Another boneheaded move...

The US Army has banned the use of privately purchased body armor. Here's a link to the whole story.

Well gee, you might ask, what's the problem there? Lest we forget, up to 25% of troops were being sent to Iraq without armor. Many of them were forced to supply their own armor to get adequate protection since what they were supplied with was either non-existent or very old and inadequate. It's ridiculous to send our soldiers into war without adequate protection! (Not that I even agree with sending our soldiers in the first place.... But that's a whole other gripe.)

Sigh.

All the money has been spent

Wow. That went fast. We got our tax refund (yay for e*file!) and after dad died, my sisters and I got to split what was left of a retirement account he hadn't completely raided to buy booze. (He'd drained it seriously over the past few years since he hadn't been working.) He didn't have enough money to force the account into probate, so it went to us instead of paying for bills. So hubby and I earmarked the above money for a couple things - a new roof and a trip to Disney World. :D

The roof is done and paid for. The trip to Disney is booked and paid for. Then we also needed to pay for my trip to Vegas for my baby sister's wedding this summer. I've got the flight paid for, but the hotel isn't yet. But since three of us are sharing a room, it won't be much. Now I just need to come up with a little gambling money, and that will be set too. Oh! And our annual trip to the cabin in Minnesota - instead of mailing them just the deposit, I mailed a check to pay for the whole thing so that's taken care of now too! I feel so blessed to have that all taken care of and paid off!

I can't believe how much traveling I'm doing between April and July this year! Mid-April, when Frodo is on spring break, we're headed to a waterpark hotel. (Frodo won a free night's stay at the school carnival raffle last year!) Then end of April is the trip to Disney. Mid-June is the trip to Minnesota. Then Mid-July is to Vegas for the wedding. I think I could get used to a traveling lifestyle. ;)

Update Central....

For some reason, "Muppet News Flash" keeps popping into my head right now.... Maybe that's just how I feel about life right now? That it's a giant comedy sketch with puppets? At least I like the Muppets.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All day today, I kept thinking it was Tuesday. I hate when I'm all messed up like that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My grandma was in a psych ward in the hospital last week and is now in a nursing home. She's been off her rocker for years, but it's really spiked severely the past 6 months, I think in part accellerated by her son's death. She was admitted on the advice of her doctor and the home health nurse that visits once a week. Townspeople have been finding her wandering around town at odd times, and fortunately, it's a small town - the kind where everyone knows everyone, so she's awfully safe in that respect. It's the kind of town where she goes to the post office and she thinks it's the bank and she asks when the checks she ordered will arrive and the person from the post office says he'll check on it - And he calls the bank and gets it lined up so she can pick up the box of checks at the post office that she thinks is the bank.... lol. And another *fortunately* is that the town she lives in is the same town she has lived in since she was 5 years old when she her family immigrated to the US from Norway.

She's been living on her own the past 10 years after grandpa died. Even before the cancer spread to grandpa's brain, he told their daughter that grandma "wasn't in her right mind" and "would need people to watch over her". So my aunt and my dad kept an eye on her as much as they could. The past year or so, grandma has taken to NOT bathing, not changing her clothes, not eating well - even to the point of having spoiled food around and not being able to recognize it's spoiled, and worst of all lately, she's not taking her medications. (My aunt checked with the pharmacy, and the pharmacist verified the prescriptions hadn't been refilled in quite some time.) Grandma has high blood pressure and has been on the same medication since she was 16 years old. Since she hadn't been taking it and was refusing to go to a nursing home, my aunt FINALLY (after much arguing) convinced her to allow a home health nurse to come into her home once a week just to monitor her blood pressure and check in on her. The home health nurse was working on helping grandma to remember taking her pills. Well, it worked part way - grandma took the whole week's worth in one day.... She's fine - had a bout with very low blood pressure, but that incident got her checked into the hospital. Now there's a court appointed lawyer involved because grandma thinks she can still live on her own, but the family and the medical staff say otherwise. And I guess this lawyer isn't being too reasonable.... Ugh.

