Hawt or Hot....which is applicable here?

I know, I said I would write at least once a week, but ya know. This heat is just taking it out of me. Our office has been so hot, that by the time I get home I am just drained. Is it hot where you are? Let me just say this, not only is it hot, it is FRIGGIN hot!!! I just feel blah...oh, and when I get home, I have to run a kid somewhere 90% of the time. Argh! Well...she is with a friend at their lake house this weekend (no, not like the Sandra Bullock one) so I have a few minutes to gather my thoughts and type up a storm.

Work has been going good but there are changes coming in the office that many are not happy about. I will be pretty happy because nothing is really changing for me, but others are not. I hate being in that situation where you know things are going to be bad for others but not yourself. It feels sort of uncomfortable right now and it will be for the next month and a half at least. I am just going to try to go to work, do my job, and stay out of everything else. In this situation it will be better for me to do so. I try to act like nothing has changed and nothing will change. Nuff said about that. My younger son has a new job and he is working like a dang dog. When school starts back I hope they cut his hours some because he has been working like 50 hours a week, and although he loves the money, he is really tired. That's not going to work when he heads back to school. He does attend college here locally, so I am sure that since he is such a hard worker they will want to keep him on. Daughter is gearing up for the start up of school, and since she made the volleyball team this year at her middle school, it should be pretty exciting for her. She is also in band and play trumpet. My pocket book is really hurting since we have turned in her elcheapo student trumpet and bought her her very own professional trumpet which set me back $1700 bucks. She had her choice between a $900 and $1000 trumpet, but damnit, that stuped $1700 trumpet sounded so much better. It's a Stomvi Elite and everyone agrees it was well worth the money. If any of you out there play trumpet, let me know what you think. It does sound VERY good, but ouch. That really hurt.

Also, daughter has been going through a little hard time with one of her friends. I may have mentioned this before as she has been going through this off an on with the same friend since around Christmas. I don't feel like going through my history on this thing to see if I am rehashing, but who knows. Here goes. See...this girl and my daughter have been very good friends for a couple of years. They have mutual friends too and they usually all hang out together (they are all 13). Anyways, this one girl has changed in the last few months and has basically turned on my daughter. She has ignored her, talked about her behind her back, etc. I think the icing on the cake came the other day when she invited a bunch of kids to a movie and then got online and instant messaged my daughter to tell her about it and then proceeded to tell my daughter that she TOTALLY forgot to invite her. Then went on and told her that she just "totally didn't even think about her." This really did hurt my daughter's feelings because she had really been trying to heal whatever it was that was causing the weird feelings, but after that, I think she gave up. What is wrong with this girl? I think she may be jealous, but I don't know. They all hang out in a pretty popular crowd, so I think she may be trying to push her out. I dunno, but it sure hurts to sit back and watch someone hurt your child like that. She is handling it well and just does stuff with other kids she knows. This seems to make things worse between my daughter and this girl, because I think she wants my daughter to be miserable. Which may be impossible because my daughter is the pretty girl with the big smile who likes everyone and has tons of friends. I think it may take more than that to make her miserable.

Oh well. Sorry if that is a rehashed story, but it has been bothering me lately. Daughter will take the higher ground and be nice, but I don't think she will go out of her way to invite this girl to anything special anymore. What do you think? What's up with this little...ummm...girl?

Wowweeee!

Man, has it ever been a long time since I have written in this thing. There is so much to tell and I don't even know where to start. I guess I can start off by saying the job is going well and I have been working more hours. And, although it's suppose to be the lazy, hazy days of summer, our days have been anything but lazy. Our days have been BUSY. I know that is a lame excuse, and I am not sure if anyone even reads this stuff anymore, but I am going to try with all my might to hit this thing at least once a week.

Have a happy 4th!

Okgirl

This is Myspace!

Wow, it's been a little bit since I blogged. I have so much to blog too. Since we last spoke, I have been visited by some of my hubby's New York crew (relatives). Being raised in the South and being around New Yorkers is such a contrast! Where we Southern women are quiet (most of us) and polite, the New York women just go out and tell it like it is, only loudly. It was fun and interesting and they brought the kids lots of gifts so I guess it would be rude for me to say anything bad. Ha! I will keep that to myself.

