2014 Reading Challenge - Who Wants to Join?

Okay 2013 was a year of ups and downs.   I finally left my husband when I had to move back home to take care of my parents.  I will post more about that soon.  My ex was less than willing to help me help them.  In fact while my mother was in the hospital for a major head injury he on impulse traveled to Canada to watch the Canadian Football Grey Cup (Their Super Bowl equivalent).

Somehow in all that happened last year I read 60 books (almost 61 but I don't think I will finish it before midnight).  My goal for next year is 75.  With that goal and within it I am making a second goal.  I am also participating in a 2014 Witches & Witchcraft reading challenge and have decided that among my 75 books I will read 20 Witchy books, books that feature a witch as the main character or major witchcraft elements in it.  That is the Crone level, which is appropriate as I have been feeling very cronish lately.  Is cronish a word?  Well, it is now!

Below is a button that will tell you more about the challenge.  My first book that I finish in 2014 is a Circle of Three book by Isobel Bird called So Mote it Be.   It is the first book of a series of 13 books about three students who are interested in the craft and an amazing store and coven that takes them in.  Oh how I wish I knew a store like this when I was their age.

He Says That He is the Victim

‎Gratitude Project Day 57 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1) That cooking helps me feel better when I have had a rough day. 2) That my cats are snugglers and cuddlers. 3) For dreams and never letting them go!!!

It has been a long day. I spent money and he found out about it. It will not take food out of our mouths and it will not prevent bills from being paid. It is however something that he does not like and he didn't give me permission so he freaked out. He woke me up and screamed at me. It took all my effort but I didn't yell back. I just let him go on and on. His new expression today is that my brain is fat. My daughter was home and I want the fighting to stop infront of them.

He just wants to fight until what he wants to say is done. It doesn't matter to him who hears as long as he can say what he wants to say. It may seem that I am making an assumtion about him, but I have asked him to stop arguing with me infront of the kids. He usually replies with that he is not arguing with me, I am the one who ALWAYS starts the arguments or he needs to say what he wants to say and I have no right asking him to be careful about what he says and where he says it.

Then today he actually said it was my fault that he cheated because I am always spending money. He keeps asking me why I don't have enough. He says that he doesn't buy himself anything so why do I keep spending money. I buy my children clothes, things they need for school, I buy things I need and very rarely buy things I want. I wish he could see all the things I don't buy when I have the money. I wish he could see that I pass by many items because I know we need to buy food this week. But all he sees is dollar signs and not what the purpose of the purchase is.

The argument he used today was that I am keeping food off the table. I went grocery shopping yesterday (because he is being nice [his words] and letting me do that again) and I have more than enough food for the week. He thinks he is the victim in our relationship. Afterall I am the instigator in his mind. I instigate and he just reacts. If I make him mad and he lashes out at me in his mind it is my fault.

I found out that he reads my blog. He thinks that it is filled with half truths. This is our life as I see it. If he doesn't like it maybe he should do something to improve it. I was surprised that he told me he reads this. He holds it oer my head that I want to leave. He must not want me to stay because he does nothing to try to convince me to stay. Yes I want to leave and the first chance that I can leave with the kids I will do so. It won't be a surprise. I might just have a party to celebrate it.

Truth be told tonight after he finished yelling at me and telling me in no uncertain word what a failure I am. How I am a blob and all I do is "Plop myself down" while the kids were in their rooms listening to us. After I shut myself in the staircase to get away from him. After all that both children snuck up to me and clung to me. They wouldn't leave my side until they knew he had left the house to go to work.

He is not the victim here, they are. I feel like a horrible mother because I don't have the resourses to get them out of here. So I sit here and cry, I cleaned the kitchen and made the meatballs for dinner tomorrow. Then I am off to bed wondering if I will work tomorrow. Wondering how I am going to save enough money to get us out of here and get us a decent place to live.

Anxiety and the "Big" City

Gratitude Day Project 56 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1) That I found all the groceries I needed even though I shopped at a time I usually avoid. 2) That I got an extra five minutes this morning before I had to wake up. 3) That my daughter gives me lots of hugs!!!

