and see if the booking agent can do anything better for me and we get everything booked, squared away and i'm ready to purchase. They need full payment today. GREAT! I have more than enough to cover it in my account.
Our card was declined.
Turns out there is a daily limit on our card, and without getting it lifted it doesn't matter HOW MUCH money i have in my account, I'm not authorized to use it. We get my bank on the phone and they are unable to lift the daily limit and tell me I have to go into the branch. What should have been a 30 minute phone call ran over and i was late taking my kid to school.
I figured since I was already having to pack up the kids, I may as well shoot over to the bank and ask about the limit thing. I waited in the bank lobby for 15 minutes (AN ETERNITY to a small child, let alone TWO of them), finally go up to a teller and ask only to be told to sit BACK down and wait for a banker. Oh, you mean the bankers THAT IGNORED ME FOR 15 MINUTES??? Yeah, ok I'll just go back and SIT QUIETLY WITH MY THREE AND ONE YEAR OLD
GRRRR!
Someone FINALLY comes up and asks me if they can help. I tell him my issue and I'm informed that the only person that can help me is a branch manager and the ENTIRE DISTRICT of branch managers are in a meeting until after 3. So, I could not drive anywhere in a 20 mile radius and have a bank manager that could help me until after they got back from their buttplugging meeting.
Basically, in not so many words b/c of my children, i told them to fuck off.
Meanwhile I'm calling my husband who's out in the bay area for an appointment trying to let him know what kind of ridiculous hoops i have to jump through to book this damn vacation and he doesn't answer the phone.
Nice timing.
I finally get ahold of him and he suggests that I pull the money out of our account there and drive across town 25 minutes to our other bank and make a huge payment to our credit card and charge it on that.
At that point it officially became HIS problem.
So I'm crossing my fingers that by the time we actually pay for this damn thing the cost doesn't go up $500.
I need a vacation just from the stress I have from trying to book the vacation.
**sigh**
This is all topped by the fact that our original plan was to go back to the same hotel that we honeymooned at....we waited so long to do that, now the WHOLE place is booked solid.
SO wish me luck, I'm gonna need it :)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
This happened yesterday...
Robbie: (turns around in his chair while eating dinner) "Hey, do you remember that part in Lilo and Stitch where Stitch climbs over the guy who is shooting and gets his rocket ship to fall down?
Me: No. Do you remember the time you were so busy talking about a movie that you wouldn't sit forward and eat your dinner?
Robbie: No.
Me: Well I do. Do you know WHY I remember that so well?
Robbie: No
Mom: Because it JUST HAPPENED. SIDDOWN!
**Grandma laughs in the other room**
friggin kids.
Me: No. Do you remember the time you were so busy talking about a movie that you wouldn't sit forward and eat your dinner?
Robbie: No.
Me: Well I do. Do you know WHY I remember that so well?
Robbie: No
Mom: Because it JUST HAPPENED. SIDDOWN!
**Grandma laughs in the other room**
friggin kids.
wonderfully shitastic times here...
Ok so i went to bed late last night b/c my SIL came over to borrow an easel from me, and she wanted to scan some images of henna work for a potential bride customer...
My new computer no longer has the drivers for my old network printer/scanner/thingamabbber (Don't you DARE tell me "thingamabobber" is not a word stupid Firefox)
So that took me an hour to get everything done to email her the images.
The baby woke up a bunch b/c JOY OF JOYS, he's got molars coming in.
So going to bed late + shitty sleep = VERY tired Irma this morning
*ring ring*
*half asleep Irma looks at clock*
*blinks b/c clock says 6:50 AM!*
Irma: (in her head) WHO THE FUCK CALLS AT THIS UNGODLY HOUR OF THE MORNING??
um it was my MOM!
See, she's been staying here while Jim is out of town and using his truck to go to work. She leaves very early in the morning and leaves the truck parked outside so the garage door doesn't wake up the baby. Well apparently this morning she went out the side door and locked it behind her, keys in hand. Um they were the WRONG KEYS...and she was locked out of the house and could not get the right ones
So she had to wake me up at 10 to 7 this morning for me to come downstairs and unlock the door so her stupid ass could grab the right keys.
I shoulda taken a clue from there on how the day was going to go.
The baby woke up pissy. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't play, so I figured he must be tired/teething and put him to bed.
Yeah right.
Bring him BACK downstairs to play a bit and he gets fussy again...
So I put him back down.
He farts around and finally goes to sleep an HOUR before we have to leave to take Robbie to school.
Beauty.
I get everybody ready to go, find Robbie's book b/c it's library day, get the other two books (2nd Grade level that he READS BY HIMSELF BTW) and his backpack is ready to go on the couch. I wait until the LAST possible second to get baby J so he can sleep as much as possible, get the kids in the car and back out.
**CRUNCH**
Oh thank you Mister Garbage man who left my NEIGHBOR'S CAN RIGHT where i back my car out!!
FINALLY get Robbie to school and unload the kids.
"Um Robbie, where's your backpack"
(everyone reading this blog knows DAMN WELL where his backpack was)
Yeah.
So he lines up with his substitute teacher and i run BACK to the car to go home and get Robbie's backpack.
What should have been a FIVE MIN venture turned into 15.
A friggin Sears truck wanted to pull right in front of me and OF COURSE it was going to my street.
NOT ONLY was it going to my street, but they were LOST and sat at the FRIGGIN STOP SIGN trying to figure out which way to go. (b/c i SO had time for this bullshit)
I honk my horn and he finally moves, i jump out of the car, get the backpack and jump RIGHT back in only to pull out and have my next door neighbor blocking the entire street CONVERSING with people crossing the crosswalk.
WTF??
SO i drive around her and get past the big intersection only to come up on the next street to a SPEEDING SPORTS CAR that was trying to turn right in front of me and blow the stop they had.
Jason's being Mr. Cranky head this whole time and I could not WAIT to get back home to put him down.
Drop Robbie's pack off, come home, get in the house...
"I wanna movie"
"I wanna snack mom"
"I wanna juice"
gahhhhh!!!
so I pour some kix in a bowl, pop in a blues clues and head upstairs with Jason.
He's quiet now, She's still watching Blue and Joe, and I need another cup of coffee. It's gonna be a long day.
My new computer no longer has the drivers for my old network printer/scanner/thingamabbber (Don't you DARE tell me "thingamabobber" is not a word stupid Firefox)
So that took me an hour to get everything done to email her the images.
The baby woke up a bunch b/c JOY OF JOYS, he's got molars coming in.
So going to bed late + shitty sleep = VERY tired Irma this morning
*ring ring*
*half asleep Irma looks at clock*
*blinks b/c clock says 6:50 AM!*
Irma: (in her head) WHO THE FUCK CALLS AT THIS UNGODLY HOUR OF THE MORNING??
um it was my MOM!
See, she's been staying here while Jim is out of town and using his truck to go to work. She leaves very early in the morning and leaves the truck parked outside so the garage door doesn't wake up the baby. Well apparently this morning she went out the side door and locked it behind her, keys in hand. Um they were the WRONG KEYS...and she was locked out of the house and could not get the right ones
So she had to wake me up at 10 to 7 this morning for me to come downstairs and unlock the door so her stupid ass could grab the right keys.
I shoulda taken a clue from there on how the day was going to go.
The baby woke up pissy. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't play, so I figured he must be tired/teething and put him to bed.
Yeah right.
Bring him BACK downstairs to play a bit and he gets fussy again...
So I put him back down.
He farts around and finally goes to sleep an HOUR before we have to leave to take Robbie to school.
Beauty.
I get everybody ready to go, find Robbie's book b/c it's library day, get the other two books (2nd Grade level that he READS BY HIMSELF BTW) and his backpack is ready to go on the couch. I wait until the LAST possible second to get baby J so he can sleep as much as possible, get the kids in the car and back out.
**CRUNCH**
Oh thank you Mister Garbage man who left my NEIGHBOR'S CAN RIGHT where i back my car out!!
FINALLY get Robbie to school and unload the kids.
"Um Robbie, where's your backpack"
(everyone reading this blog knows DAMN WELL where his backpack was)
Yeah.
So he lines up with his substitute teacher and i run BACK to the car to go home and get Robbie's backpack.
What should have been a FIVE MIN venture turned into 15.
A friggin Sears truck wanted to pull right in front of me and OF COURSE it was going to my street.
NOT ONLY was it going to my street, but they were LOST and sat at the FRIGGIN STOP SIGN trying to figure out which way to go. (b/c i SO had time for this bullshit)
I honk my horn and he finally moves, i jump out of the car, get the backpack and jump RIGHT back in only to pull out and have my next door neighbor blocking the entire street CONVERSING with people crossing the crosswalk.
WTF??
SO i drive around her and get past the big intersection only to come up on the next street to a SPEEDING SPORTS CAR that was trying to turn right in front of me and blow the stop they had.
