Yeah, it's me.  Been a while, right?  Lots of stuff has been going on, but ... I've been piddling around with other stuff.  Nothing useful, just other stuff. 

For starters - I am FAMOUS!  Okay, so, not really famous.  But I was on television this morning (and I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express in November...!).  Our local "frugal living" television anchor did a report on KC Freecycle, and they came to the house last Monday.  You can view the video here.  I didn't look like a total hillbilly OR drooling looney-pants because of great video editing.  What I did notice, though, is that dude, I've gotten fatter.  Urk.  Yeah, I know it's been happening because my clothing fits badly, but to see yourself like this - well, maybe I'll do something about it.  Well, I kind of already am - Craig and I are in our second week of a 7 week Tai Chi class.  I like it.  I don't know if I like Craig wearing sweatpants - but I like the class.  Plus it gives us a few hours without kids, because I drop them both off at my parents' house right after school.  Our class starts at 6:15.

So far, Craig still has a job at Sprint.  Hopefully, he won't be going by the wayside, but we may not know for sure until March.  He's the only one who supports a pretty important application within the company, but that really doesn't mean much right now.  There's really nothing we can do other than try to be prepared for the worst and try not to stress about it either way.

Brandon is doing well in kindergarten - I can't believe the year is going so quickly.  He has made lots of friends, and he really loves school.  He's so happy now.  Melena is 20 months old!  AAHHHHHHHHH!  She talks a lot, and we can sometimes get her to poop on the toilet by putting her on it and asking her to toot.  She loves to color, she likes Dora, Oswald, Diego, Elmo....the standard toddler likes.  She also likes bugs, especially spiders.  I really need to take a photo of the blanket my mom made her. 

I have some good photos of the family, but won't get to posting them today.  If you have a Facebook account, add me as a friend (make sure you include your Xanga name!) and I'll add you, and you can feel free to peruse them.  http://tinyurl.com/cspdyl.

I ALMOST FORGOT!  I did get my hair cut a month ago, no particular style this time.  View the video and you can see it.  I also colored it purple, but it was semi-permanent and has washed out already.  Next time I go in, we're doing something different. 

Miss all my friends, now time to catch up some!

Not like you missed me or anything.  But I leave you with this, because nothin' says online matchmaking like...well, just take a look:

And I apologize.  I have so much to say, and I just can't seem to get it out.  This particular topic needs to be let out, though.

My cousin and his wife were expecting a baby sometime in late June, I think.  I forget the due date.  He and his wife haven't been married for long, six months maybe?  Anyway, we just found out that there was no heartbeat today.

This brings my old emotions back in a torrent of hurt, guilt, sadness....our first child would've been six years old this year - in a few weeks, actually.  Some years I manage not to think about our loss much, but other years, something brings it to the forefront.  She was due December 21st, 2002.  No, we didn't know the gender, but it's easier for me to think of that first little one as my little girl.  I'll always wonder....

Eventually it will get easier, I imagine.  Anyway, I just needed to get that out.

Many of my friends have been asking me about Craig's job status at Sprint, so here's what I know so far:

Sprint is implementing a voluntary separation program (VSP) right now - they send an email to all employees letting them know they can get the separation package if they leave the company now, and this time around, they've been sending personalized emails to employees outlining what they will get should they opt-in for the VSP.  The VSP is actually a pretty good deal, even if you haven't been there very long.  The base is 8 weeks' pay, plus one week for every year you've been an employee, which, in Craig's case, would end up being 3 months paid time off.  Okay, there may be companies with better packages, but this is something Sprint does frequently, and they've *always* offered the VSP prior to the involuntary separation program (ISP, or layoffs). 

From what they're telling the employees, (and what they've released to the news outlets), they're offering the VSP just to cut some costs; they're not actively planning an ISP after this VSP.  On top of that, Craig is the only support contact and SME (subject matter expert) for a particular piece of software that is absolutely necessary to Sprint, so his job appears to be safe.  The question is if he *wants* to stay any longer or not.

So those of you wondering, his job is apparently safe, and all is as well as it normally is.    Thanks for asking!

My laptop hard drive did a serious face-plant this weekend - and by that, I mean that when I went to use it Saturday morning, it was hard locked; alt-tab didn't work to cycle through running programs, and ctrl-alt-delete didn't work to shut it down.  I had to turn that mother out!  When I booted back up, I got a black screen (I'm much more familiar with the Blue Screen of Death, so was a bit surprised by this turn of events!).  I rebooted again (using the power button AGAIN), this time opting to start WinHoes in safe mode.  At that point, I didn't get through all the system files before it locked up again.  Craig pulled out the hard drive and hooked it up to his external drive cage to verify that it was, indeed, failing.  He scrambled to copy my data, we got the kids ready, and headed to a tech geek's wet dream, Micro Center.  Seriously, that's like pornography for us.  Several new components later, my new, bigger hard drive has had my entire old drive copied to it, and it works like the old drive never even took a crap.  No reloading WinHoes.  No scrambling to install my FireFox plugins, and configure said plugins.  Damn, he's good.  And yes, he is available for you

Also, we got a great new printer from my aunt, but it came with no power cords - we took the printer up to Micro Center with us, tried it out using a floor model's power cords, and it works.  We didn't accomplish much else that we needed to do, and we were unable to make it to my best friend's choral concert (don't beat me up over this, I feel terrible already!), but we got something kind of important done.

