Nightmare...Again

This is what I dreamed last night.

I was a teenager on a trip with a church group. We went to this huge multi-level building with rooms like hotel rooms, and six of us were assigned a room. This building had curving halls that all looked the same and none of the rooms were numbered. We got in our room, I found my bed, and put down my things.

The next day, everyone goes out, and when I go out, I realize I don't have a key to get back into the room. I've also left everything but my purse in the room. I can't find anyone that was in my group.

I go to the information desk and am told since I don't know the room number, they can't give me a key. She did say there was an extra bed with another group in another room if I wanted that. I get in there, and you can tell those girls did not want me there. I go to bed with no one speaking to me. The next evening when I come back to go to bed, another girl has put her things on my bed. I actually tell her it's ok. I'll sleep on the end of the bed. She says no, it's her bed. The other girls say they know her, she came late, and it's her bed because she is with their group.

Now I have no place to stay, and only my purse. I go into a snack bar, go to the counter, and ask if there is someplace I can use the phone. The guy behind the counter points to a telephone right behind me on the wall. I dig through my bag, find my wallet, get out a quarter, put my wallet back into my bag, and turn to use the phone. I can't remember anyone's phone number to call. I realize all my numbers are in my cell phone which I don't have. Then I turn back around to find the guy at the counter walking away and I notice my wallet is lying out of my bag, open on the counter, and all my money is gone. Now I'm frantic and I wake up feeling like I've been beaten up all night.

I have a version of this dream several nights a week. Once I was on a cruise ship with my family and got separated from them and couldn't get into my room. Once I was in my house but there were so many people I couldn't walk. Once I was being run out of a hotel room and couldn't find all my things to get them together to leave.
The therapist says this is my body's way of handling anxiety. I have no idea. All I know is it would be nice to go to sleep and dream of something peaceful and pleasant. Instead of this crap.

We took my granddaughter to see my dad. I call him Daddy (It's a Southern thing.) My kids call him Papa. So here is Papa and my daughter in 1978.


This is my dad and my granddaughter in 2008.

When It Rains, Get Out the Buckets

Life Lesson: Never say it's been a long and tiring week on Wednesday. You have then only begun a longer and more tiring week.

My friend brought seven of her children over yesterday. We played with them, ordered in pizza, watched the animal channel, and had a really good time. A couple of hours into it, her older son called and had been in an accident with a saw, cut into the end of his finger, and wanted her to meet him at the ER. I kept the kids. So hours later, he was put back together, but in a lot of pain. She was frantic (she found out her divorce was final and this happened on the same day), and she was worn out. I, who am used to mostly total solitude, was almost in a coma state by the time she picked up all the kids. ha. Then, she gets home to find out another friend has left her husband and has been camped out in her driveway all day waiting for her to get home so she can stay with her.
Life is too ironic to make all this up.

My husband arrived home as the last children were going out the front door. I'm standing there, my hair a mess, the house a mess, no dinner made, too comatose to talk. He looks over the situation and says, "Why don't I make us a sandwich?" You gotta love 'em.

I finished reading The Book Thief yesterday. I know I say this often, but this really WAS the best book I've ever read. I want to go back and start on it again today. I will say, cover art means a lot to me, even though I buy my books as Ebooks on Kindle. If I don't like the cover, I probably won't even read more about the book. Several people had mentioned The Book Thief to me, and it was one of my book club selections this month. I hated the cover. It looked like one of those cheapo books you find at the dollar store in a cardboard bin. However, I bought it. Whoever said don't judge a book by it's cover was right.

The therapist said I need to start judging how my "emotional strength" or "ego strength" is doing on a scale of 1-10. Well, I now know babysitting seven children puts me at a 0. Now if I could just figure out what a 10 is, I'd have some point of reference. And my friend said she's living at some negative number on her emotional strength scale, so we can't figure out how to judge that one. Poor thing. One good thing did come out of her day, though. The judge declared her *&%#@ ex is going to have to sell his house to pay her the more than 30K in back child support he owes her. He's not too happy. :-)

Giraffes and Floods

Long week and it's only Wednesday. I kicked up the secret shopping this month, so I can have some extra to save for a trip to see my son in Seattle later this year. So I've been getting up really early to do breakfast shops.

