Feeling really down here lately

I know, I know.

I should be happy, right.

I have the kids, who are wonderful. A dog who makes me smile. Health. Freedom. Good job. Prospects for better jobs.

But I'm not happy. I know when I look back to where I was four years ago that I have made tremendous progress in my life. I left Shane in 2007 with two bags and a toddler and a pregnancy. I was homeless. I had no car. I had no job. I was stuck in a town where my education was worth exactly squat.

I struggled. I survived being an unwelcome house guest, a fallen woman in a conservative church, working for less than minimum wage, and being dependent on others for basic transportation.

I got my master's and a teaching job. I have a good car that runs. I rent a decent house.

The doctor put me on antidepressants a while back. It was for basically very very very bad mood swings during my period, but the mellow everything out. They also shut down certain parts of my brain. The part that is creative, gone. The part capable of making intuitive leaps is gone. And the part of me that is a sexual being is gone when I am on them. Its like being neutered. I want to. I know how. I just . . . can't get there.

So I stopped taking them.

And I'm miserable. I don't think its all brain chemistry anyway. There are things in my life I am not happy with.

I just don't know how to go about fixing them.

I am lonely. I've said it over and over and over. I've prayed about it. I've cried about it. I'm lonely. I want an adult partner in my life.

I have no trouble meeting men. They have no trouble letting me know that if I want casual sex their all for it, but dating, partnership, relationship, no thanks.

Is it that I am too ugly? Too fat? The kids?

Can't seem to figure it out.

But I'm feeling down today. Its memorial day weekend. All my married friends are busy with their families. All my single acquaintances are busy at barbecues and getting totally sloshed.

And I am alone.

So tired of feeling worthless and undesirable. So tired of waiting for someday. So tired of feeling like I am going to have to settle for less than I want in order to get anything at all.

Burned

In more ways than one.

First and foremost, I have a sunburn. I enjoyed getting the sunburn. Not enjoying tha after affects. And yeah yeah, I should have put on sunscreen. But I was hoping to get some color and I thought I was only going to be out for an hour tops. Well, it turned into two hours at the pool. And while my lilly white legs are now slightly pink legs, my shoulders, neck, back and cleavage are lobster red. My face is pink, but my moisturizer has suncreen in it so I was lucky on that one.

My brothers have burned me. Both owe me money. Both are claiming they were shorted on their paychecks or had some crisis come up that was more important than paying back their sister. Oh, am Tom got his power shut off, which means he's getting evicted from his apartment building, which means he thinks that moving into my garage (rent free) is a reasonable thing to do. Can't pin him down in a conversation about this. Phone always seems to develop problems or he needs to talk to someone else when I get around to the part about him either paying rent or earning his keep.

That will make three grown men calling my home their home. When the hell did that happen? and why does it seem like if I'm taking care of grown men I ought to be getting laid a lot more than I am?

Speaking of . . . .

I got a call the other morning. "I can't sleep, come over and I'll make you breakfast" he says. Its five am and I am already awake. I go over (hell mike's here if the kids wake up). He makes me eggs and bacon. We talk, flirt, make out. Its sweet and funny. I go to work (last day of school, yay!), come back later and we "continue". All in all, a nice time if I do say so.

and now . . . .

Nothing, doesn't want to hang out. Doesn't want to watch a movie. Will send funny texts about his computer issues (he's an unemployed IT something or other).

I don't get it. Either he's the most clueless dude on the planet or he's treating me like crap and I'm letting him.

I'm so tired of feeling lonely all the time. I know I am not the hot chick. I know that. But I'm not worthless. I'm not trash. I'm fun to be around.

Or at least I think I am.

I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't some neon sign flashing above me that says "keep back". If I were as strong as I like to think I am, it wouldn't bother me a bit. I would be happy to live my life alone as a single mom of three healthy kids with a good job and let that be that. But I am not that strong.

I have a job interview for a special education position on Tuesday. I would have to move (I think I typed this before). I hope I get it. Things are getting really weird at work. The school board is very hands off, almost too much so, but there's a parent club that has formed and is asking aggressive questions about curriculum and standards that the board should have been asking already. And for a non-official group, they sure have the administrators jumping through hoops.

