I need a happy post.

He makes me smile so .................................

Gotta love kids

So a couple days ago I am away at an inservice. The kids are at home with their daddy. I'm gone for several hours. When I get home I walk into the kitchen and in the sink I see a glass with pink all in the inside. It is filled with soapy water. There is also the mysterious pink stuff in both sinks. I pick up the glass to see if I can figure out what it is. This is when I see a bottle of pearly pink fingernail polish with polish on the outside of the bottle. Ahh Haaa!! The mysterious pink stuff is fingernail polish. I had to laugh. My pretty princess loves to have her nails painted...........pink. I guess her daddy and brother wouldn't do it for her so she decided to take matters in her own hands. At least it wasn't on the carpet or furniture. It is easy enough to clean off of a glass and out of the sinks. LOL

Whiny post. Don't mind me.

Not only am I depressed about the money situation in this house, but I hate the way I look and feel. I'm fat and ugly. At least that is how I feel. Nothing works for me when I try to lose weight. I've tried watching what I eat. I've tried cutting out the sodas. I've tried exercise. I mean really, I was walking at least 3 miles (in an hour or less) at least 4 days a week and I lost absolutely NOTHING!! It's depressing. It's frustrating. I wonder, does Fenphedra work? I've never wanted to take diet pills or supplements, but I'm almost at the point where I would try them.

I'm having a bad day. Can ya tell?

I give up

Yep. I've decided that I just give up. We never make enough money. We never have enough money. It is a fact of life these days. I guess I need to just learn to live with it. Heck, I even put in an application at an area store for a summer position to maybe draw in some extra money. They never even called me to come in for an interview. What's up with that? I'm almost to the point of just letting the debt collection agencies start calling. It's very frustrating to know that we are good people and yet we can't catch a break for anything. We must have ticked Karma off something fierce at some point. I just wish I knew what we did. *sigh*

Boston and Bon Jovi

As some of you know I just spent 4 days in Boston, MA. I went for Bon Jovi. With all of our recent money/car troubles I really really debated going. One deciding factor was that the plane tickets were paid for well before the car trouble started. My friend, Lisa, bought the concert tickets(thanks Lisa! Love ya chick!!!). I'd never been to Boston and then add 2 (yes 2) Bon Jovi concerts to the trip and I really couldn't pass it up. I went. And I had a fabulous time!!! OMG!!! Boston is wonderful. Okay, you have to factor out that they don't know how to drive, and that whoever designed the roads up there needs to be strung up, and they also don't know how to cross a street. Other than those things Boston was great! LOL It really is a beautiful city.

I got up on Wednesday morning around 3:30am to get to the airport and make my 6am flight. I arrived in Manchester (Southwest doesn't fly into Boston) at 10:45am. Lisa was there waiting for me. We stopped off at her house to drop the kids off and iron on my Jovi shirt. Then we were off to Boston. We drove by Harvard. Yeah that's the closest I'll ever be to that particular university. LOL We actually got lost in downtown Boston. This should surprise no one that knows either of us. In our defense though it is very confusing. The roads are crazy!!! We finally found our hotel, The Bullfinch, which is very very close to The Garden where the concert was. We checked in, got a quick bite to eat, checked out Jovi (they are a cover/tribute band), then picked up our fan club tickets for the show. We were in the 12th row on the floor. This is the closest we'd been. Great seats. There were not many tall people in front of us which was really good considering we are both on the short side. Lisa got some amazing pictures on the first night. We got to our seats and were very antsy and ready for Jovi to hit the stage. The All American Rejects opened the show. I have to say that I was not impressed. I much prefer Daughtry that is for sure. When Jovi finally took the stage the place went nuts. Jon was in a fabulous mood and you could tell. He was all smiles and all over the stage. He interacted with the audience all night. It was great. At one point someone threw a Celtics jersey onstage. Jon ripped his shirt off (yeah we just about died!!!) and put on the jersey. Here are a couple pics!

We almost didn't get those pictures because we were so shocked at first! LOL It was a sight to behold as you can see. *sigh* Man that man........................................................whew! The entire night was amazing. After the concert we decided to go bar hopping. We ended up at some hotel bar. Really fancy hotel. As we are sitting at our table we can see a limo pull up outside. Out of this limo steps a few band members (Lorenza, Bobby, and Hugh). We are about to get very excited!!! A little while later we notice some excitement at the front of the bar and then all of a sudden Richie Sambora is walking past our table!! OMG!!!! Neither Lisa nor I could speak. We just kept looking at each other. I think the only thing either of us said was, "Oh my God!!!" Richie ate and then chatted for a little while with this group. Then as he was walking by our table he said, "Good night ladies!!" I was able to find my voice to tell him good night, but OMG!!!! That was Richie Sambora!!!!!! Yeah I was excited!!!! We didn't get any pictures though. He had already waved a couple people off when they asked so we lost our nerve. It was enough to be in the same bar and to speak to him even if it was just to say good night. As we got up to leave and go back to our hotel we saw David Bryan. OMG!! Another major member? Yep. I swear next time we are not going to just sit there in shock. We WILL get pictures!! We finally got back to our hotel and then had to look at all the pictures we did take. We got to bed around 3:30am on Thursday morning. Yeah that was 24 hours after I got up on Wednesday. I was exhausted, but extremely happy!