Work is going great and it looks like I might increase my hours a little bit, but still be part-time and still be able to spend time with my family too. I love what I am doing and I appreciate they let me work hours that are beneficial to both them and my family too.

On the kid front, my oldest son has been in Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore in the last couple of months and has ended up with a horrible case of food poisoning. He emailed me from his ship (he is in the Navy). I had heard stories about people buying food from street vendors and becoming violently ill but after shooting emails back and forth, it seems he got it on his ship. Wow....never expected that. I guess I felt a little let down that he did not get something in some exotic country because that sounds so much better in a story. At any rate, I hope he feels much better soon. The younger son (the one still mooching off of us at home), is in the throws of taking his college finals and where before he said he was going to take a class this summer, has decided he will take the summer off. All I know is he better get a damn job. He is about to eat us out of house and home, and now with gas as expensive as it is, he better find a way to help pay for that too. The kid is almost 20 and it's time to buckle down. The daughter is having so much fun I hate to even blog about it. I know that the teenage years is suppose to be a time of drama and stress, and she has had her share of that, but wow...this kid is loving life. I wish my teenage years were as much fun as hers. I guess I was a lot more shy and introverted than she, but this girl is the very opposite. She makes new friends so easily. The phone is always ringing, she is always texting, there are invitations to do things every weekend. Can't believe she does not just collapse from all she has to do.

Daughter has made a new interesting friend that is currently going to an exclusive private school and will be attending our public school next year. This girl is very sweet and nice but wants to go to public school because she is tired of going to a school where mommies and daddies award their daughters frequently from gifts from Tiffany's. Umm....I have never had anything from Tiffany's and I think that children should not get things from Tiffany's either...unless they got them off ebay and possibly they are not authentic. She has some funny stories of how these girls act and treat others that do no have the same things as them, not because their parents cannot afford them, but because strangely some parents choose not to spoil their children by giving them such frivilous things. My daughter buys her jewelry at Claire's and is damn proud of it thank you very much. Last weekend she asked me for a strand of long pearls that she could wrap around her neck several times, we headed over to Claire's, and I forked out $6.50 for those elegant pearls thank you very much. Oh, and I threw in a $4.00 pair of earrings too.

So take that you snobby girls!

Me

I snagged this from Whit:

Faithful Architect

Try it..it's awesome!

Hey Y'all

Well, for the 1 or 2 of you out there that still read this blog, ummm...if that many, I am finally going to update. I feel a little guilty because I know there are plenty of bloggers out there that are much more busy than I, but jeez, ya know, I guess I am just lazy. Lots have been going on and much will be going on soon. This weekend will be mine and hubby's 16 anniversary. How do we plan to celebrate...how else??? A visit from my mother in law!!!! Seems hubby's aunt he has not seen in years has made a pilgramage from Upstate New York to Florida to visit my mother in law, and they have decided to take a trip up here and visit us this weekend....JOY! Just how I wanted to spend my anniversary! YAY! Nothing like having a couple of George Costanza wannabees in your house when you have a supposedly important, supposedly romantic type of thing going on. Looks like there will be no romance for us for awhile. Oh, and speaking of which, even if romance was attempted I don't think it would be anyways because yesturday when hubby was suppose to be home painting the guest bathroom that is totally torn apart in anticipation of our visitors, he was fishing. How do you think I felt about that? Use your imagination. I am sure you ladies can imagine what was running through my head on that one.

On the kid homefront, my younger son (19 years old) will be attending his 3rd prom this weekend. Yes, I said his 3rd prom. Although he graduated last year, one of his friends that is a senior this year asked him to take her, so off he goes to another prom. I hope this is the last time we have to order tuxes until there is a wedding around the corner and hopefully that won't been too soon. As for daughter, she is the one that is keeping me the busiest. I can hardly get anything done because of her social/school/church activities. That girl keeps me running. She is still "going out" with the same boy she started going out with after Christmas. I have been hinting at her that it might be time to start playing the field because at the age of 13, I don't think they should be attached to one person for such a long time. This is the time she should be having fun and going to movies and stuff like that with groups of friends, etc. She is doing that, however, he goes along with them all and I don't know, I just wish she would not have a boyfriend and just concentrate on having fun. There is plenty of time for all of that. He is a good kid and treats her extremely well, so I guess I should be thankful he is not some jerk like the last one.

