I laugh...I smile....I take drugs...

Believe me when I say the drugs make me able to laugh and smile. Or you could believe grumpy when he says I never laugh and smile. He's wrong though. I do. Just not at his lame jokes.

It's been a long week. Work has kept me busy. Life has kept me busier. Trying to determine how to juggle a full time job and homeschool is proving to be a cause for the necessity of stronger drugs. Preferably ones that add about 8 hours into my day.

Since this blog was created to outline the journey of becoming a person among the life of being a mom, I should add I've rediscovered something. I was fortunate last year when I stumbled upon the ability to become a freelance writer for an actual income. No more telling teenagers that sex causes babies for two cents a pop.

However, I had still yet to recall how much I truly love fiction writing and article writing for me. I'm exploring that now. So now I work all day and then in my free time I'm working on writing stuff for me. So in essence, I'm always working.

When my first bestselling novel hits the shelves it will all be worth it. Ha Ha.

In the meantime I'm working on a short story for a contest. If I win it will be published in a well known magazine. That would rock my socks.

Now if I can just get the doctor to prescribe more hours in the day.

I'm naked....and everyone can see it

If you still read this blog after my long hiatus, bless you, and you may have noticed that it's looking a little funny. My background has disappeared along with all my little buttons.

See I host my images on a personal webspace I've had for years. I use it simply for hosting my images and holding onto things I didn't want to lose track of....such as poetry I had written and didn't want to lose if my computer crashed.

This isn't just free space. I PAY for this space. Needless to say I don't check it regularly. And since I've been away from the blogosphere for a bit, I didn't realize my attire was gone and I was showing the world my pure naked glory.

So I thought maybe I was due for a payment. It happens. I tend to never realize payments are due until after the fact. So I went to the website to check.

It's nowhere to be found.

I thought maybe it was just an outage. They have them often, but its cheap hosting and I don't have to have a domain name, so I put up with it. So I did a little investigation.

Turns out they've been MIA for several weeks. The company and owner isn't returning emails, phone calls or any other communication. Some people have 10,000 page websites on the server. I merely had a lot of images, some irreplaceable photos and a few poems I had written and do not have anywhere else.

It appears I've lost it all.

It was not a good start to my day. I know it seems small, but I don't handle losing things well. This is why I placed those things on this service I paid for. So I wouldn't lose them.

Good news is I have backups of all my blog images. Better news is I am working on developing a website which will give me hosting for my images.

Bad news is, until its all set up I will continue to be naked. And it won't replace those items I lost.

2011.....not going well so far

The longest New Year's Resolution in history....

So I decided to keep my New Year's resolution simple. I didn't want some long drawn out list. So I shortened it to one word.

Consistency.

Yes you read that right. Consistency. I decided that for 2011, I was going to be consistent in more than just bitching about what isn't done correctly and playing Super Mario Bros on the Wii.

Everything I needed to do in my life-- increase my earnings, become financially stable, lose weight, eat healthier, be a better teacher....all of it boils down to being more consistent in the things I begin and attempt. If I put half the effort into what I try that I put into capturing that damned Princess I would get somewhere.

So I kept it simple. 2011 would be the year of consistency.

So we are sitting outside on New Year's Eve because it was unseasonably warm here in the Frozen Tundra. And Brat begins to tell her resolutions. And Grumpy looks at me.

So I say consistency. Then I start explaining how I can be a better teacher by being more consistent in getting prepared to teach and how I can lose weight by becoming more consistent in how I exercise and eat right. And then I went into a long explanation of how if I get my website set up and start attracting clients I can improve my writing and my income which would also lead to financial stability. And how I can blog more often and try to have more time for myself.

So I went on for a few minutes.

Grumpy looked at me and said "You said a simple word and I thought you had a simple resolution. You then turned it into the most confusing and complicated resolution I have ever heard anyone give"

So see, I've already started. Rambling. It's consistent.

Where's Waldo....

Sometimes my life feels like those crazy Where's Waldo pictures. It's all chaos and I am looking for this one particular thing amid a frenzy of activity.

No I didn't die. No I didn't give up on my blog, although it may seem that way. No I didn't forget how to log in and post.

What I did do was follow a goal of mine forever. I took my love of writing and turned it into a job as a freelance writer. The good news is that I am doing something everyday that I am really good at and I make a bit more money than I made before doing something I was only semi good at. The good news is that I can officially say I am a writer.

The bad news is that I am nowhere near writing what I want to write. I write content for web pages, articles about products, articles for online publications, and who knows what else its for. I just write it, I don't ask questions. Often I'm given a set of words and told how long it needs to be and viola I come up with an entire page of information.

It isn't glamorous or exciting, but it is a step in the right direction. However it leaves me wiped out. So I've neglected anything considered fun. Well that's about to change. I've decided to incorporate real life into my life as well.

So watch out world, the Queen is back. And I will be as sarcastic and crazy as ever.

Because I want to guarantee my daughter a life of therapy...

Grumpy is convinced he's on candid camera. Or some secret show where people watch him all day and laugh. Kind of like the cruel and mean version of The Truman Show. He's pretty sure that I ask him to do things just so this fictitious audience can have their laughs for the day. Really it's not a bad idea. Aside from watching hours of him flying pretend planes complete with sound effects, an audience would quite enjoy a day in the life of Grumpy.

But I can't put him on camera. I am pretty sure that if our daily lives were recorded we'd be charged with "causing the insanity of a minor" or something like that. Someone would come to our house. They would see that we really do sort of torture our child in that "We are your parents and we don't care how awful we are" kind of way. She is bound to need years of therapy just to get past her pubescent years.