Then I have the twins three days a week for homeschool. That part is going well. They are very quiet and polite. I'm working very hard to make them very comfortable, but their mom said they are just very quiet. As twins, they talk a lot, but only to each other, in private. I bought a magnetic poetry game they seem to like, to use in their English study. I also got a software disc called Math for the Real World by Davidson that was one of the favorites of my students when I had the tutoring center. It's a hippie band traveling around and you do word-type problems to help them along the tour.

I am still sick, and sick of being sick. This is my sixth (?) round of antibiotics. My lungs still sound like rice krispies. I'm on 4000 mg of Augmentin per day. I'm ready for this to be over!

I'm losing weight. The doctor is very happy. I was stuck for several weeks but it's picked back up again. I still drink way too many diet drinks and not enough water. Oh well. I can't give up candy and diet drinks. My life has to have some vices!

I've always wanted a pair of boots. I see all these fashion shows on tv with cute boots, and through the last several years, I've ordered many pairs I had to end up sending back. You see, I had fat calves. Yep, more like cows than calves. And those darn boot were always too tight.

But the boots I ordered in the mail that got lost with the loose label mix up ( I think I blogged about that, didn't I?) ended up showing up from the lost post office division. Since I've lost some weight, I was hopeful, but fearful. I let those boots sit here on the couch in the box for three days afraid to try on yet another pair and have them not fit my cows. But guess what. They do. In fact, they are LOOSE. I love them. I HAVE BOOTS! And they are CUTE.

I am still seeing the therapist. Yesterday, I had one of those light bulb moments. She finally made me realize that I only care what people think, that I only let them push my buttons or hurt my feelings, etc....IF I SOMEHOW BELIEVE WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT ME IS TRUE.

So it's not what they say, or what I think they are thinking...it's what I'm thinking about myself. It's the filters in my brain I run things through. I hope this makes sense as I write this because this was such a HUGE deal with me. If you tell me, I'm fat, I'm going to get my feelings hurt, because in my mind, I say, "They are right. I am fat. I am SO fat. I look like a whale. IT must be these jeans, I knew I shouldn't have worn them. They make my butt look huge" etc etc.

But if you say, "God, you are so tall. You are so tall, you must feel like a giant giraffe!" Now my mind thinks, "Hey, you bit*h, I am not tall. I'm only 5'5". That's normal. You obviously are nuts. I'm fine." And I go about my day.

So changing how I feel about me, changes the way I react to others. Aren't you proud of me. It only took YEARS of therapy to "get" that.

My son is moving the 27th to Seattle. He's going to be staying with us three days in between them taking his furniture and his flight. I told the therapist I was afraid I'd cry when he left and I didn't want to make him feel badly about going. She said she cries everytime her son leaves for Oklahoma, and that it's FINE to cry. It's FINE to let him know I will miss him. I just have to keep telling myself that. If you hear about flood warnings in the South, you'll know what happened.

Baby's Crawling and I'm Teaching

My granddaughter is crawling! Here's her latest video.
I found a low carb pizza recipe, and it's become our favorite. The "crust" is baking as we speak. Tonight's selection is cheese and pepperoni. I don't feel like taking the time to separately cook the Italian sausage, but we usually put that on it, too.
My friend, D, met me at Target this morning to pick up the breakfast food I had from my secret shopping. Her kids love the hash browns. When she got there, one of her daughter's was in the car crying her eyes out. My friend homeschools her children, and her eighth grade twins were enrolled at a program three days a week at a woman's house that teaches some of the more advanced subjects. Well, evidently this lady has extremely strict rules (she does it free so she's entitled to) and believes in the one strike, you're out policy. This little girl took her cell phone with her, which is not against the rules as long as it is turned off. However, it is against the rules to have it on her desk, which she did,while she was getting her things from her backpack. So out she goes.
I told them to come by and we'd figure it out. I told her I would teach them three mornings a week, which is what the other lady was doing. The only problem is the other lady supplied the books, and took them back. I have all the math books from the time I had the tutoring center so we had that part covered. My friend, D, has a history curriculum. The girls were taking Spanish, so I ordered that software and workbooks. Thank goodness, I had one year of Spanish and they are in the beginnner stages so I can learn with them. Now we're trying to get together the Earth Science, History, Government, etc. I have a lot of books we can use for literature. I also thought I'd start the girls with a journal doing some creative writing for use on grammar, spelling, etc.
I'm looking forward to it. The girls are so sweet.

