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 |  A continuation of my criminal blogging behavior. |
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IN THE WRITING.COM DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN Criminal Action No. 96-938-2 WRITING.COM Plaintiff, vs. Melissa is fashionably late!  Defendant. ************************************************************************ REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT (Trial to Jury - Volume 222) ************************************************************************ Proceedings before the HONORABLE The StoryMaster  , Judge, Writing.Com District Court for the District of Michigan, commencing at 8:49 a.m., on the 5th day of April, 2007, in Chambers C-234, Writing.Com Courthouse.PROCEEDINGS (In open court at 8:49 a.m.) THE COURT: Please be seated. The jury has informed that they have arrived at their findings and recommendation. I caution all present to avoid any reaction to these findings and the recommendation, either audibly or visibly. And if anyone violates that, we'll have to remove them. Obviously, it will take some time to read these findings, as the recommendation is the last thing read; so please be careful and comply with this request. We'll return the jury. (Jury in at 8:53 a.m.) THE COURT: Members of the jury, have you arrived at your special findings and recommendation? JURORS: Yes. THE COURT: If the foreman will please hand that to Diane , who will hand it to me.Members of the jury, you will please listen to the reading of your Special Findings Form A. These findings apply to all 1184 counts. Under Section I, Obsessive Ranting: The defendant intentionally ranted without ceasing for multiple blog entries. Answer: Yes. Section II, Repeatedly Beating A Dead Horse The deaths or injuries resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 18 Writing.Com Code Section 844(d), flogging a horse until death. Answer: Yes. Section III, Unnecessary Use of Curse words The defendant used language to be found offensive during multiple occurences and showed no regard for taste or appropriate expression of emotion. Answer: Yes. Section IV, Boring Daily Recounts Death or injury resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 22 Writing.Com Code Section 413(c), recounting daily activity to a point of extreme boredom. Answer: Yes. Section V, Pointless Entries The defendant shared needless details of her life via multiple entries, often multiple times in a row. Answer: Yes. Section VI, Contradictory Statements The defendant often confused her readers through contradictory statements. Answer: Yes. Section VII, Recounting Toilet Actions The defendant needlessly reflected on bathroom activities. Answer: Yes. Section VIII, Overdramatization Of Insignificant Things The defendant made several mountains out of single molehills. Answer: Yes. Section IX, Overreacting To Meaningless Gestures The defendant showed a propensity to fly off the handle for actions deemed appropriate and helpful. Answer: Yes. Section X, Unnecessary Temper Tantrums Death or injury resulting in death occured during the commission of an offense under 18 Writing.Com Code Section 312(a), throwing a temper tantrum in a public forum. Answer: Yes. Section XI, Cruelty Towards Animals, Superiors, Peers, And Inferiors The defendant showed no regard for life in general. Answer: Yes. Section XII, Repeated Bad Grammar, Spelling, And Opinionations The defendant shows no respect for her college education. Answer: Yes. Section XIII, Mitigating Factors (1) Melissa is fashionably late! believed herself to be in the right each time she commited one of the 1184 counts. Number of jurors who so find: 0.(2) Melissa is fashionably late! received encouragement and support from others to commit each of the 1184 counts. Number of jurors who so find: 4.(3) Melissa is fashionably late! is a reliable person in work and in her personal affairs and relations with others. Number of jurors who so find: 7.(4) Melissa is fashionably late! is a patient and effective teacher when she is working in a supervisory role. Number of jurors who so find: 5.(5) Melissa is fashionably late! is a good and loyal friend. Number of jurors who so find: 12.(6) Melissa is fashionably late! is a good mother and wife. Number of jurors who so find: 10.Recommendation, XIV: The jury has considered whether the aggravating factors found to exist sufficiently outweigh any mitigating factor or factors found to exist, or in the absense of any mitigating factors, whether the aggravating factors are themselves sufficient to justify a sentence of life in prison. Based upon this consideration, the jury recommends by unanimous vote that the following sentence be imposed: The defendant, Melissa is fashionably late! , shall be sentenced to a period in prison not shorter than 18 years and not longer than life.The Special Findings appear to be signed by all jurors and dated April 5, 2007. XV. Certification: By signing below, each juror certifies that consideration of race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or the victims was not involved in reaching his or her individual decision and that the individual juror would have made the same recommendation regarding a sentence for crimes in question no matter what the race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of the defendant or the victims. Apparently signed by all jurors and also dated April 5, 2007. Mr. Foreman, was these and are these the jury's special findings and recommendation: JURY FOREMAN: Yes, they are. THE COURT: And so say you all? JURORS: Yes. THE COURT: Section XVI. Sentencing Melissa is fashionably late! , the court finds you guilty on all 1184 counts of blog criminal activity. You are hereby sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for a minimum of 18 years. Court is in recess. (Recess at 9:37 a.m.) ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| The last movie that Jason and I saw in theaters was Superman Returns. Yes, it's been that long. He's talking about wanting to go on our yearly visit to the theaters, especially to have a night out together and alone before the new baby comes. He chose the last movie, granted it was a long time ago, but I rarely get to choose the movie that we see when we go out. It's not like I want to go see some chick flick, either. I could choose Georgia Rule, Knocked Up, or maybe even Bug, since it's going to be in the next couple of weeks that we're going. Instead, I want to see Pirates of the Carribean 3. I wanted to see the second one in the theater, but we opted for Superman Returns, instead, the week before Pirates 2 came out. What does he want to see? He wants to wait for July 4th weekend and see Transformers, the movie, or if we go now he wants to see Spiderman 3. I am not going to sit in a theater for almost 2 hours at 9 months pregnant to watch Transformers, I'm sorry. I don't mind Spiderman so much, but I want to see Pirates 3. Why can't we see what I want to see, for a change? We saw the other 2 Spiderman films in theaters. We saw all of The Matrix films in the theater. I really liked The Matrix, too, but they were his choice. I could understand if I wanted to see Knocked Up or something, but it's Pirates! Someone explain to me why he wouldn't want to see