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 |  My journal. Rated GC for an occaisonal four-letter word or two. |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hmm...one day I'll write a newer introduction. Maybe I should make a static item of all my different introductions.  New Introduction, October 31, 2005 It's time to update this introduction. Since June 2005, I've packed up and moved from Armenia to the US, found a house, waited a month for settlement, moved in, found a preschool for my son, got settled in, and maybe found my sanity. Maybe. I'm just now getting back to writing. Read on for more about me and life in the US. Original Introduction: I live in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia nine months out of the year. The rest of the time you can find me living out of a suitcase in the US or on one of our travels somewhere. This journal started out as a description of my life in Armenia, but I've amended it since I've realized that life there is very similar to life everywhere. I don't have a car, clothes dryer, microwave, or dishwasher but I've learned one doesn't really need those things to have a fulfilling life. Some days I'm just estatic over a slow trickle of hot water which can mean the difference between being smelly for another twenty-four hours or being clean. By the way, DH=dear husband; DS=darling son; MIL=mother-in-law. You get the picture. |
| Kiddo got me up before 6 am because he had a bad dream. I think he just had to go to the bathroom. Just ended up dozing after that and got woken up twice more. Didn't get to write yesterday when I wanted too, so now I'm feeling discombobulated. Also because my mom is visiting and it's hard not to be doing stuff on my schedule and in my time. Washed my hair with baking soda and water today and it feels really clean! I'll be blogging more about it later. |
| Did some laundry. Started a few blog posts for my biz site. Is it a biz site? pro site? I"m not sure what to call it. Any ideas? Had a healthy lunch. Yummy! Spinach and romaine lettuce, chopped up steak, goat cheese, and some Anne's balsamic vinegrette dressing. Oh my.... And chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Kiddo finished his library reading program so we went over there to get his prize. To finish up his last hour today he wrote to journal entries (2 sentences and then drew pictures) and read with Grandma. I made some kick-ass red lentil pasta sauce in the crock pot for dinner. We played a KILLER game of trouble after dinner. KILLER! I almost won. Grandma almost won. Hubby almost won. Kiddo FINALLY won. Tomorrow, we're off to my favorite thrift stores and having lunch at a local diner. Well, not local to me, but local to the locals in the little town where we'll be. I go there whenever I can. Oh, and I tried using just baking soda for deodorant today. Worked pretty good. Toodles, I'm off to bed, with my Quick Pad and a sleeping pill and Animal Planet. I've got at least an hour of relaxation ahead of me. Yippee! Maybe even some more blog posts done so that I can set them up to self publish. Imagine, being ahead! That would be cool since we're going camping next week and I don't want to break my momentum. zzzzzzzzzz ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
Been busy 'round here. My mom is visiting. Kiddo is acting up ('cause grandma is here!). She got here last night and we're all exhausted. Spent last week decluttering and cleaning. Emptied two Rubbermaid totes. Yippee! And started re-organizing the garage. Plus a whole house cleaning. Now I need to do a deep cleaning...like baseboards and dusting window blinds and washing windows, etc. Also posted a bunch on my website. Oh, and I discovered Facebook! I've spent WAY TOO MUCH time messing around on Facebook. WAY TOO MUCH! Somehow I managed to write a blog entry today for my site. I took my Quick Pad into the bathroom with me and wrote while on the throne. That STILL didn't stop kiddo from finding me. I thought with GRANDMA here and some closed doors I'd be safe for five minutes. I was wrong. Off to post my entry about bugs and worms. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
My mom has the beginnings of coronary artery disease. She's got to go in for two tests: an echocardiogram and a nuclear stress test. If she fails the stress test, then it's the catheritization thingie. If she passes, then it's yearly stress tests. No coffee, no chocolate, lose 40 pounds. Didn't really address her exhaustion though. Or at least I forgot to ask her about it. She sounded so relieved. Plus, she got to talk to my brother, twice! The good news is that no imminant heart attacks or strokes expected. If she takes care, she can be around to terrorize drive us crazy love us to death for a long, long time.  I was depressed most of the day. Not sure why. Got good sleep. Kiddo was a nightmare. I couldn't get him out of the house to go run my errands, then when my husband came home and I got ready to leave, total meltdown. He couldn't come at that point because he had basketball practice. At that point I needed some quiet time. He got to bed very, very late tonight, so tomorrow is going to be a bear as well. I am feeling better now. Guess I needed some sunshine. I certainly didn't sit on the couch and mope all day. The big fish tank is nice and clean now, among other things. Let's hope we're done with the recent spate of fish deaths. We're going to Myrtle Beach to camp in a rustic cabin. Sleeping platforms (good thing I like futons), a desk, AC (thank goodness) and an electrical outlet (need one for my CPAP machine). Bathrooms are in the bathhouse, wherever that may be. Kiddo is so excited. What happened to the days when planning a camping trip used