There was an hour before my daughter's bedtime and time for my son to do his homework. Tonight he had one worksheet and Mr. Myers Math timed subtraction test to do. If he took a half hour to do this I thought it would have been too long. I was wrong. Meanwhile I turned tv off so he could do his homework and needed to find something for my daughter to do. Then I remembered the paper city I had downloaded a while ago. I had cardstock to print it on and we had something to do.

Maybe it was watching his sister do something fun, though he should have been doing his homework. He started fooling around. Sunday night is never a goodtime to annoy Mommy, but a Sunday night after Daddy has been working all weekend and having to go to the grocery store when it was full of people (I love to grocery shop Sunday night when the store is empty) and after an afternoon of them annoying me is even worse. Please I asked him, please do your homework!!!

An hour passed and he finally finished the worksheet. It took him maybe three minutes to do once he sat down to do it. He had a break, though he didn't deserve it and he played with B decorating and setting up the paper city. It was a seriously cool design. (The link for it is in the title of this) Just print, color and fold and you have a city that you can set up and play with. There were people, cars, buildings and fun landmarks too. I let him have some fun then back to his homework he went. He only had three minutes left. That was it, of course that didn't happen.

I shouldn't have let him play. He just had so little homework and the city was something he was interested in. Of course he went from his usual bouncy behavior to uber hysterical in less than a minute. This has been his pattern lately and why he is going to see his pediatrician this week. It concerns me, as it is such a strong behavior change for him. Plus it is new and I don't know how to react to it yet. I try not to get mad, but it is so easy to just fall into that pattern.

I can't snap, B needs to go to bed. I can't snap, he needs a Mommy that can handle his mood swings. I should be able to adjust. He is screaming and telling me that I am mean because I want him to do his homework and how he hates me (to which I always reply with that I love him). It is painful to hear and watch so I ask him to take his bath hoping that will help him calm down. He needed a bath anyway tonight.

He is still screaming, but he is calming down as the water fills the tub. Water always has a calming effect on him. B and I finish playing with the city. She keeps setting up all the pices and then rearranging them. Then off the board they go and back again in another arrangement. We put them away when it is story time and oddly enough the book she picked tonight was about how a house is built. We started the book with the blueprints and finished with the family moving in. Hugs and kisses and off to bed she went.

He has been in the bath for a long time and now I need him to get out. It is bedtime and he still has part of homework to finish. He comes out of the tub all smiles and bouncing. Everything is honky dory until I mention he has to finish his homework. Immedietly he starts throwing things, ripping papers and screaming. This is such a surprise beause on Friday he recieved praise from his teacher for his vast improvement in writing. He was so proud of himself. He knew he did a good job and was so happy about it. He even had me email his teacher on Thursday night when he finished his assignment because he was so excited about his work. How did I go from happy to do his homework to the screaming wild child I saw before me? Friday seems a long way off and then I don't even know if his doctor will have any answers.

By the time he finished his homework he had no voice left, I was in tears and my stomach was in knots. I was actually feeling sick from the anxiety I was feeling, I can't imagine how he had to be feeling. We had a snuggle and talked about what happened. He appologized and went off to bed.

The stress of making sure he does his homework is getting to be too much. D very rarely involves himself with homework. Usually that is okay with me because honestly he usually either doesn't understand what they are doing or he just gives them the answers so they can finish it as fast as possible. We will get through this, we always do. it is just the adjustment period that really gets to me and him. Is it the asperger's or is it just him being 9, turning 10 and being stubborn? Do they still calgon?

Payday Woes

Something has always bothered me about how D, my soon to be ex husband divides the money in our household. Now that I have a paycheck he can't keep all the money away from me. After the bills are paid, gas for the car is bought and we buy groceries he likes to split the money up between us. Well, that is when he allows me to have money. That has always bothered me and I couldn't put my feelings into words until today.

My money is used for clothes for the kids, books for them to read, supplies for school projects, ink for the printer, and other things like that. I have no idea what his pocket money is used for. I know he complains if he needs to buy anything for the kids, even if it is from the dollar store.

Just now he again talked about splitting the money up and I finally said, what about expenses for the children? Whose pocket do they come out of? I simply suggested a split that takes their needs into account. I had no idea that he would blow up about it.

