Gettin’ Giddy
Oh it just dawned on me. Tomorrow is October the 1st. Know what that means? I get to put up my Halloween decorations. Halloween is my favorite holiday.
I have many things planned for next month. We are taking the girls to the punkin’ farm. It’s always fun and this year my niece (one of them at least) is going with us. That will be fun.
I also have a few arts and crafts on my mind for the girls. I guess I need to go and dig out my stuff. I will take a pic when it’s done.
How do you handle a situation like this?
Tonight, I was talking to my mother about homeschooling. I made the comment of how the older two girls done some extra work last night because they were bored. She responded with asking me why I did not have them on a regular school schedule. I tried to explain that homeschooling is different from public school and it doesn’t take the older two very long.
I came in honestly with my feelings hurt.
We are not morning people. None of us have ever been and most likely, we never will be. We get up and get started somewhere between 9 and 10. We are usually done somewhere between 1 and 3. Depending on what we are working on. But just because we are done with book work doesn’t mean their learning is done for the day. We find different ways to incorporate learning into their every day lives.
I know there will always be people out there who just doesn’t understand. I know there will be smartasses out there over homeschooling. I get that. But how do you deal with family who doesn’t support your decision?
When I first started this, my 13 year old did not know what a noun was. Now, she not only knows what a noun is, but she also knows the different types of nouns. She knows a plural possessive, a singular possessive, and all the others. I’m sorry, but to me that shows we are making progress. Something the public school here couldn’t or wouldn’t do in the 8 plus years she had been there.
How do I deal with these people?
Lord have mercy. I swear this year, I have ran up on more freakish critters than ever. First it was the creepy green spider. Then last night I opened up the front door to see what the dogs were barking at and this was staring back at me.. (well I think he was)..
A gosh darned walking stick. It scared the snot out of me. I have heard of them, seen pictures of them but never seen one up close and personal. I will admit, I was afraid of it. I don’t know if they bite or if they jump on you. But in any case, I was a scaredy cat of the walking stick.
Here’s a pic of what I think is his/her head. Thankfully there was a (dirty) window in between us.
Cops filmed on location
For some of us, we are born (or at least I think) with a gene that makes us nosy. I will be the first to admit, I’m a very nosy person. Tonight, was another point proven of just how nosy I am.
My niece stopped by to get the scores of the football games. She started telling us this story of a guy who had hit a tree head on in front of my in laws house. Then she proceeded to tell us of how this guy was wandering the backroads near her house (behind the in laws house). She said he was bleeding and all that. So anyways, he starts begging them not to call the law and he was very insistent on finding my brother in law.. for what reasons I have no clue. The next thing she knew, he was on his hands and knees crawling through the neighbors fence that leads into this huge field across the road from us.
On her way out, the state troopers stopped her and asked her where was he at. She told him where he could find him. But apparently the dude got a way. So being the nosy person I am, I walk out to the road to check it out. Sure ’nuff there was a trooper down the road. I ran in to get my camera and walked back out there. About the time I pulled out the camera, a country car whizzed by me. I decided it be best not to take no photos.
So we turned on the scanner. When you live in a small place like this, it’s always entertainment to tune in on a Saturday night to see whose been hauled in. Anyways, we heard the trooper call for the CSI team to come out. OMG. So they came out done their business and the wrecker came to haul the truck away. Now mind you at this point, I had not seen the vehicle. Again.. OMG. The damage done to that vehicle was astounding. The front of the truck was wrapped around a tree.
Last I heard the dude was still on the loose. I’m pretty sure he’s hiding in the field across the road. After talking to my sister in law, she said he was coming this way and crossed the road and hit the tree. It’s very fortunate that no one was driving in that direction at the time because the fool would have hit them head on.
So tonight in the boonies, we had some excitement. Yes I’m a nosy person, but when you don’t see excitement often, it tends to draw us crazies out.
He was a frail old man. The one and only memory I have of him is his room in the nursing home. I vividly recall walking down the the vending area to get him a moon pie and a RC cola. Thirty years later, I can still smell the faint hospital scent.
My Grandfather was very much older than most of my friends grandfathers. He was born in 1904. He had a completely different life when he met my grandmother. He had a daughter older than my grandmother. Imagine that.
I haven’t been to his grave site since I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. We used to have Easter Egg hunts in the cemetery. I recall many of the headstones were these huge towering tributes. Trees big enough and in plenty to play hide and go seek while the adults congregated.
Years have gone by since my last visit. For unknown reasons, we just stopped gathering at PawPaw’s grave. Divorces, deaths and moving on stopped a tradition that we had carried on for years.
After our trip to the lawyers office, I set out on a mission to find the cemetery. Since it was on our way, I Googled directions and to my surprise found the place with very little ease.
I pulled into the driveway and had this confusion upon my face. Hubby and the girls asked if this was the place and all I could say is, “I don’t know”.
Things had changed. The once mammoth headstones that towered over me were now eye level. Trees were removed. More people had been laid to rest along the newly added road. The parking lot seemed to have shifted to the other side of the building. I was so unsure if this was my PawPaw’s final resting place.
I put the truck in park and we scattered about the cemetery. It was like we were searching for a treasure. I tried to rack my brain on the location. Trying to conjure up a memory and dust it off to show me the way. After reading and thinking, I finally found it.
I was heartbroken. Here laid a patriarch of the family and no one has been by to pay him a visit. The grass was grown up around the headstone. There was an arrangement placed between the headstones of him and his first wife. He had been abandoned.
It was like his legacy came and went with the trees.
Today I discovered my husband of almost 17 years can be a jerk when he wants to be. And the funny thing is, I don’t think he realized the impact of what he done.
