When does it go from Enjoyment to Obsession?

I picked up Twilight again.

This will be my fourth time through it in less than a month.

I KNOW!

I tried so VERY hard to put it down and leave it down four days ago when I finished Breaking Dawn for the third time.

But. I . Can't!

We bought the third and final installment of the Eragon series (Pls don't watch the movie, it sucks, read the book) and so I should be reading the first book in THAT series. My excuse is that Hubs is only half way through the second book and I will probably finish the four Twilight books before he finishes number two AND (!) It excites me that there is a chance I will get to read the books a FIFTH time before he finishes with the third book in Eragon.

So. When does this stop being me enjoying a book and become me with an obsession?

Pull Tabs - Quest for the Win Only-ies

In pull tabs - a face book application I have talked about on Where Was I before, you have to win a certain amount of Win only prizes to move to the next level.

Right now I am on the last level of pull tabs (though I hope they add more levels) and need only three different Win Only prizes to finish the game. Two are on a ticket called Lucy in The Sky, but I am working on the win only Piano before I try for the win only-ies on the Lucy card.
I have been buying 25 Night at the opera cards, each day, for the past month. And i still have not won this stupid piano!

I see people putting the Piano W/O in the market place all the time, but they was 65,000 or more credits for it! AS IF!

*pout* Why do they get to win more than one piano when I still haven't won mine? it's not fair! *stomps foot*

The awesomeness!

Oh man! I don't even know where to begin!

OK, last Thursday I called the school wondering about the Pre-Kindergarten program. I had sent in an application for Logan, my four year old a week or so before. The guy on the phone said that on Friday they would be going through the apps and by early this week I would know if Logan was accepted.

Well! Friday at about 4:30, the school called and Logan was accepted AND he was going to be in the afternoon class like I wanted!

I wanted Logan in pre-K becuase with his brothers gone to school full time he is so lonely! I wanted him int eh PM class becuase my neighbors son, K, is in the afternoon class and we can carpool!

But that? That's not the awesome part!

This morning at 9Am Logan's pre-K teacher came over for our home visit - that's something our school does for pre K and kindergarten kids - they say it is so that the kids get to meet the teacher on their turf and are less scared to actually leave mom and go to school.

Anyway. She comes, her name is Mrs. F, she comes and first thing - there are NO school for Pre-K. I had figured that Logan would have to pay the same 30.00 fee the older boys had to pay, but no. Second - the kids do not need to bring school supplies! they need a back pack (my MIL got one for Logan for Three dollars) they need inside shoes (picked those up this weekend, 14.77) and one box of Kleenex! And third? I don't have to send a snack with him. The school provides fruit and veggies every day for snack time!

In short, Logan's pre k will cost me about 16 dollars. for the entire year. One pair of shoes and one box of Kleenex!

Logan will be spending some extra time working on his fine motor skills, he can;t figure out how to hold a pencil right yet, I have tired and tried and tried, but he just can't seem to do it! The class has a speech pathologist (I think that's what Mrs. F called it) that comes in every day to work with the kids on their speech - this is awesome as Logan mumbles a LOT, and they are even bringing a music teacher every Thursday and the kids will be learning music!

Logan will go from 12:30 - 3 PM Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and every fourth (or so) Monday He gets to bring ME and we will do a craft of some sort! In October we will be doing a scrapbook page called "My Family" for the kids to hang in the classroom!

The class is has a VERY strong Open Door policy. Parents are welcome at ANY time, and are allowed to stay for any length of time. Mrs F said that if I wanted to come to school every day with Logan, I could! Music class is on Thursdays, the class before dismissal, and parents are encouraged to come early on those days so that we can play with the musical instruments too!

I'm pretty darn excited!

Logan is too!

Something new

I did something this weekend that I have not done in the past two years. I did not take my camera out of it's case the entire time!

One of the reasons is that the battery is almost dead and I was too lazy to pop it in the charger, but mostly, I wanted to just sit and enjoy my father in laws birthday weekend without having to see it from behind the lens of a camera!