Jason's being Mr. Cranky head this whole time and I could not WAIT to get back home to put him down.
Drop Robbie's pack off, come home, get in the house...
"I wanna movie"
"I wanna snack mom"
"I wanna juice"
gahhhhh!!!
so I pour some kix in a bowl, pop in a blues clues and head upstairs with Jason.
He's quiet now, She's still watching Blue and Joe, and I need another cup of coffee. It's gonna be a long day.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Untitled short story: Take 1
A million thoughts were swimming in Chrissy's head. "I wonder if I did the right thing?" "I'm just trying to do the best I can for my kids" "Poor baby"
The sounds of her one year old screaming and herself shushing him, letting him know everything would be ok was drowning out the sound of the traffic she'd hit. "It's only 3 o'clock, why the hell is there so much traffic? And of course, today of all days, when I've got a crying baby in the backseat there has to be something keeping me from getting home as quickly as possible"
She continued the conversation with herself in her own head, making note of some of the odd characters she had the chance to glance at in the other cars due to the slow goings. "That's an interesting shade for a lipstick...."
Candy was on her way home from work. She hated her job, but only b/c she had the glowing expectation of how much she would enjoy it and was so horribly, horribly wrong. She hated her boss, the people she worked with, even the customers...but she could not quit. She REFUSED to call in AGAIN because of not having enough money for gas. This time she'd find a way to get there, dammit. She was already late coming home to relieve her Mom of childcare duties. "Mom says she doesn't mind, after all, it's her grandkid, but the last thing I need is someone ELSE holding things over my head." Although she insisted it was no trouble, Candy's mom ALWAYS found a way to bring it up when she was trying to guilt something out of her. Today, she really didn't want to hear it. She had the day from hell and was not about to let her mother top it off with a nice guilt sundae. Her friggin' boss made her late AGAIN and THIS TIME wanted to embarrass her on the way out. Putting on that stupid shade of lipstick before she left "so the customers will know you have personal experience with the products" is the worst mistake she could have made. WHO THE HELL MAKES A LIPSTICK THAT STAINS YOUR LIPS??? And although she was not entirely sure, the tingling sensation she was feeling was suspiciously like the allergic reaction she had to MSG. God that Chinese food was horrible.
The traffic started to let up a bit...good thing, Chrissy was beginning to suspect there was in accident. Three o'clock traffic is NEVER this bad. She started to wonder if some kind of event was going on. She lived in the Capitol of her state, sometimes a stupid governor thing was going on and they blocked street and redirected traffic...She cursed living so close to downtown. The baby has slowed down to a quiet whimper and she should see her exit peeking around the corner, taunting her with it's bright green sign and white arrow. "If I can JUST get off the freeway and get this car going for a bit, maybe my little man will fall asleep and I can get two minutes of peace and quiet." Her day had been so traumatic up this point, a screaming baby behind her would drive her over the brink.
She pulled off the freeway and around to the light. Just as the baby threatened to go into a full cry, she gunned the gas and got the roar of the engine to lull the little one back to a light slumber. "Thank God" she breathed out quietly. She ascended the bridge that stretched over the port near her home, filled with guilt and worries about her little one. She knew intellectually that he would not remember this when he was older, but that lent her no reassurance. Feeling guilt was a right of passage in motherhood, and today was no exception.
Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and decided not to take the call from her selfish, single, has no concept of what it means to have kids BFF. She was sure it was some idiotic reason for the call: She was bored, or tired, or wanted to talk about the cute shoes she found on her day off from work. As she looked at the phone and sped toward her home she glanced up at the cop car. "SHIT! I hope he didn't see me with my phone." She took her foot off the accelerator and threw her phone across the car just before passing the cop.
Officer Lipinski was SO tired. Not the kind of tired that comes from not sleeping well, but the aching kind of tired that came with having a bad marriage. He DID NOT want to go home, but that was nothing new. Work was the only place he truly felt appreciated. His boss used him as an example all the time with the newbies, and he enjoyed teaching others about the passion in his life. When thoughts of his nagging wife's complaints began to fill his head, he tried to remember the praises of his boss, but today it was no use. All he could hear was "You work too much." "I am better than this marriage." "I need space" "I don't know who I am anymore" "Loose some weight, I don't know how you still have a job with the force being in that kind of shape" He knew the relationship was beyond saving, but he just couldn't bring himself to accepting the advances of his coworker. If he risked being involved with someone else, it could tarnish his reputation. Man, was she beautiful though. And funny. And smart. She made him feel like he could do anything, be anything, accomplish anything. It was soooooo tempting, but he was blessed/cursed with being an honest man. There is no way, as shrewd as she was, he could cheat on his wife. Every fiber of his being said to do it, but his morality would not allow it. He cursed his ethics as he watched a minivan speed pass him. "I should probably pull her over", he thought but as quickly as the thought came into his head it left as he visualized finally telling his fat ugly wife to go jump off a cliff.
