Wait...What?

Yesterday's post just wore me out emotionally so I combined Wed and Thursday's prompts for today. Pardon the scatterbrain. Describe a favorite place. Focus on how that place affects your senses. One of my favorite places to be is my living room. Sounds silly I know but really? It's where a lot of our lives takes place. The kids snuggle with us there, we watch hockey there, eat dinner a lot in there. I look around my living room and it makes me anxious sometimes seeing the mess but if it were perfectly clean, I would feel weird too. I kinda like the chaos of the room. Call me crazy but it makes me really feel at home. I mean I know it's my home but it's home  ya know? A couple laundry baskets are always in there, the sock box is constantly overflowing, partners never to be found thanks to the hungry hungry dryer. Messy and resembling tornado alley but I love it. What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood? When I was 17, we moved to Germ...

I saw the kids a couple times after their father and I broke up. I saw their grandmother sometimes when I would walk past her house on my way to work. I moved to Wisconsin for a dumb boy then in with my parents a couple months later. Dumb boy ya know. Soon after, my dad and I drove to Phoenix to get my stuff from a U-Haul. Stuff that my old roommate was holding onto for me until I could get down there to pick it all up. She was pawning my shit for drug money and her half brother called me to let me know. When my dad and I got there, I was so thankful to the police for blocking her from going in the truck until we got there (32 hours). We got the stuff I really wanted to keep and left the rest. We figured we'd go to Tucson and I'd show my dad where I had lived the last two years. It was a good visit. A lot of fun catching up with friends. I didn't think to stop by and see the kids. Regrets now of course.  I did the drive again with a friend of mine that April. I can't im...

Have you faced fears and overcome them? When I was living in Germany, my parents and I went on a weekend trip to Paris. Obviously *that* Paris. I was turning 18 that weekend and I was so excited to be there. I was with my parents the whole time but eh, it was Paris for crying out loud. We saw everything while we were there. Got as much in as we could. The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, all of it. We went on a tour that took us to a building that had "the world's fastest elevator". I don't know if it, indeed, was the fastest, but we sure got up there quickly. We were probably 3 floors from the top when we were told that we had to walk up and around the side of the building to get to said roof. Um no. I'll hang out in the elevator thankyouverymuch. My fear of heights is so palpable, so intense that I could not tell you how I've gotten through some moments in my life. This was one of them. I don't know how I got up to the roof but I ended up there. There's ...

I've been thinking so much about Donovan lately . Just as my tagline says, some people make a difference in your life just by walking into it. Donovan sure did. It hurts me still, to this day, that he is gone. What I wouldn't give to see the man he would have been today. He would be 21. I can't even wrap my head around that number right now. Twenty One. When I met Donovan, I was working at a daycare center and he was in my class. I had the toddlers from when they could walk until they were potty trained. He had big doe eyes that looked right at your soul. You aren't supposed to have favorites, treat them all the same and I did. But boy did I have a favorite and it was him. He was my little man. Always running in for a hug when got there, always sad to go home. When I left the daycare and went back to a retail job, I missed "my kids" so much. Thankfully I was working across the main road from the center so I saw a lot of the kids with their parents at my sto...

So last night, when I couldn't sleep, I found myself watching the top 100 Rock Songs (evah). Spoiler alert, GNR's Welcome To The Jungle was number one. I was so happy to see that many of the bands I listened to in the 80s were on the list with songs that I love and still sing along with nowadays. Did any of you guys listen to the hair metal bands?? I used to have a crush on so many of those guys and truth be told, I still hold a fiery torch for Sebastian Bach. I heart him so much. He is so funny and is one of the few guys that can still rock the long hair (no pun intended). I was a little freaked out with David Coverdale from Whitesnake. Have ya'll seen him lately?? Me thinks someone had a touch of the plastic surgery. Not that it looks bad, it just looks too...... I don't know. What's the word I'm looking for here people??    \\ See, now I have look around and see what all these bands look like now. I hope no more of them aged like Stephen Pearcy. Yikes...

