Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Not quite so single anymore and other updates

These past two months have brought a lot of changes for me!

One thing, I've had a lot of people ask me to do their pictures. Yay! So far I've only done one shoot and I've been paid for a newborn shoot for October. The best part? It is for TWINS!!! I'm so excited. It is for a distant relative who saw some of my other newborn pictures I put on Facebook. I don't remember if I posted but back in May I did my first wedding and since I put those pictures up three people have asked me about doing their wedding pictures next year. So I'm finally taking baby steps with my business and I haven't even advertised yet! Very exciting.

The other big news is that I've decided to try to work on a relationship with the father of my youngest two kids. There's a lot of people that aren't happy about it I'm sure, and a lot of people that just know things won't work out. But I don't care, the conversations we've had and the things that he's said and done have proven to me that he has changed. We're taking things slow, I'm not going to jump into it like I usually do, but I'm hoping that things are going to be different this time. If not, he knows that this is his last chance. I will still expect him to be there for the kids but I won't let him have my heart.

Last, I've decided that I really do want to move to Oregon. I visited the Medford area and LOVED it almost as much as the coast. And it really isn't that far away from the ocean. It reminds me a lot of Boise, only greet trees on the hills. It was so pretty. So I've decided that about the time that Jake is in school I will take my exhusband back to court so I can move out of state. The girls will be 12 and 13 so hopefully if he fights me they will be old enough to tell the judge exactly how involved he has been. Still hasn't seen them since Easter 2010. So that gives me a little time to get things organized and some money for court and moving. Maybe I can talk my parents or siblings into coming with me.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Decisions decisions

So many decisions to think through.

Isn't it funny how your life can be so wonderful but completely suck at the same time? Very confusing.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Jake's first birthday

 So today my little man turned one. It was a very bittersweet day. He's my last baby so it will be the last first birthday I celebrate. I wasn't going to do a party but then decided that he will only ever turn one once and I don't want to miss celebrating my last first birthday.

We started out with a picnic and a trip to the zoo. My mom has been watching my two nieces while my sister and brother in law are on vacation. At the beginning of the week she told me that she probably wouldn't go with me because my nieces are only 2 and 8 months old and probably wouldn't have any fun. So since she said that she wasn't going I invited Jake's dad, Carl. There were a few other people that said that they would meet up with us at the zoo, but only one other person did. When I was getting ready to leave today I mentioned to my 4 year old that her dad would be joining us because I had talked to him that morning and he said he would come. For whatever reason, my mom decided to tell me that since Carl was going that she wasn't going because she couldn't be nice to him.

I get it, what he did was pretty crappy. I feel stupid and crappy for falling for it TWICE, but you can't change the past, only learn from it. I've been trying to move on with my life. It is hard because it was like he was two different people. One part of me will always love the wonderful guy I know he can be if he wants to. But my brain tells me that he doesn't want to be the nice guy unless he gets something out of it. And it is sad because he was the one guy that made me truly happy when we were together because he didn't treat me like I was there to serve him. I think that is why it hurt so much when he told me he didn't want to be with me anymore. Yeah, we've had our problems in the past and I'm sure we've both done things that we regret but it isn't about me or him anymore. It is about two kids that didn't choose to be here. He can be an amazing dad if he wants to be and I'm not going to let my feelings push him away because that only hurts my kids. I don't know why but the past month he's been more involved. He hasn't seen them as much as I'd like but he does ask about them. And unless I know that he's going to be harmful to them I'm not going to keep them away from him. He is a good influence on them and there's nothing wrong with them having their father in their life.