By the way, this is all happening in another state. So it's not like I can just drive over to my aunt's or my grandma's and help out. I'm told to stay here and *wait and see*. So I will.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A friend of ours turned 30 this weekend. She's all bummed out about being 30. She keeps talking about how old she is. I think I'm gonna smack her since I'm (mumble, mumble ) years older than her.... If she's this bent outta shape about 30, I think we'll have to have her under mandatory psychiatric care for her 40th.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Happy first day of spring!!!! I actually saw some robins hopping around the soccer field by the elementary school today. I hope the warm weather isn't too far behind....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My city is having a referendum on the spring ballot about building a new high school. I went to an informational meeting about it tonight. This would be the first phase towards building a second high school for the town a few years later. It's a strange place to be - a town that has grown so big we need to go from one high school to two. I'm definitely leaning towards casting a vote of approval because I think two smaller high schools (1200ish students each) would be better than one large high school of 2400 students. I've experienced both large and small schools at various levels of education in my life, and personally, I prefer a smaller school. I think the attention you get is more personalized, and therefore, more condusive to success. Passing this hugely expensive referendum will only increase my property taxes about $20 a month. I can handle that type of investment. My city is HUGELY divided on this issue. And that sucks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My kitty is back to normal now. She's playing normally and she's now learned how to keep food in her mouth while she eats. I think I'll take her off the "mature" formula cat food though, because she hasn't regained the weight she lost and she still doesn't eat as much as she used to. (I'm sure if someone pulled out half my teeth, I'd have trouble eating too. Hey.... Maybe I could market that as a new diet strategy!!! LOL!) I'm just happy she's herself again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Did you know the volume of a cylinder is pi x r^2 x height? I had to look that up for a brainbender puzzle I'm doing. This is just step one. OMG. And I sooooo did not like math. LOL.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As usual, I've stayed up too late once again. This is a bad habit for me. Actually, it's not the staying up late part that's bad. It's the getting up early part that's hard on me. ;)

And with that, I should bid goodnight. Before I keep rambling more.

Top O' The Mornin' To Ya!

*May your troubles be less
And your blessings be more.
And nothing but happiness
Come through your door.*

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

More FRRR-EAKY!

This can go in the same category as the sharks.

Go Figure...

'Frodo's' birthday was this weekend. My little man is a big NINE years old now! We had a party with the whole fam-damily here. The weather was awesome - 65 and partly sunny. In the middle of it all, I got to talk to my sister. (The one with kids.)

Turns out her son (the one I call "Demon Spawn") has been diagnosed with ADHD. He's the one that all of us have had such a hard time with since he's been two. (He's 7½ now.) Of course, originally it was the "terrible twos", followed by the "terrible threes", then it was because of a new baby in the house, then in preschool it was "he's not as emotionally mature as other kids his age, which happens with boys", then in kindergarten, it was the same as preschool, then it was another new baby in the house. (Always an excuse....) Now in first grade, he has a teacher that is experienced, consistently present, and observant. She says he's the smartest kid in her class, but he just can't focus. At all. And he's very impulsive. (No way! - please read the last two words with sarcasm, lol.) He actually will describe (without prompting) having disconnected thoughts by saying, "I have a thought, then another one pops in and makes me forget the first one, and it just keeps going on like that over and over." Interesting observation for a first grader....

My sister went home after the doctor's appointment confirming the diagnosis and talked to her hubby about it. They decided to go ahead and start him on medication. She was telling me about this and I was trying my hardest to be all supportive. I hope I didn't come across with any inkling of an 'I told you so' look or voice. I really am happy that she's taken this step!

It took her a looooooong time to finally come to the realization that her son's behavior wasn't *normal*. I hate using the word "normal", but I can't come up with anything else right now. There's just *something* about him that isn't quite right. I'm one that easily tolerates curiousity and busy-ness and all sorts of behaviors like that, but the impulsive, turbulent, and occasionaly physically violent behavior was beyond appropriate. The whole family (not only our mom, but my sis's inlaws as well!) wants to write this teacher a thank you note for getting my sister to finally see the light. I hope the medication does the trick for him. Goodness knows there's plenty others in our family on medications for various things! He might as well join the bunch! (Better living through chemistry!! LOL!)

Now, to set the record straight, I'm NOT a *throw a pill at it* person for everything. Unless the pill is needed. Professionally, I work with a pediatrician who specializes in treating ADD patients, and I've seen the remarkable turn-around some of these kids have made. You can tell their body needs the medication for stability (think of a diabetic and insulin). I've also seen kids come in who wouldn't benefit from medication, but WOULD benefit from better parenting. Or psychotherapy. Or both. I DO struggle with the balance between the good and bad effects medication can have on a growing child. But speaking from personal experience, I myself would've MUCH rather have had taken medication as a teenager and lived a less depressed life during that time and would've happily lived with any consequences that medication would've had. Childhood is the foundation of life. If it has a good start, the foundation is strong and stable for the remainder of one's years.

See if you can find....

...what is wrong with this paragraph, taken from a news story from my local paper:

"People accustomed to having a cold beer during their child's youth baseball game or while watching kids at the skateboard park won't be able to indulge in that anymore, if recommended action by the city council's Committee of the Whole is approved."

Besides the fact that it's a huge run-on sentence, do you spot the problem?

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

Give up? I'll tell ya.

Where is it considered acceptable to drink beer during a CHILD'S youth baseball game? Then you get to drive your child home? After consuming this beer? WTF?

And my second thought - Picture this: kids skating at a skateboard park. Adult watching this and kicking back, drinking a cool one? Ummm... Can you say pedophile??? Probably even alcoholic pedophile.

I cut the story out of the paper as a perfect example of how screwed up my town is. And they wonder why there's such a problem with teenage drinking.... DUH!

Update on...

...my kitty.

She's much better now. Hubby took her back to the vet on Friday morning where they determined she was most likely having a reaction to the narcotic patch. They took the patch off, gave her some IV fluids and gave her a shot of antibiotic so we wouldn't have to keep trying to force it into her sensitive tummy. They said her mouth looked excellent and to give the narcotic 24 hours to work out of her system. She came back home Friday afternoon.

Saturday she slept a lot, but was walking much better and acting more herself. I put some of her food in her dish and she ate it and didn't barf! Woo Hoo!!! Her appetite still isn't up to normal, but I don't expect it to be there for a while yet. I'm just sooooo happy to know she's feeling better and that I'm not gonna wake up to a dead kitty. Not this week at least.

I didn't have to...

...wash my curtains today. But I do have a canvas tote bag in the washing machine that kitty barfed on after I successfully got the medicine in her this morning. I think she's winning this battle.

This is just downright FRRR-EAKY!

Sharks?

Yep. This freaks me out.

Today is...

My hubby's birthday. I didn't get him any presents. Why? Because the doofus went ahead and bought everything on his *wish list* before his birthday. >roll eyes< Silly man.

Next order of business in our house recently is our kitty. She's 11½ yrs old. She had her checkup last week and the vet found some weird tooth thingy I'd never heard of before. They are called "FORLs" (she pronounced it "fee-your'-ulls"). It stands for "Feline Odontoclastic Resorptive Lesions". Yep - *fee-your'-ulls* is MUCH easier a mouthful.... Basically what it means is my kitty needed some teeth out. From the exam that day, I was under the impression it would be about 4 teeth, with the disclaimer of "but we won't know for sure how many until we get a good look in her mouth under anesthesia. Because of course, if any of you have a cat, you know how much they LOVE having their mouth pried opened and examined.

Fast forward to yesterday - it's the day I drop my kitty at the vet's for the surgery. Of course, the night before just HAD to be a fun poker party at a good friend's house where we all drank waaaaay too much and stayed up waaaaay too late. Needless to say, I got 2½ hours of sleep and did not feel well.

I drop the kitty off and come home to kick the parents out, I mean, wish them a safe and happy trip home. (The parents stayed the weekend. Plus.) Then I crashed back into bed for a couple more hours. By 4pm I was back at the vet's to pick my kitty up. They hand me a sheet with discharge instructions and a little color coded chart of which teeth they pulled. They pulled FOURTEEN teeth! My poor kitty! Lucky her gets to wear a Fentanyl patch for a few days though. She's a little jumpy and walks funny. My kitty is stoned. LOL.

Today, I got the pleasure of pinning her down to administer some oral medication. Oh, does she love that! (NOT!) She was fighting me pretty good, which is normal for her, so I know she's feeling better. I thought I won the battle when I was able to get the medicine into the corner of her mouth under her lip. After I let her go, she bolted directly to the windowsill of the bay window in the living room and proceeded to SPIT the medicine on the curtains. It's like she was blowing raspberries at me. I'm glad I own machine washable curtains. I just hope I don't have to wash them every day for a week.