HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, REBI!!!!!!!

Holy Cow, she's 13! She's very sad that she has to take finals all day, but I'm pretty sure that's better than house hunting in the rain (her 10th birthday) or staying with people she barely knew while Nate was getting stitches and her presents were in the middle of a pile of glass (her 9th birthday when our glass table shattered all over the house. Yikes that was a mess!!)

Calling all Midol

Disclaimer: If you are not comfortable with the workings of the female body, this would be a post for you to skip. Don't say I didn't warn you.

With the RA (rheumatoid arthritis), there are a few things which make it worse. These are things I dread. After all, I quite like walking. At least for now. Even if most days I do look like I'm 80 already. In no particular order, those things are:

• cold wet weather, especially storms where the barometric pressure falls (and yes I am aware that I now also sound 80).
• stress (at this point, my life is so nuts that it really is only extreme stress)
• lack of sleep (I never get more than 6 hours a night, but anything less than that is excruciating).
• Hormonal shifts, primarily my period (which I should also note I only get warning for in the way my hip hurts. Seriously. How can the two possibly be related?)
  

It's been raining for a few days now; we've had a friend of Rebi's staying with us since last Sunday; I have been working round the clock to get the stupid accounting mess figured out at work and I'm still not able to make it reconcile within less than $1000.00. I can't go into the stress portion of my life without violating confidences trusted to me by my friends, but the stress in several areas is sky high right this second. (have you ever noticed how one friend will share something and then the phone starts ringing and you spend days listening to secrets? Does that just happen to me? People have always had a compulsion to tell me things, which I am fine with, but it's always feast or famine for the personal trials).

So, when I woke up and felt that familiar and peculiar pain gnawing at my hip, I just rolled back over and grabbed another blanket. Someone bring me the Midol, please! (And maybe an exorcism since I seem to be channeling Faulkner today. He loves the parentheses too).

I love itunes

It's a weakness I'm sure I have mentioned before. I love the itunes. My most recent favorite is the song "Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles.

Here's a snippet of the lyrics:

The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair, says
"Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I’ll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows."

You’re so worried bout the maiden,
though you know she’s used to waiting
spent her whole life being graded on the
sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation
The story needs some mending and a better happy ending.

Wait, maybe I lied. I might be more enamored of Siouxsie right now. Her "Mantaray" album is thus far quite good. I'll let you know if I find a song I hate.

HELP! Missing Dog!!

I can hardly believe this is happening. We have a new set of puppies, just 2 weeks old. We have had them for a week, and they are sweet. Mommy is a small white dog with tiny brown markings. She is a silky furred maltese mix, or shih tzu, or something. She is scared of everything and hides in her crate with her puppies.

So tonight, I forced her out to pee around 10pm. A few minutes later I went to let her back in and she was nowhere to be found. We searched the yard, drove around, called animal control, searched the house, drove around some more, and no dog. We have no idea how she got out, and it is pouring rain. I can only hope that some kind stranger took her in and made a bed for her.

I need to find her fast. I have nothing to feed these babies. So, I am making yet another midnight run to Wal Mart, hoping against hope that there is puppy formula on their shelves. Pray someone calls her into animal control tomorrow so that we can get her back to her puppies.

Update: Just as I was reconciling myself to never seeing mommy again, and just as I was putting on my favorite shoes to go to my favorite store, I heard a light scratch at the door. Currently, the puppies are happily chowing down. I would just love to know where she was and how she made it back.

School schedule

I find it funny that even though my kids do not go to school, I am still counting the days until school resumes. Do I think this will put us back on a schedule?

This is the first year that schools have been out the week after Christmas around here, and it seems to be dragging on and on. Anyone else ready for the street rats to hit the books again?

No More Changes!

YAY! The holidays are over!! Please tell me we can find some sort of routine to settle into again. I feel like every time we hit our stride, another kid insists on being home schooled. And Tyler is in line. He may just come home after his trip to Sacramento with his 4th grade class. And really, who can resist? They play outside, they read great books, they do all of their school work at their own pace, there's no homework, lots of fieldtrips, and best of all, no one at home insists he's a homosexual. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, all year there has been a "little" (bigger than Ty by a full head I'm sure) punk telling Tyler he's gay. And not in a "you are so lame" kind of way. How did I find out this little nugget? I was given a discipline slip by my very heartbroken son and asked to sign it. Surprised, I read that he had kicked another child. When I asked why, the story spilled out with the shuddering gasps and bucketfuls of tears. It is so amazingly hard to see your child in pain. He wasn't really in pain so much at the taunting. He was more upset by the fact that he thought he had tried to resolve things peacefully and nothing worked. He felt the only solution left was to kick the kid, so he gave him the best shot he had.

This happened a couple of weeks before Christmas break, and the teasing has not resumed, so maybe Tyler got his message across and the detention was worth it.

Bring on the Mariachis!

Happy New Year's Eve!
I will be assembling way too many appetizers for my small clan, but we will all get a bite of what we want, so I'm OK with that.

Nothing says New Year's Eve like a good Mariachi festival. Or something. Escondido is full of them today, so party on.