Chrissy breathed a sigh of relief as she passed the police car and watched in her rear view mirror for his light to appear behind her. He seemed to be preoccupied with something. Good news on this bad day for her. "I better watch my speed now, since the baby's sleeping." She kept it at the speed limit and stayed to the right so as to avoid the honking irritations of faster drivers. "I know I did the right thing" she thought, but holding her baby down like that was torture....for mother AND son. She reassured herself that once the test results came back, she's know for sure what was going on, but making her hold his little arm down to get that blood draw was really cruel of them. Never mind the 15 minutes they spend calling to find out how much to draw in the first place. She saw in her mind's eye the FIVE empty vials they had lined up for him and heard herself telling them there was no way a one year old would fill that many. "Those idiots have no idea how hard it is to keep a mobile baby that gets into everything CALM for 15 minutes in a lab full of needles and strangers, and THEN expect him not to shriek and squeal when being HELD DOWN by TWO PEOPLE to get a blood draw." Her BFF popped into her head again. "I can't WAIT for her to have kids and FINALLY understand what I go through" she thought to herself. She slowly rounded the corner that led to her housing development when she caught sight of a well dress young man in a beat up Volvo. She cried a little inside knowing she was finally old enough to refer to someone like that as "a kid".
Braden had just graduated from High School last summer. He SWORE he would not be one of those freeloading kids that stayed with their parents, but his grades were not good enough to go straight to State college. "Too much farting around" he thought to himself. "Well, not anymore. This job is gonna be IT". He found his best tie (a graduation gift from his Uncle Tim) pulled out the white dress shirt he had just had dry cleaned and pressed, ironed his black slacks and headed off in his Volvo. "Cheap-ass parents" he mumbled as he slid onto the cracked leather seats, crossing his fingers it would not snag his pants. All his buddies were driving nice cars, Ben got a friggin beamer for God's sake. He was sporting a beat up, overused and under-cleaned Volvo. It seemed no matter how much he scrubbed or shined it, that car never looked right. It needed new paint, new seats, hell, new EVERYTHING. But unless he got himself a job he would never see anything for this piece of crap car. He waited at the red arrow to go over the port bridge and realized how ridiculous he must look. Nice, clean cut, well dressed kid in this hunk of garbage. "I better get this job" he muttered quietly.
She was finally on the home stretch. Her thoughts wandered from the lab incident to the vomiting baby she was holding just weeks before. Such an easy-going little man she had, and to see him limp and throwing up like that was frightening. She almost went to the ER but he stopped after a half and hour. The advice nurse had told her not to come in unless he continued and refused to eat or drink anything. It appeared that whatever had caused this was confined to the contents of his stomach, and once that was expelled all was well. She listened to the monitor that was turned all the way up, responding to the slightest hiccup, cough or stirring. His well baby check up was in a few weeks. If he vomited before then, she'd call for an appointment, but seeing as this was possibly a reaction to something he'd eaten she'd just wait and bring it up then. Those weeks seemed like an eternity, but getting those tests done was key. If he had a reaction to anything, hopefully it would show up. She had to swerve a little to go around a pedestrian who was walking against the flow of traffic on the side of the road. There were no sidewalks here, since the housing developments didn't start for some five miles down the road. Sometimes she felt like she lived in the middle of nowhere, but once you see the new houses on the horizon the nagging feeling you have that you're lost suddenly goes away.
