Gator Hotel

I know better than to text or post on FB after Lunesta, and yet I still do more than I should.  I don't know what the rules are for blogging, so let's give this a shot.  I AM SO FREAKING TIRED.  And, I am so excited.

Carpet's shampooed and dogs have already christened them.  I think all the errands are run except that we don't have sausage for Lisa, I got my contacts adjusted today and they are worse so I don't know if I want to try to deal with that tomorrow or just wear these for a week.  I didn't get the car washed so that should be done tomorrow (although why we wash it before we leaves confuses me completely.)  I am sort of packed, just need to finish with the stuff I have to use tomorrow morning before I can pack it.  Hotel with gators in Shreveport booked.  Not kidding.  Candlewood Suites.

I went to Walmart to buy snack/lunch food for Joey and I on the road, since we have Paisley it will be hard to stop at restaurants, plus its more cost effective to buy our own food.  I thought.  I had $100 with me, and the total was $160.  No problem, I will pay with my card for the $60.  Nope, card declinded.  Shoot.  Obviously I didn't plan on this thing very well.  Shoot.

Short and Sweet

I slept all day yesterday and a good 12 hours on Friday night/Saturday morning and I am still exhausted.  However, I got the dining room and half the living room carpets shampooed today.  I did one load of laundry and only have about 3 more to do.  I stripped the guest bed and starting cleaning out that room.  I also found out that Joey is not going to work on Wednesday so when questioned as to whether I would rather leave Wednesday night or Thursday morning, we I of course said Wednesday.  I am going to see if my boss with let me work through lunch so that I can leave at 3:00.  We are not telling Bibs so we can surprise her.  The only down side to this change in plan is that I now only have one more night to finish all my work, one day to finish with the house cleaning and one day to finish my shopping. Joey will be here though to help get the van picked up and maybe help with some errands (like washing the car and rain-xing the windows.  If we can leave at 3:00 and not have to stop for gas or food until it is time to stop for gas and food, we can probably make it to Lisa's house by 1:00 AM.  Late? Yes.  Worth is for me? Yes  Will Lisa hate us?  I doubt it.  We talked tonight and she seemed pretty excited.

[title of show] which I will be writing about ad nauseum, but this is going to be a really, really good show.  The music, which sounds like simply show tunes, when broken down into four part harmony, reveals a very complex musical genius wrote this music.  And when it is done right, it is chills over the whole body.  Although I am really looking forward to this trip to Louisiana, despite Staci being upset that we aren't staying with her, and Joey's mom sounded a little stressed about the party she is planning for us on Saturday night, I am going to really miss the tos rehearsals.  Plus, after having two uncomfortable phone interactions with two mean people this week, I am not sure that I will be able to prevent my mouth from saying what I think.  However, Mom did say I can bring Paisley, so thank goodness for that.  I just hope I can keep the smiley face on and the low and kind voice.  I do love these people.

Bibianna texted me tonight and her allergies are in full attack.  She took a claratin and I told her to take benedryl too.  She was going to take a good shower and go to bed. Hopefully she will be better tomorrow.  I think she is having a good time but I think her level or maturity and Taylor and Madison's aren't really at the same level.  Bibianna is very mature for her age though, but I can see where she just has a completely different life than Taylor and Madision have.  I hope though that they can find some common ground and bound because blood is thicker than water.  She is staying at Lisa's tonight while the other girls stay at Staci's. Although I think that there is no feeling for any one to have their feelings hurt, I feel that there are hurt feelings.  Maybe next year we can go back to vacationing alone.  Not really.  

Bibianna flies solo and Summer Mummers

This morning, at 5:30, I left my baby girl at SJT with a ticket in her hand, her bags checked through to Lafayette and a few words of encouragement and advice about how she can do this, and  don't be afraid to ask employees at DFW for help if she needs help.  I know she was nervous because she told me she was, and let's face it, what 16 year old wouldn't be nervous about flying by herself for the first time?  Although nervous, she didn't even show a trace of nervousness.  She was poised, confident and ready to roll.  Well, as you can see from the picture, she made it just fine to Lafayette where she was reunited with Taylor and Madison whom she hasn't seen in about three years.  I had some texts today that they went out on Uncle Carl's boat with Grayson, Bennett and Uncle Steve and were going back to Lisa's to swim and eat.  I know that she is exhausted after only about 2 hours of sleep last night, so I hope she sleeps like a rock tonight and is rip-roaring and ready to go tomorrow morning.  I really do beat myself up a lot about not being a good mother, more so with Carolyn than with Bibianna, but I do have two beautiful and confident daughters, so I had to do something right.  Right?

