Turkey Day

Despite the doom and gloom of yesterday, my brother remains positive that something will come of this rut he was thrown into just before the holidays. I guess he will take it day by day like the rest of us living from paycheck to paycheck.
In other thoughts there is alot to be thankful for this year, like health, our children, a roof over our heads, heat(even if it is 68') and cheap beer, they still sell Milwaukees Best right?. Not to mention the fact my brother knows how to shoot deer if they get desperate. They are still planning their trip for Kansas to see my SIL family and they are know going to get paid for it with the unemployment check, where as before he was just taking a week off work. Instead of basting in the fallout they are going to take a long drive to blow off some steam and surrond themselves with family.
I am putting my foot down this year and staying home. No more running around for me this month heck I am not even going to cook. My aunt is coming over to spend the day with Morgan and I, we plan to stay in our pajamas and put up the Christmas tree. My sister will pick up the $29.95 fully cooked turkey meal from Meijer on the way home from work. We will eat drink and be merry!! and not have to drive half a day or hang over a hot stove to get there.
Hope your Turkey Day is yummy, relaxing, and full of left-overs!!

Tough Tuesday

Just as I was going to complain about the cold dreary weather and the fact that I get crabby from the lack of sunlight my body is exposed to. My SIL just called and informed me my brother has been laid off, for what sounds like permanently. This auto industry problems and the economy here in Michigan is hitting home literally. I have nothing more to say.

no big deal

My little angel is some what of a boss at a mere 24 months 21 days old. Which is good because I got the kick me in the ass, telling me what to do right now in my life attitude lately. Having a miniature dictator like Morgan in my house does have its comical side. What could be more fun than a toddler pulling your finger to play with legos? or drink pretend coffee from a tiny tea cup, or forced to bite a plastic piece of pizza and like it?? If you happen to have a toddler at home you know the things that come out of their mouth is sometimes cute and other times not so much. Now that we are in the stage of full sentences and talking about ourselves in third person we have a house full of non-stop fun.
Imagine if you will a 27 inch blue eyed blonde haired squeaky toy look at you in all seriousness and remind you for 3 weeks "light burned out in kitchen"moment later"that's OK mommie fix it, get a new one" but here is the funny part she shrugs her shoulders and says "no big deal"!!! Or how about "daddie broke pumpkin stem" this she remembers from 2 months ago and reminds me everyday "daddy get me new one" shoulder shrugs "no big deal". My all time favorite this week has to be the one after she has had a melt down about the round peg not fitting into the square peg hole, once she notices I am not going to relate to her meltdown she turns it off and looks at me to say "Morgan's ok" without a tear in her voice "no big deal". Or it could be when I ask her the question "Is Mommie whining?" she will look at me and say "no Morgan whining". Good just want to make sure we are on the same page, no big deal!

Madge

Awesome!! It seems though Madge may have been a little un-impressed by the number of people who did show up for the show, because she did not start until almost 10pm! We arrived in the D around 6:30pm to get good parking and find our seats before the show that was suppose to start at 7:30pm, with no opening act, just a DJ to spin old school. After four beers(over priced), a pretzel for dinner(also over priced), many potty runs, and being moved out of our seats for being in the wrong section, after being upgraded to fill lower seats. Madonna walked out on stage and gave it 2 the D! She looked awesome though all 6 wardrobe changes, I was a little disappointed she did not sing my anthem HOLIDAY, but a radio rendition played while we left the stadium.

Right now I am tired from not getting home until almost 1am and waking up late for work. The boss wants me to make a power point presentation that I have never in my life created before. It seems that it is my punishment for being 45 minutes late and smelling of $7.50 beer. Check back later for more photos from the night still nestled away in my camera.

Monday Meandering #19

What do you mean it is Monday already?? I felt my weekend was one big compressed week in the span of two days! Let's make a list of things I didn't do this weekend it will be shorter;
- grocery shopping but we were not home long enough to eat
- shopping for a new shirt/outfit to see Madonna tomorrow night
(well I am not actually meeting Madonna just seeing her concert) (where there will be other adults who look not so single mom like)
- hair salon to get my ever so overdue locks cut
See if there is anything in between that short list I am sure I was there or did that whatever that may be.
My daughter thinks that when ever she doesn't see me it means I am at work, including putting her to bed. The other night she layed down in her bed and after sayin "nite mommie" she softly said "go to work". According to her I worked ALOT this weekend, cause it seems the times she was with me she was either napping or being passed to another family member. I plan to make it up to her this week, by only planning the concert tomorrow night. Why is it so darn hard to be a single mom and work full time and still have a social life???
Things that we did do in between the non-stop rain would include a birthday party, a purse party, bowling, church, and a Circus!! Your tired right, so glad I am not the only one.

