Final week, part 2: The Spud winds down

So I had my final week of school two weeks ago.  Now it’s the spud’s turn, and with it comes all the joy of end of the year happenings.

First, it’s the first graders performance.  30 minutes of listening to children mumble through readings and singing off key.  Who ever thought school performances were a good idea should have to spend all eternity in a special Hell where they listen to children perform 24/7.  But, we love our kids so we dutifully video record the whole bit and act suitably thrilled and impressed by the whole thing.

Then, there’s the sending home of all art projects, left over craft supplies, and summer activity forms.  More paper and materials have been sacrificed to the gods of grade-school education than I can fathom.  How many macaroni art projects does one 7 year old need to make?  How many laminated certificates of achievement does one need for reading, losing teeth, or the penny drive?  How many times do we need to be reminded on a full color 8 1/2 x 11 memo that there’s no school on Memorial day and the last day is Thursday next?  Good grief.

And, when it’s finally all said and done, there’s the fashion show to determine what clothes from last summer still fit and how much needs to be replaced.  Add to the scene this year is a new tradition: pack what ever fits and replace what doesn’t in a hurry because the spud is going to spend the whole summer with Daddy.  I think, I hope, that this will ultimately be good for everyone.  However, Daddy insisted she arrive not one moment later than necessary.  I think he’d have had me leave town with her the second school was out if I’d have agreed to that.  I’ll miss out on some things that were Momma/Spud summer traditions.  That’s sad.  But, I’ll have a chance to relax and recharge, which I desperately need.  So, we put on the happy face and begin packing on Saturday.  Clothes, toys, books, videos, portable DVD player, MP3 player, alarm clock, cell phone, swim suits, and renaissance faire costume.  Oh, and don’t forget, somehow Momma has to find money to pay for said trip to meet Daddy for the summer…  So it’s off to the bank to cash in bonds and empty savings accounts.

The spud is one year older.  She’s down to her final week of first grade.  One week to go, and I’ll have an empty nest.  I’m happy and sad.

And I now dub you, Sir Rupert Poopsalot of the Crunchy Turd

Now I know this is pretty gross, but I’m sitting here sick, and unable to nap and yet unable to get up the energy to do much else, so I’m sharing this all with you.

Sunday I made a bone-in ham.  It was delicious.  Leif saved the au jus and the bone and yesterday used them to make Navy Bean Soup.  It rocks.  Totally.  In fact when I’m done with this post I just may avail myself of a bowl of left overs provided I can muster the energy to shuffle over to the kitchen.

Anyway, I digress.  After the soup was done he gave the bone to Rupert.  Rupert is extremely picky about his bones.  He will only eat fresh home cooked meat bones.  None of those plastic wrapped, store bought, basted beef bones for him.  Oh, no.  But when we do treat him to a home cooked meat bone he gobbles it up, no bones about it.  Then for the next 36 hours he has petrified poops.

The poor thing pooped not once this morning.  Not twice.  Not even three times.  Oh, no.  Poor guy grunted and strained and pushed out 5 crunchy doggie turds.  Now, it’s gross enough scooping up a stinky, hot, steamy dog poop as it is with only a thin piece of plastic baggie between one’s hand and said poop, but grabbing a pile that is hot and hard as rock is it’s own level of grossly disconcerting.

And, now that I’ve shared this with you, I must let out Sir Poopsalot yet again because the poor dear is scooting along the carpet.  Yuck.  As soon as I can breathe through my nose and the concrete drains out of my head I am soooo steam cleaning this carpet.

It’s getting harder to find the silver lining in a head cold

So last week I spent all my time off from work nursing a horrible head cold.  I tried to make the best of it by enjoying some reading.  And, by Sunday I was feeling almost as good as new.

Last night however, I woke up in the small hours with another bad sore throat and a head full of congestion.  Just in time for my day off.

I’m beginning to think I’m never going to get a chance to enjoy myself this summer.  I remind myself that it’s not even June yet, but with all that’s been going on this month, good and bad, May just feels like a very, very long month.

So, hopefully I’ll be feeling better again soon, and stay better and then I can begin to have a life again.  For now, please excuse me, I have to blow and alien out of my nose.

It’s all 101 dust bunnies in 1001 tumbleweeds around here

I could just as easily be talking about the state of my house, having not been properly cleaned since the Christmas holidays from school, or my brain, which feels particularly dull these days.  But mostly I’m talking about my blog.  If it weren’t for pre-programmed joke posts people would think I’m dead.

