Hello, 2009, Nice To Meet You

Welcome to 2009!  This is a post that should have been put out yesterday, but since I was in the fetal position for most of the day having partied just a little too rambunctiously on New Year’s Eve, it had to wait.  I’m still not 100%, but I’m feeling 1 million times improved from yesterday.  Let’s just say I’m glad my neighbors slept in so as not to witness my full-force vomiting in my front yard while trying to stumble home.  (Thanks, Y, for helping a sister out!)

2008 has come and gone and between bouts of puking, chills, and sleep, I had plenty of time to think on the year and all that happened.  My year seemed stressful, and extra long, but in looking back, it really wasn’t that bad.  My relationship with Mr. W blossomed into the all-fulfilling splendor it is today.  Not without it’s hiccups and break-ups of course, but a little bit of heartbreak is good for a couple.  It makes you value what you have.  Knowing the pain of loss without actually losing just makes you want to hold on tighter in the end.

I worked things out with the ex-men, and have my son full time now, and my daughter…well, still working on that.  At least we aren’t fighting anymore.  That’s one thing.  Oh, and January 16th…the STBX will officially be X#2!!  Woo-freaking-hoo!!  17 long ass months…but it will finally be legally over!

Work is work is work.  I made new friends, and enemies, and found out who I can trust and can’t.  I got more responsibility which will hopefully lead to more pay in the near future.  But in the end, work is work is work.

2009 will be long and lonely with Mr. W away until September.  I do get to see him twice, for two weeks each on our fabulous family vacations…but home just isn’t home without him there.  I intend to get organized, stay busy (but not too busy), finish my degree and start on  my masters, take lots of pictures and maybe even sell a few, eat better, feed my family with love, and just be happier all around, for myself and for my loved ones.  After all, everyone knows if Mom’s not happy, no one is happy! 

So, funk-be-gone and let a very happy new year commence!

Frustration, frustration, frustration

I am cranky as shit!  I am extremely sexually frustrated (two months, dammit!  and two more to go!), people at work are getting on my last nerve (the asshole at work is rearing his ugly head again, not at me, but in his general holier-than-thou-I-know-everything-about-everything attitude which is usually followed by a statement that is so epicly wrong it’s ridiculous), and the girl is being a brat, or rather, the princess is being a royal brat!

#1 — I won’t delve too deeply into this one as it is personal, and although I try to maintain complete openness and honesty in this blog…sometimes you just have to filter in good taste.  But I will say my solo time (as little as is available with parents visiting, sheer exhaustion by the time I get to bed, and the at least twice a week I have a little person sharing my bed with me) is just not cutting it!  I miss my Mr. W…in every way!

#2 — The asshole struck again yesterday with his blatant stupidity coupled with his holier-than-thou attitude.  He ignored some potentially serious safety violations at work until his hand was forced, then made snide, unprofessional comments that basically said, “Hey, we don’t care about safety here.  The only reason I’m bringing it up is so I don’t have to listen to the guy that is concerned whine.”  WTF!!  Then, taking on his role of I-know-everything-about-everything, he put on his trainer hat and gave some epicly wrong information to my trainee!  *argh!*

#3 — I’m not sure what her deal is, but my little princess is really pushing my buttons.  Last week, it was just her and I and we had a wonderful time.  She was well behaved.  She was sweet.  She was happy.  This week, she’s talking back (a lot), her favorite two phrases are, “I don’t want to” and “NO!” and she is being totally unreasonable in her demands.  Yes, demands.  I don’t expect a three year old to be particularly reasonable in her requests, but demands…oh, hell no!  I have to constantly remind her that I am her mother and she should speak to me with a certain respect.  I don’t expect her to learn that lesson from her other parent or family, but she knows better at home, I know she does.  Because of my frustrations in other parts of my life, I’m not handling her attitudes and outbursts very well.  I’ve done a lot of yelling and threatening over the last couple days.  I can’t seem to keep my calm long enough to do what works in place of the yelling.  Honestly, I can’t seem to even recall what works.  We haven’t had behavioural problems in quite a while, and when I’m in that red faced gonna break something (no, not my child…but something) mode, I can’t even think straight!  I need to find something to maintain my calm.  Not sure what that is yet…but I need…something.