Yesterday I traveled to Midland with my date Larry, Casey, Ashley, Suzy, Gene, Caity, Ron, Barbie and Tony.  We went to celebrate Casey and Ashley's birthdays and attended the first Saturday performance of Summer Mummers.  I had never even heard about this before, but it really was a lot of fun.  The object of the game is to throw popcorn.  And throw popcorn, and throw more popcorn.  I have to admit that the show was awful, but I think it was supposed to be.  There were a few times that I was really wishing I was home in my bed, but it was a great stress reliever from the on-call week.  Not to mention that those friends are gifts to me from God.  Some of them don't really even believe in God, but I am so thankful and blessed to have each and every one of them in my life.  Joey had to miss this trip because he is working, working, working.  I asked him to go make us some money for New Orleans and that's what he is doing.  My younger life may have been awful, but I certainly do have the best life and the greatest people in my life now.

Tomorrow, I am going to try to get laundry done, and shampoo the carpets.  Because I slept all day today, except when I was texting Bibs, my dogs didn't get any potty breaks. Well, they did, but they broke in my dining room and living room.  It's ok, I should have asked Carolyn to puppy sit, but I didn't.  I don't think clearly when I am suffering from exhaustion.  The carpets needed cleaning anyway.  Joey is already almost packed but it is time for me to get my clothes cleaned, folded and packed.

Three more days.

The Lights Are Off

It is 10:34 pm and I just turned off the light in my office for the first time since last Thursday night.  Boy does that feel good.  I leave it on 24/7 while I am on-call because that seems to lessen the possibility that I will wake the dogs when I get paged and have to check my computer at all hours of the night.  Tonight, I sleep.

Today, I went and got a facial at noon and then I left work at 3:00 and took a nap.  My sweet baby girl, who wanted me to go with her back to Dr. Lamm's office went by herself so I could nap.  I just don't know how I got so lucky to have a girl that is so adept at taking care of herself.  Then she brought me a diet cherry coke from Sonic.  She is a sweetheart.  I went with her after my nap to get her oil changed and I put $20 worth of gas in her car.  I really have very few qualms about putting the sweet girl on a plane in two days and sending her by herself to Lafayette.

Tomorrow, Bibs and I have to finish our shopping.  Contact solution, socks, bathing suit, sausage, stuff to pack for the road to eat so we don't have to leave Paisley in the car.  I sent an e-mail to Joey's mom last night to see if it is OK if we bring Paisley with us. I am not sure what I will do if she says no.  Bibianna said that Paisley sat at the back door and cried today when I left to go get my facial.  Anyway, I have to be at Suzy's house by 3:30 for a group trip to Midland for Summer Mummers.  I was looking forward to the trip a great deal until today.  I am just so tired.  The trip is going to cost me more than the $15 I had budgeted, which means the rest is coming out of New Orleans Money, and it isn't over until about 11:00 pm which means I won't be back home until probably 1:30 am.  Then, Bibianna has to be at the airport by 5:15 am for her flight.  I know I can do it and I can come home and sleep all day Sunday, but right now the thought of more sleep deprivation seems the equivalent to torture.  At some point, I have to get the house cleaned up before Casey and Ashley come to pet/house sit for a week, and I have to get my laundry done and get packed.  Deep breath, deep breath.

Where Is My Phone

I have been wondering if anybody ever reads my blog?  I have three followers.  One is Joey, the other is his sister Belinda, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, and I don't know the other person.  I changed my privacy settings on this site so that it doesn't show up in search engines, etc.  The truth is that I really don't want anybody reading my blog.  I usually think that I am writing something clever, but it always ends up stupid when I read it over again in a day or two.  I don't really mind if my family or close friends read my posts, because they know me, but I am not keen on total strangers reading my probably too personal recounts of my daily life.  I am doing this mostly because as I mentioned a few days ago, my friend told me she writes hers to maintain her sanity and I liked that idea.  BTW, her blog is beautiful.  She has an amazing talent and I am so glad she shared her blog with me.

Today is my last full day of on-call.  It was a dream compared to yesterday's nightmare.  I did get a phone call today from the hospital where yesterday's yeller works, and I just couldn't bring myself to answer.  It wasn't her anyway, it was her assistant.  I chose instead to reply by e-mail.  I still feel a little bit too fragile to chance getting caught on the phone with said yeller again.

Now I know that I don't have Alzheimer's disease, but during these weeks of sleep deprivation I get an idea of maybe what the beginning stages feel like.  I do things like forget how to spell my own daughter's name, forget constantly while at work what I am doing.  I called my cell phone while I was holding it today because I couldn't find it.  I have actually called a user and said, "Hello Genna this is User."  I get people confused, which is so embarrassing.  Once, after an on-call week, Joey and I were helping usher for a show at ACT.  I walked up to Buck, the house manager, and said, "Hi.  I am Joe and this is my wife Genna."  It's funny, and of course I am not the most intelligent person in normal circumstances, but it is also a little scary.  It's scary to think that something I have taken for granted my whole life is not there or not working like it should.  I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer (obviously), but I have always been able to rely on my brain to tell me where I am, who I am, what I am doing, why I don't want to do something bad again, why I want to repeat learned behaviors.  When I was younger, people used to always compliment me on what a great memory I have.  To not have that ability or to think I have it and realize that I have forgotten something I have known my whole life, well, it is frightening and frustrating.

