Friday, June 21, 2013

Why I must wear some ugly ass shoes

Once again, I'm going to have to blaze through writing this post because I'm sneaking it in at work and I have to leave early today because if I don't I will have overtime.  Overtime is not looked upon very fondly around these parts. 

Before I start though, do y'all ever go back and re-read the comments here?  Because sometimes (not all of the time) I reply to y'all but then I started thinking y'all may not ever see when I reply to your questions.

So in case you don't go back to the comments, here are some answers to your questions from my post a couple of days ago (or you can go read the comments and read here but it will sound repetitive because I'm, you know, repeating what I already said in the comments):

No, I have no idea how long the fake children will be staying with me.  The girl fake child is working but bless her heart (yes, I mean that in the southern way which isn't necessarily a good thing), she had done no research as to how much it would cost to rent an apartment, buy furniture to furnish the apartment, buy sheets, towels, bed linens, dishes, pots/pans, etc. to live every day, pay deposits on an apartment, pay deposits on utilities, pay for utilities each month, put gas in her car, insure her car, feed themselves, etc. and so when the lady she's working for asked her how much she wanted to make she threw a number out there and that's what she's getting paid.  And it might pay for a really cheap apartment rent and food and that's pretty much it.  She was so excited because it sounded like a whole lot of money to them and I hated to burst her bubble, but I had to.  I had tried to tell them how much stuff here would cost but I don't think she had really added it all up and didn't have a grand total in her mind.  So I've told them they can stay with me until they can afford all of that stuff by getting a higher paying job but they have to pay for all of the groceries and help me clean the house while they are with me.  They are actually super motivated to get a lot of stuff done, but America is way different than what they're used to so it's just taking a while to get on their feet.  And the three of us have had a few tense moments, but we're working it all out and things are okay.  It's just exhausting having people in your house for an extended period of time.

As far as the party, do y'all know that people who have two kids actually throw parties sometimes??  I am fine throwing a party with the kids still there.  I just didn't want to do it the same weekend I had 4 family members also staying at my house because here's the deal with these particular family members:  I love them all dearly, but they don't stick to a schedule.  At all.  The last time they came they told me they'd be at my house by 5 and I almost took part of the day off work so I could be home when they got there.  But then I remembered they would NEVER be there by 5.  They got to my house at 1:00 a.m.  Yes, EIGHT HOURS LATE.  They only live a 6 hour drive from me.  And if they tell me they need to be on the road by 9 a.m., I know they'll leave my house by 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.  They are always many hours behind.  And if I had a party scheduled when they were staying with me I can promise you y'all would show up at my house and I'd still be in my pajamas with my hair up in a scrunchy bun on top of my head wearing my fuzzy bedroom shoes and cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast and I would have no party stuff ready even if the party started at 3.  Another time they were here we had plans to go somewhere around 10:00 a.m. and we finally left for the activity at 4:00 p.m. and then we were late getting to a dinner that night.  I wish I was exaggerating this even a little bit but I am not.  Again, I love them to pieces but sticking to a schedule is not on their list of strong points.

So if y'all do want to have a birthday party, I'm all for it even with fake kids.  But it would need to be on July 20th and not the 13th.  But if y'all don't want to party like it's 1999, just let me know.  Maybe we could convince June to come though......

Okay.  So about my feet.  What?  Fake kids, party talk and feet all in one post?  Why yes.

I just had to stop talking to y'all to work on a document for my boss so that just cut into my blogging time and I might STILL not finish this post before I have to leave work.

Like our favorite blogger, June, I have the feet problem.  The plantar fascias or however the heck you spell it.  I got it from teaching at the paint studio where I stood and walked on concrete floors and a plywood stage for hours and hours several nights a week for 5 years.  When I broke my humerus last year, I had to stop working there.  I also wore some super unattractive shoes because I was trying to wear rubber soled shoes so I wouldn't fall and break something else and to try and help my feet which were always in excruciating pain.  And one night I was putting on these ugly ass shoes and I flipped one of them over on its side and fell anyway.  My bed was right there so I flung out my good arm to catch myself.  But I forgot my bed frame was on wheels and I had hardwood floors so my bed started quickly flying across the floor as I screamed and then flopped myself down on my face on the bed and right on my horribly broken arm because that seemed like a better option than falling on my face all the way down on the floor.  And when I went to the doctor that week (I had to go every single week for about 2 months - SUCKED) and they x-rayed my arm, the doc said, "it looks like your bone pieces moved a little this week."  And I replied, "could that possibly be from when I fell on my face a few days ago?  Again."  And he said it would be best if I could stay on my feet and stop falling on my face.  Which, how did he get so smart?  They must have taught him that in fancy medical school.  Anyway, this was supposed to be about my feet and not about me trying to break my face.

