One of those mornings...

So a zillion and one things have occurred and always occur in my silly little life that creates comical relief to most of my friends and family and as I wrote before, the whole purpose of starting this whole blog was to keep my loved ones up to date of these silly little moments. As I've also written, I am stinkin at writing them all down. So to try and make one more effort I am writing my most recent situation that occurred this morning. Billy worked pretty late last night so it was my turn to take Alex to school. I found out yesterday when I was at her school as "mystery reader" that she has been tardy 5 times in the past 20 days. Billy will be getting a time out on that one soon. Alex has unfortunately inherited his pokey the puppy mentality when it comes to mornings and it takes both of them quite an extra bit of time to get ready. On the days that he takes her to school, there is a high percentage that she may not make it there on time. It's something we are working on. So today we jump in the car at 7:20 (she needs to be there by 7:50 and it's bascially 2 blocks away) so we had plenty of time. I'm not exactly pokey like Alex and Bill in the morning, but I certainly make up for it in being dopey, especially before coffee. My sister likes to call it "er"; as in clumsiER, or dopiER or dumbER, etc.
Whiile leaving this morning, our driveway has a bit of an interesting slight curve to it (just ask Paul - he drove over the gutter this weekend while driving out of it) so in order to avoid Hannah's car, I drove directly into the bush onto the other side, deep enough to have to back out and try again. This brought serious comical relief to our lovely daughter in the back seat.
Once we got to the part of dropping her off in front, we realized that she had left her packback and had to leave and come back home to get it. We drove BACK home, grabbed the packback and made our second attempt to drop her off. After she got out of the car, her dopiER Mama drove straight over the orange caution cone. I tried to giggle it off and apologized to the teacher who saw me do it, but to my fabulous luck, I somehow managed to truly get the stupid thing stuck. I had to drive to the side and two teachers tried to get the cone out of the front right tire area with no success. I wound up having to get out of the car to try and help. This brings me to another point of the story where if parents drop off their kids, they are more than likely not appropriately dressed to be seen other than sitting in the drivers seat. Today, I was no exception. I had on my huge clown size down slippers and my pajama pants (which most people know can be quite comfortable and quite unfashionable). Since Billy was still sleeping, I didn't take the time dressing appropriately waste up so I had a "not acceptable for leaving the house much less bedroom" shirt on and didn't waste my time looking for a bra to boot. When leaving the house I just grabbed my huge winter coat to hide my fabulouse NY runway outfit and figured to be home no less than 5 minutes later.
SOOO out of the car I had to go and then of course I had to go UNDER the car to try and get this stupid $%%*##(@ plastic cone unstuck from the front part of my car. My least favorite teacher/asst principal was now outside trying to give me directions on what I needed to do to get the cone lodged out. I'm not going to go too much into it, that's for another blog, but let's just go ahead and write that she's not my favorite person. I almost had the cone loose but she insisted that I return to my car as there was a line of children coming up behind me and one of the little kids yelled "hey, you can see that lady's butt crack!" It appears that I need to purchase a longer winter coat. So after arguing with her about the fact that I almost had it, she made me get back into my car. After that she went inside bringing out about 7 teachers - way too many to get one single cone out, but plenty enough teachers to cause a huge sceen. I unfortunately saw another mom I know from Alex's grade and while she drove by my fiasco, I do believe she was crying from laughing so hard. Eventually the cone was pulled out. After all of that my "best friend" the asst principal told me that it was okay, don't worry about the cone, she wasn't going to charge me. I flatly explained to her that I wasn't planning on paying for it and started my car back up to drive away. I thanked the entire East Valley staff who was pretty much out there watching the whole dreaded scene at this time and am truly looking forward to being there on Thursday to see all of these wonderfu people again for her Christmas party. I hope you all are having a happy morning!
Love,
Dee

