Tales from the Carpool Lane
So, school was out a couple weeks ago…however, Conner is starting high school at the School of Science Math and Technology next year and they require all rising freshmen to attend a week long Academic Boot Camp to get a feel for what a typical week is like and see if it’s still something they think they can handle.
The school is in Duluth because it services the whole county. They don’t have bus transportation so they encourage parents to carpool. They even have someone who will set you up with people in your area. So, my group decided to carpool this week so we could work out issues and be ready when school starts in August. If it works out, we shoudl only have to drive one morning and one afternoon every week, which rocks, cause the school is about 20 miles away.
So this morning was my morning to drive in….
We meet at a gas station and Conner and I got there early so I could get gas and some coffee. He got a hot chocolate. My cup holders kinda suck so as I’m driving I keep one hand on top of the cup to keep it from falling over. Conner was doing the same. Everyone was kinda quiet, they are still getting to know each other. I started shooing Conner’s hand away telling him he was “in my space”. After a while, I punched him in the arm. The following conversation ensued
C: Mom!
K: What???
C: You just hit me!
K: No I didn’t
(laughter from the back)
C: Yes, you did. You just punched me in the arm
K: Uhh, No, I didn’t. I’m trying to drive. I have to concentrate on the road
C: Yeah, but you hit me
K: No, I did not
At this point the boys in the back are dying laughing and I am trying to keep a straight face. Also note that I didnt hit Conner that hard and he’s laughing too (don’t want you to think I beat the poor kid, lol)
C: Ok, fine, if YOU didn’t hit me, who did?
From the back: It was Brandon! (Brandon is in the third row seat of my Excursion)
K: See, I told you I didn’t hit you.
That pretty much started the ball rolling. At one point we passed a cop who had pulled someone over and I said “Ok! Everyone…Act normal” and they all froze in funny positions.
Then we passed a VW Bug and I punched Conner again and said “PUNCH BUGGY!” and he punched me back and we got into an argument
“You can’t punch back!”
“You never said no punch back”
“It’s IMPLIED, you can’t change the rules”
“Yes I can, you didn’t say no punch back so I can punch you”
At the next red light I punched him and said “Red light! I make up the rules too”
We start driving again and he punches me and says “White sign!”
It went on like that the whole drive. All these little random things. Like the logo for the school is an infinity sign and the slogan is “Infinite Possibilities” they were saying they didn’t realize what the symbol was so I said “You all fail, you can’t go to this school now”. They were talking about how they don’t have a mascot and I said their mascot was Pi (pie) so they were talking about a guy wearing a pie suit.
This is gonna be a fun group to take to school, lol
And then I built an Ark
No one told me that May was the rainy season in Georgia. And also, it’s been cold. WTF is up with that. It’s MAY in GEORGIA there’s no reason for it to be 46 degrees.
So, all this rain has caused my lawn to go out of control…not that it was in control to begin with. The weeds are awful. Now they are awful AND 3 ft tall. I’ve been battling my lawn since we moved in. My lawn mower is working against me. It seems like every time i get the yard tamed…my mower will break. It seems to take some weird sized belt that is unknown to mankind. I’ve been all over town and no one carries it. Last year I ordered them online and it took 3 weeks to get it here. I found a place that is willing to order them and keep them in stock for me…but it will take a week to get it in.
Meanwhile…the weeds take over. I’m hoping a neighbor will take pity on my and let me borrow a mower.
It’s a holiday weekend and its supposed to rain until….
That’s it, just until…
Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos
Book Review
Love Walked In is an amazingly written story. Marisa De Los Santos has a way of painting a picture with her words, but stops before it gets too wordy.
This is the story of Cornelia Brown and Claire Hobbs, told from both points of view.
Cornelia is a thirty one year old woman working in a coffee shop. A hopeless romantic who thinks of life as being plucked out of classic movies. Every person and moment being compared to a classic scene. She meets Martin Grace and the whirlwind romance seems right out of one of Cornelia’s favorite films.
Claire Hobbs is Martin’s 11yr old daughter. When she makes her appearance into Cornelia’s life, both of thier worlds change.
There are so many hard situations in this book and it would be the easy solution to make everything just fall into place. But life rarely falls into place, and the characters in this book have to work for their happiness too.
If not for the story, come for the writing. De Los Santos is a talented and gifted writer and I can’t wait to read more from her.
Desperatly trying to hold shit together
Failing miserably….
It’s our own damn fault. I know this. Knowing that does not help matters. In fact, it makes it worse.
My husband travels.
All! The! Time!
In fact, his current itinerary is…Monday he flew to Boston, on Sunday he flys to Minnesota, he’s there for a week, then flys back to Atlanta from Fri-Monday, then he’s back in Boston and will hopefully be driving home May 22nd. Maybe. Unless something changes before then, and the chances of that happening are highly likely.