Well, I’m not.  Though, being dead might be a lot more relaxing.

The semester  is winding to a close.  Thank the stars above.  I’ve been busier than the proverbial one legged man in an ass kicking contest.  So busy in fact that I have lost all enthusiasm for much of anything beyond playing hookey and sleeping.  Sounds like fun?  Well, I find that this kind of state has it’s disadvantages.  When I get so busy that I get in these moods, weird stuff gets dredged up in my dreams and bizarre things jingle about my brain that I can’t seem to shake.

Hence, yesterday’s joke post.

And, today, I can’t get the only line I can remember from some song (I don’t even really know what it’s about, driving a freight liner I guess) out of my head:

“I’ve got the fever.  The freight liner fever.”

Leif has a habit of playing music all.  the.  time.  Even when he’s not in the house he has the music going.  Sometimes he leaves it playing in the kitchen while he’s watching TV, or sleeping, or playing video games, or while he’s got his MP3 player going in the basement.  And, he gets in ruts where he plays the same play lists over and over.  I finally complained so much he made a few new ones.  All chock full of bizarre stuff even more annoying than the play lists he’d played to death before I started complaining.

But I digress.  See, my brain has turned to mush.  This post was not supposed to be about Leif, bless his weird music playing heart.

I’ve been too busy not only to post to my own blog, but also to read yours.  And I miss reading all your blogs.  This morning I realized I was so far behind that I hadn’t read blogs in at least three weeks.

Sarsm had been looking for folks to join her 101 in 1001 challenge with Tilly Bud.  I thought, what fun!  Then I thought, if I don’t have time in 3 weeks to read a handful of blogs, how will I find time to do 101 challenges?  Then I thought, it sure feels like I do at least 101 things a day already.  I started thinking about it some more and I thought, I could probably do this challenge easily.  I’ve already got a list going for the first few months of my challenge:

1.  Prepare and give a 5 minute speech on molé for Spanish class, all in Spanish, of course.

2.  Write the research paper on GE foods for my Writing class.

3.  Visit the planetarium and see a sky show for my astronomy class paper.

4.  Finish two more lab projects for biology class.

5.  Read remaining 3 chapters for anthropology class.

6.  Refrain from throwing my text book at my anthropology teacher who writes the worst tests known to man and is planning a cumulative final.

7.  Watch the three part Nova series, The Elegant Universe.

8. Get at least a B on all my finals.

9.  Figure out how to sit for two finals 75 miles apart at the same time on the same day.

10.  Complete my last Lib Ed requirement for my B.S. in May (I finally got into the Classic Mythology Lit class!  Hurray)

11.  Find a summer job.

12.  Figure out how to scrape enough gas money together to be able to afford the 300+ mile round trip drive to take the spud to meet her dad for the summer.

13.  Clean the house.  No really.  Clean the house and repeat every week.

14.  Take the Christmas lights down from the outside of the house.

15.  Make banana bread from the over ripe bananas that have been taunting me for the last 3 days (this probably should have appeared first on my list).

16.  Find a work study job for the fall.

17.  Get a physical before my insurance expires in September.

18.  Get my radiation therapy before my insurance expires in September.

19.  Go camping and do nothing for 4 whole days this summer.

20.  Read a book each week this summer that has nothing to do with school.

21.  Get up at 7 am and take the dog for a 2 mile walk every other day this summer.

22.  Resume exercises 3 days a week this summer.

23.  Plant my summer garden right after I harvest my money tree.

24.  Have at least one yard sale, money tree harvests are down again this year.

25.  Clean out the screen house so it can actually be used as a screen house and not a storage dump.

26.  Do all the mending before school starts up again in the fall.

27.  Write a chapter a week for one of the many books I have ideas for.

28.  Go fishing with Leif a couple times a month.

29.  Actually cook the food I buy at the grocery store instead of being to tired and lazy and either eating cereal or take out instead.

30.  Remember to shop at the Co-op and the farmer’s market for the produce we can’t grow in Leif’s vegetable garden instead of buying at the regular grocery store.