to be easy? This has been a pain. Though in the old days, I used to go more often and had everything organized. It's been quite a hassle pulling everything together again. Where is this? Where is that? Didn't we own one of these? Where is it now? Armenia? Goodwill? Did we leave it in the old house? Thank god for checklists. We had to go out and buy a new large cooler and a camp stove. Our inexpensive camping trip just got as expensive as staying in a hotel. I keep telling my husband we're paying for the experience for kiddo. Experience, sheshperience when the wallet starts to empty. At least we'll be using these things again and again and again. He'll make sure we do just to get our darn money's worth. Good thing I love cabin camping. I could do tent camping as long as we could run an electrical cord. I can never be a "purist" any longer, not and have a good time, anyway. No one else will either. Well, I'm off to do something or another. Hmm...that wasn't so quick afterall. Enjoy! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
Yes, I know I spelled that incorrectly. I don't care.  Spoke with my mom yesterday evening. She's been feeling more pains and is glad she see's the cardiologist today. We're not sure if the pains are because she's just more aware of them since her diagnosis if they really are getting worse. Either way, her perceived pain is worse and her stress is up. We'll know more tonight as she has a late afternoon appointment. The unknowing is what's driving her crazy. I was OK with all that until I spoke with the director of my school. They want to move me from teaching the 3s class (3 days a week) to the 2s class (2 days a week). Even though it's one day less, it's about a 50% reduction in hours. That the only bad thing about the change! I'd be in with an extremely experienced teacher who I adore (who also does reiki and energy work), smaller class, etc. From a management standpoint, there are lots of good reasons to make the switch. And it opens me up for an extra day of subbing at Monkey's school. The downside is the reduction of my pay. It was a pittance before, mostly due to the low amount of hours, which is now getting cut. If I get those 4 extra days a month subbing, I'll more than make up the difference. It's just so hard not to have a guaranteed income, even a small guaranteed income. The other downside is I won't be teaching with my cool friend and co-teacher Susan. We made a great team. I'll miss that. Plus, I had two fish die yesterday and I have no idea why. One died almost as soon as I took it out of the bag (my fault for keeping it in the bag for so long) and now these too. I can't figure out why. The water parameters are fine. The sucker catfish, more delicate fish, are flourishing. The only thing I can think of is the new zebra danios were small juveniles, so maybe the bigger fish were harrassing or even trying to eat them. Dunno. Whenever I sit and observe the tank, I don't see any untoward behaviour. LOL...snuck that "U" in there. After editing so many British-English documents, I use their spelling once in a while. Kiddo is feeling better, I think. He's still really exhausted (not wanting to go to bed and then staying up late once he's in bed) and when he's tired, he's a total sh*t. Manners and niceness go out the window. It's frustrating to be sitting on him for that stuff all the time. I think we'll be going to the pool so maybe he can work out some of this negative energy. Doesn't help that I'm not sleeping well and a bit short myself. I'm trying to do nice stuff for me today. I started last night by taking a lunesta, even though it was pretty late. I just needed the help. That meant I slept a bit later this morning, but hey, it's summer. I'm blogging now to get it all down and out of my system, I hope. Then I'm going to go upstairs and meditate a bit before I take my shower. Maybe I can convince the Dalai Lama to share some peace about my finances. It's not enough to trust that it will come, I need to know from whence it will come. Now, whether the universe will share that information with me is another story. I had the germ of an essay yesterday, but lost it before I could get it down. That just tells me it wasn't compelete yet. Once I get the lead, I often can work things around in my mind and when I do sit down, it just flows outta my fingers. Obviously, I don't have the lead or focus yet. So instead, I started reworking a book review instead. I want to finish it today and start another one. That might be manageable, provided kiddo cooperates and I can maintain some focus. I also found Facebook and have lost several (OK, many) hours there. I also re-connected with a second cousin and someone from highschool. Very cool.Off to the showers.... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I should be in bed, but I discovered Facebook. Now I'm a member and I've been adding my family and WDC people as friends. Then when I was also chatting with my cousin, she started sending me cool links, and I lost lots of time on http://etsy.com. All cool handmade stuff. I'm inspired. I can't afford to be inspired. I've too many irons in the fire as it is! I did manage to input about a kazillion, ok, about 35 books on Half.com today. The link is in my bio block. I'm scavanging everything that's cluttering up my house and either listing it for sale on Half.com or ebay or giving it to my favorite secondhand stores or tossing it into the trash. I can't take this mess any longer! What's that commercial with the people yelling out their windows? My take on it: "I't's my space and I want it BACK!" Truly, I want it emptier.  Yikes, they're almost non-stop. Time for bed.Monkey is all better, I hope. A good night's sleep should do it for him. Fever gone, most of his energy back. Did complain about his sore throat coming back tonight before bed, but I think that was so I'd snuggle with him!  My brother called my mom today. That was nice. They are estranged right now but he is willing to work towards some measure of reconciliation if his needs can be met in the process. He just wanted to let her know that he did love her and was concerned about her health and that he'd check in after her cardiologist's appt. on Wednesday. I know that had to make her feel good. He's still not willing to visit, but hey, that's OK. I'm so proud of him. I know this was anxiety-laden for him. Nighty night! |
