I lost motivation because I found out we don't have any graham crackers and I want a s'more :( boy do my mood change quickly... Though I think that some of our is just lingering irritation at random things... I've turned into such a grump in the last 5 or 6 years it seems like... I use to be so happy even when I got upset or mad it didn't linger, now it's nesting or rooting or something... /grump face...

I need to get the drive to move again, maybe I should shower or something....

I am up way past my bedtime, and for no real reason other than gaming. /fail Tomorrow's going to be a long day, more so with it beginning with a continuation of tonight's disaster. Terra procrastinated picking up her toys, so she gets to finish first thing in the morning. Should be a pleasant event. 9_9

The boys are picking up their room today too (I hope) I really need to finish Elizabeth's room today. I am so close I just need to stay positive today :) maybe finishing my audio book will help with that too. I am also really in the mood to bake maybe my wee ones can help :)

It was another fight to get her to clean this morning, but she did it. We're cleaning the rest of stuff. I got the downstairs cleaned, and I'm gonna help Cole with the upstairs now. We're hoping company comes this week. Our friends have separated, and they're trying to work things out. I really hope they do. It's a possibility they might come for dinner Thursday.

I'm probably way more excited for this than I should be, but I can't help it.

We are almost done with Ellie's room and the room directly behind it.... yay!!! Sadly we found old evidence of Mirri peeing back there which sent me into a sanitizing tantrum that drives Dillon CRAZY. I hate cat pee, which is wierd Zeus has peed on the floor several times and on steam clean through and I do smell evidence of it anymore. But I smell cat pee forever it feels like. I had told Dillon I thought I smelled it but Use found the evidence on the other side of the room on her brand new (well like a year old) rug. But like I said it looks old and I haven't seen her back there in a long time. Not since Ellie moved rooms... so we are super steaming and trying to finished sanitizing everything that was back there. We've been doing that anyhow... I wish I knew how to keep her from peeing back there though :/ permanently.

It makes me hesitate getting animals because I know pee would send me into a cleaning frenzy that I'd never actually be settled from. I smell stale air and get annoyed to the point I HAVE to get it out. :/

I love animals particularly my cat. It makes me pause to think when I start pining for another kitten or puppy because I know there will be accidents of sorts. Mirri only ever had one before we brought Sylvester to this house. I was able to mostly clean up his messes before he decided being outside was waaay easier then re-learning to use a cat box all the time. But when I got pregnant with Ellie Mirri got insanely jealous and started marking her room and though I've been succcessful in getting rid if the smell in the past and mostly satisfied with how well it had been cleaned out. She will forever be able to smell the marks she made there. As will Zeus and any other cat or dog we get. So I don't know that I will ever be fully satisfied with how clean it is in there until we replace the carpets... and probably the subfloors...

I smell stale air too I hate winter time because of it. Ellie's rooms are notorious for stale air summer/fall/winter/spring... A previous owner used HUGE nails (think just a little smaller then railroad ties) to permanently close those back windows. Then the room that is her current bedroom has a window that can crack open but you can't man handle the storm window open plus if you could there is no screen. Our bedroom (directly in front of those two rooms) also has widows that don't open :/

We got some more bad news, and we literally spent every last penny we have to repair it... I am trying to stay positive about it but it's making me wonder if trying to pay for my own home birth is selfish and too much for us to handle :/ if I back out now I lose $640 I've already paid in. I can.t even afford to buy the fish oil she suggested. Oi...

:( What happened??

On Friday I guess my van had a flat tire and I drove a few blocks to pick up the boys from the bus stop (not knowing it was semi flat). Then my brother in law came to pick up my niece and was all "hehe looks like you got a flat"and sure enough we walk out and the tire has lost a lot of air but isn't completely flat. I put it off until yesterday to fix the tire as Friday was a crap shoot. And we notice it is completely flat now. So we air it and figure we'll take it in to check for leaks today. We do and wind up having wheel wall damage which confirms that I drove on it flat. :/ so we had to replace the whole tire at $100 it was all we had in our credit card and our bank account combined. :/

It frustrating, I've had 3 flat tires in the 7ish years I've owned cars. And two of them have been this year and both of those are on my most used car. All 3 have HAD to be replaced too.. none of them could just be aired up...

Like I said on Facebook I am now halfway to having all new tires. Modge podged tires... But 50% of them are new..

And now it's raining and the jerk hats that "replaced" our window still haven't repaired it properly :(

I hate money. :/ If there was enough to go around frustrations like this would be less. Blagh.

As I was saying to Dillon I believe if things were fairly priced, and people were fairly paid we'd be so much better off. I mean why is it that a doctor and a mechanic can sit for 2 minutes and "diagnose" what they think may be wrong and be paid like they worked 2 hours? $120 a visit for non insured patients. $65 x the hours it sat in the shop for service fees or handling fees or whatever just for a car to SIT in a mechanics shop. I get that both a mechanic and a doctor have to have more training then me as say a preschool teacher. I don't expect pay to be the same but to have to pay like you had an hour of "treatment" or like your car was being nonstop looked at? It isn't adding up in my mind while I make minimum wage but still require a degree and debts that come with said degree... It is thoroughly frustrating... money is in my opinion the root of all evil...

I agree wholeheartedly, and I do believe I've said the same words almost to a "T". So many people aren't given a living wage, and they work their asses off. I get so angry at the internet memes about welfare and food stamps because people don't get it. They don't understand that the highest majority of folks on any aid are working families and those with disabilities.

Of course I read an article yesterday that was so bad I swore it was from the Onion and it wasn't. It was a guy saying he loved SNAP and would never get a job because it was free food and he simply didn't need to. I need to get it to you because it was so frigging glamorized I wanted to scream at the publisher for even putting it out there. He was saying how he eats lobster and sushi everyday on $200 in SNAP. Uhhh. Not without help, he isn't.

/rant

Gotta get my buns to work. I sure do hope the car is fixed today, even if it tacks on an extra 6 hours to the day. Gotta go raise hell once they open at 8am. :<

I read a lot of stupid things like that. I have also read a few that give light to what SNAP is really about. One that touched me pretty deeply especially because I can be really judgemental towards others who outwardly seem to be abusing the system, because I know there are quite a few who do. But anyhow it was about a disabled homeless woman who received 100$ a month in snap benefits and 100$ in cash benefits. The cash benefits barely covered her medications. Then she wrote about how she buys a snickers and premade sandwiches from the deli. Not because she didn't KNOW that she could make 15+ sandwiches for significantly cheaper but she simply could not keep her food fresh. She was homeless and had no way to store food in between the need to eat it.

People can so easily turn a blind eye to those in most need. I saw a really neat picture a while back of a business man walking past a a homeless man the business man is being directed to look away from the homeless man by a shadowman. What stuck me really big about the picture is that I was looking at the picture for a good 5 minutes before realizing that the homeless man was part of the picture. How sad is that!

I've been reading about the cuts to SNAP a lot lately. It scares me a lot. That coupled with my state's recent recall election I am terrified to see where we are headed. :/

/sigh

I need to get on chores for the day... But Ellie is taking her dear sweet time eating her banana bread :P so I am waiting

Changes in our state are frightening as well.. I'm curious what will happen now that voting to get rid of the ACA will do. I need to read up about it again. I actually signed up with a local agency here to volunteer to help people understand the ACA and whatnot. Why? Because I can, and I care, dammit. /fistpump

Gotta fit in 20 hours of training, of course... xD

Got the car back. Just got home, and I'm exhausted. $3700 later...

*pants*

so this week is the spare room. Which translates into 1 room with like 15 functions. My office/craft room/ Dill's art room/ along with a storage room..... I have spent the last 40 minutes or so trying to get a dowel (to hold my ribbon collection) into a wire shelf unit thing that I am using to hold my craft stuff. The closet where all of it lives is just a SMIDGEN too small and I am having a heck of a time... It's a serious work out!!!

I care but I also fear repercussions from family if I become active in politics. It's bad enough when elections come round that I have to nod and act like I agree with what my mom says so as not to start a fight. I couldn't imagine becoming ACTIVE in politics. My mom is clever with words and she can literally talk you in circles until she essentially can say. See you agree with me. I don't know how she does it but she does. The last political thing we talked about where I truly voiced my opinion was where Hobby Lobby was filing to sue the government for making them provide insurance coverage medications that were "against their religion." My sole argument is that Hobby Lobby is a craft store a LARGE CHAIN CRAFT STORE... Not a person. Stores don't have religion people do. I get that the business owner holds his religion dear. We all do. This is why they are closed Sundays and christian holidays. But anyhow without getting too much more into detail of the debate itself, my mom somehow twisted my word and my beliefs until she basically concluded (for me) that I really don't disagree with the fact that they should have the right to say no. NO NO I DON'T BELIEVE THIS... I do think they are a business employing many people of many different religions and beliefs should honor women's rights to chose how to control their bodies. What they are ruling as immoral is a contraceptive NOT an abortion I can see a moral dilemma with abortion I can even say there are enough preventatives that it should be something a woman pays for herself if she works for a company that feels it immoral.. Does that mean any Catholic Based business can say OH our religion say we don't do ANY contraceptive so you are SOL? That to me seems immoral especially when you live in a town like me. Where birth rates are astronomical in young teens and twenties, jobs don't offer insurance OR any maternity leave to pregnant women. So yeah... I don't think what they are doing should be allowed and I don't know how my mother twisted it but she did... /ramble...

That is very jarbled. Sorry if it makes no sense sometimes I have a hard time seperating my own political/ religious (?) opinion from the story behind it I guess >.<

It makes sense. Your mom has never valued your opinions and has worked hard to stomp you down under the proverbial rug. I'd love to be in a room with her for hours. It takes a lot to anger me, and the way she treats you does. :<

I... have a religion story. It happened while I was conducting group therapy once. XDDD I'll edit this when I get to work. *dashes to get ready*

---------- Post added 09-24-2013 at 08:35 AM ----------

Okay, I'm at work. Basically, I was conducting a group therapy session and one of the more religious members said, "We're all Christians. We're all God-loving folk, right?"

I smiled, but I did not nod. I'm obligated not to self-disclose unless it would benefit the relationship, basically. And even then it's tactfully done. It amazes me what the little smile does for the person on the other end in terms of assumptions. What gets interesting is when members begin arguing about beliefs.

I thought one would barrel roll one of the others who said men are inherently stronger than women. XD

Have you ever seen that morning shoe clip where they did a simulation of different stages of contractions on two men. It is quite comical.

I tend to frown heavily whenever politics or religion are brought up. Though I almost always smile when someone assumes I am _____ religion. I guess by all technical standards I am a Christian because I believe Christ exists. Though how I believe in him is quite different then most. I don't have blind faith in him and believe him more a great prophet (much like my Jewish friend) the an all knowing son of God. I consider myself agnostic. I simply cannot align myself religiously with any one religion. I am simply too strongly opinionated in my beliefs for someone to tell me that they are "wrong" or "sinful."

So I have an appointment today not with my normal midwife but with an OB who will be setting me up with another nurse midwife who I am just going to neglect to tell that I am planning a home birth :/ I am incredibly nervous. I need to remember to stick to my guns with the care I want. I don't need a pap or a breast exam I had both of those in May or June... JUST before finding out I was pregnant. So there is NO reason for a doctor to go anywhere near my girl parts... I will keel over before I have a cervical exam before I am IN delivery. They are completely and totally unnecessary in my position... The good news is they SHOULD be ordering an ultrasound today to gauge baby's gestational age (coughcoughseventeenweekscough) and I am hoping that that might mean I find out the gender today. **fingers crossed** I am losing it with all the guessing... I've taken a bunch of silly gender prediction tests and most point to a girl. Granted they are wives tales and I know they are never for sure but I need my mind settled a bit...

I'm agnostic as well.

I've seen that, and it was hilarious. xD

Stick to your guns. I would keep quiet and keep it between you and your hubs, until you absolutely need to decide. I know money is a factor, but you don't need to decide on anything right now. Time changes all needs, including financial!

Eee! Lemme know if you get an ultrasound. (:

I will definitely let you know but I am not announcing the gender yet :P I am thinking of having a gender reveal party :) and someone in town offered to do a gender reveal picture for us. Which might be fun :)...

I need to attempt a shower. Ellie has been less then cooperative about letting me get a shower in. So I've started loathing the idea of showers because I hate the fight...

---------- Post added 09-24-2013 at 09:17 AM ----------

Omg I had registration at 9 it took all of 2 minutes and my OB appointment is at 10 in 45 minutes. My nerves are on FIRE! Holy cow...

---------- Post added 09-24-2013 at 12:13 PM ----------

So update-ish no ultrasound and it was just blood tests heartbeat and questions. I have my first appointment with this midwife next Thursday (not this) and an ultrasound scheduled for that night :)

Sweet. ^_^ So... all went well?

For the most part everything went really well :)

I'm glad to hear it. (:

Man, work was horrible today. I can't turn the opportunity to make the money right now though. Working for family sucks, and I'm now back at remembering why I went to college. xDD

Uh oh you seemed so excited about it a week or two ago..

Oh, it was AWESOME to work with Mom for roughly five weeks. The reason it's messy is long and complicated, but basically my grandmother isn't well and is making the certification for safe quality foods miserable. x_x

I am sorry I couldn't work with family, well except maybe Dillon.

Ugh it's time to get another blood draw now... /sigh lead and arsenic levels this time and the kids are getting it too o.o