Breaking Down and Growing Up

OY

2011-08-10T10:07:00.000-05:00

Holy cow, it has been crazy few months.
I finally broke down completely. In three weeks I moved out of our house. This time I left to escape the non stop drama that seems to follow us everywhere and anywhere we go. I just wanted to have peace and quiet. Which did not happen.
I have been shaking for about 8 months, due to stress and trying to hold myself together. I felt like a failure because I felt I could not measure up to other people that seem so blissfully content with family drama. I felt I could not do anything right, no matter how hard I tried, I felt guilt because I could not be who I thought I needed to be.
Guilt is something I am not accustomed to feeling. I do what I know is right therefore the little nagging thoughts of "what if's" could be ignored. I did not acknowledge anything that I felt was unsure. Doing that has buried allot of feelings and hurt way deep inside. It made me respond to situations differently and not honestly with myself.
I was not honest to myself.

I lied to myself.

I made myself feel different than what I would have naturally.

I fought my own nature.

I broke myself down.

2011 Hyundai Sonata

2011-05-11T13:01:00.001-05:00

I got a new car. It is the first one in my life that is brand new. The other four vehicles were hand me downs from my mom. The newest one was a 1995 Mazda Protege. I am passing it down to my niece when she gets done with her finals for second year in college.

The new car is the 2011 Hyundai Sonata. I love it. It has A/C which I have not had in five years in the southeast Texas heat. All the speakers work! The windows roll down! And the trunk space is spectacular.The mileage is awesome for highway driving. Running errands in stop and go traffic isn't all the great but I am complaining about 31 MPG for stop and go traffic. I set the cruise and ECO button on highway.
The Sonata has Shiftronic which means I can put it into standard and city running I get about the same mileage doing 35 or 40 on the back roads.
It is comfortable on long trips. My mom, NikNak, and I went to Montana to visit family. From my mom's house to my aunt's house was 1790 miles. I spent 250 dollars in gas. Ninety percent of the trip was fighting northern wind and doing about 80 mph. I still got 35 mpg doing 80 mph uphill. I am very impressed with the takeoff and handling. The brakes respond amazingly, especially when NikNak took off her seat belt and tried to pop into the front seat while I was driving. She did not take her seat belt off again. :)
It handled the snow in Montana very well. Especially since I have never driven in snow before. Everything in and on the car is stock. Including tax,title, and license I paid under 22K. I am very glad I did not get the Turbo or my license would have been revoked by now. It hits 80 like nothing I have ever driven, except a friend's car which was a Pontiac 1996 or 97.
In two and a half months of owning this car I have seven thousand miles on it. I still love it. Even looking at it makes me grin and want to wash it.

Kanvus

2011-03-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

I got a Kanvus art tablet to plug into my laptop. I love it allot. It has opened up quiet a few art doors for me to explore. And I don't have to worry about Nikki dumping my water out when I get up to do something else.

Time, and time again.

2011-02-26T09:46:00.000-06:00

Nikki is growing up so fast it is unreal. She is cognitive enough that she can pick up the topic of an offhand conversation, figure out what you are talking about and call you out on it.

"When I was little we used to gum in the end of straws...."- my neighbor
" Don't finish that sentence!"- me
"Why? She isn't listening."- My husband.

I got nailed in the head with a rolled piece of paper projected thru a straw by my three year old.

I love dearly that she is so damn smart, but some days I wish she would slow down. Just a little bit and give me time to catch up. Or breathe.

Time to go go play. :)

Sleeping Warmly

2011-01-09T01:49:00.000-06:00

Nikki is spending the night at her Grandma's tonight. I was going thru my photos and realized with a start that I miss her. This is the photo. She will not go to sleep without her Kitty. This is a rare photo since Donald got hurt. He stiffens up and gets extreme pain in his shoulders and arms when he stays still for a half hour. But he did not want to move because his baby girl was comfortable.

Arrrrrt Work!!!

2010-12-12T02:06:00.000-06:00

Baby Cradle

2010-10-14T01:07:00.000-05:00

My nephew/niece in law are about to have their second child, Brock, on Monday. We don't have much in monetary to give them but I do have allot of wood (another story). So I enlisted the help of my neighbor who has a shop with almost near every wood working device ever made and I was armed with a fuzzy printout on how to build a baby cradle. Unless you have worked wood before the printout is written in gibberish and NOT in step by step. But it was the only one that I could find online for free.
My neighbor did most of the work but I learned an incredible amount and how to use a belt sander, scroll saw, nail gun, the tilt on a table saw, and a paint sprayer. It takes 45 min to clean a paint sprayer. Unless I am painting my house I will never use one again. *smiles* I made the rockers, one has a slight flat spot. When the cradle rocks on cement or wood floor it sounds like a heart beat when it hits the flat spot.

The paint is a latex enamel for wood. It should last three or four kids before it needs to be repainted. The wood is 3/4 in pre- sanded plywood that is made for cabinets.

I'm Baaaaaack!!!

2010-10-14T00:28:00.000-05:00

It has been forever. I have been busy, crazy, and busy some more. This was a plain white eyeglass case and my friend asked me to "Please please, do your thing!"

Annoyance and More

2010-05-15T23:04:00.001-05:00

Time to rant.

Things are less than peachy. They are downright baffling to me. While I have know for a long time that I was either pretending to be happy or I had bouts of acceptance that made me believe I was happy. Either one is true and false at the same instant. I knew that I loathed the life I was living, the life that I had made myself mold to make someone think I was happy. Or that someone just did not have a deeper intellect or caring of what was going on outside his three foot personal space. I don't know. I do know that I was led to believe that I was wrong in feeling restless or wanting more for myself, that I was somehow messed up for feeling that I needed to go to school to learn a trade because it can wait and I need to be home for my stepson or we did not have the money. Wait. Wait. Wait.

I caved and started smoking again. We had several discussions about the topic and the next day he finds the cig butts and has an all out fit about them. We had a giant row over the fact I was smoking and how we could not afford it. I had to get him to understand that being a parent to him, his child, and my daughter with no release of stress was coming out as losing my temper over the stupidest things. So he accepted the smoking. I can only take so much medication before I am just another pill head. Plus the fact that on the drugs my thinking slows down to a pitiful rate and I have a three year old. I cannot be a zoned out mother, she would grow up to Dora raising her during the day and sitcoms at night. It is unacceptable.

Now we skip to two weeks later. He is in more and more pain. I fear it is nerve damage in his neck, the back muscles are spasming hourly, he is constantly on muscle relaxers and pain pills. The muscle relaxers change his personality to where I really cannot say how he is going to react to anything. The next day his mind is wiped blank from the day before and we have the same conversations over and over again. But each time it is a different conclusion. He only focuses on two or three words out of a sentence and suddenly blows up over those words.

Today, for instance, he gets a hard tone in his voice and it pisses me off because I feel like I am a teenager getting lectured. I get a tone back and then he starts in on me because I tell him not to raise his voice at me. He flips, and starts actually yelling at me, with the classic and cliche line of " That wasn't yelling, THIS IS YELLING AT YOU"
It was over the fact that I forget that people asks simple questions in a nice tone when they are actually baiting a hook and when you answer wrong, but honestly, they flip out. I should have been more guarded and not been relaxed. Sad, I know. We were about to drive past a discount tobacco place that he gets his snuff at and I asked him if he wanted to stop and get our nicotine.
"our nicotine, huh?"
"yeah."
"What, you want a carton?"
"I dunno, I guess. Do you think it would be cheaper?"
"Just how many packs are you up to a day now?" --This is when the tone started, deeper bass, harder edged words.
"I am not up to any packs a day. Don't yell at me."
" I am not yelling at you. Why the fuck do you want a carton then?"
"Stop yelling at me. I don't want a carton. You brought it up."
"Why do you want a carton? Why are you getting so defensive with me about this?"
"Stop yelling. Just go in and get you shit and I will get my shit later"
He peals out of the parking lot.
"I am not yelling at you, THIS IS YELLING AT YOU! DO YOU WANT ME TO YELL AT YOU?"

I shut down and stop talking, and now it is my fault because I threw " little fit and went crying to your fucking mama's house". I stayed at the house for three more hours after that, at the end of the three hours I went to him to try and even things out and he wouldn't look at me. I asked him if he wanted me to leave him alone and he told me yes. I asked him for how long and he said he did not know. So I packed up my art stuff and my kid and left for my mom's. He never said a word. I think he wanted me to leave. I think he wants me to leave. So it will be my fault and he will not look bad for kicking his wife and three year old out of the house.

In my defense I have only stayed at my mom's house when we were fighting twice in the 10 years we have been together. The rest of the fights, I stayed and fought it out or stayed and suffered the silence and coldness. Either way I never ran off or ignored the fact he existed and watched TV for hours/days on end. I tried. I really actually tried.

I even tried calling later (conditioning) and he was flippant when I told him that I was staying at my mom's. Do you not care? No. You always get to do whatever you want, so what does it matter how I feel? You throw your little hissy
Ah, that is right. I forgot I never ever try and stay at the house and work things out with you. I always run the fuck off.
yeah, you do.

It is like arguing with someone that is bi polar-- they have no recollection whatso ever of what they say. He is the same way. He will say whatever he wants to win the argument. And the more hurtful and untrue the faster it will fly out of his mouth.
The sad thing is, I just realized this about 2 weeks ago. How sad is that? Now what the hell do I choose?
Left or right?

2010-05-04T23:35:00.000-05:00

Later at night, I find my daughter is asleep, i have time on my hands, my husband is either drug induced sleep or hurting so much that my touch is unbearable to him. So I putter around on the internet, grasping at things that interest me at one point in time but I do not have the drive to accomplish them.
The toll takes a long and harder hit on me at night. Sleep is an odd thing. One night I will sleep so soundlessly and other nights I am plauged by nightmares or dreams that are so intense and real that they wake me up and feel like memories that happened right then.
They bug me the most because they cause the what if's to rear it's ugly head up. The nightmares I am used to, I have had them since I was small and only do I have a dreamless sleep when I am on medication. which means I do no artwork either.
Pick the lesser evil. I'll deal with the nightmares to be creative.I just can't deal with the feeling of crying late at night. I hate crying more than most so I bottle it up. I really should stop doing that.

pppffffffffttttttttt

2010-04-26T00:53:00.001-05:00

It has been way to long since I have posted anything.
I find myself wishing I had taken a different path many years ago and it is really grating on my mind. The what if's bear down and make life that should be happy almost saddening unbearable.
Let go and live, right? What you have now you should be able to accept and be happy. But the tears well up and just haunt right behind my eyes, close up my throat and make me want to scream. I wish I could split in two so the other me can run off and find her heart while this me would be happy without the what if's.

I hate depression.

Hy husband's head injury seemed to flutter away for awhile and now in the last week suddenly his short term memory is shot to hell again. And I mean 6 hours.
Everyday I have the same conversations with him, over a range of topics and each topic he will come to a different conclusion.
I caved after our last fight and bought a pack of cigs, it took two days before I would open them. I told him right off the bat so we could skip the whole "you betrayed me" accusations. The next day he found some butts I had in a cup (WTF was he looking in the bottom of a trash cup anyway) on the patio and he asked whose they were.
It suddenly dawned on me that I am having an affair with his alter ego. That is the only way I can explain how one day he is so accepting of things and the next day refuses to speak to me at all because he found out I am smoking again. And then he can;t understand why I am upset.
I am having a make believe relationship. You cannot remember day to day so what is the point of even trying. What is the point of even caring anymore? Why am I still here? Is it because I still care or is just fear of change?
Maybe if I start writing again i will feel better and get confusions out of my head.
So feel free to ignore the drama writing over the next month or so, I don't mind, I am trying to get the pathways in my mind cleared so maybe I can think and remember clearly again.

Fair

2010-03-28T22:23:00.000-05:00

I love the fair. Mainly for the rides and the adrenaline rush of spinning around upside down at night. It is just great to giggle that much while a kid a screaming next to you that he is going to be sick. I have also been know to howl throughout the entire ride. Make beeping noises when they go backwards, and only scream on the way down because I am actually screaming at the people standing around the ride.

Good times.

Nikki's medicine has sped her up so I am going to update more tomorrow!

Really? It's been a month??

2010-03-06T22:49:00.000-06:00

It's been almost a month since I posted?? Holy cow.

In my drama style, I am feeling better and we are keeping the pace of having a grand fight on the 20th. It was stupid and buried under the rug (to fester)...:) Cig smoke still bothers me, and that is beyond aggravating.

Anyway- still working on the Driftwood artwork series. I have three more pieces and the next one will be the large pendulum piece. Now that I have figured out how to make if stable it will work so much better.

Don't mind the blinding white skin, even after tanning four times this year I am still pale as...well, a ghost. haha.

I dyed purple streaks in my hair. I wanted them darker so they would be more distinct, this was a dyed twice job and while the are screaming purple, it just was not what I had in mind. I am going to try again in April.

My fabric!!!

2010-03-06T22:23:00.002-06:00

My Awesome Book

2010-02-11T14:17:00.000-06:00

This is the math book my mom found at the flea market. I bought them for her but they wound up being for me so she bought the radio for me. It is from 1877. It is 130 years old.

I love the tables and converstion charts. Everyday I find something new. And ironically, I absolutely suck at math, but after reviewing the basic section I was able to balance the checkbook today without a calculator. The rules and how the math is explained makes more sense then what I learned in school.

Fabric From Spoonflower

2010-02-09T22:40:00.000-06:00

How awesome is this fabric??? It is hands down the perfect curtain for my kitchen.

This would be funny for my bathroom or as a skirt...I think they are called Lola skirts, all flowing and long. I used to call them hippie skirts. Think I will start working on how to sew one this month. I like gardening barefoot and having a long skirt just makes it much better.