Of course the kids were waiting in the cold car for him to take them sledding. He was to busy arguing with me about using money to get things we might need for the kids. B needs tights and P needs socks. They need things too. If it comes out of my portion of the money then I should get a larger portion, if it comes out of his than he should. But seriously the time to argue about it is not when the kids are in the car waiting to go sledding.

A plus is that do have access to the money again, although the negative of him being mad about how he thinks I will spend it (before I have even touched one penny of it) is a huge weight on my shoulders. I keep setting some aside and watch my fund for getting out of this marriage grow each week. Every week my freedom gets a little closer.

Just Breathe

The night started like any other night, it was time for my son to start homework. The routine hasn't changed and I had no idea what was about to occur. I wonder if I would have done anything different if I did know. I would like to think that I would still be the "mean" mommy and still have him start his homework. After all it was a light homework night. He had no math homework only 10 words of his spelling and 20 minutes of reading and three small sentences. I fear it was the sentences that were the culprit this evening.

The first time he had this assignment he had such a rough time. To me it was such a simple thing, three connections. Three things that the book he was reading made him connect to. I do it all the time, to me it is second nature. Sometimes the connections are complicated and sometimes they are as simple as remembering a song that is mentioned in the book. A song that ties into a beloved job a planetarium. Funny after all these years listening to Holst's Jupiter and I still can remember exactly how it goes.

Three simple connections, to him though I think they are more like three 15 page term papers. Of course I offer to help and I page through the book he is reading. I bought this book because it involves the solar system and I thought P would like it because he loves watching Discovery Channel shows about the solar system. I see many connections that he could make between the words on the page and the many things that have occurred to him in his childhood. Unfortunately when I mention these connections he can't see them. He believes the connection must be exact. Eventually he will get it, but it won't be tonight.

I believe what happened next can best be said by Maurice Sendak in Where the Wild Things Are "Let the wild rumpus start." and it did. He started crying and complaining then as it usually happens at this point his ears got red. They get too hot and that almost always overwhelms him. The combination of the ears and him having to come up with the dreaded connections became all that were needed for the temper tantrum avalanche to occur. The next hour was miserable for both of us. More so for him I think because I had to let it happen. He has to understand that a temper tantrum will not get him out of doing his homework. I had to understand that I can't always gather him in my arms and comfort him. I wonder how long it will take me to learn that.

He might have been able to push through the original temper tantrum, but in the process of flailing around the book that he was holding hit him in the eye. I think I have mentioned that pain for him is either a 0 or a 10, there is nothing in between. Now he has hot ears, hated homework and a hurt eye. He starts running back and forth in the living room and stimming by flapping his arms. He has new sounds that I have not heard before that almost sound like words. I try to talk him down. He needs to learn how to do that. We have worked on breathing exercises before and he is beginning to understand that they can help him calm down.

Again he is almost done with the temper tantrum, I don't know how much time has passed but it has been a while. Then just as I think it is over he stubs his toe. Round three begins. This time I try to hold him, I try to comfort him. He is so upset that he can't be calmed. Time keeps ticking away and he is about to wear a path into our carpet. The worst part is that upstairs his daddy is relaxing before he goes to work. He must know what is happening and is not coming downstairs to help either me or his son.

Finally an hour (I think) has gone by and P is exhausted. He has hurt himself I think four times. Such innocent hurts but to him they are like the pain of a broken bone, at least that is what it sounds like to me. I finally can hug him and wipe the tears away. He writes one connection and I know when I am beat. He takes the book that he needs to read for 20 minutes and we snuggle on his bed. I kiss him good night and know he will soon fall asleep.

Then I Google "Asperger's and Red Ears" His doctor tells us the red ears is a result of him not wearing a hat in the winter and almost getting frostbite. He assures us that eventually they will stop bothering him and for a while I believed that. But I have noticed when his ears get red is when he is overwhelmed. I have noticed other children with sensory issues also have the same thing happen to them.

That is why I did the Google search. This is what I found, most link that popped up mentioned celiacs and suggested a gluten free diet. Gluten, found in many grains, something that is prevalent in most of the foods that P (and I) love. Celiacs, also know as sprue, something that D's uncle had complications from and died from many years ago. Celiacs, that does seem to have a tie in with autism. So is it celiacs or a sensory issue or both. Deep breath Mommy, just breathe and don't panic.