Anyway, we were at the zoo for 4 hours, 2 of which Jake slept. But the girls had a lot of fun and my 4 year old had some really good bonding time with her dad. I gave them as much room as she wanted me to and they had a great time. Of course Jake woke up when it was time to leave. We got home just in time for the BBQ. I had two families cancel at the last minute so I have a lot of extra food but that's okay because it will cut down on my grocery bill this month. I got the feeling that my mom didn't want me to have a BBQ, I wasn't even sure if she would be there. But she was and she had to make her comments about how I took the wrong week off for vacation (my dad has NEXT week off but I took this week off after calling her and asking her while I was at work on the last day I could request it off). As I was standing in the kitchen listening to my mom complain that I was the reason that my parents never got to do anything, the pirate ship cake I was making started falling apart. I did two test cakes, the first one sucked, but the second one was awesome. I don't know what was up with the cake today but luckily I planned on making extra in case something happened because 2 of the cakes didn't come out of the pan right. But I was able to somewhat fix the cake, and all but 3 pieces were eaten.

Just as I was getting tempted to take my broken cake and run away my brother and his girlfriend showed up. My mom won't talk about personal business with my brother's girlfriend around so it saved me. Then some friends from high school came with their kids, and my aunt brought her new baby and it was fun. I ended up having a really good time despite everything. My sister showed up after she got off work which was really cool. I wish I would have taken more pictures but at the zoo my camera got really heavy and I just couldn't carry it around much and at the party I was busy "hosting" so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. And Jake wasn't interested in making a big mess with the cake so I didn't get any of those pictures. If it isn't windy tomorrow I'm going to do his cake smash in the afternoon. If not it'll have to wait until Saturday. 

I can't believe my little man is one! And a big thanks goes out to my dad for cooking the meat for me!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Photography

So I took pictures of a wedding last week. My first one. I was so nervous and sick, afraid I was going to mess up the pictures.

I was there several hours. It was outside while the sun was setting and no shade. I think I got some good shots for it being my first time.





Friday, May 20, 2011

Hate is a four letter word

But sometimes I use it. I try not to, I try to be a good person. I don't even speed because it is breaking the law. I come to complete stops, I don't turn on red when the sign says you can't. I do what I can to help people who need it.

But sometimes with certain people the anger I have toward them comes out in the form of hatred. Not often do I waste my time thinking about my exhusband, but sometimes I just get a slap in the face. My kids think of him more often than I do. And it breaks my heart to hear them say that they wish he was a better dad, or they wish they had a different dad. I wish that I was enough so they don't need a dad.

During one of my sleepless nights a few weeks ago I was bored and looking up random people I went to high school with. I found out a few of them had died, most of them are married with kids. So that got me thinking about when I got married. And for some silly reason I decided to look up my exhusband on Facebook. I had done it once a long time ago to see if he was on facebook because I wanted to block him so he couldn't find me. But he didn't get an account until a few months ago.

I was bored so I decided to look at his information. While I'm happy he's gotten really fat, he listed himself as having three kids. And he's not married. He's been telling me for almost 2 years now that he's remarried. But both him and his girlfriend who got an account when he did list themselves as engaged. I don't really give a shit if he's married, what makes me mad is that he will list his step kids as being his, but not his biological kids.

And that is the slap in the face that made the hatred surface.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Easter Fail

So I'm finally getting around to posting Easter pictures. It was a disaster. At least the egg coloring was. My 4 year old picked out glitter egg dye. Super fun. Of course from the day I bought it until the day before Easter I was asked several times a day when we could use it. Apparently if I'm asked several different ways my answer might change. But I was strong and didn't say yes until the day before Easter. So we boiled some eggs.



Then we got our kit out.



Of course once it was out everyone had to touch everything and loose half the stuff. So once I found almost everything again, they decided they were hungry.



And for once they weren't fighting!



But what is lunch without playing with your food?



Then of course they decided to get the little color tablets out and put them on the table... And of course, them being them, they had 150 glasses half full of water sitting around the house. And since half of those were on the table one of them was sure to be tipped over. Once the tablets were drowning there was no saving them. Sorry, I didn't get pictures. But I did announce on facebook that I was cancelling Easter. Then when I wasn't so mad anymore I realized that my 4 year old was actually the only one that DID mind me and hadn't been touching it. So I made some color for the eggs out of food coloring.