Oh, and my tonsils have been painfully swollen on and off for over a month. Last night I got so sick of it that I tracked down ever leftover bit of antibiotic in the house and chugged them all. Woke up fine today. Not sure what to make of that, other than I probably need my tonsils out and there's no way in hell I can afford it.

Tired of being fat, clueless, awkward, alone, confused, lost and in survival mode. Something in my life needs to change. I'm just not sure what that is or how to do it.

The delemas my life is made of

I really don't seem to be able to function without a bit of crisis going on around me. It must be something I secrete into the environment around me.

crisis one, I owe PSU housing bocu money. The will not allow me to enroll or continue until its paid. I managed to wrangle a bit of a deal with the housing department, but it will still likely be a very close thing. Their gonna release my account and let me enroll and receive financial aid for the summer. Hopefully I will be able to pay the majority of it off with that.

Crisis two, babysitting. Dad's family is refusing to play host to my sons this summer while I am in class. The state, knowing I don't work for money in the summer, will not be paying me a daycare benefit for the summer months. I cannot afford to send them to the daycare. solution, Gideon will spend mornings at discovery, which is free, while Isaiah babysits his brother Noah. Not perfect, but its three hours a morning. I think it will work.

Crisis three, my brother Tom seems to be going quietly insane. I'm talking paranoid behavior, picking fights with our brother mike, talking like everyone is out to get him. Making grandiose statements like its been two weeks since he's eaten. I don't have a solution. I can't make his money problems go away. And I don't think it would change the state of his mind much.

Crisis four, Picked up a female hitchhiker and her child yesterday. Turned into an eight hour ordeal helping her get her car fixed, jumped and on her way. And the kid was a brat who clogged my toilet and smeared marshmallow on the inside windows of my car. Probably would have done it anyway. I was once a single mom stranded far from home with a child in tow.

Crisis five, my cousin Nick is back in town and looking to either stay with me or with my brother Tom. He is unemployed and a recently recovering drug addict. I don't like either option.

Crisis six, I signed a teaching contract but have continued to apply for positions and was offered an interview for next week. I'd have to move. And I'd have to get out of my contract. But it would be more money, in the public schools where retirement, breaks, and health insurance is much more reasonable, in a smallish town where rent in lower and over all quality of life is more than decent. Its also for special ed, so I'd be driving to Pitt for class one or two evenings a week from a town without a neatly built in support system.

Crisis seven, my dating life. Do I continue texting and chatting with this guy I like but who is rather luke-warm towards me, or let a guy i don't feel much in the way of sparks for show me around Kansas City this weekend? I guess I know the answer to that question, but damn, I'm not ugly, I'm not crazy and I'm not even all that demanding, so why the hell can't I catch just one that I am actually interested in?

Ok, that is all.

What do you do?

When the one you'd like isn't interested and the one you aren't interested in wont stop texting? Its always that way isn't it?

The one(s) I like are either too far, too busy, too . . . whatever to want to get involved with me. And the one(s) who are interested in me, I find uncompatable, either too old, too crazy, not smart enough, too unemployed, too living with mother.

Is it like this for everyone? Are we all searching for something the universe has decided to withhold?

Some days I wonder if this wouldn't be easier if we all were born, grew up, married and worked in the same tiny villiage like our ancestors did. I mean sure, there was the occasional old maid, women were property, and infant mortality was high, but people didn't have the illusion that we now have that if we just look hard enough, wait a little longer, we will find someone that is absolutely, positively, perfect.

But perfect isn't perfect, even when its perfect. (if that makes any sense at all)

So, knowing that perfect is impossible, what must we decide to settle with, allow, look past? Can a good relationship take place when one partner feels that the other is significantly less intelligent? How about when one partner is bi-polar? What is one lives at home still?

Or does one have to toughen up and decide that these guys, sweet and well meaning though they may be, will be more trouble than they will even be worth and simply drop off the local dating scene for a while?

And if the local dating scene seems to only be serving up the marginally employed, failed to launch and lacking in brain power, where does one turn?