Then we all went to bed.

Okay, well, first Craig and I had to watch Dexter and True Blood.

Our party was fantabulous, thank you for everyone who attended!  Okay, so it was only Acorn7, wildboysmama, and discorara, but STILL.  Wait.  Now it sounds like only three people showed up.  Really, there were quite a bit more than that, but they were the only Xangans who attended.  So let me get myself straight.

It was great.  Even though Craig and I had been planning the party for nearly two months, we really didn't get down to making the house acceptable until the Friday before the party.  Anyone who has ever been to our home prior to our manic cleaning sessions would know that WE MADE SOME SERIOUS MAGIC HAPPEN.  Sure, there were a few spots that we neglected, but they didn't matter as much as getting the toy-splosion out of the living room, cleaning my God-Forsaken desk, (and yes, it took ONE WHOLE DAY to clean my desk off.  It was tragic!), and sweep, mop, re-arrange, etc. etc. etc.

I love having parties.  I'm full-blooded hillbilly, and apparently that part of my genetic makeup makes me want to feed large groups of people copious amounts of food.  Also, it comes with a "knows her way around the kitchen" gene, which is helpful.  It would really suck if I couldn't cook my way out of a pot of wet noodles, you know?  So anyway, the basis of most of my parties is to just get people into my homes so I could feed them.  Before I had kids, I would actually cook, by myself, all the food for 50+ people.  As I became a mom, I realized the value in asking people to bring something, as well, but I would still spend the WHOLE DAMNED WEEK making food - things like cookies shaped like fingers, cookies NOT shaped like fingers, hot wings, Sangria, bread...the list was extensive.  This year, however, I promised that I would only make two items - white chicken chili, and spoo-key lime pie.  While I was down in our pantry (did you know that our pantry is the size of a small bedroom!?) digging for ingredients, I kept eyeing things and saying to myself, "self, this won't take long to make, you have all the ingredients for it" or "damn, self, if you only had everything for that....."

I still only made white chicken chili and spoo-key lime pie.  The terrible part is that my pie never made it up to the table - everyone had so outdone themselves this year that THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR MY FOOD. 

I am so lucky to have family and friends who are culinarily (is that a word?) experienced.  Yes, some of us had food left over, but that was okay, because it wasn't left over for being disgusting.  There was just a lot of food!  For instance, my mom (from whom I got my need to feed EVERYONE from) made fajita soup, some shrimp soup (I never tried it, oops!), red chili, and then brought spreadable cheeses and crackers. 

One of my good friends made a boston cream cake especially for Craig, and he has now declared that she will be making one for his birthday in January.  Make your reservations now! 

My mom also brought her karaoke machine.  I wish I'd recorded some of that, but I was busy mingling with all my guests, so I didn't get many photos.  I'll upload any good ones!

It was a spectacular time, though, and just what my family needed.  We haven't had a party just to have a party in a good long time, and even Craig realized how much he missed the time spent with everyone in the known universe.  In fact, he divulged his financial plans to me that night:  Make enough money to support owning our current house and a new, larger house.  Move to said larger house, and keep this house specifically for parties!  Okay, so it may not be well-thought out, our location at our current house is decent, as we're located off two major highways, and one of them runs through a good amount of the country, so you really don't have an excuse for not showing up next time.  And we are, indeed, planning for a next time.  See you in the Spring!

In other news, Craig is currently at school with Brandon.  It's his Watch D.O.G.S day - I think it stands for "Dads of Great Students" or maybe it's "Dorks on Gravy Sleds"...I don't know.  Anyway, he is spending the day up there, keeping an eye on the kids at lunchtime and recess, walking the halls, and acting as an extra pair of eyes and ears, and generally spending quality time with Bran.  Melena and I are at home, and she's been asleep for a large amount of the day.  She's cutting her sharp pointy teeth, and it's making her crazy.  On top of that, none of us feel very well, so she's really just not in her normal sweet mood. 