On Thursday we slept in somewhat. I think we were up around 9-9:30ish. We checked out of the hotel and took our luggage to the car. We then went walking to find something for lunch. We were starving! We ate at Boston Beer Works (I think that is the name of it. Lisa?). Good burger. Of course we couldn't stop talking about the night before or the fact that we had 2nd row seats for that night. Yes you read that right!!! We had 2nd row seats for Thursday night!! OMG!! We walked around downtown Boston for a little while after lunch and then decided that we wanted to take a Duck Tour. To go buy tickets we had to get on the subway. We rode about half an hour to the place we needed to be, but they were sold out for the day. We were exhausted so we decided to go check into our new hotel a little outside of Boston so we could maybe catch a nap before the show. We did get about an hour nap. Soon after that we were dressed and ready we headed back to Boston. It was much easier to find our way this time. We grabbed something to eat then headed to our seats. We got in the arena and OMG!! We were so close!!! It was amazing. Jon was in a really good mood that night too. He came to our little area often, but got flashed by some chick (she had no boobs and was wearing a nasty ugly white cotton bra) and he didn't come over much after that. Witch!!! I could have pulled her hair out for that!! We did get a lot of eye contact and that beautiful smile directed at us often though. Richie made lots of eye contact too. I swear you get a whole new appreciation for them when you are up that close. Even David was getting into the audience. He is a big flirt!! He makes eye contact and smiles really big when he notices you taking his picture. And he DOES notice. LOL We were really close!! We could see the sweat roll off of Jon's face!! OMG!!! We could see the lines at his eyes!!! Yeah we were loving it!! The pictures from this night are absolutely amazing!!!! Here are a few, but you can click the above links to see all of them (well, maybe not all since there were actually over 800, but the ones that were uploaded...........if you want to see them all come see me, I have them on a disc. LOL).









Yes, we did get pictures of the other band members, but I'm a Jon girl so you have to see him. If you want to see the other guys click on the links. ;-) I think we got to bed around 2:20-3:00am that night too. Whew we were tired. And sore!! Lisa and I have decided that we are in desperate need of getting into concert shape. I've never been so sore in my life!!!! I could barely walk after 2 nights of dancing and bouncing on my toes!! Ack!!

On Friday morning we checked the website for the Duck Tours and were able to book at tour. That was fun! We didn't get many good pictures of the city though. The Duck was going too fast for that, but it was fun nonetheless. LOL If you are ever in Boston you have to go on one. The driver was hilarious as were the Ducks. They look like boats rolling along the street AND they are boats. They go in the water too. Pretty cool!! Here is a picture of a Duck.
After the tour we headed out of Boston and into Rockport, MA. I have to say that I've fallen in love! Rockport is beautiful and relaxing and quiet and serene. Did I mention quiet? We walked around for a little while and then went to sit on the rocks and just "chill out" for awhile. We sat there and talked and took some pictures. It was nice to just be still for awhile. The big industry in Rockport is lobster. When you look out over the water you see hundreds of lobster traps. It's really pretty funny. I do want to live there though. *sigh* We left there around 7:30ish headed towards Lisa's house, but made a stop for dinner on the way. When we finally got to Lisa's we were exhausted so we went to bed early.

I don't think we did much on Saturday morning other than look at our pictures again and just relax. My flight left at 4:30pm that evening. I got home around 6pm. Completely exhausted but still flying high. It didn't take long for the PCD (post concert depression) to kick in though. The tour has now ended not only for us, but for the band. Last night was the end at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was a very sad night for these two Jovi fans. *sigh* Now we are looking to the next tour. We have no idea when that will be, but we are starting our Jovi Fund already and looking forward to at least one show of front row seats.

Oh yeah, here is a picture of Lisa and me from second row. Notice that white mic stand to our left? That is where Jon sings. Yeah we were that close!!! OMG!!!!

Here we go again

Yep I'm trying it again. I really really need to lose weight. I realized during this past weeks activities that I am seriously out of shape. OMG! After just two nights of dancing with my favorite band I was so sore I couldn't stand it. I could barely walk!!! It was really bad!! I've been good since coming home with watching what I eat. The problem lies in that not making much of a difference. I've done this before to no avail. I've avoided using diet pills like Anoretix, but maybe that is what it is going to take. *sigh* I really don't want to, but I have to do something to get this weight off. ugh!!!

