still here

Had a couple of people ask and I'm still here. I just can't seem to type anything that isn't dark or depressing right now. Just one of those things I have to work through but I'm still hiding out around here.

So tired it hurts

I've not been sleeping well lately. Throw in gettting up early yesterday to start Thankgiving dinner and even earlier this morning to take Samantha out shopping and now I am so tired that it literally hurts. At least the past two days have been better reasons that before so I'll attempt to deal with and not fall over in a stupor!

We hit Michael's last night and I got some Cricut cartridges and my mom got me the Jukebox for Christmas. YAY! Today we hit Target, Kohl's, Wal-mart and Archiver's. I could not believe the line outside Target and could not believe that in going to Target I attempted to drive the wrong way down an I-69 exit ramp because I was thinking in my exhausted stupor I was at the side street already. @@ Thankfully I recognized my mistake quickly and no harm done other than probably a concerned motorist who had been sitting at the light!

Robbie has slept in the past couple of days and we haven't given him the Adderall yesterday or today for fear he wouldn't be able to get to sleep at night. I have to say his behavior since last night is a strong argument to NOT give him any more meds. He actually let Mark pick him up this afternoon, he's still not touching with his fingers a whole lot but it's better than it had been the past two weeks and he actually seems happy today. Getting a sketch pad and some colored pencils may have helped too but it's like having more of "old Robbie" back. Last night he even kept a graph of how many licks it took him to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. Today he's laughing at how sore his tongue is. Now THAT is "old Robbie"!

I e-mailed with his teacher earlier this week and she hasn't noticed any improvement since going on the meds either and thinks he's been more emotional. She told me that she admits she's not a doctor or therapist but she was surprised by the ADD diagnosis. I think we're going back to square one even if I tick off some medical professionals. Even with a house full of people it's felt more like us than it has in two weeks.

catching up

Wow, I get more comments about what's not on my blog than on what I write! Yes, I did some housekeeping and deleted posts. Why isn't important but I'm sorry that blogger sent out messages that I updated to everyone and there was nothing to read.

This is the first time I've sat down today. I ran errands for four hours this morning and then came home and started cleaning....still have a ways to go though. Mark's mom gets in tomorrow evening, Samantha gets in early afternoon on Wednesday and then my parents should be here later Wednesday afternoon. As the magician in Frosty said "I have to get busy, busy, busy!" But Samantha can now rest easy that I bought a turkey this morning. Hadn't heard about the turkey shortage until she told me this week-end. Maybe it's just a Kansas thing because there were "gobs" of them at the store here still.

Tomorrow morning in addition to cleaning I have to take the van to a Chrysler dealer for repairs. We took it to Midas this week-end to have one thing checked out. A $700+ fix that the mechanic said could wait a few months and that it sounds worse than it actually is BUT our water pump is leaking and that needs fixed soon. He thought since it was under 36 K miles it was still under warranty but according to the dealership it's under 36 K AND under 36 months since it was ORIGINALLY purchased. I don't think we're going to meet that requirement so we'll probably be forking out $400+ for that repair. When it rains it pours is an understatement for us these days. I told Jeanne and Mary both that with everything else going on I started laughing when I heard about the repairs needed. One step closer to a "vacation" in a lovely padded cell!

So since I'm going to be busy, busy, busy the next week I thought I'd post some things I'm thankful for in honor of the holiday.

1. I'm thankful that Samantha is going to be here for Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

2. I'm thankful for all my friends but especially Jeanne and Mary right now who have talked/e-mailed/IM'd me off a few hundred ledges recently. I can't put into words how they've helped me.

3. I'm thankful for those very few and fleeting brief moments since we started down this particular path with Robbie when I get to see signs of the "old Robbie". I'm not sure we'll stay on this path because of the changes going on but those brief moments give me a spark of hope.

4. I'm thankful that even though I'm in a "dark and twisty" (Grey's Anatomy anyone?) place right now I can still, on occassion, find my warped sense of humor.

5. I'm thankful all three of my kids share that warped sense of humor.

6. I'm thankful that Katie seems to have found her identity and her voice and seems to have become stronger over this past year.

7. I'm thankful for Mark even despite the fact that right now we're both stressed out and sometimes bark at each other. Or as I normally say "get all pissy!"

And now I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Trick or Treat

I had bought candy in anticipation of over 150 trick-or-treaters because of a neighbor telling me she thought they had at least that last year. I don't know if the Friday night football games cut into the number of kids trick or treating or if people did something else since it was on a Friday this year but I didn't have 150 trick-or-treaters! Maybe 80ish. I have a LOT of candy leftover! And K and R's plastic pumpkins overfloweth with bounty! That poor Wii Fit board is going to be saying "oh" in that strangled voice a lot in the near future!

Robbie wanted to be a Clone Trooper but we waited to long to buy a costume and couldn't find one that would fit him. So in keeping with the Star Wars theme of the past three years he went as Boba Fett. But he was a "good" Boba Fett and not like a bad one like in the movies. That last part was according to Robbie!

