Grumpy Gus

Two grumpy young men greeted us this morning.

Son #2 was PO'd at having to get out of bed early on a Saturday morning to attend Saturday School. He left campus without permission to check his car alarm one day this week and had to get a pass to get back into class - penalty was 4 hours of Saturday school. He completely overlooked that they waived multiple Saturday School hours he was supposed to serve for his year-end issue. They just wiped it off the books! And he failed to notice that it was also good to just get up and do it today because it was a 'double hours' Saturday School day - so he got his full four hours resolved and only had to be there two. He returned home just after 10AM and went back to bed.

Son #1 arose shortly after that point, PO'd that he had to go to work. Actually, he was more PO'd that Son #2 doesn't have to go to work because he doesn't have a job. To which I replied 'I swear you just wake up and look for a reason to be angry about something. Your brother did have to get up early to go to Saturday School and now he's back in bed for a bit. Move on and worry about yourself.' I did not remind him of the massive amount of money he owes us currently; did not remind him that had we not pitched in for his car repair, he'd be without wheels. Offered to fix him eggs for breakfast to send him off to his nine hour day (with an hour lunch) with a protein-filled stomach.

I worked today - which I planned. Though unfortunately, it feels like the only thing accomplished was highlighting the growing dis-ease feeling in the pit of my stomach. There are 31 days in January and I will have worked 24 of them when the 31st rolls around. Some months are like that....but seeing it on paper just sucks. It really does. Tomorrow will be more of the same...though I'm going to try to get up a little earlier (I slept in until 9 which is hugely 'late' for me, even on a Saturday) and start earlier. Progress was made - though there's more to do. It will be OK. I can get it all done.....I always do.

We had planned to do some geocaching but it's cold, cloudy and dark outside. Why is it the crystal clear, sunny afternoons are always, ALWAYS on weekdays and the weekends (lately) are cold, dark and depressing.

There's always tomorrow - hopefully, I'll work early in the day and then have a sunny afternoon to get outside and walk/hike around for a bit.

Keen

It's FRIDAY!! Yeah! No matter what else the weekend holds, I have two days of sleeping in to look forward to and I need it!

It's the perfect day to slip into jeans, a denim work shirt (embroidered with our district logo, thus making uber-casual more appropriate for work) and my new Keen shoes which are so, so comfortable and look cute, too. They are sort of a cross between a tennis shoe and a hiking shoe. They are sturdy and supportive and make me feel ready to live in the woods for a month. Or maybe just a week. (OK - a day is probably all I could manage - but if you go to REI to shop, you immediately have the desire to become someone who lives in the backwoods. Especially with freeze dried beef stroganoff, etc. to sustain you).

This is the first work day this week without a lot of meetings that require me to 'dress the part' and it's just adding another layer of Friday glee to my disposition to be able to venture out of the house dressed in very comfortable clothes. Makes me feel all warm and snugly - which it isn't in here since it's 57 degrees in this room right now and 40 degrees outside. Brrrr!

We hope to get a couple geocaching missions in this weekend and H. is inviting a friend to join us.

I had an absolutely wonderful dinner with my friend J. on Tuesday evening - much needed catching up and chatting about kids, etc. Her daughter also attends LasPo so she and B. are hopefully going to have coffee or something. You can never have too many friends and especially friends that you see at school during your days there. Friend J. and I are always able to immediately pick up as if no time has passed....don't you love those kind of friends? There's no awkward 'um, what do we say to each other' moments - we are gibbering from the minute we greet each other until the minute we leave. It was great to see her and fun to catch up!

My mission for this weekend is to unearth the jury duty summons that is buried somewhere on my desk. It's for our local court so at least if I do have to go, it's in town (vs. Stockton). I postponed it in November and wow, did that 60 days go by quickly! It's not any better of a time now to serve - but oh well. Have to call in nightly starting tonight.....

If the weather is sunny (though cold), we'll attempt to do some more yard work. Winter 'yuck' is everywhere and there's a lot to prune, sweep, rake, etc.

Hoping for a quiet, productive, fun, relaxing weekend. Which is the opposite of how the week has felt. Productive? Yes! Quiet, fun, relaxing - um, no....not at all. So bring on some 'passive'. I could use that.

