Made a mistake…

I’m having a baby shower! Please visit:

http://www.webbabyshower.com/mullen/

And kissed a snake…how many doctors did it take..

No, just kidding.  I laid down after getting the kids to bed, and before I knew it, I fell asleep.  Well, of course I didn’t STAY asleep, so who KNOWS what time I’ll go to bed now?  My whole schedule is so off today with getting up so early then not being able to go back to bed.  Just in case you were not familiar with the whole kissed a snake thing, that’s a jump rope chant from when I was a kid…and they’re STILL using it to this day.  I loved jump rope when I was in the 4th grade.  That grade and high school were my best years.  I actually had a boyfriend in the 4th grade.  We used to pretend we were kissing under the table, lol… we DIDN’T really, we just liked to think the other kids thought that was what we were doing.  I used to wonder what would have happened if my mom hadn’t sent me to Catholic school the next year.  I think I might have been happier.  I was MISERABLE in 5th grade between my lousy "give them homework every time they talk" teacher (and going home with about 15-20 pages of homework each night because the BOYS couldn’t keep their mouths shut!  I cried and cried and cried over the amount of homework I had, and I hated homework forever more.) and the students who I couldn’t seem to get along with.  Add in two more years of being with those kids, and 5th-7th grades were kind of a nightmare, though two of my favorite teachers ever, Mr Dorwart, and Ms. Strohauer, came from the 6th and 7th grades.  Mr D actually left middle of the 6th grade because of a mole on his neck that changed and grew… they were lucky and caught it early, but he had to stop teaching to deal with it.  Mrs Strohauer took over, and she was wonderful… I simply adored her.  I was SO happy when she also taught us in 7th grade.  But 5th grade… a nightmare any way I ever looked at it.  My ONLY saving grace that year was that was the year I really started to lose myself in books.  It got me into trouble all the time, but I really didn’t care.  I could read anything and everything, and I could read for hours on end.  I had a college age reading level, so when I read, I understood what I was reading.  I could not have realized how special a thing that was.  I just knew, reading took me out of my life and allowed me to escape.  It probably saved me from a life of drugs or other things that would have eventually caused me to kill myself, either deliberately or on accident.  Who knows?  I would start reading on a Friday night, and by the time I went to sleep, usually around 2 a.m., I could have read up to 4 books.  I’d finish one and start another.  I read everything I could lay my hands on, including the Flowers in the Attic series, which I actually kind of regret reading!  What a sick bunch of books.  But I’ve read more than my share of sick books… they kind of gave me an interesting perspective on perversion.  But the ones with incest in them… ew.  What I have always found interesting is, and this applies mostly to the people who send in stories to the porno magazines… they CANNOT write.  Their writing sucks.  It’s hard to find good, well written porn, lol.  HOW did I get on that subject?
Okay, leaving that one there.  Still… I have long felt I could probably do a MUCH better job writing porn.  LOL 😉  My DH would just get mad at me though… but I’ll leave that one alone too.  TMI, TMI.

It’s almost 1 a.m.  I didn’t do ANY layouts tonight.  I’m not feeling like doing any really.  Not tonight.  I could probably work on something for a little bit though.  Mostly I’ve just been dreaming about spending money I don’t have yet.  But that’s all right.  I will.  Soon enough… soon enough.  My mom has some stock with my dad that she wants to give me her share of.  That would be very helpful, but of course, I have to get my dad to agree, and he may feel like it’s NOT her stock to give me part of.  He was supposed to get it in their divorce (which happened 30 years ago!)  He never removed her name though, so now they have this joint tenancy on this stock, and neither of them can sell it without the other’s permission.  LOL… and what’s he going to say, No, I don’t want to give my daughter the stock (when she’s pregnant and REALLY needs the money???)  It’s going to be a catch 22 for him.  Funny, ironic thing about this is… 10 years ago, mom tried to get me to get HIM to sell the stock so they could split it, and I just refused to get in the middle of their squabbles.  He flat out refused telling her that the stock was supposed to go to him.  So now it kind of stands that one of them has to die for the other to get all of it.  This I understand… California is a joint tenancy state… once you marry someone, you have to take GREAT pains to keep things separate under California law… buy a property, and it automatically gets filed under both parties, unless it’s worded as "Name, a married man (or woman) as his (or her) SOLE AND SEPARATE PROPERTY"  Which has its uses in buying and selling property.  The old house was under my name only… this house is in Jerry’s name only.  The only problem now, is that the old property went to foreclosure, so my credit is ruined… not that his is far behind, with a re-possession of the truck on there, and our bankruptcy, etc, etc.  It’ll take years to rebuild THAT.  Well, once this deal funds, which I’m pretty confident it WILL, then it really shouldn’t matter.  And I won’t need the money from mom either, which would be good, though God, I do appreciate her trying to help me out!!!!  We can pay cash for pretty much anything we want after this deal goes through.  Mom thought I was getting Medi-CAL, so I had to explain about the cash infusion.  I THINK if it comes down to it, I can probably get her to pay for the insurance for me, if I don’t have the money in time.  Then I can pay her back (or whatever… a lot of times, she doesn’t care, and she just gives an equal amount to my brother or something to make things "even" between the kids… lol, she CRACKS me up!)  I’m more than willing to pay her back though.   Then we can sell the stuff she gave us, and be able to pay for the doctor’s visits in that last month.  Jerry’s talking about selling it locally…we’ll take a hit, but we won’t have to wait on the money.  I told him to sell only enough to keep us going for the time being.  But I really do think this deal will fund.  If it does, then Jerry heads off to Mexico for 2-3 days… which I don’t look forward to, because I don’t cook much these days.  If he can get us money, we’ll eat out… if not, then I’ll take the Sam’s Club card and get some microwave meals and "fend for yourself" food.  Shabree LOVES fend for yourself!  She’s so funny.  But then, she gets to pick what she eats, and that’s fun.   I can’t wait to just be able to buy a blasted ink cartridge for my printer!  Stupid sometimes, the things that make your world spin ;).  Anyway, things are looking up all over the place.  I’m pretty excited about it.   I keep thinking about all the ways to spend that money, lol.  But one thing that sort of resonates in my mind is why have a bunch of money if you can’t do some good with it?  I would love to live in an environmentally friendly house, but the kind of solar panels we would need to live in the style we’re accustomed to would cost about 90 thousand dollars.  So it’s NOT a cheap investment.  It’s one you make because you want to leave less of an impact on the environment, not because you want to actually save money (though I think you would, over the long run… but we’ve never stayed in a house any more than 4 years since I met the man, though he lived in the one house for 10 years.  I think once we felt we really loved where we were though, we wouldn’t move around.)   I DO want a pool I can swim in year round though… one I don’t have to ease into.  One that is about bath water warm year around, lol.  I love to swim… I do NOT like to be cold.  So that would be an investment, and again… I’m thinking it would need solar to make it happen.  I find I’m torn between living somewhere like here, which I love for many reasons… though this place can be like a middle class ghetto neighborhood at times, which I’ve NEVER experienced.  Or living somewhere in the country where I could have my little orchard and a large pool, and a garden (which I actually would prefer to pay someone else to keep up!  I want the fresh veggies, but I don’t think I enjoy gardening enough.  Maybe I could, because it’s always something I aspired to, but not something I’ve ever really DONE.  Which says a lot in itself…)  Oh, and cows and chickens.  Fresh milk, eggs and meat. 

Okay, enough fantasizing about spending money.  LOL

I’m getting tired… good sign.  I had a bowl of raisin bran, which would get my blood sugars up, but have enough carbs to help make me tired… and it’s a low fat, fairly low calorie food with plenty of fiber.  Yep, can feel myself waning.

Oh, I was thinking about Sydni… she’s been really lovey dovey with me lately, which is fine.  I think she really needs it.  But she’s also been better behaved for the most part.  Though I took her to Walmart yesterday, I think it was, and tried to get her to do the spending money in her head thing, and it just made her mad.  She said I was teasing her.  I told her it’s just an exercise in bringing money to you… if you can visualize it, then you’re more likely to get it.   I told Becca though if I give them any money, they have to get rid of some stuff first.  She especially just doesn’t NEED more clutter.  Neither do I, and so I will do my best to keep that in mind.  I’ve done pretty well in getting RID of some of the clutter in this room in particular, I don’t think I really need to refill that "empty" (ha ha… it’s NOT empty!!!) space.  What I do need to do is purge some more, and use it up some more. 

