Just one more day....

One more day, one more day, one more day...I will repeat this to myself over and over and over again until the end of the day tomorrow. So, the state still hasn't shown up...Lovely...probably will tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever they choose. The last two days have been quiet...and THEN Chris called on his way home from work...truck broken down. Me trying to figure out how to get to him...with three kids and a single cab pickup that my friends brother is letting me borrow...THEN...it hit me...Call the EX-husband. He'll help and he did! People were shaking their heads at me. So, the ex-husband calls back three hours later and announces...you owe me!! I know, I know...forever and ever. So, he announces...I have a date tonight. I'm just going to take Chris to my house, he can leave his truck there and drive one of my "extra" cars home. Lovely. So, Chris is going to go back down there tomorrow and fix his truck with MY EX-HUSBAND. Do they have greeting cards for this? I told Chris...Hey, just an FYI, I would never call your ex-wife for a ride. She would drive me over a cliff....

But, one more day, one more day, one more day. I have a headache.

Tomorrow is my Mommy's birthday. Usually I take her flowers and dinner from Chick-Fil-a. But, not this year. Just a phone call and card and an I LOVE YOU MOMMY! I miss you MOMMY!

Please pray for...my friends Wesley and Kristy. Wes is having a rough go of it again. And MckMama's little Stellan. (In the box to the upper right of where you are reading).

Going to start the walking thing Thursday AM. I'm up at 5 a.m. anyway, might as well walk, walk, walk around the block. The kids will be in the house asleep, Chris will be at work, but Macy is old enough, has a cell phone and I seriously live in THE quietest neighborhood. If she needs me I can be here in less than a minute. I'm going to just walk around MY block. I need to measure it to see how many laps is a mile. I just want to be "fit." But, more about that on New Years Day....

For now...one more day, one more day, one more day...

Back to work....

Tomorrow I go back to work. Bad news...that is the bad news...Good news...I only have to work three days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then I'm off Thursday and Friday. That's good news!! YEA ME!!

Like I told you in my last post...I'm sure that I'll have another visit from the state, which totally breaks me out in hives when they're there and then gives me the BIGGEST sense of relief when they leave. So, I have that to look forward to.

Went back to church today. Came home and put my pajamas back on. I love my pajamas. Am I pathetic or what???

So, I'll fill you in tomorrow!! Hi HO, Hi HO...back to work I go....BLAH!

I love days off!!

I love days where I do not obligate myself to anything besides hanging out in my pajamas all day. I will not leave the house today. Nope. Won't do it!! Love it!!

My day started early today. For whatever reason, my sleeping issues are back. Can't go to sleep, can't stay asleep, don't sleep well when I do sleep. Does any of that make sense? I paid bills, have finished all the laundry and tried to put up most of the Christmas gifts. I have not figured out how to download the pictures off my little point and shoot I bought myself Wednesday so I would have a camera for Christmas morning. I need to get that done.

The kids have been good today for the most part. They have played with legos, Maddy's new kitchen, watched TV, painted, eaten, and are now napping. Chris had to go back to work today. It's been a great day.

I have church tomorrow and one more afternoon off and then back to work for three days. Then I get two more and the weekend off. I'm sure I'll have a interesting week next week. The state showed up for an unannounced inspection on Tuesday. We apparently got reported. It is what it is, it just sucks. So, they will probably be back next week to "check" on us. It's all too much for me to handle sometimes. This job drives me NUTS!! My friend Stacey put it so eloquently the other day at lunch, do you feel like you've reached the point of success with the program where you can now say...Next? I DO!! Will I say next? Probably. One day. Not sure when, but yes, I will say Next. And I already know what the next will consist of...MY KIDS!! I want to spend more time with my kids.

So, I will enjoy my days off that I have right now with my kids and I will rest (try to) and cook and bake and enjoy my house....

Oh, and I cannot wait to review my last years new years resolutions with you guys to point out how I have failed miserably...Lovely...But, I will try, try again this year.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas! We just arrived back home. Whoa!! What a trip. So much to share. Santa came. He was generous to our family. A kitchen for the Kat, a ton of "AWESOME" toys for Mason. Macy got the Nano she has been wanting and I got a NEW PHONE!! My sweet mommy bought me the coolest phone. I'm so excited. I'll post a picture of my old phone...you'll get a laugh out of that!!

Anyway, so many cool pictures to share. So many thoughts of a trip with six people to Houston....I'm so glad my brother got to go with us. He made it fun!!