Pirates 3, given that I'm always caving to what he wants to see. I shall not cave this time, though. The only way my pregnant ass will set foot in a theater is if we have tickets to Pirates 3 in-hand. |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8JRTb4j8EM First of all, let me clarify by saying that I'm not a Rosie O'Donell fan. Jason told me about this today, and I hadn't heard anything about it, so naturally YouTube is where I go to get the scoop. Knowing Rosie for the raging lesbian that she is, I figured that she just probably opened her big, fat mouth and said something else idiotic. I don't think that was the case this time, though. Seriously, Elizabeth has some issues, and I feel kind of bad for Rosie. She was trying not to argue, and got pulled into it by a raging Republican who thinks that Bush can do no wrong. The only thing that I felt after watching that is that Elizabeth is a naive, prissy, little bitch. It could be that I actually agreed with Joy and Rosie about the topic that was actually at hand before the catfight broke out. Elizabeth didn't even want to give Joy the chance to talk about how she felt, which is why Al Gore should run for president. I don't necessarily agree that Al Gore would be the best person to pull this country out of Iraq, but whatever. Joy should've gotten her chance to explain why without Elizabeth putting in her $0.02 every 2 seconds. Anyhow, I don't blame Rosie for not wanting to come back and being OK with that being her last day on the View. She can't ever win, no matter what she says, so why bother? |
Hey, remember when that icy blue stuff fell from the sky? Everybody thought it was from space and stuff? And it just turned out to be frozen pee from a jet airplane. - from the movie Chicken Little So the sky isn't falling, life isn't coming to an end as we know it, the world is still turning. You're not going to die, you've just got a bump on your head from where the frozen pee hit you. Everything will be fine, once you wash your hair and maybe get a good night's sleep. No, you don't have a concussion. Stop being a frickin' hypochondriac and move on. It's how you choose to interpret and see things that shape how the rest of your life will continue. So God handed you a bunch of sardines, and you don't like fish. You might like caesar dressing, so chop those bastards up real fine-like and make some! There's always a way to take the bad and try to make it good. I'm not trying to rant on anyone. I'm just trying to figure out how some people can be so negative all of the time. My Dad is constantly doing that. Everytime that I talk to him, I'd think he was dying. He's got diabetes, has to wear special shoes because his feet crack. His heart problems haven't bothered him for years, but he's always complaining about his heart. So-and-so is conspiring to get him or trying to screw him over. There's always some excuse as to why he can't get a job or why his latest scheme didn't pan out. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's a lazy bastard or that he's about as reliable as the idea of gas prices going below $3 a gallon anytime soon. It's always someone else's fault that he is a miserable, jobless, lazy person. Don't get me wrong. I have my spells of misery, too, but I try to get over them with as few complaints as possible. Spending day after day whining and belly aching about how miserable my life has become wouldn't make my life suddently better. Be the change you want to see in the world. I think that Ghandi couldn't have spoken this more eloquently than that. If you want to have good days, try having a positive attitude for a change. Stop letting every little bad thing that happens overshadow the good things that do happen, even if you don't notice them. Maybe stopping the negative thinking could be all it takes for the world to stop working against you. I hate sounding hypocritical, answering negativity with more negativity, but damnit, there's just certain people you want to slap with a wet noodle and push under a rug until they can behave themselves. The sky isn't falling. It's just frozen pee from an airplane. I promise. |
| I'm all alone. I'm all by myself. No one is looking. I am thinking of you. Oh yeah, did I mention, I'm all by myself? In this alone time, in the office, without a ringing phone to drive me crazy, what do I do? Jump on Writing.Com to make a blog entry. Shouldn't I catch up on some paperwork? Shouldn't I finish up on one of the three projects I'm working on? The answer is obviously no. I'm ready for my 3-day weekend to begin, have a little over an hour left in the office, and want to enjoy some slacking time because I haven't gotten to have it in so long that it's making me antsy. Does anybody know the inspiration for my first paragraph? I'd offer a merit badge if you did, but I spent all but a handful of my Gift Points on my upgrade. So, I'm Gift Point poor. If you know the answer, the only satisfaction you'll get to answering it is that you know pop culture because until next Wednesday, when my Comedy newsletter goes out, I don't have a Gift Point pot to piss in. lol. Speaking of my Comedy newsletter, I'm trying to decide which of my anecdotes to use for my funny story about my husband with his foot in his mouth. Maybe I should just use them all, since they're all pretty funny. At least I think they are. We don't have too much planned for this weekend. I just kind of want to stick around the house and relax. Make Jason wait on me, hand-and-foot. Try to potty train Ethan. Which reminds me, because I'm about at my wit's end with the whole potty training thing. I feel sort of like I'm being undermined as his mother, but at the same time, I'm not with him for half of the day and who am I to say anything because it's my mother-in-law, who isn't charging us, and is making it more convenient for us by coming to our house to watch him. Anyway, I said that when I potty trained Ethan, I didn't want to use the pull-up diapers because they're no different than normal diapers and don't encourage him to actually go pee in the potty. I want to use the triple-thick terry cloth training underpants, because then he will get wet and be encouraged to start peeing in the potty seat. Jason's Mom doesn't want to use them because she says it's too messy, which it is messy, but he has peed in them and not liked it. So how many times do you think he would pee in them if he knew he had to go, which he does, and chose to go in them instead of the potty, and ended up wet each time? If he doesn't like it, he'll stop doing it. The problem has been that he says he has to go, so get his pants and training diapers down, sit him on the potty chair, and wait. While he's waiting, we'll turn on the tv or read a book. The rule is that if he goes potty, he gets a gummy bear or an M&M as a reward, but only 1. We'll sit for 15 minutes, sometimes, and nothing will happen. After 15 minutes, he's bored, I'm frustrated, and he gets up and says he's done. We'll put the pants back on him, and within 5 minutes, he'll go in the training diaper. A couple of times, it's been as soon as he gets the diaper back on that he'll pee. Well, J's Mom has been giving him M&Ms and gummy bears just for sitting on the potty seat, which to me is not offering him the incentive