this big ol heart o mine

THERE ONCE WAS A SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART THAT NO ONE ELSE COULD EVER BE

THE REASON IT WAS SO SPECIAL WAS BECAUSE IT WAS A SPACE MADE FOR ONLY YOU AND ME

BEFORE WE MET AS LOVERS THIS PLACE WAS ONLY A LOCKED PLACE TO HIDE

BUT SOMEHOW SOME WAY YOU FOUND THE KEY AND LET OURSELF INSIDE

UNLOCKING A DOOR THAT HAD NEVER BEEN TOUCHED WAS COVERED IN DUST AND SOOT

WAS AN EXCITMENT ALL IT’S OWN YOU CARRIED NO WEIGHT AFOOT

THE OLD WOODEN DOOR OPENED WITH A CREEK TO A NEW BEAUTIFUL WONDERLAND

FILLED WITH NEW LIFE ADVENTURES YOU GRIPPED THE KEY TIGHTER IN YOUR HAND

THE EXCITEMENT BUILT AND BUILT AS YOU TIPTOIED THROUGHOUT THIS WONDEROUS SPACE

WITH A GREAT BIG GOOFY SMILE SLAPPED ABROAD YOUR FACE

YOUR EYES OPENED WIDE INSPECTING EVERYTHING HERE JUST FOR YOU

AND HOPED THAT THIS FANTASYLAND WOULD ASWAYS STAY TRUE

AT THAT MOMENT WE DID NOT REALIZE A RELATIONSHIP REQUIRES WORK

AND WE EXPECTED IT ALL ALWAYS TO BE THE JOYOUS SOUND OF A CORK

POPPING OUT THE BOTTLE CHAMPAIGN SPLASHING THROUGHOUT THE AIR

MAKING US ALL WET WITH NO PAIN TO EVER BARE

NOW THAT PLACE IN MY HEART IS CLOSED AND LOCKED UP TIGHT

I HAVE PUSHED YOU OUT AND THE KEY YOU WILL NEVER FIND

I GUARD THIS DOOR NOW WITH EVER SINGLE OUNCE OF STRENGTH

SO YOU MAY NEVER AGAIN SLIP BACK INSIDE AND BRING ME MORE WRETCHED HEARTACHE

THE REASON IS NOT HIDDEN DEEP, IT THE REASON EVERYONE ONE KNOWS SO WELL

AND FOR THAT REASON AND ONE REASON ALL ALONE I NOW RETURN AS MY EMPTY HEARTED CLONE

THE REASON BEING ONE THAT MAKES ME LOOK AWAY IN SHAME

AND MAKES ME FEEL LITTLE, SCARED, AND ALL ALONE IN PAIN

BUT DAY BY DAY I ALWAYS PRAY I WILL NEVER FEEL THIS ACHE

FROM WHEN MY LOVER FELL FROM GRACE AND REACHES FOR ANOTHER...

I DISCOVERED HE LOOKS DOWN UPON ANOTHER WOMENTS FACE

THIS ACHE NOW SCARES ME AS I LOOK UP INTO YOUR EYES

I WILL NEVER KNOW ANYTHING BUT THE ENDLESS MOURNFUL CRIES

OF DREAMS THAT ARE SWEPT INTO THE PAST

GOOD THINGS IN LIFE GUARANTEED TO NEVER LAST

NOW THAT ALL IS SAID AND DONE

I FEEL A GREAT RELEIF TO BELIEVE AT LEAST WE KINDA WON

AT LEAST WE FOUND THE ONE AND ONLY

THE ONE THAT MAKES US WHOLE

THE ONES WHO CARRIES THE PROMISE TO ALWAYS HELP US REACH OUR GOAL

NO MATTER HOW FAR APART

I MAY FIND YOU LURKING IN MY MIND

OR HIDDEN FROM THE WORLD BEHIND THIS BIG ’OL HEART O’MINE

DRUMROLL PLEASE.... Dylan is 14

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY! I LOVE YA!!!!!! I CAN NOT BELIEVE HE IS 14!! Dylan has been asking for a laptop for like 5 years and finally we all pitched in and got him a lap top.. and he got a really cool one to boot! Ed (of course) found us a really great deal. Dylan had a list of things he wanted his laptop to have/things he wanted it to be able to do and we pretty much covered all the bases but also got a few extras minus a webcam. He's set for high school! DOUBLE WOOT!!

on his way home to his mommy...

Blue is on his way home!! yeahhh!!! I'm pretty excited about seeing him! Little devil boy!

CC debt war update

Okay.. I just realized that I have not updated this blog on our credit card debt war. i think the last time I actually blogged about I had just mentioned us getting the jobs at the boat.

Okay so here is the low down. Tim and I had absolutely no debt when we moved into this house almost 5 years ago. We paid off what little debt we had, I think like $4,000, my car, and paid his parents back for the lending us the money for the down payment plus still had over $40,000 for the down payment on the house and down payment on his new truck. So we bought the house and 11 days later took the remaining $10,000 and his old truck and bought his new truck. I'd like to say that we got a good deal on the truck, but of course there are a few cardinal rules i think we missed along the way considering the fact that we argued over the price of the truck vs the price of the trade in for over 6 hours. Looking back we should have left but it was the EXACT truck Tim wanted and i wasn't leaving until Tim got what he wanted.