Love to all. Merry Christmas!!

Buff

Happy (blog) Anniversary to me....

So, one year ago tomorrow I started this blog. I had insomnia. So, I started writing. I'm so glad I did! Maybe one day I'll be a big time blog celebrity, but I doubt it and that's okay, too. What a year I've had!! What a week I've had!! What a day I've had!! Oh, the stories I could tell.

So, this year....

Macy turned 11.
Mason turned 4.
Maddy turned 3.
We went to California.
We went to Disneyland.
We went to Sea World in San Diego.
We went to the Wild Animal Park.
We went to Las Vegas.
We celebrated 6 years of marriage.
We laughed.
We cried.
We survived!!!

Merry Christmas!! Love to all....

Santa Claus is coming to town.

Wow! This month has sped by! I am so looking forward to some time at home in the coming weeks. I will be off three days this week and two days next week. A total of 10 home days out of 14. I'll take that. We are going to drive to Houston on Christmas eve, which I'm sure will be a treat. (NOT). Six of us in a mini-van on Christmas eve traveling from Dallas to Houston....sound like fun to anyone else? Oh, and we are coming home the night of Christmas. Chris and my brother both have to get back to work. I do this in the name of my mother. I love my mom, she wants us to come and I can't say no. So, there you have it....My truck is going into the shop Friday. At least 1300.00 to fix the transmission. Lovely.

I am in a funk. Just a yuck funk. Tired. Gaining weight. Work stinks. Not feeling the Christmas spirit this year like I usually do. Don't feel the rush like I usually do to get it all done. Don't really care if it gets done quite frankly. I mean, I know it will, but I don't care about it like I usually do. I waited in line today at the post office for 20 minutes, at the bank for 15 minutes, waited to get into the Target parking lot for 10 minutes, only to become disgusted by the amount of people and keep driving past Target. Went to Bed, Bath and Beyond because I had a 20% coupon for there...Couldn't find anything I like and wasn't really interested in waiting in ANOTHER line.

In the last two days I lost five employees. Quit, gave notice, don't really care. I'm really okay with all of them leaving, with the exception of one. I loved her. I'm sad that she's moving on. She got a better offer. But the rest of them? See ya!! So, see why I'm in a funk. I lashed out at a friend a couple Sundays ago. I can't believe I did it. I felt like a butt after I did it and have fallen all over myself apologizing since that day. I think she's tired of hearing me say I'm sorry so she decided to forgive me. Oh. Or that's she's a Christian and understands the importance of forgiveness. I yelled at Macy on Friday for not having her house key. We were locked out of the house. Guess who else didn't have their key? ME!! So why was I yelling at my 11 year old about being responsible?

I just want to feel better. I'm in a yuck funk. That's what I'll call it....a yuck funk. On a brighter note, I have received the nicest Christmas gifts from students, friends, employees. My cook at the school bought me the neatest cupcake carrier. It's a cube. I love it. It holds 27 cupcakes at a time. I've gotten cupcake ornaments, Starbucks gift cards, a Willow Tree angel that I didn't have (Mother and Son), Bath and Body works, ornaments...love Christmas presents. Any presents for that matter!!! I got to have dinner with my friend Misty from Paris again Friday night. We met up at Target, shopped a little and went to have dinner and drinks. Love that girl!!!

Oh, and I have loved, loved, loved all the Christmas cards that I have gotten this year. I love getting the mail!! Macy has been at her Dad's since Friday. She is going to come home tomorrow and help me get ready for our trip Christmas eve. I'll be glad when she's home. I feel better when I wake up in the morning knowing that all my babies are under one roof.

Dear Santa...

All I want for Christmas is a new transmission. How sad is that statement? The last couple of weeks the Explorers (less than 5 years old) transmission has been acting up. I noticed it. Chris noticed it. Well, I have been driving Chris' truck and he has been driving my Explorer. It is more comfortable and he drives an hour and a half everyday and I drive 10 minutes, so I didn't mind trading. Well, I got back in my car yesterday for the first time in weeks because Chris was off and was shocked at how bad it was running. I called Chris and told him there was no way that we could drive it to Houston to see my Mom next week. So, I got online and rented a....MINIVAN to drive to Houston. There are six of us going. My whole family and my brother, so we needed the room. I was thinking we could get the Explorer in the shop after the first of the year and go on with life. WRONG!! I was leaving a shopping center last night to go pick up Macy from Youth Group and it was gone. No transmission at all. Would barely go forward. Would NOT back up. Gone!! So, now it is parked in front of my house until we can decide how in the whole wide world we can afford a transmission. Now, keep in mind Chris goes to work at 3:30 in the morning...to Love Field and I work 10 minutes away. So, my lovely church bus driver will be picking me up in the bus today. Hey, at least I have a bus to pick up me and the kids, right? Wonder if she'll drive me through Starbucks? Ha! I am so sad. I don't know what we are going to do or how we are going to do it. But, I am going to pray. Pray, pray for a solution to my transmission problem. Is that silly? Am I silly? Anyone have any ideas? Know a great mechanic that will let us pay it out???