Big Dreams and Snow Cream!

My middle son got the job offer on the job in Seattle, and it sounds good. Chances are he will take it. Of course, I have very mixed feelings. I'm happy for him and sad for me. But, as with all things involved with being a mother, I want him to be happy. If he's not happy, I won't be either. I can deal a lot easier with my emptier nest than him not fulfilling this dream he has for himself to get out of this state and live somewhere totally different.

My kids tell me I only like living here because I haven't lived anywhere else, at least not anywhere more than 150 miles or so from here. But there are definite things I like about living here. For one, mild winters and mild summers.

We are expecting one to three inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow morning. Snow is a fun thing in Alabama. The weather announcers broadcast it, people make mad dashes to the grocery, the grocery shelves quickly empty out, check out lines grow to enormous proportions, and then we go home, settle in, and watch for the snow. If it does actually show up, which is always iffy, then the businesses close, schools close, roads close, and people stay home. People who move here from the Northern states are always shocked. "They closed everything for a light dusting of snow and a little ice?" Well, we don't get that snow and ice often enough to have all the snow equipment needed (or the extra personnel) to keep roads cleared. I've only seen a salt truck once or twice in my life and that was to de-ice a bridge on the interstate. No, snow in Alabama means you stay home, make big pots of soup or chili, light the fire, make hot chocolate, play with the kids, read, and get cozy. And the best part? When it melts off, as it does quickly, life slowly goes back to normal and we probably won't get snow again for years.

Oh, and we always make SNOW CREAM.

SNOW CREAM RECIPE

You mix whole milk with sugar until it is sweet like ice cream (or use one can Sweetened Condensed Milk)
Add a dash of salt and a capful of vanilla flavoring.
Mix well.
Then go out and get a big pan of clean snow.
Scoop big spoonfuls of snow into the milk mixture until it's the consistency of ice cream.
Then invite all the neighbors over and eat. The extra keeps well in the freezer.

As for summer, I never appreciated mild summers until I visited my mother-in-law in Phoenix in October of 2003 and it was 112 degrees. She doesn't think much of air conditioners and it's the closest I've come to sweating to death. I don't like to sweat. Maybe it's the Southern belle part of me, but when someone says aerobic or elevateD heart rate, my first thought is "Yeah, right" and how to get out of there as quickly as possible. When I think of exercising, my body says, "You do it Bitch, you die."

I also like living here because it's got all the things you'd ever want to see as far as art museums, ballet, symphonies, Space and Rocket Museum, Space Camp, etc, but still has a home-town feel. I once asked my dad to show me how to change a flat tire. He laughed and said, "You live in Alabama, honey. All you have to do is stop the car and some guy will change it for you." In 51 years, that's never failed to be true. They also open doors, and the younger ones say, "Yes, Ma'am" and "No, Ma'am." I even had a young man in his prom tux stop to help me with a stalled engine once at night. And once he got my car started, he and his girlfriend followed me and the kids to make sure we got home alright.

I like to visit other places. Travel is one of my favorite things to do. But I always want to come back home. I mean, what other state can you walk into any restaurant and order tea and it automatically comes sweetened in a tall glass with ice, which is refilled automatically every time it gets half full. I practically had to sell my soul in London to get two cubes of ice in a tiny glass of Coke. And I can order grits or turnip greens or pinto beans or cornbread and no one looks at me funny, except my husband. He'd rather have a burrito than any of that stuff any day. But that's the Arizona in him. He can't help it. Bless his heart.