Unfortunately, it's time for me to go clean another bathroom. I am sure that when the New Yawkers leave I will have plenty to blog about. I love New Yorkers, but I don't want to share my anniversary with them.

See Y'all!

It's all down hill from here

It's Thursday! Whoot! My day off. I haven't written anything in a while due to busy schedules and just feeling tired. Recently I have just felt so blah. Even on days off I have things to do and it seems I never really get real time off. I swapped my Monday with one of the girls at work because she has something to do on Tuesday, so I was thinking I was going to get a long weekend, but I looked at my calendar and I have a training session on Monday afternoon, so no, no long weekend for me. *sigh* Looks like within the next couple of months I will be changing my work schedule to Monday-Thursday with Fridays off. I really should not complain because there are people that work 40-50 hours a week and they have no choice, but yuck. I can do this.
Everything is getting so expensive and having a child in college and a daughter with a Hollister addiction does not exactly help. Upping my hours will give me some extra cash to get some things paid off and I should be looking towards the future, like daughter starting college. That's how it is around here, one gets out, another goes in. I really do like my job though, I just hate getting up and getting out in that dang traffic (just like everyone else I am sure). And just judging by the amount of applicants we have been getting lately, I should feel fortunate that I have such an awesome job, working with awesome people, doing something I really enjoy.

Wow, I just gave myself a pep talk. Go me!

Spring Breakin

Okay...where have I been? Well, I have been on Spring Break of course! Instead of following all the others to the Gulf beaches, me and daughter decided to do something totally different. Hubby had some important stuff going on at work and could not take time off, so we decided to take a girl trip. We headed north to Lexington, Kentucky to see horses. This is something we have always wanted to do since I grew up with horses and daughter loves them too. Hubby is not so much a horse fan, so this was something we could do together that we had a genuine intrest in. We had Quarter Horses when I was growing up and yes, I admit, I was a country bumpkin - but who cares? I had a lot of fun although it was hard living in the city and wearing cowboy boots to school when everyone else dressed differently. In the words of Barbra Mandrell, "I was country, when country wasn't cool". Of course in the early 80's I fit right in because of Urban Cowboy, everyone wanted to be country. Darlin, I was already there. We lived in the city, but had land in the country and that's where we kept our cows, horses, ducks and pigs. Occsionally we had goats too, but they would end up eating their way into someone else's land or something and just disappear. It was hard because we had to go out there several times a week and check on the animals and other things, but we had neighbors out there that kept an eye on things too. When I was a teenager I actually showed horses in Western Pleasure and sometimes run barrels or pole bend too. I know, I am such a city slicker now it's hard to imagine, but put on some Hank Williams Jr., and the old me comes out. I go back to the horse show and rodeo days.

Anyways, daughter got her top braces on Monday and so we gave her a day to get settled into those before we headed out. We ended up leaving Tuesday morning around 10ish and drove straight up. We were going to stop at Kentucky Down Under, but it started snowing and it was absolutely freezing so we decided to save that for on the way back. We didn't have much for breakfast because we had decided we were going to stop at the very first White Castle we could find and pig out (we love White Castle but do not have one around here). We did stop at the very first one and yes, we did pig out. We got into Lexington around 4ish and stayed here:


That's the Campbell House Inn. It was very nice, but I will warn you, it's right accross from the hospital so occasionally during the night you will be awaken by ambulance sirens. The rooms were very nice and it was pretty much center to everything we wanted to do.

Wednesday morning we got up and headed to The Kentucky Horse Park. Okay, this we pure heaven for my daughter. We got to see some retired race horses as well as other horses that were on the premises. She was very excited to see Cigar! We also did the Saddlebred Horse Museum the same day. The people there were very nice and the horses were awesome.

