so i'm baaaaack!

i know that scares you to the core! i mean i'm sure you are walking into wal-mart right now looking around thinking - good grief i hope that i don't run into that lady that yells at her children all the time, they must invest in plenty of tylenol.

cuz yeah, i yell at my kids and i'll even do it in front of you, the wal-mart employee, and the cop in the next check out line. dang it i'll even do it in front of social services, heck i worked for social services, i'll be glad to call some of my peeps while i yell at them. my children are not going to litter, do you hear me? never and if i catch them when they are twenty so help me God - i will do what my 7th grade teacher did to someone that littered and dump two weeks worth of garbage on their front lawn and see how they like it. and no i'm not some like environmentalist, though i once was in Greenpeace (hey, i loved whales). but my children will not ever just throw stuff on the ground and then just walk away. so, i got some stares as i told my daughter that she needed to pick it up and put it in the trash, but i got even more when she didn' t and i raised my voice to explain to her that she "needed to respect the store and not trash it or we would just live in a world like wall-e and i know you don't want to live in a world that stinks like your brothers." well, she cried a tear and i'm sure all felt so sorry for the drama mama, even my son who pointed out people were staring, which i didn't notice b/c like i said, i was on a mission to convince my daughter that her tootsie roll paper as small as it may be would trash the world we love and destroy life as we know it. well okay maybe not like that bad - but you see where she gets the drama from.

Pros & Cons

well first off this has been some adventure.

Cons (what i won't miss):

1. the wind - sand and contacts mixed - not good.
2. no oven - no homemade cookies - me want coooookkies!
3. no toaster - so much for a vacay, breakfast is not so simple without it.
4. one TV - i can only watch so much animal planet - i wonder what the dog whisperer could do for my kids.
5. one bedroom hotel room 250sq' - can you say rats in a cage.
6. rude people - like no one smiles here and just stands there in the middle of the aisle looks at you trying to pass and then looks away then you try to move their buggy a little and still no reaction, no excuse me, no o sorry let me move that for you. o no that would be too much for their little heads to wrap around instead they are trying to decide if they frickin' need green giant corn or the wal-mart brand, just take a damn corn already and move it along.
7. slow people - no i don't mean stupid, just ssssssssssssslllllllllllllooooooooooow as molasses. they don't know what fast food is here. i mean some might enjoy the laid back atmosphere, but when i got three screaming starving kids (who haven't been fed, b/c no oven) wondering where their food is in the back of my van and i haven't had my coffee that morning i come through drive thru thinking I can get my meal in under 20 minutes. is it too much to ask.
8. having to carry my mace with me everywhere i went - yes, just for a moment get your laughs as you picture me (90 lb woman) carrying my mace and aiming it at anyone who doesn't back the chump off!
9. spanish - no offense to any of you who speak the language or who are spanish, but can i just say i suck at it, like really suck. i've learned a few things, but i failed this 3 times in college and when you feel under pressure to speak the language it doesn't help the learning process. at least not for me. i get all flustered and then can't even speak english. then to top it all off the signs are in spanish, the labels are in spanish, even the billboards are in spanish, radio stations are in spanish, thank god my tv had a translation button. But i have to say, "donde puedo obtener el café?" is about all the spanish i need right now. (where can i get coffee?)

but to say this was not all worth it for my one pro, i think not!

PRO (what i will miss):

1. my husband

Yeah, that's my kiddos ...

so i went to schlitterbahn waterpark in south padre island (sorry no pics) this weekend with hubby and kids and realized - dang i did a pretty decent job of raising the kids so far. it only took me 10 years to figure it out, but hey rome wasn't built in a day. my kids politely waited in line, excused themselves around people, patiently waited for the kids to get out the tubes, looked out for little ones and kindly opened doors for people. so yeah i'm giving myself a pat on the back today.

okay, so the nice stuff ends now, you might want to stop reading.