Less than a month later began the downward spiral. Both my and Tim's jobs started slowing down, we went from working ALL THE TIME to being home more and more often which gave us more time to hang and get to know our neighbors which was great.. on the flip side we never sat down and said "okay we gotta cut back expenses" we lived as if we were making double what we made (as we had been for the previous 4 years solid). The weddings began, a ton of our friends all got married within the last 4 years so you can imagine all the showers, engagement parties, bachelor/ette parties, wedding gifts, clothing, tux rentals, hotel rooms, days off of work, flights, car rentals, and now baby showers, baby gifts, christening gifts etc etc etc we've had to pay.. and my gut reaction has been to be a little bitter about all the expenses we've incurred considering most of these people were not around when I had Dylan and have contributed nothing to him and for my marriage to Tim did not have anywhere near the expenses we did for their weddings. But in "keeping up with the Joshezz" fashion we kept up even though we couldn't afford it.

We have been chiseling away at this debt since the end of October and haven't even paid off $10,000 which really sucks but we are keeping at it. More importantly we've finally looked at the big picture and decided we need to start putting our foot down and looking out for ourselves as #1. So if we look at costs and can't afford something, we either don't go or we go and don't spend any money doing going. It's funny how now I look at taking a Saturday night off for a family event as COSTING me $150. That $150 is now what I feel I'm "behind" in paying off debt. It sucks to look at it that way.. but that is the way it is.

I feel that we are fortunate in one area. Tim and I have always been a PAY YOURSELF FIRST couple and we have faithfully contributed to our 401k's, ESOP's, IRA's, money market funds, installment certificates, bonds etc this entire time. So when we consolidated our credit cards and got a home equity loan to pay off everything, it just didn't make sense to us to have to pull money from those funds/accounts and have to pay penalties and/or taxes and fees on that money. Taking on second jobs was the only way we could live with this and hopefully the exhuastion and frusteration we feel from working extra hours every week will stick with us long enough to never touch a credit card again.

The one thing I didn't expect to happen is that this has become my personal vendetta if you will. In my life I've gone through periods of obsession with something or another.. the last 3 years was diet and exercise.. it became my passion.. that has been totally thrown to the wind, I'm gaining weight like you wouldn't believe.. but really I don't care because I'm focused on the debt and the feeling I get when I make another payment. The cool part has been that we got the HELOC through our credit union so I can go online 24/7 and make payments. I've been trying to deposit as much tip cash as possible sometimes several times a week and then I go online and wait for that money to become available. The second it becomes available I make a payment unles I need it for something else.

Tim and I have been attempting to make goals and write them down and keep track week to week on those goals. Bare with us the next couple months because we have a rather large goal we set for ourselves and hindsite of course we realized we have a bunch of other BIG MONEY things coming up the next 3 months that need to be paid for.. so I'm actually doubting that we'll get anywhere near our goal, but we are sure as hell going to try. On the plus side is our BIG MONEY things will be paid for in CASH unlike 6 months ago. 6 months ago I wouldn't have thought about it at all and just paid for it with my credit card, or paid cash and then would buy groceries for the month on my credit card.. so either way, my credit card was going for a ride several times a month.

Getting 2nd jobs was a big wake up call for many of our family and friends who realized that we were in credit card debt but did not realize the full extent of it. (I have actually had to tell my dad the total number like 5 times because I think he is in denial about it and each time he acts shocked all over again) I have to say that since the wake up call that we have gotten so much more support and I think we've even encouraged other people to take their debt troubles by the horns and go out and get 2nd jobs. The last few months every week at least 2 or 3 people question me about my 2nd job, how it's going, etc and then tell me that they are thinking about having to do the same thing. No matter how much it sucks, sometimes it just has to be done.

SO GO OUT THERE AND GETTTTTTERRRRRRRRR DONE!

Sidney and her pantons...

yes.. so my cat in the absense of her true life enemy (Blue) now has the energy to come up with some super annoying and sometimes very expensive hobbies. She will play with anything we've come to find out.. a straw that was left in my apron from the boat, she'll tear the wrapper off and chew and play with the straw for hours.. she likes to wake us up the second she hears one of us move in bed, even comes to stand guard meowing as she stands on our heads begging us to wake up and feed her. For anyone who has met Sid you realize the cat actually talks.. sometimes in regular english words so I wake up at 5 am only because I rolled over or dare to take a pee and she walks in wailing, MMMMMOOOOOOOMMMMMMAAAA MMMMAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAA MOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM nice cat, you are 15 and totally senile, go down stairs and pretend you are sleeping.. no dice EVER. okay.. so on to her wonderful new hobby.. stealing pantons out of the bathroom, tearing their wrapper off, and flinging the applicator and plug around the house.. so if you come to my house and find tampons laying about.. you know why (oh yes.. and in our house pantons are tampons.. just another "from the mouth of babes" comment made by my son when he was like 5 or 6 "moooomm I know what a PANTON is!!" yeah huh...

wishing on a star...

well.. there it is.. I'm feeling guilty for dealing with such pettiness in my life over the past two weeks when two of my girlfriends are dealing with their dads dying before them.. their daddies, their rock, strong men who raised them... one daddies little girl, one not even close.. but both dealing with the terms of their sentence.. each conversation important, each moment away from them missing what life is left excruciating.. each trying to grasp at straws, and keep their chins held high.. and then again this week.. another woman I know who sadly lost her father in the same manner as the other 2 girls found out her best friend.. a girl she's known since she was 4, the godmother to her first born... her best friend's condition was announced today loud and clear and the news not good. we forced her to leave, to go home, to take some time for her.. to deal with this, to do what she needed to do.. and again.. tonight I'm wishing on a star now for 3 women who maybe don't invade my everyday life, but as these days wind down for them I will keep them in my thoughts and hope that at the end for them what is needed to be said has been said.. as this is a blessing in a sense that they do have time to open their hearts, speak their minds, and hopefully have no regrets after all is said and done.. after all.. it's not too late.