We didn't color eggs last year and she didn't remember doing it when she was 2 so she had a lot of fun.



And of course like always, she freaks out when I get the camera out. "Don't take my picture!"



(ignore her shirt, laundry day lol)

So after a lot of mess we finally have our colored eggs.



Very beautiful of course! As I was cleaning up I noticed that I was having a hard time washing the stuff off my hands. I finally gave up and decided that going to work with colorful hands wasn't too bad.



It could have been worse. I did finally get the glitter off. And yes, I have a mole on my hand. More proof that I'm weird.

So Easter was saved and the kids got to find their eggs. My 4 year old is convinced that all rabbits are named "Easter" now, and it is her new favorite animals. My 8 year old tried to tell her that I was the Easter bunny and she just laughed and said "but mom isn't a rabbit!"

She's right though, I'm not. And they can't wait until next year to do it all over again.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Books

Ever since I can remember I've loved to read. During the summer when I was growing up I would ride my bike to the library and check out the maximum number of books I was allowed to (which was 8), read them all, then I would go back the next week and get 8 more.

There are several book series that I've been reading for a few years now. The longest is the Inheritance cycle which so far have been Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr, and I've been waiting for almost 3 years for the last book Inheritance to be released. Brisingr came out in September of 08 (I remember because it came out at midnight the day before I left on vacation). I remember waiting for over 2 years for that one to be relased. After I read it I couldn't wait for the fourth and final book. After waiting and waiting and waiting... There's finally a release date! After all this time, now I only have to wait until November 8th.

Until then though, there's a few other series that will keep me somewhat occupied. I started reading the Southern Vampire books (some of you know them as Sookie Stackhouse, and others know them from the HBO shows True Blood) several years ago. I was happy when they became an HBO series, but I'm not happy about how far the show has gone from the story line. Anyway, book 11 comes out May 3rd. And then the season 3 of True Blood comes out at the end of May, the 31st I think.

I've also been reading the house of night books, and the next book, the 8th will also be released in November.

Then there was the Vampire Academy books. This series I absolutely loved. The author isn't writing anymore from the POV of the main character in the first 6 books, but there is a spinoff series and the first called Bloodlines it going to be released August 23. Obviously this is about vampires but the love story is what drew me in. There have been very few books that have caused me to shed a tear, but several of these did. I'm sad to see it end but excited to see where the new series goes.

I'm currently reading the newest Vampire Diaries book that came out last month. I haven't seen the show and honestly I'm probably not going to until it is on netflix lol.

And then there's the Anita Blake series. The first book was given to me and I read it just after Jake was born last year. I loved it so much that I bought the other 18 books and read them all within a few months. Now  book 20 will be out on June 7th and it is called Hit List and it brings back one of my favorite characters. And yes, it is about vampires too.

I'm always open for suggestions for more books to read, if anybody has any : )

There was a series that I started to read that I really should finish because it was pretty cool. I can't remember the name of it but the first book was about a guy who was murdered and woke up as a vampire. Then he had to work to solve his own murder. I have to have them sent over to my library which takes a little bit so that is why I haven't read past the third book.

There was also a book I read a few years ago that I'm pretty sure was a series. I thought it was a detective book but it was a vampire book. It was kind of the book that opened the vampire doors for me. I don't remember much except the detective was investigating a murder. Her father had been a cop and that is why she was a cop. I'm pretty sure it was set in New Orleans. I can't really remember more than that except she found out the main suspect was a vampire and then she had to work with him to solve the crime... I know the book is packed away in my storage somewhere. I hope to go through that this summer and get rid of most of the crap in there. Oh well.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The joys of public school

There are so many reasons why I would much rather put my kids in private school than public... but I can't and probably won't ever be able to afford a private school.

There are so many bad things that kids bring home from school, colds, germs, attitudes, bad words. I would rather have all of those before I got the worst one of all. Head lice. Ew. But just my luck, instead of a cold or a flu we've been dealing with head lice this week. And so many things just piss me off about it. (For the record I know my kids could have gotten it anywhere but the most likely place IS school since I don't let them try anything on in the stores for this exact reason.)