North Georgia Fall Fair

Have you ever had one of those moments...the moment that stops time for just a second? Slams you in to whatever memory you are creating either rushing you backward in time at warp speed halting on a memory that shares the same smells the same sounds, same emotions? Or perhaps shoves you forward into an uknown abysss that you make less uncertain by creating little skits of how things could be in the future? It's rare actually - to be engulfed into one of these moments - engulfed because so many of your senses recollect that time of the past (or future). For me, that day occured on Sunday. We went to the North Georgia Fair. This is the 60th year it has been open and although it has kept up with the times. the underlying current is still the same. The same fair from 1992 or 1986 or 1975 or 1967. It's all the same fair, just keeping up with the times, changing the faces, a bit of the music and some of the styles....that's about it. There are a few locations in my life where time stands still. The Fair is one of those places. It's so exciting to so because you know what to expect - a deep soul knowledge that takes you back into levels of excitement you felt when you were a kid! You walk around and the swirls of smells all together - cotton candy, roasted nuts, crappy hot dogs and popcorn......with a slight touch of stinky animals from the south end of the fair where the petting zoo part is...it just brings such a happy feeling. It was so amazing to be there again...to experience it all again, and this time, to let my babies experience it all for all the cheesy goodness that is is, eternally.

Fuzzy but elated....

So I FINALLY had my back operation yesterday! They could only do one side (stupid insurance), but I am ON MY WAY! They burned out the nerve cluster on the bottom of my previous operation site and did a nerve root block on the left side of the hardware site and did a main nerve root block in my left fasset joint. They are doing the right side sometime this week. I am so happy. It has been a LONG 2 years and I can't wait for all of this drama to be over with.

So the love of my life dropped me off around 10:00 AM yesterday and my wonderful, fabulous Mango (Courtney) picked me up. My Dad dropped off my Mom to watch the stinkers and Kristina drove Matty home from school. My Mom walked over and picked up Alex from school and my Dad picked up my mom once Billy got home (a little early) from work to take care of the kids. A LOT of planning to get this done!

Hannah got home around 7:00 PM last night - we celebrated with the cake I made which was slightly too sweet and a bit dry, but pretty good. It was the first time I made this recipe so I'll make my usual changes to make it yummier!

So that's the long boring story of it all. I am doing well and need to be horizontal through the weekend. I feel great for the most part, albeit a bit on the fuzzy side from my medications. As you know, it's hard for me to sit in one place but I will do my best to chill until at least Monday morning.

Till later.....

Another day in the life of....

So today was a fairly normal day. To update all of you, I am having my back surgery tomorrow. I can't even begin to describe to you how happy I am. This has been going on wayyyy too long. It's scheduled for 10:30 am, which will be a long morning since I can't eat or drink anything after mid-night tonight. They are removing 8 fatty tissue nodules and removing a nerve cluster that has grown on the left side of the surgical site. I am also having problems with my fasset joints so they are doing a nerve root block on those as well. Your basic over all spinal tune up! I won't know until tomorrow if the insurance has approved all of it, or one side of it. Apparently the insurance companies usually only approve one side at a time, which I think is pretty ridiculous since it probably costs more to do two surgerys. If only one side is approved, then I go under the knife again soon - sometime in the next few weeks. Hopefully Aetna will be kind and has approved both sides.

Some time this afternoon a painting man came by looking for work. He was a kind older man and the kids took quite a liking to him. Matty cracked me up afterwards. Most kids that like a person in a specific profession want to work in that profession when they "grow up". Well I guess Matty is JUST like his Father (no surprise there)!!! Instead of telling us later "When I grow up, I want to be a painter!", He told us all "When I grow up, I want to hire a painter!". He is so silly. He is also quite loving. He picks me a flower (or weed or piece of grass or something) almost every single day. It's just his special way of telling me he loves me. Today when we were getting out of the car after I picked him up from school, he opened my door for me. He really is a sweet little man!

Josh has decided that it is now okay for us to call him Josh again. His Batman pajamas are clean again so let's see what he decides later tonight if he wears them!