To the three ladies who have some way or form been there for me in my life, I love you, I'm here for you, I'm thinking of you and your families.

getting BENT

so there it is.. the story of my life.. getting the short end of the stick, life not being fair, nothing being equal at least in my eyes.. the life of a Libra where balancing everything in ones life is essential... and even sometimes for me obsessive. and nothing like lives little reminders to just keep popping up to let me know at all costs that my life will never seem balanced to others around me is the always bent fork. Not one fork in my house is bent... not that I know of, but low and behold no matter where I eat out I ALWAYS get the bent fork. It's the most annoying happening in my life. It's always consistent. I can go to any restuarant anywhere and grab a fork from a bin myself.. one out HUNDREDS of forks in 4-5 bins even at a buffett and somehow I always winds up with the bent fork. here it was again tonight. My son and I went out for dinner before I had to drop him back off with his dad. The waiter asked us if we wanted bread before our meal came out.. sure that sounds good.. he brings bread and butter but no utensils. a bus boy comes around the corner just a minute later and I ask him to which he quickly grabs to sets of silverware wrapped in a napkin secured by a little wrapper with the restuarants logo. I rip through the paper and look down and there it is.. another bent fork.. to this I laugh and my son grabs his set of utensils.. he got TWO forks.. both of them perfect, now one flaw in either of them.. I get ONE fork in my set.. mine is BENT and somehow my son gets TWO forks.. both perfect? coincindence.. I think not.. it's just a story of my life. My son and I have a really good laugh at it and laugh about how annoying it is to me try to eat with a bent fork. It pains me to actually put the fork full of food in my mouth. It's the strangest thing. i don't like the feeling of the little prong sticking out no matter how little the bend is.. so this gets me thinking.. is there a reason for this.. is there someone trying to give me some sort of a signal from another side.. is it the food gods saying DON'T FUCKING EAT THIS SHIT because I love to eat so much and it's so bad for me.. my one addiction in life for my addictive personality because I refuse to smoke, drink or spend money... or is it someone who has passed who through forks shows me they are still around.. this is your reminder however I have no fucking clue who you are... OR could it be that at one point in my life someone told me to GET BENT and now I'm being punished by bent forks? I don't get it.. I don't.

yes so if you too seem to find something in your life that is just ALWAYS a little off.. maybe you get the small fork at every meal? or the small spoon? or you never get a steak knife at your favorite steak house? or maybe you always get the dirty toliet stall in public bathrooms.. or the end of the toliet paper roll... what is it in your life that always happens...

Pickle Puss

here is a short story long if you will... this story gives me hope that those not with us who are in heaven are still right there with us... and of course you have to wait until the end of the story to see why.. but I was touched by the entire occurance.. not just the proof.

My mom moved and also retired from her hospital she worked at for 25 years. She got a new part time job at a small country hospital right near her new home. So last week she was at work and she sees this strickingly handsome guy and he turns and looks at her and it happens to be a friend of her that she had grown up with's husband. The friend was a neighbor who was the "little sister" of a total of 3 sisters and 1 brother whom my mother is still good friends with. Now this sister Theresa (my middle name) was my grandmothers favorite and she had a little nickname for her.. Pickle Puss. At my grandmothers wake we laughed and talked about how my grandma called her that all the time... of course she cried, but was also curiously silent the entire time she was at the wake.. so much so that she slipped out without anyone noticing and left.. she didn't stay for the funeral and nobody knew why... we found out 6 months later when she herself died after losing her battle with cancer. She left behind two children 12 and 10 at the time... so the husband and kids live far from us.. about a 2 hour drive.. so you can imagine the shock my mom had when she saw him standing right in front of her... so as it turns out he works for a baby formula company (my mom works in mother baby taking care of moms after delivery and new babies) so he was there to give a presentation because their normal sales guy quit. Insanity for him, but part of his job. So they got to talking and my mom of course had to ask how the kids were doing, how he was doing... he said that his first Christmas was miserable BUT the first Christmas card he got that year was from her daughter (me) and that it really helped him through the season. (I'm seriously touched and so glad he told her because I wasn't sure if he was even getting them). I have no idea what I wrote in that card but apparantly he was very happy to recieve it. So they had a good talk and he excused himself to go clean up the conference room he had been using for a few hours to give this presentation.. so she followed him in to give him a hand because he had brought a full lunch.. sandwiches, chips, pop and he said "I forgot to take out the pickles" my mom had to leave the room.

So not only did my mom pick that hospital to work for (she really doesn't have to work) that shift work on that day (she picks her own hours) but then his sales guy quit and he was just filling in.. and they met in the weirdest of places.. and of course.. he forgets the pickles. Just the little things that almost give me proof they are still here with us because only to my mom would the pickles have signfigance.

Theresa, we love you, we miss you, we're glad you are still here with us.. thanks for the proof.

just EXACTLY how many straws can there be in 24 hours???