This would be fun for Nikki for a dress since she ate her first plate of calamari this weekend!!

++++++++++++++++
So, I took a HUGE leap. I turned in one of my designs, tweaked it and bought a test swatch. If I like it then it will on to the site. I am crossing my fingers.

Two Weeks

2010-02-09T01:07:00.000-06:00

In two weeks, give or take a few days, Feb 28th to be exact, will be one year of no smoking.

This has been some of the hardest months since I quit that I have gone thru. Cigarette smoke makes the cravings hit hard, so hard I get sick and start shaking. But I keep walking past where ever the smoke is stemming. Some days I cover my nose and mouth with my hand encased in my jacket sleeve.

I hold my breath.

I keep walking.

I feel like crying.

Finally, I am in my truck.

I turn the radio up as loud as my remaining speakers can handle it. I just sit and close my eyes.

Then I am better. I can concentrate, I can drive, and I can get far away from that damn intoxicating aroma.

It is not so much that I hate smoking or smokers, I feel just the opposite, they have the freedom to make the choice to smoke. I made the choice to quit. Now I am enforcing that choice and testing my will daily. I am not angry with smokers.

I am irritated that on my one year anniversary for my hospital stay, ironically- the pain meds is the reason I was able to quit, I could not feel the withdraws ; at the one year anniversary cigarettes are on my mind almost every single hour.

I cannot/will not smoke again because I cannot just smoke one or two cigarettes a day, I always move up to a full pack a day. I smoked for almost 10 years. I quit the day I found out I was pregnant, made it thru until it was late October of the year Nikki was born. Then postpartum hit, and the roller coaster of anger/sadness behind it. 11 Months for that time. I have to make it the year. If I can make it one year then I can make it 13 months, then 14...

"just keep swimming, just keep swimming....."

One year Ago

2010-02-05T01:53:00.000-06:00

One year ago, I felt sick.

One year ago, I weighed 230 plus lbs, size 18(stained).

One year ago, I had stomach pains after eating or picking up anything more than 5 lbs.

One year ago, I was hours from death, my kidneys were shutting down, my liver was shutting down. I acutely wanted to die to escape the pain. My gallbladder had stones and one slipped over to my pancreas to clog a duct. I had acute pancreatitus and gallbladder inflammation. I threw up green ooze, morphine helped for 15 min and I was screaming again. I had one surgery to unclog my pancreas, then another surgery to remove my gallbladder. Which caused my pancreas to flare up again.
I spent 8 days in the hospital, had four docs tell me three different things, and none connected after 3 days that I was going to freak out because my antidepressants wore off. I had an intravenous shot every three hours of Duladin (strong pain killer) for 8 days.

Outcome in a year- I have lost 37 lbs, down to a 12 (I fit into a 10 yesterday!!!!) My cycles are regular for the first time in my life. (TMI!!) I can run/jog for 5 min without throwing up and almost blacking out. It took six months to reconnect my brain on how to cook-- for whatever reason the massive painkillers scrambled up allot of stuff, it took allot of hard work and tears because I kept burning things and forgetting damn near everything.
Unfortunately, not having a gallbladder means I had to adjust my eating habits. The doctors or anyone else in my life forgot to say that any fresh fruit or vegetables will shoot thru you at the speed of light. Caffeine, sugar, salt, dairy, anything with spices had the same effect. During the summer I lost allot of nutrtion and felt very sick again. But I figured out what was wrong and adjusted my eating again and rather pissed off about it.

The art in my head finally found a way out. It filled my house and is currently in suspension due mainly to the fact we have to level the kitchen before I can finish the cabinets and east wall. The plaster cracking is driving me insane.

I am just being lazy on my cabinet in the bathroom.I am mainly stalled on that because I cannot get my copper plate (17 gauge) to make the sink, and I don't want to work on the rest of it until I have my sink.

I have drawn and redrawn lines in the sand with my husband. He used to be the dominate force in the house and the roles have switched. I am resentful that I feel like I am the only adult. But I don't work. It is an annoying contradiction that I think 90% of women would give their left arm to have this situation. It still irritates me.
I have learned that jewelry gets on my nerves because for the amount he spent on the necklace I could have gotten 1.7 carats of London blue saffires and 3 ounces of silver. Just get me the raw materials and I will be a happy, happy girl. For months!! So we have an understanding for Valentines day this year-- he takes me out to dinner this weekend so we don't have to deal with the crowds next weekend. But I get him tools and he gets me the tools for the jewelry/metalworking that I need/desire/ desperately wish to own. And he gives me two IOUs for the rose plants I want to replace the ones my {idiot} dogs destroyed.

In a year we have fought more than in the last 10, we have missed each other more than when I was stuck in MT an extra week due the cat attack in 08. And we are in the same house. We have both changed severely and rapidly and have yet to know if the changes will break us or not. Hopefully not. Even at my angriest I still feel hopeful about the future. Odd, considering I used to be the most pessimistic/ sarcastic person and now a chirpy abit sarcastic/bitchy cheerleader is pushing her way into my psyche.

But yet, I feel that we will be fine. My artwork, while self taught, will continue to improve. My daughter will grow faster than I can keep up. My stepson will demand to be treated like an adult ... until I hand him rent notice. Sorry dude, adults pay bills, you want freedom, I want my cable paid. My husband will be the same, I think surgery will have to be an option. His head aches are coming back rather hard.

Wow, I actually yawned. I think it is time.

oh oh oh oh

2010-02-03T16:59:00.002-06:00

AWESOME!!!

I am totally html ignorant and am now figuring out how to add widgets and what not.... *does happy dance*

Truce

2010-02-01T22:46:00.003-06:00

It is better. For now.

I am still keeping the house clean but only because they are doing their part. None of the stuff is laying around, no muddy boots, no clothes, all work/school stuff is put up and the dishes are being rinsed off and neatly stacked in the sink.

I feel like I am in the twilight zone. Sadly, now that the house is clean my mind is a little less uncluttered. I am slowly setting a routine for the day. Anyone who knows me, knows i cannot keep a routine to save my life. I cannot even fold my clothes the same way twice.

He is paying closer attention and pulling himself out of his depression. Maybe this crappy horrid weekend is what we needed to snap the relationship back onto track and out of the mire it was in. Or maybe it is a stalemate.Maybe this is just relationship normalacy.
He took me driftwood hunting twice, and found some awesome pieces that were part of an anthill-- the ants actually destroyed the tree from the inside out. The bark was intact but the inside was nothing but tunnels.

******************
I am still angry deep down, he says he doesn't mean what he said but that does not stop the high irritation, hurt and anger. It just cycles round. Most days I ignore it. Is that repressing it or is that delusional emotional therapy? He prolly feels the same.
Enough. My daughter is more important than either of us, she needs me home so she is not stuck in an overpriced, MRSA filled daycare. I have decided that I am going to keep it clean for her and I.

******************

My comp was frying slowly and surely down the drain. It took 15 min to start up and 10 min to shut down. I did not have the time to try and uninstall my OS and reinstall. Mainly because I have no clue as to what I would be doing and i have way to much other stuff to go on during the day/night to try it. My mom took it over and I asked her to keep it another day or two while the weather sucked arse.
When I went out there today she showed me what she had done. Not only wiped it clean but bought windows 7 for me and had it up and installed. I was just shocked and out of my skin happy.
I am using FireFox instead of IE8. It is less cluttered. Windows 7 is much simpler and has allot less crap programs so it can give me room to buy the art programs I want instead of having to use the freeware. Art Rage is awesome. I tried the demo and just love the hell out of it. For my birthday I am going to get a Bamboo to use for painting and sketching.(hopefully)

Thanks you for your comments on my last post. For the Hugs and the DUH reality check.

Meltdown

2010-01-26T18:04:00.004-06:00

This is a vent, pure and simple. I am not sure who I am more disappointed and mad at- myself or my husband. This is something I have to work out on my own. Hopefully it can be repaired but i have serious doubts.

We had a bad day on Saturday. Slowly thru the years I have accepted that he does not want to do anything I wanted to do- going to dinner, movies, shopping, walking in the woods, watching the same show on tv-- the list goes on. He wants me to go everywhere with him. And if we do go to the woods it is so he can hunt/fish or scout for hunting/ fishing

(I have faults-- I am neurotic, indecisive, randomly yell about things, and have ADD, among a long freaking list.)

So I was venting to Jenn in my room with Nikki's movie playing insanely loud.
1.I told him Nikki needed to pee, he ignored me and drove past two places for her to use the bathroom.
When I get annoyed with him about it he looks at me and said- "we are about five min from the island, she can go then." Something popped in my head. " She is two, if she has to pee then she has to pee now"
-"Oh. Well the store is about five min behind us."
"Just go to the island."
When he does get to the island he finds a store and parks as far as he can from the door. And just sits there. SO I have to get her out, get to the store, find the bathroom, and get back out to the truck weaving in and out of traffic.
Something else popped in my head.

2. He would not stop to let me take any photos of birds or anything. He kept telling me "at the next stop or when we drive back by"
He never stopped. Then after a mile past the birds he would remember and ask if I wanted him to turn around.
This is my thing-- if you don't remember the first time then I am not going to beg you to do something I want/need done. So of course I am going to say no.

3. When he did remember to stop, he bitched at me for getting out because Nikki fussed. I ignored him and commented that I needed a tripod. He kept griping about me getting out.

4. The Tripod Argument-- apparently all I need is a stick to shove up my camera.

I stopped speaking after that. On the way home, an hour later, Nikki kept saying she was hungry. He drove past everything and ignored us, she finally fell asleep. I know something blew out the side of my head. I kept quiet. I really struggle not to say evil, horrible things when I pissed so I get quiet.

I felt better after venting, Jenn was coming over. When she shows up he bolts to the bedroom and won't speak to anyone.
Jenn and I go to dinner with Nikki and I ask Donald if he wants anything, he will not look at me and tells me that is up to me.
Little bells go off in my head. He refuses to tell what was wrong, and then tells me that he prefers I go to dinner when I offered not to go. I pressed about what was wrong with him and he said "I don't air my dirty laundry in public"

So we came back and I made a grocery list (it's 7pm) and asked him if he needed anything in particular from the store. He got real irate that I was going to the store so late. (It's 7PM, seven!! Come On. Now I am going just to piss you off.)
So I asked if he was going to tell WTF his problem was-
"I heard what you said to Jenn."
"When? I said allot of crap to Jenn today"
"On the phone. I heard everything. Why were you being a bitch today?"

If you heard everything then you would know why I was being a bitch.
So I outlined everything for him. I told him I felt like an afterthought in this relationship, because he never does anything with me unless it has a motive for him. We don't go for boat rides just to spend time together, he offers a boat ride because the boat needs to be run. You will not date me, you tell me to go do all this stuff with my friends and then get jealous when I spend to much time with them. If I ask for help around the house you tell me flat out 'No, I am not doing that.'

This is his remark that caused my meltdown.
"You have all day to clean the house, I work all day and I am not doing any housework when I come home."--him
"even if I ask you for help?"--me
"Right. I don't feel like I have to help you with anything."--him
"So... I am your maid. And I don't the right to ask you for help with anything around the house"--me

He paused for a min and then said " yeah, that's right and you have no right telling people what goes on in the house"

Ha. i will vent to my blog, you just thought Jenn was public.

************************************************************************************

I just froze inside, I have yet to thaw.
I feel that taking care of an ACTIVE, busy busy two year old, a busy 17 year old, all their medical paperwork, budgeting, bills, all donald's medical paperwork, divorce crap, cooking, cleaning, clothes, and grocery/ household shopping is just as hard as his job.
I am an accountant, chef, maid, launderer, taxi, lawyer etc.... but because he "works" for 8 hours 5 days a week he gets the right to watch tv all night and not lift a finger. Ever?

I hated myself then. That I could be with someone so self centered just made me sick. I love housework when I have someone I care for to help me clean. I have made every excuse in the book and then some as to why he will not help me.-but it boils down to this-- He wants me to stay home. I want to work. He refuses to "babysit" his daughter and when he does "babysit" her, my life becomes more annoying. Because I am at home I have to clean up after everybody. And take care of everything.
I despise cleaning by myself. Hate it. And I will not beg someone to keep me company. It is a pride thing.

Leaving is an expensive option that is not actually an option at this moment. But making sure the house is spotless is. And here is how I am making his life absolutely miserable.

The house is spotless. I vacuum, seep and mop everyday. All the clothes are put up. All the dishes are done. Dinner is cooked.
I am not speaking to him. I do not look at him. He is not allowed to touch me, kiss me, and absolutely no sex whatsoever.

That should just kill him. I have never withheld sex out of spite. Now I just feel disgusted, borderlines on hate. I wish to skip this step in grieving and just go to apathy.

We did go on a boat ride sunday, his way of trying to make up. I went on the ride, enjoyed it. And thanked him politely for the boat trip.
To little waaaaaaaay to freaking late.

Gator

2010-01-25T00:56:00.004-06:00

This is Gator. He is Rhodesian Ridgeback / tenasee curr hound according to his paperwork from the Humane Socity.
When I walked in there the lady asked me what I was looking for and I told her a large dog. She said "oh thank god. Everyone wants a little dog and our big dogs get looked over"
We (my stepson came with) looked at all the dogs and Gator just struck my heart. We brought Sirus (our red doberman) to see if they would get along. They did and we signed the paperwork and tried to bring him home. He had never ridden in truck cab before and I had to wrestle an 75lb dog inside a truck.

The lady told me his story. Gator had been dumped behind a vets office, beaten so badly he could not move on his own. He spent a month at the vets office before he was well enough to be taken to the human socity. He had three days left before he would be put to sleep. He was cris crossed with scars and on his back left leg was a clear scar of a ] , it was from a 2x4 that he had been beaten. And his cellmate attacked him and his neck was cut open.