Tomorrow, my on-call ends at noon.  I have a facial scheduled at noon which means that poor Kristy will take over 15 minutes early.  Then tomorrow night at 7:00 pm, we start upgrading Hub 5 to 15.1.1 so I will be working until probably about 11:00 pm.  But then, ahhhhh....sleep.  Until my sweet little Paisley wakes me up between 5:00 and 6:00 to go outside.  It's ok though, I love that little baby and we come back in and go right back to bed.

Great Boss

Today was a hard day.  One I would like to just forget about.  It all started like this....

I support a medical record system that is owned and supported by a company that I believe has lost its focus.  Therefore, as we have been rolling out upgrades to our hospitals, we discovered that one of the modules now does not like user names longer than 12 characters, and sometimes even 12 characters won't work.  It also doesn't like strong passwords.  Eight characters or less, and nothing fancy.  This flies in the face of everything that HIPAA security has been mandating for the past few years.  What is also does is create problems for users right after upgrade because their user profiles won't work.  So, based on the past upgrade, I had a bright idea.  I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and create the new profiles for these users prior to the upgrade so that they would be set.  Good idea, huh?  I thought so.

What this means is that each user now has two user ids because if we create a new user id for the one module, the user has to have a matching profile in the main system, but we don't want to get rid of the current user profile in the main system for audit trail reasons.  I did not explain this properly to my team member who agreed to do the dirty work for me.  She works in India and covers our night shift.  She worked very hard on this project for me yesterday (last night) only, she created new profiles in the first module and deleted the old profile and renamed the current profile in the main system.  We also aren't upgrading until this weekend.  This morning, when all of these users came to work, they couldn't log into any system.  I had an e-mail from one hospital and I fairly quickly realized what had happened.  I told her what happened and explained that I would get her profiles fixed in a few minutes.  She was very understanding.  I then got an e-mail from a person at another hospital telling me to call the Medical Records director.  I did, and that was my second mistake.  Now, I don't understand yelling at people.  I just don't get it.  My parents didn't yell at me.  I raise my voice when I get mad I am sure, but I don't typically yell at my children.  And, to berate someone who has made a mistake while in good conscience was trying to do their best?  Well, I don't understand that.  But I got yelled at.  I got called incompetent.  I got told to stop talking because I was only making things worse.  Then she asked me who my boss was and I told her and she said that was good.  She knows him (duh) and that she was going to call him "right now!"

Fortunately for me, I have a great boss.  In fact, the project manager on my team who got the next phone call and got yelled at for us all being a bunch of idiots who don't know what we are doing, called my boss our hero.  I called my boss as soon as I got off the phone with the screamer.  By now I was crying.  I hate that more than just about anything else.  My boss called me back and calmly listened to my side of the story and backed me up 100%.  The thing is that it was a frustration for the users and took about 30 minutes away from their work day while they waited for me to get the issue resolved.  But is that really worth behaving in such a childish, horrible manner?  Even though I know that this screamer is just like this, and I know that I shouldn't take it personally, it shook me to my core.  It made me physically feel bad.  And it is all my fault.  I can't blame my team member who did the work.  She was helping me out and I didn't take the time to clarify with her that she knew exactly what I was asking for.  In fact, logically, why would you have two profiles to one system?  You wouldn't normally but this system we support defies logic in more than one way.

That is what greeted me this morning at 6:50.  Like someone throwing ice cold water in your face and then slapping you.  Not to mention that I am exhausted.  I did get almost seven hours of sleep last night, which is awesome for on-call, but after four nights of only sleeping in two hour increments, I am just worn out and brain dead.

Then we had an interface issue that I discovered this morning but didn't get around to looking it until after lunch.  That kept me at work until about 6:00 pm.  Actually the rest of the day was pretty normal but just seemed worse than usual because of the verbal beating I took this morning.  It is worth noting that my boss told me that I do not have to take that kind of treatment from anyone.  He gave me a polite and assertive way to end the call should it happen again.  In fact, he said that if those types of calls continue, that we will no longer take her calls.  Did I mention I had a great boss?

Two more nights.  Plus, since today was bad, tomorrow has to be good right?  Even Steven?

I Can See Clearly Now

I haven't left my house since last Thursday night.  I am exhausted and hungry.  Carolyn stopped by today to raid our pantry and found herself at a significant disadvantage.  Bibianna was supposed to bring me lunch yesterday but she didn't.  She was supposed to bring me lunch today.  She didn't.  I had to get up last night at 3:00 AM and again at 5:00 AM.  My eyes look like I have been doing some serious drugs and it took until almost noon before I could focus.