Serenity was PISSED. Like, seeing red from the blood vessels popping behind her eyes pissed. Obscenities filled her head. "F*ck them. F*ck them all" She was tall, slender, beautiful. It looked as though someone had plucked her directly from a magazine. She was WAY better than this place. Way better than her parents. Way better than the haters at school. Not only did she have the looks but the talent. Her voice was that of an angel. She had NEVER been booed off a stage, never known what kind of rejection might lay ahead. Every role in every show she had ever tried out for was easily hers. Competitors would specifically ask her what role she was auditioning for, so as to ask for a different one. They knew going up against her would end in humiliation and disappointment. She felt like there was one reason, and one reason alone that she had been given these looks and talent; to be famous. She had the ambition, the drive, the talent and the looks....now all she needed was money. She had no idea how she would get it, but she knew others had made it with less than she had. She would find a way. Walking on this road seemed endless, but somehow the length of it soothed her. It gave her a chance to create a game plan in her head. Somehow she'd get to LA. Somehow she'd make it. Everything she had ever done in her 17 years on this planet had led up to this moment. It was the beginning of something amazing. Something bigger than herself. Something epic. She would get famous and show them all. Give the finger to EVERYONE that had ever spit on her. "F*ck them all" she muttered again.
"FINALLY" she screamed in her head as she pulled onto he street. The baby began to stir behind her, almost with some form of sixth sense that he was home. She was relieved to be able to put him in his own crib, with her bosom as comfort. Her original plan was to have him weaned by now, but seeing how sick he had gotten she couldn't bear to take away the one source of food she knew was safe. Until she got those results back solid food was severely restricted.
He quietly nursed and as she lay him down he had a look of peaceful content on his face. She marveled at the innocence she was staring at. If she had not just experienced the last hour and looked upon this beautiful face she'd be none the wiser. Ah, to be blessed with the short memory of a baby. If only......if only.
The sounds of her one year old screaming and herself shushing him, letting him know everything would be ok was drowning out the sound of the traffic she'd hit. "It's only 3 o'clock, why the hell is there so much traffic? And of course, today of all days, when I've got a crying baby in the backseat there has to be something keeping me from getting home as quickly as possible"
She continued the conversation with herself in her own head, making note of some of the odd characters she had the chance to glance at in the other cars due to the slow goings. "That's an interesting shade for a lipstick...."
Candy was on her way home from work. She hated her job, but only b/c she had the glowing expectation of how much she would enjoy it and was so horribly, horribly wrong. She hated her boss, the people she worked with, even the customers...but she could not quit. She REFUSED to call in AGAIN because of not having enough money for gas. This time she'd find a way to get there, dammit. She was already late coming home to relieve her Mom of childcare duties. "Mom says she doesn't mind, after all, it's her grandkid, but the last thing I need is someone ELSE holding things over my head." Although she insisted it was no trouble, Candy's mom ALWAYS found a way to bring it up when she was trying to guilt something out of her. Today, she really didn't want to hear it. She had the day from hell and was not about to let her mother top it off with a nice guilt sundae. Her friggin' boss made her late AGAIN and THIS TIME wanted to embarrass her on the way out. Putting on that stupid shade of lipstick before she left "so the customers will know you have personal experience with the products" is the worst mistake she could have made. WHO THE HELL MAKES A LIPSTICK THAT STAINS YOUR LIPS??? And although she was not entirely sure, the tingling sensation she was feeling was suspiciously like the allergic reaction she had to MSG. God that Chinese food was horrible.
The traffic started to let up a bit...good thing, Chrissy was beginning to suspect there was in accident. Three o'clock traffic is NEVER this bad. She started to wonder if some kind of event was going on. She lived in the Capitol of her state, sometimes a stupid governor thing was going on and they blocked street and redirected traffic...She cursed living so close to downtown. The baby has slowed down to a quiet whimper and she should see her exit peeking around the corner, taunting her with it's bright green sign and white arrow. "If I can JUST get off the freeway and get this car going for a bit, maybe my little man will fall asleep and I can get two minutes of peace and quiet." Her day had been so traumatic up this point, a screaming baby behind her would drive her over the brink.
She pulled off the freeway and around to the light. Just as the baby threatened to go into a full cry, she gunned the gas and got the roar of the engine to lull the little one back to a light slumber. "Thank God" she breathed out quietly. She ascended the bridge that stretched over the port near her home, filled with guilt and worries about her little one. She knew intellectually that he would not remember this when he was older, but that lent her no reassurance. Feeling guilt was a right of passage in motherhood, and today was no exception.
Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and decided not to take the call from her selfish, single, has no concept of what it means to have kids BFF. She was sure it was some idiotic reason for the call: She was bored, or tired, or wanted to talk about the cute shoes she found on her day off from work. As she looked at the phone and sped toward her home she glanced up at the cop car. "SHIT! I hope he didn't see me with my phone." She took her foot off the accelerator and threw her phone across the car just before passing the cop.
