But it's just so hard!

Searching for a house is a pressure filled task filled with quick decisions that could affect your financial future, suck your energy and your sanity dry. Seriously. I'm exhaustimacated.

Things in my house have been tense. Very tense, to say the least. The boys, Brody (14) & Goop (11) have been sharing a room for the past year and they're miserable. When they're miserable, everyone is miserable. I can totally sympathize. Everyone needs their own space and I'm doing the best that I can to make it happen as quickly as I can.

I've been spending time everyday looking at Craig's List rentals and to tell you the truth, nothing really changes. Also our rental season starts in May for leases to start in August. If you're not the first one to look at an opening rental, you're seriously out of luck. I've fallen in love with so many places just to realize we weren't the first to look or circumstances have changed. It's heart breaking. We need a 4 bedroom, 2+ bath and we need it like yesterday.

Another problem is that we live in a college town. It's awesome until you have to rent a place. Most rental houses we've looked at have been destroyed by the college students that have previously occupied the space. Or it's in a college neighborhood filled with college students, not kid friendly.

Last week Goop & I looked at 104 year old house for rent in the country. It had plus sides and negative sides but the biggest negatives of all was the 20 miles away from Bunky's school, the extra mileage away from my work, and the one single bathroom. There are five of us and two of us are girls. A single bathroom is not an option.

Yesterday I looked at a 4 bedroom, 1.5 bath house in town & it was nice enough, needed some work, needed more windows but probably would have worked for the 6 month lease we would have to sign. That was until I looked at the garage, or smelled it rather. Obviously the kids living there couldn't handle their beer pong very well & used the garage as a vomitory. Ewwww.

Also yesterday by pure coincidence, Hawks found the house pictured above with a FOR RENT sign out front that is literally two blocks out of town. He walked around it, peeking in windows, and talking my ear off on the phone telling me how much he loved it and that this could be *it*. I think by now we've learned not to get our hopes up, right? He came home & drove me back out there to resume the crazy house stalkish routine he started by himself of peeking into the windows, accessing the acreage, yard, and visioning potential uses of area. He called the number & we're still waiting to hear back.

I'm scared to say how perfect this house would suit us due the the fear of jinxing it... but yea. There are no neighbors even remotely close, there are 2 mini grain silos, a small stable area, the remnants of an old chicken coop, 2-3 outbuildings, what appeared to be a garden area that hasn't been used for awhile, huge corn fields in back & on the right side, the left side is open front yard filled with mature (hammock) trees and a creek that is about 4-5 feet wide running along the edge of the yard.

The house itself has a porch swing, what appears to be a balcony/deck coming off the master? bedroom, has a basement/storm shelter,  finished attic, nice kitchen, good size livingroom, awesome country views, etc etc. Of course we need to get in to actually check out the rooms upstairs, etc.

Anyways, that is where we stand right now.
Cross your fingers and wish us luck.
I'm so tired of looking.

Summer Sucks...

I hate summer. I HATE SUMMER!

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity and the chaos of it all. It's the need to wear less clothing when really, I'd rather hide in heavy, baggy, fully covering clothes. It's the allergies. It's the kids being bored into fighting with each other. Having one child makes you a parent, having three makes you a referee and making it through the summer without killing them, makes you a saint. It's trying to keep food in the house while the kids attempt to eat it all while I'm at work. It's Kansas City Corporate Challenge (KCCC) season.

It's a lot of everything.

The kids have been out of school less than a week and I'm already ready to pull my hair out and I have a full-time job AWAY from home. That says something.

KCCC started a month ago and I still have 4 more events to go before it's over.

Vent! Vent! Vent! Ackkkkkkkkkkkk! RAGE!

System Down

Image borrowed from BlipComic.com by Sage

 It's been awhile, I know. Life has a way of getting all crazy like and it's happening more often than not lately. So let's see... Where to start?

I never did blog about disc golf like I wanted to but we won the KCCC game. Yay us. Sadly even though Dawn & I won our match, we still didn't win it all for our company. Our scores were too high, but meh. It was fun & it was a surprise to win when neither of us have ever played.

A lot has happened since my last post and I'm sure I've forgotten most of it so just the highlights I guess will work. Roll that beautiful Bean Footage....

