The windows are still open to cool, comfortable air, but this morning there's the sound of rain humming softly through the house. More than a sprinkle, but not a downpour, just a steady, rhythmic spattering of sound. I enjoy rain.

Emily leaves for a field trip to the state capital and the zoo today. I guess I went to bed worried about being late for her to catch the charter bus that would leave by 7:00 to take them. Several times through the night I sat straight up, rubbing my eyes and searching out the glowing clock face to see how late I had overslept. Shortly before 4:00 I woke in a panic to the sound of chirping outside my window. I didn't know birds were awake at that time of day and I was sure I had done the unforgivable and made Emily miss the bus. What a relief to see that I had two more hours to sleep. Must have just been the early birds. You really do have to be on the ball to beat them, I guess. There were a few more jolts awake before 6:00, but I managed to sleep soundly between them to the lullaby of rain outside.

In the end, I did not oversleep and Emily arrived at school with time to spare before the charter buses left.

She is so excited. It's her first big field trip. They are traveling three hours away from home on a bus that has televisions and a bathroom, she'd heard. Even the rain didn't dampen her spirits as she rolled out of bed this morning. She walked around the house with her jacket on and her lunch bag clutched in her hand, the camera tucked safely away in the tote that held things to entertain herself with on the bus, oblivious to the fact that her peanut butter and jelly sandwich was getting smooshed between the plastic juice bottle and banana.

"It'll be ok," she said gleefully when I tried to rearrange things inside the paper bag to protect the sandwich, "I'm going to chew it up anyway."

Kid logic.

It's 7:32 now according to the clock on my computer. I guess those big buses have loaded up and are on the highway at this point. I'm sure the kids are chattering excitedly about the day they are about to experience. For most of them it is the first major outing without their parents (the teachers don't count, I hear). It tastes like freedom. And it's sweet.

I am excited for her, really. The pure joy in her eyes this morning, the smile she couldn't stop smiling, the happy giggles...I know what it is to her. I remember my first field trip too. But I worry that I couldn't convince her to choose an actual rain coat instead of the hooded jacket that is sure to be soaked through within minutes if the rain doesn't stop. It's going to be cold if she gets soaked. I wonder if that sandwich will be edible by the time they sit for lunch and just what back up plans they had for their picnic in the case of rain. Will there be a shelter or will kids be huddled together under the branches of trees trying to keep their chips from getting rain soaked. Will Em be able to rein her excitement enough to notice when her group turns to leave one gloriously cool place and move on to another? That's mom logic, I guess. Unreasonable, maybe, but completely unavoidable for me.

It's probably not the field trip at all. I am confident in her teacher and the woman whose group Em is assigned to. This trip to the capital has been standard for kids since I was in elementary school. It's practically a right of passage. And therein lies my problem, I think. It's that passage - that moving on to the age where you're now reasonable enough that a group of adults can handle a group of kids that outnumber them at least 5 to 1.
It's the growing up.
It's the letting go.

This morning the windows are open. Cool, comfortable air drifts through them, bringing with it the smell of fresh cut grass (ours) and a hint of rain to come. I love this time of year, these few days when it's perfection 24 hours a day. Yesterday we woke to comfortable temperatures but before noon it was sticky hot and it got a lot hotter. Today it is supposed to stay pretty cool throughout the day and rain should move in this evening. Outside the Bradford Pear tree is raining its tiny white blossoms all over the back yard. Spring's snow. It's lovely.

Em is on her way back to school this morning. She's doing much better and I hope Jake and I will be able to get back on track with our own schooling this week. It is so hard to keep things going normally when someone else is home. It just throws everything off track and makes it hard to keep up. He still gets his work done, but he has to do workbook pages alone. It doesn't feel like we get to do a lot when school has to be done that way. We much prefer sitting down together and going through things that have nothing to do with workbook pages. Jake is a do-er. He likes giving high-fives as he does things and the occasional dance when he grasps a concept. That don't happen much when he's working alone and we both miss it. School is so much fun for us. When someone is home sick though, they require my attention while Jake still needs my help and I get pulled in a lot of different directions and we both lose something out of the day. It makes it interesting trying to keep up and boring because we miss our normal routine all at the same time.

Speaking of routine, it's time to get started on it. The day is already flying right on by.

I took Em back to the doctor this morning and I talked to him about the adenoid thing and got the referral to an ENT. Same one that did Leirin’s surgery so I know him, know he’s good, and I feel good about that. Em will stay out of school again tomorrow and because she will have missed 5 days in a row, she will qualify for homebound instruction which means she gets 5 hours of tutoring and she will be counted as being at school for these 5 days. Cool beans. Thumbs up to Miss Cathy in the office for mentioning it to me. It will come in handy for the days she will miss on visits to the ENT in April. And on the bright side, with all these visits we’ll have our deductible met in no time.