Or does one swear it off entirely and resign one's self to one night stands or celibacy? Neither appeals.

Maybe its just too late and I'm too drugged on allergy meds to make much sense of this.

My kids are getting so big

Isaiah's fifth grade graduation ceremony was this afternoon. I couldn't go because they had it at one in the afternoon. (Sad that Isaiah understood I wouldn't be able to come and didn't even bother to remind me it was today until after the fact). Anyway, he came home with a memory dvd and a "diploma" and his grade card.

He's making As Bs and Cs in spelling and reading. His state assessments say that he is great at math and science and ok at reading. He looked so grown up in his "cap and gown". I just can't believe that my son who just a few minutes ago was this tiny bewildering baby is now going to be in middle school.

And then there's gideon. He has "homework" from pre-school. And he wants to do it. And he's so proud of it. He's going to be in kindergarden. He's gotten so big and so mellow compared to how he used to be,

And Noah. He's three. And he talks. HE has conversations. He will ask me a question "mom, where are my smarshmellows?" And I can answer "you had them last, where did you leave them?" And he'll answer "In your room!" and then run to my room and get the smarshmellows.

smarshmellows are marshmallows by the way.

When did my kids get so big? Where did my babies go?

Having one of those weeks

You know, the ones that are full of nothing but bad news? The ones where noting seems to break your way?

Yeah, that's my week.

I feel like crud, either because of the nastiness in my sinuses and throat or because of the antibiotics I'm taking. They make me feel sick to my stomach and weak in the knees, almost light headed. I looked them up, these are common side effects for this particular drug. I hate it, but I know if I stop taking them I'll get sick again.

I am hating my boss. His double and triple standards at work make it impossible to know how to be at work. He tells me not to do things that other teachers do with his approval. He implies that my youth makes it so I have to be "more professional" than others. It feels like discrimination and harassment to me. I'm probably over reacting. And besides there's not much I can do about it anyway.

I took my little boys to walmart today. They were actually good in the store. I was putting Noah in the car and Gideon was getting in the other side and I look up and this strange dude is talking to him. Guy claims he opened the door and hit his car.

Crap.

Turns out my insurance will cover it. Don't know how much this will raise my premiums. And really, who cares? Its a stinking car. Anyway, it was a nice little melt down there for a minute or two. I hate feeling helpless and cornered and powerless like that. (because when I lost my DL it was the result of a traffic accident that I couldn't pay for . . . that nearly ruined my life).

I'm looking forward to this summer . . except that I have no childcare. My kids aren't going to see the grandparents because of Dad's management training. Isaiah is sad. I don't know how I am going to do this.

I may start applying for a summer job, but again, child care?

Mike is staying on my couch. I feel like I constantly have a guest around. He left the TV on all night last night.

I haven't been sleeping. I don't know why. I've even tried benedryl.

Just complaining now, so I'm gonna stop.

Complete and Total BLERG!

Today sucked.

I've lost my keys. I remember getting home yesterday and looking for Isaiah with them and my phone in my hand. I remember finding Isaiah at the house across the alley with the dog and the kid that lives there. I remember rounding up my little boys and taking them home so their brother could play a while with the big kids.

I have no memory or when or where I set the keys down. Usually I can remember things like this.

So this morning I had to get my brother out of bed to bring me the extra key to my car. HE did, but he was cranky and it made me late for work. Not super late, but late enough that it was noticed.

I get to school and basically, its over. Last day is a week from friday. The school doesn't do finals, and there isn't enough time to be presenting new material. I have a handful of kids who are way behind and owe me work or who have very low grades that are working on some make-up work. Everyone else is pretty much watching movies. I try to make it educational in that I have them write down cases of scientific false-hood or out right impossibility and we discuss it for a few minutes at the end of class.

Well, boss comes in and lectures me about "using the whole hour" , "Keeping them busy" and "looking professional". Aparently there is a parent meeting coming up and they "just aren't happy with the science department at McAuley.

Uhm hello, its the end of the year. There isn't time to re-work the whole curriculum. I am not going to try to force them through a lesson in the next six days.

