thoughts

So, I've been looking for a place to stimulate more discussion on what may be controversial and private things, but that is safe and that I can control more. So I started more of a diary. Women only. Thinking out the thoughts and ideas and bothersome things that are in my head. Definitely want to have people discuss and comment and debate.

If you're interested, email me. But don't be offended if I don't send you a link. And I reserve the right to stop posting there at any time. Or to make any posts over there private, for mine eyes only.

hiking

We went to Buttermilk Falls yesterday and hiked up to the top. It was beautiful!

Emma and Soren braved the swimming hole a bit, but it was only 52F, so not for long! They did great, although Emma spilled half a smoothie in the back seat of the truck and they fought the entire way there.

We also went into downtown Ithaca and did a little shopping. I got Nat and Audrey handboilers because they had admired my kids' at one time. We gave them to them today at the LCG picnic at Tinker Nature Center. I got lost on the way there because MapQuest gave me the wrong damn directions.

So yesterday was great. Except I bumped the curb with the tire when we got home and I parked and then got steamed at Tom because he made some comment, so dropped the keys in his lap and told him to park the damn thing himself. He acted very mature in response. Not ;).

Anyway, the picnic today was lovely. Then I took Soren to her ballet dress rehearsal, which was chaotic and stressful, as I knew it would be. She looked lovely though. I really do need to upload my picture of her. She is so pretty in her costume!

We survived that and came home. Then some kids came by and offered to mow my lawn for ten bucks, so I took them up on it. They did a good job too! What a deal :). We ordered pizza and hung out for quite a long time with our next door neighbor. She wants to go hiking with us, which would be cool.

Home

What do you do when you want to go home, but you're already there?

More puke, and such

Emma was supposed to have a sleepover last night, but I got a call from her at 10:45 p.m. that she was feeling queasy. Thankfully it was just a few blocks away, so I threw on a shirt and Birks and ran over to get her. She threw up at 12:45 a.m. Not in the bucket. On the rug. And on her new comforter. Figures ;).

The laundry Gods were quite pleased with themselves.

She only threw up once though. Despite feeling somewhat washed out today, she's bemoaning the fact that I wouldn't allow her to go swimming with the same friend at the YMCA. Sheesh. I'm so mean.

Anyway, I was sitting here wondering what would happen if I started actually blogging about what I really think. Not in a catty, gossipy sort of way, but about my own actual thoughts.

OK, and maybe occasionally a catty thought or two. I think I sanitize a lot here, although I consider myself to be pretty up front about things. But so much goes on in my head. I really think a lot of it is interesting, but I hesitate to share it with people. I've gotten weird about actually saying what I mean. I don't know if it's diplomacy that has come with age, or the result of a 13 year relationship with someone who can emote for days about something. And a lifelong relationship with a mother who is offended by the fact that I even think, most days.

And I do think. I think about George "the shrub" W. Bush. And religion. (Funny that those two should follow each other in the same sentence. Or rather, two sentences). And parenting, and sex and relationships and friendship and food and art and all sorts of things. But you would never know it.

Because all I seem to talk about is puke and homeschooling. I am tired of being defined by motherhood today. I want to be seen as my "gestalt," as a person, a woman. Ugh. See, this is why I don't think. I can't even articulate what the hell I'm talking about. I want a new job.

But then there's real life. And Jude is playing Whack-A-Mole with a weeble chicken and a fish maraca. What a kid.

And now he's trying to knock the lamp down. Must go define myself as mother.

TGIF

I'll try to catch up a bit. Last Thursday I took Soren in to have bloodwork done. She had been bruising easily again and looked pale and has been very fatigued all the time, so my instincts told me that she was anemic again.

She had also been quite ill for over a week a while back which is what stimulated the first year-long episode of tests and anemia.

We went in on Monday morning to get the results and sure enough, she was anemic. Again, her body is not making enough red blood cells. Folic acid and iron supplements won't help this kind of anemia. She seems to be on the upswing though and most of her bruising was of the same age, so we're hoping it's of shorter duration. She is to go back in July for a rheumatoid factor and some other immune system tests. I really hope this is something that she grows out of and doesn't turn into lupus or another immune system problem.