31.  Check labels and make a greater effort to buy organic or Non GMO/no rBGH foods when I can afford them.

32.  Make a post a week to my other blog (you think this one has some dust bunnies, the other one is a real ghost town).

33.  Get out the art supplies and make some art once every other week.

34.  Make time to put inspirational notes in the spud’s lunchbox every day for the rest of the school year.

35.  Find a way to tell Leif I love him and appreciate him every day.

Okay.  I’ve got 35 things I need/want to do in the next 3 months.  That’s about one third of the 101.  And while many of these aren’t that challenging, or very specific, and a few are just funny, this is how Janie rolls.  But, if the money tree harvest is even worse than I expect and I fail in finding a summer job, at least I would love to have a few months of being able to do nothing but work in my garden, read my books and write and draw.  I used to be a very creative crafty person, but life and responsibility has worn me down.  I’ve been balancing a lot on my plate, and despite all the frantic activity, not much is getting done other than school work.  And that which does get done gets done with a rather cranky-who-the-Hell-cares-anyway attitude.  A Janie can’t survive on 19 credit hours of  homework and commuting alone.  I guess that kind what this 101/1001 challenge is about.  Not letting life get away from you.  We all need to watch out for that, especially when we feel we are the most harried, stressed-out and busy.

I hope that when the end of May rolls around I’ll be able to stick my head up out of the text books and see the world again.  And, who knows, maybe get to a few more challenges that aren’t school related.

At the very least, I’d like to clear off the dust bunnies and tumbleweeds, figuratively and literally.

Oh!  And how could I forget, darn those dust bunnies anyway!

Task 36:  Find out what in the blazes freight liner fever is.

I got the fever.  The freight liner fever.  What ever that is…

I got the fever.

And that takes a lot of nerve

True story.

A little over a year ago I purchased a subscription to Disney’s Family Fun Magazine for, well family fun enjoyment.  It was cheap, only $10 for a year (10 or 12 issues) so I figured, what the heck.  There were a lot of crafts and recipes and suggestions for activities I simply just don’t have time or emotional or financial resources for.  So, the magazine became a source of paper dolls for the spud.  Which was still okay, it got enjoyed in some form.  However, when the year ran out, I decided, as the spud gets three other magazines and myself two, we didn’t need another magazine destined to be cut up into paper dolls and let the subscription lapse.

Now, periodically they send me a bill for renewing my subscription.  Generally I just throw it away.  However, yesterday another notice came in the mail and I got to thinking that it seemed as though that subscription should have ended several months ago and yet here I was still getting re-subscription invoices.  Why on Earth were they still pestering me?   Something made me open the one I got yesterday, and, well, let me tell you, even if I was interested in making hot dog race cars and sock puppets and pipe cleaner- whoops! I mean chenille stem- crafts until the second Tuesday of next week when the cows come home, this letter would definitely make me change my mind about renewing a lapsed subscription:

YOUR FINAL OPPORTUNITY TO SETTLE THIS MATTER BY SENDING PAYMENT!

FINAL NOTICE

YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PLACED IN THE FAMILY FUN MAGAZINE’S BAD DEBT FILE.  WE HAVE SENT YOU 6 OTHER INVOICES WHICH YOU NEVER PAID.

IF OUR LETTERS CROSSED IN THE MAIL, PLEASE FORGIVE US.  UPON PROCESSING YOUR INFORMATION YOUR SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED.

WE ARE RELUCTANT TO CONSIDER MORE SERIOUS COLLECTION MEASURES, BUT WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU NOW.  WE AGAIN ASK THAT YOU PAY THE ABOVE INVOICE WITHIN 10 DAYS.  YOU MAY ALSO CONTACT US AT:  PO BOX 37033, BOONE, IA 50037-0033.

100% absolutely just like shown.  Yeah, all in caps, too.  Infuriating.  Yeah, you betcha.  Calculated to be insulting.  I pretty much think so.

Perhaps if I wasn’t so busy I’d have made a connection before, but in the fury of indignation at such a letter, I realized it seemed like I’d seen the a relatively new issue in the spud’s room recently.  So I went on a hunt, and discovered despite never asking to renew my subscription they still appear to be sending issues, at least as of the March issue which arrived several weeks ago.  Generally when you have a magazine subscription they print the expiration date on the label, none going as far back as September 2011 had one.  What was going on here?  Which begs the question: what would possess a company to send at least 7 months of magazines to someone who’d neither asked for them nor was badgered into paying for something they didn’t order after 6 invoices?