| My mom has heart issues. You'll have to go to my site for the full story: http://www.susansmiththompson.com It's still under construction, so be kind. Kiddo is sick. Just came down with a low-grade fever and chills today. He was fine at basketball this morning, then came home exhausted and slept on the couch and woke up with a fever. We thought he was dehydrated and really pushed fluids, but the only thing that helped was Advil. He's in bed, but I suspect he'll be awake again around 12:30, when this dose of Advil wears off. I made the mistake of chugging some iced tea yesterday right before dinner. Boy, it sure was good. Boy, did it keep me awake all night! It sucks getting old! Still wearing my knee brace for bursitis. The left knee has healed, but the right knee keeps getting re-injured. Added new fishies to the big tank yesterday. One casualty. We didn't get 'em out of the pet store bag for several hours, well, now that I think about it, close to 4, so I think he got hurt in the close quarters of the bag 'cause when he went into the tank we could tell something was off. Surviving are three zebra danios (now we have 5) and 2 oto's (the little sucker catfish that hang on the side of the tank). So the tank now has: 5 zebra danios 1 giant danio 2 rosy barbs 2 otos Plans are to get three more rosy barbs and two more otos in a few weeks, once the bioload has settled down. I really don't like the giant danio, so I'm hoping to rehome him. I don't know that I like those barbs either. Might rehome them too! LOL. They came with the tank, so I didn't get to choose 'em. My plan was to edit and work on book reviews this afternoon, but my mom called. That messed up my day. I then had to call my brother and tell him and my SIL the situation. My brother isn't speaking with my mom right now, though there is hope of reconcilliation. It just needs time. Well, kiddo didn't make it until 9:40 before waking up again. Fever has gone up to 100.2 with medication. He's now ensconced in the guest room watching TV. He says he can't sleep, that maybe he had too much caffeine (my problem from last night, LOL) though he didn't drink any. Hopefully Blue's Clues will put him out. Sheesh, wonder if I'll make it to Quaker Meeting tomorrow. I really wanted to go soon. More later from a tired and frustrated, ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| As I was just finishing up my last blog entry, we had quite a bit of excitement around here. A huge black snack was trying to find a way into the house via the window air conditioner on the carport. We're on a farm, so there's lots of woods and fields around us. Wheat growing in the front and back, soybeans just got planted this week. Well, my wonderful mother in law is totally afeared of snakes. Panic attack city. Poor thing. My hubby and father in law convinced said snake to leave the safety of the brick that was supporting the AC window unit and managed to get it into the yard, then dear father in law shot the head off the thing. Buckshot skidmarks and snake brains in the yard. I didn't actually go outside to see the remains, but hubby told me about it. Of course, monkey wanted to go outside for the actual shoot, which we didn't allow, though he did go see the remains. For the record, I'm totally against guns, though this was a shotgun and I see the need to have one/some on the farm. The ones here are hidden and are never kept loaded. They are just for varmits, like the gophers trying to eat the soybean sproutlings and the odd snake. Me, I would have like to have seen the snake taken to the woods and released, especially since when it fell from the niche, it fell right into a 5 gallon bucket. It would have been easy to use a big stick to move the bucket down the hill or over to the field and let it go. I like snakes cause they eat things that I don't like to see in my house, like mice. But, t'aint my house, t'aint my farm, t'aint my phobia. |
| Tomorrow is travel day! That might mean that I'll spend most of the day on scroll since I can hook up my laptop to the internet with my phone. Or maybe I'll read. Or write an overdue book review or two. Or edit. Or maybe just sleep and dream or doze and fantasize. 8+ hours in the car. 1 stop for lunch, 2 or 3 potty stops. I got to see most of my family this trip. My brother and sister in law were vacationing in Mexico, but I saw everyone else. We had a crab feast at my mom's, with the most divine cream of crab soup I've ever had. So delish. My dad drove down to visit. My other brother and his family came down for dinner and a swim. It's hard for me to overcome the inertia to get my butt in gear and actually come up this way, but once I do, I'm always glad I did and I'm always sorry to leave. I wish we could come up for a longer period of time. Rain coming in. Hmmm...wonder if we'll be able to go see fireworks tonight. Monkey will be so disappointed to miss them. OK, enough of this boring stuff. I'm off to pack and organize. Toodles! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
I found this in Nada's blog, so I thought I'd share it too.