I also told the doctor I would need a referral for the child psychologist we're going to see in July. No problems there.

Then I got a new Rx for Tom's asthma inhaler and told her (tattled ) that he isn't taking his steriod inhaler. She sighed dramatically and said, "Don't tell him I said this, but he's just like a teenager!" LOL! So she prescribed him Singulair tablets instead.

I then kind of broke down and told her I'd been having some panic attacks recently. We looked through the PDR and all of the things that are helpful are Category D while nursing. Feh. So no ativan for me. We looked at a couple of other things and no go. So she prescribed me Zoloft. I have really mixed feelings about it. I filled the Rx, but haven't started taking it, not least of which is that we've all been puking our guts up all week.

I do feel that I'm depressed. Mildly to moderately. But I don't like taking meds while nursing. I don't feel that overall it's affecting my ability to function, although it makes it harder at times. And I am concerned about getting off of the meds when I'm ready. I really don't know what to do.

Pros:
-more energy
-lower sex drive (yes, this is a pro )
-hopefully no anxiety attacks

Cons:
-breastfeeding
-lower sex drive (yes, this is a con too! )
-having to titrate off and how to decide when is the right time

It's situational - this is not something I need to go to therapy for. I've got a lot going on. A new marriage. A new baby. Ex-husband recently moving here. Ill parents. Juggling homeschooling, work, etc. Not enough sleep. So...I don't have any answers.

Jude's newest trick is sticking his tongue out and waggling it around like some sort of angelic lizard king. It's very funny and cute. He's also cruising around the house holding on to furniture, but is getting brave and letting go with one hand to reach for an adjacent person or thing to move to. I suspect he'll be standing on his own before too long. Despite his stomach bug, he's been cheerful and as cute as ever.

Rita's coach "tested" Soren on some stuff on Wednesday. Soren loved it and had a lot of fun with her. She had a GREAT day at class that day and worked really hard. If she were more consistent, she'd be ready to move up to Level 3. Emma continues to be unfocused and is driving me batty. I suggested that she try to get in the 'zone' she's in while climbing when she does gymnastics. I am getting tired of watching her refuse to improve and her coaches are tired of telling her to fix the same darn things over and over again.

I'm not sure what the answer is. A break? Something new? I told her I'd like her to take up an instrument in the fall. Guess what she picked? No, really, guess?

String bass. She is the shortest kid in Rochester and wants to play a huge instrument. What a nut!

I still feel queasy and I can smell cigarette smoke from someone outside. It's making me want to hurl.

Speaking of hurling, I am dead sick of being up to my eyeballs in bodily fluids. I have cleaned the bathroom 4 times this week. That's a record, folks. I don't want to clean up any more puke. I don't want to smell any more shit. I don't want to wash any more towels or sheets. I don't want to be the grownup this week. I haven't eaten anything solid but a bowl of cereal since Monday morning. Oh, and jello. Tom got me Chinese takeout last night but it was the *worst* Chinese food I have ever had. It was slimy and bland. He agreed. Nasty. I ate a little ice cream instead.

Please, overlords of the galaxy, don't let the girls start throwing up. I submit! Jude is still intermittently throwing up but is tooling around the room getting into trouble anyway.

Sometimes I feel like this is my theme song. She actually wrote this song when her daughter was about 2. Dawn might appreciate that. But I feel like that about my whole life sometimes ;).

OK, so who wants to go to the store for me. I need laundry detergent, baby food, milk and muenster cheese.

Jude is throwing up. poor little guy. when will it end?

emma climber

Check out Emma at Rock Ventures. Click on their box and she's in the first picture :). Pretty cool!

sick

I've been offline, so if I owe anyone an email, this is why. I started throwing up at work yesterday and ended up in the ER on IVs till 3:30 a.m. Tom started throwing up this morning.

I missed the girls' last day at LCG. They had a closing ceremony, but at least David got to go. I haven't had a chance to look at the art work they brought home, but I hope to do it today.I started this post last night, but fell asleep with Jude - he went down at 8! And didn't want to get up again. Thank goodness.

I'm still really washed out.