So I wore those ugly ass shoes for almost 9 months straight while I recovered and I stopped walking and standing on concrete and plywood for 20+ hours per week and lo and behold my feet didn't hurt every single day.  Only sometimes.  And then my dad died and my brother and I had to clean out his house and then I broke my wrist and got whiplash so I was still not working at the studio because I was dealing with other crap.  And suddenly I realized my feet hardly ever hurt anymore.  And angels sang.  Because y'all the pain from this foot stuff is unbelievable.

But then my fake kids came and I've been trying to show them around Atlanta and some of the cool stuff we have here.  Two or three weeks ago I took them to Stone Mountain Park to the laser show.  And even though we got there 3 hours before it started, the parking lots were full and we had to walk approximately 94753945794 miles.  And I stupidly wore flip flops and I have been in tears for the past several weeks trying to walk.  It's actually been the worst it's ever been.  I've had to hold onto the walls in my house because I've felt like I was going to fall my feet hurt so much.

So now I'm back in my ugly ass shoes trying to fix my feet again.  So if we have a party I will try to wear cute shoes that day but I might be in my ugly ass shoes.

Then my neck started hurting really bad again.  I had a massage at the chiropractor and it feels even worse from that.  Then I slammed my good arm into a door knob two days ago and it's bruised so bad I could cry every single time I touch it.   And my shoulder that was hurt last year when I broke my arm is hurting again from some of the physical therapy I'm doing for my wrist.  And my entire left calf hurts from walking weird because my feet are so hurt-y.

And I hate everything.

And I have to leave work right now so I have to end this post.  I will try to sneak in some more blogging this weekend if my fake kids are doing something else.  I have plans Sunday morning to meet some friends for brunch, but that's all I have planned.  And the angels sang because I might get to sit on my ass and rest for a minute.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

My life is the same as the last time I wrote.....crazy as crap.

Well, it's time for me to admit something.  I need to stop the Music Monday contest until I can get my crap together enough to post more regularly.  I can't blog at home right now because of the two fake kids I have.  I can't have them finding out about my blog.  And work has been crazy busy and I haven't had time to write up a post here.  I need my job to pay for the house that keeps falling apart (yes, something else is going wrong with my house - more on that in a minute) and pay for higher utilities, etc. while I have temporary fake kids so I can't get in trouble at work by blogging.  I even spend my lunch hours doing stupid stuff like chiropractor visits, making calls for the kids to figure out stuff, etc.  So I'm going to put Music Monday on hiatus.  And this post is going to be short and quick because I am busy, busy, busy and I have to stampede to physical therapy in 10 minutes (so ignore all the typos I'm sure you will find).

Before I forget, do y'all want to have the Third Annual Atlanta Satellite Birthday Party for June at my house?  I'd love to do it!  But here's the thing.  Her birthday is the 13th, right?  I have my younger brother's family in town that weekend (2 adults and 2 MORE KIDS) and I can handle quite a bit:  I've handled working full-time while having a humerus broken in 4 places, I've lived in a house during major construction, I survived 10 years with my crappy ex-husband, and I'm currently surviving parenting two fake kids and a geriatric cat with chronic diarrhea , but I'm scared I would crumble into a heaping pile of crying if I had two fake kids, a family of 4 staying in my house and a party to throw all in the same day.  Could we do it either the weekend before or the weekend after?  I'm guessing the weekend after would be better because the weekend before is kind of close to July 4th and people may have plans.  I will probably still have two fake kids, but the girl one normally works on Saturdays and the boy one would probably be completely terrified of a house full of women and would most likely stay in his room all day and ignore us (and it's okay because he seems to enjoy staying in his room and ignoring me unless he's eating everything he can get his hands on, making a mess somewhere in my house or needs me to drive him somewhere).  There is also a VERY slight chance my mom may be in town that weekend but she would love to meet y'all and I can put her to work