Silver lining and all that.

We had a very long wait at the doctor’s office this morning. There was a sweet little old man sitting on the other side of the room and to our left. Apparently he was very worried about the person he was there with because the nurse kept coming out to give him updates on his friend. It wasn’t very long before another woman came out to talk to the man that was waiting in the room with us. “It was my carelessness that allowed it to happen,” he said to the lady.
All day long I’ve remembered that sweet man and how he cried when he told her how it happened that her father fell while he was walking him to the car.

He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. A real hanky, neatly folded into a square that he had pulled from his pants pocket.

“Now you just stop that right now,” the daughter said, “You didn’t do a thing to cause it, you just couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“But if anything happens to him…” the sweet old man said. And he cried a bit more.

He was that man’s friend. A REAL kind of friend, taking his almost a century old friend out to coffee, and I sat there and watched him torment himself over something he had no control over and I wished I had a friend like that. He made my heart ache. He made me hope that I would have a real life friend like that again sometime.

The sweet old man’s voice cracked and his lips shook as he spoke. “His glasses,” he said, “I have to go find his glasses.” (they flew off somewhere when the man fell and he didn’t take the time to look for them, just drove his friend straight to urgent care because it was faster than waiting for an ambulance). And at one point, the daughter reached over and took his hand and said, “You’re a good friend. You mean everything to him. It is not your fault.” She shook his hand in a fake kind of roughness. The sweet old man broke down, “He means everything to me.”

Broke my heart in pieces.

I figure the lady had to be 70 if she was a day. Her father, whom they rolled by in the wheelchair on his way to x-ray a few minutes later, was 98. Spunky old fart he was too. Talking about how he was on his way to have his coffee when he fell and it was after 11:00 now and he still hadn’t had any coffee. He was awesome.

Once the x-ray was done and the sweet old man felt better because he saw his friend looking for all the world to be in good spirits, he left to find the missing glasses. The daughter’s husband ran out for the spunky old fart’s coffee because he was still complaining about not having any. He had just returned from the coffee run and was walking toward his seat when the daughter opened the door and said, “We’re going to the hospital...he has a collapsed lung.”

And my heart broke again.

All day long I’ve wondered about that 98 year-old man and how he is. Mostly though, I’ve wondered about his friend, the gentleman with the real hankie and the load of blame that wasn’t his to carry, and I wonder how both are doing tonight.

Coffee is good. I wonder sometimes how I ever got moving every day before I started drinking coffee. I have trouble remembering when, exactly, I did start to drink it. My memory fails me.

A lot has been happening here at casa de sickos this week. Em, Jake and I are going rounds with allergies complicated by our ridiculously overactive sinuses. Emily has by far been the worst of the three of us. Monday she had to go to the doctor, URI and the beginnings of a sinus infection...sounds familiar...it's just about the only thing that ever takes us to the doctor. With our sinuses (inherited from my dad's side of the family. Yep, I blame my dad) every little thing turns into a major event. Our sinuses work overtime, producing...you know, and filling our heads with the ick. The worst part is how bad it gets once it starts getting better. Em got medicine on Monday - an antibiotic and decongestant, expectorant. Once it starts working it gets rough. The congestion breaks up and starts to clear out, which is a good thing, but the drainage makes Emily violently ill. It's a trade off. Getting better makes her a lot sicker. It's no fun. The same thing happens with each of us, but so far, Jake and I have managed to hold out without getting that bad this go-round.

When Leirin was 2 years old, she had the same problem. After nearly a year of being on antibiotics for chronic sinus infections every 14 days, she had her huge adenoids removed. She has been sick maybe 3 times since. So today I am hauling Emily back into the doctor's office and asking them to get pictures of her sinuses to see if her adenoids are the same. She has missed 4 days of school and though overall she feels better than she had been, she hasn't stopped throwing up. Which means she doesn't eat, or doesn't keep anything she eats, and after 4 days of this I worry about the problems that are eminent if this continues. Hopefully, today we will be on our way to doing something about it. I hate to think that I'm about to go and lobby for surgery for one of my babies, but hey, nothing else is having any real success. We've tried the allergy meds and honestly, they suck. I just can not pay more than a dollar a day (for 3 people) for something that does not work. We've all done it. It's useless. So yeah, at this point I am ready to line up with my kids in the "please cut this out of me" line. Freaky but probably the smartest thing I could do at this point.

