Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Splash, Splash, dog water anyone?

Sean and I went to my family's house for the weekend to drop off somethings and pick up my step dad's trailer (we are going to buy it from him instead of renting one). We had a wonderful time. Boober had to stay in the play pen most of the time though. Here's why...
My parents have LOTS of dogs. Too many if you ask me. They started out with a German Shepard, then added 2 yorkies. They bred the female and she had 3 puppies. The sold one of the puppies and kept the remaining 2. They adopted an older yorkie that was abused and my brother's girlfriend moved in with her Pomeranian. The Pomeranian got my step mom's dog pregnant again and she just had 3 more puppies. So that is a total of c'mon, do the math....10 dogs. So they have little yorkies running around all over the place, and they have the Pomeranian , which is the dominant male, going around and lifting his leg on everything. But that is not even why our son had to stay in the playpen. Every time I let him out, he would beeline straight for the water dish. SPLASH SPLASH....all over the floor and all over him. They have wood floors too. LOL it was so funny. It was quite a mess. I tried to take pictures but the floor and lighting was too dark it didn't show up what he was doing. He did pretty well confined to the play pen for the remainder of the weekend. I think he knew he did something he wasn't supposed to do, he didn't even cry, it was more of a sigh, when he was put back in the pen. LOL I am going to have my hands full.

Friday, May 25, 2007

The calm after the storm......

I have finally gotten over my hurt feelings and my frustrations. Sometimes it takes me spitting it all out on paper to be able to let it all go. Our move coming up on us QUICKLY and I was just told today that my hubby will have the ENTIRE holiday weekend off. YEA! He has worked 2 months straight, 12-15 hour days so we will have plenty of money for this move. Our son is beginning to be less fussy since his ear infections are in check and he has stopped teething for a brief moment. I have been able to just take a deep breath and exhale.
I am finally able to sit down for a few minutes and enjoy what life has to offer. Sometimes I get caught up in the every day hustle bustle of life, and the normal hum drum of everyday repeating itself over and over again. I was given some good advice from someone, "Don't worry, you will be gone soon and it is off to making new friends."
That couldn't have been more true than the sky being blue. That person was SOOO right. The light FINALLY went on in the Attic and everything rolled right off my shoulders and into the gutter where it belongs. What do I have to worry about? I have a wonderful husband, and and AMAZING son. When you strip everything else away, at the end of the day, that is all that matters. Everything else is trivial compared to that.
Which brings me to some great news for us. After months of discussion, we have decided that now is the time to start trying for another baby. He is 28 and I am 27. We both really want to be able to do the little league and the boy scouts and all of the other stuff before we get too geriatric. LOL I know we aren't even thirty yet but we are unsure of how many children we want and I seem to have pregnancies that are almost high risk due to hypertension. So, we are just going to go for it. If we are not pregnant by the time I am 30, then we will not have any more children. I say it like that because we are not able to conceive the way "normal" people do.
My husband had a vasectomy when he was 22 and we met when he was 24 and I was 23. Neither of us wanted any more children when we met. Myself, having a son who lives with his father and step mother, and Sean, having a son (the same age as mine) who recently went to live with his mother, and a daughter which he was not able to see for circumstances beyond his control. Well, after getting married and being married for a year, we felt like something was missing. We had changed our minds and wanted to raise children together. We tried artificial insemination which was so expensive and required LOTS of planning. Blood work and ovulation monitoring and precise timing. We chose a donor and payed LOTS of money for the procedure and it did not take. VERY HEART BREAKING. We tried one more time and when that didn't take, we decided to give it a rest for a while. A year later we tried again and still the same result. I went to so many doctor appointments to find out what the problem was, the Dr said there was absolutely NO problem with me, there was no explanation on why i was not getting pregnant. We looked into invetro and that was at LEAST 13,000. We looked into Vasectomy reversal. Anywhere from 5,500 to 13,000. Expensive and also VERY painful for Sean. They could extract from him and artificially inseminate, but again, it was too painful for him and too expensive, and you run the chance of it not taking and you are left holding the bag. I had done LOTS of research online about infertility and artificial insemination. I had contacted banks and asked a LOT of question, and I had read up on EVERYTHING I could about the human reproductive system. So in November of 2005, after just letting the subject be for several months, I approached Sean with trying ONE MORE TIME. Only this time, we weren't going to do the blood work or the fertility drugs, or all of the over planning, we were just going to set the date and time and not worry about it any further. Well 2 weeks from then we tried again with the attitude of well, it is worth one more shot. A week later, I woke up to go to work and just KNEW without a doubt that I was pregnant. I felt different. So I was able to take a test a week later and sure enough, WE WERE PREGNANT.
I have to tell you, unless you have experienced it yourself, the inability to have children "naturally" is so hard. But, the feeling of bliss you feel after accomplishing the goal, is a thousand times more rewarding. Our son has brought so much joy to our lives. I grew up and only child. I had siblings but they did not live with me and they were quite a bit younger than myself and growing up an only child is SO lonely. There is such a big void being an only child. Sean grew up with 2 brothers and he said is was such a great experience that he really wants our son to have at least one sibling, so what a better time than now. No over planning or stressing and over analyzing.
So June 2ND through the 6Th is our window of opportunity and by the time we are driving to our new home, we will know if it took or not. I will be sure to post the result. I kind of like this blogging thing. I have read quite a few blogging pages and you know it is great to read other people's feelings and point of views. I have learned a few valuable lessons from others and I decided that my experiences may just help someone else. You never know, who may be reading.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Gettin All of My Ducks in a Row, FINALLY

