Saturday, February 19, 2011
Big East/Big Ten Challenge. . .Big Day
Today I'm off for a day jam packed with fun with my boys, the Kiddo and his Favorite Uncle.
First donuts at a local mom-and-pop shop. Best. Donuts. Ever. Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme can't hold a candle to them. (But I'm still happy to eat their wares.)
Off to watch Seton Hall take on Michigan State at the Big East/Big Ten Challenge. Total bonus points for me. I found out children 17 and under are free, plus my mentor rounded up a free pass for me!
The beach will be the next stop to fly kites and play in the sand. The water is way too cold for a swim. And no I don't care that 70 y.o. men take the polar bear plunge each year, so I should toughen up. I live in FL for a reason.
Play ball!
First donuts at a local mom-and-pop shop. Best. Donuts. Ever. Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme can't hold a candle to them. (But I'm still happy to eat their wares.)
Off to watch Seton Hall take on Michigan State at the Big East/Big Ten Challenge. Total bonus points for me. I found out children 17 and under are free, plus my mentor rounded up a free pass for me!
The beach will be the next stop to fly kites and play in the sand. The water is way too cold for a swim. And no I don't care that 70 y.o. men take the polar bear plunge each year, so I should toughen up. I live in FL for a reason.
Play ball!
Friday, February 18, 2011
I'm Not Sure Wherein Lies the Root of the Problem
I've had it tonight. My computer keeps freezing up while I try to type. I don't know if it's my browser (Firefox), my crappy dial-up Internet service, or the hosting site of this blog ("An error occurred while saving"--If I see this again, I'm calling it quits).
Oh look, I got the same friggin error message again.
That's it computer, you win for the night.
Oh look, I got the same friggin error message again.
That's it computer, you win for the night.
Welcome to My World Kuwait
I'm amazed and quite stunned to log in everyday to find that people from all over the world are checking in on me. Hello Kuwait, glad to see you've made it on the map.
I've hit ever continent, save Antarctica. Tell you what, $50 and a prominent picture of your face if you can convince some researcher in the South Pole to look me up.
I'm kinda punchy right now because I'm writing way too late and my brain turned off about 2 hours ago. See, stupid me bought the stupid GPS and was/still are struggling to download the most recently downloaded maps. I'm not so sure that the fact that I have a basic dial-up Net service through my wireless provider isn't helping the situation at all. Oh well.
Taxes have been filed with a return good enough to cover my rent for the next 4 months, which comes at a great time seeing as the Plant is shutting down on Monday. I knew this day was coming soon, but I'm still stressing. But on the subject of stress and taxes, I have to rant for a bit on child support.
I got screwed over in child support back 5 years ago. I petitioned the State of Florida of child support, but my ex counter-sued and as a result theState Commonwealth of Virginia took jurisdiction of the case. Not having the mean of hiring an out of state lawyer, still being emotionally numb from being abandoned at 20 wks pregnant and coping with a newborn, I didn't have much strength to fight. When the lawyers presented the agreement, which I felt I had no choice but to sign as I wasn't getting any advice at all, I got stuck to agreeing that every other year the biological father gets to claim MY Kiddo as a tax dependent.
How fucked up is that?
He's never seen MY Kiddo, never asked for pictures, hell, he didn't even want to know the sex of the baby after he had skipped out on the ultrasound.
That part? I'm over. In fact, the Kiddo came across a few pictures of me and the biological tucked in between the child support order and last years tax returns. I've held on to a few of the pictures over the years as I figured some day he might ask questions. He's been hinting for a while that he understands that you need to have "a man and a woman to get married to have a baby,"as he explained. But he gives me a questioning look like, "Okay? Where's the other part?"
So when the Kiddo turned his attention to the photos, he asked about the man in the photos with me. I told the Kiddo his name, but not the relationship because I didn't want to jump the gun on any questions. When he saw the two of us dressed up for a formal dance, the Kiddo got so excited. "YOU LOOK SO PRETTY!!! OH MY GOSH, YOU ARE THE PRETTIEST MOM IN THE WORLD!!" (Don't think for a moment that I didn't just eat that up.)
Then he said, "I didn't know you got married."
"I didn't."
"Was I in you tummy?"
"Not at that time."
"Did that man love you?" . . . . . . That question blew me away.
How was I supposed to answer that? Before I had time to fumble around for the right answer, I think one of God's Messengers placed the reply on my lips.
"Yes. He did love me; some but not enough."
The Kiddo stared at the picture again, grinned at me and said, "Well that's too bad, cuz I love you a TON!"
And that's when I was reminded, I might get screwed over every other tax year monetarily, but 'that man' has been screwed over since the day he walked out on the best thing that ever happened to me.
I've hit ever continent, save Antarctica. Tell you what, $50 and a prominent picture of your face if you can convince some researcher in the South Pole to look me up.
I'm kinda punchy right now because I'm writing way too late and my brain turned off about 2 hours ago. See, stupid me bought the stupid GPS and was/still are struggling to download the most recently downloaded maps. I'm not so sure that the fact that I have a basic dial-up Net service through my wireless provider isn't helping the situation at all. Oh well.
Taxes have been filed with a return good enough to cover my rent for the next 4 months, which comes at a great time seeing as the Plant is shutting down on Monday. I knew this day was coming soon, but I'm still stressing. But on the subject of stress and taxes, I have to rant for a bit on child support.