D is about to leave for work and I try to talk to him about this, He starts talking about his uncle and we talked about diet restrictions and then I said the worse thing ever (at least for my son), soy sauce was on the don't ever eat list. Somehow my sleepy son heard this and came rushing out of his room, I guess he hadn't fallen asleep. He is so upset that he can't have soy sauce anymore. Poor kiddo, he was so upset, and crying about his beloved soy sauce. Funny how we all have a food that is a deal breaker. Spinach was mine when I was told I couldn't eat food with oxilates in it, soy sauce is his. Luckily Google came to the rescue as we looked for gluten free soy sauce and found that is does exhist. Crisis averted and he went back to bed.

Okay, I'm not jumping to conclusions. I will approach this calmly. I made a doctor appointment for P and mentioned his anxiety, homework issues and maybe a food allergy or celiacs. We will start paying attention to what he is eating and see if gluten might be an issue. Just breathe!!!

Storage Wars - My Eclectic Life

What would my dream for 2012 be? Well, except for moving out and ending my marriage. I want to be able to store things and put things away. One huge difference between my soon to be ex and I are always battling about clutter and stuff. He thinks we have too much stuff. I think we have no place to put things. He wants nothing in our house and I want shelves and bins and toy boxes and containers and hangers to hang up my clothes.

It is true that in our last house we did not have closet space so we did not have hangers. He have been in this house for almost two years now. He still gets mad at me when I buy hangers. Seriously! How can I put my clothes in my closet if I don't have enough hangers. I just did hanger inventory again and I really need to get more. Because I started wearing dressier clothes for work I have taken those clothes out of storage and they need to be hung up.

I have many teaching supplies in bins in my bedroom. I think I have almost 20 bins. They are against a wall and not in the way. He actually is trying to get me to get rid of them. He thinks if it is in a bin that I am not using it. I may not be using it today, that is why I am storing it. But the bins are labeled so when I need what they hold I can find it. We have a fight about these bins about once a month. I don't know why they are so threatening to him.

My dream would be book shelves filled with books lining my walls. I would love my basement and garage walls organized with shelves filled with bins so our clutter can be put away and I could find it. I want those ottomans that you can put things inside. I want shelves with doors so I can hide things and put things away.

Already it is just a week after Christmas he is complaining that the kids have too many toys and no place to put them. But he also refuses to buy shelves, toy boxes, bins, or any container for their toys to be put away in. The kids long for these items. ANy big box we get is used by the kids to put their toys in until he decides it is clutter and throws it away. The all they toys are dumped out and become clutter once again.

We were in a store this past week and I pointed out to him how the kids were cleaning up nicely, putting toys in the bins they belonged in. It was beautiful. He said that we would have bins all over and they would take over the house. Then of course he brought up my neatly stacked bins in my bedroom that are against the wall and not in anyones way. Once again he told me that they needed to go and I was silly for wanting shelves and bins because we have too much stuff.

So now I slowly buy the storage items I can, and I pray that my son will stop breaking them. That is another battle and the older he gets the less he destroys. He really wants shelves in his room to put things away in. So I slowly get what I need. Hopefully in a few months, when I have enough money saved for three months rent, I will find a nice place for the three of us to move into and I can store things the way I need to without the Ogres input.

This is what I want, I walk into an organization store and I lose my breath. I want the label gun and little boxes to put into larger boxes. If they just didn't cost so much! So until I can get al of that I'll have to make do with the plastic bins and sharpie markers to label them. I'll have to shop the garage sales for mix matched book shelves and enjoy the eclectic life. Someday maybe I will be able to walk into a storage store and load up my carts with all that I dream for, or maybe I will just enjoy my eclectic life.

New Years Eve

Gratitude Project Day 43 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1)That 2011 is almost over, it has been a difficult year and I am glad to put it behind me. 2) That the grocery store's play room was open so I could grocery shop in peace. 3)That I could chat with a friend form my teen years today. It was via the computer but it was still nice to catch up.