Speaking of not being able to see, I haven't been able to see well for the past three years.  I had decided after spending $1000 last year on two pairs of glasses that I still can't see well with, to go try Dr. Lamm, because I have heard such great things about him.  Today Bibianna and I did just that.  I left in a pair of contacts that I can see with.  Clearly.  Without having to work to focus.  I can see distance, and I can see up close.  Remarkable.      In fact, I am excited about putting them back in tomorrow.  Who knew?

Then, since my wonderful co-workers had agreed to "watch the queue" for me, I went to the second [title of show] rehearsal, since I had to miss last night.  Marcus and Ron are fantastic.  Their voices blend very nicely together and the harmonies are ....well.... harmonious.  We have Audrey Barrett playing for us while Yenny is home visiting his parents and she is just awesome.  It was such a therapeutic outing for me, even though I got paged at 7:00 pm and had to leave.  Just to get to listen to those two guys rehearsing what is sure to be an amazing show.  It literally gave me chills.

No to go find something to eat.

House in Disrepair

Joey, Bibianna and I are planning a trip to Louisiana next week to visit with Joey's family and our friends.  Two of my friends are coming over to house/pet sit for the week we are gone.  I was typing out a list of things they might need to know and every other sentence was about something in the house that is broken.  I also added a sentence about how I wish my house was cleaner, but that ship had sailed a long time ago.  So, that got me to thinking.  I used to not be like this.  I used to be so organized and neat and wanted everything to match and look good.  I have two rooms in my house that had either a cat or a dog locked in them for an extended period of time and they clawed so much at the door trying to get it open that the carpet has been shredded.  I have spots all over the house where my dogs, mostly Honey, feel the need to show me that they are angry with me, or it's just too hot/cold to go outside, or tried to tell me that they needed to go out, but I wasn't paying attention.  The light fixture in the guest bathroom that I replaced when we moved in here 5 years ago has rusted.  The list just goes on and on.  And then there is my yard that was a showcase yard when we moved into this house.  I don't know why.  Why don't I spend more time on maintaining my house?  Or pay someone else to do it.  The answer?  Because I like to travel.

Yes, I would spend food money (and am eating Raman noodles now for that exact reason) on trips.  I love to travel more than just about anything else in this world.  I came back from my cruise with Joey, completely broke.  What have I done since I have been back?  I have spent time probably every day since then looking at how much it would cost to do it again with Bibianna and when could I have enough money saved up to do so.  Not to mention that I still owe $700 on a credit card for our trip to NYC last year.  I seriously think I have a problem.  Every year I think that when we get our tax refund back that I will spend it on getting the torn up, smelly carpet replaced.  Or get a new garbage disposal installed.  Or have my second bath redone.  Or get the shower fixed in the master bath, or, or, or, maybe go on a trip to Seattle. Or to NYC again, or to Colorado, or New Orleans, or a cruise, or.......

What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, my house.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day.  Bibs and I gave Joey cupcakes from Carter's Sugar Shop and oh my but they are delicious.  (I had to taste one.)  We got him banana pudding cupcakes, Reese's cupcakes, a Dr. Pepper infused cupcake and one other one that I can't remember what it was.  Joey worked from 11:00 to 2:00.  Bibianna worked from 10:00 to 4:00 and I being on call and having a system that was undergoing a storage system migration, worked from about 6:00 AM this morning.  System was supposed to be available for me to bring back on-line at noon.  Noon turned into 12:30, turned in to 12:45, turned into 2:15.  Found a problem and at 3:30 finally had everything working (fingers crossed) and I spent the next 2 hours monitoring and moving things that had errored out between 2:15 and 3:30.  In one hour, my counterparts in India should be on-line and I can hopefully get some sleep.

Oh, I also took my battery out of my phone today about noon, and put it back in. I received 132 pages.  I also removed the support mailbox and added it back and got the same 132 messages in the mailbox.  I should have done that yesterday although, it was nice not to have to listen to my phone going off for 132 times over the past 48 hours.

Tomorrow we begin music rehearsals for [title of show] and I am pretty excited about getting this show underway.  I also called my dad and wished him Happy Father's Day.  I should have mailed him a card.  I am not a very good daughter.  One week from today, Bibianna will be in Louisiana.

Grouchy Old Woman

Eight o'clock last night, migration of hardware at one of the hospital systems that we support began.  I took all the agents down so that the server team can begin their work.  They tell me the next step will be about 2:00 AM but after some discussion we determine that I won't be able to bring the agents back up then so no need for me to plan to get up.