but i got some beef to dish out with the other kids & parents there. ooooo it totally burns me up when there is a kid who will literally push my kid down to get on the slide first, bump into them without saying sorry and then cut in the line or stand on the slide making my kids and others wait their turn longer. boiling - BOILING was i, well if you ain't gonna parent your child then i will and if you don't like it then do something about it either punch me or grow up and be a parent. not saying i'm perfect, but come on - i would rip my child apart if they did those things - well maybe not literally, but you know what i mean. so yeah i did tell those kids excuse me my child was here first, and yes i did say you need to move, and again i did say do not push my kid. then to top it all off, i might be a little on the rough side sometimes, but when it comes to being polite i really try, so like i was dumping water out of the child seat inner tube and happened to lose it in the wind and it hit a woman next to me and i immediately said i was sorry, yet no that was not good enough, she gave me an ugly look, and i again said so sorry and she remarked whatever. the nerve. so i being pissed off by the irresponsible parents and rude children said, "i said i was sorry, that should have been good enough" and walked away.

so i took note this weekend of how lucky i am to have the kids i have even if i would sometimes rather shoot myself in the foot than listen to them whine.

HMMM!

I can't believe the school year is almost up. I'm anticipating the summer, but at the same time it will be a busy one. We have a lot planned and hopefully summer school isn't one of them.

I've been quite intrigued with how our society has shifted to a blameless one. We focus all our energy on finding ways out of being responsible for it, but it could be a little easier if we just faced things head on and took responsibility. I've mainly encountered this in our school system. I've probably been in the system for 10 years off and on and see it everywhere. Especially with the blame always falling to the teacher. I will not say every situation that this would be true, but what are we telling our children when we don't give them ownership over their lives to some degree? What are we telling our children when there are no consequences or we dismiss their consequences? What are we telling them when we accept them failing in a class and look to the teacher for the reason "they" are failing? Are we telling them that what they did was okay or that it is someone else's fault, and are we telling them that they don't need to take responsibility for their own work and that someone else is to blame when they fall short? I truly think it's something to ponder over.

Let Me Tell You

As anyone who knows me, they know I'm always doing something. Always changing things in my life. I love change, I love the feeling of something new, I love the great attitude I have about changes and how I can bounce from one thing to another in the blink of an eye. The downfall is I also look like I quit a lot of things, but really what I'm doing is moving on and I do that quickly and quite often. I can't say whether it's good or not, which I usually can, b/c I've always felt everything is black & white and not grey, wrong or right, not in between. So, it's kind of weird that I'm not sure what to say about my life and its' path. Today, I was asked by a classmate of my son how many jobs I've had and do you know that when I started listing I actually stopped at 30 and gave up. I'm 33 years old, whoa there is definitely something wrong with that. I really think I need to decide and quick what I want to do permanently. I've got a lot to think about.

Maybe I'll decide what I want to be when I grow up before I'm 40. LOL

At least my sons know what they want to do:

And my daughter knows what she wants to do:

Hoedown!!!!

After seeing the Hannah Montana movie today with my daughter and lots of girls. I have to learn this dance, she and I have been practicing it, I know pitiful.

But who can resist, the beat & dance is so catchy!!!

So Like ...

I've been having one messed up week. My temper has totally gotten the best of me. I've really been on edge. I think the full moon out has somehow disturbed my childrens' bodies and made them crazy. Okay, just bare with me I need some kind of reason for their irrational behavior, so I don't go to bed thinking I must be the worst parent in the world b/c I can't manage my own children. I so need to frickin' get some craft therapy soon or I might just throw red paint all over myself and run out into the streets looking like Carrie. Well, okay maybe I won't go that far but it was a nice visual release for me.

So, I'm planning one of the biggest scrapbooking events in this area for the summer (Girls Gone Crafty) and let me tell you it has not been an easy task. There are all kinds of things on the back end of this event that you don't even realize that an event coordinator has to go through to get it together. I do have to say though that I'm super excited about it and that soon we'll be releasing lots of visuals and info for you to drool over.

On to other things ... we have a forum set up for you girls attending (and hey even those not attending), just go to Girls Gone Crafty and click on Yo, Let's Talk. Get yourself in there and start chit chatting about anything. This will be a great way we can all catch up, keep up, and meet up.

And this basically describes how I'm feeling right now! LOL