Because of his traveling, he has a credit card. Now, we lived many blissful years without a credit card of any kind, and it was good. That credit card has been the bane of my existence for three years now. He gets work expenses reimbursed to him and in a perfect world every charge would be paid off every 2 week.
My world isnt perfect. I have a husband who likes to spend money.
The credit card company had been very nice and let us go over our spending limit as long as we paid it off. Since we routinely make $4-$6,000 payments each month, they liked us. Until they didn’t…
(yes, I know…how can you pay $4000 in a month and STILL be over your spending limit! It’s total insanity, I know)
They suddenly turned the card off. I don’t know why we thought we were special and it wouldn’t happen to us. It’s happening to people all over the country. They said they were enforcing the spending limit and we were over it and until we paid it down, we were SOL.
So, my husband is on the road, in need of cash. The cash now comes from our house account. The money he gets reimbursed…does not go back into the household account, it has to go towards paying down the credit card. The credit card that I fully intend to shred to bits. I’ve always hated credit cards and I think this situation is a perfect example of why.
So, now it looks like I will have to get a job to dig us out of this financial nightmare. That’s great, except…I have three kids that I am pretty much raising on my own. Three kids that have activities they need to get to in the evening. Shit, even if they didn’t have activities, they need at least ONE parent around to guide them. My oldest is 14…prime age where he can go good, or bad. I need to be around to make sure he has the skills to make good decisions. My 12yr old daughter needs someone to reel her in. The youngest is 9, and he just plain needs someone who isn’t his older sibling. Not to mention next fall when school starts back up, my oldest will be going to a special high school (advanced) in another town and needs transportation. He has to be there at 9am and picked up at 4. That cuts into my work availability too.
So, I need a job, desperatly. But, I also need to have the flexibility to only work Mon – Fri from 9:30-3:30. No nights. No weekends.
So far….no luck
I think I may cry.
Trying this again
I pretty much abandoned this blog. I actually tried to delete it, but because I hadn’t updated my email address, it didn’t take. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I still need an outlet.
Lots of stuff happening. Last post was from after Thanksgiving. Since then…the sun has come out, and that’s all that really matters. My mood is lightening. I’m enjoying the warmth. Even getting sunburned. Life is still stressful, but at least I’m not cold.
So, let’s see.
- Christmas was Christmas. The kids got a Wii and a trampoline and that was pretty much it. They were happy.
- We started Girl Scouts
- We dramatically ended Girl Scouts when no matter how much I tried, I just could not get over the disrespect that was being thrown at me by one of the leaders. True to form, we left in grand style
- My husband took our youngest on his first Cub Scout camping trip. They both loved it and will be going on another one this weekend
- It snowed! In Georgia! On March 1st!
- I turned 34
- Oldest son will be attending the School of Math Science and Technology next year
- Daughter joined the swim team and I volunteered to be stroke judge. I shoudl have gone with concessions like all the normal parents.
- I’m far from normal
- I’m trying to open the pool this weekend (unless it rains all weekend like they say it might)
- My mom has breast cancer
- My Mother In Law might be moving in
- If my MIL moves in, I will have to blog to keep myself from going insane.
I’m thinking of adding book reviews here too becuase I love sharing books with people. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the library and I’m going through books like crazy. I have several that I’d like to talk about.
Thumbing our nose at tradition
This year we decided to for go all the pomp and circumstance of the holiday and do something FUN!
So, last Sunday night we piled in the car around midnight and drove 13 hours to Texas. We stayed with family for a couple days. Then on Weds, we all (family we stayed with included) piled back in the car and drove the 5 hours or so to San Antonio, Tx. We spent Weds on the River Walk, then Thanksgiving day at SeaWorld!!
I’ve never been to SeaWorld so it was fantastic. The Orca show was so very moving. What beautiful animals.
We topped off the night with pizza delivered to our hotel room. We tried to find pizza with turkey on it, just for kicks, but no luck. Oh well!
Friday we got up and headed north to Dallas. We got there about 3. Just enough time to check into the hotel and pile on the layers and get to Six Flags when they opened at 4pm. We stayed there till closing. My baby rode his first big coaster (well, it was kinda medium, but he’s 8 so it was huge for him) The Tony Hawk Spin something or other. The video of his face during the first drop is priceless. I almost wish we’d bought it.
We closed the park on the Texas Titan. My husband, BIL, and daughter rode it about 8 times in a row. My back was killing me so I had to hop off after only 2.
Saturday, we all met back up and hung out at Dave and Buster’s for the afternoon. At around 4pm we started the trek back home. We got in about 6:30am Sunday morning.
It was a blast, but man am I glad to be home.