House stuff still has me stressing. I think what gets me is the waiting on everybody else part. God, I hate waiting on everybody else. I'm a just do it myself kind of gal. I hate waiting on people. Especially when said people don't do things when I want or need them done. Drives me crazy. We've got the inspection done and that's it so far. I'll say it again. I just can't wait for all of this to be over and done with. I'm ready to move. And to paint. I'm oddly thrilled to find that the inspection revealed that there are two bathrooms that have to be gutted to have the subfloors replaced. Wow. I'm so weird. And I think it must be some kind of karmic payback that even so, the butt ugly pink tile shower will not be coming out. Not a thing wrong with it. What decorating injustice have I perpetrated that makes me deserving of being stuck with a baby pink tile shower? It's a travesty.

I'm a wee bit obsessed by the pink bathroom, I confess. I'm in a pink panic. I have been making plans and I can either just embrace the pink and try a retro look (shoot me now) or I can try to hide it by finding a color that will tone down the pink (not having much luck). In the end I think we're going to go for just suffering through it. We'll add white beadboard to the room for an old country feel, and just coordinate without adding any more pink. Leirin and I have been taking a piece of pink construction paper around and holding it up to every color we can find to see what tones it down. Sadly, the one that seems to do that is a very brown toned RED. I can see it now. Welcome to my valentine potty. Heart shaped toilet anyone? I can see me not, shopping for a red fur toilet tank cover.

I'm so screwed.

Ok so I've been grumpy. We all have. This housebuying thing isn't for the weak that enjoy the stability of life, oh no. It's stressing, maddening even. I'm just so uptight I can hardly stand myself. I hope now that I've recognized it, I can change it. I wonder what will happen to me when I land in a new house with all those rooms to redo. Can't think of that now, I'll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.
Lots of things have been happening here. Cool stuff that I've just been too damn grumpy to appreciate. But I remember them, so I'll write about them now. Sunday morning Jake was still asleep on the couch in our bedroom and Leirin was sitting on our bed talking to me while I fixed my hair. Jake started talking so I was answering him. It took a minute for me to realize what he was saying and what I was saying was in no way related.
"Is he asleep" I asked Leirin
"Well his eyes are open but they're rolled back in his head.
Dreaming. He was having vivid dreams through which he would actually say everything he said in his dream

"ALERT! ALERT! SKITTLES!"
"Run! If they touch us we'll die!"

"Way to go mom! We saved the golden crown."
"Whew! We made it to the museum just in time. Let's go get our reward."
"We won a year's vacation! YIPPEEEE!"

Between each dream he would make this humming sound. The humming was not unlike chanting OHMMMMM. He would get quiet for maybe a full minute and then he'd start chattering away again. One dream was about being on a pirate ship (which is a recurring theme in his dreams), there was the killer skittles, the legend of the golden crown, and about 3 others. One dream had us laughing so hard I thought surely we'd wake him up.
"It's a monster! Ruuuunnnn!"
(under the covers his little feet were just a going, reminded me of a dog chasing rabbits in their sleep)
"She ran into the wall, YAY!"
"Keep running! Here she comes!" (feet again)
I'm not sure how he knew the monster was a girl and he moved on to another dream (about snakes) before we got to hear the end of that one. For nearly 45 minutes he slept and talked. Every detail of every dream that he experienced, so did we. Very entertaining.

It was late Sunday evening when my father-in-law returned from his trip to get his dog. When he came in he started telling about going to see the Russian Circus. It sounds like a very cool show. I'd love to see it. Anyway, he is standing there rubbing his bald head when he says, "I didn't tell you why I went down (to Alabama)." We both shook our heads no and he rubbed his head a little more.
"Well, I asked Libby to marry me."
Us: "Who's Libby?"
We didn't know who Libby was (a childhood friend of his - the daughter of his mother's best friend, that Doug remembers hearing mention of many times, and he's met her a time or two, he thinks) but we're very happy for him. They don't know if they will live here or in Alabama, but it will all work out, I'm sure. Apparently he left without having any of the details planned out. The reason he was so many days late coming home was it took that long to let her think it over. Neither of us were aware that there was anyone he cared about enough to marry, but we are glad there is. It's been a little over seven years since my mother-in-law died and he is lonely. So congratulations for my father-in-law and Libby whoeveryouare.

“I could do your job easy.”

All I had said to bring this about was I get 2-3 hours sleep less a night than he does. It makes it hard on me. And it does. Last night was an oddity because I stayed up late to finish reading a section of a book I’m into right now. I don’t get much time to read, so I called it an early day yesterday and sat down to read. It had got so good, I stayed up long past the time I should have. I was tired, and feeling more than a little guilty because knowing I’m more likely to oversleep would only bring about a bad start to the girls’ day, and I don’t want that to happen. They don’t deserve to be woken by a frantic mom saying, “It’s late, and we have to hurry.”
I was feeling guilty for taking the time to read. I knew by spending that extra hour awake I was pretty much putting the decorative bow on the package of rough day tomorrow.

