So yeah

I know it's been forever and a day since I've posted to this blog. I'm sure most of the blame can be put on Ravelry. It's just so easy to post the little things over there and not mess with the blog. I've been thinking about starting back up over there though.

So, lots of things have been happening around here. Some more recent than others but life is a bit different.

Red never did get her supervisor position back from SG. There was lots of tension between those two for a long time. And then suddenly, SG decided to switch shifts. Not two weeks later, we get informed that the weekend shift is no more. The few remaining people on our shift all went to the day shift. So now I work four 10 hour shifts on Monday thru Thursday. I really don't enjoy getting up before 3:30 AM but I am home by 4 PM. And I still have a 3 day weekend, if I'm not working overtime that is. SG is working 2nd shift and has pretty much cut himself off from the people that had been on the weekend shift. Red and I are the only ones that are left after 3 months on days. And oh jeez has her attitude gone way down hill. She is convinced that everyone is out to get her. She is super jealous that I get along with the new supervisor and she doesn't. She is constantly shooting herself in the foot. After a few rough spots at the very beginning, I'm getting along fine with the people on days. I'm mostly used to the new schedule but there are days when I really miss having 4 days off.

Homewise, we are still living in the crappy little duplex. I still haven't gotten a new bed. But, I'm like inches away from paying off my car and my other outstanding bills. I swear on all that is holy, that I WILL get a new bed in the spring. I really have no choice because it's getting harder and harder to get a good night's sleep on the old one. lol Mostly my health has really improved. I get occasional sinus infections but my IBS has been behaving 90% of the time. And the hive attacks have gotten very infrequent. The only big problem I have right now is a torn tendon in my left foot. Even though it's the foot that I can barely feel, it sure as hell hurts most of the time. I've got a brace that I wear out of the house and I've been babying it at home as much as possible. I've got to do some major cleaning up in the next few days though, so it's going to be pretty sore. We are FINALLY getting cable internet next Friday!!!! I can NOT wait. I have no clue why the city council finally gave in and let the cable company move into town. It's been a long 13 year wait. lol Oh and as far as the major cleaning, that is only because I'm trying to stay off my foot as much as possible. I've actually been keeping the house mostly clean for quite a while now. I would say that 90% of the time I'm ok with letting someone in the house now. I just need to get caught back up on the dishes and clean up around my computer before they come install everything next week.

Nick is doing really well. There have been some med changes and bumps along the way. We have found a good med combination though and he has nearly straight As this semester. He is in therapy to try and help him deal with some of his roadblocks. I'm hoping that it will finally get him to a place where he can try and expand his diet. I swear I don't know how he grows at all on how little he eats. I'm only about an inch taller than he is now but he is still a skinny lil shit. He is still doing karate two nights a week. It can be a bit of a trial to get him out the door for class, but once he is there, he really has fun.He still doesn't have many friends but he doesn't seem to mind much. He would rather play with his video games and mess with Legos than go out and play.

So, yeah, things here are mostly good. The whole schedule change is really the only big change. I'm still mostly hiding out in the house being a hermit and the kid is still being a pita boy. lol

I'm going to try and post some of the more interesting things that have been going on around here. There have been some work stories and ghost stories lately. I just haven't quite made it here to post about them. Maybe I will soon.

The weirdness in my brain

I swear my brain comes up with the weirdest stories. I get bored easily, so I make up long involved stories in my head while I do the mundane things during the day. The latest story has taken a very weird turn.

It started out as your basic romance story. Young man (D) and woman (L) meet up and kind of circle each other but never quite get together. Finally he talks her into working with him on a project. So for like 3 years or so they work closely on this project which includes traveling a lot with a small group of people. One guy in the group harasses her to the point that she and D end up having to share a bed to keep the creeper away from her. They never once move into a romantic relationship at all. After a bit, they get back to their home base town and D tells L that he has lost his apartment and has nowhere to live. L only has a very tiny apartment but invites him to live with her and they share the bed for a whole year with nothing happening. Finally, L ends up buying a larger condo where D can have his own room. Only, neither one of them can sleep without the other one in bed with them. So they go back to sharing a bed. This whole time they are both in denial about their feelings for one another. They are both convinced that the other one could never love them.

At one point D decides to move on and date someone. He moves out and L goes a bit nuts. She ends up taking off for 2 months without telling D where she is going and no one else will tell him. She ends up in a mental hospital to figure out how to live without D being there. During this time D is obsessed with finding her even though he is now living with his girlfriend K. L comes back and tries to keep her emotions under control and stay away from D as much as possible. But he still is trying to find out where she went.