• Fun ATM Card Gankage: Friday I was busy trying to get everyone picked up from school, get Brody to his 9th grade Formal (Prom for the Jr High-schoolers), get a corsage for his date & make it in time to meet friends at Quinton's downtown. We went to Dillon's for the corsage and I figured I'll just pull money out there when I pay to give him for snacks or whatever. Easy, right? Apparently not. I forgot my pin number & after trying three times I decided screw it and paid as a credit. So off to the ATM we go on the other side of town. As soon as I slipped my card in, thinking I *now* remember my pin, the atm ate it and flashed "we've retained your card, please see your local financial institution for further assistance" across it's taunting screen. Now what the hell am I suppose to do? I need money for him, I need my damn card back and damn it I really need a drink!!! Luckily the bank was still open for another 10 minutes & the nice, way too talkative, way too smiley clerk was able to retrieve my card. I ended up pulling more cash out than I wanted to at first because like hell I was going to trust my card again when drinking was involved. Pfft.
• Fun Friday Times with Friends: I was finally able to catch what should have been one quick drink with the girls (Elizabeth, Nicki & Carole of the Party). It turned out to be like 4 hours and 4 large margaritas instead. Good Times.
• Fun Saturday Hangover: So as much fun as I had the night before, I was definitely paying for it on Saturday morning. The laundry gave me dirty looks, the kids were too loud, the sun was way too bright and I was not fun to be around. Luckily two aleves and finally 2 p.m. I was feeling much better. I know I say this often, but Tequila, I just can't stay mad at you.
• Fun Monday Sick Day: You sensing a "fun" theme yet? Yea, it's a game. You figure out which ones are dripping with sarcasm. By Monday morning I had the death. Thanks to my family for infecting me with the illness they brought home from school or wherever it came from. Sore throat, fever, cough, bodyaches, and overall bleh. I called in sick. There goes one full day of PTO. Like I can't find better ways to spend my vaca days, right?
• Fun Four Bedroom: Finally found a four bedroom house/duplex/townhome, that we don't have nearly enough furniture to fill... yet. If everything goes great, we'll be moving in July 1st. Huzzah! 42 days from today. After that happens, I'll boast way more about it. Don't wanna jinx anything.
• Fun Misc TMI: In between all that other junk, I've had the worst cramps in the history of cramps. In fact, I believe my ovaries are playing out scenes from Fight Club. I hate my uterus. I put in 6 hours working the KU Baseball game on Sunday. It was okay, but hello, cramps. Fight Club. Ugh. You get it. I took Brody out twice to learn how to drive, my car. I went for drinks with Elizabeth & Leo at the Red Lyon on a school night *gasp* and have agreed to work 3 more days at KU this week (tonight, tomorrow & Saturday).

So now I'm looking forward to:

• Goop's first baseball practice this Saturday.
• Not being sick, crampy or busy.
• Final Fridays
• KCCC Dodgeball
• Cuddles, lots of "make me feel better" cuddles
• More time with friends.

I thought we had something...

I know I'm semi-late on this but just cut me some slack. I've been busy and you know I'm doing it all for you. No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I love you, my one reader. You are the air that I breath. For realsies.

I was having *a* day on Friday. First off my phone took a crap on me which hurt because I thought what we had was special. How dare my phone just give up on "us" without a fight. Seriously, I mean I may not be emotionally there as much as I should be but at the very least I thought I'd get a warning. I can do better enV Touch, I can and I'll prove it. Just give me a chance.

As if having to borrow the obsolete piece of crap phone I gave up for my enV wasn't a big enough blow... Brody wasn't where he was suppose to be after school.

Boot up bitchy mom mode. I left work 15 minutes early just so I could get to him, and get up to Express to pick up my 2nd job paycheck. You know the one that I worked the Kansas Relays for? The same one I took vaca from the day job to earn? The one that was going to save us this "prom" month? Yea, that check.

I drove all over Lawrence to find the boy which killed off that early 15 minutes I had and barely made it to Express before they closed just to find that I had been shorted 21.5 hours on my check. Yea! 21.5 hours! That's huge! I was already depressed about my phone, pissed at the boy & then this? The end of the month is not a time to fuck with my money. Actually no time is a good time to fuck with my money but especially more so at the end of the month. My ex-husband is still learning this fact, sadly. "How soon can you fix this?" I asked. "Oh well it won't be any earlier than Wednesday." Wait... what? I have to wait until MAY 4th for you to fix my APRIL 28th paycheck? Grawr! Fine!

So now I'm depressingly phoneless, in bitchy mom mode, and broke. I really could use a drink. Amirite? Hawks was able to get Verizon in Lawrence to fix my phone - Yay! However the battery was tapped & instead of being able to mobile facebook/tweet my thoughts, feelings, rage - I had to leave it to sit on the charger. Blah! Fine! F-U phone. F-U you can stay home.

The highlight of my night, the make everything better happifications: Lawrence Final Fridays. This is the only guaranteed time that I can actually hang out with people I truly like that I wish I had more time with. Srsly.

