Missing Zen

Apparently SOME Zen's have a common "issue" of constantly disconnecting and reconnecting when it's plugged into the computer... making it a major lesson in frustration to upload more than a couple songs at a time. I was lucky enough to get one of these 'special editions' Grrrrrrrrr. I called tech support a couple weeks ago they said it would have to be repaired or replaced. WHAT!!!?? It took me more than 2 weeks to send it away... I just coudln't bear the thought of being tuneless in the car!! I finally mailed it the other day... and I wish I had just mailed it when I called them because I would probably have it BACK by now!

I will need it back soon because not only will I be using it in the car... but within a couple weeks I will be using it hooked up to speakers in my new REAL OFFICE! Woo Hoo!!

Back to life

It's amazing how quickly things get back to normal!

Our very nice visit with Mom ended today when Jessi and I dropped Mom off at the airport this afternoon. Things were almost immediately the way they were before she got here. Came home and picked up around the house a bit, and fooled around on 2peas for awhile. Went and picked up Sean from school. Came home and watched GH, then into the kitchen to cook dinner and clean up the kitchen. Somewhere in that time line the kids had 2 warnings and then spent an hour in their rooms with no electronics for fighting with each other. Yup. Normal ;)

Tomorrow I am back to work... sorta. I have to go to Augusta for the day for a training/workshop thingy. Tomorrow I am also back on the TREADMILL! Serious slackin' has been goin' on around on my part and it shows!!

There is a reason none of us are ACTUALLY rock stars...

...and it's not because we just haven't been discovered yet ;)

The dog may have been hiding under the table. The yard may have been filling up with stray cats. And Jessi may have been wishing she was adopted when Jerry and Rick started singing (and DANCING) 'Copacabana' ....but we had a blast anyway!!

Guitar Hero may start collecting a little dust ;)

Today Mom bought "Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore BUNDLE"
LOVES IT!! Too freakin' fun!!!!

SO....

SATURDAY NIGHT!!!


BE HERE
&
BE READY TO SING
&
MAKE AN ASS OF YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look who's here!!!!

Yesterday

Well yesterdays "PLAN" was to clean the whole house and have it all spic n' span for Mom's arrival on Wednesday, since I have to work today. I did clean, and I even cleaned the oven, and got some comforters washed that I have been wanting to do. BUT... the house is already a disaster again. Damn kids. Even Jessi's room, that she and her friends worked so hard on getting clean and organized (and even did a little painting), will need another run thru before we head to the airport at 2pm tomorrow to pick Mom up! That's ok... I work much better under pressure ;)

Baseball and a haircut

LOVING the nice weather this weekend!! We got the house and yard all cleaned up this morning and then Holli came over to meet the family. Holli is going to be spending some time with the kids this summer while Rick and I are at work. The kids LOVED her and are really looking forward to a summer of fun. They both hate camp, so finding someone who will spend a couple days a week taking them to fun places was the perfect solution, she even said Jessi could bring along a friend if she wanted to!

Sean starts baseball after vacation, so we went out and got him all the stuff he needed (a haircut being need #1!)... and some fishing stuff... and Rick a new weight bench since his bit the dust.

No big plans for the rest of the day. I have tomorrow off for 'Patriot's Day' (it's a New England thing), then I work on Tuesday, and then I am off til the next Wednesday... LOVES IT!!!!!!!!!!!

We have TONS of cleaning and stuff to do before Mom arrives on Wednesday...

So NATURALLY we spent half the day at the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race ;)

Oh my... I am a blog slacker!

I don't even have any pics to post because I am a photo slacker too! Ok... I HAD to find some pics... couldn't go picless... that's just wrong. So here is my desk. Mikayla faking. And some SMoke on the Water ;)

This week has been a busy one! I have been trying to get stuff done around the house, including getting estimates to FINALLY have our lot graded and all prettied up... thanks to George W's (unsuccessful) attempt at paying us all off to like him. Thanks George. It's going to cost quite a bit to have it done, but it's going to be FANTASTIC when it's done! AND... it's going to fix all of our basement issues, so Jessi can resume day-dreaming about having her rock band stage down there ;) Both Rick and I had dreams about our 'perfect yard' the night we got the estimate!

Today will be another busy one. But good busy because I have the day all to myself! The kids are going to B and Grampa's after school. So after work I am going to do a little shopping, and then heading over to Dyan's house in Orono for book club. And no... I did not finish the honky joy luck book. It was a TOTAL snoozer. Kinda like this blog post................

Parrrrrrrrrrrrrrtaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!

The party was great! I was a little worried pre-party because usually Nicole takes over and runs things for me... and I REALLY like that!! But she is in Texas having fun in the sun... so I had to make-do without her. Jessi and Mikayla were a HUGE help! They made up all the goodie bags, set the table, and helped wrangle all if Sean's little friends :) There were about 256 parties going on there that day and it was CRAZINESS, but fortunately we had the last 2 lanes, so we weren't right in the middle of it all. I can't BELIEVE how many toys Sean got. He's probably going to be bummed at Christmas now...lol!! I had thought about asking people not to bring gifts, but everyone thought that was a bad idea. He has so much though, it's ridiculous. This week certainly will have a 'go around the house collecting toys for kids that don't have toys' mission!

My camera died mid way through the party, so I had to steal the batteries out of my flash, so I couldn't use flash anymore and that was kind of a bummer, but that'll learn me for not having extra batteries with me all the time!!

Marshmallow guns pretty much rock!

I don't know where my Mom found them, but she pretty much sealed up Sean's 'greatest birthday gift' award this year when a big box of 4 Marshmallow guns and LOTS of bags of mini marshmallows arrived in the mail :)

My birthday boy and guitar hero graduate

Today I looked in my rearview mirror...

and saw two beautiful 12 year old girls sitting quietly with tears streaming down their faces and letters of rejection in their hands. They spent the past 3 days from after-school until dinnertime running drills, throwing, catching and hitting balls, all with the hopes that they would make the team. They didn't.

What do you say?? 'Oh well... you figured you weren't going to make it anyway since there were no many trying out.' 'Suck it up, you'll be fine.' 'Better luck next year?' I feel like the way I handle this will chart the course of her life. Like if I say the wrong thing, she won't ever try out for a sport again. Like she'll give up, decide she is just 'not athletic and sucks at sports,' like I did when I didn't make the few teams I tried out for in middle school... and we all know how I spent my high school years instead of athletics... and we all know how physically fit I ended up. What a completely helpless feeling of wanting to march right over to the school, barge in and say "WTH!!??? You'll put my freakin' kid... and her friends... on the team now, or I'm gonna have to kick some ass!!" But obviously I can't do that. All I can do is listen to the girls, and plan them a little 'pity party' for Friday night.

ham

ham

Audio Help (hām) Pronunciation Key n. The thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especially a hog. A cut of meat from the thigh of a hog. The back of the knee. The back of the thigh. hams The buttocks. A performer who overacts or exaggerates. A licensed amateur radio operator. v. hammed, ham·ming, hams v. intr. To overact. v. tr. To exaggerate or overdo (a dramatic role, for example). [Middle English hamme, from Old English hamm. N., senses 6 and 7, possibly from ham-fatter, a poor or amateurish actor.]

If you are a delicate flower... skip this post cuz there is gonna be a LOT OF SWEARING!!!!!!!

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!! I FUCKING HATE OUR FUCKING BASEMENT!!! Today was SUPPOSED to be a nice day with friends, photos, and BBQing. INSTEAD we woke up to five fucking inches of water in our stupid ass basement because the stupid bitch of a sump pump died overnight. Actually.... fuck even blaming the sump pump.... let's get right fucking to it. We didn't know that the hell we were doing when we built this stupid house and fucked everything all up. If we had HIRED someone to do the groundwork and foundation, surely they would have made sure that the drainage was done properly. But at the time, all I fucking cared about was cabinets and countertops and getting it fucking FINISHED so that we could get out of that nasty ass apartment.

the water would have sucked no matter what... but it sucks even MORE because the basement is a FUCKING WARZONE of a disaster. Because yet again.... Who cares if we have stairs out the bilco to the outside as long as we have a really cool KITCHEN ISLAND, RIGHT!!??? So junk and crap and shit we don't need and "where-should-I-put-this-I-don't-know-put-it-in-the-basement" and construction materials are EVERYWHERE... and now they are FLOATING everywhere... soon to be fucking MOLDING everywhere!!!!