Sex is obviously out of the question as it’s not available at this time.  Can’t drink since it’s probably not a great outlet for frustration, and besides, step-dad is a recovered alcoholic so I had to stash all my liquor and wine for the visit.  I’ve been smoking more, although I was hoping my parents’ visit would help me cut down or quit completely.  I don’t know what else to try…*hrumph!*

The would-be friend next door

There is this girl, ok, woman I work with…well I don’t actually work with her, but she works in my building, a contractor for my company, and we occasionally cross paths, but few if any words are exchanged, and they are all business-type words.  She is about my age, but no kids, and no man at the moment, but seems sweet as can be.  She has a blog, which I read occasionally, and it sounds like we have a bit in common…photography (that is actually the general nature of her job), horses (I’ve always always loved horses and have been convinced that someday I will own some and ride everyday), animals in general, silliness, good books, and she seems to be (by keen blog-observation) a little lonely these days.  With my general shortage of local friends and Mr. W’s year away, I’m a little lonely myself.  On top of all that, she lives in my neighborhood.  She actually lives right down the street.  I can see her house from mine (Mr. W’s…ours).  So, why don’t I approach her, we all ask ourselves.

Well, trouble is, she is a little lonely partly because one of her very dear friends recently moved away.  A friend who lived very close by.  A friend…who is Mr. W’s ex-wife and lived in this very house.  Yes, she is her friend.  Although the ex has moved away, they keep in contact, and I do know for a fact she was one of those shoulder-having friends when the ex was going through whatever self-induced pity crying fest she could come up with when Mr. W and her split up so there are probably more than a few loyalty issues in the mere thought of associating with his “new one.”  *Hrumph*

It just sucks, because although Mr. W insists this woman can be a little nutty at times, most (ok, seriously, all) of my friends are a little nutty at times.  I’m a little nutty at times.  Hell, who isn’t a little nutty at times?!  But here I sit, alone, drinking some yummy wine, alone, blogging, alone, organizing this catastrophe of a half moved in house, alone.  And I just watched her get home and go into her house, alone, possibly to feed her cat, alone, and eat dinner, alone, maybe even drink some wine, alone.  *Hrumph*  Do you see where I’m going with this?

Maybe we wouldn’t get along.  Maybe it would be all wrong and we couldn’t stand eachother.  Maybe it wouldn’t be one of those friendships that click, that you want to cultivate and grow into.  Maybe it’s better that she is off-limits…

…but just maybe, it’s not.

Fall food for thought…mmmm…

It is Fall, rapidly approaching Winter, and I hate the cold.  Some issue with my joints, specifically my knees and fingers which I (and a small handful of doctors I’ve seen) am convinced is the very early beginnings of arthritis, make me hate the cold even more. 

That said, I love this time of year for the food!! 

I do love food.  If there was a word stronger than love, it would be that.  I have a passion for food, a lust if you will.  Luckily for me, I have a decent metabolism and preference for healthier fare.   Don’t get me wrong, McDonald’s fries and Cinnabon have seen me through some hard times.  As a matter of fact, Double-stuff Oreos and milk made life tolerable during those rough post-partum, mid-bad-marriage depression days before I discovered the wonders of anti-depressants.  I could finish a pack in less than two days.  (Maybe that had something to do with my post-baby weight being so stubborn)  And they must be Double-stuff.  Once you go Double, you don’t go back!