It's 11/11/11, make three wishes Three wishes. How many times did we play this game when we were kids? You have three wishes, and wishing for three more is not an option. Some of my wishes were to have a huge house (I don't want to clean all of that ), a rich husband (money doesn't solve everything), to be a teacher (I'd rather be a paraprofessional these days), to have endless amounts of money (see rich husband), etc. Now that I'm all grown up (physically at least, mentally? still working on it), I've got bigger and better wishes. Wishes that would help my family and others in so many ways. (Could I get anymore parenthetical than I did in the above sentence? I think not) A cure for Autism. Seriously. I know it's cliche to say something along these lines but it's a very real wish for our family. Deep inside, these children want to be loved, they want their voices heard, their emotions and feelings validated, their rights recognized and respected, th...

What is your secret (or not-so-secret) passion? My passion (besides my children of course!) is my photography. I love taking my camera out and snapping away. I have been known to go overboard with quantity but boy does the quality come through. When my friend Ashley had her baby girl earlier this year, I spent a couple hours with them in the hospital.  I took approximately 189 photos. No lie. I got rid of about 100 of them but still, I like the way I do it. My dad was an avid photographer as I was growing up and I got my first camera from him. It was one of the classic Kodak 110 cameras and even then, I took pictures of everything. The kids two houses down and their homemade skate ramp (learned to pop an ollie there). The dogs being walked around the block. Goofy faces that friends make when a camera is pointed at them. Hey, some things never change eh? I'm sure my dad limited me to how many rolls he would buy and process. Man I thought I was the shit with that camera! Next ...

When was the first time that you realized that your home was not like other people’s homes?  My house has always been different from other houses. I don't think I could narrow it down to a particular time. I recall not having friends stay over. Ever. I always stayed at all my friends' houses and called their moms "Mom". Not a lot of my friends were only children so to them, I was the odd duck. Believe me, I *was* the odd duck. Just for a myriad of other reasons. Having a family of my own, I really see the differences in houses. We are more relaxed with some things that would not fly in other houses. It gets loud in our house. Extremely loud. If I stopped them from being loud all the time, I wouldn't get a single thing done. I tend to jump in right away when the kids are arguing because it can, and will, quickly snowball into WWIII and someone (or both) will be crying. We let our son play the Wii, computer or DS for far longer than other parents or even the ...

It's been a rough day today with Donovan. I'm emotionally drained. I'm making today's NaBloPoMo prompt would drain me even more so I'm adding links and if you wish, you may go back and read my even crappier writing from last year and the years before. Has anything traumatic ever happened to you? Describe the scenes surrounding a particular event. Not counting the deaths of family members, I've had four traumatic experiences: 1. When I was 14, just starting high school wee!, I had back surgery. Not so traumatic to some people. To me, at 14, having to stay in the hospital, an hour from mom and dad, alone? Traumatic for me. I wrote about it here . In three days, it will have been 24 years. Holy smokes rocky! 2. I had a miscarriage between Sophia and Celia. Even though we weren't planning on the third one at that time, it was so devastating when we lost the baby. Some people have said at least it happened early on. I can smack them right? A loss at any...

We survived the weekend! Woot! Making family time is important. How do you balance your children, relationship, and work life?  How does anyone balance it all? No one's perfect. No one can do it just right. Different things work for different people. If I'm to be totally honest, my kids are first then work and then my relationship. We are blessed in that I can stay home with Celia during the day and when Kirk gets home from work, I can go to work. I try to have dinner ready and the kids at least eating by the time he comes home. I'm not the best at keeping house. I'm always rushing to do laundry when Donovan runs out of underwear or Sophia runs out of socks. It's hard to make the time to spend with my husband but we do. How does it all break down in our house? Like so: Having an ASD child is so time consuming with the therapy, medication management appointments and making sure he's doing well in school. When he's home, it's a crapshoot on which ...

An older photo but still, this is the kind of day we had. It was a rough one people. I won't lie. 

It's a free for all on the weekends with NaBloPoMo prompts! You know what that means?! No substance whatsoever! Weeeeeee! (and a lot of exclamation points too it seems!!) Here's your Saturday fluff: This is what happens when your 2yo wakes up at 430 in the morning and decides to clean out under the bathroom sink. Never mind that you never asked for that service. She provides free of charge. If you're lucky, and I am several times over!, she will take your brand new box of tampons and promptly upwrap and disassemble 20 of them, rendering them unusable. She will then save 3 of them in pristine condition, wrapped  and all. Don't forget to dig the other 17 out of the toilet. I imagine she will do this for anyone, at no charge.  Call for an appointment today!

