Aloha....

 

 

Thank you Lord for my kids Charter School...their 1st Quarter break this coming up week...Hawaiian airlines miles (from hubby's business trips last year) and Hilton Honors points (again, courtesy of the hubby)

 

The family is headed for Hawaii!!!!!!

 

We need this soooo bad.

 

Hubby has been working 65 hour weeks and is on salary so only gets paid for 40

Our health insurance rates are going up $400 a month

Our coverage is going down

I have been working home and being home less

Our house is a mess (trying to fix that before we leave)

The kids miss their dad during the week and are afraid of me and how grumpy I have become since I became a "work widow"

We can't find anything

And any benefit of me making some extra $$$ is totally blown be tired mommy buying convenience food and eating out

 

So, we are using this trip as a clean break from our reality and hoping to come back relaxed and refreshed

AND

 

the Hubby told me that he is prepared to take the girls off on adventures by themselves so that I can sit and be on the beach, pool or wherever I need to be

 

More than once if necessary

 

I LOVE this man!!!!!



Life in the single-parent hood

I am still married,

but...

he has been working CrAZY-ASS hours since June 4th

and is almost NEVER home

cue the violins and sad clown faces

 

 

I would put up an image of a sad clown face, but that shit is scary!

 

Over the summer it wasn't too bad...

pool time for us

hot dogs or hamburgers for dinner

stayed light until 8:00

 

now...

 

not

so

much

 

Middle school homework, 1st grade homework

Brain Highways work

my own bring home work

dinner

dishes

baths

laundry

running out of milk

running out of patience

running out of booze

 

and the best part...

his "promotion" to manager

has turned into a $10/hour paycut because he is on salary and

DOES NOT get compensated for extra hours

 

fuck

this

noise



This is a test...it is only a test...

 

 

That sound you hear...

 

it is not a test of the emergency broadcast system...

 

it is a test of my patience...

 

My six year old daughter decided it would be a good day to see just how far she could push me.  She ended up pushing herself right out of dessert and me straight to the wine rack....

My stand on 7th grade homework...

 

 

 

 

FUCK IT!!!

 

that is all.

Last day of summer vacation

All gone.

 

Bye. Bye.

 

Tomorrow I pack up the 1st grader and 7th grader for some brand new educational adventures.

Bummed that they are going to be on two different campuses, but glad that Miss A will get more of a "Jr. High" experience and not feel like she got dumped on another planet when she starts high school.

  Well, any more that she will anyway.  Makes me feel bad for all those kids that went to St. Mary's (private Catholic school back home) that only went thru 8th grade and then got dumped into the piranha infested pool called high school.

 

I will head back to work with a bigger load, but with my flexible schedule firmly in place.  Going to be in the office for 5 hours a day, but going to take every Friday off.

(And whatever bizarre juju the school calendar kicks out at me.)

 

The house got mostly purged, and mostly organized, I finished 90% of two quilts...we went to the beach, the creek, some tourist attractions and lots of pool time.

 

When all is said and done...Not a bad summer: )

 

 

 



I always forget the "before" shot...

I always get so wrapped up in a project that I forget to take the obligatory "before" shot.  I should want to preserve how ugly, outdated and junked up something looked before I worked some magic on it....but I almost never do.

Even when I "do" it's usually because I had 2 of an item :)

So,

What once was lavender with white daisy shaped hardware now looks like this...

The hubby says it looks like it's smiling...

All I know is that I have a new place to hide stuff in the living room!

It actually shows our trip out here to California in 1992...we started off in Florida (top drawer)  and drove the I-10 to I-8 to southern California (bottom drawer)

No wonder it's smiling : )

Spring cleaning in the summer, during a heat wave...

I have officially lost my mind

again : )

Decided to kick ass and take names in the cleaning organizational realm...

while the girls are trapped inside with me and its over 100 degrees outside.

Never said I was smart.

Our two main groups of friends are down for the count medically speaking (1 ear infection and 1 tonsillectomy) so they can't swim with us and if I was the betting sort (just can't bring myself to do it after taking statistics in college) my kids will last about 20 minutes together in our community pool without their friends to entertain them.

so, I will grab my Dr. Pepper, my Brain Highways literature and bravely hike down one level and let the monkeys have some water time while mommy caffeinates and catches up on her reading.  This will either wear them out and they will remain mostly silent while mommy continues her journey through the house with her magic eraser OR they will get on each others nerve even more (probably not even possible at this point) whereas mommy will forgo cleaning and start drinking.

It's not a great one, but at least it's a plan.