Here, let me just open my wallet for you and you take what you need

I’m not 100% sure how but I have apparently pissed off the Money Gods lately because everyone seems to want mine!

Example #1 The stupid coffee table. I went down to find out how much I would have to spend to replace the glass in the table because it was driving me crazy. They claim it is going to cost almost $150 just to replace the glass in it with the matching glass for the panels that didn't break. But I can get a cheaper glass to put in it for all three panels for only $140! Gee thanks! Guess I will just do a few extra projects for a new coffee table fund. Sigh.

Example #2 My stupid tire blew out on the highway while I was doing 70. This pisses me off at numerous levels because first, the tire was a fairly new. Unfortunately, the place we got it at is an 8 hour drive away so the warranty they came with is fairly useless. The diagnosis for why the tire blew up? Why, because it’s Texas of course and it’s hot. I had to buy a new tire for $140 because it’s hot in Texas???? What kind of shit is that?

Example #3 Cody has decided that after the month of the pretty constant eating that he has done (does anyone else in the world have to spend over $800 a month for a family of 3 at the grocery store????) that now would be the best time in the world for him to grow 2 inches. Would it have been too much to ask him to wait until closer to the beginning of school before I had to buy him new clothes?

Example #4 The IRS has been kind enough to pull out my tax return for last year and “Oops, lookie there! You made a mistake! That will be $7 for the mistake and another $85 for the penalties” Assholes.

Example #5 Guess who’s cap is getting loose on his tooth? Go ahead. Guess! Yep, you would guess correctly. That would be Cody who just got the stupid cap last year when one of his friends was screwing around and he broke his tooth on a chair. At least this time I have dental insurance that I pay out the ass for and covers about 20 cents of anything that he goes into the dentist office for.

I give up. Is this week over yet?

Depressed

I am depressed. I know what you are thinking. That is such an overused thought that it makes it difficult for the person hearing it to actually believe it. But there it is. I am depressed.

And I really mean it this time!

Why should I be depressed in this bright sunshiney world? How can I be depressed with all the birds chirping and the squirrels scampering around? It just boggles the mind.

But I will tell you, but only if you promise not to tell another soul the reason that I am so depressed.

Are you ready?

I am depressed because about 15 minutes ago I was sitting on the glass coffee table talking to Chad who is lying on the sofa because he is injured. And my ass broke the coffee table.

MY ASS BROKE THE COFFEE TABLE!

Oh, I suppose I could say it was the extra weight of the coaster that broke the table but that seems mighty thin (as opposed to my, ya know, ASS!)

Do you want to know the worst part? That’s even worse than actually breaking the coffee table?

I had orange rolls baking in the oven. And now I can’t even eat them because I am depressed. And apparently my ass is too big .

Sigh.

And the heavens opened up and I heard singing

It's of no surprise to anyone who knows me that I hate my neighbors. For months and months now I have been complaining about them to anyone that would listen, and even some that didn't really want to listen.

It's really funny. When they first moved in, I really didn't think they would stay long. We had lived here for two years by the time they moved in and there had been five different people living there in that time. They would move in and within a month or two, they would be gone again. Some of them, it would seem, in the middle of the night.

The first time they did something incredibly rude, I ignored it. I reasoned that there was no reason for me to make the brief time they would be here any worse than it needed to be. Unfortunately, they stayed..and stayed....and stayed. I don't know what was wrong with the house before that nobody would stay there, but these people seemed to have found it a pleasant place to be and were not leaving.

So for almost a year now I have dealt with weekend and weekday parties. There were so many people that lived there on a full time basis that in order to fit all the cars there they would park all up and down the street. Their visitors would park in front of my house and then proceed to honk their horn and yell really loud at 3 am because it was easier for them than getting out of their car. They would let their yard become overgrown, leave trash stacked by their house so when the wind blew it would blow into my yard, leave their dog in the back yard barking at all hours of the day and night and have incredibly loud screaming matches with each other, usually in the middle of the night.

