Preface

I'm going to start sharing what's in my head again with the people who matter most in my life, my family and friends. This blog has manged to stay pretty private since I started it back in 2008. I don't know how I managed it, but I had a place where I felt sort of anonymous. The problem with that is, now that I've decided to share and let people in on more than just my rantings on Facebook, they can read the archives if they so choose and see where I've been off and on for the last 3 1/2 - 4 years. It hasn't been pretty. Luckily, it was also pretty hit and miss. Consistently inconsistent, that's me. OF course, a lot more self deprecating than most are used to seeing from me. But, again, I've been fairly true to myself here because I haven't felt that I was under any sort of pressure to be anything other than me.

If by chance you do go back to the 2008-09 archives, I will warn you now that the language is kind of vulgar, I don't know why I felt the need to write the words, lol, but I did, and there they are. Now, I could go through and delete my archives and I would be totally off the hook for things I said because very few people read them, but again, that wouldn't be true to me, and it gets tiring hiding or squashing the things that go through my head, fair or unfair. The thing is when you read a blog, unless you are reading a blog where more than one person posts, you are only getting one side of the story. And we all know that there are two or more sides to every story, there is what each person involved interpretted and then there is the truth. I can only speak my interpretation, my truth. And sometimes the way I feel, whether it right or wrong, that is my truth.



Life is a daily struggle. We are all going down our paths, some skip and whistle down their paths and don't let anything bother them, some have paths that are full of twists and turns and dips enough to make them sick to their stomach, and some have paths filled with potholes and downed trees and high fences that just never seem to end. For those of us who seem to have more trials than some, the days where the sun shines through and we can just breath deeply and be, are days we stop and just remember that we are alive and well and there are people out there who love us and care and we can just stop for a moment and be thankful for the small things. There will be plenty to complain about tomorrow. ;0)

 So, in a nutshell, what you will find when you read my blog, whether you read my archives or you read future posts, what you will find is a heavy dose of me, with a little more of me on the side, plus the husband and kids, dogs, parents, inlaws, and everything in between. If it touches me in anyway, I will probably have an opinion on it. Feel free to comment if you wish, but don't feel obligated. I will assume from this point on that I have a bigger audience than I did with just the world, but don't expect me to hold back. I talk about the kids and I use names, but because this is out there where anyone can find it if they try, I don't name names, those who know me know who I'm referring to when I use generalizations and while I can't confirm or deny, if I talk about you, you will probably know it.

 So, with all of that said, Happy Reading. Enjoy my blog! When I blog I will post that I did so on my Facebook, but you can follow me as well (there is a button over on the side that says something like Follow or Follow this Blog), and if you follow you will probably get notifications automatically when I post more.

Welcome to my kind of crazy!

Pics, Hospitals, Earrings, and Missing my Hubby, oh my.......

Things have sure been busy around here. Two weekends ago the kids and I went over to the park across the street and had their pics done by a photographer that was doing a special for homeschoolers. I think the pics turned out pretty good, I will have to share some as soon as I put them on this computer. I just got my laptop back on Monday after HP had it for a week. Turns out my hard drive crashed and they had to put a new one in. I'm a little hesitant to put too much important stuff on this one now. Luckily, since I had just gotten it after Christmas, I hadn't had a lot of time to put too much important stuff on it anyway, so I didn't lose a whole lot of info. I do back up my stuff fairly regularly, but probably not regularly enough. My Toshiba has been a trooper though for the last 5 years and thank goodness I had it when this one took a crap otherwise I would have been SOL for the almost two weeks it took to send it in and get it back.

My oldest had her ears pierced almost 8 weeks ago now. I helped her make sure they got cleaned and turned as recommended the whole time. The bothered her a little bit, but she's been real good about it. I took them out two weeks ago and one bled quite a bit. I cleaned it real good and cleaned the earring and put it back in. We went back to the cleaning and turning schedule. The ear is still sore. It's not red, and it doesn't look infected. Took the earring out again tonight and it bled just a tiny bit. I think it's almost healed, but I'm just not sure why it's still sore or why it's taking so long to heal. We are going to try putting the regular earrings in tomorrow. Her grandma bought her two pairs that are 10k gold, so hopefully it will help. We'll continue cleaning them each time she puts some in or takes them out. I'm going to give it two more weeks and if they aren't completely healed by then I guess we will have to see the Dr or she will have to take them out for good and let them close. Although, I think mine are still there even though I never wear earrings anymore.

Last week I started feeling really bad, to include some shortness of breath and chest pain. So, my brother went with me and I went to the ER. I think it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. I really dislike hospitals, Dr's and the like. I just have terrible feelings for all of the above. It ranks up there with the horrors of my c-section as the toughest things I've been through. Anyway, I ended up being admitted for observation, and was poked, and prodded, and squeezed, and kept awake, among many other things. In the end, the tests all came out okay and they let me go home the next afternoon. I have a follow up test scheduled for the first week in April and probably a couple other appointments after that. It was a big wake up call to me. It really sucked being away from my kids all night and part of the day and they really didn't understand what was going on. They did very well with my parents and I'm so grateful that my parents could be there, but not being able to take care of things myself....let's just say I despise feeling so helpless. I don't know exactly how to fix my situation, but I'm going to do everything I can so that I don't have to be away from them again because of my health.

Of course during this whole episode, my family was wonderful, and I couldn't have gotten through it without them, but I miss my husband something fierce. I really need him and his reassurance and his support, and all I could have was a few text messages and short conversations by phone. Honestly, I know it's better than nothing at all, and if he had been here, he probably would have been with the kids anyway, or he would have been tougher on me than I was onmyself and wouldn't have babied me at all, but I still wanted him. Two more months.....



Just breathe

Some days I don't know how I do it. By the end of the day, my head is pounding, it hurts think. Then my head hits the pillow and my brain comes alive and I can't sleep usually for another hour, sometimes two. I don't have a TV in the bedroom anymore, when we moved, I opted not to have one, and even when the hubby retires and moves back in full time, if I have any influence, we will still not have a TV in the bedroom, it's just not necessary. But, anyway, so after I lay there a while, I usually get on my iphone. I don't know that I'll ever ban phones from the bedroom, lol....

Besides school with the kids, I'm working on several projects right now. I am working on my first custom crochet project, a blanket for a pregnant friend. It's my first paying gig. I have money on the way for my next three projects which I will probably be starting by the end of next week. It's rather exciting. And of course, I have my own projects to work on in between paying projects. And then on top of that, I am working on getting everything together so I can start school either this summer or fall semester. I'm not sure which will work out money wise, so it's kind of up in the air right now. The nice thing, is that as long I get my request to transfer credits in, I already have one semester completely done, plus an extra half a credit. But, that leaves me with three semesters to complete for graduation with an AA. Not that I can do much with an AA, but it's a start. After that, I will have to figure out funding for the next two years, but I am hopeful that by the time that time rolls around, I will have it figured out. 

So, yea, busy busy busy around here....

Some days I have to just think about breathing.

Opportunity Knocks......

It's been a very interesting week. I have a new opportunity knocking on my door. As some of you know I've starting taking custom orders for my crochet projects, and I have my first couple of orders. It's absolutely amazing. Once I get some clipart for my website and get my things in the store, I'm hoping I will have so many custom orders my head will spin. It's good to be successful at something. And while I have much to do with home schooling and teaching and caring for the kids and trying like hell to keep up on the house. So, among all that stuff, with the hubby being promoted to Warrant Officer, I now qualify for MyCAA. I never thought I would. I've requested transcripts again and submitted paperwork. I have a few more questions for the MyCAA people that aren't answered in their FAQ and as soon as I put those to rest, I just have to decide if I'm really going to use it. And if I'm going to do it, am I going to follow through? I'm really bad at follow through. If I start this program, I want to do it and get through it and finish it this time. The time for starting school and stopping and starting again, I'm just too old for that at this point.

On the other hand. I starting using a different book for Killian's reading. I'm using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Killian is doing really well with it. I would very much like to find a good program to use for speech therapy since Tricare does not cover it. So far one that intrests me the most is very expensive. I know it's just because he is not forming the letters or blends together properly, he can hear it but he can't seem to imitate it, or I can't help him imitate it properly. I kind of feel that is a reflection on my teaching abilities. He has grown out of a lot of his speech issues, but the ones that are lingering still make him difficult to understand at times. I don't know if he would be any better if he was in public school though. I mean, he is just in Kindergarten. I just don't know how much time it should take and everything, I don't want him to have an permanent speech problems.

Anyway.

Crocheting

I've been super busy lately. Okay, well that was kind of a joke, when am I not busy with something? That was also more of a rhetorical question....

I have been working on several crochet projects for my kiddos. A blanket for Meg and a blanket for Keeley. I have several other projects for the kids planned as well. I'm hoping at some point during the year I will have enough time to get some extras made so I can maybe take some custom orders.

We've been watching Secretariat lately. I love horse movies. And Secretariat is an awesome horse movie. He was an awesome horse and no horse has ever come close to him since. Just an awesome story all around. I think we will watch this over and over and over again. It's no surprise that Meg loves the movie as well, but the other kids actually enjoy it too.

Well, the husband get his appointment tomorrow. I wish the kids and I could be there for it. It seems like we can never be where he's at for anything of importance. It's kind of a downer.

On my own again....

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm on my own again. The husband is at WOBC. Graduation is supposed to be in May. We wanted to fly the kids and I to Quantico for his graduation so that I could finally be part of some kind of graduation/promotion, and then we could spend a few days doing the tourist thing because I have always wanted to see Washington DC and all the historical stuff. I have loved history for as long as I can remember, but particularly US history. Unfortunately, I have resigned myself to the fact that this trip is not going to happen. Becoming a Warrant Officer costs a lot more money than one might think. We won't really see much of the raise in pay until next year probably. Between uniforms and dinners and all the other crap they make them pay for, it's almost like we are paying them to to give him a promotion instead of them paying him for taking on the responsibility. That's our government for you.

So, as disappointed as I am that I'm not going to get to go, it's just like pretty much everything else we try to do. Things just never seem to work out exactly as we wanted them to. It's kind of tiring.

Happy New Year!

I realize that we are already half a month into the New Year, but it's taken me a while to get into this. My mojo is seriously lacking. Could be because I miss my husband. Could be many things, I suppose. I can't exactly put a finger on it. There is so much to be done around here as far as the house goes. So much I'd like to do decorating wise. And just honestly, so much more upkeep than I can really keep up with all by myself. And I've been letting it go. For more than a week now. I started getting it together the other day. But, yea, that didn't last long. At least school is going better than the housekeeping. We have been doing good since the holiday's have been over. We are on a good roll. I would, however, like to find a different program for Killian to learn reading. I don't actually think we are making the progress we should be. That and I feel like he should be getting some kind of speech therapy. I've tried to find something online I could use, and yes, there are all sorts of things I could buy, but they want a lot of money for most of them, and I don't want to buy stuff that doesn't work. Of course, the husband and other's seems to think he will outgrow most of it, and while he has gotten much better, I'm worried that he won't speak correctly. Insurance will not cover speech therapy, so I'm not even sure what I should try next. I'm not putting him in public school just so he can have an hour of speech therapy every week, that's ridiculous in my opinion.

There is probably a lot more I should talk about, but this is going to be it for tonight. Maybe I will start doing this regularly again at some point, I don't know, the last year or so blogging just hasn't really been my thing. I don't know why. I have a lot that I want to say and put out there, but I constantly feel like I have to censor myself for certain people. The more opinionated I get, the more I have to censor. I could choose not to censor at all of course, but I have a feeling I would make many many more enemies than I currently have. I just don't need that kind of drama.

Anyway, until next time.