Also, we had Brandon's conference on Thursday, and he gets to stay in Kindergarten!  We are SO RELIEVED.  After the fiasco with his Pre-K teachers last year, we were starting to doubt our decision to start him this year - they kept telling us "he's socially immature, he's academically not ready, blah blah blah" but all the screenings said otherwise.  His teacher told us on Thursday that he's very mature and observant, follows the rules, is very respectful, and enjoys participating in class.  After he wakes up from nap time, he usually stretches and says something like "Oh, I'm so excited for..." .  He has gotten into trouble once, and I believe that's because another boy got him riled up.  I'm not going to say Brandon was innocent - he knew that he shouldn't have retailiated, and I don't approve of his behavior - I'm just saying that it's not something he came up with on his own.  We were also informed of the only major problem he has at school, and it involves the bathroom.

In our home, even though we're (okay, so just me and Craig) are fat and weird-looking, we still have no problems with walking around without our clothes on.  It's no big deal to us, it's no big deal to the kids, and it's kind of like walking around barefoot.  Come around at bath time for the kids, you'll see what I'm talking about.  Rosalynne can vouch for this one.

At any rate, when Brandon is in the bathroom, he typically drops his pants and undies down to his ankles, mostly because he doesn't want to pee on himself, but also because that's just what he's always done.  It's not unusual for him to wander out of the bathroom while he's still pulling up his pants, even out in public.  I've been trying to break him of that while we're out in public, but he just doesn't grasp why it's such a big deal yet. 

It never even occurred to me that he might be doing the same thing at school.

It would seem, however, that he is.  The teacher has said he's so non-chalant about it, and is very confident about wandering to the sink while he pulls up his pants, but he has, apparently, made some of the older boys uncomfortable.  The older boys tell their teachers, who, in turn, tell Brandon's teacher.  He has been nicely asked if he could use the stall, so that he can close the door.  Were Craig and I wrong for laughing hysterically about this at conference?  The teacher really had a great attitude about it, but she's been a Kindergarten teacher forever, and has sons of her own, so she's probably seen everything.  Seriously, this is the worst thing my child is doing at school, and it's walking around with his butt hanging out in the bathroom. 

Of course, he's always going to be labelled as the naked-butt kid, or something like that, but he still doesn't understand the problem.

That is all.  The baby's awake, and it would appear to be our lunch time.  Adios, Amigos!  Chimichanga to you!

I applied for Xanga TRUE status last night, and I was approved!  Woo.  Now this means I get a nifty new badge, and maybe someone to come clean the toilet?  Because honestly, I don't know what it's good for.  But yay me anyway, right?  RIGHT?

EDIT:  Anyway, here's the link to check your TRUE status and apply, if you're able to.  Really, I have no idea what you get besides the badge.  I think nothin'. 

http://edit.xanga.com/editaccountbadges.aspx

So you should *just quit thinking that*!

I haven't gotten my hair cut yet.  I think I may try to do it after our Halloween party, because we're in a mad dash to do crap!  AAAAAAAAAAAARGH what did we get ourselves into!

You know, I don't even know the original reason why I started this entry.  Fuck.  Old age and all that crap, I suppose. 

Melena is currently not eating her strawberries as we speak.  Those are her favorite fruit, but this particular berry is very tart; she keeps putting it in her mouth and pushing it back out. 

Brandon is enjoying school; conferences are next week.  I'm excited and nervous at the same time.  The teacher has assured us that, barring any emotional issues, he's safe to stay in kindergarten, and that if you didn't know he was the youngest in the class, *you wouldn't know*.  He's doing well, he loves his teacher, he loves his new friends, and is excited to get up for school almost every morning.  He has gone from being shy and withdrawn to happy and goofy again, and we're glad to have him back.  I didn't realize how catastrophic his last preschool would be on him - I beat myself up nearly every day when I think about how his teachers were to him.  It was never his fault that Craig and I had made arrangements for him to start Kindergarten this year, so I never understood why they took it out on him.  Thank goodness kids bounce back easily. 

Melena and Brandon have been starting to fight a little more - nothing huge, mind you, but Melena wants everything Brandon is playing with, and vice versa, and because only one of them truly understands the concept of sharing, it gets...interesting.  Nothing that drives me completely insane yet, though.  It's almost cute to see her running after him shrieking like a banshee because he's stolen her baby.  It's even cuter to see her whack him upside the head with said baby once she gets it back.  Hey, you get what you deserve, buddy, we keep trying to tell you that!

I've made a playlist for our party, it's about 7 hours long.  I need to add a few more songs to it, just because that's how I roll.  There's a very diverse and eclectic mix of music on there - we play the list on random at home every night, and occasionally a song will come on that makes Craig ask me "and you think this is appropriate for the Halloween party HOW?" to which I giggle and just tell him to shut it.  He often questions my music tastes - but COME ON people, he likes Nickelback.  They were voted the worst band of all times on the cracked.com forums, so that should mean something.  (Or maybe it was the second worst - regardless, they're still pretty bad!).  Sure, my musical tastes may be offensive to some - I love disco - but really, when you're at a party, do you want to hear the same song over and over and over and over and over, or do you want some diversity?  Do you also want to hear something that makes you go "what the hell was she thinking?"?  I've got you covered.  Also, any suggestions for a good party playlist is gladly welcomed.  Just *no country*.