Of course, I did miss some pretty good shots. The grand kids blowing out the birthday cake, Or when Parker dropped the ice cream cake and My Brother in Law Tim caught it before it hit the ground!

The shots I miss the most not getting were from Saturday afternoon when we took the boys shopping with us. As we exited Costco, the receipt checker told us that to the left of the doors was a fire truck and some firemen, and that the kids were welcome to talk with the firemen and take a tour of the truck.

It figures that the one day I do not have my camera with me is the day the boys get to sit in the drivers seat of a fire engine!

What's for Supper

I am not a good cook - therefore, I am not a fan of cooking. ( I do like to bake though) So often through out the week I think Oye, What am I going to make for supper?

Often my next thought is we can order in, or we can go out!

Except the choices for eating out OR ordering in are pretty slim here in my small town.

• We can go out to SubWay - but they do not deliver, so we cannot order in.

• We can go out to Thomas Cooks - a family restaurant - and they deliver - but they are pretty expensive.

Or

• We can have Pizza delivered.

After a while, it gets pretty boring, always choosing from those three places.

Small towns have a LOT of small business opportunities! Not just in the field of food, but we could use a book store, or a coffee shop, or even a pharmacy! (Actually, we are getting a pharmacy soon. Or should I say soonish, they are building a two story medical clinic on Main Street and there will be a lower level Pharmacy in it!)

But the point is, people always rush to a big city to open a business. And it's not fair, becuase I don't like having to drive all the way to the city to get stuff I need.

And it IS all about me, right? RIGHT??!

Who cares about the bed? I've got internet!

We just had The Man From The Internets stop by our house. We have been having trouble for the past few months with our internet cutting out when our phone rings. Turns out, when we had the alarm installed, the installer dude did not put something called a filter on the alarm line, and it was ..uhm..messing with it.

The Man From The Internets had a lot of technical jargon about the filter and noise and how the signal will jump to any available line and uhm, other stuff I did not understand!

(anyone think I should call the Alarm company and tell them to tell the installer dude to start putting filters on the lines so that other people do not have this problem?)

Regardless, I had my SIL call me after The Man From The Internets left, and I was able to surf on the internet AND talk on the phone!

Heaven!

Part of the inspection(?) of the lines was for The Man From The Internets to go around to all the phone lines in the house to check to see if they had or needed to have filters on. If a phone is not plugged into a jack, you don't need a filter - that's a little FYI right there! - The first phone jack is in my bedroom.

My polka dot bedroom.

I've had family over a bunch and they have all seen my polka dots, and I have shown the interwebs my lovely room ( and the interwebs are like family too!), but this was the first time I have had a stranger come by and see my Polka dot masterpiece.

Want to know what he said?

"Nice walls, the furniture doesn't go with it, you should get some more modern furniture!"

I agree that my bed and dressers do not go with the walls, and I am OK with that because comfort is key with me.

And yes, I do consider the polka dot room a success when an old man - probably mid sixties, from the bible belt approves of the design.

Where is my gold star?

And in the morning, It was worse

That's right people! I'm back here, bright and early and ready to complain some more about my crappy back and it's stupid soreness!

Yesterday there was ONE spot that hut like a SOB. It was right along the spine, smack in the middle of my shoulder blades. This morning? Its my neck, shoulders and spine. In other words, the entire back.

I could blame it on digging up the rail road ties the day before yesterday but I am not. I'm going to blame it on communism, becuase at this point, the thought of it makes me giggle, and I will take what I can damn well get!

My plan is to spend most of the day sitting on the couch, alternating an ice pack with a hot water bottle and hoping to hell my back improves while watching movies with the boy on my laptop. (The laptop will be playing the part of the pop up tv.)

Unfortunately I cannot spend the entire day on the couch, as the Dude from the internets is coming to fix my internets (insert rejoicing here pls). On the plus side, it's Friday!

UPDATE!

Just got an email from a reader wondering how I was doing with my diet pills.

I'm not.