Spanish

Early morning Monday and I'm wondering a couple things:

• Why is Yahoo showing me ads in Spanish?
• Why am I seeing so many ads for towns I don't live in - in Florida, Ohio, etc.

I wouldn't mind so much except there's always that brief moment when I think 'where am I? Did I go on a trip and forget? Am I home?'.

Aging is not for sissies, either....

We enjoyed a great dinner out with B. . His best friend C. (who is home from Sonoma State for another week - he gets two weeks more off than B.) was able to join us. It was fun and delicious! B. is officially 20. We promised to take him to Vegas for his 21st - and he reminded us that he probably won't be home for his 21st - so we said we hoped he could get a weekend off and we could meet him there. His friend C. turns 20 on our anniversary in March, so we told B. 'if you will wait until C. turns 21 in March, 2012, we'll take you both to Vegas'. He said that sounded like a plan.

Another quiet morning disrupted by the Grand Central Station of pets. They seem to have both calmed down for the moment - and of course, it's now time for me to head upstairs and get showered and dressed for the day. Love them both to pieces but oh how I really feel pissy when I'm spending 10-15 minutes orchestrating the activities of a feline and canine. Dog went out to pee first thing - cat went out with her. Dog comes back in. No cat and no sign of him. Worry briefly 'will he go near the pool, fall in and drown?'. Decide not likely and too cold to keep standing there with the door open. Close door 'cuz it's freezing outside. Feed dog. Hear her frantically scratching on back door - let her out to do her other business - cat runs in. Dog chases cat to gate. Cat bashes through gate (not latched, thank goodness) to escape dog. Dog knows she's not to go past gate unless invited and finally goes outside to take care of business. Now cat is tormenting dog by sitting on the other side of gate.....

I did not sleep well last night - various aches and pains kept me up a good chunk of the night. The only good thing about not sleeping well is I will probably sleep much better tonight. Exhaustion has a way of leading to better quality sleep.

1/2 day at a meeting at our County Office of Ed. Busy day. I did go in yesterday and was really glad I did because I had quite a few quick things I was able to get moving and delegated out to people to take care of this morning while I'm away. There's always so much to do.....

Happy Monday and enjoy the last full week in January. Time has just flown by this past month....

Geocaching

We managed to do three geocaching hunts yesterday afternoon...and were even more stoked to have H. joining us in the activity. Our geocaching Magellan GPS unit is great though we're learning to navigate through it's settings as we go.

We found two items and had to give up on one. Not sure if we missed it or if it's not there anymore - but two of three as successful finds wasn't bad for our first effort.

Some things I will do differently include:

• I won't bring my purse. I'll bring my small 'walking' purse which has a long enough strap to put it across my body - and just carry driver's license, cell phone and a little cash. We were walking around a lot and while my purse was locked in the car, I was nervous about it the entire time.
• Bring gloves and trash bags. I think while we're hunting, we could pick up miscellaneous trash and help our city while we're having fun searching. I know my cohorts won't want to do this but as long as I have work gloves on, I'm fine with it.

We downloaded some extra locations just in case - and today, if we have time, we might venture further away from Tracy and try some out in Mountain House.

H. seemed to really enjoy it - he found one of the caches and J. found the other.

The goal of our new geocaching 'hobby' is to get us up and out more - and it certainly succeeded in that. We're hoping to get out again today - it's sunny and beautiful and a perfect day for a treasure hunt.

It's also B.'s 20th birthday - so I'll be spending the day remembering back two decades to the day that totally changed our lives forever. I've said frequently in this blog that parenting is not for sissies - and we never could have imagined 20 years ago this morning just how true that was. We held that little, tiny baby boy and were instantly besotted with him - madly, truly, deeply in love with this little human. And it's still true today - even with all the challenges.

We have a fun dinner out at a Benihana type restaurant here in town and he partied with friends last night.

I'm heading out to my office for a bit - this upcoming week is as busy as last week with multiple days out of the office for various meetings. It will help me a bit to have waded through some of the 'must do' items on my desk before the week starts. I can manage without going in - but when I do that, I then try to get myself to my desk by 6-ish - and that's pretty hard to do, especially if I'm trying to allow some time for exercise in the AM.

Happy sunny Sunday!