Somehow, in his mind, that translated to “you have it SO much easier than me”

What?

He starts by telling me he would trade days with me anytime. Even the days when he doesn’t have to cook and just sits upstairs doing paperwork or running errands.

Never did I say he didn’t work hard. I said that doing what I did (reading) makes the next day harder on me. I did not say “You should feel sorry for me you slack ass bum. You couldn’t do what I do in a day if you had 3 helpers.” Nothing like that. But you’d think that’s exactly what I said.

“I could do what you do. I’ve done it before. Done it well.”
Never did I say he couldn’t, but I think if he planned to really do what I do, he might require knowledge he doesn’t possess – like the name and location of the kids doctor, and various other tidbits he’s remained oblivious to. While I’m grateful for him stepping in to take care of things when I had my surgery and he took a week off, at the end of that week I had laundry piled in a basket that needed ironing because it wasn’t folded right away, not to mention the mountain of it still waiting to be done (or the fact that bathmats and towels had been washed with clean clothes). But I hadn’t asked him to do what I do. I wasn’t asking him for anything actually, simply stating that I shouldn’t have stayed up so late because it’s hard the next day.


It’s not the first time he’s said those exact same words. In fact, it’s been said often enough over the years (me tired simply must equal he’s more tired, me sick – he’s more sick) that I’m beginning to realize he really thinks that. And it’s not that I want him to think, or even that I believe myself, that I work harder than he does. It doesn’t mean I don’t work hard though. It doesn’t mean that what I do is meaningless. It doesn’t mean that I’m less valuable.

But for some reason he seems to think so.

When I told him to go away, he laughed at me and said, “What do you mean, “go away”. Just what I said, I’m not talking about it anymore.

It hurts me. Makes me feel invisible to him.

Every day I do my very best to keep up. I make the beds, keep the bathroom clean, do my best to keep up with laundry so that we have clean clothes. Every time I do laundry, I refold every single shirt on his shelf because he takes a shirt (every blessed one is the same, only the color varies) from the bottom of the pile and just flips the others over. I dig his socks and pants from underneath the bed, empty his pockets, save his scribbled notes that are important because he’s never going to remember where he put them. I take care of 6 dogs, scoop litter boxes for 7 cats, homeschool Jacob, do all payroll and tax reports, state forms, and employee records, I make a trip through the house with a garbage can to pick up trash that gets left sitting wherever because nobody knows where the trash can is, I gather their dishes and take them to the sink to be washed because if I didn’t we wouldn’t have a clean glass in the house and there’d be no room left on bedside tables. I clean, scrub and disinfect because it means a lot to me to make a good home for our family and I want to be helpful in business stuff because already he spends very little time at home. I spend an hour and a half each morning trying to wake up the now 7 year old little boy that I’m responsible for his education because he didn’t go to bed until after midnight because on his way to bed he stopped to play balloon volleyball (or watch tv or something) with his dad – jumping and laughing hard and loud enough to wake one of the girls and then breaking a glass in the living room.

I do my best. I do a lot. Apparently that isn’t enough. And somebody else should be doing it because even a monkey could do it better.
Besides, I never said I do more. I should know better than to stay up and make time to read a book I am enjoying.

The clock just chimed 6, it's nowhere near daybreak outside and here I sit with freshly brewed coffee in hand, yawning like I haven't slept in days. I've been up for nearly an hour already and I just can't figure what's wrong with me. On any given weekday I can pull the covers over my head and sleep like a rock - or like somebody hit me over the head with a rock - until long past time when the girls should have been awakened to get ready for school. On the weekends though, you can bet your booty I'll be up long before the sun. Silly me. It is very quiet in the house with the exception of my father-in-law's fat basset and his moaning. Woo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo every second of the day. That's the noisiest dog I've ever seen in my life. If he ever gets quiet, you can be sure he's asleep or dead. He's not unhappy, he's just a big talker, and he's a sweet sweet dog, really he is, but he stops being quite so cute on the 3rd day after my FIL was SUPPOSED to pick him up.

Tomorrow is Jacob's 7th birthday. Happy birthday my man Jake! Today our family will be coming over to visit for a while and his big sleepover birthday party will be next Friday night. He had a very hard time understanding the waiting for 4 days before having the big sleepover night. I remember weekday birthdays weren't the greatest thing when I was a kid either. Yesterday we went to walmart and he chose the pokemon sapphire gameboy game that he doesn't have yet. While we were there, he and Leirin picked out chairs for their new bedrooms and I chose the television and entertainment center for the kids livingroom. For the holidays this year we are pretty sure each of the kids will get a bicycle since our new house will have a place to ride. There is also the basketball goal they want since the drive is paved. Looks like their list of wants for the new house is going to end up pretty near as long as mine is.