I took a picture of Alex today because she is growing up so fast....she is such a big girl. Most of us have all felt as if she was an old soul, and that still holds true today, but it's hard to believe sometimes that she is 6. She looked so cute today in her little outfit, don'tcha think?

Hannah is coming home tomorrow - I can't wait! I'm so excited. I'm going to make her a cake tonight.

Okay I just got back from the grocery store WITHOUT the kids! It was pleasant until I realized that I had the wrong bank card and had no way of paying for it. And of course there were only 2 lines open so there were 5 people behind me. And of course I had to call Billy and have him go up there to pay with the right card. Nothing like a little embarrassment to end the evening. Well at least my grocery shopping is finished.....

Out of the mouths of Lil' Saids

So Matty informed us tonight that he wants a blue "Bohuck" (Mohawk) with the sides shaved off completely.
Alex also told us tonight that Matty wanted to play a scabenger hunt at the park today.
Josh let me know this morning that his name is no longer Josh and he will now only answer to Batman.

I'm Gassy....

So this was the line for gas on Saturday in Atlanta. I had to drive 30 minutes to find a gas station that still had gas and once I was there, it took me 1 hour and 17 minutes to fill up my tank. My life being my life, I was in the only line out of a bazillion at the gas station that had any grumpy people in it. There was a lady behind me for a while that asked me if I was going to fill up my entire tank. When I told her I was, she flipped out yelling at me that I had a mini van! What did she expect me to do? Drive all that way, wait in line and then only fill it up half way? Crazy lady. She wound up leaving my line and trying to break into the line next to me. That went over like a lead balloon. It was pretty amusing. The Guy a few cars back from me started getting pissed off and started honking his horn at me. The pump was going ridiculously slow. The funny thing was EVERYONE'S pump was going ridiculously slow and so everyone else who was around me pumping gas was cracking up that there were actually people pissed off and yelling at me!!! I spent $73.62 on gas.....joyous economy.

Fricken Possum....

So we are on Saturday, September 6th. Sue and Bill took the kids (which I am VERY thankful for) and Billy went to the lake for some guy town time to do the fantasy football draft, some possible poker playing, some definite beer drinking and I'll just go ahead and guess a ton of stinky fartin. That left yours truly with my loving side kick Scout and the tv remote all to myself! Although Scout is a wonderful and talented dog, he is still unable to pee in the toilet so I had to let him out in the back yard to do his business. He decided to veg on the deck for awhile before he came back in to watch the movie "Juno" with his favorite person. Somewhere in the middle of the movie Scout went BERSERK and started barking up a storm. He isn't very much of a barky dog and other than the occasional "hey, I'm a dog and you are near my yard" yap or two, he is pretty much finished with it. I knew something was up when he sounded crazy and I thought he had either found one of the bunnies in the bush or the black cat that lives somewhere near us was in the back yard. I was wrong on both. I ran outside to find him trying his hardest to climb the 6 foot wooden fence we have in the back to get to the HUGE possum that was sitting on top of it. I am not a possum connoisseur, but I must say that this was the BIGGEST possum I had ever seen by far! I still think that maybe it was pregnant or something. I had to get pretty close to the thing to get Scout inside and it hissed at me when I got close which made Scout go even more nuts. I totally freaked out and had absolutely no composure and was possibly the biggest wuss on the planet but did manage to get my dog and bring him back inside. Once inside I realized that Scout's paw was bleeding all over the kitchen floor. That was basically when I went totally unglued and called Billy yelling at him about 5 foot possums and broken dogs. A bit later, I calmed down and Scout's paw was wrapped in a towel. Since it was Saturday night, we had to wait to take Scout to the vet on Monday. It turns out that while he was jumping on the fence his nail split in two and cut down into his paw. They took out the nail and closed up the cut and gave him some medicine and he is just fine now. I am now officially creeped out by possums.