Officer Lipinski was SO tired. Not the kind of tired that comes from not sleeping well, but the aching kind of tired that came with having a bad marriage. He DID NOT want to go home, but that was nothing new. Work was the only place he truly felt appreciated. His boss used him as an example all the time with the newbies, and he enjoyed teaching others about the passion in his life. When thoughts of his nagging wife's complaints began to fill his head, he tried to remember the praises of his boss, but today it was no use. All he could hear was "You work too much." "I am better than this marriage." "I need space" "I don't know who I am anymore" "Loose some weight, I don't know how you still have a job with the force being in that kind of shape" He knew the relationship was beyond saving, but he just couldn't bring himself to accepting the advances of his coworker. If he risked being involved with someone else, it could tarnish his reputation. Man, was she beautiful though. And funny. And smart. She made him feel like he could do anything, be anything, accomplish anything. It was soooooo tempting, but he was blessed/cursed with being an honest man. There is no way, as shrewd as she was, he could cheat on his wife. Every fiber of his being said to do it, but his morality would not allow it. He cursed his ethics as he watched a minivan speed pass him. "I should probably pull her over", he thought but as quickly as the thought came into his head it left as he visualized finally telling his fat ugly wife to go jump off a cliff.
Chrissy breathed a sigh of relief as she passed the police car and watched in her rear view mirror for his light to appear behind her. He seemed to be preoccupied with something. Good news on this bad day for her. "I better watch my speed now, since the baby's sleeping." She kept it at the speed limit and stayed to the right so as to avoid the honking irritations of faster drivers. "I know I did the right thing" she thought, but holding her baby down like that was torture....for mother AND son. She reassured herself that once the test results came back, she's know for sure what was going on, but making her hold his little arm down to get that blood draw was really cruel of them. Never mind the 15 minutes they spend calling to find out how much to draw in the first place. She saw in her mind's eye the FIVE empty vials they had lined up for him and heard herself telling them there was no way a one year old would fill that many. "Those idiots have no idea how hard it is to keep a mobile baby that gets into everything CALM for 15 minutes in a lab full of needles and strangers, and THEN expect him not to shriek and squeal when being HELD DOWN by TWO PEOPLE to get a blood draw." Her BFF popped into her head again. "I can't WAIT for her to have kids and FINALLY understand what I go through" she thought to herself. She slowly rounded the corner that led to her housing development when she caught sight of a well dress young man in a beat up Volvo. She cried a little inside knowing she was finally old enough to refer to someone like that as "a kid".
Braden had just graduated from High School last summer. He SWORE he would not be one of those freeloading kids that stayed with their parents, but his grades were not good enough to go straight to State college. "Too much farting around" he thought to himself. "Well, not anymore. This job is gonna be IT". He found his best tie (a graduation gift from his Uncle Tim) pulled out the white dress shirt he had just had dry cleaned and pressed, ironed his black slacks and headed off in his Volvo. "Cheap-ass parents" he mumbled as he slid onto the cracked leather seats, crossing his fingers it would not snag his pants. All his buddies were driving nice cars, Ben got a friggin beamer for God's sake. He was sporting a beat up, overused and under-cleaned Volvo. It seemed no matter how much he scrubbed or shined it, that car never looked right. It needed new paint, new seats, hell, new EVERYTHING. But unless he got himself a job he would never see anything for this piece of crap car. He waited at the red arrow to go over the port bridge and realized how ridiculous he must look. Nice, clean cut, well dressed kid in this hunk of garbage. "I better get this job" he muttered quietly.
She was finally on the home stretch. Her thoughts wandered from the lab incident to the vomiting baby she was holding just weeks before. Such an easy-going little man she had, and to see him limp and throwing up like that was frightening. She almost went to the ER but he stopped after a half and hour. The advice nurse had told her not to come in unless he continued and refused to eat or drink anything. It appeared that whatever had caused this was confined to the contents of his stomach, and once that was expelled all was well. She listened to the monitor that was turned all the way up, responding to the slightest hiccup, cough or stirring. His well baby check up was in a few weeks. If he vomited before then, she'd call for an appointment, but seeing as this was possibly a reaction to something he'd eaten she'd just wait and bring it up then. Those weeks seemed like an eternity, but getting those tests done was key. If he had a reaction to anything, hopefully it would show up. She had to swerve a little to go around a pedestrian who was walking against the flow of traffic on the side of the road. There were no sidewalks here, since the housing developments didn't start for some five miles down the road. Sometimes she felt like she lived in the middle of nowhere, but once you see the new houses on the horizon the nagging feeling you have that you're lost suddenly goes away.
