In response to Cazzy’s comment on my last post, thank you for letting me know I am not alone. Sometimes it really feels that way. If anyone gets to keep the earnest money it will be my Mom, but her realtor says she’ll probably have to go to small claims court to get it.

Someone like you, thanks for the well wishes. I never expected the teen years to be so difficult, even before my son was diagnosed. I know that we will get through this, somehow. Thank you for stopping by.

I was on the phone most of yesterday and I now have Nathan on the waiting list for three different alternative schools. I spoke with his psychiatrist and his primary care physician, both who said they will happily write letters on his behalf to maybe help speed up the application process. When I told Nathan that he was on the waiting list he seemed much happier. I think just the thought that he might be getting out of this school has really lifted his spirits. They have a lot more programs for teens over the age of 16 or teens who have been arrested, expelled or who are teen parents. Fortunately Nathan qualifies for none of those programs, but it is still frustrating to see how far you have to fall before you can get a hand up.

Polly is doing very well at her school. I spoke with her teacher last Friday and she is getting all As and Bs. Her teacher is very nice and the whole environment at that school feels so positive. She is going to her first dance on Friday. She asked me if I would chaperone and so I said I would, but the office said that I can’t until I fill out a criminal background check. I just had one last year, so I could volunteer at her last school, but they said when your child changes schools you have to get (and pay for) another one.

I’ve only volunteered a few times at my children’s classrooms, preferring to let them have school time be their time. When Nathan was in kindergarten I used to go in and read to a small group sometimes. When Polly was in kindergarten I used to go in and help during journal time. Soon Polly was clinging to me when journal time was over and begging me to stay the entire afternoon. I decided it would be better if we parted ways at the door. The school that Polly is in now requires parents to volunteer sometimes. I can work in the school’s garden, or help in the kitchen, or run copies in the office. All of this after I prove that I am not a violent felon.

I was sad to hear about the death of Anna Nicole’s son. I used to watch that show on E sometimes and he seemed like a sweet young man who really didn’t want to be in front of the camera. The fact that he apparently died trying to treat his depression and who knows what the methadone was for makes me feel bad. Not to get all Tom Cruise on anyone, because I have tried many antidepressants and had a lot of luck with most of them, people, be careful with the drugs you take.

Life is precious, even though it can be a real bear to bare at times. Today I am focusing on cleaning my house and doing some laundry. I haven’t been working at my Mom’s since she returned because I want to focus on my kids and on my own home. I feel guilty in some ways, but in other ways I know that my kids need me most and this is where I need to be. I hope someone buys my Mom’s house. I am tired of devoting so much of my energy to it, tired of having it be the #1 topic of conversation.

My first grade photo. I am hoping to get my camera fixed this week so I can get some new photos on this site.

So Janet Jackson has come out and said that her brother, Michael, called her “fat butt” when she was growing up which gave her issues with her weight. My brother told me that bugs would crawl into my ears and tunnel through to my brain, creating entire colonies and living there happily until I died, except when another species of bug would enter and there would be wars between the two. This led to years of me not allowing my Mom to put my hair up into pig tails, only a ponytail that covered my ears and made her sigh with frustration, “Tammy, this would look a lot better if you let me pull it up and over your ears”, but no, I couldn’t do it. The threat was so real. I slept with cotton in my ears. My Mom never had a lot of money so instead of buying cotton she saved the cotton from the tops of medicine bottles, so for years I went through life with aspirin scented cotton wads showed in my ears while I slept. They were called earwigs for a reason, right?

Anyway, I would have expected something juicer from Janet, such as my brother used to dangle me over balconies, make me wear a blanket over my head when we left the house, slip elephant man bones into my bed while I slept, try to get my little male friends to sleepover in his room, and in later years, refer me to plastic surgeons who would do a wonderful job on my nose.

Truthfully, I was never a fan of Janet’s music, but I watched “ Good Times” religiously as a little girl. I loved that show so much I wanted to be a poor family living in the projects in Chicago in a too small apartment. They seemed so much happier than my family, living in a too small house in a lower middle class neighborhood. At least the parents talked to the kids. I felt like a stranger who just got in the way.