Some bad things happen between D and K. And rather than D being supportive of K, he obsesses over the fact that L is not supporting him. The consider each other best friends but L can't be around D and K without wigging out. So finally, K kicks out D and he goes to live with another member of the project group. L still can't see D without wigging out and it's making D nuts. Finally the guy that D is living with sits him down to explain what is going on. It takes him and his wife about 3 hours to convince D that the reason L is acting so weird is because she is in love with him but is convinced that D could never love her. D is totally floored. They also pretty much slap him upside the head and make him admit he is in love with L. D runs off to L and kisses her and they start a happy relationship with the help of lots of therapy cause they are both so damn dumb. lol

So, fast forward years later. D has gone out of town to close their vacation home up for the season because they aren't going to use it again for months because the oldest child is in school and just no time. A woman that D and L had met through the project 3 years earlier but hadn't seen again shows up at the vacation home. She starts talking to D as though they have been having a relationship. Talking about getting a lawyer so D can divorce L. He freaks out and calls the cops. He immediately calls L and tells her about what happened.

A few days later, D is back at home and is having breakfast with L and their kids. A knock comes to the door and L answers to find the woman there. She goes on and on about how she and D had been having an affair for the last 3 years and how he wants to leave her. She claims that D is tired of how L insinuated herself into his life and the project and he wants her gone. In fact, it was D that did everything he could to keep L in his life and talked her into joining the project. D gets pissed and throws the woman out. D and L totally freak and call the cops.

As the detectives are there and taking a statement, the woman shows up again. This time D answers the door and she keeps talking like the affair was real and now they can be together and all they need to do is get rid of L. The cops hear everything she has said and take her in for questioning. By the time they get her to the police station, she is claiming to be L and that she and D are married. And she has no clue who the woman at the house is. So, she ends up in a hospital claiming to be L and totally convinced she has lived L's life. Only, the name she uses and says is her birth name is just a nickname that L uses and L's name is something completely different. So basically, the woman is claiming to be someone that doesn't actually exist in the strictest sense. But suddenly, things shift and the woman in the hospital is actually L and the other woman is living in her house. No one seems to realize that they have switched places. Even the kids are calling the woman mommy while L is in the hospital proclaiming that she is really L and the woman is crazy. Even D says the woman is really his wife.

So, I went from this nice little love story that kind of turned into a bit of a fatal attraction thing. And Wham! It's now practically a horror story where this woman, after years of fighting to have a life with the man of her dreams has lost her very identity and is in a mental ward being told she isn't who she thinks she is and someone else is living her life.

It's all just so damn weird and feels like an episode of Twilight Zone. And I'm struggling to back up in the story to get rid of the life swap thing and just have the crazy stalker being locked up and D and L live happily ever after. But my brain keeps bringing me back to the weird. lol

My life is boring

Yup, nothing interesting going on here at all. I am seriously lacking in the excitement department. lol

Nick is doing well on his medication and has been released to his normal primary care doctor. He has had a bit of an attitude lately but frankly it's fairly normal for a nearly 12 year old to act this way in my opinion. Momma just has to knock him down a few pegs is all. He was all hopped up from karate class on Thursday and thought he was all bad ass and could try and intimidate me. He only tried to seriously hit me once but managed to hit my hand and not my stomach. It ended with him running away and locking himself in the bathroom for his shower. Ehhh that sounds worse than what it really was. It wasn't like anyone was angry. He was trying to act all big and powerful. He forgets that I am double his size even if I am only about 7 inches taller than he is. He is just used to bigger kids picking on him and wanted to be dominant for once and Momma put him in his place. He don't like getting flicked in the forehead. lmao

Work has actually been full of drama lately. The guy that has been acting supervisor since last August (man I can't believe it's been that long already) is really burning out. He stresses out over the least little things and has been short tempered. He is real good friends with one of the other guys that has been working with us for the last few months but things blew up on Saturday. The friend, we shall call him CJ, can be super mouthy with supervisor guy. I think he has real trouble taking orders from his friend. After last break, SG was telling CJ that he had to re-stack a pallet because the parts could not hang over the pallet and they had to be even. CJ kept poo-pooing SG and telling him it wasn't a problem. SG finally got sick of it and told CJ to go home. CJ just calmly walked off the job. It should be noted that on Friday CJ gave notice that ht wouldn't be able to work full time any more and would be going to flex after this last weekend. So, we have no clue if he was still considered full time when he walked off which would mean he would be fired or if he was flex which means he can come and go as he pleases.

SG should be calming down after this weekend though. Our "real" supervisor is finally coming back. She has been off since like the middle of August because her two youngest sons were involved in a house explosion. They were in the hospital in Iowa City until right before Christmas and then were in rehab down in Waterloo for a couple more months. They are both doing well now but are still facing a lot of surgery on their hands to try and getting them more flexible. In order for the burns to heal their hands were bandaged up for months. When the bandages finally came off their fingers were partially webbed together and atrophied badly. They have had surgery to separate their fingers but some of them were left smaller and some left quite large. They are still in for a long road of surgery and will never be quite the same again.

Now we are just waiting to see how well SG gives up control to Red (the real boss). SG can be very controlling but he does actually do a good job of getting management to do things that Red was never successful at. Plus a lot of things have changed since Red has been off. We have a new high tech saw that Red will have to be trained on. Plus we have a lot of new paperwork. None of it is real hard but it will be all new for her and she can get set in her ways of doing things.

