Faith, Hope & Trick - 10/03/2007

Last Friday evening, I set a completely-full load of dishes to wash in the dishwasher. About 5 minutes later, Jacob comes down and says "What's burning?"

The dishwasher wasn't washing. Water was barely trickling out of it and the washer thingy that spins wasn't spinning. Great. The smell was the burners inside that make the water super hot heating up. A dishwasher full of crusty, grimey dishes. FULL. It was late Friday night and I was NOT cleaning dishes at 10 p.m. on Friday night.

Saturday morning, after breakfast which David missed because he was still sleeping, I called Jacob over. I filled the sink with hot soapy water and proceeded to wash and wash and wash and wash, while Jake dried and put away. Our dish drainer was way too small to hold an entire dishwasher full o' grossness. *sigh* He's a good kid, that Jake. It took us a good half hour to 45 minutes to get them washed, dried and put away.

We've been washing dishes by hand since Saturday, which is not a bad thing. I'm used to it. Up until "Blue House" I always washed dishes by hand. Why bother putting dishes in a dishwasher for just me & Jake, right? David hates hand-washing dishes and so does a horrid job of it. Horrid!

Tonight, I'm washing yet another cup and I'm thinking, I hate Volusia County's Tax Assessor. Remember when you were a kid or a teen and you'd hear the "old folks" (i.e. your parents who were only like in their 30's and were totally NOT old) talk about property taxes and boy-howdy I am voting Joe Candidate because he said he'd lower taxes? Yea, me neither. I was too busy teasing my bangs to new heights and bumming rides to the BK Lounge to care. Now I know what they were all talking about. These stupid property taxes make your mortgage go up if you have an escrow account. These taxes that just made our mortgage go up another $300 a month, AND depleted our savings by another $800 with a one-time bill to get us caught up on the deficit in our mortgage.Yea, hate property taxes and Volusia county, methinks, as I wash another cup, because there is no way in HADES we can afford to fix the dishwasher, which by the way, is out of warranty as of June.

I sigh. I decide to give it (the dishwasher) another try because I am a glutton for punishment and enjoy mentally beating tax assessors with frying pans that I just happen to be washing. I flip the switch and wait for the nothingness that is a whining motor. WHOOOSH! Water is spraying, the spinning thingy is spinning. What? I open it up quickly. Water is everywhere inside. I give a cheer, close it back up to run the load empty to clean out the gunk that was there from last week, thank God aloud and make a mental note to make sure I vote for the other guy.

A Whole in the World - 09/11/2007

Although I have been in the doldrums and have not felt like blogging as of late, I do want to take a moment to remember today.

Objects in Space - 08/09/2007

I have a MySpace page; yes I do. It started as a means to look at 3 of my sister's pages. They'd say "look at the blady-blah I posted," and when I would go look, it would tell me I needed to be my sister's "friend" to see their page. But...I am their sister!!! I signed up. My page is completely Buffied, as I am a geek.

Jake also has a page, mainly full of anime stuff. I monitor his page all the time. He won't post anything I would find objectionable, because he knows me.

I am his parent. I am not here to be his best friend. I am a parent. My job is to love him, nurture him, feed his body, mind & soul, house him, lead him by example and hope he takes to my instruction and grows to be a good man who will be honest, a hard worker and will treat his future girlfriends and wife with dignity & respect. I am not here to be his best friend. I won't be like a male parent I know, who told me that he would rather his teen boys drink alcohol in his home where he can monitor them. What? Uh, NO! I am a PARENT. I am not Lindsey Lohan's mom. He respects me, he loves me, he thinks I am old and a dork. He's not wrong.

I was reading and looking at his friends' pages. He leaves his page logged on and up on the screen on our computer. He has nothing to hide and I am proud of him. Some of the things I see, though, lead me to believe that some parents have no idea what is going with their kids' MySpace pages. Junior High girls posting pictures of themselves in their underwear? I doubt their mom knows about that. 13 & 14 year old girls who set their smiley icon mood to "Horny." Bet mom doesn't know about that one either.

I spoke frankly to Jake about all of it. (He rolled his eyes.) "It's just MySpace, it doesn't mean anything." I told him I hoped he made choices that would not make him be a follower or a victim of peer pressure. Am I old fashioned? In this day & age, maybe so. Do I care that I am old-fashioned? Not one iota. As a parent, do you?

The Zeppo - 11/07/2006

*hangs head in shame*

I did not vote. ME. I. Did. Not. Vote. Gahhh! My civic duty! My privilege!

I meant to do so after work. David was off tonight, so I was going to head straight there after work. Last night, David made squat $$. A slow night, compounded by the need for dinner and a full tank left him with about $9 cash. Yuck. So when his boss called to see if he wanted to pick up a shift, David said yes. Alas, I had to come straight home to take care of the kids, in a torrential downpour, with tornado warnings in effect for my county. Nice.

I did not vote. I cannot complain about ANYONE in this election, because I did not take the time to go vote. If you did not vote, neither can you. *blows raspberry*

Lessons - 10/06/2006

If the current fiasco involving Republican Senator (senator, right?) Foley has not taught you anything, you need to go back to school. We live in a society now where anything we say, or more importantly anything we type, can come back and bite you in your nethers. If you think no one is reading, you are a fool. You think these e-mails and IM's go away once you hit delete? Please. That little bit of information is not only saved on the recipient's e-mail address, but your computer, and the server of the e-mail provider you are using. Let's also not forget that ever-popular "forward" button. Lord forbid you work for a company with an IT department. They ARE reading your e-mail and probably have some e-mail policy saying they can do so. Pay attention class: if it's something you do not want to get out, something private and personal...pick up a phone. Or better yet, talk to the person face to face. Information is everywhere. You can't stop the signal.

"Lessons," Buffy Season 7, Episode 1

The Puppet Show - 09/23/2006

Well, I'm mad. We have our annual insurance enrollment time at work. If you need to make any additions or changes to our health, dental or vision plans, now is the time to change. I'm having some toast and a cup o' joe while I am reading the forms. THEY have decided that they don't think we need vision coverage or orthodontia coverage (braces) for children in our company. As a mother of a toddler and also a 12 year old who a) wears glasses and b) needs braces, I am extremely mad. Braces alone run $3-4k and our current plan only covers $1500 of that. I still would have had to pay out-of-pocket expenses, but NOW we have to pay the whole thing. Apparently, those who decided this, must not have kids. My son is due for his eye appointment too. This really stinks. They act like they are doing us a favor by not having this. They might be for the non-kid-having sect, but not me! This will deter a lot of people from giving their kids the braces they need. Mom was poor and we did not have insurance growing up (thanks dad), so none of us got braces. Vicky ended up getting braces at like age 29 or 30. My lower teeth could use a straightening, but I don't care. Thanks, oh wise company, for making us parents have to go in hock to fix our kids teeth and be able to help them, you know, SEE in class. Boo! A pox on you!

Gone - 09/01/2006

Ernesto came and went...and I must have missed something. It rained for, oh, 10 minutes. Schools were out! The roads were empty! (I got to work WAY faster than usual. I hate that. It's 7:40. I am NOT here. Pretend you don't see me. Do not TALK to me until 8:00. I have been known to sit in my car, listening to the radio until 7:59:40 - I need the 20 seconds to lock up & walk up the stairs). Offices were closed, people "hunkered down" for those 10 mph gusts. Hey, let me shut up. I am thankful to God that nothing happened. We need a bit of nothing this year.

Me & Miss Clairol are pals, by the way. Everything turned out fine. I just WANT A HAIR CUT because it is too long and heavy and I am bored, bored, bored, and can I make this sentence any more "run-on-ie?"

Dad and step-mom are coming over tomorrow to finally see the house. So, it's major clean-up time tonight. I just CLEANED these toilets 3 days ago. I did! So why are all 3 so gross again? I get cranky when I clean - everyone here (except Miss Squeak) knows this & avoids me. They are wise.

Edit: *falling off chair laughing* So, I'm sitting here typing. My girl is in her room playing. I can see her from here. Her temporary room is right off the loft area. La la la. Noise, playing, noise, talking to herself. She's saying something, but I'm not really hearing. Finally I hear what she is saying when she YELLS AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS: BECK!!! Beck, btw, is how she pronounces bed. She wants to go to beck, and she wants to go to beck NOW, LADY. This is the weirdest kid ever, people. She loves her bed. Loves it. (She used to pull me off the couch at the old house, walk me to her room and point to her crib). BECK! I yell "Ooops! Sorry!" and run in the room. She's standing there, one hand on the crib rail, the other holding her blankie to her face. When she gets tired, she sniffs her blankie. I pick her up, smooch her & put her in. She does her happy, lying-down wiggle dance. She must wiggle - it's a requirement. Blankie to face. "Gooood (pause) Night (pause) Mamiii." I close the door and that's that. Not a peep. She is so cool.

The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco - 08/29/2006

Ernesto - the 5th named storm this season. (See how I rocked that Angel title there? Do I not rock? Is it less cool that I point out my coolness?)

And here we are. My son does not have school tomorrow - the county cancelled classes, as did most Central Florida counties. I was a little worried today. A little. Not ever having been in a 2-story house during a storm, or knowing what this area is like during one (we were told we're not in a flood zone), I was wondering what would happen. I went to Target during my lunch break to get some supplies, not hurricane supplies, just supplies. The store was not busy at all. I mean it was, but it always is. It just wasn't "Oh-my-gawd-get-that-last-bag-of-Cheetos-because-we'll-never-see-Cheetos-again!!!" busy. There were plenty of batteries left, plenty of water, plenty o' stuff.

Right now, Numero Cinco is a Tropical Storm (45 mph), dumping 4-6 inches of rain on south Florida. I'm thinking we're dodging the bullet on this one.

I did pick up some extra batteries and this danged box of hair color, what is supposed to be called "Dark Spice." We're going fisticuffs fo' sho'.

I Robot, You Jane - 08/24/2006

I was listening to the radio once to a man who infuriates me so much, but who I agree with about 50% of the time. He mentioned the "Dumbing Down of America" and I truly love that phrase. He didn't invent it, but I totally agree with it. Everything from our educational system, our news outlets, to our entertainment is geared towards dumbing us down. Education? Let's get them the bare minimum. They don't need Latin, they don't need Shakespeare. Let's make sure they can read to the 3rd grade level by the time they graduate high school.

News? Who needs news when we have Paris Hilton. Made famous by Page 6 of the NY Post by chronicling her life at an early age, just because she was rich. What does she actually do? It's a sad state of affairs when people can tell you who won American Idol, but can't tell you who our Vice President is. Reality TV kills me. I don't mean things like "Discovery Health" or those home improvement shows. I can do those. It's the rest. It was cute when "The Real World" first started, but with the inundation of reality TV shows, it just got...kitschy. I don't get it and I never will. I will never convince people who love reality TV that worthwhile television programs with witty dialog and thought-provoking issues are leaving television at a faster rate. They will never convince me otherwise, so we're even.

I love books and am currently reading 2. Read a book? *pppsffftttt* Why? It's a waste of my time?/It's boring/I'll watch the movie. I'll never convince those people about the power of a really good book and the need to see how it ends.

But I can try to instill all this in my kids. Maybe one day, they'll demand better for themselves & from the rest of the world.

*gets of soap box*