Be careful what you wish/pray for....

Because now I am stranded in my house with the kids, the husband, and a cell phone that continues to ring and ring and ring wondering why there is no school....UGH!! Chris is griping at the kids about their room. What's new? Macy is hiding in her room. (Do all pre-teens do this?) We never see her. She's always laying in her bed watching TV or talking on the phone. (Eye roll). I was the genius who thought the whole weather thing was an overreaction and I REFUSED to run to Wal Mart to stock up. Well, maybe I should have considered at least grocery shopping. We have food, don't get me wrong, but a mish mash of items. Like, tonight for dinner...I'm considering breakfast. I love breakfast for dinner. Last night I made chili. I was missing my traditional ingrediants to it included Kidney beans. You would have thought I was poisoning my children with the reaction. But, hey fritos covers a lot, you know? We're just running low on stuff. Maybe I can talk Chris into going for me. He llllooooovvveeesssss Wal Mart. Freak.

It's frigid outside....

Freezing, I tell you...well for Texas standards that is. I won't compare myself to you guys up north. Poor people. So, I'm absolutely praying is sleets and ices and is just too unsafe to run buses tomorrow...because....if that happens, I don't have to open the preschool!! YEA us! Sorry, folks. Just need a little day to breathe in between a Monday!! UGH!!

So, we survived our weekend trip to the mall. That was very unsmart of me. I just wanted to get out of there and breathe.....We're pretty much done with shopping. We have a few things here and a few things there and we're good. I just about have all my Christmas cards done. I need to wrap, but am waiting for Saturday. I have coordinated a "wrap party" at our church this weekend. Waiting to see if anyone will RSVP and if they don't, well then, I'm still packing my stuff up, going up there to my 8 x 11 table and wrap to my hearts delight without my children knocking on the door and peaking underneath the door!!

I have a lot of picking up and cleaning up and organizing to do before we leave for Christmas, but it will all get done in good time. I just need to survive the next 6 days of work. Survive, survive, survive, smile and nod, smile and nod!!

Pray for me today...

For, I am embarking on a trip into the shopping frenzy also known as Frisco, Texas. UGH! Macy has a birthday party for a friend who lives in Frisco and her Daddy couldn't get her there, so Chris and I are taking her and while we wait we are taking the little ones to Build a Bear (yes, I do love that place) and letting Maddy and Mason make the reindeers for their GoGo for Christmas (she collects them-reindeers, not Build a Bears). I have to go to James Avery to get Macy's yearly charm. Not sure what I'll pick up, but I love, love, love that place. I have decided for all my incidental gifts, that I'm sticking to an ornmanet. Not just any ornament, a hand picked, this meets your personality ornament. My girlfriends, my employees, my teachers, my childrens friends....I just couldn't bear the thought of going overboard this year. So, I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and Kohl's and am already almost done!! I'm so excited!! I love Christmas ornaments and can remember where I got every one I have and from whom. I also bought a new cupcake ornament for our ornament gift exchange at the school next week. Had to give it a little "Buffy" flavor. I've also come to love a blog that I just stumbled across and got her a couple ornaments that I'm going to mail to her. Isn't it crazy how you become "friends" with people across the internet. Craziness people!!

So, there was a tornado in my town this week. Shocking that I didn't even know that it was 1/4 mile from my house until I woke up the next morning. I heard the storms, I woke Chris up and told him it was bad. He told me I was dramatic and to go back to sleep, so I did. In case I have never told you....I am a news junkie. CNN. Fox news. Local news. Dallas morning news. My hometown newspaper...I think I got that from both my parents, but for whatever reason..it's what I love...news. So, I click on Fox news.com and there it is Possible tornado hits N. Texas town. I clicked on it...DENISON!! My town. So, I went to the local news channel. All of my friends streets are listed. I totally panicked. I started calling everyone at 6 a.m. Luckily, a lot of them were up, never had gone to sleep, etc. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured!! Praise GOD!! I am pretty upset because it has come out in the news that the sirens are non-functioning. Did I mention that I got my tax statement for 2009 in the mail yesterday? What am I paying taxes for? This stuff to work people!!