The reply in my head
From her:
I don’t know what type of person you seem to think that I am. However, I’m not the type of person to mail any kind of ranting, raving, bitching letter to someone. What has happened between you and your family is between you and your family not me. Therefore I have nothing to say about it. My opinions of others stay with me and not voiced because I generally do not like to create more family issues. I’m simply getting our mailing list together for the holiday’s and such. If you do not care to receive any mail from us simply state so.
Best regards, M
What I’d love to send back, but wont:
I think you’re a low life cunt who loves to stick her fat ass in the middle of any drama. I think you created the fucking drama so you could come to the rescue of your “baby” and protect him from the mean bitches trying to bring him down. I think you create ways to keep him from his CHILD so that he will be more attached to YOUR CHILDREN. I will be surprised if this marriage last more than 5yrs. I find it interesting that you brag about what a great marriage you have and how you and Will NEVER fight or argue, but you also promote yourself as a raging bi-sexual and brag that Will let’s you fuck any girl you want. Yeah, that’s the basis for a strong marriage. And if you want to say any shit about MY marriage,again, come back when you’ve been married 12yrs, Bitch!
Customer Serviced!
A week or so ago I ordered $55 worth a stuff from Kohl’s. A lot of clearance stuff. Some shirts for my husband for Christmas. I updated my address info from moving and placed the order. As soon as I hot submit, it popped up that it would be sent to my address in NC. Well, shit! That’s not right. Something didn’t go through when I updated. So I IMMEDIATELY emailed customer service. They emailed back saying they had sent the updated info to fulfillment but in might be too late to get it changed, not to worry the order would be forwarded to me.
Then I got the tracking info. I watched it because I knew it would be delayed (and this same thing happen with my first coffee order after I moved and it took about 5 days to get it sent back to me). Well, on Nov 18th it was delivered to the address in NC.
I emailed Kohl’s again to say that it was delivered, not forwarded. This is what they sent me this morning:
Thank you for taking the time to contact Kohl’s Customer Support.
Upon researching your order, I have found that the order was shipped to the ship-to address originally entered, when your order was placed, as it was too late to update your shipping address. Unfortunately, because UPS considers the package delivered to the correct address, they will not retrieve the package. At this time, there is not anything else we could do on our end. I do apologize for any inconvenience this matter may have caused.
We appreciate the time you took to contact us and look forward to serving you again.
Sincerely,
Toni O.
Customer Support Representative
NOTHING they can do!!! Nothing??? Oh, except keep my money. So I’m apparently supposed to be ok with being out the money and the order. Fuckers. I replied back that they needed to figure out a way to get my order to me, or refund my money and that I would NEVER do business with Kohl’s again.
About that coffee order. I have a reoccurring order from Green Mountain Coffee. Same thing happen right after we moved. My order was shipped but the updated address info hadn’t gone through on their end. I emailed and they did a crazy thing and actually CALLED UPS and had them redirect the shipment.
Crazy what people who actually give a shit about thier customers can do. I know one place I wont be spending money at again.
Dusting off the cobwebs
So, I haven’t been here in a while, I know. I’m feeling a bit invisible lately. And of course it’s getting colder and darker and along with that comes S.A.D. so, you know….
Anyway, I just need to talk some stuff out….
So, my dad died in July 07. After that I had a falling out with my brother. He said some nasty things on MySpace about our mother and I defended her. She had lost her husband of 32 yrs she didn’t need his juvenile bullshit. So there was this big childish thing on MySpace where he basically called me a lazy cunt who couldn’t hold down a job, whatever, and I told him he was dead to me and to never contact me again. Of course since this played out on a public forum, all his friends, including his girlfriend got to chime in and agree that I was a bitch who didn’t deserve him. Yeah, whatever.
So, that’s been that. I wrote him out of my life and hadn’t even given him a second though until tonight.
I got a message through FaceBook from his girlfriend, umm, wife? I guess they got married? Anyway, I didn’t even have a Facebook when all this went down so she had to have looked for me. Not that I’m that hard to find, but still, and effort had to be made. We have no friends in common. Anyway, the message was “I want to send you something in the mail, is there an address where I can send you a letter?”
Hmmm
….
….
How to respond to that?
I ended up replying to her that I was sorry if I sounded defensive but if she wanted to send me a rant about what a bitch I was, she could save it. I’m good. Then I congratulated her on marring my brother.
The thing is, I’m not beyond mending fences, but I dont think things will ever be ok between my brother and I. Especially if she’s the one communicating between us. Bottom line is, I dont trust her. And him, well, he said some pretty hurtful things, and not just about me, but about my whole family, including my kids…his neice and nephews. That’s just not something a Christmas Card will fix, you know.
Blah
So, this whole ecomony meltdown has me sufficiently FREAKED OUT.
My husband works for a “small business”
He’s the only employee not bound to the owner by DNA
We just moved 400 miles and bought a brand spanking new house FOR THIS JOB
I need to just stop watching television. I was much happier when I had no clue WTF was going on in the world.