Well, after changing plans SEVERAL times to accomidate prices of this, and prices of that, I think we have finally come to a solid plan that will work. I also have several back up plans as well. I tend to be a bit over organized, but I have found in some cases that it pays to be that way. It drives my husband CRAZY though. LOL Well, shoot, one of us has to be organized. He surly, is NOT. That is why we compliment eachother so well. I am what he is not and vise versa.
Just like money. I HAVE to do the finances because if he did them, we would be overdrawn every month and none of our bills would be paid. He will nickel and dime our account to death, sometimes I have to hide his bank card. LOL He will call the bank and check the account to see how much money is in there and think, "Oh okay I have X amount of money, I am going to treat all the guys at work to lunch today." Not knowing that I was at the DMV the same day and paid X amount of money by CHECK for our car registration. Or payed a utility bill and it hasn't posted yet. LOL I have gotten to the point where I round our deposits down and our withdrawls up, so there is a cushion for when he does that.

Getting ready for this move has really allowed me to take the time and reflect on things about my life here. The people I have met and the experiences I have had. I feel in a huge way I have outgrown the city life. People tell me, oh you will have to drive for a long distance to go to the movies.....well I don't go to the movies now, and it is right down the street. They they tell me about Walmart and how it is an almost all day thing there, well it is the same here. It is SOOO crowded that it will take you quite some time to get there from all of the stop lights and the looking for a parking spot and not to mention dodging rude people inside the store and getting from one side of the store to the other takes several minutes and checking out sometimes takes 20 minutes. You feel like you are at an amusement park waiting in line for a ride. I don't go to Walmart here more than twice a month. I can't stand the crowds. So what is the diffrence? There is none. My lifestyle will not change much except that I will spend more time outside. I will be outside in the fresh air and the sounds of the birds and other wildlife will be the only thing I will hear for miles, well maybe the sound of occasional gunshot at dusk and dawn, but that is about it. No traffic or horns honking, or people yelling, or brakes screetching. It will be peacecful. I am not much of a girly girl. I really never have been. I don't do the nails, and facials, and body pampering that most women do. I am a wash and wear kind of person. Jeans and tank tops, with flip flops or shoes. Nothing fancy. I will fit right in.
As far as our son, he will grow up knowing how to fix things and build things. And he will know how to fish, hunt, camp, ride horses, and, four wheelers. The role models he will have in Louisiana are WAY diffrent than the ones he has here. VERY respectful to women (especially their mother) and hard working. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Freinds and Family, WHAT A JOKE

You would think that when your "Friends and Family" find out that you are moving to the other side of the continent, they would want to spend as much time with you as possible. HA! Not the case here. It seemed that once we told everyone we were moving, the people we held dearest to our hearts, snubbed us off.