SO OF COURSE.. I'M JUST TOTALLY NUCKING FUTZ... I'LL JUST TELL YOU THAT. I decided to take on 5 boys this weekend, had accepted 6 not all of them showed up. Plus I had to work at the boat this weekend, Friday and Saturday from 6pm to 1am... plus Tim was working 8am-6pm on Saturday.. plus I was going to have my holiday cookie exchange tonight.. Monday night.. that equals one busy weekend for me and *almost* wishing Tuesday and the whole thing was over and done with and life was back to normal.. Anyway.. so of course one thing leads to another.. 2 bad nights at the boat, some fighting kids, lack of sleep, not seeing my husband all weekend, driving kids all over the place and back (when they forgot stuff), an utter meltdown ending with a 3 hour cleanathon that landed me in Tylenol PM coma at 9pm on Sunday night.. the house was clean and most everything was ready for my party Monday night. Had some major problems at work, a system upgrade that totally effed our whole way of doing things.. had to start from scratch and refigure things.. took most the day.. got things on track... went home for lunch, shoveled most of the driveway... heard about a storm heading our way tonight... the phone rings one after another... and the one that stopped me dead in my tracks.. was the 2nd straw that broke the camels back in the last 24 hours... My dad had put Princess to sleep today.. no warning.. we knew she was old.. we knew she was in pain.. we thought it was just arthritis.. I guess it was more.. and he made the decision.. I cried my eyeballs out from 2-6pm within that time learning of another girl in my subdivision who was going to come over found out she had some really bad blood test results come back... the girl next doors great aunt died, her wake funeral was today and she was sick so couldn't come, another neighbor had a terrible weekend.. wound up spending 5 hours of her Saturday basically looking for a set of keys to get into her car which was locked in the Jewel parking lot... I can't say bad day.. I'm saying bad 4 days... Not sure if "thank god it's over" is appropriate.. the storm that is heading our way is going to be as bad (or maybe worse) than the one that hit back in January 1994. I was pregnant with Dylan and there was an ince of ice on everything.. closed down everything for more than 24 hours.

we'll see how I'm doing tomorrow.. for now.. Rest in Peace little Princess (bitch) we love you... no more pain for you.

The war on credit card debt AKA the 2nd jobs we took on to pay off our debt

Soooooo Tim and I started our new 2nd jobs this week.. wow what a disaster my first 2 nights were... all totalled I wound up only making around $50 in tips. The first night I just shadowed another waitress who conviently was leaving for the Phillapines for 3 weeks... I was told later that they do that pretty often.. basically wait until the last minute to hire people. anyway.. so here I am on my first day without someone showing me how to do everything and basically taking the bull by the horns. I basically don't know how to anything.. never waitressed a day in my life... my swipe card got activated wrong, therefore I had many screw ups including the kitchen not getting a few of my orders, one of my orders taking 40 minutes that consisted of chili and nachos, my computer freezing when said customers who had to wait 40 minutes for chili used a credit card to pay for their bill, among a slew of other things happening and then it got dead and I caught up and it wasn't so bad! lol! go figure. My first night my feet and back where hurting within minutes. I couldn't imagine having to wait until 1 am to go home but I finally made it through. The 2nd night I had bought new shoes and was definately in better shape and had also brought advil in case my back started hurting.. which it did promptly an hour before closing, but I had bought Tylenol PM to take when I got home so I could sleep..

Okay.. other than all that.. all in all the job isn't too bad. I'm liking it. I guess if I had gone to work for any other retail type establishment I wouldn't be making tips or anything so if I bring home $40 per night on top of my hourly pay.. it's not taht bad.. now Tim.. he's got the good job.. jerk! lol!

they walk among us.. AKA Assholes of America

My cousin Heather was a blogging fiend up until oh.. this year when her 3rd child was born.. now you are lucky to see a blog maybe once a month and it's usually a little blurb, nothing like before when she had more time to write and write. Anyway, she started blogging and posting pictures of Assholes of America. For example, once at Costco with her 3 young children a women selling VitaMix actually left a knife out on a table. How dangerous is that? Then she had the nerve to get mad at the kids for trying to put their hands up on the table to get whatever was up there. They obviously thought there was either something to play with or food up there.

Okay.. so of course I don't travel with my camera as my cousin does (she's got 3 under 6 so she's gotta capture every cute stunt they perform ya know). So the story goes like this. I'm driving to work this morning and I come up to the top of this steep hill where there is just 3 lanes. One going west, one turn lane to turn south, and one lane coming from the oppossite direction going east. So I'm in the turn lane waiting for the arrow. All of a sudden I notice the little light at the top of the light had turned on and it flashing... a cop???? an ambulance??? a firetruck???? I don't hear it... where is it... ohhhh yes coming up the steep hill right behind me a fire engine... lights blaring, full siren, honking like mad.. now the light has turned green and the traffic from the west coming east toward me of course has started coming right on through as if there wasn't a problem.. but better yet someone in the front of the line decides to completely stop, the people in the lane to the right of me refuse to move forward, and of course there she is MISS SHINING I WILL NOT BREAK A SINGLE LAW AND MOVE right the fuck in front of me.. so of course the fire engine is right up my ass where he should be attempting to get through. I'm honking, the fire engine is honking, everyone is yelling out their windows at MISS MORON to move her fucking ass.. but of course she won't make the left even though traffic is totally stopped and we have the green.. JUST FUCKING GO. We sat like that long enough that I probably could have gotten out of the car, walked to a printing press, had an invitation to move her fucking car now before I or the firemen behind me stuck the firetruck up her ass mad up, walked back and handed it to her polietly before the fucking bitch decides to move up.. she moved up exactly a foot.. OOOOOHHHHH YES A FUCKING FIRE TRUCK CAN GET THROUGH WITH AN EXTRA FOOT.. YES I FORGOT.. IT WAS A MATCHBOX SIZE FIRE TRUCK or one of those fire trucks that actually folds down as it glides through traffic.. ya know the ones in futuristic movies THAT DON'T FUCKING EXIST. yeah.. so finally after a few minutes and enough honking and yelling out the window she finally makes the left.. then carefully puts on her right turn signal and gets in the right lane and stops.. thanks fuck nut.. I drove around her ass then moved over glaring at her as I sped past her.. so she wins the award for the day of THEY WALK AMONGST US.

pics of the duck..

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pics of the duck..