When he came home in 2005 he stayed in my bedroom for a week. Then he lurked in my hallway for two weeks. Everytime i looked over he was just staring with those eyes that had the wairness. We could not get him to come near us while in the house. And if he was sleeping on the floor and you stepped over him he would freak out, growling and trying to plaster himself into a corner. He would not eat if you were watching. It took weeks of intensive just sitting near him and talking to him. And I hand to use my hand with wide gestures so he would get used to us being loud.
The first time we took him to the creek where we go swimming during the summer, he refused to get out of the truck. He was shaking and I had to use all my strength to pull him out. He kept trying to run back to the truck. He thought we were dumping him.
Then we got to the water and he bacame his namesake. He swam and swam and swam, they he found that he could dig in the sand and roll around and noone yelled at him for it. We took him everyday that summer.

Now, four years later, he will sleep in the bed- hogging a pillow, because he has to sleep with a pillow when he is inside. I have tripped on him when he is laying down and he will not budge. He just cracks an eye open and looks at me like "duh". He dances during dinner. Nikki would sit on his neck and clunk his head with her toys and he did not care. She brings her tea sets over him and dresses him on necklaces and clothes. He takes it all in stride. And now I hook up a harness to have him pull her wagon during walks. It helps with his mobility to get fluid moving to his joints.
At a minimum he weighs 80-90 lbs, it is like having a person in bed, and he does not move when you try to roll over. His arthritis is very bad during the cold, and he has tumors all over as a direct result from the abuse he recived. He smells horrible, even after two or three baths. He does not listen, and can flatten a 20$ decrative plant in no time. I still connot get him to sit.
But he is a scary dog when people come over and it is just me an Nikki. I have to walk ppl in and out of the yard so he leaves them alone. But when he is out and about he has good behavior. Considering the gang tagging is getting closer to the house every year I am grateful to my nuerotic rescue dogs. They love us to death for giving them a chance and I love them for keeping people nervous and keeping me company during the day.

Driftwood art

2010-01-25T00:38:00.002-06:00

I was taking pics of the artpiece below and found that I could capture part of my reflection without the flash and it looked fairly neat.

This is the first piece of a new series of my driftwood art with steampunk flair. I really like this piece and will probably steal it back from my mom. She thinks it is good enough to have a show at the Museum of southeast texas. I need to finish at least five or six more pieces which means I need to find older wind up clocks to destroy.

Yes this is my photo, wanna take a guess where I was on saturday?? We crossed the bridge to go "bait catching" (it was a wash BTW) and we noticed the barges being pushed out of the shipping canal that were not in the cluster of ships.
Oh holy crap. One ship hit the pier then hit the barge that was docked, and then for whatever reason ANOTHER ship hit the first two.
So oil was spilled. the national news says 450,000 but our local says 40,000. But they will not report what the barge was carrying. And they had to evac Pt. Arthur for a day.
I have been checking to see if any wildlife has been affected so I can go help if they need volenteers.

Judd

2010-01-19T13:40:00.003-06:00

This is Judd. He is a Redbone Coonhound. We think he is fullblooded. A friend of ours brought him to us after he rescued him from his cousin. Judd was in a 6x6 pen with no shelter, no food, no water. He was in inches of mud and poo. Our friend had Judd for about a month before he came to live with us.
We had him inside for about 5 min to see if he was ok with Nikki (he was 7 months old and she was 18 months old) and he guarded her from the cat and our other dogs. So we kept him since Gator is getting older he is not as fast guarding the yard.
Because of the filth that Judd was in he was in poor poor shape. We could see all his ribs and spine. He had the wariness that severly abused dogs get after too long. He had a hard time bonding with any of us. We still have issues we are working on.

Now a year later he is a little more filled out, his metabolism is incredibly fast. Which is what saved him last week.
Ivamec is the pestiside that is used to heartguard, ivomec, ivamectrim etc. Same ingredent, different name. I have never had any problems giving my dogs Ivamec, because they are large dogs, it would cost 60$ a month just for heartguard. Judd has never had it but is heartworm free (somehow) and I was able to get the meds to give it to the dogs. I gave each one a third of the dose.
Ranger and Gator who both have heartworms were fine. Judd had a reaction which is the first time I have had a dog have a bad reaction. Everything hinged on his metabolism, if he could get it out of his system fast enough then he would survive.

Ivamec attacks the neurologic of worms and other pests in the animals body. It does not kill the adult heartworms, it only kills the juvenile heart worms and all the rest of the round, long, whip worms. The adults die of old age eventually and hopefully decompose etc.

Now if your dog is the 1 in 1000( or collies) who is missing a certain gene that protects the brain from crap that is in the blood then that dog with have an almost fatal reaction to the pesticide.(sometimes it is fatal)

The blood brain barrier failed and the ivamec affected his brain/respitory. He could not eat or drink. He gasped for air. His eyes were dialted black and if he stood his legs were splayed out for balance. On the third day I pried his jaws open and spooned water into him. I got about a cup and half in him. It was enough to help him a little bit. I fed him macaroni on the fourth day and spooned more water in him. After that he seemed to get better.
This was all 10 days ago, he is almost back to normal. He is running around, and tried to climb the fence to get the meter man. He eats every night and got a bath today.

Kitty

2010-01-19T13:21:00.003-06:00

One of my Sunday projects was to clean off my kitchen table so I can start back with my art projects again.

My cat, Kitty , helped me by supervising. She is named Kitty because she does not respond to anything else. We named her about 10 different names, nothing would get her attention. She is five. A friend of mine found the litter under her house after the mom was hit and killed on the road. The kittens were about 4 days old and she bottle fed all of them. I originally went to get the black kitten but she chirped at me when I spoke so she came home.

Potty Trained

2010-01-19T12:53:00.003-06:00

Potty Trained!!!!

It took three days to get our communication flowing correctly, so I understood what she was telling me and BAM! we are away from diapers.

Now for my revenge upon my husband, who stupidly told me since the day she was born that after she is potty trained he will be more involved with her. So I have 2 1/2 years of "Go ask your mama" when nikki needed anything saved up and ready to use.

So for the past 4 days I have been more myself, which means I am being...annoying... to live with because he has to help me cook and take care of Nikki and actually pay attention when I speak even if that includes me unplugging the TV.
Also I spent all of Saturday on a mental Internet vacation. I wasn't rude, I just was not in the same room as him and anyone else in the house. Nikki watched movies next to me and before I knew it I hadn't spoken to him since that morning and it was 8 at night.

Then Sunday came along and I had some little projects I needed to get done around the house so he had to watch her, if she came up to me asking for anything, I got it for her then barked at him to pay attention. His excuse was that she doesn't ask him for anything. I shot that down because he has not spent any effort in actually taking care of her aside from financally. He got pissed but it is the truth.

What I am actually doing is untraining him from the TV watching rut he is in. He has the old fashioned opinion that since he makes the money then he has the right to relax and watch TV all night. I explained(yelled) that I am not a whore, you cannot pay the bills and buy my stuff and expect me to just be "happy". I need a mental interaction with the person that is married to me. If he cannot supply that then we need to call it quits and I will have the custody papers in hand before we leave the house.
He suddenly understood that my friends are not "influencing" me to be angry with him, that is all on my own.

Funny

2010-01-11T18:46:00.001-06:00

see more deMotivational Posters

Happy New Year/Camping trip

2010-01-03T22:16:00.004-06:00

First and foremost Happy New Year to all. For most if not all this last year was hard. I am hoping that this year will be better. If not dramatically then in little things. It is the little things that make people break down.

On to a brighter note, I was talked in to a camping trip to the lake for a few days. Normally I am the one harping to go camping but since Nikki came along I would not go camping just for the fact that the nearest phone is 25 miles down unlighted, pot holed filled National Forest Roads. And that is not a town. It is a station that doesn't sell gas. No, our cell phones don't work there.

The dog, Ranger, used to get car sick when he was a puppy. After two hours riding in the backseat on top of out pillows and blankets he yaked. I heard Nikki shriek and reached back there to comfort her and encountered warm slime. Nikki was up against the window and side of her car seat, trying desperately to undo her harness. I got her calmed down, and the car seat cleaned up, and two pillows and two blankets.
Out of our three dogs he was the best choice, Judd is too aggressive with strangers and Gator doesn't listen, for anything.

I got Donald a HUGE new tent. It sleeps 7 with storage space, 9 feet by 13 feet. So if is raining nonstop my toddler has room to be herself with her stuff and my stuff, which it was raining and the temp was dropping. So we got everything unpacked and out new tent set up and ready to go.

DJ insisted on bringing his tent and setting it up for himself and Ranger. He is seventeen so I can understand not wanting to sleep in the same tent as your parents and little sister. He is allot more polite about it then I would have been when I was seventeen. Because of the rain and some depression under his tent the water soaked his blankets, pillows, and sleeping bag.

Nikki talked to me in the dark for an hour and a half. Just when I thought she was asleep and I would doze off......MAMA! And she would start talking and telling me stories in her way ( allot of hand gestures and sounds) for another 20 min or so. It was really cute and sweet.

It was 29 degrees in the morning. I went thru allot of wood for the fire. I was burn happy. We went for walks up and down the trails. DJ showed me a hickory tree that took two people to wrap their arms around. Nikki learned to be a bear by going up to small trees and pushing against them like bears do. We went down to the lake to throw rocks and find snail shells.

Hunting was a bust because crews were out there looking for oil. They were drilling and setting off dynamite to get seismic readings. The deer were only nocturnal.
We caught four catfish.

I saw the moon rise over the lake, huge and red each night. The moon was so bright after the first rainy night it was like having a street light over the tent. I woke up early each morning and would have the moon to my back illuminating the woods and watch over the lake and see the sun rise. It was picture perfect. It was calming and inspiring.

Speaking of...where are the photos you ask. My camera died the second photo I took. I wanted to die. I was so looking forward to taking pictures. Of everything.

We watched Bald Eagles play over the trees and water and call out to each other. Nikki chased grasshoppers in the grass. Played with water bugs and yelled at owls at night.

We had no electronic anything. Everything was by firelight and Coleman stove/heater. I wanted to collect twigs and make birdhouses and live there forever.

If it was not for my husband I would prefer to live life without a TV. I got dirty looks for that statement. I would miss my Internet but I could live happily without it. Sorry Internet, I am not as obsessed as I thought. *grins*

Here is a link to where we were---

http://www.toledo-bend.com/national-forest/index.asp?request=ragtown

It is quiet and cheap and has showers and toilets. The trails are clean and the wildlife is there, the armadillo wandering thru camp is testimony to that, DJ hard to get up and shoo it away. We even had little light green birds EVERYWHERE. They looked like the wind blew the rest of the leaves out of the trees. Until some blew into the camp and the leaves had eyes. They ate every single bug they found and then some. It was totally awesome.

This pisses me off

2009-12-28T23:54:00.005-06:00

So I have beads and findings and art crap everywhere. I cannot stay in one room. I also like to drag it with me. I know from experience if you use it for art it will be more from art websites or stores. But this is insane.

I went to FireMountainGems to buy more clutter and rummaging around I came across an organizer. It's listed prices is 68$

At the Cabela's website the near same tote AKA " Tackle Box " is on sale for 14.88.

I went to the Plano web site and the cases are interchangeable so you can have the deep storage or the shallow storage.
Now in my Christmas wanderings I wandered down the isle at academy. I found 18 versions of this tote/ tackle box. The seventy dollar tackle box was beyond awesome, it had boxes within boxes within their own sections. It made these two look like child's play. And they sold the jewel case/ lure box and superglue and line -I might add, for a fraction of what the three "art" stores in this town sell them.

Every time I see someone buying storage containers or totes from an art store I just want to shake the crap out of them. And then find the person who is marking this stuff up and just kick them once or twice for intently ripping people off.

OK I am done for now.

P/S--- these are the photo's from the sites, thery are not my photos, they belong to whoever took them blah blah blah disclaimer.

Turrets

2009-12-26T20:30:00.002-06:00

Nikki keeps screaming

CHISSSMAS TEEEEE!!!

at every single tree she sees.

Oh, how I love the holidays....

I refused to go grocery shopping today just because of the mad rush of people for the sales and returns.

Santa and his Witches

2009-12-24T23:24:00.000-06:00

Hahahaa.... this was too good to pass up. If youa re wondering by now why I have five post all with one photo a piece, I am learning picasa and have yet to figure posting more than one photo.....

My Tree

2009-12-24T23:15:00.000-06:00

Christmas lizard

2009-12-24T23:10:00.001-06:00

This is the lizard that took me an hour to free from the tape on which it was stuck. I used a small watercolor brush, warm water, and olive oil to free this poor thing. I put the brush in the olive oil and coated the lizard with the oil (except for head) and put the brush fibers against the lizard's skin and spin the brush so the skin was pushed up to the lizard's body and away from the tape.
I freed the legs and tail first then the stomach and finally the head.

Christmas Ornaments

2009-12-24T21:40:00.004-06:00

I made christmas ornaments for my moms tree. It had two ornaments on it, Nikki's butterfly and an angel on the top. She is off the wall in love with my new jewelry that I have been making, so I made ornaments for her tree.
She was happy as could be with them. I wish I thought of it earlier so she could have a full set. I am probably going to forget until next year and then be " oh DUH!" around christmas eve.

Presents

2009-12-14T23:12:00.002-06:00

We went into the woods to get my tree. It is an awesome natural, leaning to the side.... "what's wrong with your tree?! It's all....where is the top?" Exclaimed Star's oldest, when he walked in the house. He crept tword it as if expecting a racoon or small flock of bats to attack him.