Oh, my room is a bit cluttered. Uhm, yeah, its a room where people work. It's actually better than it was a while ago, I've been de-cluttering as I go. I want everything in, graded, and returned by the last day of school. I guess that's unreasonable of me.

Truth is, if people who know what they are talking about have an honest critique, I'd be happy to listen and be willing to rework things for next year. But I know what this is about. My boss is not popular in the system. There are a lot of people who want him gone. These same people will nit-pick at everything in the school, including the young new science teacher. The boss is incapable of recognizing that his lack of real leadership is at the heart of most problems there, so he turns any complaints around on someone else.

So, that incedent was nerve wracking and pointless, yippee!

TO make matters worse, still can't seem to shake this crud in my nose, throat and chest. I take my medicine and it makes the symptoms better, but they seem to just migrate. A chest that wheezes and produces nasty crud when I cough becomes sinuses that won't stop draining and make my tonsils hurt.

Oh, and my boss wants me to submit a "plan" for "backup" so I don't miss as much work next year taking care of sick kids. Uhm, I don't think he can do that, can he?

Fucking hate that place right now. Fucking hate the fact that I apply and apply and apply for different jobs and never get hired. Fucking hate the fact that no matter what i have done with my life, I am not and never will be good enough. Not for the job I want, not for the kind of life I want, not for the people I currently work for, and not for the kind of future I want for myself.

Just not fucking good enough.

I hate it.

Poor Neglected blog`

I've either been very busy, or haven't had much to bitch about. I think its a bit of both.

Got up sick Friday, a recurrence of the nastiness that knocked me down a few weeks ago. Skipped work, went to the doctor's office. Got a new antibiotic and modified instructions for the inhaler. She hinted that I may have developed an asthma type reaction to allergens, which I am NOT HAPPY about.

I don't like waking up and having to use a nasty tasting inhaler. I don't like wheezing all day and then couging up nasty lung crap throughout the day. I certainly am not liking these antibiotics that make my mouth taste funny and upset my stomach.

Friday evening I went to see the new Freddy Krugar movie with my friend M. We spent most of the movie making fun of the characters, telling them they were running the wrong way and trying to guess who was going to survive. As far as "every one is going to die" movies go it was alright. PRedictable. But alright.

Saturday had a date with a dude that turned out to be a dud, but he took me to see Robin Hood, which was freakin awesome!

I think my celebrity crush right now is Cate Blanchete. She has this way of projecting confidence, intelligence, respectability, and Beauty. (no I'm not gay for her, I just admire her). I, of course, am nothing like that. I am short and round while she is tall and long and lean. I tend to flush and mutter and say unintentionally awkward things, certainly not regal and confident.

Today is the first sunshine we've seen in over a week, but my tummy is so unsettled from these meds that I don't feel like going anywhere. Guess I can't win.

Kids are at their dad's and my dog is busy dragging dirty laundry out and making a nest with it. If he wasn't dead set on chewing holes in my underwear I'd think it was cute.

Downloading sad songs

I'm just having a day here. I know why. Its the weather. This hot one day, cool the next, rainy and cloudy the whole time isn't good for me. (and the landlord still hasn't installed the air conditioner).

Its the end of the school year. On the one hand I am looking forward to the end of school and some free time, on the other hand, I know I will be in classes or student teaching most of the summer and that doesn't exactly jive with the fantasy of three months free and clear to be lazy, rest and renew my internal batteries. I also haven't been offered any teaching jobs in public schools. That makes me so upset. To look back and remember how they were just screaming for more teachers, now i am a teacher and teachers are being laid off left and right, or they are leaving positions and not being replaced.

I signed my contract for another year at McAuley today. I got a whole Six hundred dollar a year raise. That's roughly fifty dollars a month. I may drop my health insurance because its looking like the cost will increase again. I know part of my melancholy is due to having signed that hateful contract.

And I've had a cough for like three weeks now. It started as a respiratory infection and I was sick as a proverbial dog. I got better from the infection, but the cough is still there. I think its allergy related. Which sucks because I tend to make fun of people who spend eight months a year sniffling and sneezing. Anyway, I took a long lasting, non-drowsy allergy pill today, and it worked, on the cough. To a point. Its a 12 hour formula and my cough comes back after eight. And it makes my mouth feel a little numb. Nothing like being tongue tied and spacy with a room full of teenagers.