Can Someone Fail Therapy?

As I said in previous posts, I'm reading Self Matters by Dr. Phil. I reached the part where I was suppose to list my life's defining moments. I had thirty of them when I finished, some good, some bad. The therapist wanted us to discuss them together. I took the list and went to see her on Tuesday. I looked it over before I went in, thinking of what I wanted to say about each thing. I was preparing for what felt like a test. What if I listed something that when I recounted it, sounded so trivial? What if she thought I shouldn't have put that on there? What if I didn't do it right? This is how my mind works. Got to do it right or else. Or else what?

So I figured we've got an hour, thirty things...I can whiz through this in no time. But of course, she had other ideas. I would tell her what happened, in a very few sentences (I kept thinking keep this brief!) For example, when I was five, and my mom left me in a parking lot while she ran into a store (It was a pretty common thing in those years.) A man pulled up in a pickup truck in front of our car, opened his door, and exposed and fondled himself. I freaked, crawled into the floorboard and hid until my mom came back. I was crying. That's all I remember.

Then the counselor would say how did you feel? I'd written a few of those words besides each one, knowing that would be a definite question she would ask me. So I'd say, "Scared, confused, etc." Then she would say, "Tell me how it feels to feel scared when you're five. Huh? I wasn't prepared for that. I had no answer for her. "What did your mom say when she got back and you were hiding in the floorboard crying?" I had no idea.

We went over five of my thirty things in our hour of therapy time. I felt like I moved too slowly because I didn't know the right answers. How messed up is that?

So I guess I don't get the purpose of all this. At the same time, it makes me very uncomfortable to have to go back and do this again next week, considering at this rate, this could take quite a few weeks to finish. I feel like I'd get an F in therapy. Or at least a D. So maybe I can get perfect attendence. And I know how messed up that is.

I'm craving chocolate so badly today I just want to run out and grab a huge hot fudge sundae and pig out. No, I'm not going to do it. I can't afford to undo what I've lost just to have a little comfort. A nap maybe. At least that won't make me fatter.

Cutie, Clinton, Cleaning, and Cashew Chicken

I drove up to TN to stay with my granddaughter while my daughter and son-in-law went to an office party. She has a tooth! She's trying so hard to crawl. She gets up on her hands and then pushes wayyyy up on her toes. Then she tries to tuck a leg under to get into a sitting position. I told my daughter she may not crawl, she may just get to a sitting position, get up and take off walking.
I also taught her to say "Da-da" but we had to video it because she got performance anxiety when Da-da actually got home and we tried to coax her to say it.
She loved her granny just fine until her mama left and she figured out all Granny had to offer was a bottle, a cup, and baby food. She is a nursing baby and none of that compared to what Mama had, so she got ticked off. We did have a good time playing, walking, and trying to get her attention on other things besides being mad. She loves to look in the mirror, watch the ceiling fan spin, watch commercials, and try to grab my glasses. I kept trying to tell her a blind Granny would not make a good babysitter! She's a doll.

Then when they got back, I drove on home. My husband had TIVO'd all the usual shows, like Biggest Loser, etc. He was scrolling through the list asking what I wanted to watch. "ARE YOU KIDDING? Turn on the primary results!" The math major in me spent the next two hours telling him, "She's 8 thousand ahead, she's 11 thousand ahead, she's 15 thousand ahead, 22 thousand ahead, 35....etc..." He's over there smiling, because he thinks McCain will beat her anyway. Not me. I think she can pull this off.

So what I did I do today? I ordered me a Vote Hillary 2008 t-shirt to wear around here. I wonder if he'll still want to hug and kiss me with Hillary on my chest? ha ha.