"We got it our of the woods."

"Yeah, but, aren't you supposed to trim it or something?? It's all...you really got this from the woods??" He is touching the tree now and then he relized I have a pink skeleton with rhinstone eyes, pokemon charators, dinsey movie, and mini beanie babies. After the excited babble wore down and Colton finally stopped using a mini fish net as a makshift trebechet with the ornaments that he purloined by hiding under the tree and reaching up from the back to yonk from the front. I explained that McDon's used to have 101 charactors for the happy meals one christmas season (9 years ago) I almost got the entire set (I worked there) and made them into ornaments. Same with the beanie babies. And anything else I think will look fun, like the two witches that share the top with Santa.

The tree is a ceder top, so next year it will grow back to fill in what we harvested. I trimmed three feet off the top and probably three feet around the tree itself just to get it to fitsomewhat into the corner.
After we got it up I realized that it kinda rounds near the top and to the back. *grins* I made the remains into a wreath to hang off the front of the house.

My grandma sent presents from the bunch up north. They lasted about five min before Nikki and colton ripped them open when I went to get the phone. The living room was covered in filler, wrappers and they have lotion all over them. (one of the gifts)

I did good. I didn't freak, i just gathered everything up but left the paper and boxes for them. (I had free time fore about 10 min....yea me!!) I got two books-- crocheting with beads- it looks like it will be a fun one to try and jerry bakers flower power--- ohohohohoh I LOVE him. He is an awesome garden guru!!!

it is later than I thought, i get to sleep into tomarrow because I have no babysitting!!! who hoooo two weeks off!!

Clutter

2009-12-07T21:57:00.003-06:00

I had an epiphany yesterday.

All the clutter in the kitchen belongs to me.

I was shocked. I have gathered that much stuff?? Really?
So I crept closer to the pile and it is ALL mine. Lots of artwork stuff but no artwork. So this weekend I will filter my stuff and (hopefully) donate it so someone that needs random art stuff. Maybe I will trade it for beads.

It is allot of clutter.

Any ideas for an entire set of encyclopedias from 1988??

Now it is cold and wet

2009-12-07T21:34:00.003-06:00

Ok, so rollerblading is out. I don't mind rollerblading in the cold, or dark. But the water everywhere will rust out my bearings and at 40$ a set they are way to expensive to rust out.
I am drinking my water. No headaches over the last 2 days.

I did walk with nikki the other morning around the neighborhood. Sometimes it is wierd because my highschool geometry teacher lives in my neighborhood. I try and be nice but I cannot help but to remember that I was a horrid math student that was mouthy to cover my ignorance and other issues. I still suck at math. I hate walking past his house because I instantly feel like a dumbass for about 30 steps.
That morning he is outside, says hello, and asks me how many months Nikki is old. I pause because 1) months??? huh?? 2) tired and was still drinking my first cup of coffee,after a bout of insomnia- I was running on 3 hours of sleep. I thought for a second and the only number that was in my head was 36 so I blurted that out. "really??", He asks with a surprised look on his face. " She is three?"
"No, she is 2 in a half" I answer, feeling dumber.
" Oh. So she is 30 months then." He smiles as he says this to me.
"Yeah. Something like that."

Oh, how I despise you. I wanted to poke him in the forehead. Not hard, but just enough to leave a red mark for about 5 min.

I feel like a different person from 13 years ago. Still "unhinged" according to some, I just feel like I am tapping into the organic artist thought stream. I read part of Holographic Universe and I instantly connected to the topic of holographic memories and consciousness.( That is a another post altogether)

Anyway, I have brewed on it for a couple of days, flitering emotions I have decided that he falls into the catagory of my "they suck" list for going out of the way to make someone feel dumb. He did it in highschool and the habit continues today, therefore I must ignore him as a whole.

my art mess

2009-12-04T21:36:00.001-06:00

Snow snow snow!!!!

2009-12-04T20:57:00.004-06:00

This will be the second year in a row the we here in the heart of hurricanes and droughts south east texas, recieved a half inch of snow.

I made a snowman and put him on my trunk. He stayed there to the grocery store and then when I came out someone stole my snowman. and all the snow on my trunk. I thought it was funny because 3 years ago i would have done the same thing.

Nikki's other toy is the bag of lemons her daddy brought home for us (organic local farmer!!! The hippie in me is screaming for joy) Today her brought home tangerines and oranges.

Nikki's toy for the rest of the night is the plastic box, we are going on an hour of her playing in it.

This is my aunt's clock I am making for her. It is the "Tacky Gift". I told her two years ago I would make her the tackest gift I could each year. She is hard to buy for so I figured going horrible to the extreme *giggles*
My aunt thinks they are funny as hell. Last year she got a teapot that bordered on an acid trip.

I am....

2009-12-04T14:00:00.002-06:00

hey it is freaking cold outside.

I am still drinking my water.
I am crabby and nuerotic.
I am happy my husband is camping this weekend.
I am sad my husband is camping this weekend.
I am abusing my hot chocolate privilage.
I am stagnating with my artwork.
I am stir crazy.
I am looking for a job to harass people.
*Ever see 'Waiting' ? I am the dark hair screaming girl in the back. I could be your waitress...nyah nyah nyah nyah..... I miss my job.

I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend with no boys in which I can watch whatever I want, and have all my jewelry scarttered everywhere.

I am half done with my families various clocks. :)

Mental Notes

2009-11-29T23:09:00.003-06:00

Drank 3 waters to 5 cups of coffee.

Did four sets of the ab excersize.

Helped DJ with his math project.

Had angry cleaning energy.

Lost three pounds last week.

Dyed my hair dark brown red.

Fantized briefly about moving out.

Now I am tired.

Black Friday

2009-11-28T23:47:00.002-06:00

While the boys were hunting as an early christmas gift, I was sitting at home playing with beads and stuff. Normally i stay on busy shopping days because I prefer to pretend that humanity is ..well, human.
Oh, how I hate the holidays and nasty, tired people. I went into HobLob because the silver was on sale and I was bored at home. Plus I needed to get some Ideas for my families'- clocks I am making for them. Think of feathers and glitter on a clock. I see it in my head, hopefully I can get it out of my head and under their trees. Of course this depends upon bills and blah blah blah. Maybe I will paint a pic and let them know they are always late so it doesn't matter what time it is :)

I talked to my dad, step mom and sister the other night. It takes an act of god to get ahold of them. Plus they are almost never online. They are doing good. I found out that one of my favorite movies is also my sisters and I am just tickled pink. So I am running plans thru my head to makes Nightmare Before Christmas stuff for her. I was thinking of a studded leather belt with shrinkydink charactors on it embedded it bottle caps. Maybe a messanger bag with Jack on it. Now that I know her a little better I can get/make gifts for her that are more suited to her and not what I think she might like.

I just met her 3 1/2 years ago and have only seen her once since then. And at first we spoke on the phone allot but as I battled post pardum depression, then my husband being hurt, being attacked by a cat, another hospital stay, and the ensuing fighting/depression cycle we are going thru it was extrodinarly hard to keep up with anyone.

I replaced my mom's fuel filter today, I still smell gas under my nails but her jeep is running allot better now.

The boys came home today. DJ got a huge 10 pt and all together they saw 18 deer. I can tell the trip has lifted Donald's spirits and DJ was about bursting out of his head with pride. This is DJ's first buck that was not considered a cull deer.

lets see.... oh yeah- I dug out my rollerblades and tuned them so I can start rollerblading again. I miss the feeling of just blading for the hell of it. Plus I lost allot of wieght and kept it off while I was blading everyday. Since I had the gallbladder out I have lost 30 lbs, went from a tight 16 to a 12. Depending on the time of the month (haha duh) some days my 12s are perfect. BUT I still have not hit the 199 mark. I have 7 lbs to go. It sucks. My eating habits are not the best but I am working on it. Mainly due to the side effects of the lack of a gallbladder. Which I hate deep down.

So, I will start up the p90x every other day for 20 min a time. I am supposed to be everyday for an hour but I will throw up after 25 min.
I will do bicycle excersizes everyother commerial break while I watch TV.(ab ab absssss!)
I will rollerblade for 10 min everyother day.
I will log my times.
I will drink one cup of water per cup of coffee I drink.( I started doing this already and have been feeling much better for the last 3 days)
The coffee thing is because coffee is a diuretic so it was making my system dump fluids that I was not replenishing, hence the bloating, crabbiness, constipation and horrid migrains. Since I drink coffee all day....duh.

This will be December plan. Lets see if I can keep it.

turkey day

2009-11-26T20:04:00.002-06:00

turkey turkey turkey turkey daaaaaaaaay!!!!!

Donald cooked, DJ cleaned the livingroom, Donald helped me with the dishes (alllll the dishes) I was in bliss!!! I felt just plain good today. Tomarrow I might plumment but today we are good.
I sent them hunting as an early christmas present, they should be gone until sunday.... I am crossing my fingers:)

Nikki was happy as a clam running around the table sampling everything randomly eating. I told everyone who did not want nikki cooties in their food to eat from the middle not the edges.

Thank You

2009-11-26T00:43:00.003-06:00

I opened my email today and saw an email titled "THANK YOU" from someone I did not know. Hoping it was not spam that slipped through the lines I read this ---

"I received your message on ****(dot)com that was indeed my chocolate lab we picked him up Friday and h'es back home we're all very happy.

Thank you so much, for taking the time to email me, I probably would have never saw the ad"

When I have insomnia I go to a local site that does free ads, news, etc. In the pet section I compare animal lost and found ads. I have noticed that people put the ads up in five different sections so I skim thru to see if any match.
Three or four times I have emailed people to match ads up but have never had any feedback.
This time among the hundred or so ads there was a photo of a choc lab who was lost for two months. It tore at me a little bit because they live about a mile from my house and with the cyotes and jerks stray or lost dogs do not have much of a chance.
About an hour later in the regular lost and found was a Found ad with a chocolate lab also with a pic. I compared the photos I thought they might be alike so I sent an email to the family to look in the regular lost and found section. I did not hear anything so after a few days I put it out of my mind.
Then today I got that email and I am so tickled pink that they were able to get the family dog back in time for the holidays. Especially for their children.

I remember not having the closure when my mom's dog went missing in the 80's. I looked and watched for that dog for years. I nagged my mom constantly if she had heard anything about the dog. I found out a few years ago that she had been hit. My mom thought it was better not to tell me (which most parents want to protect their child from a pets death)
I hope this helps their holidays and honestly it has helped me a little bit. I feel really good knowing that I helped another family. I cannot help as much as I want financally or rescue the small and fuzzies that I would like to help.

Tests in Houston

2009-11-20T14:02:00.003-06:00

Donald had to go in for a nueropsych evaluation (NPE). I did not look up the process because I did not want to arm him in anyway so the test results would be natural.
After 45 min of paperwork he went into the room and I stayed in the reception area with my jewelry stuff to stay busy and quiet. After 2 1/2 hours I hear a clunk and then the door slammed open with Donald barking out that he is taking a break.

It took at least 20 min to talk him down and convince him that he needed to finish the test. I was concerned that he was just going to leave, which would mean that we would have to go threw this again.

After an hour or so he was done. And was a crabass the entire way home. Which in houston 5 pm traffic is god awful. It took 30 min to travel 5 miles on the highway. After we finally found the highway.
The correct highway.
And turning left does not mean that you are going left.
Nothing is labeled.
Including the lanes. I decided I need a sticker on my door that says "Passenger does not have any influence on the driver"

It was a wierd ride home.

meteor shower

2009-11-17T00:34:00.003-06:00

I saw two, and thought "oh AWESOME!....damn...my feet are cold."

Because I am that smart-- I am wearing shorts, a tanktop, and a light jacket. It is 40 degrees outside, at 12:30 at night I am staring at the sky on a freezing brick walkway. No shoes or socks.

A minuet after I stepped on the walkway my nose became unclogged, and my headache went away.

This futher pushes another crackpot theory I have been harboring. I would go swimming at the river during the winter, for at least three years. Those are the years I never caught a cold or the flu. Dive in, splash around, climb out and take 20 min to warm back up. I got ear infections but I also smoked a half pack a day then, so I am not sure if it was the crap in the water or the smoke for the ear infections.

we will know tomarrow if I made myself sicker or if I am stabilized. Since Nikki hid my nasal pot I can't use that to help me get better.

Donald might get laid off friday. Sucks ass.

Nikki's new book and a cold

2009-11-16T18:43:00.002-06:00

http://www.simonscat.com/index.html

Mom picked Nikki and I up to rummage thru the book store and load up on coffee. It feels like a new store because they rearranged everything and have new sandwhiches. We shared a chicken on focatta with basil pesto and tomato grilled. It was about divine.
I wandered down the comedy (for lack of a better word) isle and found a book for colton that is The history of Farts with a speaker and different fart buttons. It is drive Star's eyes thru the back of her head. And one for her that is The nuerotic book, it is over 100 pages on the way this woman/man has nuerotic tendancies-- such as organizing the clothes hangers in department stores to be equidistant from each other on the rack. I felt downright sane reading that book.

Then I heard "meow" from my feet. Nikki found Simon's Cat book. She adores that cat and the cartoons.She will copy what he does - meowing, getting in your face to get your attention, clawing up the furniture. Nikki carried the book around the store and meowed at people until she got bored and became a tyrant.
But we got the book, which has no words, captions or page numbers and she has been reading it off and on for two days.

We went for a boat ride up the bayou which was gorgous with the cypress changing colors, Nikki got to see a ton of turtles and play in the water. I had to hold her life jacket straps because she was leaning on the side playing in the water that the boat was throwing.