Not moving

*sigh* The plan for us to move to Florida is not falling into place this summer. While I'm disappointed in this, I'm not completely devastated. I like where I work and I know that it is a good school for Joshua to start in. He is going to have a wonderful teacher. Yes, I would love to go home and be closer to my family, but it just wasn't in the cards for this summer. I'm sure we will try again. When? I have no idea. It is a lot of money to move and buy a house. Heck, I'm not sure I can find any mortgage lenders to approve us for a loan at this point. Times are tough all over I guess. I'm getting to a point where I want a house again though. Whether here or in Florida. *sigh*

He has been introduced to them.

When we were in Florida my nephew introduced my son to video games. *sigh* I was trying to avoid this for as long as I could. I guess almost 5 years is the limit. Joshua was introduced to the PS3. He learned how to play a Star Wars game on it. Now he wants one so he can play Star Wars all the time. It was bad enough for the 2 weeks we were there and he had access. He didn't even want to go swimming or to the beach. We would go and in about 10 minutes he was saying he was done and ready to go home. Ugh!! I was not happy. I swear I am NOT buying one until I absolutely cannot put it off any longer. We have an old Playstation already, but we only have one game for it. Madden Football. Michael likes to play it. He has been letting Joshua play with him too. I have to say that he is getting the hang of it pretty quickly. LOL He's better than I am! I just don't play them at all.

It would be cool to have one

I know I was just talking about reducing our debt and here I am now talking about wanting to buy something new. LOL I want a video camera. The kids do such cute things all the time and I never get it on video. Ok, not that I'd always have it with me when they did do something cute, but at least I would have it if I needed it. LOL I know that I'm bad about taking regular pictures. I know that I'd be bad at taking video too. It would still be fun to have one though. Now if I could only find a good sale on one.

Crawling out

I've been working on reducing our debt. One thing I hate though is writing so many checks each month for credit cards. I think I want to maybe try to get a balance transfer credit card. That way I can get all of the others consolidated and just write one check. I think I will see it go down quicker that way too. Right now it doesn't seem like it is going away. *sigh* I've closed all of the accounts and cut up all of the cards. I refuse to ever use another credit card. Once I get these paid off I'm done with credit cards. Forever. If I can't buy it with cash or the money in my checking account then I don't need it. It is my new philosophy.

Calgon take me away!!!

It has been a very rough week with the kids. They are tired of summer I think. Both of them are constantly picking at each other. They are not listening to me or to Michael. I feel like all I do is yell at them. It makes me feel like a horrible parent. *sigh* I think we need a break from each other. LOL I love being a teacher and having summer off to spend time with them ,but I think that they need to go back to school and have friends to play with. I think I need one of those Las Vegas vacations people are always talking about. I'm sure the stress of the transmission hasn't helped my patience either, but I'm still feeling pretty guilty about all the yelling. *sigh*

Funny memory

I was reminiscing about my grandparents the other day and one of the most fun memories came to mind. My grandparents lived on a farm. At one time my grandfather decided that he wanted to try his hand at raising cattle. He went out and purchased a bunch of calves. Yeah..........calves. He got all the cattle supplies that he would need. To raise these calves he had to formula feed them. We would go out in the field and the calves would suck our thumbs as we lead them back to the stalls for feeding. My grandmother would mix the formula (I can still remember the smell) and put it in these buckets with special nipples on them. Well, of course the calves continued to grow. As they grew in size our attachment to them grew. When it came time to sell them for slaughter my grandfather couldn't do it. Well he did, but he had a very hard time doing it. It broke his heart. It seems that the kids who helped him with these calves were not the only ones who grew attached to them. LOL After he finally sold his first herd of cattle he refused to buy more. He just couldn't handle getting attached again and having to sell them. When I was a little girl I was so mad at him for selling them. Now it is one of my favorite memories. I miss my grandfather. *sigh* He was a wonderful man.

Yay!!!

I just got an email from school. I'm going to get new office furniture in my classroom!!! I get a new desk with an actual place to put my computer keyboard!! I was in desperate need of a new desk. Mine was horrible. I am getting a new chair too, but I kinda like the one I have so maybe I'll keep that one and give the new one to someone else. They are getting me new shelves too. I'm so excited!!! I love getting new stuff!!

THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

I just want to say thank you to everyone who donated money to our transmission fund. Thanks to the generosity of family and friends we have enough money to fix the van. We are taking it to the shop today.

Again..................thank you so much!!!! We really do appreciate it.