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when life hands you ducks, make turducken...

sooo yes. today marks that day that Blue actually made a new friend.. WITH A DUCK! of course, my dumb dog has to bring a DUCK back into my home.. I just don't get it.. no he can't bring the winning lottery ticket or save Timmy from the well.. but he can bring in a domestic duck! ughhh soooo not good.. I have to wait to see what the wildlife guy says when he comes to see him. I do have pictures which I will post later.

My husband whisked me away to Punta Cana for my GASP 31st birthday...this is how it went....

Happy birthday to me...


Okay so this year we decided to take a vacation so we searched on line and found the best value was a package for $631 per person which included all the food/drinks you can handle, airfare, transfers, you name it to Punta Cana. So I picked my birthday to my mom’s birthday which just happened to have a really cheap price. So yesterday was my 31st birthday and will go down as probably my worst one yet.. First of all I went to work on Monday and the first thing that happens is that we find out that 3 of our branches are being closed down AND that we are laying off 3 people from our branch. Just wonderful... I was not one of the people but I have to admit, the sweet package they got sounded pretty sweet considering I would have been paid until Nov 30th, then collected my vacation time, then gotten 2 weeks pay for every year of service.. so I would have been taken care of through May! How awesome would that have been.. not sure if it would have been good or bad.. but I am glad in the long run it wasn’t me.. so then for whatever reason I was procrastinating packing.. not sure why.. just didn’t really want to do it.. so finally at 8:30pm on Monday night I finally get going on paying bills, packing, running to walgreens, writing a few emails, clean up the house and what not.. so midnight comes and goes and I realize that I have to be up at 4am to take a neighbors cat out, shower, walk my dog, etc So we get to the air port around 5:30am get through checking in, putting in our bags, security.. eat some breakfast, get on plane #1. Land in Puerto Rico, get off the plane, have no clue where to go.. we finally found our way, got a bite to eat ($9 for a ham sandwich and a water bottle) then was shuttled out to our puddle jumper plane. It actually had props on it! I was amazed and Tim actually thought it was amusing to try to fuck with me and tell me horror stories and how scary those planes are.. it was totally fine.. we get to Punta Cana are walked off the plane and taken to the customs area with the baggage claim.. got our bags, got in our van with our driver and off we went.. finally at the hotel we got some room service, unpacked, walked around the resort, got some dinner.. then realized that we got american channels so of course I wanted to see Biggest Loser.. it wasn’t on until 8:30 here.. then I tried to fall asleep after it was over.. umm yeah.. not so much.. they were having a show not far from our building and it was LOUD!! ughh Tim is totally passed out (again.. the night before his head hit the pillow and he was out and I was up until after 2 and my mom called me at 3:45 so I was going on an hour and half of sleep which doesn’t jive with me.. ) anyway.. so I’m exhausted, can’t sleep, now I’m watching tv again trying to fall asleep in this HARD ASS BED and the air doesn’t really make it cool in the room.. so I’m hot, sleeping naked in a weird bed, etc.. okay, so Tim finally wakes up to yell at me to turn off the tv and now I’m in tears that I’m exhausted, can’t sleep because of the noise, the heat, the bed, and it’s my birthday to top it all off.. so Tim is apologizing all over the place and trying to get me to calm down and just try to go to bed.. so I put on my mp3 player and start listening to some music.. eventually I fall asleep of course until Kelly Clarkson was bellowing IT’S LIKE I CAN’T BBBRRRRRRREEEAAAATTHHHHHHHHHH.. so begins another day on vacation.. uggh I hate traveling but I always enjoy the days between!


A DAY AT THE BEACH

soooooo we didn’t wake up this morning until almost 11am... breakfast ends at 10:30 and they have continental breakfast until 11:30 but instead we ordered room service. then we decided to get our suits on and head to the beach.. we found the beach grill which was open as soon as we got down there until after we left.. we had a great time at the beach feeding the fish, reading our books, eating nachos and french fries, and just hanging out.. it was relaxing just hanging out... we saw a ton of ladies topless so now I’m wishing I had brought my 2 piece suit.. I may have to check out the little shops here to see what I can find... not normally a 2 piece girl.. but the idea of sunbathing topless is appealing for once in my life... back at the room we found it was too late for lunch and too early for the beach bbq tonight.. ughhh so we’re hanging out watching tv.. oh well.. maybe I’ll go down and get some internet time and check some emails.

animals

we finally saw animals today! some guy at the beach had a bird and later a huge iguana he was taking pictures of people holding.. it was sorta cool.. we didn’t do it.. but we also encountered a stray dog on the beach today... looks like a really small lab mix. He was blond and really weary of humans. I tried several times to feed him and of course he wanted nothing to do with me... then later we realized the pigeons were really into my french fries so I threw them a bunch.. they had fun with those.. got yet another beach towel today.. the one I got the first day really moldy smelling, then I got one that was moldy and sweaty smelling.. this one seems okay so far !!

Okay.. list of things to bring on next all inclusive vacation. Your own beach towels, a big mug to fill with beer... I think that’s all we have thought of so far.

Tonight is Dominician night.. so we get to taste their food.. we’ll see how this goes.. oh yeah today we found the beach garden that is open around the clock with basic food.. what is funny is some of the food that is served there is also served at the beach bbq which is not 50 feet from each other! go figure! okay.. that’s it for today.


IT’S A RAINY DAY IT’S A RAINY DAY...

