I'm Still Alive.

I'm sorry I haven't posted since January. I will try to do better.  Life got crazy, messed up, and depressing, and I just didn't feel like posting.  Plus I also found Pinterest, and Words With Friends...damn things occupy to much time LOL.

I'll give you a tiny briefing on things that have gone on over the months.
*I'm still fat, fatter even due to stress eating.
*Got a new frig, don't remember if I told you guys that or not...I think I told you all that the other one broke.
*Dealing with daughter stuff.
*Water heater broke, got fixed fast thankfully.
*My daughter Kelsey graduates this month, trying to plan a party for that on little teeny tiny budget...
*Prom & more prom. Thanks to my mom for helping Kelsey get the dress she LOVES. Prom is expensive. Not just a dress to deal with, gotta buy tickets, flowers, shoes, make up stuff, jewelry...the list goes on and on. Of course money is tight, so some things are being cut out, no professional hairdo, or acrylic nails...to which my daughter is not pleased...but I think she looks beautiful without that.  She went to one prom last weekend and is going to her schools this weekend.
*Kelsey & Zach's grandfather (my former father in law) died in Feb. after a long battle with cancer. My mom was nice and traveled with me to attend his visitation.  He was a great man and will be missed.
*Zach is doing well. Yay. He has a boyfriend, who I have yet to meet, but everyone that has met him loves him.  Austin seems to be good for Zach and Zach has grown up a lot.
*Jilly & Aubrey used to get along so nice and spend hours playing together...not so much anymore.  Jilly loves to tick off Aubrey, causing Aubrey to scream and cry...its not fun.
*Money's been super tight, and it will be getting worse.  Child support for Kelsey ends when she graduates, so chances are high I'll have to get some kind of job, still trying to figure out what kind and what kind of hours I'll be able to work.
*Speaking of money... Bill's day job, the one he has worked for 24 yrs, will no longer be as of May 28.  We were told last month that RR Donnelley & Sons are closing doors at the Mendota plant forever. Yikes.  Thankfully Bill has his second job, and he'll be getting a severance package from RRD...it'll help till he finds something else.  Please say prayers for us.
*Jilly is looking forward to summer, when she gets to go visit her dad, she misses him.
*Aubrey had pre-school screening and did well.  We are hoping to get her into one of the free pre-schools here in town for fall.  She is already excited about it.
*I've been down in the dumps.  Stress is bothering me.  Night after night of interrupted sleep isn't helping either.  I pee a lot at night, guess I'm old and have a crappy bladder, all those trips to the bathroom, and all of Aubrey's night wakings make for bad bad sleep for me.
*Aubrey almost never sleeps all night. She talks in her sleep.  She dreams a lot, and several nights a week she wakes up from them and yells for me.  I then have to go in there and listen to her tell me about her dreams, or if its a bad one I have to calm her down and get her back to sleep. She is sleeping in her own bed now, I used to let her sleep with me when Bill worked but I got sick and tired of being kicked in the face and other places all night so I put an end to that.
*Bill's youngest brother got remarried last weekend.  I love weddings.  Jilly & Aubrey had a blast at the reception dancing.  At 10:15 we left, Aubrey was still dancing at the time and wanting to stay...I would have loved to stay longer, but Bill was tired and cranky and wanting to go.
*I'm trying to sell my son's car, the car that used to be mine..its been sitting in my driveway for a year or more.  He finally gave me the title (he still owed me money from when he bought it from me so I told him to fork it over, and we are even), so please pray for a buyer, and fast!  The cops (hot cops dad actually) put a sticker thing on it the other day saying we have 10 days to move it or it could be impounded. Bah.  Its on my property, I should be allowed to have it there if I want it. It's not pretty but not that bad of an eye sore, there are so many worse things sitting at houses in our area, leave me alone I have enough crap to deal with now!
*Kelsey has had 2 interviews, a drug test, and now a physical for a job here in town at a nursing home.  Cross your fingers all goes well and she for sure gets this job!  It'll be perfect for her.  She gets her CNA license this month (takes the test May 17th), she'll be putting that to good use at this job, and its close to home, a 2 minute drive!
*I come back to blogger and its all changed!  I have no idea how to use it anymore...If this post comes out looking funny, sorry.

Well, that is a bit of stuff that has gone on, there is more, but I don't want to bore the pants off you.  I will try to post more often...but we'll see how it goes.  Maybe next post I'll put up some pics to bore you with :)

Toodles!

No more hiding! Out with the old, in with the new!

I have good news and bad news...

The bad news is...I'm STILL fat.

I was hoping after getting my teeth all yanked out I'd have lost some weight...no such luck. There is a good chance I'll always be fat...but I still hope to work on it and be a little less fat sometime in this lifetime.

The good news is...there will be no more pictures like this:



Or like these:



And thank God, no more like THIS! (gross picture warning)





Because....


On Jan. 3rd, I had a dentist appointment...to pick up my new smile!!

No more hiding! Gotta work on my smile a bit, I haven't used it much in a long time, I need to practice...

Cheese!


I'm still fat...still pretty ugly...but by golly I now have pretty teeth! Now...if only I can figure out how to eat with them!

Talking with them was hard at first, but I'm getting the hang of it...the eating is another story. I was told to eat only soft foods for a while, make everything small, and to put food in both sides so I can chew evenly not one sided. I've been doing that, but for some reason the food tends to go down between the bottom dentures and my cheeks and I feel like a chipmunk LOL. I've been eating about 5 bites per meal with the teeth in, then I give up and take them out to finish. Practice practice practice I guess. Someday I'll get the hang of it...I hope!



Toodles!

Goodbye 2011

2011 wasn't the best of years.

It seems it was the year of breakdowns & repairs.

I think the basement flooded twice.

We had sump pump breakage.

Leaky pipe.

Leaky sinks.

Clogged drain in basement causing big mess down there (and left me unable to use the kitchen sink for several days).

It was also a year of toilet overflows, have I mentioned we have a carpeted bathroom? Yeah..big mess.

In July I think it was, our less than 5 yr old fancy refrigerator broke down. Fix it guy had a fix for it, but said its iffy, might last 3 days, 3 months, 3 years or 30...just never know. We gave it a try...it lasted about 5 months. A few days before Christmas it died. It was unfixable. We had to move the spare smaller frig from the basement upstairs, and the old one went out the door.

We also had dryer issues this past year. Even now it has its good days and bad...

Our portable dishwasher also took a dump. It started leaking & wasn't getting stuff very clean, I got sick of mopping up the mess and now I use it to store stuff in and on LOL, and I wash dishes by hand.

Bill's truck also needed some expensive repairs, not only once, but twice...

All that (plus some I think I forgot), and also some dental issues & health issues that caused major expense.

It hasn't been the greatest year.

I'm hoping 2012 will be a GOOD year. Good health, and no repairs or replacing of household items! A winning lottery ticket would kick off the year right...I guess I need to play to win though LOL.

Happy 2012! (I know I'm late, sorry)

Toodles!

Christmas Past

I know, its Jan., and I haven't blogged about Christmas... Better late than never right?

Christmas Eve the girls got to open their traditional present, new PJ's to wear to bed. This is something I've been doing for the kids since they were babies. Even though they know what the present is, they still get excited. Unfortunately Jilly's excitement was short-lived this year, when she put her PJ's on and found out they were to small. The pants fit, but the shirt was up above her belly button, she was NOT a happy camper.

It was after 11 when the little girls finally fell asleep. Santa was pretty tired by then, but he did manage to stop by and leave a few things. Surprisingly he didn't leave coal, since the girls probably deserved quite a bit... They ended up making out pretty good.

Kelsey got a nice new watch & camera. Jilly got some games, and from her dad she got an iPad. Bree got a dollhouse and other things.




The bottom corner pic of Bill is him opening the one small gift I got him...a 5 lb box of Atomic Fireball jawbreakers! He loves those things! We have a hard time finding them in stores, so I ordered some from Amazon. He thought it was pretty funny that I got him such a big thing of them.

One of the things Bree got was a cardboard playhouse that you can color. Santa didn't realize how darn big that sucker was going to be! We set it up and it took up most of the living room! I had to take the tree down the day after Christmas so I could make some room.



As you can see, its nearly as tall as Bill! Bree has really enjoyed this house. Once we moved it to its place, we put her new dollhouse inside it, and a few other toys and she'll hang out in there playing for hours at a time.

Christmas was pretty good for us (except for a broken frig). I hope yours was pleasant as well!

Toodles!

Hair Highlights from...?

Chalk! Did you know you can put pretty colorful highlights in your childs hair with chalk? I didn't, until I heard about it from this great hair site! That site has a ton of awesome hairstyles I look at that site all the time and wish I could do some of those styles on my girls. I try...but they never look that good! Practice I guess...

I did it on Bree's hair right away after seeing it on that website. I had some crayola chalk sitting in the house so I figured why not give it a try! Bree loved it! Jilly loved it too and later did her hair by herself. I have pics of Bree's but I didn't get a pic of Jilly's darn it. I'll have to be sure to get one next time.

Cute huh?




I'm tempted to put a pink streak or two in my hair :)

Toodles!

Snow!

I've been anxious for snow...yet Mother Nature has been mean and not provided me with much. There was one day we had a few flakes fall, I ran out to see them, then ran back in to get shoes on, by the time I did it had stopped. Then, a few days before my birthday we got a tiny dusting, not even enough to cover the grass, and barely enough for a snowball. I was excited we got some, but majorly disappointed in the lack of it. Every day, I wish for snow. It is December after all, and nearly Christmas, the ground & trees should be white and pretty, not ugly drab colors of dead grass and trees... I check the forecast online often and I get a :( face because there isn't any snow in the forecast day after day...even yesterday when I looked at the 10 day there wasn't any other then next week a rain/snow mix. Imagine my surprise when I went out to the kitchen this morning and glanced out my window and saw this SNOW! I was so excited! I called for Bree to come look out the window, she too shared my excitement. We grabbed our shoes, coats, and her mittens, and grabbed the dog and headed out to play in the snow while Moo (the dog) did her business. It was awesome. I'm in snow heaven. I want more...I'm greedy that way, sorry.

I know, most of you are snow haters...I'm sorry. Please don't rain on my parade :P

Toodles!

Bree's 4th Birthday Party

Bree turns 4 on December 19th, but we had her party early so Kelsey could be here for it, she'll be out of town this weekend. So on Dec. 11th we had a few people over, my mom, and my brother and his family. Invited a few others but they didn't come. It was a small but sweet party, Bree had fun, and thats the important thing!

Bree is in love with Lalaloopsy toys. Lalaloosy dolls "were once rag dolls that magically came to life when their last stitch was sewn. Each doll has their own personality that comes from the fabrics used to sew them." says their website. They are kind of cute, but the one thing I don't like about them is they are so top heavy they won't sit or anything, they just fall over... They may make a good weapon too with that hard head. Anyways, Bree loves them. She got her first last year at her birthday, she got the larger sized Princess Jewel Sparkle...and it has snowballed from there. Now she has about 10 mini lalaloopsy dolls, a bus, a treehouse, lalaloopsy pj's, and a ds game! She's in Lalaheaven.

She wanted her birthday cake to be Lalaloopsy of course. I made a drawing of how I hoped it would be, but of course plans changed and it didn't look as good as my drawing. I did a big pic of Princess Jewel Sparkle (Bree's favorite) on the top, and a bunch of others faces on the sides.

We got Bree a pink crown to wear, like Princess Jewel Sparkle, and we curled her hair all pretty for the day too, but the curls didn't last very long.

Here are some pictures from party day Enjoy.





Toodles!