seriously...I hate cold!

Dayton, not a sick baby...just a drooly one

Seriously, folks I gotta think about moving to a warmer climate.  I know, I know it's cold in Florida, but not this cold.  I thought this winter was supposed to be an el nino year!!  The predictions are for subzero temperatures for at least as far as they predict.  UGH!

Today, my grade school kids were all wild and goofy from being cooped up all day.  I got near my first dropoff & I am called back to the school.  Seems one of my 5th graders had made a pitstop (bathroom) and missed the bus!  Another bus was already there being "talked" to by the principal.  I made a idle threat to mine about being next for the talk, but told them I'd give them a pass because of the weather.

Before my trip back the radio was a buzz with all the call in for cars/SUV's in the ditch.  The weather here was clear, sunny, but windy causing drifting and slipper roads.  Happens every year.  Thankfully, none were buses, just speedy citizens.

Now I am finally getting caught up with all my alerts...sounds like it's cold everywhere.

This weekend is the Superbowl and the Chicago Bears are in it.  I am really not into the whole thing, but will pay attention because after all a local team is playing.

We are going to try another visit from the urp brothers...an overnight.  As of yesterday they were still sick...poor babies!

pre urp...Jacob

and Dakota...his hair is really getting long...

Baby Barf Bingo!

Oh my I forgot how lovely it is to have 2 kids under 3 barfing all over the house!  Shortly after Tracey dropped the kids Dakota started acting weird, I thought he was tired as it was nearly noon.  As I held him, he only wanted Grandma, he puked, in my hair, on my pants, on his pants on the carpet.  He took nap, got up puked a few more times.  THEN his big bro Jacob started barfing.  Poor babies!  I finally called Tracey as she was helping her mom paint her living room.  By the time they went home Dakota was asking for cookies.  Jacob not so much.  They both should be fine by morning.

On a littler note that nut Dayton does a dance (on his butt) to the tune from the old sitcom Barney Miller.  He's so funny!

Also my son Eric had been talking about quitting his sweet job as front end manager at Menards to go back to school for the 3rd time.  He came to his senses and is staying, he also paid back the 100 bucks he owes me.  Whew I was afraid he would blow is future because people were telling him to go to school.   College can always be in the future.

I am off, it's supposed to be minus a bunch tomorrow morning and I am taking a shower tonight.  No fun having frozen hair!

whew glad that's over!

This week has been a blur.  I started an entry I think Monday, but got distracted, perhaps the husband...I dunno.  Anyway, last Sunday night Liz and I went to her first annual Kohl's party.  It was nice but it started at 7:30 and on a school night it was late for me.  The worst part was they didn't eat until 10!  I think they were waiting for the store to close & that group to show.  It ended being a nice night, but too late for me.  I got home at 11 and I need my beauty sleep, I get up at 5 and sleep is a must to keep me from going down with the rest of the crew when the bugs go around.  Speaking of, why do mommy's insist on sending their buggery babies to school?  I know they can't kept them home at every sniffle, but  keep your germs at home please.

I had a hard time zipping my dress slacks that I wore to the party.  I have been skipping going to Curves, have been depending on the kids to walk the dog and been way too lazy.  Plus my bus is much closer to base this year so I have not been walking as much as normal.  My brain has been turning to mush along with my butt.  So Tuesday I turn over a new leave and went back to working out and walking the doggy.  Feeling much better, plus my pants fit again.

Tim told me a kid that goes to his college has been missing since the Saturday before Martin Luther King day.  The kid was at a party at Tim's old frat house and then disappeared.  His frat was all over the news.  The police cleared the house.  Scary stuff.

I have a short Speech team trip tomorrow and the boys are coming over Sunday.

But now with my new found energy I am up for it!

Liz's coffee house fund raiser.  Liz is 3rd from left.   I went to it Friday night, some really talented kids performed. 

~*~*~today~*~*~

Today I came closer to accepting that my child is growing up, my baby, my only daughter.  I was ok with my boys graduating, after all I had raised all these kids and life had become such a blur of activity that I didn't have time to stop and think let alone feel.  We had children graduate in 1999, (2),  2000, 2002, 2003...Dale would have graduated in 2005...having him here for a year was enough drama to make it feel like he was here for 10. 

I am making myself slow down and enjoy my child's last year of high school.  Thank God for my camera I can document it.  She had a coffee house fund raiser this evening.  Normally I would have not gone, but she worked hard on this and was so happy to see me drop by.  She loves to be in the background, doing stage production, set design, and management of others.   I was glad to go, she's turning into quite a young woman, one am so proud of. 

