worthwhile

biggest went to bed the other night & then tried to give me a heart attack by getting back out of bed & sneaking up on me while i was trying to fumble through the maze of wires behind our entertainment center in order to plug in the laptop. ANYWAY...

he was having a "bad thought". he was thinking that perhaps the-one-who-gave-birth-and-walked-away had (*gasp!*) lied to him. because she promised she'd be at the airport to see us off. but didn't show up. and, when called, pled traffic. which, in charleston, is extremely possible. but you'd think you'd plan better if it was your first-born leaving the flippin country. course, that's probably just me. and now, 8 months later, biggest is thinking that maybe she lied & wasn't sitting in the car...was sitting in her office chair. which, i'd have to admit, is unfortunately entirely possible. and dammit does that piss me off.

and, right or wrong, i treated him to a talk about bad habits & how they are very hard to break especially when you do them for years and years & it isn't in your (misguided) best interest to break them. and that when he felt we were yelling at him unjustly, we were trying to prevent him from creating some bad habits that may follow him into adulthood and continue the trend of screwing up other people's lives. you know, break the chain & all that.

and again it just really pisses me off because she has no clue what she is doing. her sight doesn't extend beyond her own bubble. it can't. she doesn't know how to make it so. and this has been going on for a long time now. and all we can do is watch her dig her grave deeper & pick up the pieces behind her.

and then after all that & the tears & the hug & the talk, the oldest said "i'm glad you're here with us". and then all of it, all of it, became a little more worth it. would that i could hear it all the time (from all of them...not just him) but then it wouldn't make such an impact, would it?

gas prices

yes. i went there.

i went & filled up our truck today. to the tune of $79. (wasn't completely empty). and the attendant said "i have some bad news for you." and then i found out that right around the first of next month, gas will be going up to $4.97 a gallon. that's right, ladies & gentlemen, just under $5 a gallon. i mean, what? the reason why it is so high in the states is because of the all the taxes the government levies on the people in the name of new roads. **snort** new roads. AKA start-a-project-fork-up-traffic-more-than-lowcountry-traffic-is-normally-forked-up-leave-it-forked-up-for-2-years-while-4-people-hold-the-stop/slow-sign-&-everyone-else-works-at-the-rate-of-1-inch-per-hour-and-then-end-with-a-road-that-must-be-patched-in-2-weeks. (oops, sorry, i digressed) well...um...if our gas here has taxes on it, what are those taxes going toward? i'm a bit confused. if someone knows who i need to ask this question of to get a straight answer, please let me know because $4.97 a gallon? i'm gonna have to buy a new pair of tennis shoes instead. i see a lot of walking in my future.

as it was, after paying $79 to fill up the truck, i drove to the commissary & PARKED the truck, walked middlest & biggest to the movie theater, kept littlest & walked to the library, to the travel office, back to the truck, to the BX, back to the truck & into the commissary. we probably would have walked to the mail room but were running short on time. and this was in flip flops. i think i was in shock over the bad news.

argh!

you know when something keeps happening over & over again & it is driving you absolutely up the freakin wall but you can't do anything about it because there is nothing that can be done except deal with it? that's me RIGHT NOW. sorry to be so vague but there isn't anything else i can say about it except that. just wanted to share my annoyance with someone. thanks.

well that was nice!

last night was laundry night. that's right, ladies & gentlemen...friday night in my household is one party after another...8 loads of laundry makes for a great time! i'd say the only redeeming factor is the "alone" time in the launderette while 1 stays home with the kids.
i pull up to the launderette & there are about a kazillion cars in the parking lot but no one in the place. whatever. i don't get it either. there are 3 men standing outside the launderette chatting. i get out of my truck, open the back & grab 2 baskets. head towards the door. i swear, those men about ran each other over trying to get to the door first. and wanted to know if i needed any help. um, not really, just get the door & i'll be fine. but apparently someone raised these men right because they wouldn't take no for an answer. so one guy got the other 2 baskets, the other guy shut the truck & the 3rd one held the door. and they wanted to know if i wanted any dinner because it sure did look like i was going to be there for awhile! no thanks...peace & quiet & a kid free 2 hours is all i need. thanks for the help!
so what if they were probably almost as old as my dad. it's nice to be catered to every once in awhile. makes a girl feel pretty darn good.

my...well, just my.