And then today I pulled into my driveway and glanced over at their overgrown yard. Except wait...it wasn't overgrown. It was trimmed neatly. (And was incidentally making MY yard look a little overgrown!) The trashcan was pulled to the curb and trash piled beside it awaiting the garbage truck tomorrow. And there was a sign. A SIGN!!

The house is For Rent!!!! My neighbors have moved. I am almost giddy with excitement. It seems like such a small thing but really it's not. Don't ask me when they moved. I have noticed that it has been pretty quiet lately and not as many cars are parked on the street. I never saw a moving truck, I never saw anyone carrying boxes, I never saw anything. But they are gone.

I kinda wish they had left the dog though.

Voodoo Queen

I have been in a serious funk lately and haven't felt like doing a whole lot of anything. Fortunately, I feel the funk lifting a bit and can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. Keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news....It is official. I am a witch with magical voodoo powers. Yes, I have gotten confirmation of this and have been trying to decide how exactly to use these new found powers for good. I was annoyed with someone the other day and put a pox on them, the next day they were running a fever and had some kind of growth on their side. A trip to the doctor for some antibiotics and she is feeling a bit better but only because I have not revoodooed her. She should take care to not piss me off.

Cara's baby shower went off without a hitch and everything is good there. She got a lot of goodies and such with more coming each day. With a bit of luck she won't have to purchase a whole lot more.

The school year is done and I am still alive. More importantly, Cody is still alive. He passed everything and now I can take a break for the summer. Thank God!

I had a heart attack today when I realized that my brake lights would not turn off. I did everything I could possibly think of to fix it. Checked the lights to make sure that I hadn't left something on. Stared at it for a few minutes. Pushed the brake to ensure that it hadn't gotten stuck. Stared at it again. Asked some random stranger in a parking lot, "Hey, does it look like these lights are on or is it the way the sun is hitting it?" Stared at it some more. Nothing worked. So I came home and called Chad. When he got home he and Aiden went outside to look at it. Can you friggin believe that Aiden fixed my damn lights????? Apparently, there is a little switch somewhere down there. (Incidentally, why the hell would they put a switch on the side of the damn peddle????) All that time I spent trying to fix it myself and a 5 year old did it in 5 seconds. Oh well, that kid gets capri suns for life.

I have become a bit miffed lately with my ex husband and have decided that instead of being the bigger person, I will just go ahead and be the complete and total bitch that he thinks I am anyway. For the last several months I have emailed him pictures of Cara as her belly grows and this past weekend I emailed him pics from the baby shower. He complained to Christin one time that he hadn't gotten any pics lately and so I started texting him whenever I sent him something because he never checks his email. It occurred to me the other day that the last several times I sent him an email with the pics attached that he hasn't even had the decency to let me know that he had gotten them. So screw it. If he wants to be rude about it, he's the one missing out. Perhaps I should let him know about that voodoo thing?

Changing the world one parking lot at a time.....

I would like to take a few minutes to discuss something that is not discussed near often enough….parking lot etiquette.

Studies have shown that people who shop tend to park in parking lots. Now this is not a hard fast rule, as I am sure there are exceptions however, what we are going to discuss today are the things that you should NOT be doing while in the parking lot.

There is never any reason to crank your stereo system up to it’s maximum level with your windows down. You should especially not be doing this if you are listening to songs that have more curses in them than all the other words combined. People walk through the parking lot with their small children and should not have to be subjected to the questions these songs generate. If you want to listen to these songs, then fine. Knock yourself out. Just keep it to yourself.

As a pedestrian you have the right way while walking through a parking lot. However, please do not walk down the middle of the aisle while pushing your cart making it impossible for someone to drive past you without running you over. Also, just because you have the right way does not necessarily mean you should just walk out in front of a car without even looking. Do you really think that knowing you were right will make it hurt any less if you get run over?

On the flip side….pedestrians have the right way. Could you be a little more observant when people are going to be possibly walking out in front of you?

There is never any reason, ever, to go over 15 mph through a parking lot. Never. People are backing up and walking around. Pay attention and slow your ass down.