So sometime between 10:00 and 11:00, I get into bed.  Take my meds, rub lotion on my feet, get the pillows all situated, and get all comfortably tucked in and my phone pages me to tell me that a user has opened a ticket because they can't see lab results.  That's important.  I get up, go read the ticket description and call the user.  I knew immediately when the user answered the phone that he was a very grumpy old man and that this phone call was probably not going to be pleasant.  I actually feel kind of sorry for him.  He couldn't find one good thing to say about anything.  And he had a LOT to say.  Long story short, he wants to look at lab reports in another system, but according to the ticket assigned to me by a team member on the other system, they don't keep lab results going back that far so he will have to use HPF.  He doesn't want to use HPF.  Doesn't know how to use HPF.  He wants to use Powerchart.  Anyway, before the call was over and after me telling him twice that I can't help him if he didn't listen to me and work with me, I showed him how to log into HPF and look at lab reports.  His final remarks to me?

"Well, I guess I just won't be able to see lab results so I won't be able to help this patient."

I can't even imagine how he could help a patient in the first place.  I shudder to think that someone like this who can't express a rational thought, can't listen or follow simple instructions, can't answer a question where the answer is a simply yes or no, could EVER help a patient.  This man sounded so unhappy with life that I would be afraid that even if he could make a decision to help, because of his negative outlook that he would kill the patient just to save that person from the drudgery that is every day life.

Anyway, I was frustrated about that call.  Get back into bed.  Get settled and than notice an alert that needed to be taken care of before I go to sleep because it is something that I would get paged on later.  Except that I am not getting paged.  At all.  Normally I get about 80 pages my first 24 hours on call (or more) and I haven't gotten one.  My phone is working, but it doesn't appear that the e-mail notification group is working because the last e-mail/alert in the boxes is from Wednesday.  I actually like it better not getting paged every few minutes for things that 99% of the time can wait until morning, but because something big could happen, I know that I won't be able to sleep well because I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the systems to prevent bigger problems.

So, I get up and go check this alert and find several big problems that took me about three hours to work on and figure out the problem.  I get back in bed around 2:00, get all settled, start watching "Parks and Recreation" to help me relax and go to sleep and at 3:00 I get called from the team doing the migration telling me that they are ready for me to start all the agents.  I go start all the agents and most of them are failing because they can't access a shared drive.  I call the team back and they tell me that yeah, that share won't be available until early Sunday morning.  UGH.  So I go back to bed and around 4:00 fall asleep.

At 6:00 AM, Paisley tells me that she has been in her kennel long enough and she needs to go outside and talk to a man about a horse.

I know that my boss thinks that I am just a big baby because I complain so much about how lack of sleep kills me during these on-call weeks, but it hurts.  I went back to sleep about 6:30 and got up at 10:00 and I have felt sick all day.  I don't know if it is my age, or the fact that I have problems sleeping so if my sleep is disturbed it takes a while for me to get back to sleep or if I just really do over exaggerate the pain, but lack of sleep is hard on me.  It affects everything about me.

Tonight, hopefully will be better.  At least my phone won't be disturbing me with text messages.

June 18: Addendum.  I got an e-mail today from the Powerchart team who said that they have had several problems with the grumpy doctor and that they would contact the COO at that hospital and let him deal with Dr. Grumpy.  Made me feel a little better.

"Becky's New Car"

Last night, Joey and I went to see "Becky's New Car" at Angelo Civic Theatre.  For my close friends, you know that I have suffered a great deal of heartbreak over the past year with the changes that are taking place at ACT.  However, "Becky's New Car" is directed by a wonderful, smart, beautiful and talented lady that I admire a great deal.  Becky is played by another wonderful, smart, beautiful and talented lady that I also admire.  In addition to those two lovely ladies, I know two other actors who I have worked with in the Children's Theatre who are growing older as most children do and are moving into the world of Adult Theatre.  I have worked or socially know two of the other actors in the play, which means that there was only one person on stage last night that I did not know.  To sweeten the deal, I won two free tickets.  Which is good because as much as I love the people in the cast, I just couldn't justify $17 for a ticket at this time.

I was blown away by the performance last night.  Director Nancy McCollum took a play that I would guess was written for a black box theatre and developed a masterpiece in that old little theatre.  The beginning of the play has Becky (Pagan Jackson) breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience like we are in her living room with her.  Slipping back and forth between the magic of private stage conversations and glimpses into her thoughts I found myself mesmerized.  Becky's son Chris, a 26 year old man-child still living in his parents basement and studying philosophy, was portrayed by Joseph Plachno.  Joseph took a character that could have easily been shallow and unlikable and instead gave Chris depth and a very likable quality.  Bill Reynolds was cast as Walter Flood, and there are not enough words to describe this veteran actor of ACT.  He has a face that is so expressive and a voice so wonderful that I could have sat and watched him for another 2 hours.  Pat Moore (the one cast member that I don't know) was wonderful as Joe Foster (Becky's husband).  He also gave a great deal of charisma to his character and made penguin pjs look very manly!  Rounding out the cast was Chloe Husted as Kenny Flood, Charlie (shame on me for not remembering his last name because I worked with him in Mister Roberts and he is a joy to watch perform), and Carla Odum, in a duel role as Mrs. Tipton and socialite.