Day before yesterday, our dog started going nuts, which means one of two things, either the postman is on the porch or the UPS truck is coming up our road. Turned out to be the postman and he had a huge box he dumped on our porch and drove away. It's a big red ottoman from the Country Store, very nice, and not mine! It had a clear label in plastic saying this was suppose to go to some nice lady in Tennessee. Then, over on the side, was a torn, wrinkled, peeling label with my name on it barely hanging onto the side of the box. I called the PO and told them this is not mine, but the label on it is for some boots I ordered, so what's the chance they will ever be delivered with out a label? The postmaster was not amused. He just said to put it on the porch and they'd come get it.

I did. It rained all day. I tucked it as far under the porch as possible. I came home last night. Box still there. I tugged the damp box back inside. Guess I'll call them again today and say please come get this ottoman! Some poor woman in Tennessee is going through red ottoman cravings and here it sits in my house where red would match nothing! And I want my BOOTS!

This has been almost as interesting as the dryer I bought from Sears a few years ago, and the delivery dryer brought a range instead of a dryer. I said, "I need to dry clothes, not cook." The guy stood there awhile and said in his best redneck drawl, "Welllllll, Maaa-ammmm, if you don't turrrrnnnn it up too high, you might could dry 'em in thurrrr." I was not amused, especially since I had taken off work that day to get the delivery. My boss was even less amused when I had to take off another day to get my dryer.

My friend, Dawn, came and cleaned my house yesterday. She needed the money and I was tired of chasing dust bunnies around the house with a stick. So today it smells so good and I don't want to mess anything up. Think that's a good enough reason to get out of making dinner tonight? Naw, my husband probably wouldn't go for that either.

Although I do love the Kohler commercials where the lady won't use her new kitchen sink because her Kohler is such a work of art she won't put dishes under it. I usually use the "Man, I'm craving Chinese tonight. Will you pick some up?" My husband says, "Sure, honey." That translates into, "Yeah, I figure you've been sitting on your butt, either on the computer or your Kindle e-reader all day,,and you forgot about dinner until just now, and the best you could come up with was a Chinese craving, but oh well...." He's such a sweetheart.

But you know.....Chinese does sound awfully good today....Wonder how many carbs are in Cashew Chicken?

Racing, Ruthless, and Rodeos

My husband had his usual every other Friday off this past one, so he had a long weekend. We heard that there would be another huge children's consignment sale on Saturday, so we decided to get up early and go. They have this twice a year. It is held in a huge warehouse and moms from all over the community can come and sell their baby through teenager's clothing, shoes, toys, strollers, cribs, etc. etc. The key is to get their early, bring your own tote or clothes basket to hold your items, and don't be afraid to push your way through the crowds.

It started at nine and we got there at eight. It would have been nice to have thought of bringing folding chairs for the long wait, but we didn't, or to have been lucky enough to have the slow snaking line of people in the sun, but it wasn't. Anyway, we were number five in line. We discussed our strategy before we went in. I told him I want a glider rocker and ottoman. It must not squeak, be ripped or stained, or cost over $50. Also our granddaughter needs sleepers, size 12 months.

They opened the door and off we went. I spotted a glider rocker with beige cushions for 40 bucks. I grabbed it, my husband plopped it down for me to sit in it and after it passed inspection from both of us, he ran to the front with it to tell them we want it, while I made my way through the clothing aisles. They had this organized into sizes, but they neglected to include any aisles wider than two feet, so the people were squirming all over each other trying to look and grab. I scrunched down the low row to find the 12 month sizes in the very middle. They had tons of dressy outfits, but I finally spotted a bunch of pajamas. I grabbed about ten pairs and bumped and stumbled back out of the mass.

