When things are spinning out of control is when I should be spilling the contents of my mind, but I just haven't gotten to the point of wanting to put it into words yet.
I just want to know what I did to deserve this financial black cloud that has followed me around my entire life??? Why why why???
Last weekend I met my family at a dog show in Miami. My mom and sister show Australian Cattle Dogs, and were there doing their thing. It is big fun to watch the dogs and the snooty pretentious show dog owners provide their own entertainment. That whole, "my dog is better than your dog" attitude. You have to ask permission to pet the dogs, not because they are vicious, but because you might screw up their hair!. They parade them around like knick-knacks on a string. Look but don't touch. Poor dogs. I enjoy putting the philosophy of a dog resembles his owner to work. Big sturdy doofus dogs, usually have big sturdy doofus owners :lol: I feel sorry for the poodles. That hair cut ugh what are they thinking? Like crop circles.
Now that my Zaida is getting to be older, I have been thinkin its about time for a puppy. Before she gets to old and set in her ways. Hopefully the puppy will learn from her, adopt her finer talents and make the whole training thing a bit easier. With my work schedule I figured early summer is the perfect time for puppy training. I am out of work for 9 weeks. That oughta put a dent into it anyway. I hadn't started looking. It was just on my mind. I had thought it a shame that I had lost touch with Zaida's breeder, would be awesome to get another of her puppies-IF she was even still breeding.
I was browsing the dog show program and I happened upon the breeders name. When I asked my sister to help me decipher the code they use, I found that the breeder was there with one of her dogs. Imagine that. She was so excited to see Zaida. And as it turns out she is expecting her last litter of pups from Zaida's bloodline. Litter due April 13th so they will be ready for homes June 13th. Imagine that. Somethings just have a way of coming full circle.
After losing Maddy, I swore my days of dog ownership were over. My kids got to the stage of wanting a new puppy before mom did. I just couldn't bring myself to want to risk that kind of grief again. Then one night I had a dream. In my dream it was like a bad episode of 101 dalmations. Dogs everywhere. All types and sizes and I couldn't escape them. When I woke up, I told B that it was time to get a puppy. So the search began. I spent a week scouring the newspaper and the internet for a reputable breeder. I was a woman on a mission. At the end of the 2nd week I had gotten a phone # of a woman in Okeechobee (2 hours NE of us) I phoned her and it was as if fate had stepped in. We had an instant like of each other. She had a litter of pups that she was looking for "forever" homes for. She didn't have pups very often as she was very picky about placing her pups and only had this litter as she had retired one of her show dogs and was looking for a pup to take her place. She had 6 pups that she called "pet" quality. The others were pick of the litter and 2 that she was considering for her own. After several phone calls, the kids and I loaded up and made the 2 hour trip. You have never seen anything cuter then a pen full of Aussies pups. They were all beautiful. Strong, healthy happy puppies. I sat on the floor as she let them loose. I was lost in a blur of fuzz and wet puppy tongues. It was unplanned, but very therapuedic for me. I remembered all the reasons why we bring a pet into our homes. To love and nurture is healthy and rewarding. And what you get back in return is priceless.
She pointed out which puppies were available, any one of them would have made a great addition to the family. But this one blue merle girl kept climbing up on me and nibbling my ear. She was one of the 2 the breeder was planning on keeping for show. So I would put her down to focus on the others and back she would climb up to my ear for more licks. After about 15 minutes of this, I had decided on one of the others, but had voiced how I really liked Miss Kisses. She was by far the prettiest pup. And obviously she had decided she liked me also. After whatching us interact, the breeder grabbed Miss Kisses and started checking her out. Looking at her eyes, feeling her chest etc...all the while mumbling about confirmation and ignoring destiny blah blah... Mind you I went there to buy a $400 akc registered pet quality pup and Miss Kisses was a $1200. show quality pup that I couldn't afford. The breeder knew nothing more of me then can be disclosed in a few phone conversations and a visual first impression. For some reason, neither of us can explain, that day she knew Miss Kisses and I were meant to be together. The puppy I wasn't ready for. The puppy I swore I was NOT going to get attatched to. The puppy who reminded me that it is worth the risk to love. That was almost 6 years ago. And everyday since I am reminded by the companionship of the best friend a girl could ever dream of. I named her Zaida, which meant good fortune. And it certainly has been mine to have her as part of our family.