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| On vacation this week in Maryland. Having fun visiting with family and friends. I even got some writing done! Woo hoo! Got even bigger plans for my internet empire. muwhahahaaha Now I just need hubby to get up from his nap so I can get my laptop from the bedroom and work on said empire, one brick at a time. I'm using my inlaw's computer and I've fallen absolutely in love with their new wireless keyboard. I may have to buy one to use with my laptop it's so nice. |
| So, this s a bit of an experiment. I'm typing on my quick pad, laying in bed and I can't see the keyboard. The final product will be interesting because some of the keys stick and it could get tricky sorting out all the typos that resulted from mechanical issues and not my bad typing. It's hard to find a comfortable position as well. It's certainly easier than hauling up the laptop especially since if I fall asleep it'll automatically shut off and save everything. Yippee!!! A quick pad is a portable word processor, by the way. Little more than a keyboard and a four line screen. I love mine, except for the sticky key issue. I managed to write a blog post for my website today and realized that I hadn't checked in here in ages. Life had been super crazy busy, exactly the way I hate it. No time to breath practically. And during the midst of it, I had to deal with a medication change. Imagine dealing with my mom in town without a net? My anxiety levels had gone up and stayed up and I was having panic attacks, so my doctor suggested a medication change. I'm sooooo pleased. I feel so much more human now. The energy that went into the anxiety has been channeled into positive things. My house is slowly getting decluttered and I'm knocking things off my to do list. That list grew during the six weeks of crazy as I missed a bunch of deadlines, including an article for the blogville news. Sorry bloggers. That's it for now. I feel sleep heading my way. Yippee! I'll post this sometime Tuesday morning, but I'm counting it as a Monday night post. Two blog entries for me today. Yippee! When I relaunch my site, I'll post it for all to see. I'm still writing and adding content, but I'm changing ISP's and changing from a free blog to a real site. Lots of plans! And I'll share 'em...I promise. Actually, I've an empire planned. Two sites, one being a store. I'm hoping to generate at least enough sales to pay for the maintenance of the sites. LOL. Oh, and I'll have a whole bunch of books on half.com and ebay soon. Huge purge of the bookshelves. K. I'm really going to sleep now.. Really. Unless I can find more things to ramble on about 'cause that's all I'm good for right now. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| It's 7:40 pm. Kiddo is fed, showered, and in bed. Whether he is sleeping or not is another story, but hey, I'm not too picky right now. The kitchen is clean, dishwasher run. The classroom got set up. Sorted out all the artwork I brought home, but then I found more in my classroom...grrr. Not too much, though. If I didn't have a migraine, life might be just about perfect. Hubby home and no migraine....that would be perfection. There are a few things left on my list, but they will have to wait. Poor fishies. I'm hitting the couch and watching some TV. I darn well earned it! The first day when hubby leaves is always the hardest. I always keep moving and it's really hard to relax. Kiddo and I will be back into our routine tomorrow and we'll be back in stride. I'm going to bed early! Toodles. |
| Well, it's 6:30 in the morning. I've actually been up since 5:30. Awake, not up and moving around. I managed to get from the bedroom to the couch without waking hubby. And then dozed while waiting for the sun to come up a bit more so I could see the screen on the quick pad. LOL. I didn't want to turn on any lights I was so enjoying my quiet time alone in the dark but the screen isn't backlit, so I couldn't turn it on. I didn't need to see the screen to actually type since I'm laying it in my lap and not looking at it anyway, but I'd hate to be typing onto a blank screen and not even have the thing turned on! I hate losing files. Hubby is still asleep, and I'm trying to be quite as a mouse. It's unusual for me to be awake so early, but that's been happening all week. Probably in anticipation of his going away for 2 weeks. I need to get up earlier when he's gone to take care of things, so the universe stepped in and helped me acclimate, I guess. 