In fact, we are all neighbors, so you can just imagine what that must feel like to walk outside to take your trash out and see your "friends" BBQ ing and having a merry ole time. When ever we would walk outside before, they used to come over and shake our hand and shoot the shit for a awhile....now, it is nothing of the sort. They won't even look in our direction, nor will the acknowledge our presence. Now, here is the kicker, the neighbors were introduced to each other by us. I used to be really good friends with one of the wives, and now she won't return my phone calls. Hmmm......Have no idea why. Considering that we were "friends", if I pissed her off in anyway, it is crappy that she wouldn't at least let me know what the problem is. If I pissed you off that bad to where you don't want to have a thing to do with me....FINE, but at least tell me what I did. The way I look at it is we put too much value in people who obviously didn't hold us up as high. On that note it is good riddance then. Thanks for showing us what you were all about.
As far as "family" goes...HA that is a joke too. My so called MOTHER in LAW....that is the BIGGEST crock of dung I have EVER seen in my life. More of a joke than my own mother, who was murdered by her husband a few years ago. I, ME,MINE is her motto. Self proclaimed selfish bitch. We had had a falling out and I needed to detach myself from her for a bit due to the lack of privacy. I sent her an email telling her how I felt and that I didn't want to continue a relationship with her due to the boundaries she stepped over. I told her I would not keep her grandchild away from her but that my husband would bring him over to visit, but due to the overwhelming smell of cat urine inside the house she stays at, I didn't feel comfortable leaving our son over there. My husband would pick them up and visit somewhere else but I would not leave him over there. So After I send her the email, I get an email from the person she lives with, tearing me a new ass 6 ways from Sunday. Going off about all kinds of stuff that was WAY off base. All because I said her home smelled like Cat piss. Which I have told her that before, it was not any new development. It was not something said out of spite, it was the truth. So in this email she falsely picked me apart about my mothering skills and tore my house up, and just tried to break me down in every way possible. But you see, it didn't apply, so I just let it fly. So it didn't do anything to me but make me mad that she was saying stuff that was WAY wrong. So then i get mad at my mother in law...and here is why. My disagreement had NOTHING to do with her friend. It was between me and my in law. My in law must have been over there bashing me down to make herself look better and spouting off about all those untrue statements. SOOO, Needless to say that I am DEFINITELY not going to have anything to do with her now. And since her friend stuck her nose in somewhere it did not belong, and she did not tell her to stay out of it.....my in law will NEVER have a relationship with her son or her grandson now. So she had burned bridges with all three of us...and all she would have had to do from the beginning was give me my privacy.
So family, I am finding out will stab you quicker than a friend will. I am learning that the only person I can really count on is my husband. I know a have a few REAL friends out there but the ONE person that I KNOW will never do anything like that to me is my husband. He and I have our own family now and we will make sure that he NEVER grows up with those terrible qualities that my in law has. We are going to teach our son what "FAMILY" is supposed to REALLY be about. We have eliminated all people from our lives who will put a negative influence on our son, by that meaning, I don't even talk to my sister because she likes to start drama lie to people and when someone asks me something pertaining to it and I tell them the truth, she openly calls me a liar. NOT COOL. So, I don't talk to her. She is a role model for our child and even though he is still young, he will grow up watching what all of the adults around him are doing and I will be DAMNED if my son is going to pick up on her dishonesty. I want him to grow up telling the truth and being respectful. My sister talks to my step mom terribly, I don't want my son to think it is okay to talk to your mother like that. Same with my husband's mom, I don't want my son to grow up thinking it is okay to talk about someone untruthfully like that just because you may be angry. It is okay to get angry, but you have to bite your tongue and find other means of releasing frustrations. It is NOT okay to cut someone down to make yourself look better.
NOT ACCEPTABLE.
So, have I learned a lot about people in the past few weeks? You betcha! Am I going to be sad to move? NO. I have a friend or two that I will miss dearly, but that is not reason enough to stay. This WHOLE state if full of backstabbing self gratifying people and I will be happy to leave it all behind.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Moving to the Last Quarter of the U.S.

Okay, so Sean and I are preparing to move to Louisiana and I have to tell you, a move that far is very complicated. There are so many details you have to iron out. We are not taking a lot of belongings, but the stuff we are taking is very hard to coordinate. Like our Truck for instance, it is a 1970 3/4 ton pick up that we have just sunk a bunch of money into and STILL isn't worth anything, except for sentimental value. But unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything when you are trying to sell it. There is no price for sentimental value. So we are spending quite a bit of money to have it transported to the last Quarter of the U.S. The hardest part of all of this is finding a truck to transport it. I have had quotes from SEVERAL companies and the price ALWAYS changes. I sent a money order ahead to our families home who will be accepting the truck and it was for a specific amount. Now the dispatch company is telling me that it will be 30 bucks more than what I sent. What a crock of crap. But we want it moved so that will be the price we will have to pay.

As far as getting everything else in order, nothing seems to be going the way I would like it to, but things could be worse. We have sold most of EVERYTHING in our home and with Sean working all the time and the baby being sick, it has been really hard on me to get it all done. I have already began sorting through our personal effects and discarding anything that we have not used in the last 3 months.
Clothes that don't fit anymore but we have been holding onto them in hope that one day we will be able to pour ourselves into them again.....TRASH. Empty CD cases......TRASH. All of those stupid extra coffee mugs that collect dust in the back of the cubbard........Donated. The list goes on and on. I even sorted through all of our fining cabinet and paid a company to shred it ALL.

I have began deep cleaning the WHITE grout in our kitchen. WHAT AN ODDESSY! I tried vinegar, all that did was make our house smell like eggs. I tried baking soda and a tooth brush, that didn't do anything either. The only thing that has seemed to work is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and for a floor, it takes more time and energy than I can devote to it at one time. So a project that would normally take a few solid hours has taken almost a week. I keep having to stop to tend to my baby which is recovering from 2 ear infections and cutting 3 teeth at one time.
But over all, I can't seem to get too discouraged. No matter what road blocks seem to pop up, I am not upset nor am I ready to give up. I am SOOO ready to leave California that nothing could stand in my way. If I have to hitch hike naked to get there, I will do it. LOL I have NO desire to stay here any longer. My new home and my new life is waiting for me and I will do WHATEVER it takes to make it to my destination.
Here's to Perseverance.