So, remember me today while I drive to Dallas with three children, a husband that doesn't like to shop and a budget!!!!

It can wait until tomorrow....

I am such a procrastinator. I work better under pressure. But, the crap that I put myself in the process is ridiculous. I was so proud of myself because I was pretty much done with all my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. Macy-check. Maddy-check, check, check. Mason-almost check. Mom-pretty close to a check. Chris-don't buy gifts for each other-check and then it hit me. All those extras....my friends, my employees, my childrens friends, Christmas cards, teachers, etc., etc., etc.

So, I need to get the obligatory picture of the kids. Thank goodness I took an awesome one at Disneyland this year. Do they all have on matching jammies, nope...Do they all have matching Christmas sweaters....nope!! But, they are happy. They are cute. The picture truly is reflective of who they are and the fun Summer that we had. So, I'm using that one. I'll go to Sam's tomorrow, pick them out and get those addressed this weekend. I also have to address all the Christmas cards for the entire staff at Macy's school because I'm on the PTO...in charge of hospitality.

It just adds up. Chris almost lost his job two days ago. Five other managers did at Love Field. He was safe...this time. It's scary. Very scary. So, I am thankful that our house is not in foreclosure. I am thankful that we can buy gifts. I am thankful that gas is $1.41 a gallon right now. I am thankful that for the most part our kids are healthy. I am thankful that I can stress out about Christmas gifts instead of stressing out about not being able to even purchase them. I'm thankful that Chris and I got to have dinner alone last night at my favorite dive in Sherman. I am thankful. God is good...all the time.

Boo-boo...the update....

Sorry to all of you that have emailed, called or texted and asked how Mason is...(aka Boo-boo). He is doing as well as can be expected, I guess. He's tired. He looks tired. He looks sick. I need to take a picture and post it. He has dark circles under his eyes. Today he slept from 1:00 until about 4:15. That's not really a common thing for him. I'm having to dress him every morning because he is just beat. We saw the ENT...tonsillectomy in January.... We had blood drawn, I have not heard anything on the results yet. We go back again on Thursday for more blood work. He hates having his blood drawn. He still has the cough that he has had for um, three months. He sounds stopped up again in the nose area. I just want him to feel better. I want him to look better. I want him to be better. It's hard for us because we want to baby him and he is over emotional right now, but there are times when we have to discipline him and that sucks. He goes into melt down mode. Just pray that he improves sooner than later!!!

Wal Mart in December..

Need I say more? ICK! I told Chris today, I would rather take my own life than to have to go to Wal Mart on a Saturday during the month of December. All I needed was some tacky glue and some sticky tape for ornament night....40 minutes in line!! Seriously!! 40 minutes. Oh, and I had to park at the BACK of the parking lot, which actually is fine with me. That's fine. But, what isn't fine is that I have to wait in line to park in the back behind all the people who wait people out...you know those people, the people who put pressure on you to throw your bags in the car and run....I do not understand why they have not figured out that it would actually be faster just to park then to sit there and wait for the person that is trying to unload their groceries out of their basket into their car. I don't know about anyone else, but I have started just taking my time. I ever so carefully buckle each one of my children in (sometimes even Macy) just so they have to wait longer!! GET A LIFE. Stop being lazy and go park!!

40 minutes in line. Our particular Wal Mart is smaller than Sherman's. I like it better only because it is smaller. Out of 4 "express lanes" only one was open on each side. ONE! Out of probably 40 lanes...I would guess 15 were open. What's up with that? Saturday. 3:00 p.m. 19 days before Christmas.

Okay, I'm done. But seriously? I'm so over this already...so over it...

Thank you....

Like my best friend Khaki can be quoted as saying today..."Did you ever think that you would be thanking God that your baby boy has Mono?" No, I didn't. But, he does and this is so much better than what we were originally told. We were undergoing studies for lymphoma. We still have more blood work to undergo tomorrow and an ENT evaluation on Thursday, but we did get a mono screen back today that is 100% positive. Very, very positive. It explains so much now that we have a diagnosis. So, pray for him to feel better real soon!! Thanks for all your encouraging emails, texts and messages today!! I felt you with me today!!!