About 10 years ago I adopted an Australian Sheperd named Maddy. I had always been a "big" dog kinda girl, but with small children, a medium sized "family" dog seemed to be the wise choice. I love animals, and have always loved all the dogs, regardless of breed that have wandered thru my life. But never had I known the unconditional gift of love until I met Maddy. She grew up in the country with us and she grew up with my kids. She would pace the floor every school day 30 minutes before bus time. I would let her out and she would sit on the slope of our front yard and wait. As soon as she heard the bus, she would high-tail it down to the bus stop and pick up the kids. She would lay in the drive-way when we were away. She never ventured out of the yard unless she was accompanied by a family member. Her choice as we had no fence. We would go hiking and she always warned us of dangers by placing herself between the threat and her family. Once the threat happened to be a 6' rattlesnake that was headed up the sidewalk to our home. She sat at the doorway barking and barking until we investigated and realised what she was going on about. She would sit at the end of the drive-way while the kids rode bikes up and down the drive-way as if to keep them in the yard and safe. When we lost her, she was doing just that. Some idiot construction worker in a hurry to get home, swerved to miss a pot hole in the road and hit her in my driveway while my children and a handful of the neighbor kids played. It took all of us a very long time to grieve her loss. For months I would shed tears everytime I turned into my driveway. My kids were young and it was their first expereince with death. Those talks were the worst.
Maddy will always be responsible for my life long devotion to this breed. Intelligent, loyal and loving companions. She showed me what loyalty and 4-legged love is all about.
I heard on the radio this morning that today is the day a judge will pass down Scott Peterson's sentence. The jury who convicted him recommended the death penalty and it is assumed that will be the sentence passed down.
This man was found guilty of brutaly killing his wife and unborn child. Here are the choices. He either spends life in prison with no chance of parole. Being fed 3 meals a day and treated humanely with shelter and medical attention. Or he dies quickly and possibly painlessly. I have faith in a higher power. I have faith in heaven and hell. What if I am wrong? What if there is no justice after death to be served? What if he just dies his peaceful in comparison death and thats it?
How do either of these options seem fair for what that poor woman went thru? How is this justice for that baby who never had a chance at life?
I am not a vendictive person. My feelings this morning surprised me. My feelings that this man should have to suffer long and hard for his actions.
The good news first: I am typing on MY puter! Very good news for me.
Having a non bootable disk was a pain. I found a windows site to make a set of boot disks. Thankfully I had my kids computer to work on or I would still be waiting. Instead of buying XP Pro, I bought a box of HD floppys. Do you know how hard it is to find floppys now a days? Trust me after 3 stores. Was way better to spend $10 and a few gallons of gas, then to grease Bill's pockets again. I rushed home and made my disks. no dice. I/O error. lovely. So I tear things apart again. are my cables right? Is everything seated snug? blah blah. Yep looks good. Several calls to my bro n law and he and I both are clueless. In the meantime, I am working on creating a bootable CD. Another barrel of headache. My burn software is on the broke computer, the kids has no RW drive. ARGH!
I take a nap and finish my 2nd half of work. So maybe its the floppys. I reformat and rerun them. All 6. Put in the boot disk and voila! We have liftoff. Fingers crossed I forge ahead. Disk #2 finds a file error. DAMN!
Determined and pissed, I reformat and reinstall the boot info on all 6 yet again. This run thru I get to disk #5 before yet another error. Progress but OMG! grrrrr. My sister calls with a back up plan. My parents are traveling to Miami this weekend. I can send the puter with them, they will get it up and working and ship it back by Tuesday next week. Great plan but not how I want it to go. I bit off this task to prove I could. I am better then this stupid machine.
So once again, I reformat and re-install the setup boot disks. Time # FIVE!! How rediculous is that? I never trusted floppy info and this just proves it. I ran the same program 5 times before I got a working set.
The rest went like clockwork. dirty install of XP. No biggie, I get it up and running and then go nab all the updates and service pack 2. Sure thing! In a perfect world. My freakin T1 is on the blink! not my fault..lol But very much frustrating!
The only real issue at the moment beyond that is that my computer is recognizing my new slave 80 gig HD, but when I try to install the drivers, the manufacturers software can't find it lmao!
To do this for a living, I would require large quantities of daily valium and a huge sledgehammer!
I woke up to one of my favorite days, drizzling rain. I had the opportunity to walk in the rain 3 times already. It is so refreshing and beautiful. It doesn't happen often enough here. Most times the rain is accompanied by lightening, which is NOT good to walk in hehe
We had a blast at the hockey game on Sunday. The game, the people, the food and the family. Can't really go wrong. Nice way to drop $100.00 lol Oh yeah, and they won too.
Today is the day my new puter parts are scheduled to arrive. I am very excited. I can almost see the light at the end of the dinosaur slow tunnel. My sister and bro-n-law saved my pocketbook. When I realised it was definetly my motherboard I asked J for some inside scoop on what type to buy. He ended up saying they would get it for me from their supplier. The motherboard alone was gonna be over $200. And as it worked out I ended up getting a MB, 512 DDR memory (to add to my 512) AND a DVD RW drive for $180. I also got an 80 gig hard drive for $35. So when *fingers crossed* I get it all installed...I will be smokin with loads of new toys. I can't wait! Bring it on UPS!
Ok, siesta time for me. Another good drizzly day event ;)
I am sooo excited. With the lack of pro hockey this year I have been jones'n bad. The game tonight is ECHL. Our local Florida Everblades. The kids are excited and hubby and I are looking forward to attending a sporting event where we don't have to worry about packing our own chairs and cooler and worry about hydrating a player.
It will be yelling, clapping and bad stadium food we pay a days wage for. We will compare stratagies between soccer and hockey with my son. And pick out the cutest players with my daughter. Maybe run into a few friends in the process.
I see lately that I am one of many of us that has the question on my mind "Where the hell did my archives go?"
I did a post a few days ago and tried to show how to get to your own. Not very successfully. tBlog has it set up where all you have to do is type the 3 w's in a row and it automatically puts everything behind it into a link. Not much help for a html lesson hehe.
If you would like to see how to place links to your archives into your side menu, I will post the information as a comment to this post!
For a major part of my life, death was close to a daily occurance. Being a medic exposes you to tradgedy and death way more than anyone should ever have to face it. In order to be successful at the job, you have to create a coping mechanism. I still can not put into words what system I used. My faith in a higher power and things happening for a reason. The support of my co-workers and of course a warped sense of humor never hurt. Certain situations would hit home harder. Children always being the worst. Senseless accidents were hard to understand also.
Not only did I have to deal with my own emotions, the true reality hit in the emotions of the loved ones of those who had passed. Trying to find the right words to comfort someone is pretty near impossible. Knowing that what you say to them may be something that stays with them a lifetime, puts alot of pressure on a person as well. Even though the grief was not my own, I found that I was especially tuned into the grief of others. My saying was always "Death sucks for the living." I still believe this to be true.
2 years ago on Thanksgiving eve, we received a call from Texas that my grandfather has suddenly passed away. I was in my sisters living room in Miami with her family, my parents and my family. I watched as everyone dealt with the unexpected news. I consolled my children. This being their first memorable experience with death. We had just visited my grandparents in Sept of that year. I hugged my sister while she sobbed. I held my moms hand while she and my dad comforted each other. My heart ached, I was overwhelmed with sadness. Yet I didn't shed a tear. I felt guilty for my lack of physical emotion. As if someone would notice and see me as a heartless bitch. Silly thinking, but a reality in my mind.
My mom and I left the following morning for Austin. We had to go be there for my Memaw. My mom and I passed the hours in the car with stories of my grandparents. When we arrived, there were no less then 12 of us that had traveled to be with the family and take care of the arrangements.
There are supposedly 5 stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. If you want to delve into the psycology of it all. I am certain that no two people will experience the same pattern of grief or the same symptoms. How we cope is as individual as we all are unique.
I eventually cried. In the shower one day while I was all alone. I realised that I was not crying for the loss of my PawPaw, I was crying for the pain my Memaw was experiencing. For how alone she felt and the fear I saw in her eyes when she thought of her future without the man she had spent her life loving beside her. I dealt with my grief by being strong for my loved ones. Because death really does sucks for the living.
Tomorrow night, the Harlem Globetrotters are appearing locally here. After our last tournament game on Sunday, there was an announcement that one of the parents had purchased tickets for each of the boys on the team to attend the Globetrotters game. Very nice jesture indeed.
My frustration comes in when I inquired about the rest of my family joining this event as well. I fully understood that I would be purchasing tickets for the other 3 of us and providing our own transportation as the boys will be traveling together. All of the other families wanted to know the same thing as they had planned to attend before this Team adventure was put together.
This type of family adventure is something that several of us on the team had close connection with. We had attended a Globetrotter game with our own fathers/grandfathers/frie nds as children. Naturally we would want to share this experience with our own children.