to actually go pee. I'm not asking him to poop or anything, just to go pee, for crying out loud. He's only done it twice, and only once in the past 2 weeks. I know we have to be patient, but the timing just isn't coming into place and I don't know what else to do. I've already decided that this weekend, I don't care how many times Jason has to shampoo the carpet in the living room, Ethan is wearing the fucking cloth training underpants. And when he pees through all of them, we're going to put a regular diaper on him and tell him that he got his underpants dirty and he's going to have to wait until they're washed to use them again. I don't know if it will work or encourage him to pee in the potty, but I don't know what else to try. Any potty training veterans out there? I mean, he's only 2 years + 3 months old, so he's still young, but he knows when he pees in his diaper and seems to know that he has the urge to go pee, he just doesn't seem to know how to coincide the two together so that he goes in his potty. I'd just like him to go in his potty at least once or twice this weekend. I'm not asking for miracles or even leaps and bounds. Just progress. All I want is some kind of progress. |
| I've mentioned before that I have an 80+ year old neighbor. Every year, she has the most beautiful gardens all over her yard, and every year it gets harder and harder for her to keep up because she has bad knees. She's already had surgery on both of them in the past couple of years, which has made them better, but she's not getting younger so it hasn't made it much easier for her to get around these days. We told her that we were pregnant a few months ago when we saw her while we were out in the back yard playing with Ethan. I haven't had many chances to see her out in the yard or anything, but I always see her outside playing in the dirt and watering her flowers. The other night, Jason went outside to move the car into the driveway, since we can't leave our cars parked on the road overnight. It's a stupid city rule that we supposedly can't park on the road between 2 am and 6 am, otherwise we get a parking ticket. Anyway, Jason saw a trash bag sitting by the front of the car, so he picked it up and looked inside, wondering who in their right mind threw their trash in our front yard. When he looked inside, he saw a bunch of weeds, and then noticed that our front corner garden was all cleaned out. There's only one person who ever does that, and that's Anna. I haven't been able to catch her when I'm outside to thank her, so today when I went to the grocery store I saw the most beautiful pot of gerber daisies. They were pink and white and match the colors of the perennials she plants in her yard. I had gerber daisies last year, and she always commented on how beautiful they were. So, I bought them for her, and then a little thank-you card. She had left at the same time I had left for the grocery store, so I quick wrote a note in the thank-you card when I got home, put it with the flowers, and left it on her porch for her to find when she got home. I was lucky, too, because she pulled in barely five minutes after I left the pot on her porch. I couldn't help myself, standing in the kitchen and peeking through the blinds to watch her discover her present. She opened the card and read it before she even went inside. I have no clue what she thought of the gift, but I really hope that she likes them. I just wanted to give her something to show her how much I appreciate having her as a neighbor, even though I feel guilty that my 80+ year-old neighbor weeded my damned garden. lol. My husband is very capable of doing so, he just hasn't had the time. I just had to share that. I was so excited about it when I got home that I spent a half hour giggling like a school girl after she got home. |
| When you love someone, sometimes that isn't enough. That person has to return your love and make you feel like it's ten times more than any love that you give to him or her. On your darkest and lowest days, that person should be uplifting and make you feel more worthwhile to him or her than you feel to yourself. You should never feel like your life isn't worth living because of the person you married or are commited to. In fact, if you struggle with that kind of thinking, the person you're commited to should make you feel that he or she is the reason you wake up each morning, the reason why you get out of bed every day, the reason why you go to work or school, the reason that you are motivated to live. This isn't to say that your life should revolve around this person, but your life should certainly feel better and you should feel like a worthwhile individual. The last thing your "person" should do is tear you down and make you feel like a waste of space. That isn't love. That is abuse. I'm not trying to say that no couple has problems or moments where they may fight or argue and say things one of them, or both of them, don't mean. But if it's a consistant behavior, maybe the relationship should be rethought. At the very least, the couple should figure out how to stop the downward spiral and become uplifting to one another. I never thought about this until recently, and it makes me feel fortunate that I was able to find the one person who makes me feel uplifted and like a better person. On my worst days, he finds things for me to be happy about. In my most difficult moments, he's there to offer me the strength I need in order to make it through. When I am at the end of my rope, he finds ways to motivate me to find more rope. I've never had a relationship where I got this kind of support, and it's not easy to recognize when it's lacking unless someone points it out to you. All I know is that when I was in other relationships, I was a very negative person. I never felt like I had anything good to offer the world. I was ugly on the inside because I allowed myself to be treated in ways that I didn't deserve. Nobody deserves to be made to feel worthless. Everyone has a right, as a human being, to live and breathe and feel happiness. If someone is going to take any of those rights away from you, then that person isn't worth having in your life. When you love someone, it doesn't mean that you don't have struggles. It just means that you support each other through those struggles, even if those struggles seem to be endless. Eventually they'll come to an end and you'll have someone with which to share your happiness. But only if you are both strong enough to hold each other up. |