I got screwed over in child support back 5 years ago. I petitioned the State of Florida of child support, but my ex counter-sued and as a result the
How fucked up is that?
He's never seen MY Kiddo, never asked for pictures, hell, he didn't even want to know the sex of the baby after he had skipped out on the ultrasound.
That part? I'm over. In fact, the Kiddo came across a few pictures of me and the biological tucked in between the child support order and last years tax returns. I've held on to a few of the pictures over the years as I figured some day he might ask questions. He's been hinting for a while that he understands that you need to have "a man and a woman to get married to have a baby,"as he explained. But he gives me a questioning look like, "Okay? Where's the other part?"
So when the Kiddo turned his attention to the photos, he asked about the man in the photos with me. I told the Kiddo his name, but not the relationship because I didn't want to jump the gun on any questions. When he saw the two of us dressed up for a formal dance, the Kiddo got so excited. "YOU LOOK SO PRETTY!!! OH MY GOSH, YOU ARE THE PRETTIEST MOM IN THE WORLD!!" (Don't think for a moment that I didn't just eat that up.)
Then he said, "I didn't know you got married."
"I didn't."
"Was I in you tummy?"
"Not at that time."
"Did that man love you?" . . . . . . That question blew me away.
How was I supposed to answer that? Before I had time to fumble around for the right answer, I think one of God's Messengers placed the reply on my lips.
"Yes. He did love me; some but not enough."
The Kiddo stared at the picture again, grinned at me and said, "Well that's too bad, cuz I love you a TON!"
And that's when I was reminded, I might get screwed over every other tax year monetarily, but 'that man' has been screwed over since the day he walked out on the best thing that ever happened to me.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I Think the Term I Am Looking for is Operator Error
I love technology.
What did we do before the advent of the mobile phone, when you couldn't tell mom to pick up some more milk while she's at the store because your baby brother (who you were supposed to be keeping an eye on and not dancing to Amy Grant's Baby, Baby) pulled the gallon out of the fridge and onto the floor?
I have two different remotes that allow me to switch functions on my TV/DVD without having to leave my chair. (I can just image the conversation with the Kiddo. . ."when I was your age, you had to walk across the room to change the channel, and cartoons were only on Saturdays." I'm sure that will go over as well when I tried to explain to my little brother that 'the giant CDs out in the garbage can' were actually LPs. Much confusion ensued.)
I can order books off of the Internet, request prayers or encouragement through various social networking sites, find delicious recipes without having to paw through a stack of unorganized, stained, chicken-scratched papers, and discover just how little I have in my bank account.
But this love of technology is a bipolar love, for there are times (tonight most notably) that I HATE technology.
See, I'm going to a college baseball game on Saturday with the Kiddo and his 'favorite' uncle/the youngest of my younger brothers which will be located in St. Pete. You would think that a city built on a grid would be easy to navigate. That's not what I've found out on most of my adventures to the other side of the Bay. Last time I tried to drive from a bookstore to my therapist's office which Google Maps assured me was only 15 minutes away, I got lost for an hour! In rush hour traffic! On a Friday!
Which was not fun, to put it mildly. Profanity, crying, and running a STOP sign (accidentally!) may have been involved.
So I broke down the other night and purchased a GPS. It came well-enough recommended, got some good on-line reviews and my research showed that for the price Wal-Mart was offering, I couldn't get it any cheaper unless I stole it. (Which I totally didn't).
Tonight after watching the download timer tick from 97 minutes on and not wanting to run any other programs, an error message occured in the remaining 4 seconds of downloads.
Reason being: I forgot to disable to the firewall before downloading began.
What did we do before the advent of the mobile phone, when you couldn't tell mom to pick up some more milk while she's at the store because your baby brother (who you were supposed to be keeping an eye on and not dancing to Amy Grant's Baby, Baby) pulled the gallon out of the fridge and onto the floor?
I have two different remotes that allow me to switch functions on my TV/DVD without having to leave my chair. (I can just image the conversation with the Kiddo. . ."when I was your age, you had to walk across the room to change the channel, and cartoons were only on Saturdays." I'm sure that will go over as well when I tried to explain to my little brother that 'the giant CDs out in the garbage can' were actually LPs. Much confusion ensued.)
I can order books off of the Internet, request prayers or encouragement through various social networking sites, find delicious recipes without having to paw through a stack of unorganized, stained, chicken-scratched papers, and discover just how little I have in my bank account.
But this love of technology is a bipolar love, for there are times (tonight most notably) that I HATE technology.
See, I'm going to a college baseball game on Saturday with the Kiddo and his 'favorite' uncle/the youngest of my younger brothers which will be located in St. Pete. You would think that a city built on a grid would be easy to navigate. That's not what I've found out on most of my adventures to the other side of the Bay. Last time I tried to drive from a bookstore to my therapist's office which Google Maps assured me was only 15 minutes away, I got lost for an hour! In rush hour traffic! On a Friday!
Which was not fun, to put it mildly. Profanity, crying, and running a STOP sign (accidentally!) may have been involved.
So I broke down the other night and purchased a GPS. It came well-enough recommended, got some good on-line reviews and my research showed that for the price Wal-Mart was offering, I couldn't get it any cheaper unless I stole it. (Which I totally didn't).
Tonight after watching the download timer tick from 97 minutes on and not wanting to run any other programs, an error message occured in the remaining 4 seconds of downloads.
Reason being: I forgot to disable to the firewall before downloading began.
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