But the audacity doesn’t end there, oh, no.  I’m totally astounded that they’d have the gall to put me in a “bad debt file” when I never asked to renew my subscription.  I imagine the reason why they are “reluctant to consider more serious collection measures” is because there is nothing to collect on seeing as I never asked to renew my subscription.  But of course, they seem to have overlooked the key reason that why after 6 invoices I haven’t paid is because I never asked to renew my subscription.  But seeing as they are still sending me issues I didn’t ask for (again I say WTF?!?) they probably think they have a right to ask me to “pay the above invoice within 10 days” hoping I’ll be a sucker and just agree to take on another year of a magazine I don’t want or be too stupid to realize I never asked to renew my subscription and think it’s all my mistake.

So, they “need to hear from [me] now,” eh?  Don’t worry Family Fun Magazine.  Oh, you’ll hear from me.  And, when I’m done contacting you, you’ll have heard more than enough from me.  In fact, every one I know will hear just how much you need to hear from me now.

As our letters never crossed in the mail, and will never cross in the mail in the future, there’s no danger that I’ll ever forgive you.  You can just take your lame little magazine and shove it up your mouse hole.

Some people just have a lot of nerve.

Damn you Swedish Fish and the sticky sugary goodness you leave behind

*Sigh*  I just have been to the dentist.  Apparently the stress fractures I have on my teeth at my gum line as a symbol of my many youthful years of jaw clenching in response to stress have become something he “can’t like.”  The 4 teeth sporting said fractures had been stable for the past 15 years or so.  Now, 3 of them have developed cavities and need $92 worth of fixing.  Thank goodness for insurance which covers the remaining 75%.

First it was my arthritis in my neck and upper back.  Then my tumor.  Now my teeth.  Geesh! I’m not that old, but apparently a youth and adulthood of stress is beginning to exact it’s price.  Either that, or it must be the Swedish Fish.  I mean, I live a really vanilla life.  I never smoked, almost never drink, and I’ve never been drunk.   Most nights of the week I get at least 7.5 hours of sleep and try to get 8.5 when ever possible.  I take my vitamins, when I remember, which is most the time, because if I forget for too many days I can tell that I begin to feel even more run down than usual.  I don’t exercise as much as I should, which is apparent in my Rubenesque physique, but I’m not superwoman after all and there are only so many hours in a day; what do I sacrifice for exercise time?  Sleep?  Food?  Showering?  Studying?  Attending class?  Doing housework?  Minding the spud does her homework?

So, when I say my worst vices are Pepsi (limited to an average of 1 can per day), two cups of tea per day with 3 teaspoons of sugar each, Swedish Fish (limited to six delectable little fishes per day when I have them, which really isn’t all the time) and one ice cream bar/sandwich/scoop or one tiny snack size candy for dessert 4-5 times a week, I really mean those are my  worst vices.

Okay, you caught me I have one more, I’m a worry wart with a heaping helping of perfectionist.  But I am trying to reform, honestly I am!

So, when the dentist gets on my case convinced that something particular has changed in my habits in just the last 6 months which has caused these 3 cavities then gives me a look like he doesn’t believe me when I can’t think of any significant to change my habits except that I ate about 2 pounds of Swedish Fish between Thanksgiving and February, I get a little miffed.  I mean it.  I am not aware of doing anything new and unusual apart from those fish.  And, in the 4 years I’ve been seeing this dentist, I’ve only had one other cavity in a traditional area.  It was really tiny and that was after having not had dental insurance in almost 3 years and having not seen a dentist in all that time.  Now, three cavities on three damaged teeth all with the same problem all at the same time.  Hmmm.  I admit is is weird, but I don’t think it’s that weird, I mean the teeth were already damaged. Mouth bacteria shit happens, cavities form.  Get off my case dude and get over it.  I’m not a spring chicken.  You’re not the one who has to cut back on your Swedish Fish and sugary drink vices and you’re not the one paying for the repair.

*Sigh*  He’s a really good dentist, though.  Unfortunately he just he also seems to think he knows you better than yourself.  Every time we go to the dentist for the spud he grills me about her sucking her thumb.  While she did use a pacifier until age 3 and a half, I have never seen her or any other evidence to support his belief that she has/is still sucking her thumb, finger or any appendage, toy or bedding.  He also hasn’t seen pictures of her grandmother.  It’s got to be genetic.

Unluckily for me, I have no such convenient excuse.  Bad Janie!  No more fish for you!

The Lament of the Fish Swedish

Oh Swedish Fish,

You tasty dish

You rot my teeth

And the gum beneath

Oh, you I’ll mish

Yeah, well, happy Monday to you and the fish you rode in on.