Leading entry: "Invalid Entry"   I shave my pubes with the same razor that I use to shave my pits and legs. If I used my husband's razor, I would hope he would still use that razor to shave his face. I mean, who cares? It's all pubic hair, no matter where it grows. It's not like the pubic hair from my crotch is more tainted than the stuff that's under my pits. And I wash each equally, so it's not like one area is dirtier than another. There's certain things that I'm OCD about, but for crying out loud, hair is hair. No, I don't grab things from the trash can. Once it's hit that recepticle, it has joined a sacred place that is no longer touchable by my hands. Want to ruin my day? Throw my laptop in the garbage. I'll never use it again.There's a guy at Jason's work, though. His name is Ed. Jason has seen him take food from the garbage and eat it. He even ate a donut that had been left out all weekend and was thrown away because they found mouse droppings in the box. His answer to the sanitary concerns others express is to put it in the microwave and it will be fine. It would have to depend on how old the girl scout cookie is for me to eat it. If I last bought Girl Scout cookies 3 years ago, it would find its way to the trash. Even Twinkies don't taste good after a few months. If the cookie was a fairly recent procurement, I might be inclined to give it a taste, though. It would probably be stale and nasty, so I would most likely end up spitting it into the garbage when I threw the rest of it away. I touch myself, I want you to love me. When I'm feeling down, I want you above me. I search myself, I want you to find me. I forget myself, I want you to remind me. I don't want anybody else. When I think about you, I touch myself.Why is masturbation so taboo? There would be so many less pregnant teens if parents taught them that maturbation is an appropriate method to relieve sexual frustration. Sometimes, masturbation works better than anything my spouse could do for me. Nobody knows what I like more than I do. I don't need to know anyone else's secrets. Besides, I was with my friends when we all bought our sex toys, so I wouldn't find anything I didn't already know about. Granted, the toys were unused at the time, but I tried not to think about the fact that they'll soon have sex-juices all over them when we were at the sex toy party. I think I would make Jason dig something out of the toilet if I dropped it in and it was important. Our plumbing clogs fairly easily, though, because it's so old, so I don't know if I would have the courage to flush my toothbrush or deodorant roll if I accidentally dropped those, either. I'll make Jason dig those out, too. Otherwise, I'd have to wash my hands hundreds of times before I felt clean again. I mean, I can't even pop one of his zits without freaking out. What makes you think I can pull anything out of a dirty toilet?Lucky for me, Jason says he doesn't have a problem reaching into a dirty toilet. "I can always wash my hands," was his response. It makes me feel better to know that I married a man who doesn't have a problem doing the things that I do. lol. |
| Leading entry: "Invalid Entry" I'm a selfish person. I say that a lot, and a lot of people blow me off saying that I don't exhibit a lot of personality traits as a selfish person. But, I feel that I am a selfish person and that's all that matters. In being a selfish person, I wouldn't die for anyone. Not my bestest of friends, not my husband. I would be incredibly saddened by any of their deaths, but I wouldn't say, "God, if you spare him/her, you can take me, instead." I've always known that I am this way, and I've never tried to pretend that I would be one of those noble heroes who would jump in front of a bullet for my husband or push my best friend out of the path of a runaway car, only to be crashed into myself. I would probably shout for him to duck and for her to get out of the way, but I wouldn't risk myself to save them. But then, what about my son? Well, like Penemue , I never really considered it until I actually had a helpless child whose life depended on me. You can't really understand how overwhelming this feeling can be unless you've been a parent.I mean that seriously, too. I love my adopted sister's kids, spent a good portion of their lives taking care of them, but my son is my son and with being my son my number one priority. I've even stopped having my neice and nephew over because they both have severe behavior problems and I would rather they feel abandoned by me than risk Ethan being injured or getting caught in the house because my neice set my house on fire in one of her psychotic rages. And then there's the incident at swimming class that forever scared me of carrying my son on the wet floor there. One of the other Dad's was in a hurry because he was late, was carrying his close-to-3-year-old son to get his floaties and things prepared, and turned just right. I was sitting on the bleachers, watching class as my husband and son swam around in little circles and participated with the current activity. All of a sudden, I hear a sickening smack as the man loses his footing on the floor and he falls, his son in his arms. My heart stopped for just a moment before I realized that the man was able to turn enough to prevent himself from falling on top of his son, and that his arm was underneath his son enough to cushion most of the fall. The man landed on his back and hit his head on the tile floor. That was the cause of the sickening smack sound, as his skull collided with the solid ground beneath him. Everyone turned out to be OK, which was good, but from that moment on, I would not allow Jason to carry Ethan on that floor. At 2, Ethan can walk on his own, and I'd rather that if Jason were going to fall, Ethan has a good chance of not being in the way. I also remember just shortly after he was born that I had problems with my blood pressure. I had episodes when I stood up too fast that caused me to get light headed, dizzy, the room to go black, and I came close to passing out on multiple occasions. At least twice, Ethan was in my arms. Any other time, I would fight the dizziness and continue what I was doing so as not to be inconvenienced by having to sit down for a moment. But on both of these occasions, the moment the spots appeared, I sat down where I stood. If that was in the middle of the kitchen floor or the middle of my driveway, so be it. I'd rather call someone for help from an inconvenient place than chance actually passing out while I held my helpless, less-than-10-pound-child in my arms. Maternal and paternal instinct is far stronger than the instict of self-preservation, although in a way the instinct to protect your children is a method of self perservation. I've lived a large amount of my life. I've been able to enjoy and experience many things. My children are my one legacy that I will preserve above anything else. The rest of you... well... you can choose to take a bullet for me, if you want, but I won't return the favor.  |