Luckily it has only been my older two daughters that had a bad outbreak. But because of it my middle and youngest daughter had to get hair cuts. I couldn't get the comb through their hair. I almost cried when my youngest daughter's hair was cut. It was finally getting long enough to put into nice braids. She had never had a major hair cut like that. I almost cried. She was so happy though. The smile on her face was the only thing that kept the tears from spilling over. She loves it. My middle daughter has always cut her hair herself so she could have short hair. Her hair was finally past her shoulders and now it is up to her ears. She loves it too.

It has been a nightmare, and expensive. The first round I spent $150 on treatments for everyone. The first round didn't kill them all so we did another round. Still live bugs everywhere. I was so grossed out, and there were so many I couldn't just pick them all off. I talked to one of the pharmacists I work with about how frequent I can treat them. He said that I could do it daily but if the next round didn't get rid of them then I would have to call the dr for a prescription that is stronger. So the last time I tried a natural treatment called lice free. It is gel stuff you put on your head with a cap for an hour. It killed them ALL! And it was almost half the price.

I think what upsets me the most about this whole ordeal is the fact that the school is hush hush. They don't have the nurses come and check other kids, they don't send out letters telling parents that there was a classmate that has lice. They claim it is for privacy issues. I told them I don't give a damn about privacy, I want the other parents notified! Nope, they just don't do it. They would rather have it spread around than to actually do something. And what really sucks is that the majority of the children come from low income families, most of whom would have to borrow money to be able to treat for lice. So my mom went ahead and told the teachers about it (she was the one that dropped them off at school when the bugs were gone) and told them that we didn't mind if they put it in the weekly newsletter, or even just a note about remembering to check for lice. My girls told their best friends about it and told them that they should have their parents check to make sure they don't have bugs because they're always hugging.

So now the only toys the kids have are the things that could be washed, and there's a ton of bags of laundry that needs to be washed. On top of it all, I hurt my foot when I was doing some aerobics last week and it is getting worse so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go to the doctor about it. I just hope it keeps getting better because I don't want to go!

This past week has been a nightmare and I would much rather be out with the flu than picking bugs off my girls and chopping off their hair.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

More ex drama

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted.

So here's an update on some things in my life. My oldest daughter will be 8 this week. I can't believe that it has already been 8 years since she was born! I'm going to have a teenager in only 5 years. That is a scary thought.

My exhusband finally contacted me, it only took him 6 months. But it wasn't about the kids, it was because he found out his tax return was garnished. He sent me a text telling me that I'm going to be getting a little over $3 grand because they're garnishing it. He said I'm taking money away from his new baby, bla bla bla. I told him that I most likely won't get even half that and I have no sympathy for him because if he had been paying child support like he was supposed to they wouldn't have garnished. I told him that there were times that I went without buying shoes for myself because my kids needed them, even though mine were being held together with duct tape. I reminded him that there were times I didn't have enough money to feed everyone so I fed my kids while I went without. Sorry, NOT sympathetic because he's being forced to be at least financially responsible. His response? Sure, he messed up but he's changed his life around and doing things right. Then he said he's going to tell the judge that I don't let him see the kids and the judge isn't going to like that. Bwahahahahaha! I told him he should tell the judge how often he asks to see the kids before he claims that I don't let him see them. For the record, he did NOT ask to see them, did not ask about them, just complained he had to pay for them.

Usually I only hear from him when he's fresh out of jail or around tax time when he thinks I might be nice and give him money from my taxes. I haven't done that since we were married but some people take longer to learn than others. So I decided to look him up on the repository for my state. I don't do that too often because he has pages and pages of criminal records and I hate sifting through to see what is new because they don't go in chronological order, they just randomly list them. Turns out he spent 20 days in jail when he was arrested in January. He was driving without the license he's tried so hard to convince me he has, and he had an unpaid Fish and Game ticket from 2 years ago he never took care of.