I'm a wimp

The girls are with David this weekend. Despite my hardnosed attempts to get Emma to clean up her damn stuff ;), she hasn't gotten a single thing out of my (edited: it said "her closet," but her stuff was in MY closet) closet, but has beaten herself up about her inability to organize anything for 2 weeks now. So, I decided to have a go at it.

We had gone out and spent quite a bit of money on a new "big girl" decor for her room, with the understanding that she'd have to get rid of some stuff in order to make her space inhabitable and manageable. I think she was overwhelmed by the idea of it. So I did it for her. Very Bad Mommy.

I threw out 3 garbage bags of pure crap. I totally redecorated her room. I bought cool cube storage shelves and put them by her bed in stair format, so she can now reach her CD player from her top bunk, as well as her flashlight. Out of 6 cubes, she still has 2.5 that she can fill up. I consolidated her rock and seashell collection into one big basket. I cleaned out her closet and got 2 really cool plastic bins to put hats and bags in. For a tomboy, this kid has a HUGE selection of purses, backpacks and bags. Yet, she usually uses a plastic grocery sack to carry her stuff in when we go out. Strange.

Anyway, she stopped by w/ her dad yesterday and gasped with delight. I'll have to take some pictures soon. We got new bedding, new throw pillows, a throw rug, a new lamp, mirror, magnetic board, 70s lights to hang up over the mirror, all sorts of fun stuff. It looks great.

I spent 9 hours doing this yesterday. I barely did anything else. Mostly because my computer needs to have Windows reinstalled on it, but I don't have enough zip disks to back stuff up yet. I have to go to WalMart today and get some. I was going to get a fishbowl too, but the fair fish we rescued from a parking lot threw itself out of its container the other day. It survived the fall, but must have injured itself. I found it floating yesterday, so no need for a fishbowl after all.

Tom is finally doing my friend Jenny's SCREENS (Edited to fix friends. No, my husband is not doing my friend's friends. I don't know what was wrong with me this morning. I can only plead lack of caffeine.) She traded me a bunch of FuzziBunz for part of the labor, so she brought those over yesterday. I got an adorable frog print for the Larges. They are so cute!

Jude has slept like crap the last 2 nights. He wants to pop another tooth I think. He was so good while I worked on E's room yesterday though. Today I have to tackle Soren's and mine (although I got my closet totally cleaned out in the process of getting E's stuff out of it yesterday. At 3, we are going to a memorial service for veteran's in honor of Tom's dad, so this will be a short day in terms of hours to work on stuff.

And of course, now that I've got the upstairs going, downstairs is trashed ;). Although I did get a new bookshelf and put it together myself, and I hope to be able to unpack the rest of my books this week. Woot!

And hopefully I won't jinx myself, but I bought a new journal and some writing topics and am forcing myself to write again (other than journaling). I'm trying to make time to read from the book and write every other day. It feels really good. I miss writing desperately sometimes. I miss my job as a reporter. I miss freelancing. I would love to start freelancing again and selling articles. Maybe enough to just write. I bet I could make enough money if I worked hard.

Off to tackle Soren's room. I messed it up this time.

Over the hump

It's Thursday, so we're beyond hump day. And I have playdate at my house today, which means I can clean to my heart's content and get my bills paid. Woot!

Let's see. Jude's tooth is coming right in. He crawled up to me yesterday, pulled himself up on my leg and promptly bit me in the calf. We will have to rename him Sunny Baudelaire if this keeps up.

My mother is out of the hospital. She has a kidney stone and they believe that it is moving, and that it is throwing her blood sugars out of whack. She may have to go on insulin, which she is resistant to, but we'll see. At least they sent her home yesterday, although last evening she wasn't feeling so great again.

I finally straightened things out with my dad and he is now on the waiting list at Centre Crest. It breaks my heart, but I am relieved that he will not be able to wander and get lost.

I'm writing this post in snippets of chasing Jude around the room. He's mad, I tell you, mad! There is something to this boy energy stuff. But he's so goodnatured and fun!