Ehh like I said, nothing super exciting. My health is still pretty shit. I've been super tired lately. And now I have a bit of a sinus infection I think. It's not bad enough that I'm crampy as all hell, I have to be sick on top of it. sigh And I need to dye my hair tomorrow. I dyed it last week and let's just say, I look like a Weasley cousin right now. lol It's not bright red but more of a lightish orange. I was going for dark blond. I guess the dye was too old or something. I've got another box that I know isn't that old.

OK, enough blather, I have to go get the kid from school in a minute.

Am I Wearing Pants? An Important Style Flowchart (PICTURE)

Am I Wearing Pants? An Important Style Flowchart (PICTURE)

I thought this was pretty dang funny when PlainSimpleGarak shared it in The Pants of all places. If you don't know about Bubbo's Pants, you really must come and find us on Ravelry. It's a very tight knit, fast paced group of crazy people that live inside Bubbo's Pants. lol

I haven't forgotten about the blog (obviously), I just haven't had anything to post about. I really didn't do much in the way of knitting this week. I usually knit during Nick's karate class. (technically Tang So Do) On Tuesday, however, we missed karate so that we could attend orientation over at the middle school. Starting next year the middle school will be 5 th through 8 th grade. I'm not liking that. The 5 th and 6 th graders will be getting only a few minutes of recess each day. Basically whatever is left of the half hour they have to eat lunch will be their only recess. Nick is probably going to go bonkers with that. I know he would have never survived this school year without having regular recesses. And the way they are running P.E. classes is weird. It runs every single day for half an hour for one semester. The other semester they don't have it at all. Nick won't have it until second semester to give him a chance to settle in before taking a class that he has so much trouble with. He gets so upset when someone breaks the rules of the game they are playing.

Anyway, on Thursday Nick did make it to karate class. I even sat down to knit but as soon as I got started, I had to stop. I was working on a BSJ out of Red Heart Baby Econo. I just could not deal with the plastic feel of the yarn. Once I'm awake and functioning today, I'm taking it off the needles and throwing it and the rest of the RKBE in the trash. It's that damn gross. I've got other much nicer yarn I can do it in and this was not even for anyone specific because it was too big to give to my cousin Cora for her newborn. I need to stash dive and see what I have in worsted weight and in blue so that I can make one for a friend of my mom. So, instead of knitting, I ended up running home because I remembered that the big item pickup was this past weekend at my folk's house. I got rid of my old office chair and my old monitor.

Like I said, not much interesting happened this past week. And now it's time to go wake up the kid and get him ready for school.

Laters

Holy hell

I'm watching the CBS news and shaking and crying tears of relief. They finally got him. It's exciting but also frightening. I'm more than a little afraid of the reprisals.

I pray that all the innocents of the world will be protected in the days to come.

yawn

Holy crap it felt like this weekend lasted a month. It was nice not having the boss there to micromanage me but damn if the other guys don't need someone watching them. Even with all that went down we still got a bunch of stuff done. Hopefully it will be enough to keep the boss happy.

I didn't do any crafting this weekend. I've been too damn tired. I did find a couple sets of dpns and I'll check tomorrow to see if they are the same size as I'm doing the Tomten in. I sure hope so cause I don't want to go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels any time soon.

I've also discovered that I really shouldn't drink Mt. Dew after noon or so. I was as jittery as all hell this afternoon because I drank half a bottle at 4 o'clock break. And omg what a crash when I got home. I feel dead as all hell. I only drink that crap at work when I am really fighting to stay awake. I can't stand the taste of it but it's better than falling asleep on my feet.

Time to go play with the monkey.

I think I'm loosing my mind

The following was going to be posted directly to Ravelry but I figured it would be best to post it to my blog instead.

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*gah* I've got issues that I don't really talk about because they don't really show up very often. One of them is a sort of obsessive compulsive nature. I get obsessed with certain things very easily. It's one of the reasons that I never really tried drugs. Sometimes I get obsessed with an activity like reading or knitting and it's all I can think about. On a few occasions I've gotten obsessed with people. It's never really been anyone that was local or even aware of my obsession about them.

When I left my last boyfriend it got really bad. I'm talking about checking every single social media outlet that he used to see what he was up to. I NEEDED to know if he was still with the chick that he left me for. It didn't help that for months he kept calling me and feeding the obsession. It's been a while and I will still once in a while check to see what he is doing. I haven't had the urge to check up on him in a bit though so that isn't the problem.

I know I've mentioned my extremely vivid imagination and love of making up stories. I don't really write many of them down because my brain is too scattered to get a coherent story out of it. Anyway, I have an ongoing story working in my head lately. I can't sit at my computer without adding to the story and I'm finding myself obsessing over this story. I find myself looking for more information about the person the story is about and it's making me twitchy when I find out information that I didn't know. Stuff like the fact that he doesn't live where he used to. He made a major move sometime in the last few years and I find myself itching to find out more info on that. And no, I don't really know him. It's someone I ran into a very long time ago but never connected with. Part of me is obsessed about what if we had. And no I can't contact him directly and I don't want to. I have no real honest wish to know him now because I am sane enough to know he isn't the person I've made up in my head. But when I find out info on him that doesn't jibe with my idea of him it makes me twitchy.