The only other thing I would love to do is to plan the ULTIMATE whole family trip to Walt Disney World, complete with private character greetings, a HUGE villa on property, perhaps a private limo to take us where we wanted to go (Shabree reminded me that I promised her a limo ride… lol.  I’d forgotten!)   The whole works.  I mean, if you’re fantasizing, then fantasize BIG, right???  Take all the little girls for Princess makeovers (when I got my and the girl’s hair pixie dusted… it was 5 dollars each, and it was actually the BEST 5 dollars I spent the WHOLE trip!  I swear to you.  Princess makeovers are more expensive because you’re buying the dress too, along with a whole make up and hair thing.  But if I had the money… why NOT?  It’s a once in a lifetime trip!)  And I’d love to take my mom, my brother’s family, my dad if he can, Jerry’s mom and sister… his brother if we can figure out the health care, my best friend Linda (who would LOVE it and spend all her available time shopping…again we’d have to figure out the health care, it’s not like she can walk everywhere.)  And maybe a friend of the girls… oh, and Jerry’s business partners and their families.  Though I guess they’re going to bonus RIck out, since he’s not been doing anything to contribute… but I say he’s still welcome to come to WDW with us.  I’m not sure how you make something like this happen, but I’m sure a phone call would get things in action.  I am thinking perhaps a private photographer too… at least part of the time.  It’d be cool to go home with just a ton of pictures (which I can do all by myself, but then I don’t get IN the pictures if that happens…)  I’d be willing to spend the money on their very expensive CDs… can you imagine the amount of scrapbooking stuff I’d end up buying?  LOL… NO…well, except for scrapbooks themselves.  I don’t find the page kits they sell much of a good deal at all.  And they just don’t really put that much effort into their scrapbook stuff, though the 50th anniversary kit I bought was pretty doggone cool…wish I could find it.   I’ve put a ton of daydreaming into this trip.  I don’t know exactly how it would go down… I would think that part of it would be planned, but part of it wouldn’t of course.  Not everyone’s going to want to spend every available minute with each other.  But it’d be nice to spend SOME time together since it’s a family (and friends) trip.  I’m not sure how we’d take the girls’ friends’ because of the travel… I also think that we’d need to look into babysitting for the kids for a night or two so the adults could have some "alone" time.  The trip I’m thinking of would be two weeks, with "down days" built in when we’d either hit a different park, or NO park, or do something else in Orlando… there’s TONS to do in Orlando.  I’m sure Disney wants you spending all your time and money at their parks, but we know from experience that it gets tiring…. one trip we planned 3 down days in…and each kid had a sick day, so we were grateful we had planned down days.  There’s a helicopter place down from Disney a bit, and I’d love to do a grand tour of Orlando via helicopter.  Jerry and I did a small tour one time, and it was FUN.   I would equate it with doing a limo ride.  Do it at least once in your lifetime…you’ll never regret it.   I think the "thing" about taking your whole family to someplace like WDW is that it’s not a "thing" but a memory you’re giving them.  Time spent with people you love, even if you don’t speak to them that often.  And that has to beat a "thing" any day of the week… in my book anyway!   Although I can just see, I’d have to digi scrap a bunch of it so I could give out mementos of the trip without it taking me forever ;).

That reminds me… Shabree was much more fun to lead through the "how would you spend 200 dollars?" than Sydni was… Shabree had a LONG and elaborate list that includedfood, candy, marshmallows, a backyard with a house (LOL…that’s how she put it, I swear!), toys, things for me, things for her… she was all over the board with it.   She’s such a joy to have around.  Her imagination just knows NO bounds.  Linda loves to get kisses from Shabree (the pretend type and the real kind when she can get them.) and Shabree gets SO elaborate when she does the pretend kind.  She tells Linda all about what the jar has in it besides kisses… like gummy candy, and white chocolate chips (Linda’s favorite, btw… Shabree asked early on and has never forgotten!), and she tells her how large the jar is, and tells her to be careful lifting it… she’s so cute, and so funny… and SO imaginative.  Linda just adores her, but the feeling is mutual on Shabree’s end of things.  I want to see Linda.   I will go down there when Jerry closes this deal… the gas money won’t be a big deal then.  🙂  Yay for that!  There is just so much we’ve been denying ourselves because of the money involved.  I’ll be so glad when it’s a distant memory 🙂  I’m buying a van.  With air conditioning.  It’ll be nice not to suffer through another Valley summer with no A/C.  I’m thinking Toyota Sienna so I can get an 8 passenger.  We’re going to need it.

Well, I should really think about getting myself to bed already!  I’ve been sitting here writing and dreaming for over an hour now… which is probably NOT a record for me, but still… LOL, I’ve got to stop somewhere, right?  Okay, so I’m stopping.