Alabama....

Okay, I have come to the realization that I am a snob. I do not smoke or drink to excess. I like having a clean orderly house and am polite because I like people. We are here in Alabama, the trip across country was fun, except for getting food poisoning in Oklahoma(hint do not eat hamburgers in Oklahoma!). We are here in Huntsville, and the people are super nice, but there's no sense of urgency for anything. We were told when we moved in that the washer and dryer would be installed on that day (Friday) and after asking about them three times, they were installed yesterday (Tuesday). They are OLD and DIRTY!!!! Scary dirty too, not just dusty, but caked on crap from the millions of load of laundry they did before being taken to our apartment. Old I could live with as long as they worked did it really matter how new they were? But dirty I have a major problem with. I was in tears as I scrapped the caked on crap off of the inside and outside of both the washer and dryer.....deep breathing excersises helped a little.


We have been spending a lot of time down at the apartment pool. The kids are in 7th heaven, they get to swim for about two hours a day. I don't mind because I can get in get wet, get out and sit in the shade and read my books while the kids play. I also get a front row seat to the on going drama of the other residence at the complex. The drinking, I can sort of see, it's stinkin' hot and humid and drinking a cold beer would hit the spot, but the consistent drinking to the point where you can't walk in a straight line to the bathroom is a little excessive. Now add to that two little kids that can't swim and that would be one mom that was down at the pool yesterday. The kids were yelling "mommy!!!" and the mom was just laughing and giggling with the ubiquitious men who were providing the beer. Then there is the smoking. EVERYONE here smokes. There's ash all around the pool, and our apartment stinks. It's either because of the previous residence or it could be the person living below us smokes, but the place stinks. I got a candle and all it did was make the apartment stink like smoke and candle. While watching the drunk mom yesterday I noticed a pregnant mom with a two year old little boy, and I watched in horror as she lit up and proceeded to smoke her way through a whole pack of cigarrettes while we were down at the pool.

I am trying my best to not be judgmental, and snobby. I honestly like the people I have met so far. Absolutely everyone is super nice, and friendly. The drunk people are nice to the kids and they are friendly as the light-up. I am just having a bit of culture shock.

Connor's 1st Grade Performance of Desperado

 

Into Perspective

So, while I know that my situation isn't unique, I still don't have to like it......my hubby left for a year last week. Lucky for me he's not going into harms way per say, he only gets to go learn how to defuse bombs, yeah that's not dangerous at all. I think watching him say good-bye to our babies was absolutely heartbreaking, more than saying good-bye to me. My little ones were so brave and walked off to school without losing it, unlike me waiting in the car I was blubbering like a baby.

What this has done is put my life into perspective. I don't care where we live as long as we are together. If I have an opportunity to move and live in Alabama and I get to be close to him then I am off to the southland. I was born and raised in California but I would leave in a heartbeat to have my family together.

It has also shown me that my hubby is my best friend. I have best girl friends and I love them and would go absolutely bat-ass crazy if I didn't have them, but my hubby is the one I talk to everyday about everything that has happened during the day. We laugh at the same crazy things, and he helps put my crazy fears about little things into perspective. I miss him! We have been talking via Skype several times since he left and I don't know if it's better or worse to see him and talk to him like that knowing he's 2,000 miles away.

He started his school today, and depending on how the next two weeks go, I might get to drive across country and live in Alabama and then Florida for the next year. Adventure here we come.

Stunningly Beautiful and Smart

I know that I am biased, I am the Mommy I am suppose to be biased, but my Madeline startles me sometimes. I like to think that I am smart, but compared to Madeline I was a blithering idiot when I was her age. She has hit the double digits, she's no longer a little girl, but a tween. Sigh. We had the afternoon together yesterday, Matt took Connor for some Daddy/Connor time before he leaves for his EOD training, so Madeline and I went shopping. I don't normally do a lot of girly things, but Madeline wanted to go to Claires. A store doesn't get more girly than Claires, jewelry, make-up, hats, scarves, etc. We spent a good 30 minutes trying on hats and looking at all of the bling. She looks so cute in hats, I had to buy her one. We then went to a new store called Justice, and she tried on a bunch of clothes, she had a blast and I got to see what her style is, and what colors she likes, she loves things that I wouldn't have normally picked, but she looks great in what she likes. On the way home we were talking about something and she was spelling something, and she couldn't think of a vowel, so she tells me "you know a non-consonant". She loves to talk about metaphors, similes and analogies.

Then this morning I was struggling to get Connor's hair to lay down. No amount of water was getting his swirly to stay put, and I gave up. The kids were in their bathroom brushing their teeth, and I hear Connor complaining about something, and I go in to their bathroom and see that Madeline had gone and gotten a piece of tape to hold down Connor's hair. I had to laugh, it actually worked! I couldn't send the poor kid to school with a piece of tape in his hair, but the tape idea had merit. She is always thinking, maybe not the nicest thing to do to her brother, but it worked.

Evil Giggle

My best Jen keeps reminding me to blog these little stories about my kids and since I am unemployed I really don't have an excuse.....so here goes a Connor story.

Connor loves Bionicles, these are little robot/machine/weird creatures from Legos. He absolutely LOVES them, he will play for hours with his two Glatorians, he got a new one for Madeline's birthday and it shoots out a little rubber spiked ball. He will plan an attack with his little spiked ball and his favorite thing is to sneak up on me or Madeline and shoot his ball into our hair and run away giggling. He loves it because the rubber spikes get tangled up in our hair and it is hard to get out. I will hear him in his room with an evil giggle as he tries to sneak up on Madeline. Lucky for Madeline he's not very good at the sneaking part because of his little giggle. It is easy to find him because he just can't keep quiet. I find it hard to get mad at him for torturing his sister because he gets such delight in the sneaking and attacking. I think it's worse for Madeline because she is his ultimate target, Mommy is easy to hit, Madeline actually will put up a fight. I warned Madeline that someday Connor was going to be bigger than her and that she needed to be nice to her little brother, well Connor's not bigger yet, but he does so love to sneak up and attack her with that Bionicle rubber spikey ball. I love the evil giggle that goes along with the attack.

Exercise.......

 

I am the last person on earth who would have thought that she would like exercise.....but since I was given an elliptical machine for Christmas, I have been using it daily and I have to say, I am having a ton of fun. I am unemployed, so every morning I walk the kids to the bus stop, and then come home and spend 45 minutes sweating my brains out. Don't get me wrong, the first 15 minutes suck, but after that it's fun. I have sweat dripping off my nose, and there's nobody to see. I love it! I am much too self concious to truly enjoy getting all hot and sweaty at a gym, so home exercise is perfect for me.

I have noticed a difference in how I feel, but can you imagine my horror that I am developing a chicken neck?! Loose skin is taking the inevitable trip down....got to love gravity. At least it's loose skin not the horrid double chin.

SUCKS!

Well it finally happened. I lost my job. Freakin' sucks! I guess I should say that at least I got to work until January, or there are more people out there that are worse off than I am, but ya know what, it just plain sucks! I am now one of the millions of people who are unemployed. What makes this worse it that there isn't anyone hiring. I filed for unemployment, and part of the process is that I HAVE to register with CalJobs, okay no problem, let me see what jobs does the county/state have available....oh, I see there's a total of five jobs available, and all of them are for police officers. WTF! Let me tell ya, unemployment payments are about half of what I was normally making, so not only am I unemployed, but joyousness,we might lose our house too because my income just took dive in to the sh*ter. Woohoo life is great (sarcasm).