Sunday is her Christmas party for Kohl's.   It's at a fancy clubhouse, normally I'd of encouraged her to not go, now?  We are going...her & I.

Our children starting as soon as they can crawl begin the process of moving away from us, otherwise they'd never grow up and leave us.   I am going to enjoy this time.

On another note one of my kids on the grade school route was telling me all about some kid he knew, he then said, "I told that kid TMI" So I say, "what the heck is TMI".  Too much information of course!  Ok....have we become so lazy in this world that our children have to abbreviate everything??

Can you tell I am having a gravy school year???  No complaints!  The worst thing so far is yesterday the junior high kids had 4 kids in a seat and one kid squatting in the aisle, and 4 in the other seat..  All I had to say was, straighten the back of the bus or I let all the other buses pass us"...they fixed the mess!

I guess after last year I deserved a break!

 

I did it!!!

This picture is from MY camera!!   Look out world play by play of my life!!

The little stinker behind Dakota and grandpa is Jacob, he always has time to either duck or put his hand over his eyes, because my camera has the redeye feature and he hates the flash. 

Grandma Rose and Dayton!

It's still freezing here, Mark is off work until the 29th.  I am making a list of some chores I have for him.  He changed my brakes today. 

It's not as icy as in the south...even if it was Illinois is well able to keep the roads clear.  But from what I saw on TV in Texas nobody could drive on the frozen mess.  I remember nights getting up at 2 am to get my newspapers for my route and having to pick my frozen car out of an ice cover. Snow is one the thing, but ice is scary.

But it's already past mid January.  Midpoint for the nasty stuff of winter.

I'll be catching up with you all soon!

 

 

Still not mine...Dakota, Jacob and Jeremy...and Gravedigger...I did edit this picture to make it lighter...photoshop here I come!

 

Mark & I watched the boys today.  Tracey and Jeremy's birthday's were this past week so they wanted to go out alone and see a movie, shop and eat out. 

Dayton is already sitting up, by himself!  He isn't even 6 months yet!  What are they putting in the Similac these days!???  I took bunches of pictures and tomorrow while my hubby watches the Bears get killed I will try and figure out how to download them on to my computer. 

The bigger boys are a lot more fun now that they don't fight all the time.  We were able to take time with each boy as the two big ones were napping when we arrived and Dayton took a nap while they each got up, Jacob first.  He still tried to talk his way into coming home with me.  It's hard to be the oldest of so many kids so close in age.  I feel his pain, my mom had 4 of us in 5 years, me being the oldest and only girl.  I was so mad at mom for bringing home babies everytime I turned around...I made her life hell until I was in 8 th grade, by refusing to go to school.  God I am lucky I didn't get paid back...yet.

We are supposed to get some sort of snowstorm, while the rest of the country is getting ice.  I think they are saying 2 to 4 inches, which to me is a dusting.  Back in the day (I sound like an old granny) we used to get such huge drifts of snow, snow fences had to be put up.   Mostly farm land back then, nothing to block the snow. 

I am off Monday...but signed up for a CPR class, which goes from 8 until noon. 

Time to enjoy the quiet!

 

 

all better....

Another BIG reason I love you all!  You all have been there done much that I have done or close to it!  Things are much better.  I have never been one to sit and not take action.  I came home today and took a nap...two hours!   Oops that's not action.  I never sleep that much but so many germs are going around my work.  The germs must of reinvented themselves after the long holiday.  Icky stuff like pneumonia & strep, and icky flu bugs, worse then the one I had.  My monitor is home sick, 3 days so far.  So for me to get a nap seems to ward off sickness, besides naps feel so good.  We Americans are nutty for not making them manditory.

Anyway, I called the States Attorney regarding my child support.  First I tried to call the airline Liz's dad works at, but I got some poor old lady from Oklahoma, and the other number was for reward points...so I knew that avenue was pointless.  So as I said I called the States Attorney, I used to know the old one, I actually went to high school with him, but now he's a judge.  Get to the point girl!  They were all at lunch so I left a message. 

I figured that they would be useless as the person who answered the phone told me to call my lawyer...my case was from 1988, I don't think he practices family law anymore.  So I bit the bullet and called the state's child support line.  I sat on hold for 45 minutes...listening to all the great things they do for we poor custodial parents...blah blah...then the nice man answered and said after I gave him my dilemma..."oh that was our fault!  We need to send them a letter to change the dates"  Bingo!