The other night, Rosalynne was over, the kids were in bed, and Craig, Ros and I were sitting around the table, being dorky, while Ros and I sent text messages to another friend.  Craig and I were also bantering back and forth like we always do, when he said "Do you just HATE ME?"  I replied "Would I have done what I did the other night if I hated you?".  Now, Rosalynne has known me for over twenty years, so she's completely used to the nonsense that comes out of my mouth...but...her reaction was absolutely classic.  Fer chrissakes, Ros, I've been selling sex toys for almost four years, I know more about everyone's sex life than I ever thought I'd know...and you took issue with *that* comment?  Just so you know, we giggle about it every night.  Okay, I giggle, because honestly, Craig isn't much of a giggler.  I, on the other hand...well, I giggle.  Laugh hysterically.  Guffaw.  The whole gamut.

Speaking of the utter nonsense of which I often speak, Craig has been having a rough time lately at work.  On one hand, NO MORE OVERTIME unless you get prior approval.  On the other hand, he's the single point-of-failure for the product he supports, and if we call you, you'd damn better answer that phone and shame on you for thinking you can take a lunch hour.  So the other day, we went for lunch around 1, and he got a call from his boss, who informed him that his lunch hour is from 12-1.  Craig has worked there for 3 years, and has never been told that.  Why hassle him now?  Oh, yeah, because boss is getting hassled for something and all he has to take it out on are his team.  (wow, bad grammar?)  So anyway, I gave him a few suggestions for dealing with these situations at work:

1.  Explosive diarrhea.  I actually used this excuse when I worked at the call center.  I didn't smoke, didn't take my full breaks, so one particularly rough day, after a 3-hour long support call, I took an unscheduled break because I'd missed my scheduled one.  It was a light call volume day, I was an assistant supervisor, everyone knew where I was going, so it wasn't a problem.  We had what we called "mission control" that monitored phone jockeys, though, and apparently, I came back a minute or so late, sending off bells and whistles.  When I was approached by one of the MC team about why I was late, I just said "explosive diarrhea" and left it at that.  I don't believe anyone ever hassled me again.

2.  Blow job.  This is made even funnier when Craig works on campus.  Yesterday, he said to me "But you're not here, so they're going to wonder who I'm hooking up with which will cause other trouble!".  I said "Just tell them your wife is THAT GOOD.  That will shut them up."  Of course, he won't use this excuse, but he said it does make him feel better to just imagine using my excuses.  See?  I'm good for something.  Unfortunately, it's just not a corporate job any more.

Okay, that's it, for now.  Going to try to get caught up with some of you!  Later, po-taters.  And Ros, you'll get over it. 

Our dog, Ben, died over the weekend.  She was approximately 13 years old; I say approximately because we got her from some friends six years ago, and they rescued her from someone else as a puppy, so nobody knew her exact age.  She was old, and she hadn't been doing well.  We expected her passing, but we were all still sad when it happened.  I still look out the back window for her.  We haven't brought in her food or water dishes; we can't bring ourselves to do that yet. 

On a happy note, Craig TOTALLY OUT OF THE BLUE sent flowers to me today.  I wasn't even irritated at him (srsly!), we hadn't gotten into a fight, disagreement, or even minor debate.  There was no mind-blowing sex, either, as I'm dealing with my monthly visitor.  No earth-shattering badness or depression, no happy celebrations...it's just...Wednesday, October 8th, sunny and mild, and HEY, send Shelly some flowers!

My Avon district manager was here when I took the delivery.  I saw someone walk up the driveway with flowers and I figured it was for our neighbors; he had gone into the hospital last week with a heart attack, and we often take their deliveries when they're not home.  The lady made it to the door and said "I'm looking for Shelly..."  Apparently, I looked totally dumbfounded because she asked "Is this the right house?".  I blinked out of it and said "yeah, I wonder who sent them?" as I tried to balance the bouquet with the baby.  Good thing I had a witness to the delivery!

The vase is a light purple glass vase (duh!) with butterflies on it.  The flowers are all purple (duh) and there's a witch on a broom....yep, purple.  He told the lady I love purple and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so...this is what I got.  It's nice.  I'll post photos later, but Brandon is playing World of Warcrack in front of it.

Oh and also, one week ago my brother and his wife celebrated the birth of their little girl.  She was five pounds 15 ounces, the tiny little thing!  She's cute as a button, just a tiny bit bigger.  They're all home and apparently doing well.  Hmm.  I should call them.

Anyway, that's what's up.  Halloween party's coming soon, seriously, if you want on the invite list, don't be afraid to ask.