It's Thursday! That's the new Friday!!

My hours got cut at work again.  I lose the equivalent of one paycheck a month, it's absolutely horrid.  Know what pisses me off even more than that?  When we stick to the new budget, we still get all the bills paid.  Some of it is the hubs ability to work an hour or six of overtime at least once a month, but most of it is just bad money management.  One of these days I'm going to grow the hell up and start feeding the damn pig on a regular basis.

Elder Spawn showed up out of the blue last week.  He received his quarterly "injun money" and hopped on a flight home!  After spending a REAL winter with lots of snow in Missouri and Kansas I highly suspect he visited mostly for the weather and he was not disappointed, it was absolutely gorgeous!  I'm really proud of him, he managed his time wisely and everyone was glad to see him.  He even did HOMEWORK on his vacation!  I swear every time he says Calculus I want to puke, that's some scary math!

We had a nice family dinner at Nana & Mr. Grandpa's Sunday afternoon and I got to cook for him Thursday night.  He requested beef and hominy soup and frybread.  I'm pretty sure I'm the world's worst Native American but I do have some mad frybread skills.  Check this one out, it looks like a chicken, ready for the roasting pan!

I got some new clothes!  I've been trying to lose a few lbs and with the money being tight I was terrified of buying new pants.  I don't think $25 worth of jeans would break our bank but I just couldn't make the buy.  What if my butt started getting bigger?  Can't we put that $25 on the Home Depot card so I can maybe paint the freakin' house?  I thought about going to the second hand stores but I have plenty of faded jeans and I wanted some dark blue denim in the worst way.  And I came about my new clothes IN the worst way:  hand-me-downs from a deceased girlfriend.

I received clothes like this once before when Lee Anne died.  Not a lot, but some nice pieces for work and some hang around clothes.  When Betty died, her widower just couldn't bare the thought of trashing her clothes and he wanted to see someone truly use them.  Our butts and boobs are/were the same size and he asked me to go through them and take what I wanted/needed.

It has been weirdly comforting to wear her clothes.  I miss Betty like crazy, we all do.  I'm going to start cleaning her house tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I won't need any water, there will be plenty of tears.

15.21

Math, I hates eeet!

Necessary evil that it is, math proves that if my cycles continue at their current rate of 24 days I'll have 15 periods this year.

I'm totally having a Quinceañera for my uterus this December.

(I thought this was a trick coffee cup but it's actually a vase.)

I cannot believe he just texted me that!!

Something wrong with you?

Well, let's see...

Our early-day textual conversation was complete with me giving you my evening schedule.  You knew exactly where I was going to be and what I had to accomplish.  I even updated you on the scheduled rain you were terrified for me to drive in (scheduled to begin 30 minutes AFTER I would eventually arrive home).

I left the office at 5:00 yesterday and drove 13 miles to pick up your son.  After going through 10 minutes of crazy (four kids, two dogs, everyone trying to talk at once) I finally get him in the car and we head back to town another 13 miles to meet the widower so I can iron some work clothes for him.

We enjoy a short visit full of hugs and I love yous then we leave the widower and head towards the gas station because the fuel light has come on and I now have a back seat full of "WE NEED GAS!! WE'RE GOING TO RUN OUT OF GAS!!"  I can assure you this is not a pleasant experience.

We get to the gas station and I start pumping and I can barely hear the "mom, mom, Mom, Mom, MOM" chatter coming through the cracked window.  Mr. Man just has to ask, RIGHT NOW, if he can get out of the car.  Clearly the boy is out of his mind because this is a drive thru gas place and secondly, he NEVER EVER has gotten out of the car while I pumped gas.  That's a big hell to the no, you can't get out of the car.