i put on a cute pair of shorts today. i don't usually wear shorts. because where i'm usually from, most everyone is not as pigmentally challenged as i am. so i stand out like a sore thumb. a blinding sore thumb. seriously, wear your sunglasses. but here? where i am now? i fit in! people don't worship the sun here. they actually walk around under umbrellas when it's bright out so they can keep their pretty skin and not be walking advertisements for chemotherapy. nice, huh?
anyway. these shorts. i love them. they are linen...i love linen. wrinkles and all, i love linen. so cool and light. so nice. and they are drawstring which i like too. not that i can explain that. i just do.
and i put them on. and made the mistake of looking in a mirror. what the holy hell? where exactly did that ass come from? i am just disgusted. it didn't seem like i still had any baby weight left. matter of fact, the scale swears to me that i don't have any baby weight left. and most of my pants are actually just a little too loose. and i always "lose" my hiney at about 8 months pregnant & don't get it back until the baby is about 3 years old (ok, so i've only done the getting back part once but i swear it happened). so why do i look like i am about 3 feet wide from the back? littlest is only 14 months old! guess it's time to get the elliptical out of the laundry room where it's been since...um...**blushing**...it was "temporarily" placed there while we had house guests. yeah. definitely time to get it out of there.
and my dear 1? mr. perennial foot in his mouth himself? when asked if he thought my butt looked bigger? answered...you're just getting back what you lost. !!! whatever dude. guess what you just lost? that's right. better start kissing that big huge butt now if you have any hopes of redemption.

ah...the smell of bureaucracy...

in the morning? SC's morning, that is.

we're visiting the states in august. i figure i'll use my time wisely to take the littlest one to her pediatrician. BUT her pediatrician can't give the DT shot-she doesn't get pertussis vaccine. which means i have to go to the health department to get the shot she CAN have. which necessitated a phone call to that delightful entity.

a lady answers the phone. i tell her most of the littlest's life story. she says "oh, let me transfer you". oops. i get connected to a very polite young lady who takes all my information down but informs me that she is only a "fill-in" in the office & must double check with the nurse to be sure that they can give that shot. cause, you know, i'm doing something outside the blindly led norm. belie the fact that the littlest's info is IN THEIR COMPUTER. and the one and only time she has been to the HD, was to get the shot that is now in question. ugh. ms. polite comes back & confirms my appointment but would like to know why, exactly? does the littlest not get that vaccine? cause the nurse told her to ask. and i bite my tongue & manage to inform her of the familial (but she heard familiar, apparently) allergies & leave off the part about THIS IS MY BABY, NOT YOURS & NO ONE CAN MAKE ME DO WHAT I DON'T WANT TO DO WITH HER. but then i still have to speak with the nurse. i guess to confirm that i am not, in fact, one of the stupid unwashed masses with no critical thinking skills & yes, thank you very much, i have thought this decision through & (last but not least) if you think that i'm going to put this baby through what the middlest went through with that horrid vaccine, you've got another think coming & make it quick before my head explodes.
"ring, ring" and the nurse picks up but all i hear is someone saying "she must have hung up" and then a click. hello, hello? sigh. dial the number again.
"ring, ring" yes, i need to speak to nurse shirley? oh, yes, i'll transfer. and nurse shirley answers & we have the same conversation about FAMILIAL allergies & apparently i'm on my way to confirming to her that i'm not a complete idiot when the phone cuts off. are you kidding me? sigh. dial the number AGAIN.
"ring, ring" yes, nurse shirley again. and the phone rings thirty eleven times & the hold music comes on & then it rings nineteen more times & ms. polite picks up again. huh? how'd i get you? and i ask for nurse shirley again & get transferred again & thank goodness my head hasn't exploded yet b/c then my kitchen would really be a mess. and finally nurse shirley answers again & is all chipper, haha and why not? her morning has just started & she has no way of knowing that i sat in a 1600 square foot apartment all day with rain pouring down outside & a 14 month old who won't. stop. screaming. ARGH. and i finally convince her that please. i just want a DT shot. for my baby. and HEY check your computer, you gave her one of those a year ago so i think it will be fine to do it this time, too, ya know?
but i guess her computer is about as up to speed as her telephone is b/c then she proceeds to call the littlest...you know, the one with tons of hair bows & barrettes & a tutu & sparkly pink shoes & a daddy who has decreed that she wear dresses all summer long..."he". i know littlest isn't standing in front of her and all but really? you can look at the name that the littlest has & still call her a he? i can't imagine someone naming a little fella that name. no freakin way. and this is the option i have for injecting my babe with that garbage? ugh. please. between now and august 6th, kindly remove your head from your butt before sticking a needle in my baby. that's all i ask. please.

well that sucked.