| Leading entry: "What the hell is up with McDreamy?" My God, the whole season is over as of Thursday, and I will admit that I get caught up as the season goes on, like Sophy  . Here's the things that pissed me off this season: Meredith almost drowns, and instead of trying to find out why Meredith felt like giving up, Derrick takes it personally. Derrick continues to blame Meredith for his problems and goes about it like a woman does. "Something is wrong but you have to figure it out by reading my mind instead of my telling you in a rational, effective, communicative way." George marries Callie on an impulse because his Dad died, and then this whole tension between him and Izzy starts. George and Izzy have sex, which is even more awkward than watching George and Callie struggle in the hall in the previous season. Addison's spin-off is boring and I hate that they made me excited about a 2-hour episode only to spend an hour and a half watching a pilot episode with characters that I don't care about and a half hour of actual Grey's Anatomy. Alex's man-whore tendencies. Just stop being scared of commitment and commit to someone, for crying out loud. I'm getting tired of your brooding because you have the hots for a chick and then when the chick tells you she has the hots for you, you shut her down and tell her you're not interested, or you tell her you are interested and then go have sex with a nurse. The entire season finale irritated me. Someone should have a happy ending and nobody got one. Addison can't get pregnant, George and Callie just need to break up, Izzy needs to find a man who isn't married and isn't George, Derrick needs to get over himself just because some other woman talked to him and flirted with him at the bar and needs to realize that Meredith almost died, lost her mother, and her fake mother, all in about 4 episodes. The girl needs a little bit of a break, but you're a self centered prick, so God forbid if it isn't about you for 10 minutes. And what the fuck happened to Burke and Christina? Of all of the couples, I was expecting that one to be a happy ending, and he cops out at the end. What a loser.All I know is that the season opener better be really good because I'm not going to sit on pins and needles all summer after that season finale, waiting to see what's going to happen, only to have to wait till the end of that season to find out more. |
| Leading entry: "ordinal position" I spent 3 years as an only child and the rest of my life as the oldest, so I had enough time to collect traits from both, I suppose. I took these lists from spidey  's entry and will bold the ones that I think apply to me.Only child Pampered and spoiled. Feels incompetent because adults are more capable. Is center of attention; often enjoys position. May feel special. Self-centered. Relies on service from others rather than own efforts. Feels unfairly treated when doesn't get own way. May refuse to cooperate. Plays "divide and conquer" to get own way. May have poor peer relations as child but better relations as adult. Pleases other only when wants to. Creative. May have striving characteristics of oldest and inadequacy feelings and demands of youngest. First child Is only child for period of time; used to being center of attention. Believes must gain and hold superiority over other children. Being right, controlling often important. May respond to birth of second child by feeling unloved and neglected. Strives to keep or regain parents' attention through conformity. If this failed, chooses to misbehave. May develop competent, responsible behavior or become very discouraged. Sometime strives to protect and help others. Strives to please. I'm not going to give a boo-hoo sob story about how I became neglected once my younger sisters were born because I feel that I had a lot of things that my sisters didn't get, like being able to spend a lot of time with my Dad's parents. Where I feel they got more attention in some places, I also feel that I am the only one who has truly succeeded out of all of us, so obviously whatever I felt was missing worked out better for me in the long run. I dropped out of high school, but immediately got my GED. I scored the highest in the state that year on the GED test. My sister, Kimberly, dropped out of high school and got her GED, but it took her years to do so. Cassandra also dropped out of high school and has yet to get her GED. She will be 21 in November. After I got my GED, I got a full time job and was making about 600 dollars a week as a photographer. I got my professional license and became quite successful and enjoyed what I did, although I knew it wouldn't lead to much unless I went into business for myself. I was only 18 at the time, and the idea of starting my own business was too overwhelming, so I went back to college. After Kimberly got her GED, she ho-hummed at my parent's house for a while, didn't get a job, and eventually went to a culinary arts school. Cassandra's largest career accomplishment, to this point, is working for Arbie's for about 2 years before she quit to start her own version of Molly Maid, which she has apparently given up on because she just got a job working at a factory. I graduated from college with an Associate's of Applied Science. It isn't a Bachelor's or Master's, but it's all I could afford to pay for out of my own pocket. While in college, I maintained a position on the Dean's list, graduated 5th in my class, out of about 250 students, worked at least 2 jobs at a time the entire way through, and only had to ask for help from my grandparents once when I didn't have enough money to buy one of the two books I needed for my accounting class. (It was an $80 book and I had rent due the same week that the class started.) I also bought my own car in this time. (Yes, my grandma cosigned the loan, but I was too young to get a loan on my own at the time.) Kimberly dropped out of the culinary academy with only 6 weeks of classes left. Cassandra has been on her own, for the most part, but hasn't really ever lived on her own. (She always has to have a damned boyfriend.) She just recently got a car that's reliable, but also had to have a cosign, since she's under 21. She had her boyfriend cosign, which I thought was a complete mistake, but that's not my place to say. After college, I joined the military, and had that fail because I got injured. I came home to Michigan, got a good job, got married, and had a kid. I don't consider marriage or having a child as a success, while not doing so, a failure. What I consider the success is that I maintained stability. Kimberly has hopped around from one couch to another all over the country and ended up back at my parent's house, unemployed and penniless. Cassandra has been let go at several jobs because she can't pass the drug test. Not that any of those details really matter. Yes, I do have to feel like I'm special and important and, in many cases, better than my sisters. Do I rub their faces in my obvious superiority complex over them? I haven't yet. I do know a few things, though: My Mom has me named as the executor of her estate when she passes away, even over my father. If that doesn't say something about my Mom's confidence in me to be fair, honest, and timely in the execution of her wishes, I don't know what does. My Dad and Kimberly are going to be so screwed if they survive my Mom. Neither one of them are worth beans and neither of them have a job. Neither one of them are going to move in with me and I think Cassandra feels the same way that I do. Take care of yourself and don't expect someone else to do it for you. The Gospel Mission may end up having 2 regulars to their 9pm-6am program. Yes, it's mean for me to make my family be homeless, but sometimes people have to struggle to understand that you actually have to work hard to get what you need in order to survive in life. I'm not going to let my son make the same mistakes that I did in life. He will graduate from high school, not get his GED. He will get at least a Bachelor's degree. And he will get our help, but we will not carry him. I don't know how all of this came out of choosing a few traits, but it did. |
| Leading entry: "Invalid Entry" Yes, I know the round ended a long time ago, but I figured the least I could do was complete the entries even though it doesn't really count towards the contest. Besides, it gives me something to write about besides my uterus. Everyone has an opinion, just like everyone has an asshole. My opinion is different from your opinion, even if our opinions are similar or seem to be the same. The difference between my and your opinion will always be that my opinion is mine and your opinion is yours. If someone sends me a review saying my writing is craptastic and gives it 2 stars, that's his or her opinion. Do I whine and cry and throw a hissy fit in my blog or on scroll? No, because it will eventually, if not right away, give people the impression that I only want them to say good things about my writing and that I am a kudo collector instead of someone who wants to honestly improve her writing. Now, if I don't agree with that person's review, and I feel that they didn't get what I was trying to imply through my writing, then I ignore the review. I still thank them for taking the time to look at my portfolio and maybe explain to them why I think the review was off (in a nice way, of course), then I delete the review. I forget about it and go on with my day. If I let someone else's opinion ruin my day, I would never have a good day. If I let every anonymous 2 star rating bother me, I would always be bothered. To me, giving the 2 star rating may be someone who just doesn't like me, or maybe that person just doesn't like what I've written and can't explain why. Even if they don't want to explain why, that's that person's perogative. Seriously, though, just because I'm the bitch that I am, every time that I see someone complain about a low rating or review in his or her blog or on scroll, it makes me want to go to that person's portfolio and give something a rating without giving a review, or send them a review with the rating it deserves and tell them exactly why. I don't, though, because that person obviously doesn't appreciate that someone took the time to visit his or her portfolio at all. When I give a rating, whether or not I send a rating, I start with a 3.0. I've rated 1,584 items and given 1,548 reviews, so very rarely do I give the anonymous rating. My average is 3.95 stars, although that number is slanted because of two reasons. A) When I first joined, I gave everything 4.5 or 5 stars. I would probably say that my rating average is slanted by a good 500 items that received a 4.5 or 5 star rating that didn't deserve it. B) I participated a lot in the Anti-Slam, so also have given a lot of 1 star ratings for that. This has offset probably about 200 of the 500 items that received a higher rating than deserved, but not much. If I were to go back and remove the rating on every item that received a 4.5 or 5 star and give it the appropriate rating, my average would probably drop quite a bit. But if I removed all of the 1 star ratings I've given for the Anti-Slam, it would probably end up around 3.5 stars overall. So, to me, if I get a 3 star rating without a review, or even a 2 star rating without a review on an item I might think is a higher quality, I don't get offended. Like assholes, everyone has an opinion and has his or her right to express it, even if through an anonymous rate-and-run. If you don't like it, don't allow your items to be rated. Like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that. |
| Ended up in the hospital yesterday for a couple of hours. They think the baby flipped from breach to head-down and it put pressure on my lungs and irritated my uterus. Not a big deal if I'm at home, but I was at my GOTR practice, couldn't breathe, and feeling contractions. I go upstairs to our classroom, leaving my girls with the assistant coach (my co-coach couldn't be there yesterday because she had an emergency), called my doctor's office and told them what was going on, and was told to go to triage. So I find a janitor a few rooms away and ask him to help me find someone to take care of the girls so I can go to the hospital. He gets on his radio to try to find an assistant principal or another school official and cannot find anyone, so he runs off to see if he can find someone in a classroom or something. A few minutes later, he comes back with one of the other coaches from the other team who just happened to be working late (they don't have practice on Thursdays) who was at least able to take me to the hospital. In the meantime, there is nobody for me to leave these kids with. Since there was only 20 minutes of practice left, the other coach assured me that everything would be OK and that nobody would blame me for having to high-tail it out of there. So I went to triage, got hooked up to the monitor, and started to calm down as I drank some water. I was having some spasms in my uterus that concerned my midwife, but only so much as to tell me to take it easy and that we would talk about it more in detail at my office visit today. Jason showed up not too long after, I was discharged, and went home to rest. At my appointment today, she tells me to slow down even more than I already have. I mean, I feel that if I slow down any more I'll be laying in bed all of the time. 8 more weeks until I hit 36 weeks. That's all I keep telling myself. I just have to do this a little while longer. |
| So here's the stats: Gestational age by limb measurements: 28 weeks, 1 day Estimated weight: 2 lbs, 15 oz He is breach, but since I'm only 28 weeks along, they're not too worried about it for now. I did tell my chiropractor and he did a trigger point maneuver to get him to flip. He should do it sometime today, hopefully. I'll know when he does it, believe me, because I know when he went from head-down to head-up. I just didn't know until today that that's what happened. So... who wants to see some pictures? I uploaded a choice few really awesome 4D shots. The tech got a ton of really super images, so I had quite a few to choose from, versus Ethan's which were only a couple because he was stubborn and facing away from us. Here's the photos!      My favorite is the third image. I started crying when I saw it because I thought it was just the sweetest thing, ever. I can't believe how fat he is either! I looked at Ethan's 4D images and he is so much thinner in the face. The ultrasound tech believes that he's more on the give side of 2 lbs 15 oz than he is on the take side. I think so, too. Fat ass little man. As far as the gender confirmation, I didn't even have to ask for it. Since he was breach, the tech started out looking down further, and got a nice testicle shot. lol. I was like, "Well there's no question to the fact that I'm having a boy by that!" I'm excited that this guy looks more like me than Ethan did. He still has Jason's nose, but he bares more resemblance to me when I was a baby than he does to J. I'll eventually get some new photos of my ever-growing belly. I just have to wait for a day when I'm feeling a little more photogenic. OK. That's it for my latest pregnancy entry. I promise I'll stop for a little bit, Problematic Content . |