My husband met me and helped me sort through the usual, "Yeah, we want this one. Nope this looks little. Here's a spot, so not this one." I found three, and a cutie dress I had to get for good measure. While I went to put back the ones I didn't want, squishing my way down the maze of moms again, my husband noticed that the staff at the front had taken the tag off the rocker since we wanted it, but had PUT IT BACK on the table where it had been displayed. He ran down to find five moms swarming around it like bees to honey saying, "Where's the tag? Why doesn't it have a tag? How much is it? I saw it first. No you didn't!" He fearfully reached in between them and yelled as he grabbed it and ran away, "It's mine. It doesn't have a tag because they took it off for me. It's SOLD." He said he ran fast, afraid to look back and find five moms throwing their purses at him.

We managed to get our things out of there and still live through it. Shopping. Ahhhh.. How fun!

Then we went out to visit my dad. Daddy is a farmer, and all his adult life wanted to get a farm like he grew up on. Of course, he also worked for the space program testing rocket motors, but if you asked him right now what he had done for a living, he'd put farmer first. My mom, on the other hand, was a city girl. Thus, their marriage didn't last very long, and as soon as they divorced, he married a good country woman and bought that farm. He's lived there over forty years, with cows, chickens, guineas, peacocks, goats, horses, pigs (at times), doves, and a windmill.
You can drop by anytime and find him sitting out on the porch with friends or neighbors or out "piddling," which doesn't mean peeing, but what you might also know as "puttering around." He loves that farm.

Well, he had two daughters, and his wife has two daughters, so no boys. No future farmers. You won't find me out chasing pigs or gathering eggs when there is a perfectly good Publix grocery down the street. But I do have a first cousin who is married to a guy who loves the country. They moved up north and raised their children and told Daddy they really wanted to retire in the South on a farm. His farm. They made him an offer of about a third of what fifty something acres is worth, but it sounded like a good deal to a man who still thinks his wife is filling up the car at 50 cents a gallon and it's highway robbery.

So they struck the bargain. Daddy and my step-mom can stay in the house until they pass away, and then cousin and her hubby take over. They pay him the money now. Well, I figured, it's his farm. It's his life. It's his money. If he wants to do that, it's none of my business. My sister and step-sisters fussed about it, but they were quickly told it was none of their business what he did with his farm or his money. (I know him pretty well.)

Well, all was well for awhile. Cousin and his wife retired, moved South into a house down the road, and they spent many days wandering around what was going to be their future farm, farm buildings, and farmhouse.

Then the anvil hit the fan. You see, all people have things in their life that might not be worth a lot to anyone else but to them are worth more than gold. To Daddy, that was his anvil. It belonged to his daddy, my grandpa, so that puts it at well over a hundred years old. Plus all the memories Daddy has of his father teaching him things with that anvil, blacksmithing, woodworking, metalworking, etc. Well, cousin's husband came down and had heard the anvil stories. He announced this week that he was going to go ahead and take the anvil to HIS workshop.

Huh? Daddy was puzzled. When he protested, cousin's husband said no only did he buy the farm, he bought all contents. After as mad a dash as an eighty year old man can make, Daddy discovered the papers they had signed had a handwritten addition at the bottom saying "And all contents." Long story less long- Daddy pitched a good fit. Got a lawyer that said for 200 bucks,he can straighten this all out pretty easily. Cousin's husband agreed to sell the farm back for 30K more than he paid, and everyone is mad. Daddy told cousin's husband to come get his cows off his land, where they'd been grazing, even if he had to put them in his living room!

So my husband and I went out there to visit yesterday. I told hubby not to mention all this mess, but maybe by visiting we could get Daddy's mind off this for awhile, which I think we did. Good thing is, Daddy wasn't forgetful yesterday, or repeating himself. Seems having a good fight going has gotten him very mentally focused. I wanted to go down and kick my cousin's and her husband's butts but I refrained.

As if yesterday wasn't full enough, my hubby and I also went to the rodeo with my son. I found out three things. I love the rodeo, my son hates country music, and I am very allergic to the livestock. We sat thirty minutes before I started wheezing. By an hour, my eyes were blood red and itching. By two hours, I had a sneezing fit and went through a whole pack of Kleenex. And I had such a blast. They even had women bull riders! My husband was shocked. I told him women can be good bull riders and even President! Go Hillary!