5:30 isn't as shocking as it used to be, though I'm not happy about it. An extra hour would be just fine, thank you. Hubby heads to the airport in less than two hours, so as many minutes of sleep as he can get would be wonderful. I want to cook some waffles, but the toaster oven will ding. I'm going to have to do something soon though because I want to take some migraine medicine and I hate taking it on an empty stomach. It's just a small nagging pain right now, but I don't want it to bloom. Had one yesterday as well. That got into the way of enjoying the day. It is nice to finally be enjoying some alone time. It's been a crazy two weeks around here. Mad dash cleaning, then guests, kiddo's birthday party last Saturday, guests leaving, one day to clean again, more guests, who left yesterday. Last night was the mad dash to get hubby packed and ready. I was doing last minute laundry when the dryer stopped drying. It's just a fluffer now. And the AC is having issues. Grr. Fortunately, we have a home owners warranty, so I just call the company and they send out the repair guys..I just pay for a small service fee. It's totally worth it, especially for the peace of mind when two major appliances/systems breakdown the weekend before hubby leaves on an overseas trip. Plus, the master shower stall has a crack in it that I need to call the HOW people about too. I've got a list! We've been so busy, I haven't had time to schedule time for repair guys to be trooping trough here. Guess I got to now with the AC down. I can live without the clothes dryer.but not the AC. 9:40 am and I'm ready for a nap. Had breakfast, got dressed, been to the airport and back, and even wrote! Been a busy morning. Even took migraine medicine, which has mostly worked. Got the windows open so there is a nice breeze blowing through that smells like the rain.To do today: clean out the fishtanks sort out my school kids' artwork set up my classroom feed kiddo and I get ready for work/school tomorrow Hmm...time for a mid-morning nap. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I just took The Bush-McCain Challenge -- an online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain. Check it out, and see if you can do any better than I did! http://Bush-McCainChallenge.com/?rc=challenge-friends&r_id=12584-8784385-oLm9Sl Me and my mom only got 2 out of 5 right. How did you do? |
| *sigh* on to plan B. (psst...just need to figure that out) Good thing is they want me to come in and start subbing on my days off from the preschool. Yup, this close to the end of the school year. Cool beans, I'll take those few buckaroos. |
| From earlier: So we're hanging out at the park. Went to lunch with hubby and came over here. Brought snacks, drinks, writing projects, the blanket, and the quickpad. We're in for the duration! I forgot my hat and there isn't much shade since the leaves aren't on the trees yet. It's hard to position myself away from the sun yet still be able to monitor kiddo. It's a zoo here today, but considering the public schools are on spring break (and so are we, coincentally) there's tons of kids here, including a bus of undersuppervised afterschool program kids and a whole bunch of grandparents trying to keep up. Oh...cool. The huge mmom's group is leaving. Time for afternoon naps for their young ones. They had the best spot for shade, but I may not move since where I am gives me a good vantage point to see the whole playground. But shade is calling my name. I'm feeling tired again. I could feel the wave of exhaustion hit while driving here after lunch. That tells me what I ate for lunch wasn't what my body needed. I'v been on a carb/salt/fat kick lately and feeling bad beccause of it. Time to start eating better. It's just hard to have the self disclipline to do it. Plus, it's easier to grab junk. And I don't like veggies all that much. If I did, eating them more often would be easier. I'm a stress eater and I've been stressed. Over money. Ovr my brother. Over my mom. I did just stop and eat a sugar cookie. Isn't one of the commandments "Thou shalt not leave a cookie uneaten."? I bought kiddo one after lunch, he wanted chocolate chipp, so of course I got a cookie for me. Just one mention of my mom and I had to eat it! LOL. I did also stop to watch kiddo for a bit. Another kid was being a bully and I was watching to see how it played out. Man, I wish I had my hat. Squinting because of the sun just makes me even more tired. My eyes are more tired than the rest of me. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| ohhh...I just got my new QuickPad today. So I'm typing this on it, even though I'm sitting right in front of my laptop. Just had to do it. LOL. I love the feel of this keyboard. And the fact that I can even upload it directly to my blog. I got it on ebay and it just arrived today. Now I can write in carpool, on the couch, in bed, at the pool, etc. Sweet!!!! One less major excuse for not writing. My brother is home from Iraq. Sleeping in his own bed. Getting used to his kids and wife and cat again. More later. I'm off to bed. Todles! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I forgot I had a my space page. Now, how could that happen? |
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