Serenity was PISSED. Like, seeing red from the blood vessels popping behind her eyes pissed. Obscenities filled her head. "F*ck them. F*ck them all" She was tall, slender, beautiful. It looked as though someone had plucked her directly from a magazine. She was WAY better than this place. Way better than her parents. Way better than the haters at school. Not only did she have the looks but the talent. Her voice was that of an angel. She had NEVER been booed off a stage, never known what kind of rejection might lay ahead. Every role in every show she had ever tried out for was easily hers. Competitors would specifically ask her what role she was auditioning for, so as to ask for a different one. They knew going up against her would end in humiliation and disappointment. She felt like there was one reason, and one reason alone that she had been given these looks and talent; to be famous. She had the ambition, the drive, the talent and the looks....now all she needed was money. She had no idea how she would get it, but she knew others had made it with less than she had. She would find a way. Walking on this road seemed endless, but somehow the length of it soothed her. It gave her a chance to create a game plan in her head. Somehow she'd get to LA. Somehow she'd make it. Everything she had ever done in her 17 years on this planet had led up to this moment. It was the beginning of something amazing. Something bigger than herself. Something epic. She would get famous and show them all. Give the finger to EVERYONE that had ever spit on her. "F*ck them all" she muttered again.
"FINALLY" she screamed in her head as she pulled onto he street. The baby began to stir behind her, almost with some form of sixth sense that he was home. She was relieved to be able to put him in his own crib, with her bosom as comfort. Her original plan was to have him weaned by now, but seeing how sick he had gotten she couldn't bear to take away the one source of food she knew was safe. Until she got those results back solid food was severely restricted.
He quietly nursed and as she lay him down he had a look of peaceful content on his face. She marveled at the innocence she was staring at. If she had not just experienced the last hour and looked upon this beautiful face she'd be none the wiser. Ah, to be blessed with the short memory of a baby. If only......if only.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Baby Jason's 1st B Day party
Well, I can't say I got the best pictures of the day (mostly due to the fact that my hostessing duties did not allow me to pick up a camera very much), but I did get some. Jason's Grandpa Chris got some AMAZING pictures of him eating the cupcake I made for him...unfortunately I forgot to grab his memory card and copy the pictures over before he left, but I was promised access to them at a yet-to-be-determined time.
Overall Jason did very well at his party. My older two were a complete tired mess by the end of their's, but this little man held out like a trooper. The only disappointing part was he got tired and I put him down for what I though would be the night, so we forwent the present opening....only to discover he was not, in fact, tired and talked to himself the entire time....
Yeah, we could have totally opened presents and he would have been just fine.
Oh well....so no "ooooh"ing and "ahhh"ing aloud in front of a crowd while we opened his booty (LOL) but c'mon, he's a year old, do you really think he's gonna know the difference??
So here is the little man on the day of holding Grandpa Randy's hand (he totally doesn't need it for support, but he won't stand w/o it)
Grandma Cherie holding him playing "bat the balloon". Look at his face in the second picture
Sonya getting excited about the same balloon
The decorations (I made the balloon bouquet)
The cake was paid for twice (YES I got my money back)
Cousin Anne- Two months younger but twice as big (LMFAO)
Robbie saw Mom acting like a nut and wanted in on the action
I'm dying to get my hands on those uber cute "jason eating cupcake" pictures....
*sigh*
so look for "baby Jason's bday party Part II"
Overall Jason did very well at his party. My older two were a complete tired mess by the end of their's, but this little man held out like a trooper. The only disappointing part was he got tired and I put him down for what I though would be the night, so we forwent the present opening....only to discover he was not, in fact, tired and talked to himself the entire time....
Yeah, we could have totally opened presents and he would have been just fine.
Oh well....so no "ooooh"ing and "ahhh"ing aloud in front of a crowd while we opened his booty (LOL) but c'mon, he's a year old, do you really think he's gonna know the difference??
So here is the little man on the day of holding Grandpa Randy's hand (he totally doesn't need it for support, but he won't stand w/o it)
Grandma Cherie holding him playing "bat the balloon". Look at his face in the second picture
Sonya getting excited about the same balloon
The decorations (I made the balloon bouquet)
The cake was paid for twice (YES I got my money back)
Cousin Anne- Two months younger but twice as big (LMFAO)
Robbie saw Mom acting like a nut and wanted in on the action
I'm dying to get my hands on those uber cute "jason eating cupcake" pictures....