I stopped taking them and have not continued. They aren't going to do me a lick of good unless I can combine them with exercise, and I have been feeling so breakable the last few months that the idea of trying to exercise is ridiculous.

The pills are sitting safely in the medicine cabinet waiting for me to finally get my body in proper working order, and when it is, I will resume my weight loss journey.

Funny thing is? I bet that half of my current problems are caused by being over weight.

Third times a charm. Right? RIGHT??!

OK. This is he first place we have lived that has a garage. And having a garage is ALL that it is cracked up to be and MORE! not just becuase we can park the car in it during the very very cold winters we have - which means no more scraping ice off the window, or having it get so cold that the car won't start - but we can smoke in the garage which is not in the house but also not outside in the wind, rain and snow!

Easily the door to the garage is the most used door in our house. Yes, even more used than that bathroom door, but that's becuase no one here shuts the bathroom door! Unfortunately, we have had to replace the door handle thingy twice already. In the past two months!

The door thingy is not all that much, you can find them anywhere from 20 to 40 bucks, but it keeps breaking! I wonder if we need to see a key man insurance dude when we get the next door thing?

I guess, overall, it is better to have to buy a forty dollar part than a four hundred dollar door and a forty dollar part, but still. Can't I just buy something and have it WORK?

Passing time on the Highway

Last Saturday we drove into the city to take the boys to a movie. We saw Indiana Jones 4, and I missed parts of the beginning, middle and end becuase someone *cough*Blake* has the tiniest bladder in the history of all bladders.

ANYWAY

On the way into the city, every time we go, we pass a farm. Right at the edge of his field, nice and close to the road, he always has a pile of things "For Sale" Sometimes it is an old MoterHome or a broken down truck, Once there was a swing set and another time what looked like potted trees.

Last Saturday he had a trailer without wheels sitting there. but there were also three big horses just walking around sampling the grass. We usually make jokes about buying this old farmers junk, and that day was no exception. We said to the boys "Hey look! Horses! Lets buy them!"

The children of course were all for that! At that point hubs and I realized our error and had to explain how much horse supplies cost! The boys did not seem to care that we would have to pay to stable them, pay for food, pay to buy saddles and tack, oh no, all they cared about was getting to ride them! (course, I can't blame them, horse riding is a hella lot of fun!)

If Parker - the oldest - thinks something, very soon the other boys think it too. All we had to do was convince him! So we pulled out the big guns.

"Hey Parker! You know how much one horse poops in a day? How about how much THREE horses poop in a day? Wonder who is going to have to pick up all that poop?"

And Parker, whose job it is to pick up DOG poop, realized that maybe getting horses wasn't such a great idea after all!

~whew~

Oh! My Aching Bones!

My back has been sore for about a year now. The pain increases or decreases depending on what I have done that day. Yesterday I swept and washed all the floors in the house and by the time I got to the basement as was sweeping, I could feel in my back that today was going to be a very rough day.

Hubs suggested I see a chiropractor about it, that maybe my spine is misaligned or something, as the pain is directly in the center of my back. The idea of someone, even a trained professional messing with my spine terrifies me. I wonder if there are legal steroids I can take? Steroids help with pain right?

Hubs insurance will cover I think, 80% of a chiropractor visit, and I don't think they are that expensive to begin with.

Have you been to one? How Do I find a trustworthy one? I have heard that the pain goes away for a while and then comes back worse then ever after a spine manipulation, is this true? And most importantly, how do I go to a chiropractor when the very idea scares me stiff? I assume you cannot be stiff as a board for them to work on you, that you have to relax?

Maybe I should just get a massage?

last night I deamt

I Just woke up from a nap! I love naps! I especially love the kind where my youngest burrows under the covers - voluntarily- with me and tucks his head under my chin to sleep with me!

The funny thing is, while I was having my nap I dreamed that I had written a short story - literally, short, it was ten pages long, and it was more drawn than written, anyway I had written the story in last NIGHTS dream and had wanted to blog about it, but forgot too!