I am lazy. I will admit this freely and without rancor. However, I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to squeeze past someone who was so hell bent on obtaining a closer parking spot that they sat and waited while someone opened their car, loaded up their bags, took their cart back and then started their car. Almost every single time this has happened I have been out of my car, walked past them, and been in the store before they have had a chance to even park. Had they just went ahead and moved up three spaces and taken the empty spot they would have spent less time and annoyed a lot less people who had gotten stuck behind them.

On that note, if you are going to be one of those people who absolutely must wait for that closer parking spot, for the love of God….move over so that the rest of the people behind you can go around you. There is no reason to completely stop the flow of traffic just because you don’t feel like walking 20 extra steps.

When you come out to your car with a cart it really is polite to put your cart in the cart corral. I don’t know why some people are so against doing this. Its not like you got your cart from the middle of the parking lot so why would you even think to leave it there?

This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your reguarly scheduled blogging.

Priorities

As the end of the school year draws near I have begun the summer preparations for the inevitable "I'm bored" that strikes within the first 22 minutes of summer vacation. Fortunately, I hold the title of "World's Worst Mother", which means that figuring out which things to include on the list of possible other things that you could be doing was fairly simple for me to come up with. They all benefit me.

* Clean the windows.
* Clean the rain gutters along the back of the house.
* Clean out the garbage cans
* Clean out the big garbage bin.
* Clean the garage.
* Shimmy on top of the shrunk and clean off the stupid ledge the builders of this house decided needed to be 12 feet off the ground, just for show.
* Go through all your drawers and closet and take out anything that doesn't fit, you refuse to wear, or will warrant a call from CPS.
* Rewire the back gate so that the dogs will no longer be able to figure out how to leave the relative safety of our backyard for the creek and the sticker bushes that get stuck in Jack's fur and take literally hours to pull out.
* Clean your damn bathroom.
* Figure out what I did to my MP3 player and why it won't upload the music that I want on it.
* Instead of trying to figure out the most expedite way to get the food from the kitchen into your stomach, how about you actually think of the rest of us and cook us a meal AND CLEAN UP YOUR MESS AFTERWARD.
* Repair the garage door that your big melon head made a hole in when you were goofing off with the dog.
* Read your email occasionally and actually send one back so that I don't get emails asking why you aren't responding.
* Read a book. A REAL book, not a comic book.
* Finish loading all the bags of dirt into my flower beds so in my spare time I can actually plant my flowers where I want them.

I'm quite sure there is more but I think this should get him through the middle of July at least.

Karma

I must confess...I am a complete moron. I should have known better than to open my mouth. It's not like I am a novice at this.....I have been doing it for over 20 years. You would think that at some point during those 20+ years of raising kids I would have known that Karma will smack you down quicker than any virus and leave you wondering what the hell just happened.

I was talking to a friend the other day about our kids. We speak often about the trials and tribulations of teenagers and often shake our heads at the lunacy of our offspring and how they seem to think we know nothing about anything. During this conversation she brought up the fact that her daughter kept losing stuff. Not cheap stuff, no. Expensive stuff. Things that cost quite a bit of money and she was mad. I couldn't blame her honestly, I would have been pissed too.

Throughout the past year I have been mad at Cody for a variety of reasons but not one of them was him losing anything. Well, except his homework and that was a totally different problem stemming from the fact that, well at 14 he sometimes just isn't really that bright.

Anyway, I sympathized with her and actually uttered the words. Out loud. For Karma to hear. Like a moron.

I told her that wasn't a problem that I have had to deal with. That surprisingly enough, Cody has been pretty responsible with his things. I know, dumb right? You know where this is headed.

Yesterday I walked into Cody's room for something, I don't know what. I glanced over at his Ipod charger and it wasn't on there. And then I realized that it had been literally weeks since the last time he asked me to download a song, or an app.

And then I knew.

I asked him where his Ipod was, knowing full well what the answer would be. He looked up at me with the deer in the headlights look that all teenagers get when they know they have been busted about something. And with a look of resignation on his sad little face told me that it had been stolen. When he took it to school. After he was told not to take it to school. Because it could get stolen. Sigh.

I am such a moron.