The Best Daily Routine!

The absolute best daily routine in this house is by Her Majesty, Addie. Well, it's not exactly an everyday routine, but it is every school day for the girls.

Every school day, Ken and I wake up together. Sadly, I'm always the first one out of bed and I go make coffee. On my way to the kitchen to make the coffee, I proceed to have to yell at Jordan and Mandy to get out of bed and get ready for school. Taylor, thankfully, is usually up and already dressed.

After I make coffee, I go back to the girls' room and proceed to stay on top of Jordan who enjoys stretching for 20+ minutes before even attempting to get dressed. Once they are out the door for the school bus, the fun part of the routine starts with the dog.

Again, let me just remind you that this is EVERY, single school day without fail! Addie will sit at the entryway and watch the girls go out the front door. She then will let out a little whine and run to the front window. If the blinds are closed, she nudges them aside so she can watch the girls walk away. When Addie cannot see the girls anymore, she runs to the back door and barks and scratches until she's let out. Addie will then run to the side of the house and whine until (I assume) that she cannot detect the girls anymore.

Once Addie has done her little spinners and freaked out about the girls being gone, she will scratch at the back door to come back inside. As soon as she is back in the house, she goes to Daddy for some love and then she walks into my office, sits down and begs for a treat. 

After she has her treat, she will go back into the living room, curl up and go to sleep. All day long, she a very calm dog. Once the girls come home, however, she will go insane - steal their stuffed animals, run around the house to knock them down to play, etc. 

Apparently, Addie just needs her "sisters" with her and doesn't know what to do with herself when they're gone. 

Far too tired

Work again kept me very busy this week. I'm not quite sure when things will relax, but it needs to happen soon. There is no way for me to continue this pace of work without snapping, and it has kept me so tired that I have barely enjoyed spending time with Ken and the girls. I'm not even going to start in on the lack of cross-stitching or reading that I have gotten to over the last week - because I didn't. I'm in bed seriously early because I'm too exhausted to do anything else.

This is the stack of reports that I need to write over the next two weeks. I have NO CLUE how this will get done along with all of the other duties I'm supposed to have at work. Each file folder has a minimum of 1 hours' worth of time. If there is background information I need to gather, or if I have to get information from the student, that adds more time. Um, I only get paid for 38 1/2 hours per week. I hate that there is no way for me to do a "quality"  job - everything is just quantity.

Ken and I made the time to go to the school to watch the girls' last cross-country meet. Mandy decided that she wasn't going to run, but Jordan did. Sadly, Jordan ran around so much before the meet that she was too tired to run in the meet.  She came in 32nd place, but she did finish.

We're planning an overnight camping trip for next week - as it turns out, it will have to be Monday overnight to Tuesday. Ken is completely excited and hoping that the girls and I become addicted. We spent some time at REI getting some items that we needed. I found the wicked clothing that I need for hiking and walking. I hated the price, but I kept it to just one outfit, and I'll see how it goes. Of course, men get nice and comfy clothes and women's are tight and clingy. I am loathe for anyone else to see me in these outfits, but so long as I do not collect all of the sweat and moisture, maybe it will make it easier for me to exercise and participate in the hikes with Ken. We'll see.

Taylor and Mandy asked to get waxed. Taylor usually gets her eyebrows and lip done when she gets her hair cut, but I'm pushing out their haircuts until November so they can have it done for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Keeping them in shoes and clothes has been a financial mess for us, but we've made it work. I was surprised when they asked about waxing though since it's an evil necessity, and even more surprised that Mandy asked for it. She has completely refused to go through the procedure because it is painful, but I guess her attending her first dance has her a little more self-conscience about her appearance. I have never had an issue with the girls getting waxed, and, in fact, Taylor's decision to start it a couple years ago has made it to where she rarely needs to get it done. It seems that her facial hair decided to stop growing. Yay!! Mandy now seems to want to get started and not have to go through this torture as often as I do.

Mandy didn't scream, but she had a difficult time sitting still. What a huge difference it made, and it is really nice to see her eyes!!

Ken was really happy that his middle son, Justin, decided to come over and spend some time with us last night as well. The boys are all trying to set up a backpacking trip with Ken, and he is very excited about it. I was happy when Justin said that he needs to hang out with Ken and me more often - because we're fun. I guess he forgot that we weren't the complete assholes that his mom had him believing we were. I reminded Justin that he hated we had rules in our house, but it's easy to follow them and life is pretty fun. He just smiled rather than make a comment, but it has to suck to know you made a really bad decision so young in life - he never should have been in a position to have to choose his mother or his father, but that was what Sheryl did to her boys, and they each chose poorly. It's been so difficult for Ken to watch each of the boys suffer for it, and it's been worse for each boy down the line. Brian is going to get screwed the worst - but at least Sean and Justin are learning. Hopefully, Justin will figure things out very quickly since he will be 18 soon.  

Jordan, Addie and shots

OK, the back story is needed here before I get into today's Jordanism.  When the girls were old enough to comprehend my pleading for them NOT to scream during their vaccinations, I went with the bribe, "If you don't scream and whine during your shots, I'll take you for ice-cream afterwards."  That has worked like magic.  They may have tears coming down their faces, but they don't cry out and terrify every other child in the building.


So, Jordan wanted to go with Daddy today to take Addie to the vet's for her shots.  Apparently, Jordan decided that she would try to use the ice-cream bribe with Addie's shots.  She asked Ken, "So if I don't cry when Addie gets her shots, can I have the ice-cream?"


Hahahahaha!  Nice try, but no, Jordan cannot have an ice-cream when the puppy is getting the shots.

Busy Beginnings

This month has turned out to be very busy. I spent the first week of the month taking care of my friend's, Cyn & Josh's, children while she was in the hospital.  I've visited a couple more times, and while I hate that she's stuck in a brace, I'm glad that the doctors were listening about her problems with surgery.

Cyn sporting her back brace.  This is at week 4 out of 12

I managed to take a class for beginning crochet.  It isn't going well for me, but I'm trying something new which is always adventurous.  I have a lot to learn, and I need to make time to practice.

And counting is really important or you get a parallelogram rather than a square 

Ken is still nursing his broken toe.  He has seen a podiatrist, and we learned that the toe is broken worse than we thought.  Factor in that Ken keeps bumping the toe around, and now we're waiting to find out what the new x-ray shows.  Hopefully, he does not have to have the toe re-broken.


I've been busy with baking and trying new recipes.  Of course, I choose to stick with desserts because it's my favorite.  I found a recipe for indoor S'mores, and the girls loved them.  

Mmmmm.  Indoor S'mores with leftover Christmas sprinkles.  This was soooooo sweet!

I also tried a Lemon Trifle recipe.  I was really nervous about how they would turn out because I really suck at math, and I had to cut the recipe in 10ths and then multiply it by two.  Ken said he was really impressed with it.  Yeah me!

Prior to the chilling and garnish

Ken liked the Lemon Trifle

Ken has been getting involved in our local gun club, and now I have found myself involved as well.  I'm scheduled to help with the archery range for the Women on Target next week.  I had a meeting today for those helping so we could be prepared.  This should be fun.  I'm not sure how much time I have "extra" in a week or a month, but I am finding myself "volunteered" all over the place.  The Club totally needs younger members, but at least there are more people joining and especially more women.


Now, I'm trying to get myself prepared for Monday.  I have to once again face Jackass in court.  He is asking for all of the girls' vacation time as well as requesting to have child support dropped since he "isn't working."  I'm so tired of dealing with him and his whining.  I hate that he won't just support the girls and love them while being fair to them.  It's been 44 months since I left his ass, and he still hasn't moved on.  I'm hoping that I get an order for child support based off his Bachelor's Degree that he got while claiming "disability" and that I get the arrearages as well as a current/future order.  I am also hoping that I can keep half of the summer/vacation time so that Ken and I can continue to enjoy our annual holidays with the girls.  Frankly, I'm just tired of his shit, and I'm out of energy to continue dealing with his ass.  If it was about wanting to spend the time with the girls, I wouldn't be fighting him, but he does nothing when he has them.  It's just about screwing with my life.  Ken and I offered him to allow Ken to adopt the girls and we would dismiss all support, but Jackass wouldn't go for it.  He won't pay for the girls nor will he save for college, but he'll take college away from the girls.  UGH!  So frustrating.  Ahhhhh, thank God for Xanax at this point.


The girls are currently enjoying a quiet weekend at home.  Taylor has her friend Kendyll over, and they were busy working on their Science project (pics to be posted later).  Now, we're going to get a fire going outside and enjoy the evening.