Crap!

It looks like I'm headed for surgery. The doc said I did dislocate this damn finger and it did go back into place. That's good! BUT the tendon that runs over the knuckle is not there. He can't be sure but he thinks it's laying on the OUTSIDE of my bone. OUCH! He was pushing up on it and he felt a lot of tension. He didn't want to push too hard because he didn't want to cause me any undue pain or snap the tendon. I told him he could, but either he had to get me a bucket to throw up in or a pillow so I don't hit my head on the floor when I pass out :D Weird he didn't push up on my finger when I hissed.

He put the splint back on and made me an appointment to see a hand surgeon. That appointment is tomorrow *sigh* I'm not as scared as I was yesterday, but still pretty uneasy about the whole thing.

I talked to my math instructor about the possibility of surgery and he didn't seem concerned about me not being able to do my homework. I'm doing the best to not let this whole thing get me down, but to be honest it isn't easy. I'm frustrated that I can't do ANYTHING. I can't cook dinner, can't wash my hair, unbutton my jeans, clean the house, pretty much anything that requires the use of both hands, I am unable to do. I can't even go running because the movement will jostle my hand and it hurts!

I did put a call out for help yesterday and asked a friend to make dinner for us because we're all VERY sick of pizza. That sucked having to ask for her help, but also made me feel good that I had an amazing friend to help me out. Thank you Tracy!

My lil sis, dad and their gang are all here this week. It's nice to be able to hang out with them and have some help around here, but also sucks because I can't do anything I had planned. I was going to make lasagna and pumpkin cheesecake for them, now I can't. Dirty is helping, obviously, but ummmmm...how can I say this politely....DUDE CAN'T COOK TO SAVE HIS OWN LIFE! Hence the reason we've had pizza or breakfast for dinner since Thursday. But not tonight! Tonight we're eating the dinner Tracy made us! Tomorrow, lil sis is going to help me with the stew. Not sure about the rest of the week, but right now, we've got dinner covered tonight. So very thankful that we will NOT be eating pizza tonight!

Nae is still really sick! Her strep test came back negative, and she isn't feeling much better. She's been on antibiotics since Monday afternoon, so we thought she'd be feeling better. Not quite sure what's going on. Does anyone know anything about tonsillitis? She hasn't had a fever but her throat is really sore and she can't talk. I'm having a hell of a time getting a hold of her Doctor. Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated!

Go BIG Or Go Home!

That's been our motto around here as of late.

I started the year of Beautiful Mess with a BANG! So much so that I somehow became a 21 year old college student instead of a 34 year old one. I went out, had a few beers and lots of laughs on Monday. My class was canceled, so I thought, why not? I begged Roomie to take me out and she did. Then Tuesday, I did it again! Only Tuesday there were a lot more beers consumed and a good bye party for a friend visiting from San Diego. Whom I may or may not have flirted with because I knew it would make people INSANE! I sauntered in around 4am after a delicious breakfast at Shari's and woke up *wink wink* Dirty. I proceeded to tell him about my night in GREAT detail until be called "uncle". Since we had to get up at 6 to get the kids off to school, we decided to stay up. That was SO weird! I wasn't feeling tipsy or drunk, not even tired! I hit my wall around 10am and took my sorry ass to bed. Was totally worth it AND I made it to class and did just fine. Wednesday my dad was in town and what did we do? Go our for some drinks with my friends he hasn't seen in awhile. And who else was there? That guy from Tuesday night PLUS a few gals that are always up in my business. We all sat together and I may have been a little TOO nice and giggly. In my defense, they have been up in my business for YEARS! I just decided to give them all something to talk about. That should keep me off their radar for awhile.