He also said I'd get a comfirmation letter.  Cool....I've dealt with these government people in the past.  I usually had to do all the work and they would send me letters claiming to have found Liz's wayward father--this after I told them where he was.  But they have been good to me in the resent past adjusting my support to make up for all the shortfalls.

Ah...it feels good to fix stuff.

Carry on world...

I finally figured out how to make my pictures smaller on photobucket...whoo hooo

Jacob & Dakota in Gravedigger (monster truck)...with boys it's all about the toys!  Big or small! 

My problem I was alluding to yesterday has nothing to do with my health or my aging...it's my daughter's biological father.  Over the years he has finally worked at the same place long enough for me to regularly get a small and I mean small support check.  My court order is from 1989...so it is small, but anything helps when you are raising a kid.  I never went back to court because I knew the guy would cause a stink and want me to send my kid all the way from Illinois to Oklahoma to visit, and since he works for the airline he'd  be able to fly her for free.  And since he can't seem to stay with the same woman longer than a few years, I did NOT want my kid exposed to him and his stuff.  So why rock the boat, I left things alone.  Oh yeah, at one point he was $10,000 behind in support, he is required to pay $45 per week, never sending one cent more either.   The government is awesome in that I got his tax refunds for a few years, until he figured it out and adjusted his dependents, or was it he just had more kids?! 

Anyway, in October Liz turned 18, in Illinois support does not stop until the kid graduates, must not be the case in Oklahoma, because her support stopped last month.  So.....I am now being forced to call around and figure out what to do.  First I had to find the airlines main number, that I finally found online (God bless the Internet!).  My legal service told me to call the states attorney and they will inform the company of their error.  It's just ticks me off, because the guys a creep and two payments have been missed and I am sure by now he knows about it.  AND is doing nothing!  He sent her a Christmas card 2 weeks late, with a drunken rambling letter of how much he hopes God blesses her.  I refuse to talk to him since he left without word for 10 years and then expected to come waltzing in Liz's life after she's nearly grown.  When Liz graduates she can decide for herself if she wants to seehim, right now Mark is the only father she has known, and that's what she cares about.

It's just a hassle that brings up all sorts of unnecessary emotions.  And then add my hormones and there you go...but I am not a steamy pile of mess.  I am actually feeling very good and I always love a puzzle and I will get this thing straightened out, as always.

Otherwise, work is fine.  Mark is also working...yippee!  Otherwise life is good and so am I!

 

Still not my camera, but Tracey sent this  to me...I love the sour puss on Dayton! 

I picture of the boys from the last entry is from the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago.  It's an awsome place, I highly recommend it.

I was off the computer most of the weekend just basically wandering my house in a near zombie like state.  I am beginning to feel the hormonal changes we woman go through as we near 50!  ECK!  Everytime I say 50 I shutter.  I will be 50 this June and it sure doesn't feel like I am that old.  Anyway, I made sure I took my dog for a nice brisk a walk which snapped me out of la la land.

Some other things are going on ... and I will write tomorrow...it's always something...at least I have something to entertain myself with!  more later...

a new year...

Hmmmmmmmm, I used the aol picture feature, I like photobucket better. 

This is my last day of Winter Break.  I go back tomorrow only to am & pm routes, no midday.  They don't meet on Wednesdays.  We have this 3 day week and next and then we are off again on the 15th.  The month will be 1/2 over by then!  Winter is the longest for me, I hate cold.  But I'd rather be outside so I put up with it.  Gotta love working for a school district.  Love the benefits.

New Years was quite an evening.  We had the kids from 5 pm until noon the next day.  Three children under 3 is a lot for this girl.  Especially when the name of the game is let's see how far we can test grandma and grandpa.  Fortunately for me Mark can be the hard guy and he put a halt to the bad behavior.  Dayton can be the most happy baby around, but when he wants something and you don't figure it out right away he screams his head off.   All in all though it was fun.  They all three are delightful, normal kids.   I only wish yesterday was warmer so we could have spent some time at the park.  I did show the boys my school bus, but Dakota kept insisting I drive a back hoe, like daddy.  I was glad to have them here & let my dil sleep in and enjoy a baby free night out.  They went to a neighbors party.  I know all the rest of my kids stayed put too...no need to be out driving on what I fondly call amateur night. 

While I enjoyed my hibernation I am now looking forward to shaking off the cobwebs and go back to normal.  Mark will be working, thank God, and hopefully my stepson Jim too.  It's been a blessing for him and us having him live here again.  This is an opportunity for him to start fresh, save some money and get on with his life.

I am off I need cat food and I hate having 4 sets of eyes staring at me ...

Happy 2007!