So far, so good. Granted it's only Day 4. Don't judge. As you were....... When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer? I will write with a pen for hours if I have the correct pen. The choice of pen is crucial. You may laugh but it's true. And you KNOW IT! Ok, maybe it is just me but I think the pen you use will determine your handwriting. If I use a straight up regular Bic pen on spiral notebook paper (still in book), my handwriting is awesome. Love it, can't go wrong. Ball point fancy shmancy pens? I have to concentrate on my writing so that it's legible. I will often resort to writing in print, not my beloved cursive. (Side note: Why don't they teach cursive anymore?) Now if you give me a chunky, bulky pen from some drug company?? Oh mylanta. I can go to town on those bad boys. Not like that, good gravy. I love when someone at the doctor's office says I can have a pen. I get all giggly and excited. Really people, these pens are aw...

Can you listen to music and write? What song did you hear today? I cannot listen to music and write. Plain and simple. I can, however, have the tv on and write. If I listen to music, I tend to sing along and then get distracted and it's downhill from there. The tv and I have a special relationship though. I can have that on and still get things done. Maybe not my entire to do list but when push comes to shove? I can beat the commercials. I can also write when my children are harassing me, unless it's a serious post. Then I make them play in their room or color or something. Away from me. Or I wait until they are asleep.  I used to have our internet radio all wirelessly doing it's thing in the kitchen but then we changed the password to something resembling lihlqerfsdjglwaejitr2p3985rwlkgnanr2p394ut5pq294utwaglknvalkng and that's just a pain in the ass to enter with the funky remote. I think I'll try again tomorrow though. I would always listen to a couple stat...

This video is disturbing to say the least . I wish it were a gross you out but make you laugh video. It's not. It may gross you out, and it should, but there's certainly no laughing. I'm also in tears. I don't care that the video is years old. I don't care what the motivations are for releasing this video. I don't care what the circumstances are. The fact is very clear. This man beat this child. His beat her with his belt. You can't call it spanking. He even says in the video that he will beat her. The mother? No better. Having lost someone so close to me from child abuse, I don't care what any of the alleged adults in that video have to say. They should........I don't know. It hurts to watch this and I sincerely hope that everyone gets help in this situation. I wish I could be more eloquent about this but I'm just hearbroken, disappointed in the "adults" and too saddened to form anything better than what ya got.

Boy, first day out of the NaBloPoMo gate and I barely got the first post in. One minute to spare before the deadline. Whew! See how I'm doing Day 2 waaaaaaaaay ahead? Yep, I are smart. So what do we have on board today?? Let's see what they gave us shall we? If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?  Not surprisingly, I've thought about this. In fact, after this I thought about it even more. What?? I would select the following items and take as much time as I could so I could get some of everything. * 3 egg omelet with sliced American cheese and bacon with a drizzle of ketchup on top and a big glass of milk. * A couple grilled cheese sandwiches, Burger King double cheeseburger with no pickles, a large McDonald's fry and an ice cold Mt. Dew. I'll have a large Wendy's frosty to eat and dip my fries in. Don't judge. * My mom's meatloaf, my mother in law's chicken and egg noodle pasta dish,...

NaBloPoMo is here people! I'm going to try for substance this year. Don't hold your breath though, I make no promises except that I will try. That's a good start right?? I have decided to follow the daily prompts this year so as not to stress my brain too much. Bahahahaha! Doesn't take much. What is your favourite part about writing? Sharing our daily lives with family and friends. I know it sounds cliche and it is (but it's true). Almost all of our family lives out of state. People are lucky to get a Christmas card from us because I procrastinate so much. (I just got our Halloween decorations today!) I love reading about other people and their lives. I'm always reading biographies, when I have the time and sometimes, it's online when I'm reading it. I don't think our lives are super exciting but I think my family is pretty damn awesome. If someone else thinks so, that's great! I also like writing about our son Donovan who has Aspergers. I ...