Bread to eat, and not to spend.

Another weekend with the midgets, and let me tell you-they've been really funny. Barrett woke up this morning at about 5:30 asking for "faffles". So at about 5:45am I was standing in the kitchen half asleep making "faffles". I ended up sitting with him at their little kiddie table and having one myself. Hell, it was 6am on a Saturday, I deserved it dang it! Haha. They're napping right now actually, and I'm trying to finish up baking bread for the week. I've actually gotten a lot done today considering this cough thing I still have.
I started classes last week at GTCC for my nursing program. I have the best professors. My math teacher is so funny. Next weekend I'm going to the beach, and I'm thinking by then I will really need a break. I'm really stressed out about money, but am having a little meeting with my parents tonight to talk about it. Hopefully that goes well, we'll see. Alrighty then, back to the bread!

Mission: First Day of School, a success!

Aha! Very unlike the mornings of summer camp a few weeks ago, this morning went off without a hitch. Caleb spent the night with me last night, and we had a nice chat about what he was going to be doing this morning. I played Johnny Cash for them on the way there, and we sang on the way there. As horrible as my singing is, I think it helped, haha. The usual was for him to get upset when he saw the school, but not today! We pulled up, I got him out of the car, and he trotted off into his classroom without even a goodbye. I was heartbroken and ecstatic at the same time. Part of me wanted him to cling to me, and the other wanted him to be "a big boy". Looks like the "big boy" won.

On a COMPLETELY different note, Super K-mart has Lean Cuisine's on sale for $1.24 a piece. I thought that deal was absolutely blog worthy, lol. Well, they have become a staple in my little training program. I don't have to think about anything but counting down the three minutes until they're done in the microwave. Things are going really well with the whole diet thing. I really look forward to jogging at Battleground Park every day, and I sleep better than I have in a while. I have officially gone down about one more size since last month, so horray for me! I do realize that blogging about it kind of puts me in the tool category, but it makes me feel accountable to something. Anyway, hope all is well in the blogging world for all today...

I realize this is most likely a fake email, but it was so crazy I had to post it!


>hi whtever u are
>i wanna buy u my kidney
>my blood kind is B+
>if thats right with u just send me the price and all detials
>i am from egypt so u will come to me and take my kidney and get me a money here in cairo
>waiting ur replay !!

So, if any of my fellow bloggeroni's want to buy a kidney-here is the man for you! Ha, what a crackpot.

Chin, chin!

I had a really awesome weekend, I have to say. I was really relaxed by Sunday. September 6th is the first day of the new session for court, and I will get the date of my post-separation support/child support hearing. The thought of going to court makes me really nervous, but hopefully things will turn out well all in all. Today has been a little trying with the kids. Their schedule's are totally off after spending the weekend with C.D, and it takes me a few days to get them in the swing of things again. He just seems to drag them all over God's creation with not a thought to their nap schedules and needed quiet times. It drives me NUTS. I spend a lot of my time playing catch-up with them because they don't get to bed at normal times with him either. So much of the time he will just drag them out, running errands, when they should be at home eating dinner and winding down for bed. And he WONDERS why they won't go to bed sometimes! They're all jacked up, and need time to come down! Alright, enough about that-I'm getting all flustered over something I can't do anything about.

Update on my custody case...

I went to the MeetUp last night over at Panera, and it was really nice to see "the gang" again. Even The Shu was there! =) I only decided to come after a butt kicking jog at Battleground Park made me crave the free bread given out. You no-carb people are nuts, haha. Anyway, I have an update on my custody case: I finally called my attorney again on Tuesday morning. She said she would call the evaluator to see what was going on with my case, and that very afternoon someone from the eval. office called. They said I had an appointment in September being made to see him again, ALONG with Cowboy Dan. I have no idea what that is all about. It makes me nervous.

I'm really kind of freaked out at this point because A) its been so long since the temporary custody agreement was signed, and B) it has taken so long for this guy to get back to me. I feel like my case is being forgotten about, or even worse, rushed through. There are so many important details that should be considered when thinking up a custody arrangement for the children. I just hope and pray that it is in God's will for the children to be with me. I don't know what I would do without them. I think I would just die.

Back to school for Mommy and Caleb...

Must be an act of God, because my credit is completely trashed at this point of the divorce, but my credit limit was upped $4000. Now I at least have room to put my school costs on it, unfortunately to the tune of a 19% APR. Beggars aren't choosers, right? lol. Anyway, I am going to GTCC's nursing program because it seems to be the cheapest right now. Caleb starts school on the 29th too, and is more excited than I am. This should be a great social outlet for him, as well as an incredible education. I've asked Dan to pitch in for school, but he completely refused. No suprises there really. My parents are paying for Caleb to go, but hopefully in the future I will qualify for financial aid through the school. Anyway, gotta run. Good day to everyone.

Camera phones are not the greatest, but they are good for capturing sudden moments of cuteness. Case in point, Rosie being too cool for sliding down the Slip'n Slide. She'll just hang out in the deep end...go on 'wicha bad self.
pics by Ann

I find that the things I miss the most about having the kids at night are the most simple. They are things like making dinner for them, and then feeding them. Drying them off from bath time, and chasing their wobbly naked selves around the place-trying to get pj's on them. I miss the hundred times I have to put Barrett back in his bed before he will sleep. (I secretly think he counts them too, hehe.) I miss the way Rosie puts her head on my shoulder just before its time for her to sleep. Mostly I just miss being a Mommy at night. Otherwise I feel like an old maid.

Caleb and I singing...badly

This is just a WAV of Caleb and I singing...yes, rather badly. Enjoy...no really. Hehe.

Posting MP3's or WAV's?

Does anyone know how I could post MP3's or WAV's? I would reallllllllllly appreciate some techie help! (Uhhhhh, Ben?)

I had to post this picture, lol! Caleb is the one sitting in the seat of this Power Wheels truck. Barrett is the one PUSHING it up and down the drive. The truck doesn't work, and is very hard for even ME to push. Barrett, who is 2 1/2, was pushing Caleb around for at least a half hour with no problems at all. Hehe. I also need to get, and post, a picture of Barrett doing his pull-ups on something. Its pretty impressive, I have to say! He literally can pull himself level to almost anything he can reach his fingertips too. Must take after my side of the family! =P
pics by Ann

My church

I really love my church, and thought it would be a good idea to just put the link out there for anyone looking for a relaxed-yet spiritually rich church. Visit the Grace Community Church website here., and maybe instead of sitting around in your pajama pants Sunday morning you can feed your soul a little. Good weekend to you all!

I cheated and softened the pic a little, sorry for the re-post.
pics by Ann

Caleb + Mommy = One big ham. Great math if you ask me.
pics by Ann

Everyone, meet Rob the Great...King of the Sandcastles!
pics by Ann

Crazy kiddie days

Last night was a long night. Rosie is sick, and was able to stay here with me. C.D didn't pick the kids up until about 8:00pm, and was supposed to be here between 7-7:15pm. He usually picks them up at 6, but had to do something after work. I was a little frustrated because A) he didn't answer either of his phones when I called to see where he was, and why he was late. B) I would have just had the boys spend the night because they were really tired and ready for bed. I knew that if they went home with him they would be crabby in the morning too. And I was right. They were. We went to the Children's Museum again today, and had to leave early because Barrett started whacking his head on the floor screaming. Then Caleb started screaming because we had to leave. It was nuts. My head hurts.

Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Eight
Borgeby gard, Fladie, Sweden August 12, 1904

I want to talk to you again for a little while, dear Mr. Kappus, although there is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can hardly find one useful word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.
It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, when it "happens" (that is, steps forth out of us to other people), we will feel related and close to it in our innermost being. And that is necessary. It is necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they ill also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them. Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun's motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.
How could it not be difficult for us?
And to speak of solitude again, it becomes clearer and clearer that fundamentally this is nothing that one can choose or refrain from. We are solitary. We can delude ourselves about this and act as if it were not true. That is all. But how much better it is to recognize that we are alone; yes, even to begin from this realization. It will, of course, make us dizzy; for all points that our eyes used to rest on are taken away from us, there is no longer anything near us, and everything far away is infinitely far. A man taken out of his room and, almost without preparation or transition, placed on the heights of a great mountain range, would feel something like that: an unequalled insecurity, an abandonment to the nameless, would almost annihilate him. He would feel he was falling or think he was being catapulted out into space or exploded into a thousand pieces: what a colossal lie his brain would have to invent in order to catch up with and explain the situation of his senses. That is how all distances, all measures, change for the person who becomes solitary; many of these changes occur suddenly and then, as with the man on the mountaintop, unusual fantasies and strange feelings arise, which seem to grow out beyond all that is bearable. But it is necessary for us to experience that too. We must accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can; everything, even the unprecedented, must be possible within it. This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. The fact that people have in this sense been cowardly has done infinite harm to life; the experiences that are called "apparitions," the whole so-called "spirit world," death, all these Things that are so closely related to us, have through our daily defensiveness been so entirely pushed out of life that the senses with which we might have been able to grasp them have atrophied. To say nothing of God. But the fear of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don't think we can deal with. but only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. for if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And that is what you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else.
Don't observe yourself too closely. Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame (that is: morally) at your past, which naturally has a share in everything that now meets you. But whatever errors, wishes, and yearnings of your boyhood are operating in you now are not what you remember and condemn. The extraordinary circumstances of a solitary and helpless childhood are so difficult, so complicated, surrendered to so many influences and at the same time so cut off from all real connection with life that, where a vice enters it, one may not simply call it a vice. One must be so careful with names anyway; it is so often the name of an offense that a life shatters upon, not the nameless and personal action itself, which was perhaps a quite definite necessity of that life and could have been absorbed by it without any trouble. And the expenditure of energy seems to you so great only because you overvalue victory; it is not the "great thing" that you think you have achieved, although you are right about your feeling; the great thing is that there was already something there which you could replace that deception with, something true and real. Without this even your victory would have been just a moral reaction of no great significance; but in fact it has become a part of your life. Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, which I think of with so many good wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of childhood toward the "great thing"? I see that it is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.
And if there is one more thing that I must say to you, it is this: Don't think that the person who is trying to comfort you now lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes give you much pleasure. His life has much trouble and sadness, and remains far behind yours. If it were otherwise, he would never have been able to find those words.

Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke

Guest blogger: Waiting for Vizzini's Juan Vasquez

Since we're sitting here at Panera having dinner, which Juan paid for (THANKS!), I thought it would be fun to have a little "guest blogger" post. So take it away Juan...

It is nice of the sweet lady to shepard me back into the blogging fold as i have been so delinquent in updating my own. well so while i was waiting for the lovely lady to arrive i was reading a really nice book that if you hurry you can still get the hardback for a dollar at the dollar tree, Syrup by Maxx Barry. You really should read it and another nove he has out called Jennifer Government or play the NationStates game online. I am eating Bistro Steak Salad which luckily for me has no onions as i plan to move in for a kiss later. on the home front my mom and my nephew have this weekend discovered the the merits of the inflatable backyard pool.

the lady just took a pic of me maybe she'll post it later. she showing me pics of rosie being happy about cheesy potatoes, rosie is to die for she is so cute.

back to the host...

No Juan, I will not be kissing you, lol. But nice try, that was cute. =P
Anyways, enough of this-back to dinner!

PS) Juan wants all of you to visit www.nationstates.net. You too can own your very own country!


~Ann

School for the midgets, and cheap food in the 'boro...

I am so excited! Both Caleb and Rosie start school in a few weeks. They are going to go to Greensboro Montessori School, and Caleb is actually in the same class as Pete's son. Speaking of Pete, his wife has an awesome store called The Red Canary that you should check out. It is off of Elm Street by the way. Both of them will be going to the half day program, and I have set it up so that I will have a little "one on one" time with Barrett while they are there. Being a middle child myself, I know how hard it can be to get that sort of one-on-one attention that kids need. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays it will just be Barrett and me hanging out. Verrrrry cool for both of us.
I am still waiting on the custody evaluation decision, and the fact that it is taking so long for it to come back is really getting to me. I have already called and left a message on Dr. Batten's voice mail asking about the status of the evaluation, but I guess I should call back again. I just don't want to be a bother, or seem weird for calling. It just seems like this is an awfully long time to get one of these things done.
Last but not least, I just wanted to let those of you who watch your wallets that I have found the cheapest grocery store in the triad. It is the Save-A-Lot on Cone. Now, they don't have a great selection of brands, but if you just need the basics-you have GOT to go there. Bananas are on sale for 29 cents along with lots of kiddy type foods for prices as low as 29-79 cents each. I'm really starting to sound like an old lady aren't I? haha. But seriously, if your wallet is lookin' a little thin you should go check it out. Alrighty then, gotta jet, hope everyone had a good day...

Thanks Todd

THE RIGHT WORD

ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting, temporary, transient, transitory

Things that don't last long are called temporary, which emphasizes a measurable but limited duration (: a temporary appointment as chief of staff).
Something that is fleeting passes almost instantaneously and cannot be caught or held (: a fleeting thought; a fleeting glimpse).
Transient also applies to something that lasts or stays only a short time (: transient house guests), while transitory refers to something that is destined to pass away or come to an end ( the transitory pleasure of eating).
Evanescent and ephemeral describe what is even more short-lived. Ephemeral literally means lasting for only a single day, but is often used to describe anything that is slight and perishable (: his fame was ephemeral). Evanescent is a more lyrical word for whatever vanishes almost as soon as it appears.
In other words, a job might be temporary, an emotion fleeting, a visitor transient, a woman's beauty transitory, and glory ephemeral, but the flash of a bird's wing across the sky would have to be called evanescent.

Music, Music, Gooooood Stuff.

Wanna hear something new? My cousin, Brad Sheley, has a little space on the 'net dedicated to his catchy music: CHECK IT OUT HERE...

Thanks for supporting artists of all kinds!

~Ann

Cleaning=money?

I've thought about maybe cleaning houses and offices on the side to make ends meet. Does anyone have any experience with that? Just thought I'd throw that thought out there. Goodnight world...

Ann factoid #387, #388, and #389

I can make a pretty decent cannoli.

I am not a morning person.

I love hot tea...with honey.

Fear

One of my biggest fears is failing. Failing my kids, my parents, myself, and my friends. I'm so afraid of failing sometimes that I don't ever try to do the things I want to do. Fear seems to rule my life a lot of the time, and I hate it. What is the best way to conquer those kinds of thoughts? Give me some real life examples and advice...anyone?

Dale Chihuli

Check out this awesome picture of the ceiling that artist Dale Chihuli did for the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Check it out!

PS) Thanks Todd! =)

Thoughts...while the guy upstairs yells on the phone.

I started to look at the class schedule today for the nursing program I'm starting. I also applied for a student loan. I really hope to get it because I don't want to go to my parents for the money, and am not entirely sure they'll give it to me if I ask anyways. I want to do this so bad I can taste it. I really thought about what kinds of things I am good at, and what kinds of things I enjoy the most. I also had to think about the potential for earning, because I now have three children to raise on my own. I want them to be proud of me, and be able to provide nice things for them-as most of us do for our children. I think that nursing is the best way for me to serve, and that is what I was born to do I think.

In other news, C.D tried to tell me today that I wasn't allowed to take the children to the doctor. He tried to tell me that he was going to be the only one taking them. So I informed him that they were court ordered to be in my possession from 7:30am-6pm, Monday through Friday-if he wanted to take them, he would have to make an appointment during HIS time. He has never wanted to be involved in their healthcare before, so why the urgent interest now? Because that obviously looks really bad that he hasn't, and he's trying to somehow make up for it by faking interest now. But the truth is, I guess, that the only thing that truly matters is that he's there. No matter what his reason.

Hello Mikey. =)

Sick Cycle Carousel
LifeHouse

If shame had a face I think it
would kind of look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes
Would you believe me if I said I'm tired of this
Well here we go now one more time
I tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how low I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this

So when will this end it goes on and on
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won't stop
Till I step down from this for good
I never thought I'd end up here
Never thought I'd be standing where I am
I guess I kinda thought it would be easier than this
I guess I was wrong now one more time
I tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how long I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this

Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick sycle
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle

Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel...