Finding Blessings In The Face of Adversity

Today I was going to sneak away from the kids for a couple hours and get some groceries, but my plan was thwarted! My youngest is a high functioning autistic with a large amount of ADHD thrown in for good measure and she decided that instead of going to Grandma's she should go shopping with me! Now if you read the post about us going to Topeka you know that was still running through my brain! Another likely possiblility was that we would get there, she would beg for a toy, we would go look for one and as soon as we'd find what she wanted she would demand that we leave! Aainst my better judgement I decided to take her with me, telling her in advance there would be no toys. I have to say ...... it was an awesome experience!! We got to the store and I decided to put her in charge of the shopping list and she was fantastic!! I couldn't have asked for a better behaved child today! She said hello to people ..... complete strangers ...... she even told one lady she liked her hair! She checked things off the list as we put them into the cart, she made small talk, she walked right past the toy department and didn't once try to talk me into stopping!! Today was a break-through!! I guarantee you that this probably won't happen the next time we go, but maybe it's just getting easier!! I had to share! Today her and I both found a blessing! She got to spend time one-on-one with her mother and I got to actually enjoy a trip through a store with a child that didn't freak out one time!!

I Don't Do Resolutions ...... I Do New Goals!!

My most hated question is ...... what is your New Year's Resolution? You'd think people would learn! I don't do resolutions! I do new goals!! Ever since I changed to goals I realize that I actually stick with it! Resolutions are too easily forgotten or broken! Last year I made goals about getting things done around my house! Each time I finished one, I added one to the bottom of the list! Some times I couldn't do them in order because of the weather or money, but I always tried to go back to the first one on my list when I got one accomplished!

This made me learn so much about myself! The main thing I learned was this ..... I LOVE seeing things get checked off the "to-do" list!! It makes me feel so much better about myself! So, if you find yourself never following through with your resolutions ..... try another tactic! I did ...... and I actually get things done now!!

I Need To Get With It!!

What a day it's been! The girls and I picked up my mom this morning and went to do a little "after Christmas" shopping! We were actually pretty excited about it ...... in the beginning!

Disaster hit in the first store we went to! Yesterday my youngest was all excited about going to GameStop to look for new video games ...... today, not so much! She literally fell apart and after about 15 minutes flipped off my mom and yelled "fuck you"! Such was the start of our shopping trip! The girls did load up at ToysRUs though! I got some fantastic new shoes and Christmas decorations for next year at really good prices too, so I can't complain much! I'm now perfectly content to sit here on my ass and watch the Pirates of the Carribean trilogy and completely zone the hell out!!

Now I just have to find somewhere to wear those shoes!!! =)

CHRISTMAS!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I know I didn't post anything yesterday but figured anyone reading this would understand!! It's the holidays and I have kids ...... which means I have a ton of new crap around here!

I actually love Christmas and all that comes with it! Celebrating the birth of Jesus, buying gifts, wrapping, seeing the smiles ...... ALL OF IT! I don't even mind cleaning up the mess!! I hope that you all have as wonderful a day as I'm having right now ..... curled up on the couch with my new Kindle in one hand downloading all that I want to read! So I'll keep it short and sweet!! Merry Christmas to each and every one of you! I hope your day is blessed with family and joy!!

Do Some People Just Go Looking For Drama?? Do I??

I think we all have one of those friends that seems to be "in crisis" every time we turn around! Lately I've been fairly good at avoiding those people! Once in awhile on facebook I have to control myself from commenting on someone else's drama status!! You know the one I'm talking about right? The one that usually starts with ...... you know who you are!! Really? Why yes! I know who I am and I'm not the one you're talking to ...... neither are the other 99% of the people reading this! Then comes the contemplation ...... delete or keep? I tend to just hide the drama queens. This allows both of us to go on in oblivion!! They can still think I care and I don't have to read their "pay attention to me" crap! I especially love the women ..... I'm using this term loosely because half of them are still acting like children ..... who are desperately in love with each and EVERY guy they've gone out with since their divorce! And for some of them that's a LOT of guys! Or how about the desperate guy friend that likes every single status you put up or comments on each and every picture? I just wonder if people really know how they look to others ...... then I stop and think ...... do I do that too? Lord help me if I do! If I'm one of those people just shoot me ...... better yet, just break my clicking finger to prevent me from doing stupid things!!

Enough of my nightly rant!! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve tomorrow! For those of you travelling ...... be careful! But I truly hope that each and everyone of you enjoys your time with loved ones during this blessed holiday season!!

Another Day ..... Another Zany Trip

What a day!! Today I had to go to Kansas City to pick up the newest addition to our family from the vet! Penelope doesn't seem to squall for anyone ..... but me! My dad said she was quiet all the way there on Monday, but she was anything but quiet all the way home! I haven't fiured out if this means that I'm her favorite or her least favorite! Of course as soon as I typed that she crawled down from the top of the couch to lay on my chest, so maybe I'm back in her good graces!

I feel like I've accomplished absolutely nothing today (except making a batch of laundry soap), but I know I've got to get on the ball! My folks are coming over Christmas Eve for presents and the house needs to be better than this if I want to take any pictures!!

I'd really rather be down in the basement taking measurements and starting to clean it out! Of course the bad part is that I'll have to set up a designated trash area until I can borrow a truck to take everything to the dump! The good news is that I recently fell into a good deal and got 6 shelving units for $48! Should be a good start to the organizing I want to get done!

I'd really rather be thinking about going to bed instead of knowing I need to get up and clean off the dining room table! I hope you all have a relaxing Thursday evening and sit just a little longer for me!!

Making Little Changes

So, today I sat down to make my list of resolutions! I guess I shouldn't call it a resolution list ..... I should probably call it a "to do" list! I finally want to get my unfinished basement cleaned out so that maybe I can have a small work area and my laundry room won't feel quite so crowded! I'm sure that doing this will give me plenty more opportunities to wonder where all this crap came from! Some of it I haven't seen since it was boxed up 7 years ago when we had the house fire!

I've vowed to make things more organized for the next year to free up time to do more fun things ..... like read or cross stitch, maybe make more jewelry or take up some other hobby I probably won't stick with for too terribly long!! Maybe I'll do a little couponing and save some cash, work on ways to cut costs to pay some things off and work harder to get out of debt! There's so much to do with all that free time ..... if only I can get there! Now just to put my plan into action and start checking things off that list one at a time and wonder in amazement at all the crazy stuff stored in the basement! Maybe it will encourage me to stop holding onto crap we don't really need or ever use! Maybe I could hold a ginormous sale and use that money to put the plan into place!!

So, what are your "resolutions"? Do you want to change the way you live? Do you want to declutter your life? Do you want to get out of debt? Whatever your resolution is I want to wish you the best of luck and hope that you begin to see a difference in your life and stick with it!!

Shoulda Known Better!!

I'm not sure what possessed me to think that since I'd been slacking on my job as a maid around here that I should spend the week before Christmas cleaning my house from top to bottom, room by room!! I'm starting to think that I need about 2 dozen plastic storage bins ...... and that's just for the upstairs! I've decided to make my January project cleaning out the basement so I'll probably need another few dozen there! My goal is to finally get rid of things that we haven't used in forever and organize the rest of it so I know where the rest of the crap we don't use is! Which means that I'm sure I'll have plenty of times where I'll look at something and wonder just where the hell it came from!

If any of you have read my other posts here then you'll know that I spent Sunday cleaning the play room and I'm happy to report that ...... yes, I like the way it looks in there now! Which is great because last night it's where the kids sent me to watch TV! Now that my kitchen looks like I could actually cook a meal in there and my entrance is looking welcoming again, I'm going to have to kick it up a notch and clean 2 rooms and the hallway tomorrow! If I manage to survive this week long cleaning caper then I think I might have to celebrate by spending a few days doing nothing but reading and vegging out in front of the TV!

So next year when the holidays start rapidly approaching please remind me that I need to clean earlier ..... actually, I need to do everything earlier!! =)

Now Where The Hell Did I ...... Never Mind, Found It!

I know we're all feeling a little stressed with Christmas less than a week away. Maybe that's why I can't sleep, double check everything, and basically feel like I'm made of Silly Putty! I usually never feel this way around the holidays! Usually I'm done with everything by now ...... the shopping, the wrapping, the baking, the cleaning, the bitching ...... and have moved on to the fun stuff ...... enjoying the look of my tree, spending extra time ignoring, I mean loving the kids, and reading! However, this year I took up crafting and for the most part I think it was a good thing! I finally had something to fill my extra time and make a few extra bucks in the process, but I decided to do craft shows too! I loved doing them, but they took up 4 out of my last 5 Saturdays! Which really cut into my "getting shit done" time!! So here I sit with less than a week to go and I'm making my list of things that need to be done, but every time I think I've made a dent in the list I think of a dozen other things that need to be done too! I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get it all done? Well, of course I will because I'm SuperMom, fueled by caffeine and panic!

I will say that I always do feel blessed more at this time of the year than any other, but sometimes my mouth overrides my ass in things that I can accomplish in set amounts of time! So tonight while you enjoy your glass of wine or gathering of friends say a little prayer for the girl in Kansas that's scrubbing the fronts of her kitchen cabinets because it sounded like the thing to do at 10 o'clock at night! And while you're at it ..... drink a glass of wine for me too!!