I am taking Soren in to see the doctor on Monday. She seems anemic again. She is very fatigued and has a ton of bruises again; many in strange spots. At first I thought it was just the spring thing - all those trees to climb and shin bruises from whacking her leg on her bike pedal, but it's much more than that.

We went climbing yesterday. It was great fun! Emma climbed this wall that looked totally impossible. We started climbing routes yesterday, and Emma did one that i couldn't do! I don't know how she reaches stuff - she's so short. But she's really good at using her feet to lever up the wall (called smearing, for anyone interested!).

We have two more weeks of many of our classes - Camp Arrowhead, ballet, climbing, Lilac Children's Garden. That will free up a bunch of time, so we can go to the park and the zoo and the Science Museum and all sorts of good stuff. I can't wait!

I also am going to try to change my work schedule somewhat to have more flexibility. I just need to cut back or I'm going to be on Ativan.

Margueritaville

Apropos of nothing, you know that Jimmy Buffet song? Well, it follows me. Everytime I turn on the radio, it's on. Weird. I also attract Tom Petty and Aerosmith tunes when I'm in my car.

But I'm wondering where the hell my shaker of salt is anyway? I'm so scattered. I have too much to do.

I"m still fighting with the Office of Aging about my dad. I had a fairly long talk with one of the board members of the assisted living facility and was *really, really, really* clear that I'm tired of being given the runaround. They may NOT come to me and tell me it is time to get the ball rolling to move him into more supervised care, and then tell the Office of Aging that they can handle it there with the recent supports they have added for him. Not to mention that those supports were to have been put in place a year ago, and weren't.

So if we wait six months, and he deteriorates more, and we still have a two to three month wait for a bed, where does that leave us? Ever heard of prevention, my dear?

They want me to come up to PA and meet with the staff and the Office of Aging social worker. The weekend I was planning on coming (Memorial Day) is of course the one weekend that the board director won't be there. :::sigh::: So I guess I will have to take a day off work and go. I'll have to see what the social worker's schedule is like. Tuesdays and Fridays are really the only good times at this point.

He (he, being my dad) is also now complaining that his hand still is causing him a lot of pain, so they are *finally* going to take him to the orthopedist. Duh. But they can't get him an appt. until the 26th. Why is it that nobody thinks of being a little more assertive with these appointment secretaries?

In other, more fun news, I was at work last night and got a call from the Emergency Room at Mount Nittany Medical Center, and my mother was there being admitted. I wanted to go this morning, but she insists that I not come, which I feel very torn about. However, Soren has her play today, which I hate to miss :-/. I don't want to be a grownup today. Anyway, she had a severe diabetic episode (my mom, not Soren) and her sugar dropped to 46, despite a glucose tablet and eating some fruit. She had the presence of mind to call 911, and was pretty out of it by the time the ambulance arrived.

She was complaining of nausea and pain in both arms, so they put her on a nitro patch, and she spent the night in telemetry. Her first EKG came back normal, and they did another this morning and have a kidney ultrasound scheduled. I am going to call back around noon and see if the doctor has been in yet.

But truly, in other more fun news, Soren's 6 year molar came through and she thinks it's really cool to be able to feel the points.

Also, JUDE finally popped a tooth? I can feel it on the bottom but can't get him to stay still long enough to see it. Very exciting! Maybe this explains his lack of sleep lately. Although my whinging must have worked the other day, because Sunday night he slept 4 hours and then 3 hours. Last night wasn't great, but not as bad as usual.

We're going to try to get to the Lilac Festival this morning, but I have to motivate the kids and take the car in to the shop to get my tire and a/c fixed. I also have to go to the bank and pick up the 'burban when I drop off the car. It took $1000 worth of work to get it inspected. Ick! There goes that tax return! (when what I really wanted was a Roomba!) Tom's work truck is dying too and we're looking for a replacement. He'll have to apply for a loan on his own though, given that I'm filing for bankruptcy next month. Argh.

Off to the races!

Fun

The dishwasher is *almost* installed. I'm so excited! Silly, I know, but 8 months w/o a dishwasher has really made me appreciate it.

We had the Kid's Classic at the gym yesterday and Soren did great! I ended up doing a lot more coaching and a lot less coordination than usual, but that was OK.