And then there are my brothers. They got into a nasty fight two nights ago. I'm sure they were both being assholes. I am also sure they were both on their worst behavior. But the each come over and paint them selves like angels and the other one like a devil. I know its Bull Shit. I am trying very hard to not take sides in it.

But the fighting escalated and mike showed up with bruises on his arms and his face, looks like someone held his arms down while someone else hit him. Tom has another explanation. I really don't care. My little brother shows up looking beat up and I'm gonna let him sleep on my couch, that's just how I am. I gave him the same parameters that I gave Tom a year ago. He has two weeks. No drugs. No booze. Clean up after yourself and be nice to my kids and respectful to me.

We'll see how it works. In the mean time, there's this other person in my house who is not quite a guest and not quite a room mate. And who butts heads with my little boys.

Oh, and the dating thing? Sucks. That's all I can say. That and I am not willing to call it quits just yet.

So, what am I doing with all this? I am downloading Alisha Keys and Leona Lewis from frost wire and making girly music playlists. I don't have a broken heart as much as I have a patch that just isn't like I want it to be. I'd probably be doing better if I got some gratitude going. But I was out too late the past couple of nights and i just don't have the energy for that at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.

Extreme weather

That's what we get tonight and for most of the week it sounds like. Its normal for strong storms to blow up in the midwest this time of year. We have warm, moist air from the gulf doing battle with cold dry air from Canada. It makes for exciting evenings.

Today we watched the radars all day, seeing the cells bloom like ugly green/yellow/orange/red flowers. We watched them march slowly across the map, and then we went outside and watched teh sky turn that special, magical, ominous shade or yellow green.

Its dark now, and raining, but the worst is supposedly yet to come in.

For some reason the restive storms building just over the horizon and then waiting there before blowing in seem to mirror my interior right now. I don't know if its stress, the time of year, or the fact that things just don't seem to be going my way here lately, but I feel like a thunderstorm waiting to blow.

Think I'll take a hot bath and go to bed early and listen to the rain fall and the wind blow and the thunder crash. And tomorrow when the sun rises fresh, clean, renewed, maybe I will be too.

Why I hate Mother's Day

I have been a single mom the entire time I've been a mom. When I was a new mom, the first year my oldest was born, I was still an 'unwed teen mom' and felt like, and to some extent, treated like I didn't count as a mother's day mom.

I don't have a spouse who wants to fawn over me on mother's day to thank me for raising his children. My own children are all very young and if I want them to get me something I have to save the money for it, tell them what to get and hope they comply. One year I wanted a nice luxurious blanket and my dad some how let Isaiah pick a kids' movie and a beanie pillow, both of which he ended up using and enjoying more than I did.

Other years I've just gone out and bought myself something. A necklace, a nice outfit. And its always been a bit 'meh' because a gift you picked and you paid for isn't much of a gift. And I've never been one of those women who didn't take care of her own needs. I have the clothes I need to work and look nice. I have the technology I want. So its not like I live this super mom image fueled life of depravity. I don't. I'm a good mom, but I don't allow being mom to be all that I am.

So this year I am basically boycotting the holiday. I'm having a low key weekend at home with my boys and my dog. We cleaned house yesterday and then I went to watch my seniors graduate. I always tear up a bit. Today one of the same seniors is getting married, she made a point to invite me to her wedding, so I'm gonna go. Tonight I am gonna go hang out with a gun guy I know.

I am not going to spend the day expecting gifts, bows, and exclamations of my wonderfulness. I know I am wonderful and strong and stubborn and kind and loyal and funny. I don't need a special day full of greeting cards and raised (unrealistic) expectations.

My own mother has been gone for ten years. My grandmother has been gone for 12. To me, this is just a day.

Crazy Week

I am not sure that I can articulate how odd this week was for me.