So here is the Fall, and some of my faves are arriving in food service establishments all around me.  Starbucks breaks out their Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Pumpkin Loaf.  Dunkin Donuts (yes, I occasionally have to stray on my trips up to Massachusetts and Rhode Island) has their Pumpkin muffins and doughnuts.  And then there is the hot turkey sub at WaWa.  What’s a WaWa I hear you saying?  It’s a wondrous place.  A gas station with (usually) the cheapest gas around.  A convenience store with several pretty decent brews of coffee, to include a yummy Kona and Ethiopian blend which almost very respectfully approaches the wonderfulness that is Starbucks…almost.  WaWa also has slushies (gotta love a slushy), fountain sodas, every drink, chip, and candy imaginable, and the best part…a full service deli with a built in sub-shop.  Yes, WaWa is quite possibly the greatest food related store known to man, at least the sub-set of man that lives on the East coast somewhere between Pennsylvania and Virginia.  (In case you are wondering about it’s origins, a wawa is apparently a type of goose or something that is native to the Jersey/Pennsylvania/Virginia area…at least that is what I have heard.)  Now, this hot turkey sub, like so many other wonderful Fall treats, only comes around when the leaves start to turn, and Thanksgiving is just barely visible on the horizon.  It makes its appearance mid-October, and lasts through the holidays into mid-February.  This year the fantastic folks at WaWa have added to it’s wonderfulness, not that it needed it.  I had one Tuesday, and to my delight, it is now…are you ready?…toasted, hot carved turkey (not lunch meat people, real carved turkey chunks), stuffing, and cranberry sauce…with real cranberries!!  Oh, and don’t forget the gravy.  Mmmmm…Thanksgiving dinner wrapped in a wonderful toasted sub-roll package!  To quote Rachel Ray, “Delish!!”

Virgin Mobile Fest 2008!!

I have officially attended my first ever ROCK CONCERT!! The Virgin Mobile Fest–2008 was freaking awesome!!  It was an all day thing (actually two days, but we just did the one).  I’ve been to a couple concerts before, in my younger years.  I’ve seen: Coolio, R. Kelly, Boys II Men, TLC, Montel Williams, Janet Jackson (Janet Tour in 1995), and while I did go to see No Doubt, (just before they split up) which was in a small theater in Sacramento, we (and by we, I mean one of the morons I was with) got kicked out just before their set.  The lead-in band was pretty good, from what I remember, but genius-who-will-not-be named (and I) shared two or three (big) bottles of Chianti on the way up.  Needless to say, we were pretty lit.  I turned that into a great time.  He turned it into an excuse to light up a cigarette, in an indoor theater, in the crowd, in California, and hit on some girl half his age.  The bouncer was not pleased.  But of course, genius then decided he wanted to take on the bouncer who was twice his size, at least, and soon thereafter got evicted from the theater completely.  Nice!  I opted for leaving him out there to suffer, alone, so the rest of us could enjoy the show (call me heartless…I don’t care!) but the rest of my concert-going-compadres wanted to take care of him so we all had to leave and drive his drunk ass home.  Not cool!!

But back to the Virgin Festival…Mr. W, the kids (his, not mine), and I showed up just in time to catch most of Duffy, then The Offspring, Lupe Fiasco, some crappy “band” that I can’t remember, The Silver Beats (a Japanese Beatles cover band), CHUCK-freaking-BERRY (how cool is that??!!), The Foo Fighters, and the tail end of Jack Johnson (his performance, not his butt, although I’m sure his butt is very nice).  It was amazing!!  The place was crawling with folks of all shapes and sizes…and by that I mean ages, backgrounds, and levels of freak-ness.  There was beer, margaritas, and tons of food (not to mention a fair amount of smoke… if you know what I mean..but seriously, what all day, open air, festival-type concert would be complete without the smoke??)

Duffy sounds great live.  A great start to a great day.  And she is super-cute!  She did keep doing this “move” that involved her throwing her head back, kicking one leg up, and twirling the mic around several times which got to be a bit annoying, but otherwise, great performance.

The Offspring were great.  Old stuff, new stuff.  Fan-f-ing-tastic!

Lupe Fiasco (rap/R&B group), never heard of them, but they had a great performance.  Definately one for the iTunes library.

The Silver Beats (the Japanese Beatles cover band) was pretty good.  A couple of them had an accent, but it was all good, nonetheless.

Chuck Berry is definitely a pimp, and always will be.  He called a bunch of girls up on stage for his last song, and some crazy chick tried to put her arms around him and stepped on the plug to his guitar.  Silly girls!!  He recovered well and continued to rock.

And then there was the Foo Fighters!  Great performance, great songs, great crowd reaction..just all great!!  I can’t stress enough how great the Foo Fighters were/are!

No first-concert would be complete without a token–a T-shirt from the concert (and a few more tan lines).  It was a great day which led into a great night.     (so how many times can you say great in one post??!!)

—>pictures soon to come!

(So just how many times can one say great in a single post??!!)