I caught a cold. I could feel it surface when my ear started hurting. My first thought was oh crap. Nikki had a fever this morning, I felt like crud. Now Nikki is fine, I still feel awful. I am hoping, praying for the better term, that it is not the flu.
I don't think it is because I can still think and see clear, plus the cold front hit today and it went from 70 to 45 in three hours. I get sick when the cold front decends. uuuuuuggggggggggghhhhhh.

AH HA!!!!!!

2009-11-10T12:26:00.003-06:00

YEA!!!!

My mom's husband found a site that had the inverter board for 27$ plus 9$ for shipping.
And after watching my computer being disected then put back together I did not have to bring it back out there for him to put the board in. (Yup, I am bragging:)

I was busy during my interent vacation.

I learned to work with copper and how to solder. I learned to treat the copper with heat to make the colors come out and as long as I seal the copper the colors will not change.
The clorine in tap water accelerates the copper to change color. Outside copper take years to go thru all the color changes, in the bathroom it will take about a year to turn black.
Mom got me some new jewelry supplies which sparked my jewelry bug. So now I am on that kick for awhile. I had almost given up on the chandiler for the bathroom but then found an awsome new website that sells copper, bronze and brass. So I can get all the stuff I need to make the various things for the house.And I looked up how to make a mini forge to I spend less on gas to heat the metal. But I need to get an anvil.
Ultimatly I would love to make a fence for my gardens out of the swirled copper and other metal.

Donald seems to be getting worse, his depression is deepening and he get irrational about bizarre things.
The other night we got into a tiff because I did not write on the note i left where I had gone. I was mad at him so yes, I left that info out, but I have my cellphone on me so all he has to do was call. And he did.
then it just escalated, mainly focused that I take everything he says wrong, and there is something else wrong with me. Then he told me that after the beginning of the year I can pack my crap and we will go our separeate ways.
The next day he apologized, we have been fine so far.
I know it is from the head injury. If his behavior was like this and he had never been injured, I would be gone. But I feel so bad wanting to leave because he needs the emotional support to try and get him thru this time.
I feel sad, so I turn to my artwork to cope. Hopefully, I will get better with my artwork.
Now I just need to learn about petina and acid washes and I will be a happy happy camper.

Title me blank

2009-10-26T09:47:00.002-05:00

I seriously could not think of any title for today.... that is sad in so many ways.

Nikki is terrorizing Colton so they are out of my ear momentairly.

My weekend was intertesting. My computer decided to stop showing the screen unless you had a flashlight angled just right on it. The inverter board in the screen itself is caputted. I have the option of replacing the inverterboard or replacing the screen. Prices ranging from 84$ to 350$.
It is not like I have mula to"see" which problem it is. Because it might not be the inverter board. Are you serious? So now I have it set up to a monitor and it can just be stationary for awhile.

One month after the warrenty expired:)

damn irony.

Copper Findings

2009-10-17T21:58:00.004-05:00

I have turned to metal work since the weather has cooled down or according to the weatherman, the Cold Front. It is 55 at night. That is not cold, it is cool.

While puttering at the beach some months ago I saw some metal sticking out of the water that caught my attention. It wound up being about 10 to 12 feet of 8 to 10 gauge copper solid tubing/wire.

So I took it home to add to our recycling bin.Then it became my new tolit paper holder.

As everyone knows that has read my obcession with my bathroom redo, I am making everything for it.

I had to look up soldering, copper, annealing etc. It did give me an excellent excuse to use my small oxyceltelene cutting torch.

I have also decided to take on the challenge of making my own bathroom sink. I want to make it out of a copper sheet. You Tube has very little in the way of vids on this topic. I was surprised.

I did get that 18 to 20 gauge will be ok to use 14 to 16 would be best but would require more mula and heat. I have a propane torch and about 30 bucks. I did find that all I need for the 20 gauge copper is a tree stump and a rubber mallet. No lie. I am stoked because I really want a copper sink but really would never spend 200 on a sink. My hubby looked at me and asked me why i don;t just paint it...
It is so not the same.

Cycling

2009-10-13T23:34:00.002-05:00

My relationship moves in a cycle. Star and I sat and hashed it out. It was eye opening and irratating. Eye opening because I said things out loud that I normally bury deep into my brain.
The cycle moves like this. We get along great for awhile to a long time due to the fact I ignore certain behaviors and don't say what is on my mind. Translation-- I am not honest. He hides behind his rudness by saying he is honest. But when I am honest, I was informed that something was wrong with me because I am not happy staying at home. (stagnanting) He claimed later that he said that in anger.

Two weeks ago i informed him that if we have another shitty weekend then I would be staying every weekend at my mothers from now on. Friday to sunday Nikki and I would have art retreats to my moms. His behavior changed.

I was giving it three weeks.

It took 6 days.

Tonight I found out my ex-step-grandfather is on a ventilator and has days or weeks left. I have not seen him in 15 years but I liked him and his family allot when I visited them for a month.

I went to my husband for comfort and everything was going well until he made the comment- we really don't have the money for you to go- I snapped at him that I knew that and it really sucked I didn'[t have the money to go see a dying family memeber. He then snatched his hand from me and snapped back that I just need to do whatever the hell I want. And he is tired of my attitude.

So now I was shocked because he is acting like an asshole and accusing me of having an attitude. Yes, I snapped. But did it not accure to him for a min or a nanosecond that I was mad that yet another family member is dying and I cannot go see them.
The fight escalated, and it got turned to him being tired of me being a bitch and he does not feel like putting up with my attitude. So I gathered up my child and told him I am sorry for being such a bitch then walked out. I made sure everylight in the house was on and I did my dishes. Noisily.

So the Passive Aggressive fun starts.

This about sums up my weekend

2009-10-04T21:53:00.000-05:00

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.

But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's

empty, and so is your head.

(from some email I got- I dunno who wrote this)

I posted on craftster

2009-09-27T19:59:00.003-05:00

WOW!!!
I posted my bathroom on Craftster and it has gotten 1100 reads. That is amazing!!! I never thought it would be popular.

I made the medicine cabinet this weekend. Or rather I got my neighbor (who has the most incredible workshop) to show me how to use the power tools-- table saw, chop saw, belt sander, nail gun, and the router.
It was soooo neat.

Men and women speak totally different languages. I had to stop them from talking, get them to translate, then shoo them away from the *whatever tool* so I could learn to use it. It was fun. I made a customised solid wood medicine cabinet. It is recessed into my wall so the mirror that I am getting next week will be flat against the wall.

I am now trying to figure out how to make the door for my vanity. It is curved and according to the *know it alls* they would make a straight ,flat door.
"That would take away from the point of the vanity being curved!"

My neighbor looked at me and asked "Why did you make it curved? It would be easier if it was just like a box"

I explained that he is a linear thinker and that would take all the fun away from annoying my husband.

Oh yeah, I am making the final touches on the beaded chandelier for the bathroom. Donald actually used the word Gaudy.
**Grins Brightly**

Purple

2009-09-15T23:28:00.003-05:00

Another baby gecko, who was the cutest thing ever, until he jumped at Nikki. I have never seen her shoot away from something that fast. Except the bug last night a 2 am but that involved screaming in the hallway until I rescued her.

It is purple. My husband swears it is pink. Now I want to paint my bedroom pink and soft green just to mess with him. And that will give me an excuse to tear the water bed frame apart....ooooooooo, good thing he does not read my blog:)

cooking

2009-09-14T17:01:00.003-05:00

I was going to type some revelation or another. But I need to go cook.

Star gave me a book named "The Bitch in the House" 26 stories about marriage, children, sex and staying at home.

I have flipped thru and read three pages. It fits, and has helped somewhat just knowing that lots of other women are slowing going nuts too.

Unwinding....

2009-09-12T23:34:00.002-05:00

I had an awesome dinner at my favorite chinese resturant, rattled to Donald about whatever popped in my head, which the thifty nickle was excellent fodder for conversations. Until the sake kicked in. Then we were laughing about dam near everything. He wasn't drinking he was just in a good mood and had been messing with me since hours previous.
I have finally gotton the bathroom finished(ish). The walls are retextured and painted. The trim is caulked and painted, in some places reattached. annnnnnnnnd i finally got the vanity inside!!!
We got into the biggest tiff over this vanity. Donald is a linear thinking person. I think more curves. So naturally we clash or accept each other. When I am more stressed we clash.
He messed with my design of the vanity. He strighted out the curves and cut off one whole section. I was pissed. Yes, I should be grateful that he offered to cut out and put my pieces together. But do not mess with my design and then tell me that it has to be that way. Because wood cannot be shaped like that.
HA.
Not only will I be an absolute bitch about it, but I will take the project apart and then cut, trim, sand until it is the way it was supposed to be when I designed it.
And it looks good, is functional and he went off on a tanget of why blahblahblah has to be in a certain place. He watched me rub my forehead and count to 20 before I answered.

Now I am on my fourth rum and coke. I am barely buzzed. It has to be a sign from the drinking gods that I should not be/get drunk. Nikki is with my mom to give me my down time. SO maybe i just goof off time more than anything else.
So I am typing away, watching Bleach, which I have seen all the episodes up to 233 fan subbed, and listening to the english is entertaining. I find the subbed/dubbed debate annoying. I look at anime this way- i started watching it in dubbed, then switched over to sub titled on Hulu, which made my brain excersise to 1)block read 2)listen to another language and read in english 3)switching back to english is making things inside the grey matter run better.

Losing it

2009-09-11T10:15:00.003-05:00

Ah ha. I have slightly lost it. Not that I really had my marbles together to begin with but I am slipping down a slope to be cliche.
Everything my family does is grating on nerves that do not exist. one part of my mind is screaming "WTF are you doing?" while I am freaking out because my husband failed to fill the ice tray yet again. Not that it is empty per say, there are technically four ice cubes left. But after a tempermental toddler all day, a bathroom that is taking way to long because again I have a tempermental toddler, and cleaning.
No time to myself. And I am tired of crap. On some levels I cannot wait for hunting season to begin so they will leave for the weekend so I can detox.
Logically this is a reaction to the last 18 months of stress and worry. Mentally worn down.
Illogically everything is pissing me off. Donald tries to so something nice and it is not good enough. I am picking at it or he is not doing it my way. I am watching myself become a control freak. And bitter. I really cannot think of time that I have felt bitter like this.
He does not remember much, so am I destroying my relationship or does it not affect him because there is no short term memory and long term is shot to hell too? Maybe I just need a couple of days to unglue and then I will feel better.

Four Thousand and counting...

2009-09-06T09:13:00.004-05:00

I counted up my dots. It was 90 pages of scrapbook 12X12's, so the 1 inch dots totaled 4,400 and the 1/2 inch dots total around a 1000. I love Joann's scrappaper sale - 5 sheets for 95 cents.

But the Spar outdoor varnish is excellent water proof and gives it a smoother texture. I did miss sealing some of the dots so the varish soaked in and gave it a darker look in some spots. Which only bugs me.

21 days later...

2009-09-03T21:11:00.002-05:00

Finally got done with the shower. We can take a shower, I still have to put up trim but I am tired and waiting until this weekend.
Nikki caught something, and I got a collective two hours sleep last night. Colton and Nikki fought all morning, and cross contaminated each other to have the perfect blend of sinus drainage and the first cold of the season.
Then they gather together all the power that snot gives them and blast germs onto every surface with an alarming intensity. And they giggled the whole time. There was not enough Lysol to save my poor immune system of the attack of the two year olds. Not only is my head trying to invert itself from lack of REM sleep, but now I feel the explosion building up that you get right before the snot takes over five of the seven orfices.
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

Pained Days

2009-08-31T00:09:00.003-05:00

Donald was in serious pain all weekend. What this translates into is that he wants us around but does not want to talk or make concessions of the television programs or get out of the livingroom so I can clean it. I refuse to clean while he is in the room.

I am starting to be affected by his pain again. Mainly because I cannot do anything about it. Not being able to relieve the pain or diminish it in anyway is frustrating as hell.

It took me five hours of work to finish the bathroom wall. I just needed him to keep Nikki's attention for a couple of hours. She wound up in the bathroom with me, tucked into the bathtub with pillows and blankets watching Nemo on my comp. So began the great pissiness of the weekend. I kicked him out of the livingroom last night and cleaned it top to bottom, after I cleaned our room and the bathroom. When I clean that much I am either pissed about something, or frustrated. Last night was a bit of both.

So either he is projecting or I am picking up way to much or both. But his back pain is starting to make mine hurt in the exact same place. Same with the neck and the headaches.

After massages, heat, cold, streching, a hot bath- nothing made his neck/shoulder any better. You could look at him and see the band creepingbetween his neck and shoulder on both sides and it was swelling up. At one point it was as thick as my thumb and went to his collar bone. I finally made him take his older and stronger pills, which he hates taking because he is beyond usless for the rest of the day.

I was in near tears because I am so frustrated and mad at him being hurt. Either I have a great husband who can be very sweet or I have the jerk or I have the doped up sweetheart who has no recollection of being nice.
I feel like I am living with three different men.

Next Step

2009-08-30T12:17:00.004-05:00

My little helper.....

Found the camera!!!!

2009-08-23T20:25:00.005-05:00

Ah HA!!! I found my camera from my child. Here is a progression of my Dots.

Before and Middle- Bathroom

2009-08-21T23:18:00.004-05:00

Before Bathtub/Shower....eeeewwwwww......

Before Vanity-- cluttered eeeewwwwww......

New Curvey Vanity design----

My dots for the shower wall. The same someone who scattered 500 of them around my livingroom has also hidden my camera with the pictures of the 1 of 3 walls finished.....