Woke up Thursday feeling totally fine, which is weird! I should have been wreaked, but I wasn't. I even went on my run. All was going well until 15 minutes until I had to leave for class and Dirty had to leave to get Zilla. It was then I decided to be Super Woman and move a BIG box of china into the garage. I grabbed it by hooking my thumbs into the box and supporting the box under the flaps with my index fingers and hands. Yeah...BAD idea! Heard a pop and saw stars. My finger hurt so bad, I thought I was going to throw up or pass out. I ran into the house and asked Dirty to pull it back into place, thinking I dislocated it. OH DEAR GOD I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO REALLY PASS OUT!!! He was pulling on it and I was screaming like I was being murdered. Apparently he didn't like the sound of my screams in his ear and me biting my arm to stop said screams. Which only gave me a bruise and did not stop my screaming OR the pain.

Poor Dirty and my dad are standing around while I'm on the floor rocking back and forth in pain not knowing what to do. Dirty had to go get Zilla from school and my dad can't drive. I somehow call Rommie and ask her to take me to the ER and I call Peaches telling her to tell our math instructor I won't be in class that day. Not sure how I did that, but I did!

I get to the ER a few minutes later acting crazy. I'm doing everything I can think of to distract myself from the pain. I'm attempting to text people, telling Roomie to make jokes, ANYTHING to keep my mind off my finger. None of those things really worked, either. We finally go back and see a doctor and get X-rays done. The X-rays don't show anything broken or our of place. They have NO idea what the hell I did to my finger. All we know is that I can't move it up and if anyone gets close to it, I whimper. I even asked the doc to knock me out if he decides to move it up to splint it. He took pity on me and didn't touch it. THANK YOU DOC!

He did call an orthopedist who was just as stumped as he was. They had no answers for me. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before. So, they put a splint on it to support it and wrapped it. I got some pain pills and a number to call in the morning to make an appointment with the orthopedist.

I've been doing my best to type, write and do normal things like brush my teeth with my left hand, but it hasn't been easy. This finger/hand HURTS like a bitch! My appointment is tomorrow and I am TERRIFIED! I'm afraid of the doctor touching it and him telling me I need surgery or something horrible. My game plan is to take a pain pill before my appointment and PRAY it's just dislocated and he can pop it back into place and it'll feel SO much better. If not.....well we'll deal with that when and IF it comes.

To top it all off, poor Nae is SO sick! We took her to HER doctor this morning and she has strep. The kid hasn't been on antibiotics since she was 6 months old. She's on a big dosage now to make up for lost time.

It's go big of go home around here! If ya'll have any spare good thoughts, Nae and I could really use them.

Testing...trying to figure out this whole blog from ue phone invention. What will they think of NEXT?

I'm Free Of Her Poison

Peaches and I have been in each others lives for a little over 12 years. That's a long time! It wasn't always bad, we had good times, as I stated in my letter to her awhile back. I have always been aware that she was a taker and I was a giver. That's what our friendship was and I accepted that. I would do my best not to let her hurt me, but in the end, I always got hurt. I would LOVE to put all the blame on her, but I can't. I have to assume some of the responsibility, as well. I was the one who chose to stay in a unhealthy friendship because I had the hope she would change. I didn't try to change her, I just always hoped that she would see the light some day. Since she hasn't spoken to me since she moved out, I have never felt so free in my life! I'm not fixing her problems anymore. I'm not listening to her go on and on and ON about her sometimes boyfriend. I'm a little bit hurt that she doesn't see what she did, but I doubt she ever will see. And you know what? It isn't my problem to make her see it. She made the choices she made and I made the choices I made. This is where we stand now. She doesn't reply to my text messages, not that I actually expected her too. It would have been nice to get "you're welcome" when I sent her a text saying thank you for the gifts she got Nae and Zilla, but eh shit happens. No biggie. We have two classes together this term and today was the first one. All I can say is it was awkward! Oh so very awkward. I was nice and said hi to her and she said hi back and that was the extent of our conversation for the two hours.

While I'm a little sad about the turn our friendship has taken I'm more RELIEVED then anything. I know a lot of people have told me that she is not a good friend and while I always agreed, I never did anything about it. Totally different story now. Since we haven't talked in weeks, I feel so free. I'm not stressed out anymore. I'm enjoying things around the house. I'm reconnecting with friends I had lost contact with because I was SO wrapped up in her and her problems. It feels really nice! I take that back, it feels really GREAT!

Because of this whole thing, I've done a lot of thinking about who I am and what I want out of life. I no longer want to worry about anyone but myself. Of course that doesn't mean I'm going to go run away, start up a crack habit or skate on my classes. This just means that I've lived my life for other people for way too long and it's time to live life for ME!

If I want to go out for a drink with the girls or the boys and Dirty is fine with it, I'm going to go. I'm not going to worry about someone feeling left out because he/she has to work and couldn't go. I'm not going to worry about the small group of women who think I'm such a whore because I have the NERVE to talk (and flirt) with a man that is not my husband! Oh the horror! I'm no longer going to listen to the whispers behind my back because I'm not at home with Dirty and the kids. If I want to go to lunch with a good friend who just happens to have a penis, then dammit, I'm going! If I feel like being silly in the store and embarrassing my friend, I'm going to do that too! On the flip side, if I don't feel like doing anything but sit on my couch, that's exactly where I'll be.

This year is going to be the year of Beautiful Mess! This is going to be a great year, I can't wait to see what type of person I'll become and who has chosen to stay with me during this journey. It's going to be very interesting and so very exciting!

A Great Man

This handsome guy (who I got my looks from, btw) is A Great Man! He's probably the kindest man I know and the best dad ever! He's been through the wringer, but always comes out smiling. I don't remember him ever being mad or upset about the way life seems to love to screw him over. He lives life to the fullest and has taught me to do the same.

Things started to go downhill for him when I was around 12 years old. Him and my mom both lost their jobs and had to sell our house. Even during the move, he would always make the best of things. Since they were "older" it was hard for them to find a decent job again. When he finally did, years later, he lost his eyesight due to diabetes and had to retire early. My mom went back to work and took care of them. They were doing pretty good until my mom got sick and then passed away. Even through everything that surrounded her sickness and death, my dad was amazing. He went with her to appointments, visited her every day when she was in rehab and occasionally stayed the night and slept on a VERY small, uncomfortable chair. He never complained about taking the bus or a cab to see her, he just did it. He took care of her, helped her with her exercises so she could walk and talk again. When she came home, he and Dirty were talking about building a ramp for her wheelchair. Then she passed away and things were never the same, obviously.

He's been doing his best to keep his head above water with hospital bills pouring in, making sure my lil sister didn't make TOO many stupid decisions, and taking care of his own health. He wasn't feeling to well a few months back, but thankfully his kidneys are functioning just fine. Even though he was spilling some protein. Because of his diabetes and such, they had him tested for Agent Orange. That was in May :-| He hadn't heard anything from anyone for MONTHS! The only thing he knew was that when everything was done and he was tested positive, he would get an extra certain amount a month and it would be retro-active. We low-balled it and thought he'd get MAYBE an extra $500 a month and a check for a few thousand. But we still had no idea when this was coming or what was going to happen. Thank you government for all the available information.

He was notified that he did test positive for Agent Orange and would be receiving benefits because of this. Of course there was no date to notify him WHEN this would happen. So he waited, and waited. He finally got notice on Wednesday as to how much he was going to be getting a month. It wasn't what he was expecting, he told me. I was so bummed for him, I just wanted him to catch a break! I wanted SOMETHING to go right for him, just once! He then told me he will be receiving an extra $2,000 a month! That's HUGE! I was so happy for him, I started to cry. I started to do the math in my head and said "so you got like a $1,400 check, right?!" His response was "no, I didn't. *pause* Try like $47,000" I completely lost it right then and there! I couldn't hold it in any longer, I bawled like a baby. I was so happy for him and so excited that he was able to pay his bills and such and not have to worry about if his electric bill was going to be too high. Then he dropped a bomb on me. He told me he mailed me a check. I was stunned and told him I didn't want him spending his money on me, it's HIS! He's the one who fought in Vietnam, not I. He EARNED this money! He was crying too, when I said all of this, so it was hard for each of us to understand the other, but I think he said "it's alright. This is ALL of our money." I disagree and will do my best not to allow him to spend any of it on me. I just want my dad to be happy and be able to turn his heat on without having to worry.

He's looking into buying a house HERE, by ME! I hope he can do it. Not only for me, but for him too. He needs to be closer to me. It's time for my lil sis to share him. She's had him for years, it's my turn now.

I have questioned if good things do happen to good people a few times because it seems as if my dad gets shit on by life a lot, but not anymore! I think I just needed to have more patience and open my eyes a little bit more. He's a good man who truly deserves this. It won't make the pain of him losing his wife any less, but it will make his life easier. For that, I am thankful.

A Little History

When we found out I was pregnant with Nae, it was both a shock and a surprise. We weren't trying, but we weren't NOT trying, either. We had been together for four years at that point and never got pregnant. I hadn't been on the pill much because it made me BAT SHIT CRAZY! And I'm allergic to latex condoms. So we were huge fans of the pull out method. Although, not EVERY TIME. Anyway, so when we got pregnant it wasn't a HUGE surprise. We still looked at it as a gift and did everything in our power to accept this gift and not take it for granted. We had many conversations on how we wanted to raise this child and how we DIDN'T want to raise this child. We may have taken it too far in some people's eyes, but this is OUR child, not theirs. So if we gave up get-togethers because we didn't have a sitter, then that's what had to be done. That was almost 13 years ago and to date, Nae has had MAYBE 10 babysitters in her life and two of them were NOT family members.

Then we decided for number two. That didn't happen the way we planned, WEIRD! But when it did, we were cautiously over joyed! We chose to raise Zilla the same way we chose to raise Nae. No babysitters if we could help it. Not that we didn't trust babysitters or we think it's bad to get a babysitter, we just felt we didn't need to. We were a little bit relaxed with him and let my BIL take both of the kids over night for New Year's Eve when Zilla was 5 months old. The Universe let us know how much of a bad idea this was because we woke up the next morning with A LOT of snow on the ground. Panic ensued and we got both of then home in one piece.

Overprotective might be a bit of an understatement when it comes to how we've chosen to parent, but we do have good reason. And here is where the moment our lives could have changed forever happened. I looked through my archives and I don't think I've told this story before, so I'll tell it now. It has a happy ending, thank Goddess, but it wasn't one of my proud parenting moments. This is also why I freaked out so much when I saw Zilla by the parking lot at school.
That picture could have been the last picture I had taken of Zilla. We were at a school carnival at Nae's school. We've been to this school SO many times, everyone knew us and him. We use to joke that he was the mascot because he had been there more then some of the teachers. We first started going there when he was about a year and a half to volunteer in Nae's classroom. He was in his stroller and would take his naps in there while I did my work. It wasn't a new environment to him at all. Which is probably why the day ended as well as it did.

He was going through a bounce house/obstacle course thing. He had done it many time before the last time without incident. He took off his shoes and I watched him go through the difficult part. I then told him that I was going to get his shoes and to meet me at the end. It took all of TWO SECONDS, that he was out of my sight. I went back to the end of the bounce house and he was GONE! I waited for him to come out, thinking he climbed back up the slide for another round, but no he didn't.

I walked to the front of the thing and asked the woman running it if he had come out there, he didn't. I told Nae to go check the playground and see if he was there. He was wearing a bright orange shirt, so he wouldn't have been THAT hard to spot. Except there were like eleventy billion other little boys wearing an orange shirt that day, too. Nae and her friends were looking all over the playground for him, coming back to me and telling me they hadn't found him. I was doing my best NOT to panic.

I ran through the gym to the school building thinking he might have wondered off to Nae's classroom for candy or whatever little treats her teacher had in there. Her teacher and another gal saw the look on my face and asked me what was wrong. I wasn't panicking until THAT moment. Until the words "I can't find Zilla" came out of my mouth. All the teachers and the principal scattered in different directions to search for him, but nobody found him. It was probably 5 MAYBE 10 minutes we were looking for him, but it felt like HOURS. My phone rang and I answered it, it was Peaches telling me Zilla was home. We lived two blocks from the school and when he couldn't find me he WALKED HOME! That's when I lost it. My knees buckled and I dropped to the floor crying thinking about what could have been. Nae's teacher found me, picked me up and helped me get it together. I grabbed Nae and we ran home.

As soon as I walked in the door and saw my baby sitting on the couch with tears on his cheeks, I lost it again. I grabbed him and just held him and cried. He was safe, scared but safe. When I asked him what happened his simple 3 year old answer was "I couldn't find you. I lost you, so I came home". I'm glad he knew his way home, obviously, but thinking about him crossing two streets, barefoot, makes me sick to my stomach still.

That day is still very fresh in my mind. Every time I think about it, I get so scared. So that is why when I saw him almost in the parking lot at his school the other day, I FREAKED out. I may have jumped the gun a bit but that was NOT ok. It was not ok for a six year old boy to be that close to the street. I don't care how many staff members are directing traffic, they don't know who is or who is NOT on the pick up list. A number of things could have happened and the school is not understanding this.

In the end everything turned out well and they will not be transferring Zilla to the other school, but I am not going to let this go. He may have to finish out the school at this school, but I will not be dropping this. I intend to talk to the principal again about the pick up process and even the PTA president. If my fears are not appeased, then I WILL be talking to the superintendent.

I may not be the norm when it comes to protecting my children, but that does not mean that a six year old should be responsible for where he needs to be after school. The principals at both schools don't seem to think what happened was a big deal. Unless they're playing it down so I don't freak out. If that's their plan, it's not working. They are making it worse by not acknowledging a flaw in their system.

Yes the children should know where to be when they need to be picked up, it's a part of making them aware and responsible. Both of which, I think are very important, but what about if there was a custody battle between Dirty and myself? What if my dad went to pick up Zilla and Zilla went with him? My dad isn't on the pick up list. Obviously it would be fine if he was picked up by my dad, but the school doesn't know that! What if some pervert decided to go kid shopping and picked up my son? What would the school have done THEN? What would they have done if he did run out into the street and got hit by a car?

These aren't little what if's, these are BIG what if's. I am relieved beyond words that nothing bad happened, but what if.....what if?

What a Beautiful Christmas!

Despite everything that has happened to us this month, we had a wonderful, beautiful, fantastic Christmas.

Dirty's grandmother passed away, which wasn't unexpected, but sad nonetheless. The good thing, is she was able to spend Christmas with her husband who passed away a few years ago. Dirty's mom was able to get her ashes put in the wall before Christmas, so she was laid to rest before Christmas. That was a nice ending to a wonderful woman's life. I'm very honored to have been a part of her life. She was truly a magical person. She will be missed, but we know she is very happy with her husband, who she has missed so much.

Even Peaches moving out and not talking to me, still, didn't ruin our day. I wasn't about to let her selfishness ruin our day.

I didn't think about anything that had to do with Dirty's court appearance or the outcome. I was going to actually enjoy this holiday and BE present for it. For the first time in years, I was able to see Christmas for what it truly is. I wasn't on death watch or waiting for the phone to ring. My dad was here and I didn't have to fake my way through the whole thing.

This year should have been one of the worst Christmases ever, but instead, it turned out to be one of the best. I am very thankful for my family for getting me to this point.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day. I wish for 2010 to be a WONDERFUL year!