Kids...what would I do without ya

As most parents would tell you, I'm sure, being a mom/dad is a job like no other. Sure, it' a wonderous feeling the first time your little darling grabs your finger after they are born, or when they get old enough to hug you tightly and whisper "I love you" in your ear. And while these moments are an amazing thing, I personally think one of the greatest things about having kids is some of the absolutely hilarious stuff they say, you know what they say, "out of the mouths of babes".

As most know, I have two kids, a 14-going-on-25-year-old daughter (mini-me) and a ten-let's-see-how-far-I-can-push-mom's-buttons-today-year-old son (The Boy). Mini-me got up this morning and headed down to the dungeon to do what all 14 year old kids do.....use the computer before their baby brother can. After awhile, The Boy comes alive and heads down too. He's doing his thing, she's doing hers, when she stands up and says "Hey, I'm dressed all in brown (she wore brown leggings and a brown tank to bed last night)! What do I look like?" His reply? YOU LOOK LIKE A GIANT PIECE OF POO!

I'll never ever be able to hear someone say "ya little shit" without a flashback to this moment!

Judging A Book By Its Cover

So last night hubby and I are sitting down watching some TV and it happens to be a one of those "job" reality shows. The person is talking about why they are in the profession they are in, one which is not liked by people that have to deal with with those in this profession, and how they have all these other qualifications that SHOULD enable them to get something in a different field, but that absolutely no one will hire them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I realize alot of people are out of work in the States (and Canada too) due to the current state of the economy, but do some of these people moaning about not being able to get a job ever walk by a mirror? Now, don't get me wrong, as a "person" I don't think it is right to stereotype a person, but in the working world EVERYONE has got to realize that as an employee YOU are putting a face to a company, YOU represent them. Depending on the job, the "customer" might never see the "Big Boss" but have to stare at you for eight to ten hours a day, so is it crazy that they may have a certain set of standards they want you to have to: A) Get the job and B) Keep it. Remember, the way things are right now, there could very well by hundreds of people who would just LOVE to have your job to feed their familes.

Just as an example, would you want someone with full facial tattoos sitting at your reception desk if you ran a law office? On the opposite end, would you want people with absolutely NO tattoos being all your artists in a tattoo shop? If you were overweight (which I am) would you want to go to a weight support group that had a leader that was some skinny anorexic chick that has never been overweight in their life leading the meeting? If you have to board a plane and the guy making you walk through the metal detector has every square inch of his face covered in body piercings, tell me you aren't scared he would set off the damn alarm, not you, but you have to get hauled aside for a strip/body cavity search (I've been searched - no not strip/cavity-when I boarded a plane in 2000). Sure, the above examples could all be highly qualified and could potentially be the best workers ever had, but companies, in order to MAKE MONEY TO PAY YOU, have to be able to have someone available to the clients they are serving that will make those clients want to use their service.

I'm all for expressing your individuality, I wished I had have had the courage to express that when I was younger and in school (there was a girl in my highschool that dyed her hair pink and I sooooo wanted to do that, but I was a pussy), but you need to realize that your choice of expression could impose limitations on you outside of your social setting. And really, those nipples rings you thought were cool when you were 18, aren't gonna be so cool when you are 85, your boobs are dragging on the ground making the metal studs spark and setting fire to your oxygen machine!

Computer, cats and muscles...OH MY!

First off, I want to make it perfectly clear that everyone made it through the weekend alive! How, I'm not sure, but they did.

So as some can probably guess after last week's lesbian cavegirl facebook status message, I was having some computer issues last week. My husband, bless his heart, sometimes forgets he is a carpenter and not a computer technician, something he apparently FINALLY realized when on Friday, he did something that took my barely functioning PC that could still connect to the internet and made it a non-functioning internet computer. Thankfully, despite the fact I am a blonde, I had the presence of mind to get my genealogy stuff off it and on to my flashdrive before I let him sit down at the computer after I got home from the library Friday night. So after refraining from murdering him for two days (I am so proud of myself) I made him go out and talk to the guys where we got our computer and ask them how to use our backup discs to get it back to the way it was when we first got it (he forgot how to do it and I have no interest in knowing, cause if I screw it up, I wouldn't be able to bitch at him hehe). So we are all fixed up, woohooo!

As if severing my lifeline above wasn't enough, last night my beloved "I'm a carpenter but think I'm a comp tech" hubby lost two of my cats. In our kitchen, we have a patio door which my husband has an aversion to locking after he comes in from BBQing. All three of our cats are housecats, but our middle one hubby would bring outdoors with him so she has now gotten the "outdoor itch" and over the past two months has gotten out a few times, only shortly, when he forgets to lock the door. Well last night, it's about 9:50, I'm watching some TV, he is on the phone with our internet provider, and I get up to go to the kitchen, and lo and behold, screen door is open about 5inches. Even though I would be nervous about leaving the middle one out, she has never ventured far on her Houdini escapes so I wasn't overly worried HOWEVER also in on the escape is our antisocial youngest cat who there is NO DAMN WAY IS GONNA LET US TOUCH HER TO CATCH HER cause she doesn't let us touch her now LMAO. She's the one I am most worried about, cause I consider her my baby (shhhhh, don't tell my other cats). She's the cat version of me, an anti-social bitch, 'cept I don't have multiple personality disorder, which I am pretty sure she does. On the rare occasion she lets you pet her, she will purr, then growl at you, then purr. I'm telling ya, this cat is Sybil! Oh what the neighbors must have thought seeing me and my two kids out at ten o'clock at night with flashlights, which REALLY is pointless since both cats ARE BLACK! Catching a cat when they don't wanna be caught isn't easy at the best of times, but catching a cat that is completely black in the dead of night......well, you'd probably have a better chance at findihg a needle in a haystack. We found the cat from hell but she gave me the slip when she ran back around the house where I lost sight of her. Thankfully she was so traumatized by the "OMG HUMANS ARE TRYING TO TOUCH ME experience, that when she ran out back past the opened patio door, she bolted back in the house. Our middle one, my daughter's cat, came back sometime after 11 either when she heard my kid calling her or when she (the cat!!!) was done whoring around. Needless to say, after the fixing of the computer and thr return of the felines, my husband felt MUCH more comfortable (and safer) closing his eyes last night when he crawled into bed beside me!

My cats aren't the only thing that was found yesterday either! I found out I do indeed have muscles in my legs too!! Yesterday we took a drive back up to the Fundy Trail to see how much further they have gotten with. After stopping along the side of the road so "The Boy" could puke (damn kid KNOWS he can not read in a vehicle) we get there, check it out and decide to head back to Fuller Falls. Now, I'm a big girl, and I KNEW better then to try and make it down those damn ladder stairs cause I know the workout it was on me when I was actually small and in shape, but not one to deny my kids something (well, except a bite of my cheesecake) I went down with them. All things considered, I think I did pretty damn good getting down for a girl my size, and the getting up wouldn't have been THAT big of a deal if my husband hadn't have been behind me making jokes which made me laugh. Skinny people, let me tell ya something, having a fatchick climb up a rickety damn stair-ladder up a hill that is likely a twenty or thrity foot drop, makes them winded enough. We do NOT need you behind us doing crap that is gonna make us lose the already short amount of breath we got! But I MADE IT!! Of course now, the day after, when I have discovered muscles in my legs I forgot I had, I am kinda wishing I hadda died!

Things that make you go hmmm

So it's that time of year again!

The dreaded "Vehicle Inspection"!!

That time of year where you start getting antsy, worrying about what might possibly be wrong with your vehicle that could potentially cause you to have to list a kidney on ebay before you get it inspected and legally drive it.

Since our regular mechanic closed up his shop last fall, it has been a pain in the ass when we needed stuff done. He was good!! If something still had some life left in it, he told you. He didn't replace it for the sake of upping his cash intake (and lowering ours). He was just an all around good guy! Since he closed, hubby has been doing the stuff he can do on his own cause he hadn't been able to find one he felt he could rely on the same way he felt he could with Danny. Unfortunately, the police would probably frown on him doing his own motor vehicle inspection and sticking a pretty glittered "The car passes" sticker on our window, so it was time to bite the bullet and take it in somewhere.

