just shy of pretty

And then, THREE MONTHS later…

June 30, 2012 at 4:15 pm (Day to Day, Employed Posts!, High Score Alerts, News, Updates) (Day to Day, High Score Alert, New post, Random Images, Random Stuff, Updates)

Yada yada yada. I’m back. Just like that.

Let me explain. No. There is no time. Let me sum up.

Still dealing with the poop and the pain on a daily basis. It has been 5 months now and I believe that I am finally settling in. Relaxing. Using the skills and critical thinking tools I was armed with from the start. They said it would all make sense. They said it would get “better”. And it has. It is. I no longer go into panic mode every day at 2 pm when I am about to walk through the doors of hell and into the fire pit. It’s not hell. It’s my job. And so far it’s good. And from what I have been reading from some of my fellow classmates who have been working in various other locations, my job ain’t all that bad. Plus, I lost 30 pounds! Bone. Ass. (!!) Seriously.

The kids are great. My son graduated, as scheduled, from the 8th grade and is now moving onto high school. We had him a little party two weeks ago that I think was an awesome success. Most of you all were invited. And most of you all came! He had a blast and was super thrilled to see how many people would come over to our tiny little house and pack in and eat every last scrap of food, including the cake (a full sheet). And then stay through the ever hilarious, gods of weather, thunder and lightning show and torrential downpour of rain that we hadn’t had for over two weeks, but picks our party night to decide that the clouds are full enough.

The next day, we wake up to a burst water pipe in the front yard. Flowers and landscape timbers floating all over the front. A giant mound of grassy water bursting through the ground. Like a giant pimple on the day of the big prom. But we had our moment. One day earlier and all would have been lost. I still cried though. I pictured the sidewalk gone, the driveway gone, most of my front grass…it truly looked like water was pouring out from everywhere.

But in the end it was just a few hours with no water and no toilet, some splattered mud, and 100 degrees of fun for the village workers who fixed it asap. Luckily for them we had cases of water chilling in the backyard coolers. Now I just have one, big, muddy spot near the front of my grass where it meets the sidewalk. And two, square, bracer divots where the back hoe sat digging up the nearly perfect lawn that my son had been working on all spring.

Next up, football training camp. For the boy. Not me. It has already started and ended for the first session. Those first few days were not good. Lots of work. Lots of drills. Lots of getting knocked down. The mandatory vomiting due to extreme physical exercise that one is unprepared for. Could never be prepared for. But now I think he likes it. He’s part of the team. And the team is good.

It also helps that he’s the second biggest player on the whole team. Freshman and Varsity. Respect for the linemen. Especially when they get right back up and don’t complain. Plus, they get free lunch! Football player perks! FYI…that, above, is a good illustrative picture and an excellent book for teenage boys. Read it if you want a fast story with humor and drama and sports. Young adult is the way to go lately and I am not the only one that thinks so.

But I digress. Moving on…

The girl is just as cool as ever. An awesome little chick that is fast maturing from girl to teenager to young adult.  Transitioning this year from 7th grade to 8th. Last year of Jr. High. Of course she’s in the NJHS,  (National Junior Honor Society), and they had a great ceremony at the school to celebrate the smarticles of all these hard working kids.

And did I mention FIRST place, OVERALL, at the Science Fair this year? Yep. First. Place. Over. All. She’s interested in her friends, boys, clothes, hair and makeup, but still found the time to go hang with her aunty and her bestest cuz Elexa for a week, just because she hasn’t been there since spring break, and she missed her!

Good kids I got, for real. As for today, this very minute, they are gone from me again. As they do every year, they have left for Kentucky, with their dad, to visit their grandma and stay for the week over the Fourth of July. They left at 10:30 am and the house is quiet. The way it used to be, before the BF, and after my little ducks would leave the pond for a long trip somewhere else. It’s non-stop, fishing, swimming, and boating, on the lake or in the pool. I don’t expect to hear from them because the days blend when you are on that kind of vacation. Plus they’re 13 and 14. They go where the day takes them. But they have technology now and pictures will be posted. So we can all follow along. Yoodle yoodle yoodle yoodle! Live action!

Oh yeah! I almost forgot! Another tree limb fell in the back yard! You can see it in the picture hanging on the phone line.