Originally Katie wanted to be Demi Lavato from Camp Rock fame but wasn't sure people would "get" who she was and would think she hadn't dressed up so she went as a cheerleader complete with Mark's letterman's jacket from high school. Yes, Sarah, we had such jackets back in the cave days! ;-)

And yes, I am THAT mean that I made her wear tights and a t-shirt under her costume so she'd stay warm! Surprisingly she didn't complain too much about that though.

Here are the jack o'lanterns and my ghostie Happy Halloween sign that has had a burned out bulb in his "nose" for a few years but this year I actually replaced it! I like how the guardian angel is watching over them all!

Here they are with their loot! They're standing in front of Katie's loot and Robbie's is at the bottom of the table where he was sorting his. Waaaaaaaaaaay too much!

and my artsy-fartsy shot:

Little piece of chocolate heaven right there!

Jack O'lantern Time

We're a bit behind the power curve this year. The kids just got their costumes this week and I just picked some pumpkins up at the grocery store Wednesday and we carved them last night. I wanted to go to a farm and do the whole "fall thing" but time just got away from me somehow. Seems to happen more and more. sigh

But here are a few pics:

Those of you who know Robbie know that he has an aversion to touching certain things so the fact we were able to get him to scoop out some of the pumpkin "guts" was quite the accomplishment for him!

And the finished masterpieces! I tried to deter the boy from carving a big a$$ed spider but as you can see I was not successful in that endeavor! I really like the goofy face on Katie's pumpkin!

Not in Kansas anymore, Toto

We're back from our whirlwind trip back to Wichita. Today I'm working on the mountain of laundry, cleaning house and picking up the dogs from the doggy hotel. I want to be playing with our new Wii Fit that we finally found in Wichita but I'm going to get through some of the work first. Self imposed denial! If I'd done that more often I wouldn't NEED the Wii Fit!

It was great to just be with Samantha again! I know Katie and Robbie felt that too. Just hanging out with Sissy driving each other crazy! So whenever anybody back there hears Sam mentioned grad school just say "Indiana" and your check will be in the mail!

We hit Freddy's, Jimmy John's and, I should be ashamed to admit this but I'm not, I think I had a lemon-berry slush from Sonic every day we were there except the day we left! I even took a picture of the sign and one of the menu board. When I'm not feeling pressed for time I'll post a few pictures. Friday night Sam and I were with the old east crew. I laughed like I haven't laughed in such a very long time! I needed that night!

There's the condensed version of the trip, I know I'll be posting more stuff later on. Yesterday was 12 fun filled hours in the van. I don't think I slept more than 3-4 hours a night while we were there (just couldn't sleep well) and we were up early yesterday and we hit the road 5:30 am Wichita time so I spent most of the drive in an exhausted haze. Which I think in some strange way made the trip seem faster. My sense of time wasn't quite on track so that helped.

And I'll end this post with I think I have some blog-stalkers that live in my neighborhood. Which wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't probably the same people who can't seem to be bothered to talk to me at the bus stop. No idea what I did to start it all but I'm sure my "out of touch" post from last week has them buzzing again. If you don't care enough to get to know me (and I did make attempts which had me even further out of my comfort zone than the move had already place me!) then why do you care enough to search me out on the web and read what I write? No rancor intened in that statment, just an honest question. So in the interest of my children I deleted it. I don't care what people think about me, the older I get the more I don't care, but I don't want them "penalized" for it.

So now I'm off to clean my house and go pick up Miss Daisy and Miss Belle! Have a great day, y'all! And to those who will know what I'm talking about I can not get that old commercial out of my head where the kids yell "Hey Kool-aid!"

Morning conversations in my house

Now that K & R are in different schools their schedules are such that I get some alone time to gab with each one in the morning before the big yellow bus comes lumbering down the street to gobble'em up each school day. Sometimes, especially in the case of the PRETEEN (a breed all its own!), the gab sessions are full of 'tude and eye rolling and the occassional stomp stomp stomp up the stairs. Sometimes they are full of goofiness and giggling. There are those dawdling mornings where the gabbing seems to primarily consist of me saying "Have you done x, y and z yet? Well, hurry up! The bus will be here soon!" Then there are the mornings that will actually leave the child in question speechless and if you knew my children you would know how rare an occurence that is!



Yesterday morning was one of those mornings. The BOY was telling me that he had read there was a new Mario (as in Mario Brothers) game coming out and that it was the "last ever Mario game they're making". Then he says "Well Mario is OLLLLLLLLD." I looked at him and asked "So, I'M old?"

The boy: "I didn't say that!"

Me: "Well, I'm older than Mario."

The boy, chewing on his lip and looking around the room like he was trying to find an escape route marked out in neon lights, "Huh."

Gotta find the humor when you can! lol