In addition to the actors being tremendous to watch and the story having the exact perfect match of comedy, drama, suspense, and reality, the set was amazing.  Different types of doors suspended at different levels in front of a scrim made an almost ethereal quality which was a good counter point to Becky's mundane life and then a perfect backdrop for the utopia of Walter's lake house.  The lighting was perfect, the sound was perfect and Paula Plachno who was serving as Stage Manager, called a perfect show.

All I can say is that I am so glad I had the opportunity to see the show last night.  For a little over two hours I was not only transported into a entertaining journey with Becky, but I was transported back to a time when being in that theatre was magical.  Having seen it once, I could now easily justify the $17 it would cost to buy another ticket.

Why is keeping up with e-mail, mail, and voice messages such work for me?  Last night I spent about 3 hours getting my personal e-mail account (my main one, I have about 3) cleaned out, organized and delete, delete, delete.  I thought that about 6 months ago I deleted out all the mean hateful e-mails that a person had been sending me for several months last year, but I found some more.  It feels so good to get that kind of bad stuff out of my e-mail box.  In fact, it just feels good to get my e-mail box up-to-date with zero unread messages.  I will be diligent the next few days, maybe even weeks keeping up with the onslaught of offers for deals, and funny e-mails that are sent to me religiously by some of my friends, and then, little by little the number of unread emails will start to increase again.

Same with mail and voice mail messages.  I basically keep my home phone number just so I don't have to talk to people.  Anybody that is my friend calls me on my cell number.  I have registered on every do not call list but I still get at least one unwelcome call per day.  On the rare occasion when I have forgotten to pay a bill, my home number is the number they call.  Doctor's offices also use that number to call and remind me of appointments.  People that don't know me but call me to get me to do something for them call the number listed in the book.  I never listen to those voice mail messages but about once every 3 months, I just go in and delete them all out.  Then, I think I will keep up with them, and I might for a day or two and then before I know it, three months later, mailbox is full.

And then there is "real" mail.  When I think about mail, my reaction is to spew profanities, but I will resist.  I will say that I get about 2-3 pounds of mail daily and 99.9% of it is garbage.  I have all of my bills paid automagically every month and I have all of my statements set to e-statements when possible (part of the plethora of e-mails).  No one writes letters any more; maybe cards on special occasions.  For the most part though, mail is just garbage.  And it isn't just regular garbage.  No.  Most of it has to be shredded because I am worried that some random villain will pilfer through my garbage and find out the information that apparently everybody and their brother already has access to.  I don't ever go check the mailbox unless I am expecting something.  (Probably something I ordered late night during a sleep deprivation episode about mid-way through an on-call week.  When I am too tired to think clearly but not too tired to sleep through the continuous pages).  Anyway, I go for periods of not checking the mail and the mailman told me one day, when he brought the contents of my over-flowing mailbox to my door that if I didn't start getting my mail he would just send it all back.  Well, I thought this was a most generous offer.  I could feel a smile spread across my face and my eyes light up as I gasped "Oh, that would be great!"

"GREAT?"  the mailman snapped back at me.

Ruh-roh.  I think I had the wrong reaction.

From Solar Nails to the Weather

Today, I had my solar nails removed.  I had them put on in March while in Lubbock for the Regional UIL competition.  I thought that since I had a Vanna White like role in "Love, Loss and What I Wore" that I needed those nails to make my stubby little fingers look more presentable.  I still think that was a good decision.  Then, I decided about three weeks later to have them redone because Joey and I were going on a cruise.  Then, I decided about three weeks later to have them done again because I like them.  But I don't really like them.  They make it hard to do everything.  As I sit here typing on my laptop with my stubby little fingers, I am so much happier.  Anyway, I took a poll on FB to see if I should soak them off myself, which I usually do and it takes hours and dries out my fingers, or if I should have them removed at the salon.  The votes were about 20 to 2 to have them done at the salon.  I have smart FB friends.  It only took about 10-15 minutes and no acetone was involved.  So my fingers look much better than they usually do after my self-removal process.  However, I actually thought I was going to pass out at one point.  My weak constitution makes me wonder how I have lasted this long on this earth.  Lee clipped each nail to crack it and then proceeded to chip off bits of solar nail with said bits flying in random directions across the salon.  I was afraid one was going to hit another client.  Then, he took a very large nail tip that is used for acrylic nails and slid it between my nail and my solar nail and pried the remaining bits of solar nail off.  It was uncomfortable but I can't really say it hurt but yeah, I had to close my eyes to keep from ending up on the floor.  Seriously, how did I manage to have two kids?