Life I was meant to be in

Last week was the anniversary of the end of my marriage, a divorce and the beginning of single parenthood legally, one year come and gone. Last week was a reflection of sorts my mind cloudy from cold medicine, but coherent, I felt a calm in the reality of my life. These sort of thoughts wash over me from time to time, reminders if you will, that I am a single mom making decisions on my own in the best interest of me and my baby girl. Overwhelming decisions at times that well up inside my stomach and cause that lump in your throat as your face holds back tears. Tears that you want to come to release the emotion flooding inside your body, but you hold back and tell yourself to be strong. Things that will work themselves out, there is no use trying to control situations that were created to build character and celebrate adversity of a life you were meant to be in, this the calm of reality.
Without sounding ungrateful for a home I currently have, I look forward to a new home I have yet to live in. So many memories surround me in my house, empty corners of "things" that were once shared are now only foot marks of crushed carpet and dust filled holes in the wall where a TV once stood. As much as I would like to fill those voids with something the feeling to run away from it increases. I long for moving day a fresh start to organize my things as I know them, a life I was meant to be in.
My new journey started last week, one that in the next year Morgan and I WILL be moving. We don't know where or how but it is imminent and the lump grows in my throat. The fear of the unknown but the thought of a new peace consumes my life now. My hope is that we will make it and it doesn't have to be big or grand but it will be made with love. Love of a single parent of a little girl who I knew would come to change my world and also bring it in focus. Changes in my mind that I know will bring hope for a rekindled spirit in my thoughts on what it all means anyway, which will still bring the lump in my throat but a lump I hope will bring more joy with the comfort of a life I was meant to be in.
When the dust settles from the chaos that will pick up our belongings and bring them to a new place to live. There will be more time to laugh, more time to play, more time to be a mother and feel the lump in my throat that will come. New memories that have yet to be written on paper or captured in a photo. A new year of things that will not always be easy but will be mine, ours. Overwhelming thoughts of gratefulness that this is the life I was meant to be in.

Monday Meandering #18

Thanks to everyone who sent me get well wishes last week. I never received the chicken noodle soup, but lucky for you I don't hold grudges to long unless you were once married to me. I am feeling a bit better today the headache still comes and goes and every once in awhile I will cough and it feels as if a jelly fish is stuck in my throat, but hey at least it is breaking up.
Friday night SD had Morgan over night. I spent most of my time drinking cough syrup from the bottle to wash down the severe cold medicine I was carded for at the store earlier that day. For real people we live in an age where you have to be carded for Tylenol, and seriously I almost gave it back to the cashier because the look she gave me and her secret phone call to the 411 house phone made me a little nervous to walk past any one under age. You should have heard me peel my tires high tailing it out of the parking lot before they established the road block. I made it home put on the cozy pants and wrapped myself in a blanket and looked around at all the books and toys from the night before then decided the effort to pick up was much worse than the time it took me to pick up the remote and vegetate in front of the tube! By 9pm I had regained enough strength to pick up the toys and vacuum because the benefit of vacuuming without a toddler screaming "I DO IT" outweighed the pounding in my head.
Saturday I had a maintenance man from the propane company I use over to replace a faulty valve on the hot water tank I feel like I just replaced. If you are any kind of friend dear internet please drop a house on my head the next time I decide to move into a house in the country one where the gas required to heat the house is propane and the water comes from a well. I am a city girl and even city girls have there limits and I am about at the end of mine. Without the pleasures the city can provide, one that no matter what the heat comes to your home naturally and is not carried in by truck, and the water oh the water doesn't dis-color the $100 hair-do in a matter of a couple weeks and the white shirts, socks, and sheets don't look stained!!! I'm going off on a tangent here but the move out of this current house can't come soon enough. Last week during a fill up because the tank had run low they did a pressure test to find that the valve on the hot water tank was leaking, as in leaking enough to maybe cause an explosion or so that is the urgency the propane company explained to me. So I ordered the part and had it rushed to the house to be replaced, a part that had been recalled so bonus the part was free shipping was not. Story in short the part was replaced and a couple hours later installed for a trip fee of $85.

Without the risk of the house exploding a blessing or a curse depending on the time of day I talk about the place where I currently dwell. Morgan and I rested and cleaned up to celebrate Alexander's second birthday. We had a fun evening with BFF&A and family with food and cake! Little Alexander is such a ham when it comes to being the center of attention alot like BFF&A. The party was a small venue with immediate family that I grew up with in my young years and my adopted mom couldn't say it enough how happy she was that BFF&A and I had children growing up at the same age. It makes us happy too.
Sunday was our day of rest, I was still battling my head cold and Morgan just wanted to jump on her trampoline all day. Which made us all very happy in a warm house with hot water.

I'm Sick

Since I don't have a husband to whine and complain to, I choose you dear internet. I am sick with one of those icky head colds. The kind of cold where the mucus gets stuck in your throat and the more you try to clear it the more you cough, the more you cough the more your throat itches and then suddenly the cough stops and what your left with is a headache and the thought of OH my GOD my ears, my ears are plugged how am I going to breathe!!!!!!!! Can someone kindly step in and fill my position here at work, I would still get paid of course, and you could just sit here, or do payroll, balance the checkbook, answer the phone, make coffee, go get lunch for everyone, pay some bills, create invoices, and call on the deadbeat accounts who refuse to pay their bills in full? DEAL????
After I dropped Morgan off at daycare on the drive to work I caught myself glancing behind every 7-Eleven, Walgreens, or Speedway and wondered if it was a good place to hide for the day. I could use Morgan's blanket from the back seat and just curl up in a ball and rest for the next 8 hours, in my car, with the doors locked, you know safety first. Well if you haven't guessed by now I made it to work and lucky for me the bosses are in a training class for much of the day, so I am sitting here with the lights turned off and the phone on low so that the ringing doesn't pierce my eardrum when someone calls.

I wonder how long it will be before someone delivers me some chicken noodle soup? homemade, there is to much sodium in the can stuff, at least that is what Campbells is claiming these days. Oh and do you mind turning up the heat I'm Freezing!

I am trying to look on the bright side though it could be worse. It has just been so long since I whined, it seems lately Morgan gets to do all the whining and it just wouldn't be good parenting if I whine to her, the whole lead by example thing. By the way what makes a toddler get so upset that they think it is OK to knock their head on the floor on purpose? Because I KNOW I never did anything like that, not that I haven't thought about it, but to throw yourself on the floor and head butt the ground imagine that headache.

VOTE

On this day, every four years most of us don't mind being called a jack-ass.

You know who you are get out there and VOTE!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Smell my feet.....

This was Morgan's first time trick or treating, knocking on doors, russling through the leaves on the sidewalk, and amazed that people give out candy just for knocking on their door. So without further a-due, I give you this video and if you can hear over me and my sister in-law Barb giggling you hear my daughter knock and say "smell my feet".....yes her first door ever trick or treating she remembers the bad thing I taught her, nice. and Oh the lighting sucks but you can imagine it is really cute to see a chicken begging for candy and looking in her bucket for the first time!

Morgan and I traveled in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon to the other side of the world where my brother lives to trick or treat with my nephew Luke. We could not have asked for a better evening here in Michigan, most years it is cold, rainy, or even snowing. The kids looked so cute in their costumes. Luke was Spiderman equipped with fake muscles and Morgan was a chicken and clucked on command, "Balk, Balk" while tucking her hands in her armpits and flapping her elbows up and down!

I couldn't help but notice the lack of particaption by kids of all ages escpecially on such a beautiful night. Most streets were dark and you didn't see many trick or treaters like when we were small, I was kidda bummed. After we rounded the block at my brothers, we loaded the truck with the wagon and went to my Gramma's neighborhood. Here are the kids knocking on Great Gramma's door something my brother and I had done for so many years, it was a full circle moment. There was one house that was pretty spooky, one that Morgan insisted I take her up to, this one she was not going alone. As we approached the steps I could feel her legs squeeze my body and her fingers dig into my back, as the monster on the porch handed us candy, she stared her eyes wide so as not to flinch, she watched to masked man's every move. We walked away and she said monster nice, it's OK. It was cute to hear Morgan say tank U, and happy halloWEEN as we left each porch. After about an hour the kids were tired and before we knew it the night was over, til next year, BALK BALK!!