It’s raining outside and I can’t go out and play.. well not if you are Tim and there is a swim up bar that you can drink at and hang out with another couple who braved the wet stay and drink.. ughhh not so much fun.. started the day going to breakfast.. on our way out Tim found a little hut that wasn’t occupied so I sat my fat arse down under it and he went and changed clothes and then we swapped.. NOTE FOR NEXT VACATION: BRING A BEACH BAG SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE ROOM AND DON’T HAVE TO CARRY CRAP ALL OVER THE EFFING RESORT.. OH YEA.. BRING PLENTY OF PENS, BOOKS, AND AN ALARM CLOCK AS WELL.. go figure the one hotel that doesn’t have clocks ANYWHERE! really annoying.. you have to turn on the tv to figure out what time it could be or your cell phone which is totally annoying.. well today was the first day with sun so we figured that we would spend the day at the pool.. yeah until the thunder started and not long after that rain, more rain, heavy rain, more rain, and still it rains.. I watched a couple movies on tv, finished my book, walked the stores, ate lunch, now we are getting ready to go out to dinner... fun.. until tomorrow...


another slightly sunny day.. at the pool
another morning filled with sunlight only to elude us and turn into a dreary cloudy day.. it was still quite warm so we sat at the adult pool for a few hours and then later at the main pool. Met two different groups of people from canada.. they paid soooo much more for their trips, so I’m feeling excited that we got such a great deal. Had our pictures taken with this little tiny monkey.. only to look at the finished pictures and realize we both look really fat.. ughhh I *****almost*’***** can’t wait to get back on Weight Watchers!! ha! Had a run in with the dinner reservation dude.. stood in line from 9:45 to 10:03 when he told the entire line of people “too late I can’t make any more reservations see you between 4-6pm tonight”FUCKER went to the front desk, told them we were pissed so the coceriege dude continued making dinner reservationsl it took another 1/2 hour but we finally got in at the Italian Restaurant again tonight.. we have like 3 hours until then. Tim found a tiny little crab at the pool today so I took it down to the shore.. other than that.. totally uneventful day at the pool.


as they always say... Monday Monday can’t trust that day!

ughhh yes so here it is our last day here.. I just went to meet with our vacation rep and he told me I have to be downstairs ready to go before 11:15am tomorrow... our flight doesn’t leave until 4pm so I was pretty shocked. I guess the are asking for at least 3 to 3 1/2 at the airport.. ughhhh effin wonderful. So I feel as if they are taking a few precious hours from me.. but what can I do? Checkout is at noon anyhow.. so I guess it works out okay..

just a tid bit of information on my day today.. as usual I couldn’t con Tim out from the bar to go eat lunch so as usual I said I’m going to the bathroom and then I’ll be over at the buffett.. he normally follows right behind me before I finish my salad or first plate of food he’s heading over to our table plate full in hand. So I’m sitting there digging into my salad when my mind goes totally blank and I start thinking about my cousin Heather and Tim’s god daughter (Heathers daughter) Irina. So I’m thinking OMG she’s almost 8 months.. I’m recounting on my fingers under the table making sure my math is correct considering I always go off of April and October at 6 month guages... so then I start thinking why the heyyyylll and I suddenly thinking about Heather... true I think about her from time to time and actually just earlier today I had been talking about her husband to another guest here at the resort... but why this minute..... hmmm.... wow.. they sure are playing a lot of US ENGLISH songs today... hmmmm weird.. wonder why I was thinking about her... this salad is pretty good.. ughh I forgot the effing cheese... oh crap, there’s Tim.. wow I thought I was getting stood up.... hmmm ughhhh DUH they are playing Heather & Mike’s wedding dance song.. The Power of Love by Celine.. I know I know.. Heather herself has professed her reasoning for not seeing Titanic at the theaters due to Celines WAIL but there it was.. another moment in time I just etched in.. weird huh? lol!

Okay.. I have to wake my passed out drunkered husband up now so we can go to dinner.. we actually found a place we love here.. yumm..

Miami airport sucks...

thats all I have to say.. yes dirty, gross, totally insane.. they walk you a mile in a circle to go to almost the same place... really weird.. okay.. our flight is boarding.

we missed good weather in chicago.. of course.. my luck..

my hair rubber band return system

Yes.. one day over 12 years ago I recieved the best invention ever.. and I got it free. This machine provides the best service a girl could ever need. Here is how it works. I go to workout and every day I pull a hair rubber band out of my work out bag. Over the years I've cycled through pastel colored ones, flat ones, round ones, plain black ones, etc. Now all I have to do it pull the band out of my hair and throw it on any counter top, one in the bathroom, kitchen, a table will work just as well.. breakfast bar.. coffee table.. whatever. Just throw it on a surface. Now during the night I will hear many sounds coming from the depths of my home and giving that our last home was over 3,000 sq feet and built in the late 1800's I normally did not hear all the noise that this machine would make over the course of a night fixing to return my precious cargo to it's intended place. In my new house, built just 4 years ago of PAPER where you can SEE through walls.. of course I hear every noise within an 8 hour span of the machine doing it's work throughout the night. The noises sounds like this... mrrrrrrrrrrwwwwwwahhhhhhhhhhhhh mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmrrrrrrrwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrweeeehhhhhh mmmmmuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrwoooooowwwwwww it goes on hour after hour like this... sometimes it's met by my husband or I yelling from our slumber SHUT UP or actually getting up and slamming the door.. hence the machine does not like to be yelled at or locked out of any room in our house so the machine must come to make amends. Somtimes the machine will come bring you the rubber band or other object it has found to return, just to show you in good faith at 2 am that indeeds it's doing it's job. As you awake, trying to adjust your eyes in the bright morning sun you stumble down the stairs, let the dog out, turn around and low and behold THERE IT IS. My hair rubber band returned to it's place. My cat's food dish of course, that is where it belongs.. but ohhh no it does not stop there. From time to time somehow within a nights work my rubber band does not get returned to it's intended place. I've never been sure where they go UNTIL LAST NIGHT. Yes, I was looking for another item in my home and decided to pull out the stove and fridge from their tight little homes in our kitchen.. low and behold I found 28 hair rubberbands and probably 20 or so little fuzzy balls that my cat plays with! AH HA! So my free gadget isn't always perfect after all.. oh well.

more theories

#4. Europeon people in general are horney people.. in fact in general Polish women are the horniest of the bunch. Not sure where I came up with this idea.. but we are.