Paisley is settling in quite nicely into our home.  I really am starting to hope that my friend is not going to want her back.  We all really love her and despite me telling everyone not to get attached, we have.  Mopsy especially really loves that little dog.  Although, every day between about 2:30 and 3:30 I have to put Mopsy and Paisley in their kennels for about a 30 minute nap because Paisley starts getting grumpy and Mopsy starts growling back.  It's like having two toddlers in the house.  Well, except that most people don't put their toddlers in cages for nap time.  Although I guess a baby bed is a type of cage, but I digress.  Anyway, the sweet little baby has been treated for fleas, heartworm, diarrhea, ear infection, is up-to-date on all her shots and has city tags.  (Although, those tags are about the size of Paisley's head so I am not sure she will be wearing them.)  I took Paisley to PetSmart on Sunday and had her groomed and she is pretty darn cute.

Before

After

Question.  I know, because I have special Mommy skills, that Bibianna isn't telling me most of what she is doing when she is "hanging out" with friends.  I don't think that she is doing anything wrong, or bad but it hurts that she doesn't tell me what she is doing.  If I mention my intuition suggests that she isn't being honest with me, then I am accused of not trusting her, which is not true.  So, my question is:  Do I really want to know what she is doing?

And because almost no conversations with my parents is void of weather topics, I always feel the need to comment.  We had some great rain last night.  This morning the cover to the fire pit and the little side table were both in the pool.  Cool.  I hope we get some more rain tonight.

Things that make you say "hmmmmm"

I hate when I get all geared up to journal or blog on a daily basis and then can't think of anything to write about.  It's funny because during the day I will get the best idea about the most profound subject and then at night when I sit down to reflect, those profoud ideas either are gone, or they seem kind of stupid after rethinking.  On the other hand, I do like going back and reading things I have written, no matter how stupid they seem because life changes so quickly and most of the time, I don't even realize that they are changing until I go back and think about how things were this time last year. And without written documentation, all I remember is the outline of what life was like.  I don't remember the details.  For instance, I know that last summer Bibianna didn't have a job and she and her friends didn't have cars or drivers licenses.  I am sure she didn't sit at home all summer but I don't remember her being gone all the time like she has been so far this summer.  I am not exaggerating when I say that she hasn't been home for longer than 30 waking minutes per day for the past week.  This past week she spent three nights in a row at someone elses house.  So on the fourth night when she asked if she could spend the night with another friend, I told her no.  She asked me why not?  (What else would you expect from a 16 year old?) Truth is, I don't really know why not. All I know is that I think she should spend more time at home.  I talked to Joey about it and he agrees with me, although he couldn't really give me a reason why either.  Well, after the no and the why not conversation, I told Bibianna to invite her friend over to spend the night here.  She explained to me that because her curfew is 11:30 and all of her friends have midnight curfews, that her friends don't like spending the night over here.  You know what I did? I asked Joey if it would be OK for Bibianna to stay out until midnight on occasion.  It's only 30 minutes more.  Really doesn't seem like much.  What I don't understand though is that according to Bibianna, all they are ever doing is hanging out at someone's house so why would that 30 minutes extra make that much difference?  I asked my precious that exact question and she told me she didn't want to talk about it.  Hmmmmm.......

Perfect Saturday

Today was an almost perfect Saturday, even though my allergies are bothering me a little and I woke up this morning with a horrible headache and didn't make it to the Farmer's Market.  I took some Benedryl and Tylenol then slept from about 10:00 am to noon and woke up headache free.  Bibs and I went for pedicures and tried a new place, Nail Zone, in the same shopping center as McAlister's and Marble Slab.  I got my toes painted a color called Pool Party.  Appropro as I am planning a small pool party tomorrow afternoon.

I also booked a trip for Bibianna to go visit Lisa in Lafayette for a few days.  Taylor is there visiting from West Palm Beach so it will be a wonderful opportunity for Madison, Taylor, Bibianna and Collin to spend some quality time together.  The last time they were all together was about 5 years ago and they all promised each other that they would all go to the same college together.  I hope that they will feel as close after this visit as they did after that last one.  Family has such a special bond and it is hard sometimes living so far away from them.  I look at pictures of Joey's family and all the cousins and how they went to the same schools and played sports and took dance together and I feel a little sad that this group of cousins doesn't really have that.  Coming from a family that wasn't particularly close to any of our extended family, I want a better family life than that for my girls.

Paisley is doing great.  I have kenneled her for the past two nights even though last night I had to get up with her at 5:00.  She is such a sweetie.  Tomorrow she goes to the groomers to get all beautified for her trip in a few weeks to Louisiana.  She has cousins too.

Calm after the storm

I have lived my life in such a state of constant chaos for so long that I can't remember not living in choas.  I like my vacations, which are few and far between to be as calm and relaxing as possible.  One of my favorite vacations was about three years ago when we rented a condo at Durango Mountain Resort for a week and all four of us went.  It was probably the last vacation that all four of us will take together.  During the days we would take short trips to Sliverton or Ouray.  One day we actually just hung out at the resort area and played on the mountain.  I cooked breakfast every morning and dinner every night and made lunch almost every day for us.  I cleaned the kitchen in the condo after every meal and straitened up the messes at least once a day, which I never do at home.  I was in bed by 10:00 pm and up by at least 8:00.  It was divine.