*sigh*
so look for "baby Jason's bday party Part II"
Monday, March 24, 2008
My brief stint at modeling
My sister in law does henna (www.harmonyhenna.com)
/shameless plug
ANYWAY
for her website we did a photoshoot that was wrought with one mishap after another...
The photoshoot was originally to take place downtown in the park, like literally minutes from my house. The forecast said rain, so my SIL changed it to her house...(25 miles away)
ask me if it rained that day....
Then one of the models that my SIL spent over five hours of work doing full bridal henna on her hands (front and back of hands from fingertips to elbows) WASHED HERSELF the very next morning (BIG NO NO) and undid most of the work... *sigh*
THEN we thought "ok, let's just do a design on her back since she messed the other one up"
ummm, you mean her back that's full of GINORMOUS tattoos?
*sigh*
so the ONLY usable part of her back area was right above the huge music staff tattoo that spanned across her entire width of it....
well, let's do a medallion design just below her neck...
I go to put her hair up and HELLO 1/2 inch of BLACK ROOTS under your BLEACHED HAIR
*sigh*
fine, let's get a necklace or something and cover the roots...
So here comes a phone call from the other model
she's TOTALLY LOST and has no idea how to get to my SIL's house...
So I'm on the phone with her trying to figure out where the eff she's at....meanwhile my SIL is using my other arm to put a paste design so she can get more pictures b/c her OTHER model FLAKED on her...
*sigh*
I'm only supposed to be there until a little after one o'clock, so we figure I better get going on the posing...
we get some really beautiful shots of the henna, me on the floor posing with some pillows and stuff...
I was dying to see these pictures, and i was supposed to do makeup for the girl that had so far been a no-show
We (the kids and I) were already late to be at a birthday party that started at 1 o'clock for my neighbor's daughter across the street...
I got out of there at 2 o'clock...
Come to find out that all the really cool shot the photographer shot of me looked GREAT in preview size, but blurry when you blew them up...
the roots girl apparently didn't stay still enough for the henna to be any good, so all the shots of her medallion on her back were not good..
they did another design on the front of her as a necklace, and that was the ONLY usable shot...
so 5 hours of hand work=gone
20 min of medallion work= gone
cute shots of irma posing on the floor=gone
*sigh*
ok so here are the two of me that came out
/shameless plug
ANYWAY
for her website we did a photoshoot that was wrought with one mishap after another...
The photoshoot was originally to take place downtown in the park, like literally minutes from my house. The forecast said rain, so my SIL changed it to her house...(25 miles away)
ask me if it rained that day....
Then one of the models that my SIL spent over five hours of work doing full bridal henna on her hands (front and back of hands from fingertips to elbows) WASHED HERSELF the very next morning (BIG NO NO) and undid most of the work... *sigh*
THEN we thought "ok, let's just do a design on her back since she messed the other one up"
ummm, you mean her back that's full of GINORMOUS tattoos?
*sigh*
so the ONLY usable part of her back area was right above the huge music staff tattoo that spanned across her entire width of it....
well, let's do a medallion design just below her neck...
I go to put her hair up and HELLO 1/2 inch of BLACK ROOTS under your BLEACHED HAIR
*sigh*
fine, let's get a necklace or something and cover the roots...
So here comes a phone call from the other model
she's TOTALLY LOST and has no idea how to get to my SIL's house...
So I'm on the phone with her trying to figure out where the eff she's at....meanwhile my SIL is using my other arm to put a paste design so she can get more pictures b/c her OTHER model FLAKED on her...
*sigh*
I'm only supposed to be there until a little after one o'clock, so we figure I better get going on the posing...
we get some really beautiful shots of the henna, me on the floor posing with some pillows and stuff...
I was dying to see these pictures, and i was supposed to do makeup for the girl that had so far been a no-show
We (the kids and I) were already late to be at a birthday party that started at 1 o'clock for my neighbor's daughter across the street...
I got out of there at 2 o'clock...
Come to find out that all the really cool shot the photographer shot of me looked GREAT in preview size, but blurry when you blew them up...
the roots girl apparently didn't stay still enough for the henna to be any good, so all the shots of her medallion on her back were not good..
they did another design on the front of her as a necklace, and that was the ONLY usable shot...
so 5 hours of hand work=gone
20 min of medallion work= gone
cute shots of irma posing on the floor=gone
*sigh*
ok so here are the two of me that came out
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
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