On that show there were these paintings that they showed depicting African American people. I still love those paintings but I’ve never been able to find out anything about them. If anyone knows who the artist was let me know in the comments or drop me an e-mail.

I have decided that I need to buy a laptop because I can never get on this computer. I have no idea how I am going to afford such a thing but it’s good to have dreams, yes? Between my husband and our two kids I am always 4th in line. I have planned on writing late at night when the kids are asleep and Alex is at work (he works the graveyard shift) but I am just so damned tired these days. I think it might just be a side effect from the Prozac or the increase in Klonopin my doctor put me on. I am not going to read all of those pieces of paper that come with the meds or do any research about side effects online though, because I will then get every bad side effect they write about. Trust me; I’ve made that mistake before.

Polly is going to outdoor school soon. My first reaction was that there was no way she was ready to be away from me for a whole week. I mean, this is the little girl who wakes me up in the middle of the night because she heard a scary noise. She seems okay about the trip though, so my second reaction was that maybe it is me who isn’t ready to let my youngest go just yet, and my third reaction was, “Damn, I’d better buy her a new sleeping bag, hers doesn’t look so good anymore.”

Nathan is doing okay. He’s had a cold and a sore throat and he even had the audacity to tell me that his ears hurt because I let us run out of Q-tips and he couldn’t clean his ears. Everything, my fault. I tried to take him to the doctor but he didn’t want to go so I am just keeping an eye on him. Plus, he has been eating three or four grapefruit a day, and I’m thinking that if his throat hurt that bad he couldn’t handle anything so acidic.

I am still trying to sell my Mom’s house for her while she is in Ireland drinking Guinness with her sister. We agreed to a $20,000 price drop and that seemed to renew interest so I am hoping.

Other than that I am okay. The panic attacks have dropped considerably and I am traveling by bus without too much trouble. I started reading “ Out Of Africa”. I am not far enough into it to tell whether I like it or not, but it came highly recommended by someone I trust so I have high hopes. I rented the movie “ The Human Stain” which I am going to hopefully watch tonight after Alex leaves for work. That is if I don’t fall asleep first.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us remember where we were that morning. I hope that we will never forget what happened on this day. Nothing I could write would be as poignant as these photos I found on the following link.

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/shattered/index.html

This is not Steve Irwin.

Heard behind me today while I waited in line number five at my son’s high school registration,

“Did you hear that Crocodile Dundee died?”

“Oh really? I loved him in those movies.”

“Yeah, a fish bit him in the heart.”

“Oh my God I am never going near the ocean again.”

“I know.”

Okay first, my Mom is Australian and was born and raised there. I have traveled to that wonderful country several times. In Australia, they tend to call shrimp prawns, not shrimp. And I’ve never seen anyone throw one on the barbie, or anywhere, for that matter. Except into a glass with cocktail sauce.

Also, I’ve never heard the word Crikey except by the human Barney, and I was glad when my kids stopped watching him. Not that I wished the man dead.

As far as Aussie slang goes I prefer Dunny, Drongo, Dinky die, Tinny, Thunderbox, Reg Grundies or Reginalds and Ta.

Other than the two Aussie men confusion, today was relatively uneventful except seeing my psychiatrist who asked me if Nate had ever been abused by a babysitter or a family member because he seems so angry. I wanted to say, “Of course he’s angry, he’s 14. Angry at the world is his job.”

I am willing to bet that if they would have let Pluto talk instead of Goofy, we would have found this out years ago. Also, on a plus note, all of those out of date textbooks we have in our children’s schools are now more accurate. We only need to find out that the Apollo Landings really were faked and we’ll be on our way. I was flipping through one of my daughter’s textbooks and it said, “Maybe one day man will walk on the moon.” Maybe.

At times, I seriously question this world we are living in. And I wonder what I can do to make this world a better place, one free from stories such as these.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51602
http://savemalak.googlepages.com/home

Petition 

Why is it that I still think her parents had something to do with JonBenet Ramsey’s death?

Information from the Smoking Gun on the case.