One Month.

That’s all we have before Our eldest son’s birthday. He will be nine. He is at an age where he wants to have an actual birthday party – with kids and stuff!

The problem is, Our home owners insurance comes due November 6th,and though we *try* and have it all by that time, we usually find ourselves scrambling for a couple hundred bucks. And then there is the fact that I refuse to have a part at my own home. It’s just too much work. I would take the kids to a movie or something, but how do I get them to the city? Get their parents to drive them? And then where do we do the cake and gift part?

And gifts!

He hasn’t started the Christmas list I asked for last weekend, much less a birthday list! I somehow doubt he would be pleased if I offered him a few term life insurance quotes! (although I would be happy – anything to get my insurance premiums down!)

So yeah, here we sit, one month till the big day and what do we have planned? NOTHING!

We suck as parents.

Before I went to bed I reheated my hot water bottle and shoved it into my pillow case. I slept on it all night. When I woke up this morning at eight, I realized it had cooled off and slipped down so that i was no longer on it. Then I realized that I had lifted my head from the bed to talk with my eldest as he woke me up.

When I had gone to bed, there was no way I could have lifted my head without pain, so I shooed him out of the room and sat up, ready to test my neck mobility. It’s not perfect, but instead of feeling like it is broken, that it is so tight it will snap if I force it to turn past the pain, it just feels stiff.

And that’s awesome, because my choices for today were, go to the doctors, buy a muscle relaxant like Robaxacet* (and that stuff is like 20 bucks for four pills!!) or find a chiropractor open on Sundays!

*Why do pharmaceutical companies pick such weird names for their medicines? Why can’t they pic something easy to name them – like headache pills. Or will fix your tummy fast!

I guess names like Fenphedra aren’t THAT hard to say, but only because I already knew how to pronounce the “phedra”part.

I will admit that there are advertisements on the television that have me curious, and they all say “Ask your doctor if this medication is right for you” but I will never ask my doctor becuase I cannot pronounce the medication in question!

I refuse to believe that I am the only person who has trouble pronouncing all of these variations of medicines.

My eldest boy woke up this morning at eight and then woke me up – on sunday – THE WEEKEND – when I get to sleep in!

He was in a bit of a panic. See, he is eight years old, he will be nine in a month and a few days, but he had a big icky zit  on his chin. It was one of those white puss filled kinds. He washes his face each night with a face wash (a few months ago, I noticed a bunch of black heads on his nose), so he figured he was in the clear and  would never have to worry about pimples.

I think eight going on nine is too young for him (or me) to be worrying about acne, but I’m not sure. I remember being in grade four and getting a hair cut, the hairdresser chopped all my hair off – really short – and put it in a perm – my mother insisted. It was horrifyingly embarrassing, because as soon as my bangs were off my face everyone could see the pimples on my forehead.

I know girls mature faster than boys, and maybe that is why I had acne in grade four, and also, my boys are a lot cleaner in terms of personal hygiene than I was at their ages, but I do worry that this lone pimple is a sign of what is to come. I would do pretty much anything to save my boy the embarrassment I went through during my teen years in regards to acne!

I told the boy to leave it be, and then pointed him to my face wash, which is a bit stronger than the one he was using, and for now, I guess, that’s all that I can do.

What face wash do you use? What do your children use?

right now, I am laying on the couch with my laptop balanced at an awkward angle on my lap. i have been laying here staring at the light fixtures (which really need a dusting) for hours now.

Yesterday afternoon i turned my head to look at something and when I did there was a very loud crack and then agony. Burning hot agony. I can turn my head – If I want to cry. I cannot look up or down, left or right without pain.

My Mother in law came over with a back massager thingy and worked over my neck and shoulder this evening, and I have been laying on this hot water bottle for so long it is starting to get cold!

Hubs suggested I may have pinched a nerve and that i will have to see a chiropractor, But I am too scared to go!

Help!

I had an email ask me why I don’t just put the dog food away. One of the reasons is that we free feed the dog. She has a dish with water and food at all times. We have practiced free feeding since day one with her and I think it would be very hard for Smokey to change her ways after a year of having unlimited access to her food.

The other reason is that we have a huge Tupperware tub in the back entrance filled with Smokey’s dog food. I have trouble getting the lid off, but the cat seems to be able to do it quite easily. The only place for us to store Smokey’s bulk dog food is the back entrance – again – that’s where we feed the cat, her food smells disgusting.

I was talking with the vet’s assitant today while making an appointment for the new puppy, and she suggested we simply cut Tiggers normal food ration in half – we generally give her a small can of wet cat food at noon, and another one at midnight. But, DUH, instead of diet pills, I can put her on an actual diet.