With two children and two working parents, no family around to help, our lives rarely resemble the life we had on that vacation to Colorado.  Only people who live our kind of lives, really understand.  How I long for that kind of life we had on that vacation where I am totally and completely mom and wife.  And, then, about a year ago things started to calm down some in our chaotic life when Carolyn moved out.  So what did I do?  Take on another job stage managing.  It's not a job really, it's a hobby, but it consumes as much time as a 40 hour a week job. Or more.  For the most part, my family doesn't even realize that I am never here, because they are rarely here.  The house always looks like no one is here to clean and we are rarely all home at the same time so dinner is usually out of the question, but if we do eat dinner together it is not one that I have cooked.  It is our normal life.  What has happened in this process is that my children have become extremely self-sufficient.

Which I like.

I really do like that my children are able to take complete care of themselves.  Even when I am home several nights in a row alone.  I have weeks like this one where I am between shows and have the evenings free and nothing is planned for tomorrow.  But the house is quiet.  Carolyn rarely comes by to visit because she is working and has her own life.  Bibianna would rather have needles stabbed in her eyes than hang out at home with her mom.  Joey works several 12 hour shifts a week.  I love being home alone, reading or watching TV or researching for my next dream vacation.  I love being able to clean house and it pretty much stays clean (although I really haven't spent much time cleaning like I always think I will if I have some free time).  I love all the animals curled up beside me sleeping while I take turns petting all of them.  Then I feel it.  A little pang of loneliness.  It isn't really a bad thing, but it is certainly different for me.

Tomorrow, Joey will be home.  I have defrosted something to cook for dinner tomorrow. I wasn't sure what it was but now that it has started to thaw, I think it may be spaghetti sauce that his mom made when she was here and froze for us.  I am going to get up tomorrow morning and go to the Farmer's Market with Jeska and get some yummy fresh vegetables.   Bibianna won't be here for dinner because she is working tomorrow  night, but maybe Carolyn will come by and eat with us.  I may even do some laundry and straighten the house.  Then on Sunday morning, I might just get up and cook breakfast.  Life just the way I love it on vacation.

For tonight, I will enjoy being alone, and probably research some more vacation ideas.

Conflict

Today I have been thinking about conflict.  How I handle difficult situations.  How people I admire handle difficult situations.  How some people I know can take any situation and make it difficult.  How some people are adept at avoiding conflict.  Although I think I have become better equipped through my years to handle conflict without always losing my cool, it is the loss of logic and entry of emotion that trips the switch for me every time. I have said so many things in response to hurt and anger that I wished I would have kept to myself.  I almost always regret the words spoken from emotion.  And why?  Not because they are true representations of how I am feeling but because they are hurtful.  I don't like hurting others.  It's something I will have to continue to work on because I would like to let people know how I feel without it hurting them.  Even if they are hurting me.

So that brings me to hurt.  Why is it so hard for me to let go of past hurts.  I have a hard time letting go when the person who has hurt me apologizes and is sincere.  But when someone does not apologize or feel the need to apologize, I hang on to that hurt like it is a prized possession.  That is not a good thing.  That hurt that I hold onto so dearly does nothing but damage me.  It certainly isn't going to hurt the person that I am angry with.  It sets a very bad example for my children to follow.  It causes friction occasionally between myself and other friends.  It obviously affects my ability to be happy.

Conflict is hard.  While I think that there are some people who thrive in conflict, I think that most of us don't.  I will continue to try to learn from my past mistakes to avoid making them over and over again, learn from people I admire who handle conflict with respect and kindness, and try to avoid conflict when possible.  I am also going to work hard at letting go of the hurt.

"Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means."  -- Ronald Reagan

Nostalgia

I don't know why I keep this blog page. I never use it. I used to. I used to love creating a journal of the day-to-day mundane things. I just had a really fun time going back and reading some of my stupid posts. I have a friend who writes the most beautiful pages on a daily basis, so here I am again.

Today. I still have Mopsy and Honey and I recently acquired (foster or permanently remains to be seen) a six-month old teacup poodle named Paisley. According to several websites about poodles, there aren't teacup poodles. They are toy poodles that are runts, and if it's on the internet it must be true. Toy poodles are 10 inches or less at their highest point. I don't know how tall Paisley is but I do know that she weighs about six pounds and is tiny. I also know that Joey and I have been saying repeatedly for a long time now that we can not have any more animals. Can't. Won't. Did! I also know that Joey tells Paisley that he loves her.

This week, three high school children in Christoval were involved in a horrible accident with a tractor-trailer and two of the children didn't survive the accident. It breaks my heart to think about how quickly their wonderful lives came to a halt. How devastated their family and friends must be. How I much too often take my family and friends for granted. I really hope that God's plan will require my children to outlive me.