Keith

Gob-smacked about Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from MSNBC....admittedly found him to be an acquired taste but upon acquiring the taste for his 'humor with a bite' and his constant angst at or towards someone or something, I will miss him. And will look forward to when he will be back on TV in a couple years on a different network. Feel as sad as I did when Tim Russert died - but at least with Keith, we know we will enjoy him again somewhere, sometime in the future.

I did sleep in but really had to work at it - until 9. Dreaming weird dreams and frequently hearing music - and wondering why my alarm was going off - only to realize it was music in my head waking me up, not the actual alarm clock. Dreamt about my sister-in-law - we were staying in their house for some reason - my brother not there - on a trip, I think - and being aware my sister-in-law was in the house somewhere but never seeing her. So I tried to tidy up the house a bit and was vacuuming up what looked like dust bunnies on the floor, along the fireplace, etc. - and she runs out to tell me (looking as beautiful as she always did) that those aren't dust bunnies, they are a special insulation and to please stop cleaning them up. So I try to stuff the dust back into the corners of everything - and then offer to go to Home Depot and buy some more of her 'special insulation' and help return everything to the state it was before I tried to clean up......and then I woke up. Hidden meanings there, I'm sure.....and it was great to 'see' her, even if only for a few minutes.

There is sun today - sometimes hiding behind a few clouds - but generally 'sunny'. So we are venturing outside in a bit to take a geocaching hike. Me, J. and H. (B. was up 'early' to meet someone at the gym and he went back to sleep). J. and I also worked a little bit in the backyard, pruning our potato bush/tree. The gardener lopped off a lot of it - which it needed. But it's still 'front' heavy and is leaning over the patio and blocking where we walk by the pool - so we cut off some additional branches. It was nice to be outside, albeit very briefly. Now it's cold again....

Today's activities include going through a week's worth of mail; balancing our bank accounts; running some errands and assorted other miscellaneous 'stuff'. I'd love a nap but won't.

And there I go again - sleep. It's always about sleep.

Yahoo! It's Friday!

Busy, busy week behind me. Survived the week without J. and was so glad to hear him open the front door last night - he was home.

Crap always happens when he's gone - I know it's possible that just me feeling that way might be influencing things happening - but it's so true.

B. was in a car accident on Tuesday (or Wednesday - I honestly can't remember - the week's events are sort of a blurry haze of 'is it over yet?') which he described to me as a fender bender. He was clearly fine - sitting in front of me totally fine. In hindsight, I should have been better prepared for the reality when he asked me immediately upon my arrival home from work 'Have you talked to Dad recently?' Um, no....and his hesitation to tell me led me to say 'just spill it, B.'. He had a 'fender bender' on the freeway. He 'rear-ended someone'. I inquired about damage to the guy's car and he said there was some. And then he said 'mine's a bit worse'. So I headed outside to find the hood buckled up onto itself, barely remaining closed, one head light totally smashed and assorted other dents, etc. He said 'it was an accident. I have a bad habit of looking left and I did and then I looked ahead and slammed on my brakes but it was too late'.

I've barely spoken to him since. I know that's a totally immature reaction for a 50+ year old woman to have, but I'm so pissed off and fed up with him, I can't stand to talk to him. I get it was an accident - but he was not paying attention in stop and go traffic on a freeway, noticed it was slowing, must have been going far too fast for the traffic situation he was in - and then doesn't pay attention and looks away from straight ahead. And WHAMMO! Another accident.

They can fix the car, we think - though it's close to being considered totaled. I'm hoping it IS totaled and we can take the insurance check for OUR car that we've let him use and he can use his savings to buy some vehicle to get him to/from school this semester. Then he's going to enlist and he won't need a car. Why should we keep providing a vehicle to him that he smashes up? And the insurance - don't even get me started on that subject. He's going to be off our policy and be responsible for paying for that as well.

I have a case of 'we're making it far too easy for him to be a twit'. He owes us for his school tuition which he can't afford to pay us back for right now. And now he'll owe us for the $1,000 deductible - and I'm collecting that from him even if they hand us a check and tell us the car is totaled. They will pay us $1,000 less than the value and he has to make up that difference. And then get himself a car with his college savings - his money entirely, in his name - and he needs to use it to figure out how to pay to get himself to/from school until he enlists.

His birthday is day after tomorrow - he will be 20. Two decades old. I don't feel in the mood to celebrate with him - but we will go out to dinner. He wanted a party - but when we told him we wouldn't allow his non-21 year old friends (or him) to drink alcohol here, he decided he'd party with friends instead - spend the night somewhere. He is very, very careful about that - never drives home if he's partying. And yet, you wonder what other stupid, irresponsible stuff he does that we never find out about?