Even though I was phoneless, pissy & pathetic I took my ass to Quinton's to hang with my favorite artist, Leo and his equally awesome other half, Elizabeth. Margaritas came & went. Good times & laughter prevailed over a very crappy Friday. I even made a couple new friends. One guy I barely remember & Carole of the Party. Yes, I'm dubbing her that full title. She's earned it.

So yup that's it. I'll blog about disc golf tomorrow or something. Hopefully I'll have a doodle for it. If not, oh well.

Thankful

I really miss these heels - Stupid dog.

No need in kicking a dead horse & telling you how much different my life was before Hawks. I feel like I've blogged that disaster way too many times, told my story too many times & depressed myself over it way too many times. Yesterday I gave advice to someone who is most likely headed down that same toxic path & well, you learn better from your own mistakes than you do from the mistakes of others in my honest opinion and she will just have to learn on her own.

So like I started to say, I'm not going to go into all that...

Instead I'd like to say that I may not always show it but I am truly thankful for my life now. It's not always rainbows & butterflies but I know that Hawks & I have proven, and continue to prove that we can handle anything thrown at us - together. I've had to grow up a lot over the past 3 years and I'm sure that it was hard for everyone involved. [ I love you Mom.] The point is that I think I've finally become the person that not only my kids can be proud of, but I can be proud of too.

So yea, just a short post to say "Hey I'm thankful and life is good." That's all.

Now go away. That's enough mush for today.

The Trip to Walmart

I pride myself on being the cool mom. No, seriously. I have to be the cool mom (within reason, let's not get crazy now, someone might lose an eye!). My kids know that they can pretty much talk to me about anything pretty much anything.

I don't like taking any of the kids with me when I have to run to the store. Mainly because they still live in that "Omg buy me this!" "I'll just die if I don't have that!" and "oops it must of just fallen in the basket" phase. Well tonight I broke my own rule & took the 11 & 14 yr old boys with me. D'awww - shopping with Mommy. Honestly I just needed laundry soap before I heard the man explain to me again about how he has no jeans for work. I mean I just need to buy one thing, what could go wrong. We get in & we get out.

That was plan, but it went down like this...

Remember the part of cool mom, and being able to talk to me? Yea, keep that all in mind.

My 14 yr old, Brody, is a freshman and in P.E. the coach/teacher handed out pedometers as a class project to record "steps" on each student. Nice idea right? Get active you video game playing couch zombies! Whatever. I'm all for it. So back to Walmart. Keep up with me here... Brody & I walk by an endcap set up displaying the glorious Shake Weight®. You know that joke of "exercise equipment" that we've all made a joke about at some point? Yea, *that* Shake Weight®. So Brody looks & laughs, then says, "So you know that pedometer project for P.E?" I say, "Yea, hows that going?" to which he replies,"Well we turned them in today & you know what my friend did?" At this point I'm thinking the good ole' Shake Weight® must of triggered this convo, so I say, "Attached his to a Shake Weight?" Brody laughs & says, "Um no, he attached it to his watch and masturbated. Collected 80k steps too!" My jaw drops! Did he just say "masturbated"? That kid is not only a genius... wait, what? I am not having this convo with my 14 yr old in Walmart! I'm not! I may be a cool mom, but seriously "Woah!" I'm still just "Woah" and this happened like 30 minutes ago. I guess I should appreciate the fact that my kids *do* feel like they can tell me anything, however they may change when they realize I facebooked/blogged this shit.

Not to leave my little, also completely hilarious 11 year old crotch fruit, Goop, out of this story, I'll give you his random "trip home from Walmart" funnies.

Brody: So you know you have to carry stuff in & show your worth.

Goop: You're only worth a penny!

Me: Now now (while stroking Goop's hair) that's not true, you are both worth at least $1500 earned income credit each.

Goop: Well I was worth more but they said I had to give you half.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Goop antagonizes Brody over something stupid.

Brody: You're such a snerf!

Goop looks at me dead serious & says, "I think he's hitting on me."

Welcome to the glimpse that is my life & the 30 minute trip I took with kids in tow to Walmart.

Snowmageddon 2011

It only looks innocent...

We finally got a load of winter snow in Kansas. Nothing like the blizzard we had last year but who knows, just because it's late doesn't mean it's not prepared to give us hell. Normally when we get anywhere from 5 inches or more I telecommute instead of driving the 36+ miles one way into Overland Park through what is best described as Mario Cart snow covered highways. Today though I decided to take my chances. It was either stay home with three kids cooped up since all the schools closed due to inclimate weather or take my chances on the road. Here I am bloggity bloggin' from my warm corner cubicle miles away from home - I think I chose wisely.

Kid-less Free Coffee! Bawk! Bawk!