After Monday we were all a little bummed, but the kids weren't as traumatized as I thought they would be. Isaiah was the most upset, Gideon accepted that the kitty was with Jesus and then asked if we could get a black one next time. Another teacher at work actually had several half grown cats he was trying to get rid of, so I agreed to take one of them. She is already fixed and has her shots. Right now she is hiding so well no one can find her, I hope she didn't go out a window.

So, before I tell you the next part you have to understand something about me, I am probably the most impulsive person I know. I know it sounds weird and unhealthy, but the ability to decide on something and then comite myself to it has served me very well most of my life. It is this trait that allowed me to tune out everything else and get an education, to work three jobs ans still be a mom to Isaiah.

But it has its draw backs in other areas. Such as the romantic area of my life. Because I will decide someone is worth pursuing and then I am all there. I want to be all there. Because I think that person is great and I want to be around them and know them.

It comes off as annoying and as being a nut I am sure.

So, here's what happened. I met a dude online that I liked. He's close to my age, tall and cute, has a little boy, and is super fun to talk to and hang out with. I met him at Braum's and liked him late Monday evening and then had time Tuesday to go hang out with him at his apartment.

And we talked and hung out another evening here, watched TV talked. Drank a beer or two.

Then today something weird unfurraled on my email. turns out this guy, we'll call him T is friends with the Nice guy. The one that gave me a list of things to fix about myself? The one Who came over, had sex with me, and left for some still unarticulated reason. The one who decided he didn't want a relationship but did want to be having sex with me? Yeah, that one.

And Nice Guy considers us to be seeing each other. Nice guy also considers it a problem that I met up with this other guy (who I am honestly more interested in and attracted to). I guess T had asked me about other people I met on the site I met him through and a few of the things I said reminded him of his friend.

So here's the deal. I told Nice Guy that what ever it was we were doing, it wasn't a relationship that was exclusive or destined to go anywhere. I asked T if he was interested in still seeing me or not (I'd understand if he didn't, it would be weird since I'd also been with his friend). His response was that he wasn't sure, I come on a bit strong.

And I am seriously examining my approach to dating.

I spent years being the girl that waits for guys to approach her. Completely passive and just so happy to be noticed that my own standards, interests, needs and desires in a partner played very little role in the relationships I was in.

Then I was practically homeless, mom to three kids, no car, littel support and spent years basically celebate, being involved with a super conservative church didn't help. I got into a better position, got away from that church, explored other churches and soon found that I would not be acceptable to anyone there as a person to date or eventually marry. The emphasis on sexual purity is too strong, a single mother who was unmarried is not ever going to be accepted by that group.

So I got proactive. I did the internet dating thing. I emailed with guys online. A very few I met in person. (So far two I've gone out with. Its just that those two happen to be friends with each other. ) But I don't have the ability to "play cool" , which also apparently isn't all that successful.

I supposed I have two choices. I could get upset and paranoid that they are comparing notes and calling me all sorts of names. I could swear off men and dating entirely. I could become unhappy and bitter about being alone and lonely all my life.

Or I could laugh at this and call it an epic learning opportunity. Such as quiz people about other people you or they may know before you get with them. Such as a small town is a small town, even when its online. Such as quit being so pushy and don't contact people until its been a full day or some such rule.

Mostly I'm still processing.

I'm done with the nice guy. Truth is, he isn't that nice, he just isn't overtly horrible. His friend T, is nicer, but not perfect and has his apparent flaws. (One of which is being laid off but working just enough that he doesn't loose his unemployment and the other being that his personality is totally different when he's had a beer or two than when he hasn't).

I also think that aside from occasional weirdnesses, being direct with people is hugely preferable to being a wallflower. Seeing someone you like and letting them know you like them isn't wrong. Being a warm blooded woman who enjoys getting physical isn't anything to feel bad about.

Sooner or later I'm going to get this right.

. . . Followed by a crappy Monday

Seriously crappy.

My computer at work is messed up. There were thunderstorms Friday and I think it got zapped or something. anyway, it will not connect to the internet so no streaming videos about the immune system like I'd planned, no answering parents' emails, and no checking my own emails and working to find another job on my breaks. I can't even enter grades because their stored on a separate server somewhere.