Daughter making a new friend.


Thursday morning we got up and had breakfast and drove over to Keeneland Race Park. They were not having any live races that day, but simulcast ones, so it was not that busy. We walked around the area and took some great pictures. There were some people there that had been working their horses so they let us hang out with them and watch things that went on behind the scenes. That was a great experience for my daughter. She really loved it. She met up with some thoroughbred horses that were getting shod, so we watched and one of the owners gave my daughter some peppermints to feed them as they waited their turn.




Exciting note here: We went into the simulcast area and I decided I wanted to bet on a horse for the first time. I went to the information desk and asked how to do it. After it was explained to me, I let daughter pick the horse and it won! I won five whole bucks! Needless to say, I stopped while I was ahead and took my winnings and bought moon pies and cherry cokes with it.

After that, we decided to head out to Pleasant Hill, Shaker Village. This was really a beautiful place. I love shaker furniture and crafts and this was a place I had always wanted to go. Since Kentucky schools had already had their spring break, it was virtually deserted so daughter and I had run of the place. It was fantastic! Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!



Staircase in the hotel/dining house


We ate dinner at Shaker Village and it was fantastic. Too much food to eat, but definately worth it if you ever get the chance to head up that way.

Friday we headed back home, but stopped in Lousiville on the way back to visit Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum. It was much better than I thought. We got to go behind the scenes and see where much of the action starts and finishes. It is amazing when you see all the work that actually goes into all the racing. Here are some pictures:

The grandstands


Down the track


We never did get to stop at Kentucky Down Under because guess what? It was snowing on the way back too! Besides that, daughter wanted to get home and see her boyfriend and her friends. We had a great time and I am glad we decided to do something different. Hubby was completely jealous that we went without him.

Life or something like it

Here I sit. This morning finds me sipping coffee and looking at all the magazines and catalogs I have not had time to read. Oh well. It's nice really, sitting here doing nothing. The last few days have been stormy with threats of high winds, hail and tornados. Today is beautiful, sunny and a little cooler thanks to the cold front that whipped through here yesturday. That's a good thing because 80 degrees in March is totally too hot. Ya know, I have about a million things to do today, but I am just not motivated. Yesturday hubbby and I started working on our storage closet. Well, really just hubby started on it because the majority of stuff in it is his family stuff. He sat down last night and started going through some old paper work. We inherited some timeshares but have never used them because when his mother gave him the huge bag of literature, contracts, brochures, etc., we have never had time to sit down and figure it out. It doesn't help that his mother never throws out one shread of paper that is mailed to her house. Never. I think she took every piece of mail that even mentioned the timeshare and shoved them in paper bags. ARgh! The timeshares are all paid for and there is 3 of them. What really pisses me off is that one of them is in Destin and we just figured out last night that our week is next week (which is Spring Break) and I have already made plans to do something else. I guess I could change it, but I think we already had to tell them that we were actually going to use it that week or they rent it out or something. I don't know, it's too confusing and hubby is figuring it all out. It's sad that these timeshares have not been used in about 10 years. Hopefully we will get it figured out and use them. Believe me, we could all use a break around here.

This will be a busy week. Yesturday my daughter had band competition in which they received all superior ratings. Go them!! Today is a more calm day spent running various errands. Tomorrow daughter gets her teeth cleaned and then spacers to prepare her for braces. She will get her braces on next Monday. Her trumpet teacher is begging her to not get them. It will be interesting to see how tough she is playing trumpet with braces. Poor girl. Sadly, she will get them on the day before we leave for our Spring Break trip. Won't that be fun looking for places on the road that has soup or soft foods? Friday is the big luncheon thing I am planning at work. I decided on Bennigans for the food since it sounds Irish. Today I will be heading out to Party City to get festive plates and stuff to decorate our conference room. Thursday I plan to make a cheesecake with an oreo crust and dye it green. Creative huh?

I guess I better get off my creative butt and get out there and get stuff done.

Have a great day!