When I woke up from my nap I could remember my dream , both of them, and how this afternoons was about me being upset with myself that I hadn't already published a post announcing to the world that I had written some sort of comic book!

So ... uh, Internets? I am getting my *giggle* dream book published. Just thought you might want to know!

Wonder what I will dream of tonight!!

Ok fine. THIS is why.

I just do not understand cellphones. As in I do not UNDERSTAND how they work. How much a cell phone costs and then you have to get a monthly plan as well? and if you go over your time, that's more? And texting is more too? Plus, I don't understand the difference between locked cell phones and unlocked cell phones.

I can see and understand how convenient it would be to have a phone with you at all times, and yes, I've thought once or twice myself "Oh I wish I had a cell phone right now", but its the cost, and understanding what makes up that cost that has me bamboozled!

My phone bill, a landline, is between 48 and 54 dollars a month. it all depends on how often I call my dad. This month I am expecting it to be quite a bit higher due to the birth of my niece and how often I have called Jessi during her labour and now that the babe is home with them.

The idea of getting a cell phone bill in the mail that is way way way over what i have budgeted for terrifies me, and to =my knowledge there is no way of policing whta your bill will cost without being a minute natzi with your numbers and not texting anyone.

(example, BFF Kissy does not have a landline, she just has a cell, she is careful to only call during the cheap times, and has a plan with lots of minutes. She does not text nor access the internet with her phone, even though it has those capabilities, and still, her bill is around 70 a month)

Sweet!

When I had my boys, digital cameras were either not around or only for the rich. Now you canpick up a nice digicam for under 100 dollars.

I was really pleased with a few of the pictures I got of my brand new niece int eh delivery room, and now want to take pictures of her with her parents. not just baby being held by mom and dad pictures, but cool pictures!

My brother just said that baby has an appointment on Thursday and that they will come early so that I can play photographer with them! We will pop the top on some Orovo, and I will snap picture after picture until they physically take the camera from me.

I am going to be researching newborn photography pretty intensively between now and then, and in the end, I will just cross my fingers and hope that a few come out good!

If I beg on my knees maybe they will listen

Our town has been a "city" for almost 12 months now. Except, our "town" has not gone through the paperwork to designate itself a city becuase as soon as that happens we lose the RCMP detachment and the city is responsible for construction of, a jail, supplies, vehicles and manpower to supply the city with law enforcement personnel. Same goes for the Volunteer firefighters. A city cannot have volunteers, they must be paid positions.

BUT. Until our "town" is a city, we will not get a McDonlads. I WANT A McDONALDS! The Shop Easy - our grocery store - just emptied its old building and opened in a new location, leaving a huge lot open for various franchise opportunities.

I don't really understand all that it entails in terms of tax increases and tax bases etc, so that we can actually afford to become a city, but oh, how nice would it be to say " hey guys, Lets go out to eat tonight!!" And not have to drive all the way into the city to do so!

*Grumble Grumble Snarl*

Awesome!

Got the mail today, and in it was a notice from SGI stating that our car insurance - which we pay monthly - was going up from 50.18 to 62.75 plus the 68.00 annual registration fee. It is due September 16th.

I'm not impressed with the increase, we have not had a ticket or an accident against us that should have made for the increase and I checked the part where they put in accidents or tickets to see if they had messed up somehow. They didn't.

I wish that we in Canada could get online car insurance quotes. I bet I could save a lot of money if we could.

:o(

How much do you pay for insurance on your vehicle? Do you pay annually or monthly? (we used to do it annually, but we found it hard to save the money for a lump sum like that, monthly is easier!)(for us anyway)

Justifiably Amused

HA!

About, uhm. Seven, eight months ago, my inlaws decided to enter the age of computers. The ordered a dell computer (with Hubs help) over the phone, and when it came, had hubs come over to set it up.

They are very much enjoying the e-mail part of the computer as well as the ability to "GooDDle" things on the Internet.