But lets rewind to this morning. We got up and couldn't find the kitten. He was fine when we all went to bed. After looking for him we found him in a closet, looked like he'd been sleeping. Boys picked him up and were playing with him, I got after them to put him down and get dressed.

And I noticed that he didn't move from where he'd been put down. I go get him, he lets me hold him and purrs when I scritch his head. But when I set him on his feet, he just falls to one side.

I put him on a blanket in my room and finish dressing three rowdy boys and myself. As they are piling into the car, I check him again. He's still on the folded blanket.

I decide to call the vet. They don't open until 7:30, and I need to roll out of town at 7:00. I call Tom who agrees to take him over when they open.

Fast forward. Tom's finally gotten the kitten into teh vet. And the news isn't good. The kitty has a spinal fracture. Probably the result of climbing in that closet and falling onto the edged of the storage bin there. He isn't going to get better.

I gave the vet permission to put the kitten down. And then had to spend all day dreading telling my boys their kitten was dead.

I chickened out. Told Isaiah that the Cat had a congital condition. Told the little two that he's sick and at teh doctor. I can't tell them he's dead. I don't know how to explain that to a five and a three year old.

I am a complete coward.

Great Weekend!

Ok, this weekend completely made up for last weekend.

Nothing can change the fact that my feelings were hurt and I was disappointed, but this weekend way the universe's way of making it up to me.

Started Friday when the ass hat actually showed up and picked up the boys when he said he would. Sad, I know that this mundane seeming thing is cause for applause. But it is and he did. The kids were packed off with hugs kisses and assurances that there would be fishing, games and spoilage going on.

Friday evening a friend of mine came over and we watched a movie and talked and just had a nice adult evening. He left early to meet up with another friend of his and I was fixing to go to bed when I get a text.

My friend M saying she needs to get out of pittsburg or she's going to go nuts. She's taking her kids to Kansas City for the weekend and wants to know if I want to come along. All I have to cover is my own food.

I hesitate a minute, remember what I had planned to do this weekend, and decided that getting the heck outta dodge was an excellent idea.

So I agreed and we left Saturday morning. She'd found an inexpensive but really nice hotel. I slept on the hide a bed in the living room part, she and the kids were in the bedroom part. Saturday we went to Crown Center, its an upscale shopping center, but there's also neat stuff to just look at. A fountain that shoots out of the very sidewalk that kids are allowed to play in, the Hallmark corporate headquarters with a visitor's center and Kaleidiscope, both free and full of freebies (the three story store convinced me that I need a bigger income or less expensive tastes). In the shopping center was a dinosaur exhibit and we ate at this place that delivers your food on a little train.

We left when the shops started closing and kicked us out. Picked up some simple groceries on the way back to the hotel, and spent the evening watching movies and snacking (I ate so much junk food is the only problem with the whole trip).

Got up sunday and went to the KC zoo. First let me say that I am not a huge fan of zoos, but I was with M and her kids and they wanted to go. That being said, the Kansas City zoo sucks. half the exhibits were closed for renovations, and the ones that were open were dirty and stank, well tended animal pens should not reek. The zoo is also set up so that you can't start in one direction, make a big circle and mange to see everything and come back to where you started. Instead it is set up so that you have to walk past three rides, four restaurants and a gift shop to get to the animals, then once you have seen everything on that end, you have to walk back past what you have already seen and all the money traps to get to the other side.

M's kiddos are 4 and 6, and don't have much stamina for walking all day to start with, add having to look at empty exhibits and walk past things they had already seen, and you can see how they would loose patience with the activity. We got there at 10, and left at a little after 1, so they did pretty good. I was ready to go home when we left.

Got back to town around four, just enough time to relax a little before getting my boys from their dad. Last time I sent them they came back with shoes ruined from being in pond water and hiking in them wet, this time he at least ran them through the wash. I think I'm gonna designate a set of shoes "dad's house shoes" though, because he doesn't keep them out of the water and that isn't good for shoes that kids wear everyday.

I am definitely going to take my kids up to crown center one of these days. M and I also talked about organizing a two family camping trip this summer.

So, very very fun weekend.

I needed it.