Through the skylight in my office I can see the outline of the bare limbs of the big oak tree out back. The sky is now a definite dark shade of blue instead of black. I guess the sun will be up well before 7. I love the break of day when it's dark, but not dark exactly and it feels like you're in between times. When I was little, dusk was my favorite time of day. The glowing light of firefly tails sparkled around the yard, in the grass at the edge of the porch we could hear the little frogs and crickets rustle the fine blades as they moved along to whatever place they were going to spend the night. The buttercups, in the shadows, looked like little flower people standing at the edge of the shadows, supervising the change from day to night. Sometimes, we would see bats fly across the yard as they went off looking for their nightly meal. Daybreak has that same kind of peaceful feeling, only more of it. In the dark of the morning, roles are reversed. A few of us are awake to watch as the night world heads home to settle in for rest, while we gear up for the business of day. It is those in between times that I like the very most. It's 20 minutes till 7 now and the sky has lightened to a dull gray showing true that the weatherman was right about the clouds. Looks like we'll have plenty of them unless they break later on. In the big oak outside the skylight, I can see birds now standing on the empty branches looking around quickly before deciding which way to fly. Breakfast rush hour in the land of the birds. I'm sure the squirrels are out en force also but they don't come to our yard for breakfast. We have lots of cats so the squirrels tend to avoid even walking the power lines that stretch across the front of our yard. They take the long way around.

6:45 now and I'm on my second cup of coffee. This one will go much faster than the first. There is much to do today before the family arrives. After the party, the man from the bank will be here with papers for us to sign. Very nice man at the bank is coming here since Doug has had absolutely no down time at work. I hope the timing works out like we have it planned. Even the Sunday off is packed full of things to do here lately.

WITNESS

This morning I was at the school with Jacob. He had speech and I had a meeting with Emily’s teacher. I noticed a commotion as we were walking in the door of the office. I saw the vice principal lead a little girl into the office and say “I rest my case.” I had no idea what was going on initially, and never got more than just a clue as to what was going on, but it has stayed with me all day.
Jake and I were a good bit early for his speech class because I was also scheduled to meet with Emily’s teacher. His break time happens to coincide with Jake’s speech class and it works out perfect for conferences and a chance to make sure things are going well with her in class. The office work hummed along with barely more than a whisper from any of the half dozen ladies working behind the desk but the tension was palpable. I had no idea what was going on.
Anyway, the little girl asked to use the phone to call her mother and the lady behind the desk (one of them) told her no. The little girl said, “Well if you’re not going to let me call my mama can I go back to class?” Again, the lady behind the desk said no.
So the little girl tried again and before she even spoke enough of the first word for me to understand what it was, the lady behind the desk raised her hand and said “Osha (that’s how it was pronounced at least, I’m sure I’m butchering the spelling), don’t make it any worse.”
By this time I’m confused and very interested in why the little girl was left in the office and not allowed to call home or go back to class. Nobody in the office seemed to want her to speak at all, in fact. Nobody in the office seemed to want to talk at all still. I guess the little girl must have figured that out too because she started crying. She pulled her shirt up over her face to allow herself a little privacy. After a few more minutes she asked once again to call her mom. And again the answer was no. Now the little girl was getting frustrated and she said “I just want to call my mama and tell her what happened. Mrs. Carraway was choking ME, I didn’t do anything and if you’re not going to let me use the phone, I want to go back to class.”
Now I don’t even pretend to know what transpired in that classroom. I can tell you though, that during the 25 minutes that I was there before meeting with Emily’s teacher initially, that little girl asked to use the phone probably 50 times if she asked once. She said repeatedly that the teacher had been choking her. I watched one girl (a trainee, probably a college student) actually laugh at her as the little girl begged to call her mom to tell her what had happened.
By the time I left the school after my meeting and Jacob’s class, that little girl was still sitting in the office asking to use the phone.
I’m sitting here now so disappointed in myself for not speaking up and insisting that the little girl be allowed to call home. According to the school directory we have, the little girl is in the 4th grade. Now I’m sitting here wondering seriously if I should call her mother. I’m not sure what I’d say, but she was treated so unfairly…and I saw it.
I can’t say this little girl did not do something to cause an altercation with the teacher, but the fact remains that she is what, about ten years old? She is a CHILD. She was obviously scared and I don’t think the school had any right to refuse to allow her to contact her mother. If what she said was true then…I don’t even know what to think about then. The way I see it that child had every right to call home. Whether she was or was not at fault, in trouble or whatever. She should have been allowed to contact her mother. The school should have been interested in contacting her mother. But they weren’t. They didn’t even want to talk above a whisper and that makes me think they were more interested in covering tracks. Lessening liability. Protecting someone.
And I sat and watched it all without saying a word. What a wuss.

My kids are sure that there is no wrong that can happen to them at school that I won’t be ready to suit up for battle over. They’re right. But I did nothing today while this little girl was refused a phone call, something even people who have been placed under arrest are allowed to have. I am this little girls witness. And I did nothing. And I feel like I did the little girl wrong.
The definition of the word must be - Witness: a person who sees something happen and does absolutely nothing to stop it.

Martha Stewart was not charged with insider trading.
She was charged with and found guilty for:

· False Statements: Stewart convicted of lying when she told the Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI and federal prosecutors she had prearranged with Bacanovic to sell ImClone when it fell below $60 per share.
· False Statements: Stewart convicted of lying when she told the SEC, FBI and prosecutors that she did not recall being told on Dec. 27, 2001, that the family of ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal was selling stock.
· Conspiracy: Stewart and Bacanovic convicted of "willfully and knowingly" working together to obstruct justice and make false statements in the stock-trading scandal.
· Obstruction Of Justice: Stewart convicted of "willfully and knowingly" trying to hamper the SEC investigation of her stock sale by providing misleading information from January to April 2002.

Most interesting to me is the fact that Peter Bacanovic was acquitted on a charge of altering a worksheet of MS's portfolio to make it look like she had arranged to sell ImClone when it fell below $60 (called a stop-loss order or a limit order). If that information was on file and she did indeed have the stop-loss order in effect, there was no basis for the first of the false statement charges against Stewart.
A broker's job is to offer help and guidance in managing investments. Our investment portfolio is no doubt much smaller than MS's and I have a hard time keeping track of what I talk to our broker about and when. I can imagine it would be doubly so for someone like MS who undoubtedly has a LOT of money invested in the market.
Given the fact that Martha's television show has been dropped by Viacom, the extreme drop in the value of her company, and the effects on her relationship with K-Mart which carried her line of home things, I'd say she's paid a price well beyond the possible penalties that the judge can hand down during sentencing.
Interesting that I don’t even care that much about Martha Stewart. I’m not a fan, but I think what’s happened has been wrong based on what I understand about law and the stock market, and broker/investor relationships. Just plain wrong.

A lot of things have been working my nerves this week. Is probably compounded by the bazillion things I’ve been doing, but is getting on my nerves nonetheless.

First there was the deal at dd’s school with the team meetings. I have yet to receive a response from any of the people at school that I contacted. They complain and complain because they feel parents aren’t involved enough and parent/teacher relations aren’t what they wish they were, but they don’t answer when parents try to communicate. I think they don’t want parental involvement at all. They are looking for parental consent to free reign by the administration. Won’t get that here. My kids are individuals, adults in the making, responsible humans. I expect them to be treated as such. All of the kids deserve to be treated fairly. Like humans. They deserve to be dealt with by people who possess the same quality character traits they say they are trying to instill in our children with character education.

There's more but then I'd be ranting on politics and religion in the same post and both are deadly. I should stop now, I guess.

We spent the morning walking the property we are trying to buy along with the listing agent. Very nice man, he was. Poor thing, his face was already scratched up from briars that hit him when he was walking other property this morning. We were very happy with his suggestions for boundary lines and that the house will sit practically in the middle of the land. It is such a beautiful place. Out behind the house, in the clearing in the circle of trees I love so much, there is a big patch of buttercups blooming. A hundred feet or so behind it there is a large area of hardwoods that is amazing. The branches are high and the ground is flat and covered with fallen leaves. It's so peaceful there. A perfect spot for building a playhouse for the kids. Thankfully, the branches are too high for Jake and Em to climb the trees much. Daredevils, both of them. The barn backs up to the edge of the property line in one spot and the boundary just angles away from it perfectly. It's perfectly positioned to provide a barrier should any of the land behind us be sold and the trees cut down. It is the only spot that we could possibly lose the surrounding trees when other land is sold should the new owners decide to clear cut. It couldn't have worked out any better.
While walking in the woods we found a deer scrape and the racoons still visit the barn regularly because our most recent footprints are almost unidentifiable in the middle of all the coon footprints.

When we had finished our walk around most of the perimeter, Doug and the listing agent walked down to find the markers for the far left side. He pointed out a spring feed that had been buried. A little backhoe work and we will have our own spring-fed pond. Kathy and I (our agent) were standing on the hill when the church bells started ringing. The beautiful sounds of the bells rang softly out. Two entire songs, they played while we stood and listened. So peaceful. I can see myself walking outside at noon to hear that daily. Doug and Mr Powell returned from the spring with Jake jumping happily along behind them. He is like a wild animal set free out there. Mr. Powell mentioned the bells and told us that the sisters who had lived in that house had purchased and donated the bells for 3 churches in the area. Since we first started looking at this house, we've heard lots of stories about the sisters and it endears the place to me more and more with every new bit I learn. The story goes, according to the listing agent who has become very familiar with the family, that when they were ten years old, each of the sisters sat on their daddy's knee and promised never to marry. Of the five sisters, only one of them eventually married. The other four lived out their lives in this house, one apparently died fairly young.