The thing is that once I get obsessed with someone or something I have to find something else to obsess about. I have to fill my brain with something else and I just don't know what the hell to use this time. The secondary replacement obsession never lasts very long and I usually just going back to my normal every day flavor of crazy. This last one just kind of snuck up on me real quick in the last few days screaming "HEY THERE CRAZY LADY I'M GOING TO COME LIVE IN YOUR BRAIN NOW FOR A WHILE, K?"

I think the turning point in to making myself twitchy over this was when the story took a very weird twist in my brain that I just could not figure out a way to get beyond. For a couple days there I was upset and crying because the story took such a dark turn of hurt and angst and I didn't know how to get all the characters through and to the happy stuff that I wanted to happen later. I think I've gotten them past the "omg I hate you gdiaf" stage to an "ok I understand why you did that but it hurts too much to look at you" stage. But right now I just don't want to deal with the angst and stuff but my brain won't put the story away.

And I really can't even bring myself to reread what I've written here because I know it all sounds so frickin nuts. Yes, I have myself an obsession about a fantasy story I made up in my head about real people that have no clue who I am but I can't put down. There is a reason part of my nickname is psycho. :P

Oh and no I'm not looking for advice. Or really even sympathy. I know my brain is a bit messed up but I've kind of liked living the last 5 years or so without medication. The therapist and psychiatrist I saw just annoyed the fuck out of me. They couldn't separate my brain injury from my psychosis. My memory issues have nothing to do with my depression.

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OK an explaination of why I haven't posted on here in months yet again. Frankly I've just been lazy about it. Nearly everyone that I used to follow via blog has stopped blogging. I no longer feel the desperate urge to tell everyone what I'm doing. Mostly because I haven't been doing a whole lot. I did end up in the hospital in December and since then I've been so damn tired it isn't funny. Yeah I was tired before but I'm back into one of those pits of tired that just won't go away. I NEED the weather to clear up so I can go outside even for a few minutes and see the sun. I can't take all this damn rain lately.

I have been knitting lately though. One of my brothers has a baby due in June. I've made her one BSJ and a blanket that are finished. I have two more sweaters that are in the works. I kind of stalled on the little ballerina wrap because I started the blanket and then my mom wanted a sweater for my cousin's baby. I made her another plain BSJ. I have another larger one that I started but quit when I saw just how big it was going to be. That one will be finished eventually. Currently I'm working on a Tomten. I'm to the point of weaving together the hood. I made the hook larger than what the book said to because when I put it on my baby doll the hood wasn't long enough to cover the doll's head. Now I need to find my dpns so that I can start the sleeves. I really don't even know where my larger (bigger than sock) dpns have gotten to. I really need to hire merry maids to come clean my house out. lol

Guess who's back, back again

And now I have Slim Shady stuck in my head. And I just realized I completely forgot what I said last time I posted, so I'mma gonna go read for a minute. OK, I'm back.

Nick is still doing really well at school. He is still participating and mostly staying out of trouble. His biggest problem is staying awake in the morning. I think it more has to do with him staying awake for 2 hours after bed time yapping at himself. I've been having him take Melatonin but it doesn't always do the trick. He did have a bit of trouble a few weeks ago but he had an excuse and I think he controlled himself pretty well. You see, I was in the hospital. It's the first time he has had to deal with a big illness and he didn't get to see me while I was in the hospital. But he explained to his teachers what was going on and really did a good job of stepping back when he got upset.

Yeah the big news that happened since the last time was me ending up in the ER and then being admitted a few days later. I missed 3 1/2 days of work. Heck, I have yet to work a full weekend since before Thanksgiving. Anyways, on the 28th I went to work in some serious pain. I couldn't do anything without wanting to cry but I couldn't afford to miss work. Well by 3pm I was in so much pain I was crying so I left. My folks didn't seem to think there was a problem and sent me home with Nick. I took some pain pills and later took a nap. When I woke up at about 7:30 with a fever of 104.8. I called the help nurse at the clinic I go to and she recommended I head to the ER. Called my folks and Dad took me in while Mom took Nick back to their place so he could get some sleep. Had a bunch of blood work done and they said massive UTI. I did one bag of fluids with antibiotics in it and was sent home at about 2:30am with a scrip for more antibiotics. I spent the next two days only moving enough to take the kid to school and bring him home. Wednesday morning I was still in so much pain I called my urologist with the intent to ask for a pass for the weekend because it was my kidney stones causing the UTI and back pain.

Well the doc starts looking at my chart and discovers that the ER had tried to call me the day before to recommend I be admitted for a day due to bacteria growing in my blood! Doc ordered me to the hospital asap. I had originally intended to just call my mom to let her know I was heading to the hospital but I broke down and freaked. The last time I was in the hospital was when I had Nick and that was 1999. Mom ended up taking me in and I spent the next 3 days on IV antibiotics. I had two surgeries done. First was to insert two stents to help the kidney stones gtfo of there so they would stop blocking things up and causing the UTI and pain. That was on Wednesday within like 2 hours of being admitted. On Friday I had one of the stents removed and the doc used a laser to blast the hell out of my stones. I finally got to go home that night but I still didn't get to see Nick until Saturday afternoon. He spent the next week hugging me and telling me he loved me. :) He missed his momma. I had the other stent removed in the office about 10 days after I got out of the hospital. Not a real comfortable procedure. I recommend being knocked out for it if your insurance will cover it.