Then we drive to the magic window to trade money for food.  I made our specific order for each of us, pay the lady at window one, grab food from window two and drive away.  We almost drive away, the boy has to fight his cup holder open before I can pass his drink off.  I'm mid-turn out of the driveway and he's yelling for his food bag.  (SERENITY NOW!!) We arrive at the lodge and after I get the door unlocked, I have to figure out which breakers to flip for the lights - in the DARK.  Junior won't even come inside the building and is having another freak out.  Awesome.  The battery is dead in my trunk flashlight.  I improvise and use my phone to poorly light the panel and finally find the lights using the Just Flip Them All Dammit technique.

We sit down to eat and BOTH sandwiches are wrong.  Lovely.  It's now 6:20 and the meeting starts at 7:00.  We  enjoy each other's company for a whole fifteen minutes over "dinner" and start setting up the chairs and all of my paperwork.  People start arriving.  I haven't peed since about 4:00.

The meeting lasts for just over an hour.  I'm busy as a one-armed paper hanger and if I'm not busy with an adult shoving money and papers at me about every 2 minutes, answering questions, taking care of business then I'm being badgered by the mommy train.  "Can I have something to draw on?"  "Will you play tic tac toe with me?" "What does this hand signal mean? (there's a wall of group riding signals on display, he knows how to sign for a fuel stop and I doubt he'll use the sign the next time the fuel light comes one, he'll just yell like he usually does)"  I also have to take meeting minutes, have I mentioned that I also forgot my coat and it was getting cool rather quickly?

I finally finish up inside and get the boy in the car, make two trips to get my stuff in the car and go back inside to answer a few more questions.  On my final approach to the car I remembered I forgot to call the husband.  As much as I hate to, I whip out the phone and call him as we're driving away.  The time is 8:24.

I begin my call with, "Honey, I am so sorry I forgot to call you earlier.  It's been a real busy evening and I'm really sorry, I've been..."  He interrupts me to say, "Well, you could have AT LEAST texted me."

*blink*  *blink*

Seriously?  You interrupt my apology to you with an admonishment?  Completely taken aback I pass the phone to the boy so he can talk to his dad.  Of course the boy can not resist touching buttons on the phone and they are disconnected a few miles down the road.  He doesn't call back and I'm too busy driving to worry about it.

Finally, after driving 45 miles in 2.75 hours we arrive home.  I get to pee, HOORAY!!  And he calls again, I immediately give the phone to the boy who is trying to put on pajamas and brush his teeth.  I've listened to him say how tired he is for the last 30 minutes and most of their conversation is about how tired the boy is.  They finish talking and give the phone back to me.  "You good?  Ok.  Love you, bye."  and I hung up.  Those four words arrive to my inbox and I've reached capacity.  I put the phone on the charger and drank a glass of wine while I watched COPS.  (Thank you G4 for almost always having an episode of COPS around when I need one.)

Yes, something IS wrong with me.  I've had enough of today and your stupid shenanigans are not going to make my day any harder than it already was.  DUMBASS!!

And guess who needs a ride home tonight?  I'll give you a hint, it's not me!

Also, your Honey Do List just turned into a "I can't believe that bitch thinks I'm going to do all of this!"

Filled to the rim

Unfortunately, I'm not full of Brim coffee.  I am full of sad and I'm praying the phone doesn't ring because I have that golf ball of emotions lodged in my throat and it feels like if I eek out one syllable to speak I'm going to totally lose it.  The last eight months have been brutal.  I can't Hank Hill my emotions any longer.

Elder Spawn and the Borrowed One left home in June, and not in a fantastic fanfare of awesomeness like they should have.  It was ugly and to the extreme of GTFO or I may put you in the ground kind of way.  I didn't talk to my own child for weeks, like about eight of them.

Hubs started working out of town.  It's very hard to adjust back into the single parent world.  I have a lot of flashbacks and relive the shitty way I parented Elder Spawn during those times.  While I try not to repeat those mistakes (mostly a shit-ton of yelling and not remembering that they don't fully grasp the concept of responsibility in a way they don't have to be reminded 8,000 times/tongue-lashed into obedience) I constantly struggle to stay afloat that sea of emotion.  I spend most of my Saturdays hiding in my bedroom because I just need a break.