| This is as thorough a recap of my life as I can muster. I have a lot to get done in the next few days and not much time to do it. This afternoon, my girls have their practice 5K run, by the grace of God not allowing the storms to hit before or during practice, and I have to get ready for it. Work has kept me on my toes. My boss demands about 50 hours worth of work out of 20 hours that I actually am supposed to work per week. Two weeks ago, I worked a 37-hour week. The week after that was a 32-hour week, even with taking 2 days off because I tried to go into labor early. I've tried to keep myself to 20 hours last week and this week. I missed work yesterday because I kept having nosebleeds due to a combination of pregnancy hormones and pollen overdose. Even though it's beautiful outside, it has forced me to shut up all of the windows in my house and turn on the AC because even being outside for 10 minutes gives me a nosebleed. Mother's Day went very well. I had a barbecue for my Mom and a barbecue for Jason's Mom. My Mom's was Saturday, J's Mom's was Sunday. The nice thing was that I have siblings, so I was able to get some help on the expenses for my Mom from my youngest sister, who isn't a loser without a job like my younger sister, Kim. My 4-D ultrasound is tomorrow morning at 10. I'm really excited about that because I'll get a good estimate of how much this baby actually weighs. According to the baby sites, he should be about 2-3 pounds and over 14 inches long. The way I feel, though, I could swear he's at least 4 pounds and 16 inches long. I'm referring more to how much room he takes up in my uterus these days, versus how big my belly is. Ethan is potty training, sort of. I told J and his Mom that the biggest and best Mother's Day present I could receive is a son who's potty trained by the time his baby brother is born. He is so stubborn about it, though! We've taken to bribing him with jelly belly beans to get him to sit long enough to actually go pee. Now he's taken to running around naked - it's a game to him to get up off the potty and run from me, J, or J's Mom when we're trying to get him to go pee. I've decided that this baby is going to come as close to July 11 as possible. There is no way I'm going to wait until August. You all might not believe me, but I swore up and down that Ethan was coming before March. My doctors told me that I was going to go until March 9, and guess what? I delivered at 11:54 p.m. on February 28. So there. All that being what it is, I have to go now. Too much to do and not enough time to do it. I'm really looking forward to June 30th. That starts my summer vacation. I wish I could be done June 15th like most of the 10-month employees, but I have to help my boss get her end-of-the-year report done. Blah. My boss is so high-maintenance sometimes. EDITED TO ADD: I completely forgot about the original reason I was even going to make an entry! Thank you to the anonymous person who gave me a 1-month premium upgrade! It is much appreciated, although I wasn't intending my post to be considered a plea for help. I do appreciate it, though, and will return the favor to another member in need when I have the opportunity. Also, thank you to another person who sent me some GPs to help with my upgrade. Once I get paid on Friday, I'm going to get another 3 months with the GPs I have and some additional that I'll have to purchase, so that will at least get me through the summer before I have to worry about it again. Thanks again! The generosity will be passed on and repaid when it is needed. |
| It's been a busy, tiring past week or so. Hopefully I'll be able to get on a little later on and give a short recap. I'm alive, well, and all of that. I still don't have a sex drive, though. lol. My upgrade expires tomorrow at noon. I was hoping I would have the GPs or funds available to renew but I may have to wait until Friday. Don't freak out if you see me without an upgrade. I'll work something out. |
| I'm coming to my wits' end. It's been about two weeks since Jason and I have had sex. I don't normally talk about this kind of stuff in here, but I don't know what to do. It's not that I don't want to or have a desire to, because right now I would except that it's kind of not a good idea with Ethan being awake and all. By the time we get to bed tonight, though, I'll be too tired and just not into the idea. This morning, I dreamt that Jason and I had sex. I dreamt it, but whenever he tries to initiate, I'm just disinterested. It's getting to the point where he's frustrated with me, and I don't blame him. There's a few things that have given me an aversion in the first place. I can be in the mood, but by the time we're done, I'm either sore or incredibly uncomfortable, and I just want it to be over and done with. I mean, I have a hard enough time just sitting in a chair or using a public restroom for crying out loud. And it's not like Jason is one of those guys who think about ways of making it new and improved. If it works for him, that's all he needs. It usually works for me, too, but not feeling as fat as I do lately. Part of me doubts anything will work. The strange thing, though, is the Schwan's guy came today. Somehow, some of his cologne scent got imbedded into my shirt or something and now that's all I can smell and it's turning me on. I know that once we get back to the bedroom, though, I won't be interested anymore. Where did my sex drive go? I want it back, please. If you happen to find it, can you send it back my way, please? |
| Leading entry for "Invalid Item" Yesterday was full of unexpected things. My boss gave me the high compliment of calling me a wonderful executor, "I come up with all kinds of ideas, but that's about it. If I really want something to happen, I tell Melissa, and she figures out a way to make it happen. You can't pay that kind of help what it's worth." That was while we were packing the suitcases for the United Way grant that we received earlier this school year. After six or so hours on my feet on concrete with no sit down time, I got in my soccer mobile to go home. My back started to hurt in a way I can only describe as stabbing and radiating. Instead of going straight home to take a bath, I went to the chiropractor for an adjustment, figuring the large amounts of time on my feet had done a number on my back. Jason had an appointment after work already, so he joined me at the chiropractor's office shortly after I arrived. That's when the real pain started. Not only was my back radiating pain everywhere, my uterus was also contracting. After three hours of 20-minute-apart contractions, some water, and a couple of hot baths, I called my midwife. She had me drink even more water and take another hot bath. My other alternative was to go to the hospital for terbutiline, which wasn't something that sounded like a good time to me. I stayed off my feet, followed her orders, and the contractions thankfully went away. Then I went in for my appointment this afternoon, had my cervix check out fine, and was told that I'm not allowed to stand for more than an hour, can't lift more than fifteen pounds, and need to take the weekend off my feet altogether if at all possible. My midwife, of course, knows that I have a two-year-old and is realistic in knowing that I can't follow those orders religiously. The last words out of her mouth were, "do what you feel comfortable with, but ask for help when you can." I can live with that, I guess. This is far from what I expected to write my leading entry on, but sometimes the best approach in life is to always anticipate the unexpected. If you stress about the could-bes too much, you can't enjoy the right-nows. And right now, I get to enjoy being waited on, hand-and-foot, because the doctor said so. |