Well, since this whole mess I have been one tired chick. OK, so I am normally pretty tired but I've been really tired since I got out. I'm no longer peeing blood and no longer feeling any stone pain, which is good. What sucks is that the snow and cold showed up while I was in the hospital. And of course my snowblower doesn't want to work. The belt that runs the blades slips and only works when it wants to. So I've been having to shovel the drive myself. Most of the time I feel like I just went 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. It feels like the palms of my hands are bruised but there is nothing there.

And, of course, the neighbors are still refusing to shovel at all. I ended up yelling and, regrettably, swearing at one of her kids for climbing on one of the piles of snow next to my drive and tossing snow all over the place. The snow in the driveway has been the only thing I've been able to control lately and here was the kid of someone making that more difficult just destroying my drive again. I was livid. I've been stewing about the whole driveway ordeal and I just exploded. I don't even remember what I said to the kids. It was either "shit" or "damn" but I was so mad I don't remember what I said. It makes me feel about half an inch tall thinking about it. I know there is no excuse but I've been having my ass kicked by the snow. I'm constantly in large amounts of pain from shoveling and they twit next door just plows right through the snow and refuses to shovel. Hell when they can, they drive through the end of my side of the drive and onto their side because they are too lazy to shovel where the plow has buried the end of the drive. She has lived there at least 4 years and I've only seen her shovel 3 times. This is Iowa. It's not unusual to have to shovel 3 times in one DAY when it's snowing bad unless you want to wait and have it take you 2 hours to shovel the drive when it stops. sigh I know I need to let it go but it's hard to keep my side clear when her side is full of snow and she doesn't give a crap if the snow ends up on my side when she drives across it.

But in good news, I did finish the shawl I started last month. It's quite small and I really want to a larger one in thicker yarn at some point. I'll be using beads instead of doing nups though. I hate nups. And what is cool is that I used yarn that my friend Summer sent me for the little shawl and Summer sent me some of her handspun as a pick-me-up gift and I'm knitting a scarf from it. It's the Moon River Scarf available free on Rav. I deleted 2 repeats of the pattern on the scarf because it was getting too wide. It's a very easy pattern and I'm loving my first chance at knitting with handspun.

I've got all the Christmas shopping done thanks mostly to our annual Christmas bonus card for Wal-Mart. I ended up overdrawn on my checking account though thanks to a huge ass heating bill. I got used to maybe a $70 bill but the last one was $189 and it wiped out my checking account just as my internet and phone bills came in. Thankfully my check was deposited the next day so I'm back in the black. I'm going to have to try and work some overtime after the new year to make up the $75 in overdraft charges though. Oh and yes, I called the gas company and I'm now on an even payment plan. I think it's something like $52 a month. Much, much better. I'm already on even pay for my light bill because of a huge unexpected bill when it was so hot this summer. And in other shitty financial news, I got picked up the Monday after I got out of the hospital for expired tags. Had to borrow money from my folks to pay for new tags but I still have to pay the fine yet. I want to talk to the judge and hopefully only pay court costs but the weather has been so bad I haven't been able to get into town for traffic court. I really hate this time of year. Really and truly hate it.

I'm depressing myself here so I'll quit. Suffice it to say I will be doing my taxes the moment I get my W-2 from work. I need to go cash in the scratch off winner that my supervisor gave me ($1) and get me a lottery ticket. My luck has got to change sooner or later.

hmmmm

Not going to try and explain. I have no good excuse.

Finally got the monkey diagnosed with mild PDD and mild ADD. He has been on medication since school started. He stopped throwing things and throwing tantrums but was still screaming at his teachers regularly. We added on another medicine and holy crap! I have a happy kid again. One that actually likes school and can play dodge ball without having a meltdown. He is still having some issues but he is finally getting good marks on his behavior.

And the biggest change lately? I'm actually knitting a lace shawl! I'm knitting the Knitty pattern Annis in some lovely green lace yarn that my friend Summer sent me ages ago. It's been ages since I've felt the pull of the yarn and I like it.

I added a little widget over there ---->

It links to all the things that I liked on google reader. I had to make the switch over to google reader after bloglines shut down. I like reader so much better. It's much easier to load on dial-up because you only open one post at a time and not every single new and saved post from a feed. I have a tendency to get a bit behind on some of the busier feeds. big shocker :P

OK, time to go get monkey moving a bit. We had a 2 hour delay due to fog this morning and the boy needs to get dressed and eat something.

Another update!

see more dog and puppy pictures

Bet you thought I would forget about the blog for another few months again. heh Nope I have been wanting to post but I got busy.