Today we're going to the Lilac Festival with some friends (a bunch of us, actually!). We'll listen to some music, eat junk food, and probably buy stuff we don't need ;).

Emma stayed overnight at a friend's house last night, so it seemed awfully quiet. T & I wanted to watch a movie, but he got caught up in installing the dishwasher.

When he came to bed, Soren had rolled out of bed and was sleeping on the floor! Silly girl.

Emma got another interview as a mother's helper. Good for her!

I wish I could get more sleep. I'm not sure how to encourage Jude to sleep for more than an hour or 90 minutes at a time at night. Obviously, CIO is not an option. I'm considering putting the crib up though and seeing if he sleeps more soundly by himself than next to us in the same room (he's in a twin bed butted up next to ours). I am just so tired of getting up so often and the nursing is getting uncomfortable, because he doesn't latch well at night and I hate to keep relatching him because I don't want to wake him him up more than he already is.

Thank Goddess for coffee. And speaking of coffee, why has it become so expensive? Geez. The fair trade coffee I like went up to $9.79/lb.! Gas and coffee - necessities, dammit.

Anyway, off to shower while Jude is napping, and then I have to do the LCG newsletter, IF I can get my scanner to work!

my new toy

I'm getting something similar to this on Saturday :) for much less than the listed price - more than half off!

I'm so excited!

Suzanne, Tom does the dishes and he doesn't mind, but this will save us a lot of time. I really miss having a dishwasher (the electric kind, not the husband kind!)

fixed

I fixed the easter and ballet pictures that are here. Sorry it took me so long!

Over the hump

First week of the session at work is always fun. New kids, new dynamics. It's going swimmingly actually!

We had 2 gorgeous days in a row and it was actually hot. I am trying to get my car into the shop to get the a/c fixed next week. I also have a bum tire that needs to be replaced ASAP. Sadly, the inspection on the Suburban is up, so I have to take that in today to get it inspected so I have something legal to drive while my car is in the shop. What a PITA!

I spent a long time on the phone with the county Office of Aging regarding my father. I am really frustrated with the situation. The assisted living facility that he has been at for 3 years has been telling me that i need to find a placement for him because they cannot keep him safe with his increasing dementia and restlessness. However, some of their staff are conflicted between their personal and professional feelings. I don't think there's a doubt that he needs more than they can provide, but they love him. Unforunately, they are putting him in an unsafe situation by sabotaging my efforts to move him.

I tried to talk to my mom about it - I just wanted to be *heard* for God's sake, and she just couldn't give me what I needed. It was really sad and frustrating. I actually told her, "Mom, I need you to be my mom and *listen* to me. I just want to talk about it. I don't want you to fix anything, do anything, say anything. Just listen." And she couldn't do it at all. I was in tears and she ended up hanging up on me.

Feh.

Tuesday night I had a little girl's night out with some friends at the Little Cafe. It was great to get out for 2 hours with no kids asking me anything.

Yesterday Soren woke up puking at 6 a.m. She was fine by 8 and proceeded to eat me out of house and home for the remainder of the day. She was low energy though. She missed Camp Arrowhead, did a little of rock climbing and gymnastics, but was cranky and tired. She seemed fine this morning.

Rock climbing was fun. I did some and whacked my shin and got a huge knot. I put arnica on it when I went home. The dog is obsessed with arnica though. He follows us around and tries to lick it off anytime we have it on! He also has a thing for Soren's socks and shoes and chews them up. It's just Soren's, nobody elses. I don't understand it at all.

Tom is so busy it's not even funny. He's got way too much work lined up and we need to schedule it somehow. I am seriously considering asking my boss if I could stop teaching for the summer so that we can get a break. We're burned out from the pace and need to reconnect and let Tom work and save up some money for the slow months in the winter.

Oh, and I'm going to buy a dishwasher soon! Yay me!

I also told Emma that she can remodel her room, so we're going to go shopping for a new decor. She got all teary-eyed at the idea of giving up her winnie-the-pooh nightlight though, so that will stay a permanent part of the redesign ;).