And yes, I cannot beleive I hadn;t thought of that before! I’m sure we will be in for a lot of complaining meows, but if she won;t get off her lazy firry butt and exercises, what choice does she leave us? She is only three years old, and we would like to keep her around for a lot more years!

This is Tigger, She’s fat. Want proof? I have been using, and uploading pictures to wordpress for over a year now, and I have never received this error :

And yet, when I come online and try to upload a picture of said fat cat, Shock of all Shocks, that is what I got!

Now, I know that a huge part of Tigger’s weight problem is that she noms the dogs food whenever she thinks we are not watching, but it’s getting ridiculous. I tried to document it with a picture how her fat DRAGS on the floor when she walks, but her second problem in regards to her weight is that she so very rarely moves.

In the above photo you can sort of see her flibberjibber hanging there while she basks in the heaven she knows as “Neck Scratches”. Now, since our vet called us out on her weight at Tigger’s last appointment, we have been trying to encourage her to lose weight. We have bought her new toys and little balls to chase (The dog ate the balls, that’s a whole other blog post!) I tried once to get her to go on the Wii Fit, but she very much detested that idea (and when Tigger is not happy, someone bleeds) I think our only option is to put her on something like slim10 . Unless you have a better idea?

C’mon internet! You ALWAYS have better ideas then me! help a girl and her kitty out, will ya?

(Pee ess: We already tried Tigger on the treadmil. I almost died)

This afternoon My youngest boy had his friend from next door over. The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table talking about school. – Both boys, 4, are starting Pre-Kindergarten in a week, they are over the moon that they will be in the same class.

Logan said – I have to get my needle before I can go to school.

That’s something Hubs and I have been telling him for a while to help him understand why he was not able to go to school until he turned five – when he was going to go for kindergarten.

When I realized there were openings for pre k I called the Health line to make his vaccination appointment, and them promptly forgot it. Until Logan said to K that he needed his needle.

Thank goodness!

I checked the calendar. His appointment is tomorrow (wednesday) at 1:30 and I would have forgotten all about it!

Check it out! Anything look different round here? My good buddy Nobody helped me switch Mommy Madness over from Blogger to Wordpress!! This is something I have wanted for quite awhile, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Nobody!!

(insert huge thanks here)

I’m actually writing this on the itouch and haven’t figured out how to link to people yet, and the jtouch doesn’t have spell check, so be forgiving of all the typo’s and spelling errors!

I still need to get into the “about” section of Mommy Madness and get my links up in there.

In any case, it a rather hard to write more than a few lines on this thing, so I will sign off now, but I’ll be back soon with a real update – I’m actually at my in laws to celebrate my father in laws 69th birthday!!

Uhm. Yeah. In pretty much every freaking store I go to , from Wal*Mart, to 7-11, to the freaking Store that sells birthday cards, you can purchase iTunes gift cards at the till.

I live in Canada, therefore the stores I shop at are in Canada, and I signed up to iTunes VIA the CANADA website. (It ends in .ca not .com)

We got our sweet iTouch and went out the same night and bought a 20 iTunes gift card so that we could download games and apps and etc.

Last night Hubs tried to buy Super Monkey balls for the iTouch, but it kept fucking up, so he sent an email to the iTunes Gift card customer support people and THIS shit is what he got in reply :

(Uh, the iTunes shit is under my name, hubs name isn’t actually Shannon)

Dear Shannon,

Thank you for contacting Apple about the App Store. I understand you’ve attempted to purchase applications using the store credit but was unsuccessful.

At this time, the system will not allow you to purchase games or applications with store credit or an iTunes Gift Card in Canada. Customers residing in Canada may only purchase games and applications using a credit card.

Sincerely,

Catherine
iTunes Store Customer Support

Please note I work from 8 -5 Mon-Fri

WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCK??

So I can buy CANADIAN gift cards in CANADIAN stores but they cannot be used on the CANADIAN website?

I want my money back.
And an explanation.
And a tranquilizer for hubs when he reads that e-mail after work.

I’m sitting here on the couch thinking about making a pot of coffee, but I am just too comfortable! I am pleased to announce that for the first time in weeks, I had an AWESOME nights sleep!

Last night was a full moon, and I went out side to try and take a picture of it. As you can see, it didn’t quite turn out.

I have an unreasonable hate of tripods. I know a lot of people use them for almost every shot, but I think I have used mine once, during an eclipse. In any case, after the first picture, I realized that without a tripod there was zero hope of me getting a good clear picture – and the moon was awesome, by the way – so I decided to just fool around.

At first it was just a squiggly.

Then I decided to make a happy face. I did not think ahead to how I was going to make eyes, noes, and mouth.

Then I moved onto letters. This is an “M”. No really! It is!

And of course, an “S” for me!

I would have preferred a crisp shot of the moon, but taking these were way more fun!

Please excuse me while I go and make coffee!