And here you can see it denting the metal table we have on the patio. It pretty much fell straight down into the yard from the tree. Luckily we were able to move it ourselves and get it off the AT&T line. The real tragedy would have been losing internet access. And that is no lie or exaggeration. Ipods and XBox really don’t work very well without it. Our whole life revolves around those wireless connections. But we still need the wire outside to connect us. The tree did pull it down pretty low though. AT&T came out and pulled it up tight, just in time for the party. And one of the BF’s friends came and removed all the extra stumps and wood logs we had lying around from the last year. It’s scary empty in the back. And it’s weird not to have the constant reminder that we live with these insidiously malevolent trees that decay from the inside, but attack on the outside. No warning. You can see how sunny and pleasant it looks in the picture. Because it was. You hear a loud boom.  A rattling jangle of metal.  A heavy thunk. It’s not even windy. Whatever. Pick it up. Move it to the back. Plus, it’s the perfect opportunity for your son to use the chain saw for the first time. Yes. He was super excited. Yes. There are pictures.

And because I just scrolled through all my pics in the last few months…

A random crawfish strolling across our back patio. Big too. Don’t know where he came from. Don’t know where he was going. Haven’t seen another one since. I might have even already mentioned him. If not, there you go.

Mother’s Day.

Found money. Seriously. We found this 100 dollar bill folded up, laying on the ground outside of a store in the parking lot. Most money we have ever found in our silly game. (Street Money. You can click the link to the right or this whole sentence, and read all about it.) For the record, we did go back and try to see if anyone had lost any money. Nope. Ours to keep. I promised it to the kids, to split, if they would remove every single weed from the bricks on the back patio in preparation for Mason’s party. They did. In fact, they removed every single paver and brick individually, weeded all around them and put them all back in place. In about 4 or 5 hours. Money. The great motivator.

The Avengers!

Best red blend and white blend. Ever. And I don’t like white wine. Never drink it. Tried it on a whim because it got reviewed deliciously. Not even going to explain why. Just buy them and try them. Good price too. Less than 15 dollars. You will not be sorry.

As for me, I thought I would finally catch up here. I don’t have time to really do anything any more because my work schedule is shit. 3-11. Not conductive to a social life. You work, you sleep. You go back to work. If you make the effort to get up in the day, you will be tired by the night. But you really won’t. You get that second wind. And because you stay up those few hours after work like you would if you worked in the day,  the hours eventually start to run into each other and you spend your day off sleeping until noon. Or later. Then the only thing you can do is play phone games (highest score for me so far!) and watch old re-runs of shows you used to love and try to take back the life you once had.

So, I couldn’t help but wonder, am I going to wrap this up or keep typing like I have nothing else to do?

Truth is I do have something else to do. The BF has booked us a nice hotel room away from our town and made reservations at a restaurant that we have never been to. We have a birthday party, with drinks, to go to after and then, who knows? He is out with his friend test-riding a motorcycle trip right now in preparation for the 4000+ mile motorcycle trip they are going to take at the end of the month. And I promised I would be ready by 3. I am lucky. For the first time since I started this job, I have had two, whole, glorious days off, that I got to spend, every minute, with my kids. And soon I will have these two more, glorious days off to spend with the BF. And I have received the ultimate gift of 4 whole hours, of pure alone time, smack dab in the middle of a long weekend off. The house is clean. The dishes are done. The beds are made. The laundry is washed. And dried. Folded. And put away. My overnight bag is already packed. The flowers are watered and weeded and dead-headed. The grass is cut. The sky is blue. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. (And happy and fat with lots of food available in all the feeders.) My legs are already shaved and my hair is the perfect color. Finally. Let’s just type this last sentence and go hop into the shower.

That’s the motorcycle. Which just pulled up and is my cue to really put this thing to bed so I can go have a nice night out on the town.  “Out on the town.” That’s funny sounding right? Kind of old fashioned.

And for those playing along with my TV/Movie reference game, I’d like to thank Seinfeld, The Princess Bride, Call of the Wildman, and Sex and the City. There’s another one in there, I think, that I cannot place. I even called my girl for help but she’s already on vacation time and the connection was lost. It’s kind of funny how in this saturated media world we can never be sure anymore if our words are even our own.

Anyway. Hopefully. This post, after so long without, will bring me back to every day. I have been taking pictures and keeping a list of ideas and things to write about this whole time. And I’m telling ya’, some of it is pretty good. And some of it is a lot of birds. I am still obsessed with getting pictures of all the birds that fly into my backyard. Cardinals, hawks, woodpeckers, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, hummingbirds, and this year, we have blue jays! I’ll try to minimize the pictures of the sky though. The kids have already told me no more sky pictures. No one cares. It’s enough. And be funny. Funnier. Only the laughs. So here’s to turning a new leaf while still hanging off of the old tree. Birds. Lots of birds. Sitting.

And in the sky.

I hope you enjoyed today and will continue to follow again through the summer and beyond. I appreciate all my readers for hanging through the flood and the drought. This is me, in my life again. I mean, it’s the same life as before, but with better time management. Have a great day and night wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Stay safe. I will talk to you. Later.

L.