So being the nosy person I am I decided to look up his wife's info. I figured that if HIS record wasn't enough for the judge if he takes me to court, maybe she has something I could use against them too. Boy does she. Most of it isn't too bad but there were some things that concerned me. Like back in 04 (I think, but it was a while ago) she had a few charges for child endangerment because her kids weren't properly buckled up. Now, her kids are only a few years older than mine, her oldest is maybe 11. So in 04  she had young kids and they were either in the wrong car seat or didn't have one at all. Then I saw something that just pissed me off. She has many unpaid fines, and several collection agencies that have sued her, the rough estimate in my head was about $15 grand that people are trying to get out of her. Normally I couldn't care less about that stuff but down at the bottom, the newest entry in the log was for this month, saying that they had intercepted her taxes. Which means they intercepted the taxes from my ex as well. So as far as I know there are about 8 cases between the both of them that would be garnishing the taxes. If I'm correct, they'll divide it up evenly and we'll all get 1/8 of it. But knowing the genius my ex is, he'll tell me that I got all of it and won't believe a word I say.

Last week my oldest got sick. She didn't eat anything from Saturday night until Thursday morning. And the liquid she drank didn't stay down. There's been a horrible flu going around that lasts 3 days so I thought she had that. On Wednesday when she wasn't better I decided to take her to the dr. My mom told me that she would just get over it and not to worry about it, I got the feeling that she didn't want me to take her. But I did. Turns out she has a sinus infection and I guess the drainage made her sick. So on Thursday my mom kept telling me that I'm probably going to have to take her to the ER for fluids because she wouldn't eat a whole bunch at a time. Kind of funny she went from saying not to take her to the dr to needing to rush to the ER. We've been slowly building back her food intake to where it was but she's still not feeling great. I hope she gets better by her birthday.

I'm still working on a humor entry since I only come here to complain. I don't have much time on the computer and when I do I get sucked into a debate board on BBC. It is horrible, it ruins families, and is very addicting.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Its been a while

I have several blogs that I've started but I haven't finished. Some are just kind of to vent and then I really don't want to post them lol.

But I've been learning how to crochet and that has been taking up the time I normally would have used to blog. But I've learned some awesome things like this owl hat.



Not the best but not bad for my first one!

Jake is crawling and he got his first tooth on the 11th. I can't believe he's getting so big. I need to start planning his first birthday pretty soon. I can't wait to do a cake smash.

I got some things for my photography today. I went to Lowes and got some linoleum that looks like hardwood floor and a piece of molding. Now I just need some seamless paper. The cutting of the linoleum was a problem though. It took forever for someone to cut it, then when she did the whole thing fell off the roll. So they cut it on the floor and it turned out crooked. Oh well. I also got a piece of plexi glass that I can't wait to use. The only other thing I really want to get is brighter bulbs for my umbrella lights and a backdrop but I have to decide which one I want.

I can't wait for warmer weather so I can get out and practice some more!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Asthma

So Jake was diagnosed with asthma. He's 6 months old and needs help to breathe without wheezing. It sucks because I keep thinking about all the troubles that he's going to face. He started a new medicine, one that he has to take twice a day to keep his wheezing to a minimum. Then he has albuterol for the "attacks."

The wheezing has gotten less and it seems like he's not struggling to breathe as much anymore. I'm also trying to work out the details for a fundraiser that I'm planning to help by brother with his medical bills. He's going through chemo and it is pretty expensive. I know it won't be a whole lot but some is better than nothing.

I do have a funny/sarcastic blog that I'm working on to teach people the "correct" way of filling a prescription, all things that were taught to me by customers. It is very slow because my son thinks he needs to be held all the time. And I'm not very good at typing one handed, especially since that hand still is recovering from my kitchen accident a month ago.

I love being sarcastic though so it'll probably be a long one.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

365 days of pictures

So I always wanted to do the 365 days of pictures but I felt that if I even missed one day I would just give up. So I'm going to do a variation of that. Someone suggested doing 52 pictures, one for each week. I thought that was a great idea. So I'm going to try to take a picture everyday and then pick the best one for the week. That way even if I miss a day I won't give up completely.