Managed to survive my birthday without too much trouble. My middle brother forgot all about it of course. Yes, that is the one I was raised with. I ran into the older brother and, big shocker, he actually talked to me. Hadn't seen him since baby brother's wedding and he only spoke to me for like 30 seconds then. He didn't realize it was my birthday but it was still nice to chat with him. Baby brother had his little girl call me during dinner. It was really cute but it got my mom upset. It really bugged her that baby brother remembered my birthday but middle brother didn't. She raised me and middle brother together as the others are my bio dad's kids from his other marriages and we didn't know each other growing up.

Anyways, Mom and Dad took me and the monkey out to dinner at a local pub. They have awesome cod and I fully intend to go have lunch there real soon. Monkey, of course, wouldn't eat a damn thing. I still haven't figured out how to convince the child that not all food has to taste ZOMG delicious to be edible. Not that the stuff he likes to eat is all that delicious. McDonald's hamburgers anyone? lol After dinner we went for DQ. Monkey actually liked that part. lol



see more dog and puppy pictures

Lots of things have been going on with Monkey. He has been going to see a social worker since the beginning of the year. I'm not totally sure it is helping HIM a whole lot but it has helped me realize that I'm not nuts. 0.o Ok, I'm not delusional about him. Better? :P Anyway, we are working to get him evaluated again. Between the social worker and the new sociologist at school, they really believe that Monkey may have a mild case of ADD and some amount of Autism. The whole wrestling match about food may actually be hard wired into his brain by Autism. While it would be nice to know he isn't just being difficult about it, it would be hard to know it isn't going to get much better. So we are working on getting that moving. I've put in an application to have him go to a summer camp for kids with Autism that helps teach the kids how to deal with social situations. I'm hoping that this will help him finally get why some of the things he does are so rude.

Also I'm going to call and get the booger's eyes checked. Come to find out that sitting at a normal distance his school papers are blurry to him. He has never mentioned this before. If I had any clue he was having trouble seeing I would have gotten his eyes checked ages ago. He always passed the screenings at the pediatrician so I thought he was fine. I am fine with him getting glasses and I think he looks cute in them so no "mommy worries" there. lol I just hope this will help him participate in class more. Maybe those times he had such trouble with tests was because he couldn't see the darn test. sheesh



see more dog and puppy pictures

I am still really not doing any crafts lately. I did knit a few rows on the sleeves of the never ending sweater of doom. I think I'm about halfway through the upper arms. heh I haven't been painting either. I got stuck on Draco's hair and I just don't see how I can paint it using a mouse. I can't bring myself to spend the money on a tablet right now though. I've been really a lot of fanfiction still. I think I'll always be addicted to it. Much cheaper than buying paperback books all the time. lol


see more dog and puppy pictures


see more dog and puppy pictures

I'm still rocking my Sansa mp3 player at work. We had a new guy start last fall and he dominates the radios. I swear he hates anything recorded less than 20 years ago. Dude is a pain but he has been less annoying lately. I think it's because he is thinking of moving to Florida. lol I have such an eclectic mix of music on my player that it is almost scary. I just put a ton of Eminem on there and some Lil' Wayne. Some of their shit just makes me laugh my head off. You have to find the song Kids by Eminem. I damn near pissed laughing. I'm sure eventually I will delete a good portion of it off there but I like to give new stuff a bit of a chance before I hit delete on it.

I've also recently added Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert to the mix. :D There were a few LG songs that got the boot right away. Poker Face and Disco Stick just could not be allowed to live on my playlist. lol The first time I listened to Lambert's disc, I have to admit, I didn't like it. He is just so over dramatic and over the top. But like I said, I like to give things a few listens to before I give up on it. And now I really like quite a few of his songs. They are both good singers to listen to when I'm getting tired. They both get me bouncing.

Never fear, I haven't given up on the rock music. I've got Static-X's entire library loaded into my playlist. Brainfart is by far my favorite of their stuff. I really do love me some good drums. I have loaded on my entire library of NIN too. I never realized before just how much silence is in some of their songs. I thankfully can fast forward within a song to get past the quiet feedback that starts out some of the songs.



see more dog and puppy pictures

OK, enough blather for now. I've got phone calls to make and I need to get ready to go help Dad out. He is getting a dish installed today and he is afraid he won't be able to figure out how to use the DVR. Dude could barely understand a VCR. lol

Oh yeah.. um hi

As you may have noticed, my old template is gone. The images were hosted on my website. I can't see the point of paying for the website when I don't make tags any more. I may change my mind but for now tagsbyfrod.com is no more. It also means that most of the pictures in my old posts are gone now. Ooops! Oh well.

I'm not going to offer excuses for why I haven't been blogging. Suffice it to say, I had nothing to say of any importance. Yeah like I've ever been that deep anyway. :P

I'll try and customize this template sooner or later. If you can't wait for me to post and need to know what I'm up to, look for me on Ravelry. I'll be in the pants.

rivalry

I'm always noticing posts on Rav and on yahoo groups where people complain about how their parents favor their siblings over them. In a weird way I'm on both sides of this whole thing.