There was an incident at day care and I had to pull Junior out of there.  My lovely sister-in-law keeps him after school for me now.  She is so good to me and my family, I feel like an ass for not including her more often.  My brother has been away at school for over a year and I've never even had her and the kids over for dinner ONCE in that time.  Why is it so hard to juggle taking care of your home and family and remember to include the rest of your family.  Who all live within 20 miles of your home?  I'm looking forward to brother graduating at the end of this month, he'll be able to babysit while we go do something fun.  Or check in to a hotel and take a damn nap in peace.

I had a minor blow out with Home Girl.  I'd been feeling extremely lonely, very out of the loop and just lost it when I saw she'd gone out, again, and again, I was not invited.  I probably would have said no anyway, I'm not real excited to purchase over-priced drinks to enjoy an establishment and very paranoid about driving after enjoying a libation or two (even after being completely sober, cops - avoid them).  It bothered me greatly because I'd been missing her very much, I needed a friend and she was too busy.  I didn't bother trying to contact her for a date because I knew she was busy working herself into oblivion, usually seven days a week.  And while I'm pouting about the state of our relationship, my guilt over sister-in-law grows and grows.  Girlfriend karma was biting me on the ass big time.  We had a nice talk about it and things are good between us.  We are both still very busy so dates with Home Girl are limited to the occasional lunch and grocery store/shopping runs.  Real exciting grown up stuff.

My very good friend, who raised Junior for me while I went back to work, committed suicide almost a month ago.  We have/had similar personalities and I just can not understand why she took her depression to that extreme.  I understand it is hard to ask for help, I don't understand why she didn't.  Or couldn't.  She was a red-head and stubborn so a part of me feels she may have even thought I will NOT ask for help and show my soft squishy belly of what she would have considered weakness.  Naturally every time I feel like I've calmed myself with my feelings over her death, Junior will ask another question about her.  I put on my mommy hat and try to give him the answers he's seeking without scarring him for life.  Let me tell you, five year olds do not understand cremation and are fascinated with how she managed to fit into that little pot.  While I love and miss her, I am so angry that she would put her family, friends and grandchildren through all of this pain.  Reconcile that one.

A week after her death, a 14 year old boy who lived in her community had a hunting accident.  He was climbing down from the tree stand, talking with his mother on the phone when he dropped the gun.  The gun fired, striking this child down.  While his mother listened to it happen over the phone.  I don't know these people but I am so, so sad for this situation.  It makes me hate cell phones even harder.  When are people going to realize we don't have a third arm to take care of the many things we feel we must be doing all at once?  I can't stop feeling that this could have been prevented.  The news informed us a grieving team would be placed at the school so the kids and teachers could get the support and understanding they needed.  I wonder if any of their advice was to slow down, do one thing at a time.

Yesterday afternoon, a bus from that same school was hit head-on by a car containing a family of four.  The two children attended the same school.  The family perished in the wreck, 31, 30, 9 and 6 gone in an instant.  The car crossed the center line and speed was determined to be a factor in the wreck.  I process that as a preventable death.  Why was he speeding, what could have been so important to rush and why didn't they just leave 5 or 10 minutes earlier to avoid being so rushed?  How come the parents weren't wearing their seat belts but their children were?  The grieving team has been deployed to this school, again, fifteen days later.

I'm tired of hearing the word accident.  I wouldn't call it an on-purpose but a lot of them certainly seem preventable.

Hug your kids hard even if they try to push you away.  Kiss your spouse like you did when you were dating.  Jerk a knot in your girlfriend's tail if she needs it and jerk two knots if she doesn't.  Leave 10 minutes early to enjoy the ride and arrive safely at your destination.  Put the mother fucking phone down and concentrate on what's important.

I feel better.  I cried a lot, I think I can answer the phone now, even the mobile one.  Thanks for listening.