But. Here's the thing. There is a moving pods parked beside their driveway. Their neighbors are moving out. They will be done and gone tonight. They made arrangements for all their utilities to be cut off the day after tomorrow, so that they have time to clean and ect el. One of the utilities they are cutting off? the internet.

The UNSECURED wireless internet my In laws have been leeching for MONTHS.

Hubs and I have tried to explain that 1. It's wrong to steal internet, and 2. They will have a much better experiance online - in terms of loading speed- by just ponying up the 38 dollars a month for the internet!

They have two more days of net left, and it takes at least a week or two to get soemone from the internet company out to hook them up - so HAHAHAHAH!

What's Bugging You?

There are SO MANY WASPS this year! What on earth?

Parker - me, Logan and Tubby just went to pick the boys up from school - was telling me that by the monkey bars there were about 50 wasps swarming around! Blake told me that three kids in his class were stung by them just today!

I have heard that wasps are attracted to progesterone, not sure if that is true, and my father in law told me that the huge amounts of wasps are from all the rain we had this spring. I don;t care what is causing them, i just want them GONE.

Worst of all, Parker has a field trip to a very cool museum on the 18th of this month, but the demonstration is outside,m and they will be eating lunch outside as well! Wasps are particularly nasty when there is food around!

In my entire life I have never wished for rain on a planned field trip day - until now! I hope , hope, HOPE it rains. The museum is equipped to do the demonstration indoors, and they have room for the kids to eat lunch indoors as well. In doors - AWAY from the wasps!

I have been keeping Logan inside now for two weeks, the wasps are just too bad! He has been stung four times now, and he is terrified of all bugs, not just hte wasp, but for Parker and Blake they HAVE to be outdoors during recess and before and afterschool.

On the walkt o meet the boys after school today, Logan, Tubby and I stopped to look at a catterpillar and six wasps immediatly started buzing around us!

I'm really looking forward to the first cold snap - that will get rid of the wasps, but it usually doesn't last more than two days and we get a few more weeks of "somewhat good" weather!

106 more days!

That's It, just 106 more days til Christmas! I cannot wait!

In April when we got our tax returns we set aside a certain amount of money for Christmas shopping, and i am certain I will be able to come in under budget. I have already purchased a few odds and ends, most lily destined for stockings, and My Brother, Sister, and Stepmothers children are all going in together on what is IMO an awesome gift for my dad and my step mother. I cannot say what it is becuase she might read this blog!

I have NO clue what to get my granny this year, I was thinking though, that a "of the month club" like wine of the month club, might be cool. I wonder if there is such a thing as quilt of the month club, or some other sewing type thing I can do. I'm going to have to go search Google for that!

As for the boys, aside form the complete outfit they always get (a package of socks, a package of underwear and a new pair of pants with a nice shirt) I have no ideas yet. I am sure we will be able to come up with SOMETHING though!

Hubs kind of wants to get Logan a GameBoy DS lite, but I feel he is too young for it yet, even though Parker got his first game boy at 2 and played it well, Logan is just not into that stuff yet.

We have been keeping our eyes open, and will be starting to seriously shop pretty soon. I need to talk to the rest of my siblings about picking names sometime soon so that I can start figuring out what to get the person who's name I draw!

Oh, and I have no idea what to get Hubs either.

JOY. not

So my sister got her passport last week. I was really really REALLY hoping that she would not go through with her plan to run off to Texas to meet a guy from the internet.

It's not that I don't want her to go and have fun, and she is bringing one of her best girlfriends with her, I just worry.

A lot.

My sister is not in good health and becoming ill while in Texas would be disastrous, no matter what insurance she has picked up.

I just want her to be safe.

FaceBook Apps

A tonne of people on my facebook friends list play the Pull Tab and Scratch and Win face book apps, but it wasn't until I was asked to purchase a friends tabs that I realized there was another app on facebook that is connected to tabs and S&W.

Its called slots.