#5. Polish people can not live without their dog companions. Another, I have no clue where I came up with this.. but I've decided that they just can't.

#6. Society has totally brainwashed us to think certain things and like a herd of cattle we just follow.

#7. My generation and all those to follow are set up to fail financially. My 13 year old son has a debit card. Not a credit card, but he's on his way. You walk into college the first day and you are offered many credit cards with huge limits. Of course, we take them and set ourselves up from day 1 out on our own. "we'll pay it later" uhhh huhh yeah with the equity in our houses or with 2nd jobs!

I finally took my own advice and put my other foot down!

Ha! yes that is my stupid sense of humor kicking in.. bascially it's one of my work jokes.. I work up figures for mortgage closings, send them to a title co so they can take my numbers, the broker numbers, their numbers, etc and put them all together to come to a bottom line of what the borrower has to bring (or get back) to a closing. So the title closers will call and say "I'm having trouble balancing" and one of my comebacks is usually "did you put your other foot down, sometimes that helps" which normally is met by not only a good portion of my office roaring with laughter (I'm pretty loud people can hear me across the office, god help me in "personal matters") but either the person on the other end of the phone either snickering at me or just bluntly ignoring me because they are over the frusteration point enough to actually call me.. to which I am no help on their end.. it's bascially "here is how I balanced to my number" and I usually get the responce of "yeah I got that but I'm still off $4,000" umm yeah, you did something wrong on your end, not sure what BUT I have not one fee that is exactly that number and you have WAYYYY more fees than I have on my side PLUS every single one of these companies uses different software so depending on the type of fee and how it's paid varies. Anyway.. on to what my blog is about.. it is about balancing I swear to you.

So Friday marked the first day of my 3 day weekend ALONE with my husband with actually no plans.. for any of you who know me or have seen my calendar, not only are my weekends normally completely packed with sometimes 3 or more parties/events, but my weekdays have followed suite most of this summer as well.. having 3 days with no kids, no set in stone plans, just 3 days stretched before us.. well 4 for Tim considering he got Friday off as well. Lucky bastard. So one of the things we did plan on doing was tackling the room I'm in now.. the computer room... it has become the bowels of our financial disaster that we would love to ignore. Somehow over the years of marriage we have gone from making total peanuts and always having cash (I'm a total budget freak) to making gads and gads of ca$h not even knowing what to do with it paying every bill months before they were due to going back on the unbusy side of our businesses and not making anywhere near the amount we were accostomed to. It used to be, oh we have an extra $5,000 this month, I think we'll buy a new fence and pay cash or something of that nature.. now it's glee when we find a $1 in a jean pocket we had forgotten about.. but the situation has just completly downward spiraled to the point where we couldn't hold back our spending the way we did when we were first married and we had to go out and get a home equity loan, payoff all the credit cards, and bite the bullet. We are each *thinking* about 2nd jobs, but now with my work becoming busier again, I'm definately going to take full advantage of that. Somehow just with the home equity loan the $ stress has finally seemed to lift somewhat. We still *know* we owe the $ BUT we decided to get a few extra thousand and treat ourselves to a nice vacation before we get to the nitty gritty. So we booked ourselves a vacation to Punta Cana for $631 per person! All inclusive, air fare everything included! yes, I'm sooo the queen of cheap! lol!

Okay, so for whatever reason we were in the computer room by 8:30 yesterday morning merging the big piles into smaller piles and shredding things we didn't need. That went very well and actually much faster than I had expected. By the time we were done I realized I had a mountain of old bank statements that had never been reconciled. I used to be a whiz at this, loving to reconcile the checkbook since I was 10 and now the computerized version is so much faster and easier. So I get my mountain of papers together, but them all in order, go to my money program, open it, click balance this account.. yup it pops up with a date of NOVEMBER 2005! Okay, I knew I was behind on balancing the checkbook but that is nuts.. so of course somehow within the mountain of paper I'm missing which month???? ohhhhh yes, the month I need to start with.. as I'm wading through boxes and folders of old bank statements and what not, Tim yelling at me to just "grab it on line" umm yeah, it's not the same but of course he has no clue, he has written 5 checks in our entire marriage.. ya think he's ever balanced/reconciled a check book.. yeah not so much. So I just tell him I need it. (Okay if worse came to worse I could have done it off line, however it was the first month and in order to get started I needed that month and we currently have no printer so I'd be copying it to word so I didn't have to be on line) Okay.. now if I could just get my shit in order and actually figure out how to let my on-line bank account balance my checkbook on my computer, I'd be all good.. I know it's possible, but I am so worried the way that I set things up will not coincide with the way the bank wants to reconcile my account.. soooo anyway..

Tim finds the missing months by gods grace, thank you! Someone on the other side felt bad for him just long enough to guide him to the correct folder! lol! so I had from Nov 2005 to July 2007, I sat down, made a big cup of tea, turned on the tunes and every month only took be 5-10 minutes! I have no clue why I haven't been doing it... and really I thought I only had maybe 6 months tops to do.. So I get into it and finding for the most part I'm doing really well adding everything in, all the right $'s etc. The only thing that is wrong is that sometimes I was totally effing us by entering an atm withdrawl twice somehow, or that my automatic payment thing had shown up as paying our financial advisor twice one month (2 different amounts, the computer added 1 and I added the other but failed to realize BOTH were in there) then I had one time I put a check in the bank, never added it. We get direct deposit so it's strange for us to have to add checks.. so I added those. The only down fall where I was not taking out enough $ was a few places I missed the change by like 30 cents.. I entered a 4 instead of a 7 or something that.. nothing huge. But I get done and now we have a few extra hundred dollars I didn't know about BUT what is weird is my bank balance on line comes no where close to my new #! I don't get it. ughh well.. I just won't go overboard and spend it.