yeah apparently i don't know the difference between 3:40 & 4:30. or maybe it's just that i cancelled one appointment for 3:40 & scheduled a new one for 4:30 & got them mixed up. the upside? we got to walk around downtown pyongtaek for 45 minutes while waiting for the right appointment. and we found a converse store, a miscellaneous shoe store & a stationary store. and then i had to hand out promises to go to all the aforementioned stores once we're ready to go back to school. so i'll have to jam that in between recovering from jet lag, moving & starting school in the fall. argh. sometimes i speak too soon.
and then we finally made it to the appointment for the proper time & i had to sit in the waiting room & listen to middlest cry as they pulled 2 teeth with minimum anesthetic. and that hurt my feelings since i told her to let them do it because they were just baby teeth & it wouldn't be that bad! and since they had just pulled 2 teeth, she couldn't try on her newly adjusted retainer before we left. and we drove all the way back to the base. and then she tried to put it in. and it wouldn't go. so i had to drive. back. to. pyongtaek. in traffic. and our favorite mr. valet guy was gone for the day-locked up shop-leaving me to park my truck in the eensy beensy parking garage with the ginormous pillars. but miraculously i didn't hit one & we ran upstairs so they could tell us that the retainer was broken & we needed a new one. so apparently we get to spend next week at the orthodontist again getting 2 new retainers again. i don't think i like the orthodontist anymore.

...cont.

pick up your socks. your dirty socks that i have asked you 47000 times to NOT leave in the floor. why must you incessantly tease your sister? if you are going to have to end the conversation with "i'm just kidding" in a snot nose tone, then you don't need to have the conversation to begin with. please sleep all night long in your own little bed because you are so much happier when you get enough sleep. no, you may not stay inside all summer long rotting your brain with video games. go outside today while it is not raining & thank your lucky stars it's not 100 degrees + humidity like it is in certain other places that shall remain nameless. stand up straight so you won't have a hump in your back when you're older. you're too pretty to have poor posture. why oh why do i pick up the same dang toys 13 times a day? argh! can't you pick them up on your own? you can walk, you know where your room is & you're good at putting things in your myriad boxes.

and to think that those other families will never. have. to. say. these. things. again. and the ache gets a little bit bigger. so tonight i'll pick up your socks & ignore the teasing because that's what they all do anyway & i won't sigh if the monitor erupts at 3:00 am & if you linger over breakfast tomorrow, i'll let you because at least you are here & we'll work on your posture tomorrow & i'll pick up the toys for the 14th time before i go to bed. because today you are here & i am so thankful for that.

Pain

Public, private, strangers, friends, family members, local, worldwide. It's all the same when a child has gone from the arms of the family that loves him or her. I cannot imagine the pain these families are feeling. All we can do is pray.





http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/



http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/jun/04/childs_death_mystifies_mother43305/



ZIEG, Brayden Russell, 1, son of Jacob and Michelle Ainsworth Zieg of Summerville, died Friday. Arrangements by Dyal Funeral Home.



it's all just unbearably sad.

what the friggin hell?

ok so i'm a grammar bitch. i can't STAND when things aren't worded properly or spelt right. bad punctuation pisses me off, too. so why why WHY would one go on a public forum & proceed to use the improper form of a homonym to describe something? case in point: hard WEAR when hard WARE is meant. come on. you say you're a pro...shouldn't you at least have a CLUE as to how to spell the stuff you use all the time?
or...complimenting someone. hellatious? what kind of word is that? HOW ABOUT A DICTIONARY DUMBASS! hellacious. there. now go fix your freakin post. and one more...YOU DESERVE IT BECAUSE YOUR GRATE AT WHAT YOU DO...man, that one manages to stuff two screwups in one sentence & the original post was all in caps just like that! somehow that sentence goes from trying to be a compliment to being a sentence that tells someone they deserve something because their piece of material used to prevent something from going somewhere it shouldn't rambles into a non-sequitur.
i'm going to start a business. where what i do is correct people's publicly posted stupidity. but it probably wouldn't fly too well as i strongly suspect that people would prefer to look like absolute morons to the rest of the world than to have someone correct them.
oh and one last one. on base? the AMERICAN ARMY BASE? there are signs that are mispelled or grammatically incorrect. i was pondering this one day & it was brought to my attention that probably those signs were produced by people whose first language is not english. ok, that's all well & good considering where we live. but for God's sake...it's an AMERICAN ARMY BASE! which is supposedly american soil as in america...where the 1st language is still english no matter how many people try to change it. so wouldn't you think you could try to get your act together & make sure your signs are right?
oh and don't get me started on things like "u" for you, "r" for are & "peeps" for people. it just makes my skin crawl. and then i think of marshmallow candy. and then it just pisses me off even more because easter is long gone & where's my bunnies?! (see...there's my own little non-sequitur for the day)

hmm...

so good ol' hillary is conceding. seems she couldn't come up with(read, pay with her general funds misusage) enough delegates & good ol' obama is taking the nomination. does this set up hillary to become our next v.p.?
it's my opinion that when chilly willy was president, he was simply the mouthpiece for hillary to trumpet her ridiculous plans & policies. which makes me wonder if she can handle a v.p. seat. are her ego & personality able to take a "demotion" for the next 4 years?

i'm a big kid now!

i guess i figured it was time to get a "grown up" blog. not to say that i'll be killing off the other one...that will remain the Mommy blog. this is...well, it's just me!

cool stuff to start it all off:



and: