Summer Time, Smummer Time

Ever have a love hate relationship with summer vacation?

Yesterday I truly hated it. The kids seemed high on crack, seemingly daring me to throw them in jail, and the two older ones were so mean beyond belief, I'm still reeling. It was such a stressful day, my body feels so sore. Like I've been in a car accident. Good thing today is my back therapy appt.

So, as for me, I did really well yesterday, until my husband came home. I hold it in all day. I deal with it all day. I am calm all day. It's as if this eggs the kids on or something. Isn't it supposed to help diffuse them? I'm calm and deal with shit, and they act like rabid dogs.

My husband gets home, and you'd think he'd be helpful. He told them to stop, shut up, had to physically stop our older son from being violent, our middle son put a baseball thru my master bath window (broke the screen). At that point my husband finally had it. He had those two run lines in the drive way. He thinks this is a great consequence because he feels they burn off excess energy and will be too tired to be shits.

I think it wears them out. They will still have enough energy to be shits. They always muster up the energy.

It did not help that my husband came home and didn't want the dinner I prepared. This happens probably four times a week. He has had food issues since we met. His sisters told me that he never wanted what his mom made for dinner, so she would then go to a fast food restaurant and pick him up something. ARGH! We married and he told me "I'm an adult. I'm not eating stuff I don't like." So I went on the endless pursuit of finding "what he likes." Cooking and baking became an obsession (way beyond hobby). The only good thing that has come of this is that I'm the most popular person at a potluck, funeral, baby shower, and bible study. People rave about my food. Too bad I don't live with these people. I have three shelves of cookbooks in my living room. Truly, I'm a good cook. Five star? no. That would be nice. All this to say, I seriously think my husband has a touch of Aspergers too. I've wondered and thought this for quite some time. I'm not a short order cook, I don't make multiple meals in one evening. At my home I offer two things "take it or leave it." It's totally insulting that he doesn't like my cooking, when the rest of the population I know, truly does.

I did some quilting yesterday (for sanity purposes). In the meantime, since we have all our photography off the bedroom wall due to painting, the dog tried to eat our 16x20 wedding portrait. Figures.

All this piled on me last night and became too much. I left and took a walk for a couple hours. As I was leaving my husband called out "are you taking the dog?" yea, bite me big guy.

As I'm going merrily along on this walk, my shoulders and back hurt more. And more. And more. My bra straps are digging into me like fire. A great reward for dragging my butt out and exercising. My overly huge boobs are a curse. Truly the back, shoulder, neck pain while exercising with huge boobs is worse than the fire & rash from my chubby thighs rubbing together.

I decided many things on this walk. I have to take care of myself, at all costs. Yesterday was entirely too stressful. So I made some decisions:

1. There will be no tv and/or electronics used M-F. The kids play video games and become star psycho fighters. They watch tv and fight over who gets to watch what.
2. There will be no sleepovers, overnight camp, or sleeping in our trailer Sun-Thurs. If they want to do these sleep depriving activities, it has to be when my husband will be around for damage control.
3. I'm telling my husband today that he needs to provide me with a weekly menu. I will shop for that, and that's what we will be eating.
4. Perhaps I need more Love and Logic books? Then again, maybe I need the kids to sit in their rooms all day being bored. Ya know, finding it a privilege again to come out and play?
5. After I lose those last few pounds, I'm getting that breast reduction. Not kidding. Will keep you posted.

I found a blog last week. I love it. Maybe we could be soul sisters? Please read her post HERE. Too funny.

Hopefully today will be better.

Giving Back

I'm still in the process of looking for a job. I applied yesterday to a corporation that is hiring 4 coordinators for various programs. Hopefully I'll hear something back. I highly respect this corporation, and they have a good reputation. They've been around for about 100 years, so I know they are a stable to company to work for.

On giving back: my husband had a great idea for me. Since I like to cook so much, and I'm a giver, nurturer, he told me there is a Battered Women's Shelter in a local area that I could volunteer at. I'd never heard of this one, so I'm really interested. I could cook and donate baked goods once a week (or something). I'd be happy to keep women company, help in any way, and give back to the community. I do have personal experience with this as well, being that I lived in a ridiculously abusive home growing up. We finally got out. It was extremely hard. We had to wait for a night where my dad just didn't come home. We left in the middle of the night, packing and moving all thru the night. My dad came home as we were making our final trip out the door. He had been bar hopping all night, and made this absurd scene in the front yard crying, screaming, and swinging his arms around at my mom, as we were trying to leave. Fortunately there were a couple families from church there helping us move, and they got us out of there safely. This topic really touches me to the core, and I would like to help at a place like this, helping women help themselves.

Other than that, nothing too exciting around here is going on. The weather is driving me crazy! It snowed a couple weeks ago, and was in the upper 80's last weekend. Fortunately we got a ton of yard work done in that nice weather, seeing as it's snowing buckets today. ARGH! what on earth is up with the Pacific Northwest weather? I'm ready for spring!!!

To entertain myself lately, I've been looking at sewing & cross stitch blogs. If you know of any favorite sewing, cross stitch, scrapping blogs, please forward them to me. I love crafts.

On a final note, I decided to cease contact with the girls foster parents. We have been in touch via email regularly. Until this week, they were really nice. Then this week they were dishonest with me, and I really don't need that crap in my life. Too bad for them and the girls; we would have been happy to have been a resource for all of them down the road. I had to come to the place where I saw that staying in contact was giving me more grief and anxiety than what it was worth. They are on their own now. As for us, the governors office & the state head of DSHS are in regular contact with us about the investigation against the girls SW & that DSHS office. So I may receive updates or info there. I really only want a geographic approximation of the girls home now, so we can avoid that area. And visa versa. My husband fears the older girl will grow up, turn 18, and try to locate us: to shoot us. She is really a dangerous disturbed child. Hopefully she will get the help she deserves, for her safety as well as those around her.

The only adventurous and exciting news I have to share is that we are taking the kids to Disney World next week, for 10 days. It should be heaven on earth. As an added bonus, Don & Be are going to try to get together with us while we are in town. Looking forward to meeting in real life with more of my favorite bloggers!!

Customer Service

The Spa & Salon I'm going to go work at, strives for top customer services. That is their biggest goal. If they are running behind, and someone is going to run an hour late, they will give the customer a free service while they are waiting. How cool is that?

I have a customer service idea. It incorporates something I love. Baking. I got this idea yesterday. There is a postal shop I go to, like a Kinko's, and they always have fresh homemade cookies sitting out. The wheels in my mind got going.............
What if I offer to cook classy desserts/breads/cookies for the front desk and coffee area? Is that customer service? Is that tacky?

These people have sampled my homemade jams, truffles, etc. They think they were to die for. I bring treats to the stylists, our doctors office, teachers, whatnot, for the holidays each year.

I'm not a professional chef, baker, or cook. However, I love to cook and bake. When in social groups, once I bring a dish, people want the recipe, and they wrangle me into bringing more food, dessert, treats to more gatherings. The first time it was our treat night for Sunday evening bible study, they said they want me bringing treats every week!! (I declined). Some one cancelled for bringing treats one Sunday in mid-April. So the group instantly appointed me to bring treats for that evening. ;o)

What do you think about bringing complimentary treats for a classy Salon & Spa? I would of course have the owners pay me for the cooking ingredients, and an hour or two a week in pay for cooking time. That is still really cheap though, as compared to buying treats at say, oh, Starbucks.

I'm Glad My Kids are Supervised

Ya know, I certainly wouldn't want to leave my kids home alone on a regular basis, unsupervised. Yesterday they had the day off of school for a teacher in service day. I heard the following comments:

13 yr old: "I'm taking home-ec (cooking variety) right now in school. This is the most worthless class I've ever taken. I will never use this stuff. Oh, maybe I'll use it in high school (home-ec). This week we have to study kitchen sanitation for four days. FOUR DAYS!" OK, so he's planning on never entering a kitchen? Planning on buying all his food from restaurants? Geez....

11 yr old: "I wonder what would happen if you fry Silly Putty".................
self explanatory reasons why I'm glad I was home for that.

9.5 yr old yells to 11yr old: "HEY! You almost knocked me off the counter!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
me thinking "why are you on the counter???????????????????????"

A New Day and Half a Pig

Today our 4yr old woke up, went into the bathroom and sounded like she was vomiting. Lots of noise and coughing. I went to check on her and was met with "Want to see my fart?" Well, you can't see a fart. I told her I would come look. She said "It's THIS huge!" I'm wondering if she's being really imaginative. She showed me a huge pile of poo in the toilet. She looked up in delight and said, "Now I get to play in the family room". I smiled and told her good job on the poo (not a fart apparently, although, could have been a fart as well) and said "yes, you get to play in the family room".

BINGO! Yes, she does now get to play with her toys in the family room. Hopefully the art of holding toys/activities/treats over her head will keep her inspired to poo. Also, hopefully the deterrent of knowing she has to have an enema if she doesn't poo, will motivate her permanently as well.

I'm not holding my breath. Everyone has told me this is not a quick fix, but a long term learning process for her. Let's hope she is on the road to wellness.

Her preschool teacher is coming over today to meet her. I decided to start her next Tuesday instead of today, in light of all the energy that went into yesterday's antics. We are all looking forward to meeting her teacher.

Last week I booked her a neurological appt at Childrens Hospital. Her appt is in April. It will consist of an hour with an OT, an hour doing a Peabody Test (developmental testing), and an appt with a neurologist. I'm looking forward to the insight this appt will bring. After I found out all about it, I got the ball rolling for a referral for her 2yr old sister. Can't hurt. She has had some minor delays, nothing as profound as her sister. With that though, they have the same genetics, environmental history, etc. She has had a speech delay. If she is found to have anymore going on than that in delays, she will qualify for therapy and ECEAP (this fall). So that will all be really helpful. Early intervention is great!

You may be wondering what the Pig is doing in today's post title. Well, the girls and I had lunch with a friend. She offered to sell me half of one of her pigs when they go to slaughter. I said "Heck Ya!" It will go well with the half a COW my husband purchased last month. He sprung that on me with no warning. Several years ago, we bought 1/4 a cow every year for the cooking meat. Great deal and outstanding quality meat. $2/lb for anything you bought. Where else can you get T-Bone steak for $2/lb? Nowhere. So, we went to bed one night about a month ago, and were drifting off to sleep, when my husband pipes up with "Today I bought half a cow.", like he bought a kite or something. Half a cow? Do you realize how many pounds of meat that is? About 400 pounds of meat.

So the pig will go nicely with the beef in the freezer. We'll be getting about 100 pounds of pig. I better get to emptying out that freezer now..................