Basically, with slots, you can get more tokens to buy more tickets for either apps so that you can play more tickets per day. This is important, and helpful when you are trying for the elusive win only prizes. For example, Hubs spent almost five weeks playing the Baby pull tab trying to win the win only prize of the soother, but had no luck. Pull tabs and Scratch and win have "marketplaces" where you can buy the win only prizes but people put such ridiculous prices of the W/O items that it is like trying to buy the moon!

When we started playing Slots, we were able to bring the amount of "Baby" tickets we played from forty five to 120 da day, and within three days Hubs had his prize!

If you are interested in Slots, Pull Tabs, or Scratch and win for face book, leave me a comment and I will send you an invite! They are a lot of fun!

Pleased to report

Almost four months ago my Step Mother (not the evil variety) fell down the stairs at their home and broke her arm. Badly. Very badly.

Even worse, becuase she has had recurrent cancer, and has to have regular MRI's, she was not able to have the bones in her arm put back together with a rod. As such, it has taken FOREVER for her to see even the slightest change in her arm in terms of healing. Instead of six weeks to heal, it has been 16 weeks.

But, I am pleased to announce that yesterday afternoon Dad and SM loaded up their Callaway irons and drove to the golf course. They started off realistically, at the driving range, assuming that SM would not be able to hold her club for long times. After half hour, they decided to play a nine hole round. And?

At the end, her arm did not hurt. She did not beat dads score, but her arm was fine!

(she is pretty darn happy - dad and her are BIG golfers, last year they played a round of 18 every single day rain or shine from the time the course opened till they closed it for the season)

Talking about shoes

It was not until about three years ago when My son started school full time and we as a family had to stop going out for coffee every evening as was our routine that I really started getting into shoes.

At that time, Me and BFF Kissy started going for coffee, just the two of us. We would usually end up at the mall or Wal*Mart by the end of the night and we just gravitated towards the shoes!

As much as I love shoes, I don't really understand people who spend a tonne of money on one pair. Both my Step Mother ( Not the Evil Variety) and My BFF's Mom love to buy designer shoes like Clarks shoes, and I will admit that they are some damn finelooking shoes, but I can't seem to justify the money spent on them.

Kissy's mom said that when she buys shoes, she does not paying a higher price becuase "You get what You pay for". I can understand that, but when I can buy a nifty pair of runners for 5 bucks at Wal*mart or a three dollar pair of Skater shoes at the Shoe Wharehose, its hard to pass it up, even when I know that they will only last one season.

What about you? Where do you buy your shoes? Do you go for Quality or cheapness?

This picture has nothing to do with the post, It's just too cute NOT to share!

I'm getting really frustrated with Logan. At four he is WAY too young to go to Kindergarten, but after four years of having his brothers to play with all teh time, he is a pain in the ass when it is just me and him.

He is not being BAD, far from it, he just wants interaction. CONSTANT interaction, and that is something I am SO not used too!

I have tried having him watch a movie in the morning, then some coloring, walks in the afternoon and working on his letters with him, but he wants to run and play and pretend and build forts and ... well, he wants his brothers with him.

I kidnapped the neighbors son the other day and that kept him occupied, but I cannot steal Keirian every day! My one friend suggested I put him in a 3xweek preschool, but at 170.00 a month, that just is not happening!

It got to the point that I told him ' Either you need to go to school or your brothers need to drop OUT of school!"

Save me!

Fishy talk

We got one of those Pleto fish, the sicker fish (named Candy) for our fish tank a week or so ago. we had JUST changed the water before the fish was added (we also have two "fancy Goldfish", Fishum and Fishy).

Before we introduced Candy to the tank, the goldfish would have the water so murky it was hard to see them in under a week. Now that we have candy, the water is crystal clear. And while I should be happy that the 2 dollar fish is doing it;s job so well, it worries me.

How do I know that Candy is getting enough to eat if the tank is so clean? Or is the fact the tank is so clean a sign that she/he IS getting enough?

And should I really worry? I mean, Candy did only cost 2 bucks!

It's hard being a fish owner!

(pee ess: Sis in law is FINALLY in labour!!)