Tonight we end 2011 and 2012 begins. When the clock strikes 12:00 midnight another year is behind us. I find myself doing what everyone does and I look back at the highs and lows of the year. I have to force myself to not dwell on the lows. That however is difficult. It is so easy to sink into the memories of all the things that happened this past year that were upsetting. Why is remembering the bad so much easier than remembering the good? I am pleased that the year is ending on a high, my new job is definitely the best thing that happened this past year.

What does the new year bring? I am hoping that this is the year that I can finally move out of this house and this marriage. I don't have to worry about sticking to my conviction about this. Anytime I start to think that maybe I will stay my worse half does something horrible and I remember why I need to walk out. Today in the parking lot after grocery shopping he did something to P that obviously hurt my son. P was being too silly and it needed to stop, however my soon to be ex didn't handle it very well. He flicked P's head and P was crying. I would have handled it differently. I wouldn't have done anything to hurt my son. Once the kids were in the car I told him exactly what I thought. He looked down and didn't reply. I wonder if he even listened to me.

So the year ends. He is upstairs alone watching the hockey game and the kids and I are downstairs watching the Disney Channel. More and more that is the way things work out. The kids try to stay with me as much as they can.

Though tonight they may be with me because of the food we have down here. We had sushi (It didn't last long, yum!), potato chips, pizza, shrimp chips (very yummy), cheese, crackers and summer sausage. We may not have a fancy New Year's party to go to but we can have the tasty food. Later we will break out the shrimp, pop and the sparking grape juice. This is one of the few days (or nights) that I allow them to have pop.

Happy New Year everyone, this is the year I will finally get out on my own, just me and the kids. That is so scary. Once upon a time I was afraid of failure. The thought of me giving up on my marriage was something that filled me with fear. I was worried about what people would think of me. Now I think "Let them look!" I am doing what is best for me and my children. If my daughter was in a marriage like mine I would do all I could to help her get out of it. So I need to do the same thing for me and them. We need to get out.

A Hand Made Christmas

A few months ago my children surprised me with a special Christmas request. They announced that they did not want electronic toys. They wanted hand made toys that helped develop their imaginations. My first thought was "Really?". For months before this all they wanted was a Nintendo DSi XL. Truth be told so did I? I had no idea how to pay for them and hoped that lay-a-way would be the answer to that question. Of course my soon-to-be-ex is completely opposed to lay-a-way. Then again he also is completely opposed to spending of money for anything.

The idea of buying hand made gifts was my first idea. I went to local craft shows hoping to find felt food like I saw on Etsy. It was often very realistic and I could see myself spending serious money on so many fun items. Unfortunately the local craft shows had nothing like what I was finding on Etsy. Christmas was fast approaching and buying items online and hoping they arrived before Christmas was risky. Plus I would have to hope the kids didn't see all the packages. So I shifted my thought process.

The kids wanted hand made toys, why couldn't I make them? I enjoy crafts, but I don't think of myself as crafty. It is an effort for me to make things because what I want them to look like and how they often actually turn out are very different things. Still I thought I could do it. I decided to make a puppet theater to hang in the doorway, a wood surface for P to drive his toy cars on. And for my daughter a play surface for her to play with her Littlest Pet Shop toys on. I needed paint, cloth, wood, felt, and glue. So I took the Christmas money and headed for the craft store. It was so scary to buy everything. What if I messed up? What if I spent all the money and the kids hated what I made? I was so worried!

One amazing thing happened my mom bought me a sewing machine for Christmas and gave it to me early. That helped make some of the items for the kids. When I threaded the needle for the first time I was thrilled. I knew that I was capable of getting these crafts done. I was starting to have faith in myself. I could really do this!

When I started working the job threw a monkey wrench into my plans. Prior to this I was working on puppets for the puppet theater at night. Now I had to sleep at night so I could work during the day. I was starting to get worried. Before this I hadn't even thought about what would happen if I didn't finish the items. I did have some other things to put under the tree but the items I was making were the big gifts. Christmas was getting closer and I was running out of time.

Okay it was now Christmas vacation, there were just days left and I hadn't even bought the wood I needed for the car board or play world for the kids. I left the kids with my Dad and headed to Home Depot. I walked over to were they had plywood and they had huge sheets, thin sheets, thick ones, small ones, so many different types of plywood. I thought this would be simple. Then a worker found me pondering several different pieces of wood. "May I help you?" he said and I think I audibly sighed in relief. I explained what I wanted to make and what sizes I needed and all I could think about was dollar signs. All this wood seemed to cost so much. I had underestimated the cost of wood.

The worker said he had something that was perfect for me and he showed me a thin sheet of plywood a little bigger than I needed but then he said the magic words, "I can sell you this for $2.00." Sold I said and picked out a smaller thicker piece for my daughter. He even helped me get the bar I needed for the doorway puppet theater so I could set it up and take it down easily. I paid for it and walked to the car to bring it home.

Remember when I said the wood was a bit larger than I needed? Well it also turns out that it was bigger than the trunk and the door to the back seat of my little car. There I was in the parking lot and of course it was cold and there was a bit of a mist in the air. How was I going to get this home? I had one option left, I put it on the top of the car. I had one bungee cord and a big yellow rope.

I strapped that piece of wood down and started for home. I drove mostly on side streets and of course went nice and slow. I could just imagine what other drivers thought as they passed me. I tried not to look at their faces. Eventually I made it home and hid the wood against the wall in the kitchen.

The item I made my son took two nights to make. The first night I painted the wood green. It took such a long time and I caught up on my missed episodes of Top Chef while I did the painting. Well that was until my worse half decided that he wanted to watch something different and changed the channel. I was busy so in his mind I wasn't watching tv. I ended up going to bed soon after that so we wouldn't get into a fight. The second day I added the streets and that was a lot of fun. It isn't perfect and there are some small imperfections but it was made from love and my son was thrilled when he saw it. It was the first thing he played with and the last before he went to bed that night.

The play world for my daughter was different. Again I painted it green, but that is all I did to the wood. All the decor on it was removable and changeable. I made lakes for her in several different colors including her beloved pink. I made stones out of foam so she could make pathways. I made trees out of pipe cleaners and pom poms. I had so much fun making these items and the best part is that I can make more for it because I didn't make anything permanent. She was also thrilled and has had so much fun playing with her animals.

The doorway puppet theater was the last large gift I made them. I picked some bright colored fabric to make it. Though I picked out fabric that was too thick. It broke my sewing machine's needle. So instead of sewing it together I used fabric glue. I even made the curtains for it tied back. The puppets for it were the most fun to make. I made animal finger puppets, I made, fun finger puppets. Some were not really anything, just figments of my imagination. I made people out of pieces of foam and attached them to popsicle sticks. I gave similar ones different facial expressions so they could be used for different emotions. They performed a puppet show for us on Christmas and it was so cute. They have wonderful imaginations and I am glad they chose to ask for gifts that allowed them to utilize them. It was a wonderful hand made Christmas and I can't wait to make more things for them.

I Have a Job (That I get a Paycheck for)

When I went to my son's school for his Parent-Teacher conference I never thought that it would lead to a job. I have interviewed and applied for so many teaching positions. I thought I had one in another state only to have the job offer rescinded. I have taught classes and been praised by the interviewer for my lessons only to never hear from them again. But when the Principal stopped me and asked me how my certification was going I had no way of knowing that that question would turn into a job.

I was hired by the district to be a substitute teacher within a month. Now I am working almost every day. It couldn't have come at a better time because Christmas is right around the corner and I always want to make it the best Christmas I can for the kids. One of the teachers asked me how the kids were handling the adjustment of Mommy going to work outside of the home? We all know that Mommy's are always working in the home. I thought about it and they are having no trouble adjusting. It is me that is having a bit of trouble adjusting.

Not that I am complaining because I love being a teacher. Plus I don't have to write any lesson plans or correct many papers. When I am in the classroom it is wonderful. Most of the time the students have been wonderful too. I love walking down the hall and having the children say hello to me by name. I am known as the teacher with the tarantulas. Even if it has been almost two years since Hannah has been to the classroom.

My problems with adjustment are amusing. I am not able to catch up with all my TV shows. Luckily I have a DVR but I have to admit the memory is getting mighty full especially this time of year. I admit it I am a sucker for the Christmas romance movies. Those added to the kids Christmas specials are taking up a lot of memory. Still I am slowly getting through most of them.

