A Season for Everything

The higher gas prices that have followed in the wake of hurricane Katrina have put a real crimp in not only my blogging, but my life in general. It now costs $70 or more to fill the tank on Hubby’s gas-inhaling monster of a pickup truck so he is staying in Erie more and coming home less….which totally sucks! Sure, there are a few perks like having control of the remote, doing less laundry, sprawling out over the whole bed (and not having to share the covers), and having a cleaner house in general, but it’s lonely. He’s home this weekend (obviously, since I’m using the laptop) so we’ve been cramming 2 weeks of parenting, decision-making, talking and being a couple into 2 days. Yesterday was all about Baby Girl. We left home at 11:00 for the mall and didn’t get home until after 7:00. That was huge! You have no idea how much Hubby hates going shopping. We patiently followed her around from store to store while she accumulated clothing, toys, shoes and who-knows-what-else. Hubby purchased new Nike’s and vitamins for ” men his age” at the GNC. I bought the game Sequence. Friends introduced us to it a few weeks ago and I am hooked. Lunch was late at Ruby Tuesday’s. We picked up videos on the way home (Without a Paddle and Dodgeball) and ordered pizza late. It was a really special day ‘cause Hubby wouldn’t do anything like that if he was at home all the time. Today is all about home. We need to close the pool for winter, put away all the outside furniture and clean and organize the sheds.

The down side to all this family togetherness is that I haven’t managed to study at all in the last 2 days and it’s not looking good for today. What am I studying? Real estate. I started classes to get my license this past week. Two nights a week I drive straight from work to Monroeville. The classes last until 10:00 and I don’t get home until 11:00. It’s proving to be tougher than I thought. Not the class, juggling life. Once Daughter goes to bed on Sunday I don’t see her again until Tuesday afternoon and then I don’t see her again from Tuesday evening till Thursday afternoon. Guilt. With Son away at school and Hubby working out of town, I feel like I’m abandoning her. Thank goodness my mom retired last Christmas and is able to come to the house every morning to get Daughter off to school and to stay with her Mondays and Wednesdays. It’s a huge help. At least it’s only for 7 more weeks and then life will get back to normal. Really normal because Hubby is due to finish his project in Erie at about the same time I finish the classes.

I’m off for more family time. Hubby’s due home next weekend for a family wedding so I’ll post again then.

As my aunt’s significant other tells the story….

The other morning my aunt, who is 54, was in the bathroom getting a shower. It seemed she was in there for a very long time. When the aforementioned other went to see what the hold up was, he found her staring at her breasts in the mirror, turning this way and that, smooshing them together, pushing them up and in general not looking pleased. Finally, she says to him “Honey, I think I need breast augmentation.” To which Honey replies, “Your boobs are just fine….but if you really want them bigger rub some toilet paper up and down between them.” My aunt looks confused and asks why on earth she’d want to do that. Which is when Honey says she’s been doing it to her butt for years and look how big it’s gotten.

Me thinks I would have whacked him upside the head with the nearest blunt object.

I found the computer I’ve been looking for last night at (of all places)…Wal-Mart. It has everything I want for a fraction of the cost other retailers want. Better still? Wally World has layaway so I can pay for my dream machine a little at a time over the next couple of months, rather than putting myself in the poor house immediately. A godsend since college tuition payments have become a part of our lives. So, I’ll have my own computer here at home by November and won’t be limited by having to share the laptop with Hubby. I’ll be able to give the blog the attention I want to. Enough to drum up a reader or two.

Spent the day at our friends’ home in the country. Hubby had promised long ago to help build a garage when he had time. Today was the day. While the menfolk did manly things like use power tools, grunt, scratch and spit (our friend chews tobacco), we women went to a couple of nearby garage sales and talked about our shared love of gardening. The kids watched movies and rode the quad….which brings me to the point of this post.

I am sure I lost 10 years off my life today. Son (18) was driving the quad with daughter (13) as a passenger when I heard a shout and turned my head in time to see the quad plow through three strands of electric wire fencing and come to a stop in the cow pasture. In that one nano-second of time every horror story I’d ever heard regarding someone hitting a fence tore through my mind. I flew across the lawn to get to them. Thankfully they were ok. Son said he got something in his eye that caused him to lose control. As they drove through a low hanging branch a spikey green chestnut hit Daughter in the eye. Son said the brakes failed and that is when he crashed through the fence. His biggest concern was that his dad was going to kill him. If only kids understood the only thing we felt just then was weak-kneed relief. They were back on the quad before the day was over. Good. I don’t want them living in fear.

Well, I’m off to a great start. I really did intend to post more often, but you know what they say about good intentions. It isn’t that I don’t want to write, but I have a couple of pretty good excuses. First, I received the news right after I posted last time (like 5 minutes after) that my grandmother had passed away. We took her back to the town she had lived in all of her adult life for the funeral and burial. That took a few days longer than normal (I won’t get all gross with details) and since we were so close to where my hubby is working, the kids and I tacked on a couple of extra days at the hotel with him and enjoyed the attractions of Erie. That brings up excuse number two: hubby’s working out of town and the laptop is with him. I thought I’d have access to it every weekend, but with gas prices soaring hubby isn’t coming home every weekend. He’s home this weekend since it’s a long holiday weekend and he stopped to get our son and bring him home. Long story short, it looks like my posting is going to be sporadic for the time being. At least until I can swing another computer or hubby’s job brings him back home.