Our neighbor told us about how well he felt treated at Wonder after taking his girlfriend's car in, so that's where we decided to take my van. Couple weeks ago we took the old girl in, let it for the day, and hubby picked it up on his way home from work. The verdict: needed some body work, shocks, brakes. Since they don't do body work, hubby knew it would have to be done elsewhere, the guy at the shop though was trying to get hubby let him do it "on the side but just don't tell my boss". Shocks and brakes though, now that is something hubby can do on his own, and given that they quoted him almost $690.00 for the repair of just those TWO things, it was something he was GONNA do on his own. (NOW, it should be noted, that before hubby took it down to the garage, he checked the brakes himself and thought, even though he is not a mechanic, that there will still fine.) What it was, I don't know, but hubby said he didn't get a good feeling from one of the guys, and was STILL convinced the van did not need new brakes, but went and picked the parts up himself. Cost: Just over a hundred bucks for two new shocks and front brakes. He changed the shocks (which took him maybe twenty minutes per side? and when he went to replace the brakes, there was no difference between the ones he was about to take off and the new ones in the box. Extremely unhappy at this point at what he was told at the garage, I convinced him to take the van into a DIFFERENT place. If the brakes were crap, and it failed, big deal. We already had the new brakes still boxed at home and you don't pay for an MVI if it fails so it wasn't like we were gonna be out any extra cash for having it checked over twice. So yesterday we take it into a different garage, Lansdowne, and hubby brought it home last night with a "Yeah your van is great" sticker on the windshield!

Makes you wonder...........

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm

As most cat owners know, there are many joys to owning a furry friend. The occassional dead mouse/bird left as a gift on your doorstep, hairball in your shoe, turd on your rug, but none can compare to the sharing of kitty critters. I'm talking about fleas!! Hubby has been whining about him being their dinner buffet so he stopped the other day at the Vet's and got a package of Advantage on his way home from work. Fifty-three dollars and a damn kidney later he comes home with this stuff DETERMINED to eradicate what he calls an infestation! (Since he is the only one that ever sees them and gets biten, I hardly call it an infestation, but sometimes I'll humor him and say "Okay Honey").

So he opens up the package to get ready to apply it to our three cats. I happen to grab the instructions to check em out. NOW, I notice it says:

USE GLOVES WHILE APPLYING

DO NOT GET ON SKIN

But in order to put it on the cats, you have to sepeate their fur at the base of the neck/ between the shoulder blades till you see the skin, apply the open tube DIRECTLY to the skin/area and squeeze contents directly onto skin.

Does anyone else see something wrong here????

It ain't just Sex and Drugs

As you hold your beautiful newborn child in your arms I think all parents dread that day in the future when you know you are going to have to sit them down and talk to them about sex andor drugs. The thing I think alot of us forgot about is that we also should take the time to talk to them about teen suicide.

This past weekend a friend of our neighbor's daughter killed himself. He was just 13.

As a mother, I can not even begin to imagine the anguish this mother and father must be going through. In their shoes, I can not even begin to comprehend the feelings of guilt that go along with this, wondering what you may have missed, what you didn't see, what could you have done differently, even if there were no signs. These are all feelings I had after my mom died, so I would imagine they are even worse for a parent who now has to bury their beloved child.

Did you know that suicide is the second leading cause of death for teens in Canada and the third in the United States?

Did you know that teen/youth suicide rates have TRIPLED since 1970?

Did you know that for every completed suicide there are an estimated THIRTY -FIFTY attempts? And don't forget, due to the stigma attached to suicide available statistics may well underestimate this!

Please take a moment to read these statistics taken from http://www.thekeltyfoundation.org/depression-facts.htm

It might not be the most cheerful topic of discussion you have to have with your child, but it is one that could save their life.

Keep the Change, Please

So this past weekend hubby, "The Boy" and I all loaded into my van and headed up to the Peninsula to drop some stuff off for his boss at the store. We decided to stop at Rotten Ron's for breakfast on the way (mmmmm sausage mcmuffins). Pull in, place our order and get to the pay/pickup window. Our order came to something like $13.31 so I pulled a twenty outta my wallet and dug out the 31 cents, handed them to hubby and we waited to pay. Hubby passes her the money, she rings it in and says your change is $7.00, as she passes my husband TWO five dollars bills and a toonie (for all you Americans, a toonie is our two dollar coin). People, let this be a lesson to you, please don't confuse the people at McDonald's by giving them coins AS WELL AS bills!