Sleep is my other issue. I was used to going to bed whenever. Some nights I admit I was up much too late, or was it too early in the morning? Yikes, even now as I type this I notice it is after midnight. Though I am only working a half day tomorrow (or today I guess) in the afternoon. Mostly I am able to adjust so I am going to sleep earlier and even manage to wake up in the morning. Any one who knows me knows that I am not a morning person, but I will wake up for a good reason, like a paycheck.

I was ready to go to sleep earlier tonight but I had to wash my hair. That is another of my amusing issues. I don't have a hair dryer and I don't want to go to school to teach with wet hair. My hair takes forever to dry, even with a hairdryer so when mine died several years ago I never bought another one. I thought the money would be better spent on food or some other essential. So I have to plan hair drying time into my schedule until I get a new hair dryer. Usually it is after the kids go to sleep and before I go to bed. I'm glad I remembered tonight because it cost $14.00 to go to the salon and get a blow dry there.

I have received my first paycheck and I bought myself a couple little things. Most of it went towards Christmas. Even hand made toys cost something to make. There is less than a week until the big day and I can honestly say that I am almost ready for it.

The best part of having a job (that I am getting paid for) is how I feel. I am so happy. Even my worse half has been in a better mood. He decided that since I am working that he will clean the living room. So far the kids and I have been doing it and he even got upset because he wanted to sleep and we were too loud cleaning. I hope this happiness stays with me. It has been a long time since I was this happy.

One Week Until Christmas

Gratitude Project Day 33 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1) That we (My husband and I) went out for a nice dinner and there was no conflict. 2) That so far my Christmas shopping has been more even then I thought it was. 3) Chocolate! 'Nuff said.

One week left and I am almost ready. I need one piece of plywood to make the matchbox roadmap for my son. Ideally I want to make it a map of the city we live in. If I can't do that it will just be fun with roads. I have the paint all ready I just haven't been able to get that piece of plywood. I am making it big enough for him to have some fun with it. Ideally I want a piece that is 4' x 3'. I got the idea when he took the protective covers for my dining room table and put them on his bed so he could drive his cars on top of it. He was so upset when we put them back on top of the table. It must be so simple, just go to Home Depot and buy it. Of course Home Depot is not a place I usually go so somehow I always manage to forget to go. Now I have a week left and I still don't have that plywood.

Then I have to finish making the puppet theater. I have the puppets almost done. The puppet theater just fits in the doorway and I need a tension rod. At least I think that is what it is called. It fits in the doorway and the puppet theater slides on like a curtain. I hope they really like all the things I have been making for them.

When P sat on Santa's lap he once again asked for handmade toys. I made him a wooden car this year. Well, I bought a Melissa & Doug build your own car kit. I painted it red, P's favorite color and installed the wheels. I am not a woodworker but still I build that car using the love in my heart. I hope he likes it. When we went to the local science museum he played with the wooden toy cars in the Explorations room. When it was time to leave, because the museum was closing, he was so upset because he had to put the cars away.

Dinner last night ended up being better than I thought. The only down side was the chicken. It was like eating cardboard. I had heard so many wonderful things about this restaurant that I was expecting better. We all got a tree made of Godiva chocolate. It was delicious. The door prizes were fantastic, but they were all won buy other people. They could have spent the same amount of money and still gotten nice door prizes for twice as many people. One of the prizes was an iPad 2 and there were other prizes valued at more than that.

We even did a little Christmas shopping together last night without any arguing. For my husband and I to go in a store and spend money without an argument I always thought that the world would have to end. Still we managed to buy one more gift for our son without fighting. Then we went home and he fell asleep on the couch without much talking at all.

Today he again is in grump mode. I am upstairs because I want to avoid the fighting. I just noticed the time and I wonder if the kids had lunch. He usually forgets and I stupidly stayed up here. I hope they ate. I need to stay on top of that more. Of course it is possible that they did eat lunch. Wow, he bought them McDonald's. Of course he didn't buy me any, I still haven't had lunch yet. Oh well.

Drat, the kids just discovered the chocolate.