In the family that I grew up in with my mom and her husband that adopted me, I'm clearly the favored child. I often wonder if my brother complains about me to his wife. The thing is that as soon as my brother got back from basic training for the guard he moved over an hour away. He rarely comes to visit my folks. He can go 2 or 3 months with no visit or even a call. Because of my parents babysitting on the weekends (which I pay nominally for) I see my parents 4 days a week. Even before this job I went to my parents house every weekend for at least a couple hours. And even before I had my son I at least called my mom once or twice a week. It's no wonder my folks are willing to do things for me or buy me stuff. I'm the one that is there. They resent the fact that my brother finds it so hard to call or come home for visits. An hour drive isn't much but he can't just come home for a few hours on Saturday. It has to be a big thing and then he spends most of the time he is in the area at his in-laws house. I know he has complained to my folks about them buying me things but he forgets that I don't have much compared to him. I'm a single mom getting no support from my son's father. I've got an ok paying job now but there was a long time when I couldn't find anything that paid well. He and his wife both have good paying jobs and his wife does photography on the side. They also own a house. I live in a very tiny rented duplex that I can only afford because my rent is determined by my income. And did I mention I'm the one with a kid? My parents only grandchild in common? My dad has no contact with my step-brother's kids.

On the other side, I'm the kid that is totally ignored by my biodad's family. I'm the oldest child and my son is the oldest grandchild. Biodad completely ignores me and so do my stepmom, my brother and sister. I work for the same company as my youngest brother so he and I do talk on occasion. Biodad gave up custody of me when I was 5 because he refused to pay child support or make any effort to see me. He paid child support for the son he had with his second wife and always had visitation with him. This is the brother that didn't bother to invite me to his wedding or tell me when he had kids. For some reason he hates me when I have every right to resent him. I've only spoken to biodad 2 or 3 times in the last 8 years because I found out that he let my youngest brother's then gf move in their house when not a year earlier they told me they didn't have room for me to move in. He could do for her but not for me. When I went to my youngest brother's wedding last fall, they had family pictures taken without me or my son in them. Did I mention that they all live less than a half hour away from me? And that I've had the same phone number and address for the last 10 years?

So I'm stuck on both sides of this issue. I feel bad for my one brother to an extent but he is the one that distanced himself from our parents. And I resent my other family for completely ignoring that I exist. And people wonder why I put up with my dad being a total ass all the time. Ass that he is, he is still there. Always. And now I'm depressing myself. lol

Peek-a-boo

Bet y'all thought I had died huh? Nope, just hibernating. I won't try to make excuses for my lack of posting. Guess my job has just been kicking my ass. I've barely knit a thing in the last year. I'm working on finishing a silly blanket for myself. I started it months ago to use as a summer throw. Yeah that worked well. heh

So, what have I been up to? I've been firmly sucked into Ravelry. I have to admit I haven't been as verbose on there lately though. For a while there I was on Twitter a lot playing 140mafia. I've pretty much stopped playing that game. It got kind of boring when I had a couple people constantly keeping me dead just for shits and giggles. I check my Twitter feeds every few days but not obsessively.

I've also been sucked into DeviantART. Oh how I love that place. I haven't been posting there though or doing any art. I had to build a new pc and I still don't have all my things within easy reach to do any art. Not that my art is very good to begin with.

My biggest time suck is Facebook lately. There are a few games on there that I really like to play. I've met a few interesting people through the games. I shall not be linking my FB to the blog though. Made the error of allowing my mom to friend me. heh She does not get to see the blog. :P

My folks just recently gifted us with a dish after being without for about 7 years or so. Unfortunately, I can't watch it in my room which is where my pc is. Which is why I'm back to knitting. lol I can not sit and watch tv without doing something else.

I'm still dealing with my health issues. It seems like I've always got a cold lately. I'm continuously injuring myself at work. Nothing super major but I've got lots of new scars on my arms and legs. It's just enough to keep me sore and not up to doing much of anything.

The kid is still trying to drive me crazy. We have been dealing with some outbursts at school the last two weeks. I'm not sure if it has to do with his recent stomach troubles or not. He just started on some meds to try and fix the tummy troubles. Hopefully his mood will improve too. He did finally learn how to ride his bike this summer. Of course now his bike is a bit too small for him. heh He will probably be inheriting his papa's bike next summer.

Well, my lovelies, I'm going to go and watch some GhostHunters and knit on my blankie. I swears I'll be back again soon. Nothing really to show you pictures of yet, but maybe soon.

Welcome to the complaint blog

sigh

I complain way too much. It's much easier to find things that annoy me though. Like the freaking error message that just popped up AGAIN!! My isp software is somehow corrupted. I have uninstalled it and reinstalled it more times than I can count. I've even uninstalled some other programs that I have installed in the last couple weeks.

Basically the photo compression software keeps shutting down. I can not surf the web unless it is running. The isp software will not let me do anything unless the compression software is running. So ever two minutes or so, when it is acting up, I have to disconnect from the internet and reconnect. Then I have to quickly advance pages before the damn error code pops up again.

It's driving me up the wall!!!!