So there you have it.. I decided to take my advice and put my other foot down.. and being a LIBRA I think this whole balancing thing is very helpful to me feeing almost whole again! lol!

Melissa's life theories...

Okay.. throughout my life I've always had my own personal theory about certain situations.. some of them are actually pretty snappy if I do say so myself. Other people who have heard them have actually clapped and said I should run for president at some of my hair brained ideas... other they give me the weirdest smirk I've ever seen.. sorta of like Mario Lopez trying NOT to laugh at Miss South Carolina and her dumbass answer at the Miss Teen USA pageant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww


but really.. here are a few of mine.. some I've just figured out, others have years of thought behind them.

#1. Murderers should all be taken out of prison, given some sort of assult rifle, some ammo, a few water bottles/rations and dumped in the middle of Iraq. They will also be told if they hunt down and kill the right people they will given a "free pass" to come back to the US and not have to go back to jail. The whole time we know we aren't going back for them.. they can live or die over in Iraq. The bad part of this idea is that they would go around probably killing innocent bystanders, raping women/kids, and probably make the entire situation.. however, we could do the same with illegal aliens. Send them over to Iraq and tell them when they fight for their freedom that our forefathers have done then they can be citizins. No payment, no tests, just the fact that they fought for freedom.

#2 People who commit crimes should not be allowed to live "life in prison" why should I pay for their education, their food, their clothing etc. They did what they did for whatever reason.. if you get life in prison, you should be shot. end of story. For those people who don't get life, they should be put on house arrest and their family has to pay for them to live.

#3 It has been said (by much smarter people than I) that the american car companies have lost an entire generation of buyers and will take another generation to get back. Well.. case in point. My father is a die hard buy American kind of guy.. If I dare even look at a Scion I'll be taken out of the Will... he's a force to be reckoned with on some issues. So a few friends of mine have recently bought foreign cars and listening to how great they are treated at their dealerships, anyone would want a foreign car. They have garage hours from 5am -1 pm daily, meaning you can go anytime for an oil change or any work you need done on your car. They provide all sorts of freebies while waiting including coffee, snacks, etc. They treat everyone very nice whenever you are there wheather buying a car, getting an oil change, having warranty work done. So here my mom is looking for a new car. They went to a Dodge dealer and a Ford Dealer and my mom wound up pretty set on a Jeep (I think Patriot) so they went into the office to do some wheeling and dealing. Of course my dad blows his lid over a fee that everyone pays somehow for every car they buy, but he didn't want it on the invoice.. okay whatever. So my mom gets up and leaves and calls the salesman back a few hours later to tell him she left simply becasue my dad was acting like a tard and it wasn't him.. but in the meantime she decided to tell him how uncomfortable she felt there considering his manager was yelling at people out on the sales floor while there were customers standing around watching.. pretty unprofessional. While they were at the Ford dealer, they had a sales manager walk up to them and tell them they were SOOOO busy they didn't even know if they could find someone to help them.. but as soon as they cross the threashold into the showroom they could see the guy was full of shit. Salesmen sat around at their desks barely looking up, playing on line, picking their noses.. whatever. Then when they asked about a 2007 Escape they were told "I doubt we have any, those are too hard to even keep on the lot" UMM YEAH OKAY.. THE AMERICAN CAR COMPANIES ARE REALLY HURTING HUH? HOW ABOUT WORKING ON SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! fuckers. Which is why I take such glee when I actually get a good deal on a car. Forget the fact that regardless, they are still making $ off of me, but I have not fully perfected my talent in this area.. as next time Tim will not be coming with me to pick out a car or he will not be allowed in the office during negiations. He always falls into the cardinal rule holes they set out for him.

Okay.. I have plenty of more theories, however I must share them with you another time.. those are just the 3 I've been thinking about recently.

Kevin, you have me in AWE!

OKAY.. let me start at the beginning by saying I know NOTHING about Kevin.. absofuckinglutely nothing about this guy.. he went to college with my neighbor Quint, grew up in the Waukegan area, his father is a fire man, he's 6'3" and an engineer... beyond that I know not what type of car he drives, if he's married, has a girlfriend, is a swinger, is gay.. seriously.. I know nothing.. but in the time that I met/spoke with him (maybe 15 minutes) he completely had me in total A W E.. and if you know me, you know not many people can put any type of shock into me. But Kevin is where the buck stops... seriously.. ME UDDERLY SPEACHLESS? Here it is.. he begun a weight loss journey the day after superbowl.. so February 5th (2007) to last Saturday August 18th (2007) he has lost 100lbs! Just decided one day I'm done being 325lbs.. I'm gonna do this. When he told me he hit the 100lb mark just 7 days prior to me meeting him my only question was "did you cry"?? somehow a full busy noisey party got really quiet and waited for his reply and he said "no, it was just something I knew I would do, like graduating college, I was just doing it" WOW WOW WOW. I guess it just goes to show you that the old "attitude" really is mind over matter in cases like this. He went from 325 to 250 and was still losing easily so he just kept at it... when you calculate it out, it's 3-4lbs per week, which really on a 325lb guy isn't really an insane amount of weight.. it's just to do it in 6 months?? Amazing.. just totally amazing.