So on New Years day I took this one

I painted this for my daughter's bunk bed. It is a work in progress, slow progress because I haven't had time to finish.

Jan 2nd brought this one


He chewed on the book and got mad when I took it away. He cried for like 20 minutes. Maybe Jake is team Edward... lol.

Jan 3rd



Pretty blurry but all of them have been taken with my camera phone.

Jan 4



Tin foil hats are out of style, tin foil berets are more fashionable.... don't ask.

And today Jan 5th. This is my favorite so far. I made it for a fellow blogger for a project she's working on for her second son who was stillborn in May of 09.

You can check out her project here

http://365dayswithjoel.blogspot.com/

And you can feel free to help her with this.




So, that's it! I'll post these every 5 days or so.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Haunting

So for the longest time I never believed in ghosts or spirits coming to haunt us living folk. Recently I'm not too sure.

My parents bought their house almost 2 decades ago and I have dozens of stories of weird things happening.

The tv that we had when I was growing up was one of those huge box ones that are so big that they have to sit on the floor. It was bought the year I was born and just recently died a few years ago. Before it died the buttons started going out on it. The first to go was the power button and you had to use the remote to turn it off and on. Several times in the middle of the night the tv turned on. When I would go out in the living room the remote was on top of the tv so nothing had touched it.

My kids have a really annoying toy that has the alphabet on it with individual buttons. There are several settings so you have to push the little thing to whatever setting you want and I even have a hard time with it and my kids couldn't hardly ever get it to move. It is very loud so when it turned on in the middle of the night it woke me up and I thought my kids were playing with it. I went into their room and just before I opened the door it turned off. I found it on the other side of the room from where my girls were, and they were really asleep, they weren't just faking. I thought it was weird, kind of a fluke but didn't think anything of it until it did it several times in one week. So I decided to take the batteries out. Well that same night I took the batteries out and that damn thing still turned on. Needless to say we don't have that toy anymore.

Weird things like that are always happening and the room my girls sleep in is always cold, even in the summer it stays cool. Last week while my son was taking a nap I got in the shower. Of course like all 6 month old babies do when you get in the shower, he woke up and he was crying. Just as I was getting out of the bathroom my 4 year old told me that the mean boy is bothering her brother. I asked her what mean boy and she said "the one that is sitting right there." Of course she could be making it all up but I asked her if she was and she got mad that I couldn't see him.

I'll leave you with one last story to creep you out. On Thanksgiving my kids were using my point and shoot camera to take pictures. I very rarely use my point and shoot since I got my dSLR. Dec. 1st my mom took some pictures with my point and shoot of the kids playing out in the snow. I was looking through the pictures and my camera kept messing up on me. The buttons would stop working, it would freeze up, two pictures would be combined into one. Really weird stuff so I thought it had gotten wet or dropped or something. Well I finally made it through to the Thanksgiving pictures and there was one that when I got to it, it froze up and the only way I got it off the screen was turning the camera off. This happened every time I got to the picture. So I put a different memory card into my computer and it worked just fine.

I decided to upload it to my computer so I could see the picture better. It took me several tries before I could get it onto my computer. Just one picture and every time I tried uploading it my computer would freeze up and I would have to restart it. Finally after two or three days of trying I was able to get it onto my computer. But it didn't go where I told it to upload to. It uploaded into the oldest folder that I have pictures on.

I decided to blog about it and tried uploading it onto the internet. Each time my internet connection would mysteriously disconnect, or the page couldn't be found, or my computer would freeze. Finally after several days and several tries I finally was able to get it onto my facebook.


Isn't that creepy? Oh, and kindly ignore the movie mess. My kids don't know how to put things back where they go.
I know that it could be a dust particle and whatnot but everything I've seen doesn't show dust particles that look like that.
As far as ghosts.... I don't know.