What really burns my butt is that I have called FIVE contractors over the past couple weeks to come and properly grade our yard and NONE have shown up when they said they were going to. (Not that it would have been done yet, but STILL!) I have also called a couple carpenters to come give estimates on building the stairs down there. I was ON IT!!! WHY NOW!!!?? I didn't NEED a FUCKING REMINDER from the Basement Flood God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am DONE fucking being lazy about the shit that needs to get done around here. No more Mrs. Fun Lady!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oopsie

I crashed today. Just a little ;)

I ran to the dollar tree on my lunch break to get Sean's party invitation's that HAVE to go out tomorrow since I have slacked so long. The place was packed (which I should have thought of, since it's the first week of the month and that's payweek for much of the Dollar Tree's client el ...yeah that sounds snotty, but you know it's true.) There were 2 registers open with at least 10 people in each line. I stood in line for awhile, then realized there was no way I was going to get out of there before my lunch break ended. So I left. The car beside me had parked REALLY close to me, so I was watching it as I pulled out to keep from hitting it... the BANG!! Another car was pulling out on the other side of the lane and we crashed car butts ;) My taillight got cracked a bit and the spare tire cover on her RAV 4 got cracked. So no biggie, and totally my dumb, stupid fault.

Figures the one time I am actually NOT on the phone or playing with my mp3 player is when I crash.

For B

who has been begging me for a couple weeks to have Sean make a birthday wish list :) ...and anyone else who isn't sure what 6 year old boys like....

Party Details... Sunday April 13th, Bangor/Brewer Bowling Lanes (Sean's Choice!) 12pm

A good day.

Today has been a very nice day. The kids and I took the day off as I scheduled all of their annual doctor and dentist check-ups for today. We started off at the dentist. No cavities, but Sean does have a filling that came out and needs to be replaced (which I think is dumb in a baby tooth.... but I guess that's why I don't have a degree in dentistry.) Then we went to Walmart to get some stuff... including some LEGOS, as both kids have been begging for some for ages. I bought the starter set and was dissappointed to see that there are about 5 legos in there, for $15 bucks! Ridiculous!!! They have been playing with them ALL DAY though! We will definitely need to get some more of those, and a certain little boy just happens to have a birthday coming up in 10 days ;)

We also went out to lunch at Panda Garden. Out FAVORITE Chinese place because it's not that same old crap that every chinese place has (and probably all buy frozen from the same huge chinese warehouse in Jersey) ...it's fresh, real, and DELISH!!

I also moved Jessi's fish tank downstairs to the kitchen today. She is not a very good caretaker, and was down to 1 fish. She also doesn't spend very much time in her room since we got the den. I need to put some different stuff in it, since it's designed to match Jessi's room, but I kinda like watching the fish swim around while I cook dinner!

Oh yeah... and in that new red planter on the windowsill I am going to attempt to grow chives and thyme :)

I LOVE having an extra day off. I get SO much more done around here! I think I need a 4 day a week job!! ....or a housekeeper ;)

So face painting is NOT his idea of a good time.

From Tiger Sean to EMO Sean in about 5 minutes ;)
















Rick let the cat out of the bag that I am sick... again. I probably wouldn't have even admitted it on here because I have been sick so much this winter that it's freakin embarrassing! This time it really feels more like an allergy kind of thing though. On Friday I took a Benadryl from someone at work and it KNOCKED ME OUT! I was loopy for the last hour of work and when I went home, I went to bed at 430 and slept all night til the next day!! No more Benadryl for this girlie!

Saturday morning, I sat in the den wallowing in self-pity and phlegm. I got sick of that after awhile and agreed to suck it up, take some Mucinex (the BEST stuff EVER!), and take the kids, and friends of course, to the YWCA Spring Fair (which I HATE and swore I wouldn't go to this year even after Rick got free tickets, What can I say, I 'm a sucker.) I didn't even bother to bring my camera because I wasn't feelin' it. We were there forEVER!! It was wristband evening, so the kids could ride all they wanted to and they took FULL advantage. We were there so long that I noticed we'd still be there when Nicole's daughter, Sophie was going to be preforming, so we decided to stay and watch her. It was a VERY cute performance which you can see some pics of over on Nicole's Blog.

Today pretty much rocked!! Nicole took me out to lunch for my birthday and gave me some kick ass presents, including a hand made necklace that I COMPLETELY {HEART} and was secretly (and not-so-secretly) hoping that she was going to give me because she is a FANTASTIC jewelry maker!! A skill I will never possess ;) After lunch we did a kid-free little shopping, which is a rarity these days, since we are both so busy. I stocked right up at the Yankee Candle store, they have some GREAT new scents this season!

On the way home from shopping... the Mucinex wore off... and now I feel like a mouth-breather and like my eyeballs are going to pop out. So enough bloggy bloggy.

Hope you all had a great weekend too!!

Hot tip of the day: Seagulls are MORE than willing to pose for the camera if you offer french fries in return :)