Jude's waking up. Gotta run. Someday I'll udpate the hsing blog again. We're doing a lot of great stuff. I don't want to forget about it!

Mother's Day

Sucked. Pretty much. The girls were with David, and I thought he might call and bring them over early but he didn't. So they didn't get home until about 9 p.m. Soren made me a beautiful bracelet and a bunch of cards and Emma made me the coolest scroll with homemade paper and a poem that she made up.

We ate dinner at Tom's mother's house. She was down, it being her first MD w/o his dad. T's brother is in an argument with her and wouldn't come for dinner and wanted us to pick up the MD card he got for her. We didn't, because we forgot, but I felt very odd about it anyway.

Before dinner, T and I tried to go find a letterbox, but failed ;). We had a lovely walk with the dog and Jude anyway. It was a gorgeous day, as today promises to be.

Oh, and then Jude stuck his finger in T's eye and scratched his cornea, so I had to take Tom to Urgent Care at 7 p.m. last night. Maybe I can have a re-do of Mother's Day next weekend or something.

Sadly, I have no desire to be out of bed. Jude was awake every hour last night and the night before that and I think the night before that. It's starting to become a big blur. And despite the sun and warm weather, which I've been waiting for, I just feel down.

Dreams

I had an awful night. Jude went down early and slept OK, waking once between 9 and 3 a.m. Then he was up pretty much nonstop. I'd fall asleep into these stressful dreams.

In one I was living w/ my friend Jennifer and I had to be at work. I was late, hadn't let the dog out or fed him and she wasn't there yet to give me a ride to work.

Then, I dreamt that I was riding in the car with my mom, talking on my cell phone to the supervisor at the Office of the Aging, who was trying to convince me that my dad didn't need more supervised care.

Sunny

It's gorgeous outside. 60'sF, sunny and breezy. I have all the doors open. I'm feeling more motivated than I have in weeks to do stuff around the house. I cleaned my room really well, except for dusting and vacuuming; I cleaned Emma's dresser drawers and have her working on her room; Soren cleaned her room and I'm going to straighten her shelves and dresser, and I hope to get time to vacuum the house. Maybe not though. I still have to shower and I have to be at the bank by 3.

I'm looking forward to a productive weekend. I want to get Tom to finish Jenny's screens on Sunday so we can clean the porch off and use it. there's too much crap out there for me to have Jude play there right now :(

More pictures from New Jersey are up here 

A little caught up

I got my email caught up this morning. I have to do the Lilac Children's Garden newsletter this weekend, but Tom is working Saturday afternoon, so I"ll do it then. It's the last one for the year. I think I'll volunteer to do it again next year if they'll have me. It was fun, although always a little stressful to get it out each time , but that's the nature of newsletters.

I called a referral that Danielle gave me to try to get an appointment to interview someone who does play therapy, so hopefully they'll call back today.

I'm taking my car in to have it appraised this morning for the bankruptcy. Briefly, when David moved out, he stopped helping to pay the mortgage after awhile and I couldn't afford it. I tried to work out a payment plan with the mortgage company, but they refused to be helpful at all. Eventually they foreclosed on the house and it is supposed to be sheriff-saled. It breaks my heart. I loved my house so much and will always miss it. It was my first real home. I hope that I feel that way again - that I'm home.

Anyway, David declared bankruptcy to avoid the mortgage company coming after him for any deficiency in what they get from the sheriff sale and it was recommended that I do the same. I also have a credit card bill that I wasn't able to pay on for a really long time because we were really broke. Things are still tight and if I could just not have it hanging over my head, I could get my student loans paid off and be free and clear of debts and just move ahead with a clean slate. I'd love to be able to buy a house again someday, you know?

Or a car ;).

Anyway, it's all really depressing.

In other news, I can't remember if I blogged about it or not, but my dad did fracture his hand when he fell and is now in a splint. He's still in pain but I don't know - I think it's way too late to have it casted. He really should have seen an orthopedist, but didn't. Anyway, he's having his assessment done by the Office of Aging and we should have an answer about moving him to Centre Crest ASAP. The House of Care *finally* sent me a form about an ID bracelet for him yesterday. Duh. He'll probably just take it off anyway, knowing him ;).