| How gay. I emailed EA to find out how to fix my Sims Life Stories problem with the Grim Reaper being stuck and the head master being stuck. The solution they gave me was to move my family out of the house and then back in. This means I will have to repurchase all of the furniture and appliances in the house, which isn't that big of a deal but it's really dumb. I guess if I want to continue my dynasty, I'll have to do something, though. I wonder what will happen if Vince dies before my twins are grown into adults. On to more gayness. NASCAR fined Tony Stewart $10,000 because he "didn't attend last week's post-race press conference." It's funny that the fine didn't occur until after Tony accused NASCAR of staging the end of the race by throwing phantom caution flags. This statement was partial frustration because he lost to Jeff Gordon after several caution flags had been thrown at Phoenix. Tony has since changed his song, saying that NASCAR doesn't throw caution to the wind when they throw caution flags for debris. NASCAR has fined him and he's also on probation for the rest of the year. This isn't the first time Tony's been in trouble, but before it was because of getting physical with a reporter after a race, not flapping his lips. And in other news, I seem to be getting bursitis in one or both hips due to the extra weight of the pregnancy. I've weighed far more than 163 pounds before in my life, but it wasn't in the form of a bowling-ball sized growth on my front abdominal area. It was a little more spread out. Sleeping is difficult for me, again. If I lay on one side or another too long, my hip is in so much pain that I can barely move. My Mom suggested that I get some more pillows and try to take that pressure off my hip when I'm sleeping. The horrible thing is that I still have over 3 months to go before the problem can be solved more permanently. The NFL draft starts today at noon. The Raiders will probably take Jamarcus Russell 1st overall. Calvin Johnson will probably go to the Lions 2nd, although they may dangle him over the proverbial heads of other organizations to try to get more picks, because the Lions are stupid like that. Brady Quinn from Notre Dame (GO IRISH!) will probably go 3rd overall to the Browns. Tampa is 4th, and they want either Brady Quinn or Calvin Johnson so they're trying to talk the Lions into a trade. That's about all I have for buzz. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a house to restock furniture in. Stupid game. |
| Naomi died today. Now the Grim Reaper is stuck playing chess on my back porch. The same day Naomi passed away, Vince got fired as a surgeon because he left a resident to finish up an appendectomy and the resident screwed up taking out some sponges and the staples or something. Vince started a life of crime, though decided he wanted better for his children and attempted to get them into private school. The private school headmaster came to dinner and wouldn't come in the front door. He stayed out on the front porch, no matter what any of the family members did and never left. I sent the family to bed, and the headmaster was still on the front porch the next morning. Nobody could ask him to leave or say goodbye to him. Leave it up to me to find the hidden glitches in a video game. I just exited out so I could see if maybe it would fix itself. Rebooting is magic, so maybe reconnecting to the EA servers will fix the problem. I hope so. I really don't want to have to start a new family just because the game glitched and visitors are now stuck outside of my family's house for the rest of eternity. |
| Leading entry: "Invalid Entry" I love my silent moments, of which I don't get many anymore. I'm too busy listening to something to be able to get many moments of peace and quiet. Instead of nothing, there's always a tv in the background, a baby monitor that echoes white noise whenever Ethan's fan turns on, the traffic from Westnedge, the beeping from the car wash, the dog licking, the cat mreowing, the doorbell ringing, the telephone buzzing, Ethan talking, Jason talking, me typing. The only time I don't appreciate the silence is when I'm at work. I hate being in the office alone, mostly because the building where I work seems to attract undesirable characters from around the city, who come to roam because they think they can. They think public school without real security equals public building open to everyone, even though there are classes in attendance and staff members working. Silence at work only means that you are alone and being alone means that you have no sense of security other than the locked door that keeps the general population from walking into my office. I forget what my house sounds like when it's completely silent. I forget if I really enjoy it, or if I just think I enjoy it because I haven't had any in so long. Absense does make the heart grow fonder. You miss all kinds of things when you're not exposed to it as frequently: sunshine, summer, free time, peace and quiet, alone time, being thin, sleeping soundly, or mornings spent at home while the 2-year-old sleeps in having me-time. Shhhhh! Don't wake the babies! I want to blog! There are certain noises that annoy me more than others, though. The guy living across the street mows his lawn like every two days once the weather gets warm enough. The sound of his lawn mower drives me insane. I always worry that my light sleeper will awaken as he mows his front lawn. There's a car wash at the corner of my street and Westnedge. Besides the incessant beeping from the vaccuum cleaners getting ready to run out of quarters, we're often exposed to high levels of bass rattling the windows as home boys take several hours to detail their cars in the parking lot. A couple of times, I have thrown my head out the door and screamed at them to turn down their stereos. A couple other times, I have just called the cops and had them make the offenders turn it down. Garbage trucks irritate the hell out of me. You'd think there'd be some way to make them less noisy. They drive by at 5:30 and 6 in the morning, making all kinds of bang-clanks with their loud engines and squealing air brakes. The one that stops to pick up our trash has to back up once he's picked up our trash can to avoid hitting the telephone lines, so we also get his back up beeper. Another noise that I can't stand is my own chatter in my head, especially at 2 am when baby brother kicks my bladder and sends me running to the toilet moments after being sound asleep. Usually, that is the time when my brain thinks it's time to wake up, even though my body disagrees, and my mind goes into overdrive thinking about what needs to be done the next day. It isn't really a noise, since nobody can really hear it, but it's loud enough to keep me awake, and that's all that matters. I suppose we're all sensitive to one sound or another at any given time in our lives. It's just a matter of not letting the noises drive you mad, or at least crazier than you were to begin with. |
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