Holy Cheeseballs, Where Did All This Shit Come From??

So, I decided to do something constructive on this fine, beautiful Sunday! Of course I had to have some fun first! So after we had company come by for 30 minutes I hopped in the car and headed to Janice's house to exchange some Christmas presents! Opening presents with Janice is always a delight because we love getting a deal and this year was no exception!! I loved the look on her face when she finally got to see the necklace I made her and to find out the jacket we "fought over" back in September was actually for her!!

After the fun, I headed home for the constructive part of the day ..... needless to say, I'm still in the process of finishing that, but I desperately needed a break!! Today (of all days) I decided to do the dreaded job of cleaning out my youngest daughters play room! Now this is no ordinary play room by any means. When I bought this house they told me it was the dining room. Really? A dining room? You have to be kidding me!! It's a 10 by 10 add-on and there's no way that you could ever have a substantial family gathering in there. So, abracadabra, it's now a play room! Cori is 13 ..... yes, I can hear you now ..... she's 13? She doesn't need a play room!! So, let me explain ..... Cori is 13 going on 8. She has severe ADHD (wonder where she got that), OCD (hmmmm), and is a high functioning autistic! That having been said, there's just some toys that we collect and never get rid of! Hence the title of "Cheeseballs, where did all this shit come from"!! I haven't really been in there for the last 6 months because she stopped going in there for awhile, but with Christmas a week away the inevitable will happen and she'll be back in there with her new Littlest Pet Shop crap littering up the floor and making my anal side go into overdrive! A little while back I hung a curtain over the doorway ..... since it doesn't have a door ..... so I didn't have to see all the stuff in there that wasn't being played with!

So here I am, a respectable 40 year old woman cleaning up the toys, trying not to remember when she spent hours in there lining each thing up and finding it it's own special place amongst the mess, and thinking where did this come from? I don't remember this much shit being in here the last time I did this! So after removing roughly 2-30 gallon trash bags of kiddie crap from in there we'll see if I can manage to turn this into a room I'll like again ..... at least until the next time I have to do this!!

Seriously, I Don't Know Where This Sh!t Comes From

So, it's the brand new start to a week ..... well, according to the calendar it is! I mean look at it! The week starts with Sunday, not ends with it! So here I sit at 12:29am (and counting) deciding that I was going to start doing what millions upon millions of people are doing now!! I'm going to blog ..... well, I'm going to try!

My first goal is to try to blog something ..... any thing ..... for 30 straight days! Now if I'm going to do this I feel that there are a few things that I should caution you about so hold on while we go through them! The first of those things being ...... I have a short attention span so this whole experience could leave you a little dizzy and queasy or it could have you leaving the page with a really good laugh. The truth is that that is how I feel about most of my days! They fall into one of those categories! The second thing I should admit to is the fact that I have, well, I'll just say it ..... I have a mouth that could make a trucker blush and I'm not shy to use it if I feel that the moment needs it ..... or even if it doesn't! Please also remember that if you're reading this that it's written by a real person, not some computer animated twit that doesn't have feelings. That being said I'll simply put it this way ..... if you chose to comment on anything feel free to do so, but if you must criticize please remember that constructive is always better and if I feel in any way that you are trying to put me down for anything I have to say then keep this one thought in the back of your head ..... I've made good people feel stupid for opening their mouth. I have a quick wit, sharp tongue, and a quick temper. If you feel the need to ridicule take it somewhere else because I will make you feel like you just lost a dance contest to the devil.

So, now on to what made me decide to do this! =) I suffer from untreated adult ADHD and trust me when I say ..... it's bad! I don't mean bad in the sense that I can't sit still. I mean I'm that way too, but I mean bad in the sense that I want to be perfect and have everything around me perfect and no matter how fast I go I never get there. I literally can't sit still for long and my brain never shuts off ..... ever! So, in one of my more lucid moments I decided that maybe there are some people out there that have some of the same thought as me and I'd really like to know where some of this shit comes from! I mean seriously! Does anyone else do crazy things that makes their friends look at them like they've grown a third eye above their nose? Sometimes I think it's amazing that I have any friends because I'm overly honest and usually pretty adamant that I'm right! Not to say that I've never been wrong, because believe me ..... I've been wrong a LOT!!

Maybe the truth is that I just want to give myself a creative outlet ..... because I certainly need another one like I need a third eye ..... to connect with people that like me always wonders where the hell all this shit came from!!

So, until tomorrow ..... yes, I'll be back Luke Skywalker ..... hang in there and take a little time to laugh ..... even if it is at me!!