I was joking the other day about what I would say if I made a list of common phrases heard in our house. It made me realize that maybe we aren't normal. Not that being normal is all its cracked up to be. But still...maybe we could be a little less ...crazy?

Poor Brat. She has to spend at least a small portion of her day trying to convince her dad that she is not a lesbian. It never seems to work for her. In reality it's just funny to see her repeat it over and over. Don't look at me like that. What good are the preteen and teen years if we can't have a little fun.

But it did dawn on me that there are a lot of people in my life I might not want to show up at the house unexpectedly. They might not quite understand our humor. Some may think we were horrible for joking about homosexuality with our 11 year old daughter. To them I would have to say...suck it. Even she giggles about it.

Don't think it's one sided. Brat calls Grumpy a girl all the time. It's just not as funny because he doesn't defend himself. Besides we all know he's a bit feminine.

To DO: Quit making so many lists

I am addicted to lists. Everything I do/plan has to be written out in list form. And I never run out of lists. I'm amazed that I don't organize my sex life into a to do list. It is just a small part of what makes me anal. When we were spring cleaning I had a very detailed list. Each night I'd cross off what we completed and completely rewrite the list for the next day.

It drives grumpy insane.

With homeschooling I've found it comes in handy to be a little obsessive compulsive. It makes my days go smoother when I have a list of assignments for the week already written.

I even make lists when I send Grumpy to the store. Which is like...all the time. That way he can't say he didn't remember something. Although he still does. But now I can come back with "BUt I made a list"

But how do you know when your list making is crossing a line? When it's mother's day and you set your daughter free in the dollar store with cash. And you open your gift and find 2 notepads, 4 pens and a preprinted to-do list.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my gift. Grumpy does not. He sees it as more torture as I plan the daily events of our life.

Poor Grumpy. Brat has started it as well. She's planning a sleepover. She has a notebook with guest list, food lists, game lists, movie lists, lists of what songs to play and on and on. She tells us daily how she's too busy for something because she only has 2 weeks to plan her party.

Grumpy is set for a life of misery. Pretty soon he will have a bathroom schedule.

God eats mac and cheese

It's been a long day. Tomorrow is the girl scout Father Daughter dance. It's a yearly event that Brat and Grumpy go to. They walk in, sign in, have their picture taken and Brat runs off with her friends and Grumpy sits at the tables with the other dads. Such fun. Definitely worth the $15 I work hard to earn!

Every year we scour the thrift stores for the perfect dress. No I'm not paying full price for a dress she wears once until its prom. And we will see then! Today wasn't so bad. We found it at stop #2.

But oh how she wanted the straight, tight black dress with spaghetti straps. Oh how bad it fit. We went with another choice but she sure wasn't happy about it.

Then grumpy brings me ties to choose from. I look and they are red, brown, burgundy, blue....plaid, stripe, paisley....

Did I mention that his shirt is white with blue stripes and his pants are khaki? Really? Do you think those ties match? I believe God invented women so that men matched. I mean seriously. He would have worn one of those if it weren't for the fact I refused to purchase them kindly reminded him that he's not going to look like a fool representing me escorting Brat.

Speaking of God. I was in the kitchen and Brat was heating up some mac and cheese. She leaves for a minute and comes back and says how long has it been done?? I said I didn't know I wasn't paying attention.

"You were ignoring God's food? That's just wrong"

So apparently God is a fan of the Save-A-Lot brand of mac and cheese. Awesome.

This is an emergency...please exit to the left in an orderly fashion...

Have you ever had a moment where your life flashed before your eyes? If not, have you ever wondered what would go through your mind?

Well today we are sitting here doing our normal daily stuff. By that I mean goofing off on the computers working and stuff. It's getting close to time to pick Brat up. And I had sold something on Craigslist that I had to drop off so I had to go with Grumpy to get her. Ironically my blood sugar picked this very moment to plummet to very low levels. So I am having a Mountain Dew throwback (Which are awesome by the way) and trying to get my sugar back up. Suddenly we smell something. It's a something burning kind of smell. Like if you leave an iron on and it starts burning the ironing board. At least that's what I think I remember an iron smelling like since I'm not even sure I own one.

Back to the story. We smell this smell and well we had nothing that should have smelled that way. So we panic. Grumpy points out that he needs help to locate what is burning. So he starts down the hallway. I head to the bathroom and can't find anything. I then get into the hallway and the room starts spinning. Remember my blood sugar was low. So I fell. Grumpy continued to hunt. Not realizing I had fallen, he gives me the evil eye when he comes back and sees me sprawled in the floor. Yes dumbass I normally decide to plop my butt in the middle of the hallway and especially while I think something might be on fire in my house. Can I roll my eyes here??

So we narrowed it down to either the furnace or the electrical problems we are having. Just lovely. The smell went away right as the heater turned off so I'm leaning towards the furnace. But we had to leave. I informed Nana what was going on and handed her a fire extinguisher just in case.

Me?

Paranoid??

But as I sat there getting ready to go I looked longingly at my desk. What should I do? I mean what if something caught fire while I was gone? I'd lose everything. Maybe I should put the computer in the car? Oh and my camera? I mean what would I lose if those were gone?? I surely can't replace them. I'm too broke. And all my photos for years are on the computer.

But it would be silly to unhook it all and stick it in the car right?? Plus then I'd have to take Brat's and put hers in the car. Then Grumpy would want his. Yes folks we have multiple computers. And seriously wouldn't it look bad if we loaded up computers and cameras and left my mom here???

So I settled. I handed Grumpy Brat's phone. I mean yes I got them (blackberry) on a buy one get one deal. The drawback to that is I got no warranty. If its gone, I pay the $500+ to replace it. So I said "here take this and I'll take mine, we can't replace those." And we left.

On the way to the school I realized I never even thought of the dog.