As many of you know I have this fear of bridges. I have the worse panic attacks on them. The more narrow the bridge, the worse they are. Today we had to make a trip to the lawyers office that I have been putting off for over a week. Because of this damn bridge.
All is well on the trip. Then I get onto the main stretch of road where I know this bridge is. Immediately I start panicking. I start to cross it and I do as I normally do, I slow down. That way people will go around me and pretty much leave me and the bridge by ourselves.
So I start to head back and realize I’m in the wrong lane. (I panic worse if I am near a concrete barrier) So I slow down to get over and maintain my turtle like speed. He starts yelling at me to “Go. Go. Go” and then starts giving me grief over going so slow and how one of these days I’m gonna get my ass ran over for slowing down.
I started crying. He gets mad because I was crying. I told him to shut up. He was making things worse for me.
What hurt me the most is, I can not help this fear I have. I have tried for years to conquer my fear. I can not overcome it. I have tried. He does not understand how crippling it is to have a fear so great that you avoid it at all cost. It’s not fun having a stupid fear such one of bridges.
I felt so belittled. But like I told him, I just wished for once he could feel what I feel. Hell will freeze over before I go across another bridge with him in the car. I would rather have a normal (more sane) fear of something than one of bridges.
And in case you are wondering:
Definition of Fear of bridges
Fear of bridges: An abnormal and persistent fear of bridges, especially crossing bridges. Sufferers of this phobia experience undue anxiety even though they realize their fear is irrational. Their fear may result partly from the fear of enclosure (claustrophobia) or the fear of heights (acrophobia). Phobic drivers may worry about being in an accident in busy traffic or losing control of their vehicles. High bridges over waterways and gorges can be especially intimidating, as can be very long or very narrow bridges.
Fear of bridges is a relatively common phobia although most people with it do not know they have something called “gephyrophobia.” However, the derivation of the word “gephyrophobia” is perfectly straightforward (if you know Greek); it is derived from the Greek words “gephyra” (bridge) and “phobos” (fear).
All better now
Yay me. After several days of a swollen fat eye, it’s finally back to normal. It’s not itching. It’s not black. And I am pain free. Yay!!
I was starting to get very self conscience about it. Every time I went somewhere (without makeup), people would stare constantly. Kinda embarrassing.
I took a Tylenol PM tonight hoping that it knocks me out. I’m tired. And I’m tired of being tired. I want a good full night’s sleep.
If all goes well and the weather co-operates tomorrow, we are supposed to take a field trip to the Indian Mounds. Two of the girls are studying Native Americans and since we have a museum here locally, we thought it would be a great little field trip. And best thing, it’s free. LOL. Yes I’m a cheapskate. Sue me.
Well I don’t have a lot to say tonight. I think I’m going to go crawl up in the bed with a book and call it a night. Hubby can put the girls to bed tonight. I’m sure he can do it all by himself. He’s a big boy after all.
Restless
It appears the insomnia monster has crept back into my body again. No rest for the weary. On the contrary. The weary wants rest, but just can’t find it.
There’s nothing more aggravating than to go to bed and just stare at the ceiling. Thinking about the most ridiculous things under the sun.
I believe that my day/night mix up has occurred for one reason only. Since we began this whole homeschool journey, after 11 pm is really the only time it’s quiet in this house. It’s the only time that I’m able to kick back and read or just think without the constant echoes of Mommy throughout the house.
Don’t get me wrong, I love having my girls here. I love sharing this experience of homeschooling with them. I love seeing them actually learning something educational. However, a small piece (very minute) piece of me longs for the days of absolute silence. The days of silence so golden, you could hear a pin drop.
Maybe that’s why the nights are mine. Maybe my screwed up brain has the days all backwards. I mean if I stop and think about it, it does make sense. See, when they were in school, it was quiet and it was “my” time. Now they are home during the day and the nights are now “my” time. Does that make sense to you?
Maybe I’m bored. It’s been raining non stop here for almost 2 weeks now. Thus, I haven’t been able to really get out of the house and do much of anything. Maybe I am just not wearing myself out enough to go to sleep. I do know that I’m growing tired of restless nights and tired days.
Walking on thin ice
I hate being married to a Mr. Know-it-all.
Today he has been full of “You don’t know what you are doing” crap. Makes me wanna string him up by his toenails somewhere. And the funny thing about it, I was right.
Let’s see. The day began by him setting up his deer cam. He got some corn to put out to lure them in. I followed him (still in my jammies) to help set it up. I position it on a tree and immediately I get “Uh, that’s not pointing in the right directions”. I know it wasn’t I was trying to adjust it while fighting off the skeeters that were trying to tote me off.
Secondly, my father in law dropped by with a mess of catfish and asked us if we wanted them. Sure do. But hubby told him we would come to his place to fillet them. No biggie. Except, hubby had this hair brained idea of filleting them on a piece of tin with the funny grooves in it. I went and got a board and decided I wanted to get messy.
He started getting upset with me because first off, the “tin” was about neck high on me. That made cleaning the fish near impossible. So after a few of his snide remarks, I walked off and told him where he could put those fish. He finally decides, I was right and it just wasn’t working. DUH. So I done the best I could and finished up. I told him from now on when we get fish, we clean them here at home.
I don’t know what has gotten into him lately. I do not know if it’s the fact that I attempt to do things without his help or what it is. It makes me so angry when he tells me A.) I don’t know what I’m doing, even if I do it the exact same way he does or B.) he treats me like I’m a 2 year old. I’m sorry, but I was raised I can do just as much as he can. He knows this and he knows that if he keeps on, I will do it without asking him to join in.
Today has been on of those days where he’s been walking on thin ice. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Look Whose Talkin’