Tornado Afternoon

2009-08-18T16:37:00.004-05:00

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/multimedia/tornado_strikes_near_mall_in_beaumont.html

A storm brewed all morning while I worked outside. It thundered from 9 am ...it still is.... around 130 or so I had my two walls finished and ready to be attached. It started raining hard and a ton of lightening. At 230, I was still attaching and Donald calls. He asked if everything was ok and I was kinda clueless, ummm yeah.
A tornado just hit Dowlen road (main bussiness area in our city) and I live about 4 miles from the mall.

10 people were hurt, not seriously. Walmart and Kohls had sections of the roof ripped off. (I despise kohls for the their employee treatment, and lack of donating clothes to charities they cannot sell- so the evil side of my heart just leaped for joy at the amount paperwork they will have to do)

We have another HUGE cell that might be headed for us and it is a wierd feeling of wanting to run.

The Bathroom and Vanity Woes

2009-08-17T21:46:00.002-05:00

I thought I posted the post about my vanity. But I wrote it and forgot to post it.
I took out my vanity and sink because the drain has been rusted shut for 10 some odd years. (we wash out hands at the kitchen sink, etc) So I figured I should just take out the vanity since it was compressed particle board which was falling apart.
And I hated the sink top.
So I was halfway thru the process of making a new vanity and after watching the weather channel I had DAYS before it would rain. I moved my stuff outside to glue together. The fumes of the flame resistance glue are explosive.(Irony at it's finest)
I go inside to cook and we eat and then I hear this odd plinking sound from the chimmeny. There is bright sunlight streaming thru the windows and it is pouring at the house. We got an about half an inch or rain in 20 min, only at the house. I walked outside to look down the road, I was standing in dry sunlight. Translation- Nikki and I ran outside to wash our hair in the run off and play in the puddles. Anyone who knows me, this is not new. I try to do this everytime it rains. The rain makes my hair softer.
Then I remembered the Vanity. It was destroyed. It glue was still good, just like it claims on the back. But the cardboard had not been sealed yet so it fell apart.
I am really kinda happy about it because I can start over and I had learned from my mistakes on the first one.
Like this next one should not lean to the left.

My bathroom walls are covered in different colored marker lines. I am trying to decide how I want everything to flow. My mom said that I am an organic artist because I like curves and swirls. I am also thinking about painting Dr.Suess fish on the walls.
Now onto the fun filled surprises in the bathroom. Again the builders of the house were unable to make the floor and the wall meet yet again. I was not as surprised this time. But the upside is that our walls on the part of the house are 8 inches thick, and that is unheard of now days. This is why the last couple of hurricanes have not hurt this house as bad as others in the area. So I Great Stuffed the gaps then put the sheetrock on. after much cussing and annoyance.
Then I stagnated. I have never been so sore and tired in a looooooong time. I think my arse was bruised from sitting on the edge of the tub. In total from ripping crap out, cleaning up, measuring,cutting,gluing, nailing, installing,and cleaning up again--10 hours. Which is not bad.
I probably have another five hours of work. Maybe more since it will be just Nikki and I "being artistic" __ the quotations are from Donald. I grinned ear to ear when he did that.

Tired

2009-08-13T19:14:00.003-05:00

I am tired.
I got up at 5:30 this morning to get my day started on The Bathroom.
I had my coffee and yogurt, Nikki chased the cat around the house and I got DJ to play mamma all day so I could tear apart the walls.
It took an hour to get the wallboard off.
"Ah, crap." I do believe were my exact words. I have to replace all the sheet rock from the the floor to three feet up. So at 7:30 I am harassing people at Home Depot, who can't find the key to the fork lift to get down my two pieces of greenrock (bathroom sheetrock).
Half an hour later I have my sheetrock, and glue and caulking.
More coffee.
I still cannot cut a straight line.
The people who built this house were nuts. Most of the time when people put a window in the wall it is neater than the mess I found when I got the sheetrock off. Nothing was sealed, most of the boards were patched together. So after sealing, trimming and nailing it was almost 11am.
At 5pm I am still not done with the sheetrock. I am slow, because I have no idea what I am doing and I am a perfectionist at the same time. Not with the lines being stight but making sure everything is sealed and glued and caulked to where I never have to do this to the bathroom again.
I have the tub sheetrocked but I still have behind the tolit and vanity
(which is almost done) then I can cut my thin board and glue my paper on and then will prolly be done by Sunday. I cannot wait until I can get the pics up.

Perseid meteor shower tonight

2009-08-11T10:29:00.003-05:00

"The Perseid meteor shower is about to peak. The show begins after sunset on Tuesday, August 11th, and continues until the sun rises on Wednesday, August 12th. A time of particular interest is 0800-0900 GMT (1-2 a.m. PDT) on the 12th. That's when Earth is expected to pass through a denser-than-usual filament of dust from Perseid parent Comet Swift-Tuttle. Forecasters are unsure what will happen, but some have speculated that meteor rates could surge as high as 200 per hour. Bright moonlight will blot out many of those Perseids, but even a fraction of 200 is a good show.

Visit http://spaceweather.com for full coverage of the Perseids."

I am gonna take pics if I see any!!!! I hope everyone will be able to see them.

The next day----

I saw three, a bunch of bats, bugs, and the moon. We stayed out in the yard until 1am and Dj had a good heart to heart with me.

The Bathroom

2009-08-06T11:54:00.002-05:00

Eleven years ago my husband redid the bathroom. He had no idea what he was doing and it came out really well for not having a clue on construction. I still cannot fathom how he installed a shower with only two 2inch wide holes in the wall. He spent waaaaaaaay to much money on such a small space. He painted the walls, bought new trim, styrofom ceiling,new wall/shower board and vinyel stick on tile. It totaled to $800.
Now the wallboard is rotting out. The vanity needs to be replaced and as the house has shifted the trim has popped off the wall in some areas. He finally noticed the wall board going bad and freaked. We have to replace it now. It is going to cost to much. the wall is going to rot on fall off our house.
This is cuz of the hit to his head that he focuses on certain things. A month ago we talked about the bathroom wall and decided to wait until September. This week we have to do it now.

So I jumped on the boat bullied my way into doing the project. I told him all I need to have him to is help me take the crappy board off, install thin regular board and then go away. I can fix this for a about $100. The ceiling and floor will stay.

I am getting scrapbooking paper ( hahaha I strike again) and am going to paper my shower walls and then I did some research and Outdoor Spar Varish is the best thing to cover the paper. It creates a dull sheen that is almost impossible to cut and nick. And is used for severe outdoor conditions.
I am replacing the vanity with one I am making on Saturday out of cardboard.

Now here is where it gets interesting. I have spoken to my husband for MONTHS about creating new cabinets out of this cardboard for my kitchen.
This morning, after again speaking to him about the cardboard ideas, after drawing my ideas out, after showing them to him. After him telling me it is a good idea. He is shocked when I glue the boards together to test the glue and the strength. It was a spectacular fight. But he finally agreed to leave me alone and let me build what I want because as I pointed out 1) god forbid he be the only one to build stuff for the house 2) I despise the fact that I feel like my only job is maid, mom and whore (he argued allot about that) 3) he is too closed minded to give something new a chance. He gave up I think.

Last night I showed him my plan for the vanity. He thought it was great. Blah blah blah
This morning at 6 am he told me he has been thinking about the bathroom and the vanity might need to be replaced. But he does not want to replace the wallboard behind it because he does not feel like messing with removing the tolit.

I almost started screaming at him. I could actually feel something pop in my mind.

Nightmares

2009-07-20T16:29:00.003-05:00

When I got pregant in late 06 my nightmares stopped abruptly. So it has been almost a soild 2 1/2 years since I have woken up screaming or crying. It was really really nice. I felt somewhat normal. After having nightmares since as long as I could remember, it was really relieving to sleep without waking up so much at night to snap myself out of whatever hell my mind was replaying.

Friday morning I pop awake at 6 am absolutly terrified. Donald recognized the signs and hugged me but it did not help. He had to go to work in less than five min so I found myself sobbing at my coffepot. My mom was picking up Nikki, as prearranged the day before, so at least I could have a day to process by myself instead of shoving it to the side.

I started drawing with pencils, something I have not done in years. Just shades of grey. I wound up doing three drawings that day and they were so far out of the norm of what I normally do, the pictures came out incredible. Esp for not having any formal art training at all. And typically I suck with faces.

What makes them so is the blank white eyes in the woman and the monster's eyes. I am thinking if I get it out on paper then maybe I can sleep again without the dreams bothering me.

Continued Swirlies

2009-07-13T10:59:00.003-05:00

I feel sorry for the guy at Sherwan Williams paint. I asked for the premix of joint compound, the large one and he told me they have a box of it. I agreed it would work and he asked what it was for.
Texture.
How are you doing the texture?
With my hands.
Well, yeah.... but how?
With. My. Hands.
...oh. Like -makes gestures of patting the wall.
No. I am doing swirlies.

I got an incredible blank look. Poor guy. I felt for him but then my dingbat side kicked in and I started chattering about my kitchen and how it cost 11$ to texture a large wall. At the exact same time I handed him 21$ to pay for the joint compound that cost 10.81
He paused. "You gave me 21 dollars."
yeah.
"The cost is 10.81."
yup.
"But you said 11 dollars."
(The back of my mind is screaming with laughter)
So I repeated the entire paragraph about my texture and ended it with it cost 10.81 so I handed your 21 so I will get a 10 back with some change.
"oooh."

So I got to terrorize someone for the day and make him wish he worked somewhere else. But when a lady comes covered in little paint spots, torn jeans, flip flops, and a tank top that is COVERED in paint, you run the risk of her messing with you.

Don't mind the clutter or mess, I am still in the process of creating new storage space.
I am thinking of painting the inside of the bottom cabinets purple instead of green. I cannot decide.
When I pulled the bottom cabinet away from the wall I discovered afun filled fact from the past builders. My floor did not reach the wall. So after I pulled the section of paneling off that has been driving me crazy for years I found the 3 foot long 1/4 inch wide acess point for the lizards and large creepy bugs that have been getting in.
I fixed it with adhisve caulking and cereal box cardboard. I also had to fix a couple of bad spots in the sheetrock. Joint compound and cereal box cardboard. it is very soild and cheap, cheap.
I am thinking about painting the original Cheshire Cat on one of the swirls on the east wall. Of course with the quote "we are all mad here.."
It's fitting.

Attack of Giant Birds

2009-07-13T10:52:00.002-05:00

We have giant woodpeckers that live around our property. In 11 years they have never ever entered the garden area in serch of food. Appearently the drought is so bad that my handmade swingset and trellis held the best bugs. It looks like someone took a hatchet to both.

Happy Fourth!!!

2009-07-04T22:27:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone had a good fourth of July.

To the people that caught the woods on fire down the road from my house- kiss my ass.

Randomized late night thoughts

2009-07-03T23:13:00.002-05:00

Tonight must be the night to just type what is in my head. A little over a week ago a random quote came from (ironically) my own blog.

It is a quote from Lewis Carrol. Alice comes to a fork in the the road and asks the Chesire cat which one to take. He responded that it does not matter since she does not know where she is going.

The actual quote, not my abbrevated one, has been running thru my head everyday since I laid eyes on it. Tonight is is screaming for attention.

My subconsious is telling me to just go and do something. Stop trying to figure out what you should be and just be. Your job does not make you who you are, you make you who you are. Your hobbies are who you are.What you read, do, plan, create is what and who you are.

I had forgotton this over the last year or two. I am a wife and mom. I am also a gardener and artist. If I really want to do something then nothing is actually stopping me but my own inhibitions.

My stories for example- I should just finish the current one and self publish then sell it online. Ava will go to a regular publisher because the story- ha, book- is only a quarter done at 26K words.

Maybe I should be an online researcher. I can find thurough information within hours of a question and no less than a day. And not some little half ass one line answer, I double check everything and I read so fast and retain what I read it gets annoying when I hear someone talk about *random topic* and it takes a ton of will power to NOT butt in and give my informed two pence worth.

What is my mental issue with wanting approval but trying not to stand out? It is aggrevating as hell.

Now I am looking thru ads for real estate because the market is killer it seems and finding the right place is pretty easy. My only thing is comming up with the down payment and all that crap. I know it I can get two rent houses then I will be set on turning other ones or have the base to redo the hurricane ones that are selling for under 20K. And I could redo them cheaper than the going rate. I have it in my head, it is just figuring out how to balance raising my toddler and dealing with my husband, who is now the one breaking down.

He gave me the ok to file for disability on him. He is hurting that bad. He is getting worse by the day. So my hope is to get a decent paying job, beg and bribe family to care for Nikki and then have the down payment on the houses. Then I can get one or two more and have enough going that I can leave my job and concentrate on my family. Hopefully have all this done in six months. I do not think I will make it-- Murphy's Law.

Pained Days

2009-07-02T23:29:00.003-05:00

Donald's pain is not getting any better. He is getting worse and watching my husband deal with constant pain is just awful.
I worry now. He is in his early forties and might have another forty years left. Can he live with this much pain for forty more years? Will the good days outshine the bad days? Can his liver handle the constant stream of painkillers or will I watch him slowly fade away?
He is already a different person from before he got hit. Some days he is so quiet it is eerie. That's when he is hurting. When he is hurting really bad he just goes into his room and watches TV for hours. He cannot remember anything some days and other days he mixes everything up. The meds are not working unless he takes more. The chiropractor told him that surgery is an option. This last round of chiro only helped for a day.
And he cannot understand that three doctors have told him he will be like this for the rest of his life.
Forever. That word has a whole new meaning.
This one has a new meaning too.
Suffering.

Was Not Bad at All

2009-06-28T21:11:00.004-05:00

**Warning: Boring post ahead, it is about cleaning my house, cake, and how to make toddlers run around the yard shrieking for under 3$, and birthday stuff**

I started the day with less than four hours sleep and that was with a toddler who insisted on taking as much possible space as she could. Not to mention not being able to shove my husband over.