When I inquired about attending I was told that if I chose to have my son go with his family, "they" (the people who organised it) needed to know so they could give away my sons ticket. Translation= We were NOT welcome to join. There was no offering of where the team would be sitting so that we could get tickets near them. There was no understanding of how we felt. It was numerous times rubbed in our face that this would be a great TEAM experience for the boys. A few select parents are participating, this was decided without consulting anyone outside the group.
Of course my son wants to be with his team. It isn't fair for me to make him choose. But I am pissed and disappointed in the parents who have so easily cut the rest of us out. This team has been together for 3 years. I am frustrated that my thoughts were greeted with such a cold attitude. Almost as if I should be grateful that my kid has this opportunity. It has turned into major drama! Hurt feelings and a battle between those going and those that have been excluded.
Don't get me wrong, it is a very generous offer. My son will be sitting in seats that I could not offord to purchase. They also will be having an autograph session following the game with the Globetrotters, another event I would not have been able to pull off.
I struggled with what to do. My gut was to pull my son and bring him with me due to the attitude that was conveyed during all this. But then my son is the one who has to suffer. I thought about going anyway, getting our own tickets. But if I can't be with my son to enjoy it, what is the point really. So the decision I made is to not go at all and just be the obedient parent and deliver my son to the designated drop off and pick up place and keep my frustrated mouth closed.
Does that make me a bitch for wanting to have this experience with my family? For wanting to see his face while he enjoys the show? Am I out of line to be hurt by the rich few who can pull off these type of things without any regard for the families who can't??
I won't say how I feel outloud because inevitably it will be interpreted as ungrateful and bitchy because those fortunate ones that will be enjoying it with their kids could care less that the rest of us will be missing out.
Hubby and I sat up til 2 am this morning. So I am whipped with only 2.5 hours sleep. It has been way to long since we sat up talking and giggling into the night like that. So I actually enjoyed my exhaustion today.
I applied for a new job today on lunch. Just the preliminary online application. I was not really considering a new job because I enjoy the one I have. But money motivates change. I don't want to jinx it by giving details. I will just say that it would be a 75% pay increase with equal benefits and retirement possibilities. The company is very reputable. I actually am over qualified. And I think the job would be good for me.
I love alot about my current job. The pros include... Love the independance of it. Love being out and about, not confined behind walls. No weekend work. Love the social side, all the people I interact with etc... The new job offers all these same benefits.
The cons of my current job. No real possibility for advancement. The kids can be annoying at times *rolling eyes* Mediocre pay with good benefits. Only work 40 weeks a year leaving 12 weeks without pay. Strapped into a seat for hours on end. Providing absolutly NO physical excercise.... The new job corrects all these issues.
I'm am trying not to get my hopes up. The new job tends to be prodominatly male due to the physical aspects. My fear is that my physical appearance may seem to be a hinderence to someone who doesn't know me or my lifestyle. I don't have the look of being strong, quick and energetic. Until you get to know me and get a glimpse of my lifestyle. Young strapping men would have trouble keeping up :)
I am enjoying having a few fantasies of an improved financial situation. Change can seem scary but also exciting. I am a firm believer in what is meant to be....will be. And that is that!
I am gonna be a puter genius before this is all over.
Power source purchased and installed. Yeah Me!!
The good news is I have power to all my stuff now, this is an improvement.
The poopey news is that the MB isn't workin. New big fast monster is on its way from Miami the end of the week. then I get to install it all by my lonesome.
*fingers crossed* By early next week I will have my monster back purrin and have access to all my goodies once again.
I can't wait. This dinosaur I am on now is killin me.
Well it seems I'm not the only one with a wicked crazy life lately...
tBlog is having a hissy fit too hehe
I am not going to bitch this time and I will tell ya why. I have no idea how many blog users there are on this server but I am guessing its a whole lot. Probably 90% of that "whole lot" recieve a free service. A few of us dish out a meer $20. a year for the custom layout feature. Any idea what $20.00 a year buys ya in cyberspace?? Diddly squat!!
My sister and bro-n-law do webbing for a living. I asked her about some web space to store graphics nsuch. The family discount price was $195.00 for a year and that didn't include a domain of my own. Just a garage so to speak to put up some stuff. So for me the $20.00 for unlimited posting, custom design and not having to munk with seetting up my own blog is well worth a few minor technical issues now and then.
So no bitchin from me this time. I am confident that all my pretties will be back soon as they figure out where they went.