Speaking of physical therapy (I was two paragraphs ago so try to keep up), guess who I saw last week at therapy?  No, it's not a celebrity even though my therapy place treats the professional Atlanta soccer team and Broadway dancers (not that I would know any Broadway dancers if I saw any).  I saw Google maps dude!  I was squeezing something or stretching something or, you know, something, and I heard a guy next to me say, "HEY!!!  How are you?  I remember you!"  And I looked and said, "HEY!  I remember you too!  Look at us - both back in therapy again!"  We chatted off and on throughout our session (he and his wife are expecting their first baby any day now) and suddenly I found myself asking, "so, is your Google maps picture as awful as you thought it would be?"  And he said, "huh?"  For a minute I thought I was losing my mind but I asked him if he wasn't the guy with the boob sweat, NASCAR hat, tool belt wearing Google maps photo and he exclaimed, "YES!!  That is me!  And it's truly awful.  But it will only be on the internet for 4 more years!"  And then he proceeded to walk behind the counter with one of the therapists so he could pull the photo up and show it to me.  Y'all, it is the most hysterical thing I've ever seen on Google maps.  And yes, I made a mental note of his address and I pulled it up here at work a couple of days later when I was having a bad day and it made me laugh all over again.  And no, I'm not going to tell y'all his address here on my blog for you to see it because that would be a super crappy thing of me to do, but if you come to the birthday party I will try to remember to show it to you at my house.

Did I tell y'all two of my bathtubs have started leaking in the past couple of weeks?  Yes, my house still hates me and also thinks I have a money tree growing in the back yard to keep paying to fix crap that breaks every single time I turn around.  Also, a shelf in my refrigeratore fell apart last weekend when the girl fake child was opening a drawer.  That shelf is probably tired of getting such a workout with as much as these kids eat.  And do you know what she said, "I'm hungry.  Can't you fix that after we eat?" as I was trying to fix the shelf that she knocked apart.  If looks could kill......

And crap, I now have to fly out of here to get to therapy and I promise I will try to finish this post tomorrow.  I have so much more to tell.....don't those of you not on facebook with me want to hear about how I found two gnawed up ribs and an empty condom box in the street in front of my house last night?  Okay, well, that's pretty much the whole story.  But I have more stories from the past two weeks.  Like how someone got shot a block from my office today while I was at lunch.  And my feet.  A story about my feet.  Riveting stuff.

Monday, June 3, 2013

My finger is getting quite the workout and should be in excellent shape soon.

Do y'all want to play Music Monday again?  We'll start back today but I'll get to it in a bit.

Lemme tell y'all about my exciting weekend first.  Okay, let me tell you about my pretty normal and not very interesting weekend.  Because it wasn't really all that exciting.

Well, let's not do that first.  Let's talk about something else for a minute.

Why no, I've never been diagnosed with ADHD.  Why would you even wonder such a thing?

FIRST, let's talk about this:  how do you parents do this for years and years and years?  These are not even my kids and they're grown enough that I don't have to change diapers or anything like that (they're 18 and 21 - I don't need to change diapers, right?  'Cause I haven't been doing that but I'm brand new at parenting) but I'm completely exhausted y'all!  And why are kids so damned messy?  I now totally understand when people say they can't have nice things because they have kids.  Between the two temporary kids I have and a geriatric cat with stomach issues, I feel like I clean every single second I'm not at work or asleep.  Or in physical therapy.  Or at the chiropractor.  Or driving the kids to Target or Walmart or the grocery store or to drop them off at the train station or to pick them up at the train station or to take them to church or to take them to a job interview.  My word.  How do y'all do this and not give them away after a little while?  I've only been doing it for 5.5 weeks and I feel like I need an entire year of solitude and vacation.