**We have a small two bedroom house, allot of people tell me that I need to kick my stepson out of his room so my daughter can have her own room. I do not buy into that thinking. Lets look at this from a somewhat intelligent angle. He is sixteen, already gone thru enough emotional crap to make him have a few neuroticisms and here comes a baby to either make a tumultuous life worse or better. I decided that she was going to stay in our room. DJ may not be here 100% of the time but he is still our family. And being our family you do not purposely make them even more neurotic at a shitty, hormonal, cutting the apron strings time of life.

Nikki has her own bed and she does use it until about 2 am when her light sleep cycle kicks in and she wakes up and migrates to me. Kinda like a homing pigeon.**

Now with that cleared-- I still had a house to clean, and cake type thing to cook, and stuff to lay out. After I cheated my way thru breakfast (scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage,bacon and boudain) I say cheated because I lay everything out on a cookie sheet and broil it for about 6 min. It takes a total of 15 min to cook a breakfast for four. Everyone can get 1 boudain, 2 patties, 2 pieces of bacon and a scoop of eggs. Except for nikki, she just eats the eggs. Then they had to clear out of my way. I had three rooms to clean from top to bottom and 2 hours in which to finish.

I just knew I was going to have to fight with Donald today but he did not say a word about me blasting music all morning. Usually he gripes because my music is too loud.
He was trying to make up for the day before when Evil Bastard lived in my house for about 45 min. Just long enough to do damage and then scuttle back under his rock.

I cooked a Chocolate caramel bar cake today. It is a giant oatmeal cookie with one layer of oat mixture, then melted chocolate, then pecans, then carmel sauce, then another layer of oatmixture. and it is soft. Omigod, my ass would be the size of the house if I made this all the time. It is beyond good.

I whipped up store bought cream cheese icing and drew a (messed up) cow on Nikki's "cake". I tried really hard tho and dammit!! it counts more than anything!! I kept trying to fix it and starsha finally had to tell me that it was ok to just walk away. But everyone liked it.

Nikki got three bathing suits today. My grandfather got her one that was zebra striped with pink accents. I was shocked when I helped her open the gift, it was soooo her!! Starsha gave her a pink dragon( it really completes the set), crazy techno socks which is a funny inside joke. Starsha matches her stuff and her kids always have on matching socks. I am almost polar opposite, and I never have Nikki's socks matching each other. Starsha finally told me to buy a set of white socks. "They come in a huge bag, that way you don't have to worry about them matching!!" So now I have wonderful funny socks for Nikki and I can mix them up to my hearts content and it won't matter.
Hunter gave Nikki a butterfly and flower fuzzy coloring page. All three of them worked on it. Nikki was still playing with the balloons that Starsha had tied around her gift.
Our neighbors Brenda and Jeff (decoration suppliers) got Nikki a swimming pool that has a canopy, a Dora bathtub toy castle, a little mermaid bathing suit and a HUGE thing of bubbles.

My mom is taking Nikki and I to Galveston to the butterfly garden and aquarium this week for Nikki's birthday. She also got Nikki washable markers,crayons, a fake cell phone, an bright green bathing suite, costume jewelry, and a notebook to scribble in.

Jennifer did make it which I was surprised,the day before she said it was too early for her to be in town so she wasn't going to come. She gave Nikki a Dora pop up tent. Nikki has already gathered toys to it. And a pillow is in there. Some clothes.

When for obvious reasons the conversation turned to stripping and cover fees etc. I decided that the kids needed to go outside. With the bubbles. Before Hunter got an education that he did not need.
I bought a little fan thing that blows bubbles. I learned two things today, children love bubbles, and children eat bubbles. Colton had a bubble blowing out of his nose. It was too funny. They ran around screaming chasing these bubbles for 30 min before I got the bright idea to fill up a cooler and make a big bubble bath.
Chaos ensued. The toddlers were covered in bubbles from head to toe and then both climbed into the cooler. Still dressed.

Donald got out his mini aircompressor (never ever buy one-- they suck) and I sat forever trying to get this damn pool inflated. Jeff and DJ took Jeff's fourwheeler and they went down to his house to inflate it in less than five min.
I think Nikki and Colton played in the pool for two hours. They played so much that they popped it and it slowly deflated.

Nikki screamed for 20 min after I brought her inside. My mom keeps telling me how proud she is that I am not losing my temper with Nikki, it is surprising and wonderful that I am keeping so calm when she is flipping out. I used to have a reallly bad temper, so I know where she is getting the DNA code for this particular quirk. I do not want my baby scared of me. She is frustrated because she cannot talk clear enough for us to understand her so she screams and sobs. She will grow out of it and until then I am on xanex as of Tuesday. My nerves are shot in all reality. I don't know how I am not flipping out on her or Donald or DJ or......

After everyone left, Nikki settled down and took a nap. I cooked homemade pizza in which I burnt one and did not cook the other one enough. They ate it anyway because "we did not have to cook it and anything is good as long as we did not have to cook" I could take that as an insult but I have really screwed up dinner before to where I would not even touch it.

It was a great day. Because I am not good at social stuff I was really nervous but everyone seemed to have fun time just watching the kids play and chitchatting.

Fun Day Planned Tomarrow

2009-06-28T01:15:00.002-05:00

I can write this due to the knowledge that 90% of the people I know do not know I have this blog. So ha ha.

Nikki's birthday party is tomarrow. I would be happy not having ten extra people in my house but appearently only men can get away with not inviting people for anything. As a mom I must know exactly what to tell everyone to get my child. You have known her for two years please do not make me spell this out in crayon. I do have some guidelines- No puppies, no caffine, no breakable parts, and no porn. She is two, how hard can this be? Get her a box of kleenex, she will be annoyingly happy for 20 min.

I am not serving lunch. Do you really think I want all of you in my house for more than an hour? Noooooooo. No, I am not decorating. No, there is not a theme. Yes, bring napkins. As a matter of fact bring your own plate and fork and cup and take them home with you.

I stood staring at my plates wondering if I had enough and wondering if I really wanted to wash them when DJ walked up and told me to say " why yes, please bring some paper plates" when the next phone call asked if they could bring anything. ooooooooohhhh. As another Blogger(mj) put it-- mild social retardation. A 16 year old boy knows more of what to do than I do. And he has no problem giving me hell about it.

My neighbor decided the theme for me. She came in this evening with tinkerbell plates,cups, and napkins. I was astounded. And grateful, because I have no idea on what to do for this stuff. And at the very least I have another 10 years of this. We got lucky with DJ- he hates parties so we never had to throw one for him. But he knows what to do and how to respond to people's questions. Bizarre.

I have retyped this last paragraph four times. I finally gave up and just deleted it. Finally my meds have worn off and I can go to sleep. At two a.m.

ugh.

Pics of our Walk in the Woods

2009-06-26T13:55:00.001-05:00

Wildflower

2009-06-24T10:54:00.003-05:00

We go for walks in the woods behind my house. I will be posting pics of flowers because I am a wildflower geek. I would LOVE to get permission to toss wildflower seeds on the sides of the highways around here.

Bag O Shirts

2009-06-24T10:33:00.003-05:00

My friend gave a bag of clothes, "if you can fit into some of them- great! if not then just donate them"
After going through all of them I learned two things. She did not think ahead that she is a size B and I am a size D. Her tween size large shirts will not look cute on me. I will look like the neighborhood desperate hooker wannabe.

So I picked a few out and cut them up to make Nikki some new summer clothes. I did not even have to sew anything just snip to tie knots in them. No, the dresses are not the most stylish or cutest things around, but I also did not spend 80 some odd on clothes that she is going to get paint all over. Tempra paint does not come out of clothes as I found out this weekend. I cut up cereal boxes, side dish boxes, basically any box that I get my hands on and that is what she draws and paints on.

And yes that is still the new carpet but with the realism of scattered crap. This was the best picture I could get, Nikki will not stay still or stay away from me. She is needy today.

POS Dresser Remade

2009-06-24T09:56:00.002-05:00

This was the dresser that my mom gave me out of spite for her husband. I merrily took it home because 1) I needed an art stuff storage that was a touch more organized 2) I needed another project before it got too hot to work outside
The drawers were falling apart and some of the guides were gone. This was part of my learning to use the skill saw. Which is simple and hard at the same time. I really want a table saw. That way I can build whatever I want without consulting, nagging, begging my husband to build it for me. Bite my ass, I can make it.

This is the after. The knobs are porcelain (gag me) with tiny little roses on them( ewwwwwwww) so they will have to wait for me to make new ones out of plaster and sculpty clay.
Liquid nails smells awful but it glued the joints back together to incredible strength. The wood was so thin that nailing some parts was out of the question. To make the new guides I measured( wrong several times) and then smeared the glue, and glued the guides to their spots. Let it dry overnight and BAM new solid guides.

It took several days because I am taking care of a house, a teenager who needs attention because god forbid I act like a normal step mom and ignore him. No, I actually listen to his thought process without yelling at him. AND I am taking care of my two year old. So yes, my dear personality flipping husband, it is going to take more than a few days. Idiot.
So it is not done to my satisfaction but it will work for now. I still have somoe tweaking to do and shelves to add above it but my kitchen/art room is slowly becomming what I want it to be. And no, I do not plan any of this out, it just happens as I go.

Possessed Vaccum Cleaner

2009-06-21T14:29:00.003-05:00

araarararararararararararchhhhhaaaararararclanclangclangclunkclangarararararra

This is not the way a vacuum cleaner is supposed to sound. It is not right.When you turn it on it has to warm up for a few min. When the clanking sound stops,and it is the deep roaring sound that warms your down to your toes starts up and does not stop.

Why I do not get another one is beyond me, but when I am in any store that sells vacuum cleaners that hums instead a growling and clanking noise ,I cannot buy one. Not because of monetary ( about 75% of the time that is why) I stand and stare at the new shiny mentally healthy, physically able to suck the paint out of my carpet( that sounds kinda bad) and then I walk away.

Why you ask?

It is because the damn thing is possessed. It works when it wants to, and usually only when you are sucking up a sock or a cord is when it hums happily like a normal machine. But when you pull it out it goes right bad to borderline shrieking at you. And I am convinced it is fine when I am in the store.

Never mind the burning rubber smell. We cover that up with the smelly powder. Which is flammable BTW.

Never mind it skips around the actual sucking bits of flotsam from the carpet and you have to go over the same area three times to get that stupid piece of lint up.

I have friends that are screaming at me to buy new *insert half ass broken thing here* but until it is actually broken I just cannot justify buying something to replace the one that just doesn't run as fast or well or good.

Some days I would love to open up wide to a therapist and figure out exactly what is going on in my head. Maybe that is what make this OK; I acknowledge that I am nuts.

Ants

2009-06-16T22:58:00.002-05:00

This teeming white and red pile of insects was a fire any colony that moved in my truck. It started out with one or two, then I opened the passenger door and the floor was crawling. On one hand they were cleaning up every single cracker crumb my child has dropped, one the other hand they are known to swarm.
Allot of poison and the comfortable feeling that all the evil bugs living in the panels of my truck were dead.

I was so wrong. They moved under the driver seat into a shoe.My daughter's shoe. I need that shoe!!

I don't want to drive my truck.

My Garden Pictures

2009-06-16T09:39:00.002-05:00

Before and After Livingroom

2009-06-16T09:25:00.003-05:00

I should have taken a picture of nikki throwing her toys everywhere. It would add to the realism considering I really try to keep things picked up but my mind ignores things on its own. I really did not see the *insert whatever I forgot here*
It's a self defense so I do not wind up in jail for maiming my family members. But they are actually not walking on it with their nasty boots, I was shocked.

Carpet!!!

2009-06-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

I finally got new carpet!!! Well, new to me but not new to the planet. I was not under any circumstances paying $800 to carpet 250 square feet and it would be another month before it could be installed. One small living room and a tiny hallway and I did not even pick out the carpet that I wanted. Kiss my ass, I will paint the plywood floors before I cough up that money.

I randomly checked the want ads over the last three months and found two incredible deals. The first one was a solid oak futon with the mattress and a cover for $200. I priced them in April. The frame alone would have been four hundred and another three to four hundred for the mattress. Now I have a place to sleep when Nikki is needy and I actually have room to breathe.

Then I found the ad for carpet and padding for $150. The carpet needed some cleaning, according to the seller. So I went to check it out and it was in a NICE neighborhood. The carpet was the REAL cotton/mix thread and soft and plush and in incredible shape. The padding was not even dusty. Oh yeah buddy, this is coming home with me. We loaded on the truck, it hung over the cab and off the tailgate and I drove 25 mph home with my hazards on. I was not going to risk anything flying out and the carpet ran the gas mileage down that it would be pointless to hurry home.

So we got it in today, we rented a stretcher, bought the tack strips.
I think the hardest part was making sure threshold plates gripped the carpet. But we saved $600. I looked at independents that will install carpet and they all wanted $500 or more. Nope nope nope.

It was hard and hot and god awful tiring. But now I know how to install carpet, so that adds to one more thing on my " I must learn" list.

***********************

Update on the kitchen-- Plaster of Paris sucks up paint. Where one quart would have painted three walls, one plaster of Paris textured wall will use the entire quart. I bought the paint before I saw the h*me Depot commercial with the primer mixed in with the paint.

Garden Update-- So far we have picked 23 freezer quart bags of green beans. I have another 10 bags waiting to be picked. This will practically cover our green beans intake for the year. I just need someone to teach me how to can the things and I will be so much better off. And spiced peaches.

Tomorrow I am going to learn to use the arc welder so I can make my silverware people!!

Nikki is doing really good. She has weaned herself from milk. She gets very agitated when you try and make her drink it. She knows the letter A and O on sight and can make the sounds. She tries to dress herself. Can open and get into the car by herself. Feeds the cat and puts her bowl where it belongs. Opens the fridge to get her yogurt out and then gets a spoon out of the drawer and sits down with it with her little box I made her.
When she is done eating she tells you she is done, goes to the garbage can, scraps her plate off and then puts it in the sink. She is not even two yet!!
My family is pushing me to have another child and I know I will go from being a mom to a crazy lady. So aside from her older brother and a hell of an accident, she will be the only child Donald and I have together. Which on some levels is disappointing but on a practical (money. clothes, food, SANITY) level, it is a good thing.
Having a child almost destroyed us, having another one will obliterate this relationship.

Swirlie

2009-06-03T21:59:00.000-05:00

My swirls needed poka dots. I am having a hard time finishing the cabinets on the top because he is nagging me to finish them.

Female thinking right?...hahaha

The beginning of a fun filled week....

2009-06-01T09:23:00.001-05:00

For the first time in ten years DJ calls for me to pick him up from his mothers at nine pm. No matter what drinking, drama, fighting, or cops have been there he has never called. EVER.

I go get him(20 miles one way), now I am geared up for a fight because she has been known to fly off the handle and knocked the crap out of someone but I have about four inches and 30 pounds on her. 10 years ago I would have fought her but I have learned in a decade to think first and then respond. Starsha calls it 10,10,10 thinking. 10 min, 10 months, 10 years. Basically is jail worth it? Nope. No matter what jail is not worth one hit (or several) I can get my point across other ways.

She is railing on him on the porch. I walked up, and ask what is going on. She tells me that DJ's girlfriend has not left yet and he wanted to spend the evening at her house (20 feet away) but DJ did not wash and flea dip the dogs earlier that day. So he was not allowed to go back and see her before she left for seven weeks.

History: He has been in love with her since he was nine and she finally agreed to date him. Seven years later. She is very very shy. Very. So they have been dating for three weeks and since his mother found out they were dating he has a curfew even though they were at her house with both her parents up. Before they dated, DJ would come home at 11pm, midnight, 230am and his mom never said a word.

So DJ is at a breaking point because he tried to asked (beg) his mom to give him just another hour, 30 min, 10 min. She told him flat out "I don't give a f*** how you feel"
That is worse than hitting him. Or grounding him for a month. To completely disreguard his feelings will break him faster than anything and he takes forever to recover from it.

She told me that she felt he was running from his responsibilities, I agreed but I made sure she understood two things. 1) This was not going to happen again. 2) We are not stealing your son, you will come get him tomarrow when you get off. You will talk to him. You will take him home with you.

They needed a cooling off period before DJ told her that he did not want to live with her anymore. He would regret the words and we would wind up in court (for the 28th time) I know she raised her other two, but they did not have the choice to call the other parent because they both told Donald that they did not want to live here anymore or see him. So no, the other two had to learn to live with their mom without another parent they might be able to go to when things got bad. So she could say whatever she wanted to them.

DJ has that option but we will not be abused anymore. He wants to live with her and by god, he is going to live with her. Until he tells us that he wants to live here then he is going to have deal with his choice.

Tonight should be fun, either she will not show up, or she will show up and say the wrong thing and Donald will fly off the handle. I have a feeling that he is going to be inside while we are outside talking...yelling.

What she doesn't get is that DJ actually loves this girl. He has not spoke of any other girl but her since she moved next door. It is poetic sad. And I know that you must never ever say anything bad about her and don't try and keep them separated.

DJ's mom told me a month ago that he is her baby and she will not have any girl in his life because she will be a complete bitch to her. I knew once she said that, that things would go downhill for her and her son. People have tried telling her to back off and she won't.

I am going to sit back and watch the show.

Before and After, well more like Middle

2009-05-29T14:07:00.001-05:00

This was my kitchen before I discovered the wonderful world of glue and paper and appearently a very tolerant husband.

This is after, sort of. My Kitchen/ Art room is about 300 square feet and it is turning into more of a giant art project than anything. I am using as little money as possible. So far I am getting away with about 20$ a week. Believe it or not the paper covers up every little imperfection in the wood, no sanding, no primer was needed and no perfect paint strokes.
I had primered the cabinets because I was going to paint them, but my art shelf was so entertaining that it became extended.

These are the drawers,the cabinet itself is not finished but I am taking my time. Plus every time I do work with the painting I am doing I have a toddler *helping* me. Two of my dogs have purple and green paint on them. The floor looks like crap because we had to jerk up almost the entire thing a couple of weeks ago including the living room floor. So my floor will be last.

The cabinet under the sink has to be completely redone. I am going to try to convince him it needs to be done this weekend. Wish me lots and lots of luck.

Summer!!!

2009-05-29T00:23:00.000-05:00

Oh the turn of air, when the humidity creeps it's way into the house and you are sticky less than an hour after you get up. I feel the itch to go into the woods and find the best spots to sit and throw rocks into the water. Oh do not get me started on swimming, I cannot wait to haul the kayaks down to the bayou and wander off. I miss swimming, it has been at least 3 years since I have just floated for an hour or so. I can not wait to catch turtles again or feed fish or get that weird creepy feeling that is akin to panic if it gets out of control because a HUGE fish just brushed by you.

I must tan!! I have been working on my yard and outside so much in the last couple of weeks that my arms are a nice golden brown. Under arms and under clothes is still a blinding white. And I feel this insane urge to put blond streaks in my hair again. Then in July I will want to make the blond dark pink. Every summer for the last five summers I have fought the pink, mainly because my job at the time would not let me. Or rather I could as long as I did not work there. And get a tattoo, why on earth do I want another tattoo only during early summer?

My gardens are growing excellent, I have my first crop of green beans. Depending on how many we pick on Saturday will decide if we will plant purple hull peas.

I found a *spend all your money* website. It is nothing but hard to find seeds and some of the plants are just 'omg I have to have this plant!' http://seedrack.com/index.html
Oh ho- they have plants I have never seen before much less touched and I am just itching to buy and grow. Sadly, one of my all time favorite plants, any kind of vine, I am allergic to it's touch. I will have a rash within 24 hours from Jasmine, English Ivy etc.

I buy gloves. I have about 4 pair because my husband leaves his excellent leather work gloves near my gardening shelf and depending how you bend reality, geometry, and logic - the gloves are actually in MY work shelf so therefore I have the insane right to get them wet, muddy and covered in lord knows what. Then I give them back and "find" another pair while the first is drying in the sun.

My kitchen is coming along nicely, I have the drawers done except for the final paint on the sides of the cabinet and I have to replace the toe kick. Then my husband wanders buy and makes the remark that he should rebuild the cabinet.

The cabinet that I just spent the last week on, gluing, nailing,sanding to make it look like it is not made from particle board. "the hell you are.....GET OUT" is something along what I went from stunned mumbling to shouting. Do not come into my kitchen and comment on what needs to be rebuilt after I have rebuilt it to my happiness and function level.

I textured the walls Friday night, well I textured one and a half walls. I like the texture product but I do not like the normal texture the roller did. I am thinking of doing a dripping water or squishy hand thing. oooo maybe odd dot impression, the dots make swirls but each dot is painted a different blue then the wall is painted.

I wish I could have free reign to redo all the rooms in the house. I could do the matching swirls into other rooms. Maybe I will do swirls on the trim of the house instead after we paint it this fall.

My mind is moving million miles an hour to keep from thinking about how bad my husbands pain is from the injury. I think the chiropractor would have worked completely but Donald does nothing but hard labor all day even on light duty. So he is not talking too much over the last couple of days and we cannot even sleep in the same room. He is one three pills and still cannot sleep.
Deep inside I am breaking down even more but on the surface and right under that I cannot let this affect me or everything will go to hell.

I might have a contract job for 10 days to cook for 17 ppl 3X a day. The money is worth the hours and cleaning. Cross your fingers it gets approved.

AND I won the contest to name an anomaly in the Big Thicket. I was really hoping they would pick one of the Dragon names, but they voted on Big Thicket Trees Knee's Pass. I hope to have a link to the picture pretty soon.

Lots of Glue

2009-05-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Lots of glue. I thought would be a good name for me considering the artwork I am getting into. While I have wavered for 10 years on how exactly I want my kitchen to look like I have gone from country to modern and everything in between.

I spend allot of time in the kitchen. My kitchen is also the dining room, although we do not use it aside from formal holiday gathering; the last of which was 9 years ago. My family eats in the living room, we still have rules about table manners, which I am teaching my two year old. Yes, she is smart enough to learn the rules quite fast.

My kitchen is used for cooking, playing catch games, listening to music and my art room. It takes up a third of the house, the living room is the other third and the bedrooms and bathroom the last third.

I would kill to have an art room to myself but I am not putting myself in the hole for 15 grand for one room. And no, I will not demand my husband to build it for me. We don't have good luck with DIY projects running smoothly. So I am taking over the kitchen formally and making it my own.

Now back to the original topic. I am using scrapbook paper and Mod Podge to redo my kitchen. I have also found a way through www.craftster.org and french websites to build furniture out of cardboard that is fun and sturdy. Think of Dr.Seuss.

I started small and am going to work my way to a bed frame in about two months. I would really like to have my own shop and build custom beds for children at a reasonable rate. I would love to build beds and furniture and have a drawing once a month for children in need to redo their room.

But getting there is a whole trip by itself, the French sites show some step by step but for the most part you can take their classes and learn how to do it their way.....uh, I am not flying to France. The other sites i have found are not as good as the French. Go figure.

The cardboard is free but finding the right glue is becoming tricky. Hot glue is the best but my glue gun is small and rinky. So in two weeks a buy a big one.....*evil grin* I really cannot wait. I am gathering supplies so I can be busy this summer if I do not have to work. I might work to save because I have an incredible feeling that things are about to break at an alarming rate.

ujujjhjjjjuytrreeef <------- Nikki says hi

Well she is up and terrorizing me so off we go:)

Realization

2009-05-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

I feel as though this time in my life is here, not for a reason, but here to force a change upon me. I have been having a series of mini break downs over the past few weeks. I feel slightly better after a crying bout but not better as to deal with new stress.

My best friend is going through court issues and I do not hear from her for more than once every two weeks. After two years another friend, living in an existence in which she could barely be herself or tap into creativity, moved away and I do hear from her once a week, it just is so sad. I miss them both, but it is part of the change I must go through.

I have to learn to become stronger to the point of completely on my own. Emotionally and mentally. My husband was hurt a year ago this month, part of his injury or side effect, is a short term memory that is near gone. I can talk about (insert topic here) we will have a full fledged discussion about (topic) BUT when I start on said (topic) he becomes irate because he has no idea why I am doing whatever I am doing. This is less than 24 hours after we spoke about (topic). This behavior is not normal for him. It would take him about a month to forget a topic.

Or he has developed a split personality- one is happy with whatever I do, the other wants to control little bits of everything I do. But then he turns around and tells me to do whatever I want. After we argued over the shade of blue for my kitchen, he demanded that I paint my walls pale blue and two days later when I showed him some paint chips, he asked me why I was asking him. It is your kitchen do what you want.

After months of yelling at him which is degenerating our healing relationship, I started crying. So now twice a week I am crying over inane topics, which I rarely did before. It is highly irritating. But I know each time I break down I should become stronger.

Or so I hope. I know he might have another year to work and after that he is going to have to become disabled or have surgery for the bulging disc in his neck. The headaches and pain are almost too much for him even on pills.

So being unable to control the pain he is going through on a daily basis or much of anything else except when the bills get paid, I have developed some OCD issues.

1) I want my yard, gardens and shed to be completely streamlined and clean. This is a LARGE task considering my gardens went for two years without any cultivation. Don't get me started on the shed.

2) I seem to have flipped from darker colors to brights, borderline annoying. But something in my brain just keeps going back to bright blues, bright purple, and lime greens. I think it is my body's way of fighting depression.(these are the kitchen colors)

3)Even if it is not my stuff I want to organize it. That is scary because I do not recall being like this before or if I was, not to this level.

The artist that dwelled inside but only exposed itself in doodles has blasted it's way to the fore and is just "artisting" everything I am working on. My grandfather has an arc welder and I am collecting silverware to tack weld into people, cities, fences--etc. And I am collecting broken tools to make Tool People for my gardens.

I have not written in two months, I think I am taking a break. I will probably send some stuff off for short stories but Ava has to be completely rewritten from the ground up. Which is annoying. I know why I am having a hard time writing, just like with playing pool; I cannot write unless I am smoking and since I quit I am stuck in limbo until I learn to write without cigarettes.

I still have stories swirling in the muck. But getting 3 hours to write without a two year old bugging is impossible when your housemate/ other half is doped up. It is bugging me that I have not worked on Ava since last January, she was an incredible story for me to put together and only being half done is annoying.

I hate having ADD. Even on meds I still screw up and don't finish. Even on meds I still cannot get the whole story out of my head.

Mix the OCD with ADD and certain projects take over, I must finish them before I can start something else. This last week I have fought not painting my kitchen and lost. It was all I could think about until I got up, painted the damn wall and then,only then was I able to sit and finish a water color.

I think this is part of me breaking down. I have to break down certain barriers in order to become the person I wish I could be. I am envious of women who can match their clothes and accessorize. I have no idea how to fix my hair or how to wear certain jewelry, do not get me started on shoes. I am clueless. So I have enlisted an old friend of mine to help me this fall. She is going to help me shop.

So in a sense to me I am growing up, finally at 29 years old I have figured out who I am and what I want to do with my life. Now all I have to do is change a few things and go.