So, I'll be scarce for a bit. Yeah, I know I disappear all the time, but this time I'm giving y'all warning. :P As soon as I can get all my files moved off onto one of my other hard drives, I'm going to reformat. I swear this time I will NOT install every damn game in the world that looks halfway interesting. hehe

If reformatting doesn't work, I'm going to have to switch my isp. this is a bit freaky for me because I've used this one for a long time. It does mean that I'll be looking into getting wireless high speed internet. It is going to cost more than twice as much as i"m paying now. But it will hopefully be light years faster. But seeing as I connect at 28.2k, how could it not be? lol But it's going to be at least a week or two before I can switch over and only if they don't charge me an arm and a leg for hardware. If that happens, I'll have to go back to msn or aol. barf Cross yer fingers for me.

oi!!

I'm finally over my cold!!! Yeah me!!

But I've had a backache for a week and a half. I finally went to see a doctor yesterday. She says it is a strained muscle and gave me lots of wonderful drugs to take. mmmmmmmmm drugs I go back to see her next Monday if I'm not back to 100%. The drugs are helping but I'm still sore as hell.

I broke down and bought a Wii yesterday along with the newest Raving Rabbids game. I justified it as a weight loss tool for me and a reward to hold over the kid's head. So long as he behaves at school he gets an hour of play before homework. Then when homework is done and helping around the house he gets to play again. Might be a good way to get him to eat too. heh And anything that gets my butt up and moving is a good thing. I'm having fun boxing and playing tennis. The Raving Rabbids game has some dancing and music games and they really get you moving. I'll be taking it slow because the doc told me that she has been seeing a lot of people playing on the Wii and coming in with back problems. heh

dohh it posted on me before I was done!!

I've been working on some art stuff over on deviantART. I'm almost done with my portrait of Alan Rickman. I just have to figure out how to do his hair. Most of the brushes I've downloaded won't work in my versions of PSP and Photoshop. sigh Anyways, I'll be uploading a progress picture in a few mins.

LOLCATS

Ok, so I've been real sick the last 2 weeks. I was really starting to think I had pneumonia for a minute. But I'm feeling better. I even actually knit today. *faints* hehe I've spent the last 2 weeks sleeping as much as possible and surfing on DA, so I don't have much of anything to say. So, I'll distract you with cute kitties.



more animals


more animals


more animals
awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww


more animals


more animals


more animals


more animals

Not a kitty!!!

more animals


more animals

I have lots more but I don't want to overwhelmed ya. Or run out of material. lol Btw, I've uploaded some new stuff on deviantart if you want to check it out.

Laters! *waves*

goggies!!!!

Been meaning to post these for awhile. Enjoy :)


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies


see more puppies

Ok, that is enough for right now. I lost count on how many that is. hehe

wheeeeeeeee

Yarn Knitting by ~IllusionEvenstar on deviantART

ehehehehe Finally combining my two loves. hehe Now if only Snape was in there too. He would probably be lurking in the shadows with a pair of scissors. lmao

I'm an artist!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yeah ok, I suck. But here are my latest drawings I added to deviantArt.

Harry Potter sketch by *Froddopsycho on deviantART


sketch by *Froddopsycho on deviantART

colored sketch by *Froddopsycho on deviantART

I do not claim to be any good at this. But I guess it takes lots and lots of practice to get good at it. I have a long, long, long way to go.

ummmm

I swear to Bob I had something to post earlier. It was really funny. But I lost it. heh I think the cold has ruined my brain. It's not supposed to get over 0 degrees again until after Friday. Yeahhh!!! 0_o

Little did I know that the kid had an in-service day today. I got up on time only to see that school was cancelled. Then the notification came that it was the in-service day that was cancelled due to the extreme cold. So not even the teachers could make it to school.

So let's see. Monday they got out 2 hours early due to snow. Tuesday they had a 2 hour delay due to the same snow. No school Wednesday due to a cancelled in-service day. Oh and tomorrow there is a 2 hour delay due to extreme cold. Final decision on if they have school will be announce at 6am. *grrr* The child is drivin me nuts with all this togetherness. He comes in here every 5 minutes or so and hugs me for no reason. He won't do anything with me, but he will come in and interrupt me. *sigh*

Today I've been playing over at TekTek.org. I made a bunch of avatars to use over on Ravelry. I think I might upload one here for my avatar cause my hair so does not look like my picture any more. I colored it yesterday and it is actually sort of strawberry blonde even though I was aiming for dark ash blonde. lol All those years trying for red hair and I get it the one time I wasn't trying for it. hehe

I've also been scouring around on deviantArt. I've got lots of Harry Potter art and other stuff in my favorites there. I tell ya, I love that place. You can find art of just about any subject you might find interesting. You do have to join in order to see the naughty stuff though. Otherwise it just shows the dA logo in it's place. I'm thinking about buying a subscription too. It will make browsing so much easier and it isn't all that horribly expensive.

Still no real knitting going on here. I have been playing with my grey thread and some size 4 needles. It may end up developing into a shawl but it will take forever and a damn day to knit it because when I say thread, I mean thread. It's easy, easy to break this stuff. I think it was meant for weaving. I got it real cheap off of ebay a long time ago.

Ok, I'm gonna go watch me some Alan in Quigley Down Under. mmmmm Alan!!!!