I know it's just a car...and just an 'accident'. They happen. But jeez Louise....why can't he pay attention and be careful?

The week was super busy and jammed with meetings, etc. It's been 12+ hour days every day and I'm ready to head up to bed and sleep for a really, really long time - and when I wake up, I'm going to go back to sleep...again and again.

I end way too many blog posts describing sleep.

Yowsa!

In an effort to prove composting is not for sissies, I seriously sliced the top of my left ring finger while chopping up some old tangerines to put in the compost bin. Typing is going to be a challenge for a few days as the tip of my ring finger heals. Wow, those new Cutco knives are incredibly sharp. And proof of just how dull are old knives were.....they cut through 10 stalks of celery like butter - so imagine what they do to a finger....it hurts. My paramedic trained son reminded me to keep pressure on it - extended pressure, not looking at it every couple seconds - so it's no longer gushing blood. Which is a good thing.

It's another cloudy, cold, wet, dreary day here in the Central Valley. Friday was absolutely beautiful - crystal clear and sunny - and of course, it was a work day. The entire 3 day weekend has been gloomy and cold. My nasturtiums froze again - as they did last year - and will not survive another freeze.

Christmas decorations are back up in the rafters. They were all 'put away' as long as you didn't look in the garage and see them scattered everywhere. They're back up on shelves, boxed and ready for next year.

J. leaves for North Carolina tomorrow for most of the week - and I have more night work meetings this week than in recent memory....so it will be a busy week. I've ensured a supply of 'easy' meals available for H. to fix and promised him I will OK eating out on us once (or twice, possibly). He now officially has his own debit card tied to his own bank account - and we keep reminding him that the purpose of setting up the account was to provide an easy way to fund allowances and lunch money. Also the added benefit of making what he spends money on easily track-able as well. He wanted to take his savings and head to the mall for clothes shopping - and we vetoed that. Reminding him that 'it's not savings if you view it as available' and that he also should save for Cancun. We're paying for the trip and condo but activities, etc. are on them as much as possible....so if they want to rent wave runners, they have to have their own $ for that. Same with para sailing, etc.

B. starts his final semester at Las Po this week. He also got the one class he needs to graduate at Modesto JC - so he is going to be very, VERY busy. One of his last classes is the math class he's repeated so many times, I've lost count - and he must pass with a "C" or better to graduate. That's a challenge for him. He's not good at math. So this semester will be a 'wait and see' semester as he juggles two schools, lots of units and his job....I keep reminding him that he won't have much time for sleeping or social things this semester. He says he knows that. I hope he does.

His last semester's grades came out this week - and once again, he got a "D" - which means this next semester is on him, not us. Which is a bit of a problem since he currently doesn't have enough funds to cover tuition and books - so the United Bank of Mom & Dad is making him a loan to cover tuition. He will be paying us back as quickly as possible. He was surprised at the "D" since he thought he'd done well on the final - but acknowledged to J. that he might have missed too many classes and that might have hurt his grade. Will he ever learn? So far, we've only had to pay for one semester - his first - and the rest has been on him. Seems there's always one class that he just blows off - and pays dearly. At $800+ per semester for tuition, books, etc. , he'd have a whole lot more $$ in the bank had he just worked a little harder....

I grocery shopped, pet store shopped and treated myself to Starbucks yesterday. Today, I'm not sure what I've planned - possibly working a bit this afternoon. Was praying for a clear, sunny skies to rationalize being outside - but no such luck. Given my meeting schedule this week, I should attempt to wedge in some work time to get 'ahead' a bit. Then again, I'm never ahead.....but it's a dream. I also have a gift card from a favorite store in the mall so I might head there and enjoy a little shopping. We'll see.

It's just past noon and there's still (at least) nine hours remaining in the weekend. No nap. No time for sleep today - whatever I'm doing, there's too much of it to do to spend time sleeping.

That, and I'm getting so old that if I nap, I won't sleep well tonight - and that's not a good thing.

I'm making Sunday dinner tonight - chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. Hope there will be leftovers for Son #2 to eat for dinner tomorrow night since I won't be home.

Missing J. already....