They bought a car.  But they haven't gotten it insured or registered yet.  And the girl has been waiting on her international drivers license which I never knew existed until I called around to find out what they have to do and what documentation they need to get a license here.  One day last week while I was at work they decided to go get groceries which I appreciate, but they drove their car to the store.  With no valid license.  No insurance.  And no registration.  Oh I yelled.  I waved my finger in their faces (that's a parent thing I should be doing a lot of, right?).  And I told them if they get arrested I will let their butts sit in jail and rot there because I can't afford to bail them out.  And I told them to enjoy their flight back to Brazil when they get deported.  (That's something y'all probably can't use to threaten your kids but I'm using it to my advantage.  See?  I'm learning this parenting thing rather quickly!)  Actually, we all kind of got a big laugh out of it and they thought I was hilarious when I was yelling at them and telling them they would get arrested and I'd leave them in jail and that they'd probably get deported.  But they got the message.  They won't drive the car again until it's legal.

They actually are really good kids, but they are keeping me busy, busy, busy (I put that in on the off chance June is reading so she can love me).  And I was already busy, busy, busy enough on my own.  What are some good vitamins for energy?  Because I need to swallow them by the truckload every morning.

So our weekend was not the most exciting.  I had physical therapy after work on Friday night because I know how to have a good time.  Unfortunately, she said I should not have stopped wearing my splint/brace thing all cold turkey like I did even though my doctor told me I could, but she bartered with me.  I don't have to wear it while I'm working so that I can type, but I have to wear it all of the other time.  Like when I'm driving those kids all over Atlanta.  And wagging my finger in their faces and yelling and threatening them with deportation.

After PT, I went for an hour of solitude and got a pedicure.  And I didn't fall down afterwards and break anything.  A girl came in the salon 15 minutes after they officially closed (I was done but sitting there waiting for my toes to dry and they were still finishing up a lot of other people).  They agreed to take her for a mani and pedi even though they were closed and where do you think they had her sit?  Right beside me.  That's how I came to hear her getting all snippy with the girl who was starting on her pedi by telling her to go find someone to start her mani RIGHT NOW because she needed to be somewhere and they were taking too long.  I got up and left at that point so that I didn't punch her in her junk and get put in jail where I would rot for a while and then get deported to Brazil.  (I think jail threats should be fair and work both ways between temporary parents and temporary children.)

My female child has a job as a nanny and she had to work on Saturday.  So my male child and I cleaned.  ALL DAY because kids make houses messy.  Were y'all all aware of this?  I spent almost half the day just on my kitchen.  They cook but let's just say they are not the neatest cooks on planet earth.  And I appreciate them emptying the dishwasher (after some finger wagging on my part and me explaining to them that I didn't actually give birth to them, that I'm giving them a free place to stay, and that they are not paying me to be their maid), etc. but I'm constantly trying to figure out where they have put stuff so I went through cabinets putting things back where they belong and I completely straightened the pantry because they just throw everything on one shelf all on top of everything else and it was MAKING ME BATSHIT CRAZY.  Especially since my pantry has a french door so you can't hide it when it's messy.

So we cleaned all day. 

On Sunday I went to a brunch baby shower.  One of my bosses and his wife are expecting their first baby at the end of the month.  So I went and hung out at a baby shower with a whole bunch of attorneys and their spouses.  It was fun since I don't spend all day every day hanging out with attorneys or anything.

Then I came home and had a headache so I laid down for 45 minutes.  The kids and I went to church last night.  The church gave us free popsicles to celebrate the beginning of summer because I go to a super cool church.  They are from a gourmet popsicle maker called King of Pops and the kids missed the part on the sign that said the chocolate ones had sea salt in them.  And boy were they surprised when they bit into their pops.  The girl child (I have to come up with better blog names for them) liked it after she ate for a while and got used to it.  The boy child hated it.  Apparently Brazilians do not mix chocolate and salt.  Because they are not as cool as us.

Then we went out for bar-b-q because I've been craving it for about 3 weeks (no I'm not pregnant.  I get my children when they are grown already.  Are you paying attention at all?)

So yeah.  That was the exciting weekend.

Let's get to Music Monday now!  This week's theme is as follows:  The songs you submit must be related to parenting.  I have a couple in mind already but let's see what y'all can come up with.