After telling us the story of the church bells, the listing agent said that the family (a niece and nephew) had turned down an offer from a fraternity. They insisted the home go to a family and apparently they were waiting on us to make an offer on the house. We had met them both one Saturday when we went by to look at the roof and get room measurements before deciding to make an offer. Both of them were very nice. They provided me with several stories about growing up in that house and it's history, and about the sisters that spoiled them. Such nice people. I hope they will never regret waiting for us. I have learned so much about the house and the family that lived there - not all there is to know, I'm sure, but enough to give me an emotional attachment for it beyond my own thinking that it's the perfect place for our family. I am SO meant to live in this place. It has everything I ever wanted.

It's been a very exciting day. We are busily gathering the records the bank has requested and the accountant is working overtime doing the same. Once the boundaries are decided on, the final contract can be drawn and we will be very close to the end. And a new beginning for us. With any luck it won't take us long to know for sure if we can get it. Tom Petty was right. The waiting is the hardest part.

It seems we have finally struck a deal on the house and land we wanted. We have an offer accepted on the house and 15 acres, with the option to buy the remaining acreage if the new survey leaves boundaries that we don’t like or want to add to. To say that I’m excited is an understatement. I could hardly sleep last night. My insides flutter with ideas and plans, thoughts of sitting on that little knoll, closing my eyes and feeling the breeze. There is so much I want to do. In the meantime, there is so much I have to do.

I look around the house we live in now – have lived in for ten years and I wonder if I can ever get everything packed up. Every nook and corner is packed with something. I’m hoping that, at the very least, moving will go a long way in helping me to declutter.
Am banking on me being too lazy to move a lot of it to help me clear it out. It’s the best plan I have got.

Picked up Jennifer Weiner’s IN HER SHOES last night because, well, I don’t have enough things to do with my time. Am not sure what motivated me to buy it, other than I’ve been wanting to read it for some time now. Really though, when do I think I’ll get a chance? Oh well, is better to have it and not get to read it than to never have had it at all.

Yesterday I had to write a letter to the school of my oldest daughter. They had these “team meetings” the day before (each grade is divided into two teams). Somehow the ten minute meeting turned into a 50 minute tirade on how pathetic team 2 (my daughter’s) is. It ate away the entire class period that a math test was scheduled for and after the teachers and the principal called the kids names (unmotivated, worst team in the history of the school, degenerates that take no pride in their work, yadda, yadda, yadda…) the principal starts making up new rules that are apparently JUST for team 2 members, like…if you’re late to class again, you get suspended. STUPID MAN. Team 1’s meeting (according to a couple of team 1 members my team 2 daughter spoke to) was a quick ten-minute rundown of how bad team 2 is and you guys are great! Keep up the good work!

The district has such a strict policy that when two little boys wore a coordinating outfit with plain blue t-shirts that happened to match they were disciplined (suspended if I remember right but I can’t be sure) for gang related activities. Yet the school – the freakin principal! – is pitting these two teams against each other like they are at war? You know, some people are just too stupid for their own good or the good of others. Is a true wonder I hold any confidence at all in our (our local) educational system at all. I didn’t hear back from anyone I sent the email to yesterday. They must believe if they ignore me I’ll go away. They don’t know me vewwy well do they? I am sick of my children being treated like empty, ignorant puppets in need of manipulation to ensure they act properly. Am sick of all the children being treated that way, and buying into it to boot. Is a ridiculous philosophy and one I cannot understand how we came to.

Our school system really gets my panties in a wad.

The good news is we are through with this particular district once this year is over – assuming all goes as planned with the house loan etc, etc, etc. I can only hope that the new district we will be living in offers more than ridiculous shows of ignorance. It's a tall order in this area, and yet I remain hopeful. My own contribution to the regular acts of ignorance, I suppose.

My husband takes advantage of me. Last minute in the mornings while he's grabbing his keys on his way out the front door, "Oh, I need that paper cutter."
Me: "Ok, I'll see if I can find it today." (It's packed up in one of the gazillion boxes in the basement. Not an easy task)
Him - irritated tone: "But the promotion starts soon and I need to get these kits done and passed out or it's a waste of time if I'm not ready."
Me: DUH
Me - what I really said: "I understand that, but I have a full day of school and housework ahead of me. It's going to take time to find that and I can't be dropping our schedule like this every time I turn around. I need to get through school first before I have to go spend a couple of hours in the basement looking for a paper cutter. If I had known yesterday I could have looked for it after school and have it for you now when you want it."
Him: Whatever (all in the eyes)

It's not like I mind doing these things to help him out. It's not like I don't expect to have to help him. But I have school every day with Jake and believe you me it is difficult to stay on track. My laundry piles up, the dogs still need attention, training, feeding, in and out the door a hundred times a day between the 5 of them. I have litterboxes to scoop and most days I don't manage to get Jake a lunch much better than he'd have if he brown bagged in public school every day.
I did just recently go through several thousand receipts and sort them and enter totals on a spreadsheet. When he came home from work that night I asked him to do the juju on the spreadsheet that would automatically add the totals together and give me a grand total for each column. That's all I need, a total for cash paid outs in each department. He didn't. For four days he didn't 'have time' then the computer had a major major crash and all of it was lost. All that work, even the sorting (because I just piled them back into the box) is lost. So I told him I'd appreciate it if every evening he would come in and enter a stack to help me get through them again. "Sure" was the word but it was a no go in the action department. And this morning, after asking me to blink and make that paper cutter appear in an instant that I didn't have, he said on his way out the door, "Oh, and I need those tax receipt totals right away."

Some days I could just kick him in the you know's.

I know he has no more time to spare than I do. Even now as I type this, I'm working on the assignment I got when he called me from work earlier. I have 300 envelopes to print. Ten at a time. No bath or tv for me tonight. No sir. This promo is important stuff. And it is, but so is my sanity. And once these envelopes are done, I have to print the coupons that are going to be stuffed in the lopes. At least flat sheets of paper can be done 50 at a time without the constant reloading.

Sometimes I feel like I complain too much. I know how much work takes from him. I understand all too well how little of him it leaves. I like that I can do things to help. But I feel more like a secretary than wife. Not even a secretary having the great big secret affair with the boss. Lord knows it ain't like that. It's not like having a husband. Not like having a relationship beyond work related needs. I want to be married. I like being married, but dang if dating the boss wasn't a lot easier. At least I got paid then.

Ok so I'm a big fat whiner. I'm in a mood, I admit it. Today we made our official bid on the house and I'm a little wigged. Mostly because I know that in packing up this house, getting the new one ready to move into and doing the indoor repairs all fall to me. I'll be the one making runs to the bank, to pay this inspector or this surveyor, or this lawyer. I will do most all of it. On top of the regular schooling, animal stuff, housework, business paperwork, and promo packets. I will do it and to be honest, I think I've reached my limit. There, I've said it. I can handle no more and it worries me because, well, it can't get done if I don't do it because he sure doesn't have the time. Sometimes I think maybe I should have married a sex-starved, unmotivated, unemployment drawing bum. Nah, not really. I love my husband mucho lotsa. But it's difficult. Very difficult sometimes.

Whole bunch of nothing

Today we are supposed to reach the upper 60s. Our first practically hot day and it's going to rain. I bet the flowers will be bursting open after that. I've mentioned I love spring. Yesterday was a really great day for me and Jacob. After speech class we went to McDonalds for lunch and a little bit of playground fun. We were the only people there and it was still a bit nippy, so Jake decided he was ready to head over to our vet's office to do a little volunteer work. We played with puppies. Our vet runs a no-kill adoption shelter and they work hard to make sure each animal brought into the program gets a loving home. They also work hard to make sure each home gets a great puppy (dog, cat or kitten) by giving the animals lots of love and attention.

Our vet is one of the greatest people I know. He's smart, witty and an all around nice guy. He loves the animals he cares for. It shows every time he has to sit down in the middle of an exam because he can't breathe through the asthma attack the cat allergies set off. Awesome guy. Great human being. And one time, he let me watch him do surgery. Way cool.

So anyway we played with the puppies yesterday. They are lanky little hound mixes, blue-tick I'd guess, and so adorable, except for the jumping part. After 15 minutes or so though, they understood they'd be getting more petting if they'd just stand still and Jake would even throw the ball for them. One of them is going to be a professional fetcher for sure. I don't know their story and that's a good thing. I already have 6 dogs with a sad story. I think we will go there on Mondays though and play with whatever baby animals they have because that was a lot of fun. And I'm fresh out of room to help by taking them. Once a sucker always a sucker, I guess.

Today we put our official bid on the house that is meant to be mine. Last night I woke from a nightmare where someone else had bid on it. If I make it through this week without losing my mind it will be a miracle. I hope it goes well and goes fast. I'm quickly driving myself insane over it. On that note, I should get up and get busy. If I don't keep my mind off of it I'll be crazy by noon and we don't even meet with the agent until 3 to write up the bid. Is going to be a long day.