Yeah. I know I told you I’d be back…sorry! I will be soon, hopefully. We only have like $11 dollars to make it through the rest of the month and our electricity is scheduled to be turned off on the 10th. Not good times. I hate San Diego. It’s really too expensive for us to live here on one income. Damn.

See, I just like to mess with you. I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND!

Shortly after my last post about being glad I had my Internet back I started to realize what a relief those few days without Internet actually were. I’m stressed out right now.  The hubbs decided to take on another part-time job on Thursdays and Fridays, meaning he will be working 6am-2am Thursday, with a four hour break before he goes back to work from 6am-2am. Basically, it’s a 32 HOUR shift with a four hour break in between. He decided ‘why take the 45 minute drive home just to have to leave a few hours later. I’ll just sleep in my car that night!‘ So my hubby from now on will leave for work Thursday mornings not to return until Saturday morning. I don’t know. There are other things too…money. Crap. Dogs with diarrhea–it’s complicated. Blogging has gotten to be a chore and I never wanted it to be that way. So I’m taking a short break (not three months like the last time back in August, I promise) just a few days, maybe a week. Maybe even three hours, who knows where the mood will take me.

I’ll catch you on the flip side, Amigos!

I got a new router from a friend, hooked it up Saturday and it was working great. Sunday something crapped out, I don’t think it was the router but something went wrong with my ISP, or something. I intended to fix it Monday but I came down with the stomach flu. So that’s where those two days went. If you are reading this now, that must mean I’ve fixed it. I typed this ahead of time to post when my Internet came back.  (Yes, I was that desperate for Internet!)

I know, I’m always so full of excuses. Can I say my dog ate my laptop? Will that work?

By the way, you should totally check out The Informal Matriarch’s blog give-away. I want THAT BAG. GO NOW. I earned an extra entry just now by telling you about this. So maybe I’m using you…so WHAT?

OH OH OH! and a link to the bags for Zaza page as well! Whoops! (link)

I want you to see something.

This is how bad of a bloggy friend I am. I have 209 unread, un-commented posts on my reader. TWO HUNDRED AND NINE!

And yes, I do read every post you write people. I usually stay on top of things for the most part, but lately I haven’t found the time. That is also why I have three weeks worth of The Bachelorette saved up on my DVR.

I’m  bad blogger.

I’ll get to your posts, I promise. Don’t hate me!                                                                                               

Would you like to participate or find out more about Self Portrait Saturdays? Click here!

Last night a good friend was visiting from out-of-state. We had a get together with some friends and ordered a HUGE pizza. It’s 28 inches to be exact. This is me, using my hand as a reference in relation to it’s massive size. We sat it on the oven in this picture and it was bigger than the oven.

Yes, I am easily amused. Especially when it comes to massive amounts of food.

A comment I left on mom’s site the other day got me to thinking about you again. It got me to crying.

Today I took a drive to see you. I just had to be close to you again. The bright sun reflected off your empty soil but I could still feel you there. I ran my fingers across your ashy ground searching for memories once more.

Is it normal to mourn a home like you would a lost relative?

I don’t know…

But I miss you.

What is it about you, honey water?

Is it the memories retained in your once sturdy walls? A family that once together, now gone on to lead separate lives miles apart? A glimpse of the happiness that once was?

How long will we go on mourning you?

I cannot help but think of all the good times we shared. Dad under the suburban in the driveway, Pink Floyd blasting on the stereo in the garage. Mom reading her book at the table out back while Erin does flips on the trampoline. Kayla, Oh God, Kayla. Hiding the pool balls in the living room. Me pounding on Chris’ door, trying to annoy him with my new excitement of the day.

I can still here the laughter. I can still hear the pool balls clacking against each other on the pool table. Hell, I can even still smell your stinky carpet.

You brought us together. Especially as we watched you burn down on the television set.

Now what is left?

Rest in Peace Honey Water. Rest in Peace Duchess and Don Juan, for it’s there, forever in my heart you will stay.

1. It’s hot. It was 93 degrees here today.

2. The A/C in my car doesn’t work.

3. I have to take a cold shower everyday after driving to and from places, leaving less time to, you know, do other things like harass other members of my family with annoying phone calls with my impression of animal noises.

4. I end up looking like this an hour after taking said shower.

5. My poor Kayla ends up looking like this after driving to her doctors appointment.

6. My poor Avalynn ends up looking like this!

7. Because it’s hot. Damn hot.

8. Now that I finally have a vehicle and I can take the kids out to do fun things I almost don’t want to because I don’t want to subject them to the heat!

9. I don’t like being sweaty.

10. My car uses more gas. Gas is at $4.78 a gallon here. ‘Nuff said.

11. We live on the third floor. When the dog as to go to the bathroom the kids and I have to hike it down three flights of stairs instead of staying inside where it’s a cool 71 degrees. (I love central air!)

12. Because ice cream melts faster than my kids can eat it, leaving them a hot sticky mess.

13. Because as stated in #2, my car still has no Air conditioning. Yes, it’s that important.

Well, I know it’s Tuesday, but I spent yesterday frantically trying to pick up the slack that was left over from the hubbs starting his new job. It was nice having him home for dinner, we all ate at the table like a family! I’m so used to eating alone with the kids since he has been working nights that I almost forgot what eating together was like.

On Saturday we attended a reception premier for the new movie Kung Fu Panda thanks to some free tickets for mommy blogger’s. It was awesome! They had dancers there to teach the kids the Kung Fu Panda dance, arts and crafts, good food and even a chance to get your picture taken with Kung Fu Panda. We received goodie-bags at the end filled with all sorts of neat stuff including the new Kung Fu Panda soundtrack and PC game.

Free!

HelloO!

Kayla had a blast. She even sat still long enough to get a face-painted panda on her cheek to which she absolutely refused to let us wipe off until the next afternoon when we bribed her with a chance to go to the beach.

Now we totally have to go see the movie. Kayla is demanding it!

I also met the lovely RockinMama, a fellow mommy blogger. We chatted it up for a while and her baby is ADORABLE! It was nice to finally meet another mommy blogger in the real world, I haven’t had a chance to do that yet, it was so cool!

Kayla loves the Kung Fu Panda soundtrack. She actually says goodnight to it now and calls it "cool," her new favorite phrase.

Everything is "cool."

Gee, I wonder who she learned that from?

So Sunday, Father’s Day, the dad’s all wanted to go to the beach. So we headed out with my father, mother, husband, kids, brother and sister-in-law (Plus BELLY) for a beautiful day at the beach.

Kayla spent the entire day running out into the waves giving ALL OF US the workout of our lives.

Oh, she wants to stop and play in the sand? Good, maybe we can sit down for a minute!

PSYCH!

Which sent any one of us running in after her to make sure she wasn’t carried away by some gigantic wave. Of course, I got a long break while Ava napped on me and I put grandma on ‘Ocean Duty.’

After Avalynn’s nap, even she decided the beach wasn’t all that bad and decided to enjoy herself a little.

It was a good day at the beach (Minus all that sand and sun, no joke, I’m one of those rare weirdos that doesn’t like the beach. Sunburns and SAND IN EVERY CREVICE! That’s all I have to say about that!).

I also managed to get that gem of a picture! Her bottoms fell down leaving a little sand-free stencil of where her swimsuit once was. She was so shocked by it too, she just stood there until I came over and pulled them back up for her!

Once again, by the end of the day, we were burned. Badly. Yes, we did learn our lesson from last time, we even bought SPF 70+ and sauteed our bodies in it all day long only to find that even Kayla was burned despite my generous slathering.

Screw YOU Coppertone SPF 70+! I didn’t even know you existed until last month and now I wish I’d never met you!

See? I’m not all that crazy for disliking the beach…

I hope all of you out there had a lovely Father’s Day!

Why hello, strangers! Yes, I am indeed still alive. I haven’t been able to find much time this week to blog but I am now and that’s what counts. Right?

…Right?

As I mentioned before, the hubbs is on vacation this whole week before he starts the new job. We’ve been making the most of the situation and have gotten a ton of stuff done. This week has included but is not limited to;

• Partying like it’s 1999.
• Nursing a hangover with an ass-load of water and Tylenol.
• Dying my hair orange on accident.
• Going to one occupational therapy appointment, two speech therapy appointments and one visit to my shrink.
• Having my brother and sister-in-law over for dinner (Mmm, chicken enchiladas…)
• Having many angry phone conversations with Fed-ex and Virgin Mobile over a cell phone I ordered that “got lost in the mail.” To which no one is owning up to and I am getting nowhere.
• Finishing season 4 of The 4400 on DVD with the hubbs. We are absolutely ADDICTED to that show and we are finishing up the last disc tonight. Afterwards we may have a small funeral with much crying because the show was canceled after Season 4 and I just…don’t…think…we can go on with life after The 4400.
• Smogging two cars. One passed one failed. Damn. You’d be surprised to find out that the one that passed was a 1986 Buick. The one that failed was a 2002 Ford Escort.
• Spending nearly an entire DAY at the DMV. BUT! I now have a driver’s license and one of my two cars is registered. The other one needs to pass smog first. DAMN YOU SMOG LAWS!
• Wanting to hang my husband off the balcony by his foot and shake him VIOLENTLY. Why are men so difficult? Oh yeah, they’re men. This is why married people have jobs, money is always a good thing but I don’t think people are supposed to spend 24/7 with their spouse. EVER.

I know many of you have been upset by my lack of posting this week. Feel free to send any complaints you have to our complaint department at:

Shutthef#ckup@biteme.com

We’re always happy to serve you here at the themommyproject.com, we like to call it service with a smile!

Teehee. I’m just kidding, I love you.

So, It’s Friday night and I figured I’d include this weeks SPS in with this post. Two posts for the price of one!

It must be your lucky day!

Okay, I’m just lazy…

————————————————————————————-

Self Portrait Saturday #8-Me in the rearview

Would you like to participate or find out more about Self Portrait Saturdays? Click here!

Total. Lack. Of. Posting.

On my part.

I know, I’m sorry.

Will you ever forgive me?

I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 5am. I can’t sleep anymore. Lately it’s been harder and harder for me to sleep longer then 5 or 6 hours in a row. But oddly enough I’m still so tired in the afternoon I need a nap when the kids go down.

I guess I’ll go hop in the shower now, Kayla has speech therapy at 8 anyway!

I’m gonna start this post off with a little background information on the story. Way back in October of 2006, I was working as a nursing assistant for Children’s hospital. The hubbs and I were struggling to make ends meet while he worked nights part-time and I worked full time during the day.

At the time, my registration was about 5 months past due on our only vehicle and we didn’t have any insurance. It was hard times. We had no money and our utilities kept getting shut off, we had no means to pay off any of our bills.

One day on the way home from work I was excited to come home to see Kayla (who was about one and a half at the time) because I hated being away from her during the day. I was in the fast lane going the speed limit when I came up on an old run down car in the fast lane probably going 50 in a 65. In an attempt to get home to see my little one, I decided to speed up and go around him. Now, I am not claiming to never speed, but at the time I knew we didn’t have any registration or insurance so I was driving extra careful. Just as I got around him, I saw the lights light up in my rear view mirror and I knew I was busted.

This was my second time ever being pulled over. My first was when I was 16 and visiting my family in Utah. I was driving my grandmother’s car and speeding but I cried to the cop and got off with a warning. Another time, my hubby was driving and got pulled over for speeding while I was in the passenger seat. I puffed out my very non-pregnant belly in an attempt to look pregnant (can any other women do this? I can pull off 5 months preggo no problem by holding my breath and pushing out my tummy…its weird) my hubby told the cops I still had morning sickness and I felt like I was going to throw up, he let us off with a warning as well. Anyway, I thought I had developed quite a knack for getting out of tickets, so I wasn’t too worried.

This cop was different though. This cop was a woman. There was nothing I could do from the second she stepped out of her car. Game over. I got a ticket for no registration, no insurance and speeding (75 in a 65). It sucked. I went to court and paid the 200 dollars for the speeding ticket, the 10 dollar fee for the registration (since I got it renewed) and went to traffic school to keep it off my record. The only thing that was left was a 361 dollar fine for not having insurance. We couldn’t pay it. I asked if I could set up payments and they told me the lowest I could send in was 100 a month. I never ended up paying for it. They tacked on and extra 350 for not paying it, and in November of 2007 I got a sweet little notice in the mail stating that my license was going to be suspended if I didn’t come up with the full amount of 711 dollars within two weeks.

My license was suspended. We had just had Avalynn and were strapped for cash. The good news was that I didn’t work, so I didn’t drive that often. The bad news was that Kayla was about to start going to a lot of doctors appointments. The hubbs works nights, though, so he was able to drive us from one appointment to the next during the day.

I haven’t driven a car in nearly 8 months. We rely on the hubbs HEAVILY. Now the hubbs is starting a new job. His schedule is changing and he will be working during the day from now on so I NEED my license. Kayla has a minimum of three appointments a week, all over a half hour away.

So, yesterday I went to court. I sat for hours waiting to finally be called, listening to case after case. The judge seemed pretty lenient, though. He dismissed several cases. The woman just before me went up and the judge asked her why she hadn’t been in to take care of her tickets. She said, “I was being irresponsible.”  She had two tickets from 1999 resulting in $1200 in fines. She was only a few years older than me, well dressed, pretty girl who resembled a blonde Cameron from house. He dismissed everything. She gave no plea about financial hardship, having kids or anything. He just dismissed it. This made me very excited for my turn. Not only were my original fees only $361 (350 of it was fines) but he seemed to be in a good mood and it was only for driving without insurance, after all.

After I told him of my financial hardships, and of having a daughter with special needs and a nine month old, no being able to work because of constant doctor’s appointments I was given a $390 dollar fine and 40 hours of volunteer work. 40 HOURS. Although he said he would do me a favor and un-suspend my license if I did either or (40 hours OR $390). In the end, I still have to do both. I was totally dumbfounded. I saw him dismiss several more severe cases than mine. Did he not believe me? I don’t know. I just don’t know what happened.

I spent the next hour crying in a McDonalds across the street waiting for my hubby to come pick me up.

The good news? After I got home I found we had an unexpected amount of $800 bucks in our account. I can pay off the $390 and get my license before the hubbs starts his new job. I still have to do volunteer work. I don’t really know how I’ll manage that with Kayla’s appointments and Ava breastfeeding every four hours, but I guess I don’t have a choice.

The only thing that made me feel better about the day was dancing around in the living room with the hubbs and the kids to Dan Zanes at the end of the day. I’m so glad I always have them to cheer me up.

Here’s the song we were dancing to. If you haven’t heard of Dan Zanes, you should really listen to him with your kids. We love him. I just now noticed that he resembles an older version of my hubby. LOL. Too funny.

I am SUCH a slacker, this I know. I promised you a picture of my hair on Saturday and instead I drank too much and lost my bra.

It was on the bathroom floor by the way, I’m guessing I took it off because it had puke all over it. But, that’s just my guess.

Can you believe my grandma reads this blog?

Hi, gram! I didn’t say any of that. I promise. I was just a figure of your imagination…

Ppsshhhh, like she never threw any wild parties when she was younger, I’m sure she could have probably drank me under the table way back when!

Anyway, The Informal Matriarch was worried since she hadn’t heard from me. She was scared that I had somehow gotten myself in a mess and dyed my hair orange or something.

It’s not orange. I’d prefer to call it, eh…tangerine. But, hey! The plus side is that it’s so bright it attracts bees! Oh, wait, I’m allergic to bees. That really isn’t a plus AT ALL. Well, maybe there is no plus side to my head resembling a basketball.

I had a lot of fun at my friend’s birthday party on Saturday, as I’m sure you may have guessed by the first paragraph of this post. I don’t drink very often, mostly because when I do I tend to get more than a little drunk. I’m a serious lightweight with the ability to down a bottle of wine in a half an hour, a very bad combination. I feel as though I haven’t had the opportunity to do that in a VERY long time. The baby isn’t that fond of drinking bottles (though she’ll do it if it’s her only option) so due to the fact that I have been either pregnant or nursing for the past four years I haven’t been much for the nightlife. My pump and dump nights have been limited to twice this entire year. I don’t mind though, I prefer hanging out with the kids. I got all that partying out of my system when I was younger. Besides, the less I drink, the less I make a complete and utter FOOL OF MYSELF as proved over the weekend. Ugghh. Never again.

Never again…

In other news, Kayla had an occupational therapy appointment yesterday and we were working on her using her right hand as well as she uses her left. The therapist was having her put pegs into play-dough by pretending they were candles and the dough was a birthday cake. Every time she gave Kayla a peg she put it in with her left hand (her stronger side) and when she tried to put it in her right hand there would be a mini-meltdown. Eventually he got her to put in a couple with her right hand but Kayla was lacking the fine motor skills in that hand to turn the pegs around the right way so a lot of them ended up going in sideways as compared to the perfectly placed pegs she had managed with her left hand.

We still have a ways to go but Kayla is making a lot of progress. Her language has progressed a lot further even though she only has been going to speech therapy for two weeks now. I read up on how to enhance your child’s language skills on the net before we started going and it has been helping a lot. She is using more two to three word phrases instead of the one word commands she was using before. She also can take off her pants and shirt now (as long as they slide down or off) she doesn’t quite get buttons or zippers just yet, but just her being able to remove her own clothing now is a huge step. Though that means she does decide to get naked in public quite often now. I can’t get that child to keep her clothes ON!

Also, we have had NO SEIZURES since the start of the new dose. Good thing too, because she is now at the highest dose she can take.

Avalynn is doing good. Although, her mystery runny nose still plagues us. It’s been going on for a few weeks now. It’s getting snotty up in here. Other than that, she will probably be walking very soon, she toddles around holding onto furniture and occasionally lets go for a few brief seconds before she hits the floor. It’s just crazy how fast they grow. She is going to be ONE in three months. Wasn’t I just in labor like three seconds ago?

The hubbs is officially on vacation now. He’ll be out of work until the 16th when he starts his new job. My blogging may lack a little due to the fact that I may decide to spend time with him instead of blogging after the kids go to bed, but I’ll find a balance. It also means I’m in a time crunch to get my licence back and register both of the cars before the 16th. I don’t even think I can do it. I don’t know what we are going to do. It’s not really about time, it’s more about moolah.

Why can’t I win the lottery already?

I know I promised you an after picture of my hair. You will have to wait for tomorrow because last night I got a little…tosted at the party. Okay, maybe more than a little. But hey, I’m only 24 I am still allowed a pump and dump night every now and then, right? Story and hair pictures should be arriving tomorrow.

Off to nurse my hangover!