So, my desk is awash in paperwork and bills. I got 4 hours of sleep last night. I watched this movie, and then my brain wouldn't turn off and I couldn't sleep until 3 a.m. So I'm tired and cranky. The girls are going over to their friend's house today, so maybe I can get my desk cleared while they're gone.

I found out I have to coach tomorrow night, and my boss never told me, just put me on the sub schedule. Argh! Tom can't be there to watch Jude, so I'm getting one of the older team girls to watch him for a bit.

Speaking of Tom, the place that fired him for not being in town to shovel snow this winter called him and asked him to put in a bid to do the job he was already doing there. So he did, and he's going to end up doing the same work for them for 3x the amount of money ;). There IS some justice in the world! I find it all very amusing. So he'll be there tomorrow and Saturday afternoon and then 2 or 3 days a week through the summer. Maybe they'll let us use the pool!

Oh, and in other weirdness, I found my car key IN MY CAR yesterday! Remember this?

behind

If I owe you an email, and I know I do owe many people one, I am behind. Jude is so mobile and I am so busy (and trying to pretend not to be depressed), that I am having a hard time getting caught up.

Not to mention, that I have a lot going on with trying to get my dad moved, and I went to see a bankruptcy attorney yesterday, in order to finally deal with all the leftover financial crap from my divorce, which spawned a whole slew of new paperwork to deal with and take care of ASAP. And my car needs to go to the shop.

Anyway, I'll get caught up soon I hope. I really wanted to get my pictures up before I forgot all about it though, so that and bankruptcy has been taking priority. I don't think I've blogged about the money stuff too much lately, so someone remind me to do it ... later.

Yet more pictures are up here 

More new pictures of our trip to NJ and PA over spring break are here 

I've had it with your kisses, sister! 

pics

Some new pics up here.

More to come!

Monday

Jude is feeling much better. I guess he needed to be threatened with amoxycilin. He has discovered his hair and likes to rub his head while he's nursing, which is so cute. He also gets so worked up when he's nursing now! He gets all sweaty and wiggles around; I had forgotten that nursing could be an Olympic sport!

Emma had a fun weekend. She spent all of Saturday in Buffalo at the Level 6 States meet with her coach and a few other Level 4s. They got to go to the huge mall there and went shopping and had lunch. She budgeted her money so well that she had $10 left over, so I let her keep it and she was quite proud of herself.

Soren had fun at the museum with her friends and then spent Saturday night with david. She had her picture professionally taken Sunday morning for ballet. She looked stunning. I can't wait to get the prints. David said a lot of the girls "looked like harlots," with way too much makeup. He did an amazing job with Soren. It was very natural looking, other than the red lipstick, but her lips are very red anyway, so it wasn't too marked. I could see just what she'll look like in 10 years and it was very scary ;-) Break out the baseball bat!

Yesterday we went to Barnes & Noble to get some homeschooling supplies for next year. They were having their Educator's Week special. I got some good stuff - geography and maps (I need to buy a good atlas!), oh, I can't remember what else. But I was happy with what I found. I bought Emma the first book in Anne McCaffrey's dragon series. She is thrilled. Soren actually stole it and started reading it last night. We also got A Swiftly Tilting Planet but Madeleine L'Engle, since we've been working our way through that series. I thought we owned it, but I can't find it anywhere. I'd like to find A House Like a Lotus.

Then we went to Applebee's for dinner. It was pretty good, although the ribs weren't very good. Bummer for me. I think our days at specialty restaurants are over for the moment. Jude is just too busy and loud. The atmosphere at Applebee's was much more laid back and I was a lot less stressed out by trying to keep him quiet than when we have tried to go out for Indian or sushi lately.

I really wanted to climb yesterday but we ran out of time.

I'm feeling very down about a few things. This is usually a great time of year for me with the longer days and the sun, but it's not making a dent in my mood. I know that I vent a lot about stuff here, but I think that I am good at just doing things and finding the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't see that light right now. I hate being depressed. I just don't have any energy and everything seems so overwhelming. Dealing with my dad's deterioration and Soren and work and a lot of other things.