journal entry #5000

well, this is week six's assignment so I guess it's number 6.

we had to choose a newspaper article then write a response. i saw this on the news yesterday and was outraged...http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=12026017

I'm going to insert a warning. This piece is full of my opinions. I had to write MY response and this is my response to this issue. It's not nice, NOT politically correct in the slightest, and involves alot of the F Bomb. Consider yourself warned and if it offends, I'm probably going to not care. Sorry. I'm a commuter myself and no one on Gods green earth helps me. I already owe a mountain of student loans to finance my commute. So here we go. Hold on tight.

Basically the gist of the article and newscast was that state employees -civilians-not police officers-have take home vehicles that are paid for by the state, and their gas from home to work and work to home is paid for by who...all of us, thats right. Some of these employees live 100 miles away from the capital and commute DAILY. One man they followed (and they mounted cameras and actually FOLLOWED these people!) drives 250 miles a day round trip to work. And he doesn't pay a dime to do so.

And I'm betting that he doesn't do it to live in a cheap apartment like I do.

I drive 150 miles a day or more. When we lived on the northside I had 300 mile days every Tuesday. I've cut out over 60 of those miles moving south. I think MY breaking point was being in my car 8 hours one Tuesday but thats another story for another time.

These employees claimed over a quarter million miles last year. Wowza. I'm just wondering what makes them so special that they can live in bum fucked egypt then make us all pay for their fucking commute? Why don't I get to make everyone pay for my living choices? I mean does anyone want to shell out the $70 a week (down from $100). I didn't think so.

So why the fuck do I have to read about school teachers being FORCED to take a 5% paycut while civilian employees have us picking up the tab on gasoline, they have no car payment, and I'm betting their are alot of expense account dinners going on as well.

Nothing has made me quite this mad in awhile, except for stupid parents who pretend their child doesn't exist, but again, story for another time.

Notice I keep saying civilian because police officers get cars as well, but they get cars the rest of us cannot drive because we don't have what it takes to wear the badge that gets the car. They get to claim the gasoline because 90% of it IS WORK RELATED. And knowing cop salaries, most of them aren't living in fancy ass bloomington homes.

I particularly find the responses by these folks interesting...here's one:

"But 13 Investigates found IDHS also issues take-home vehicles to staff who are not emergency responders and inspectors, such as Thompson and IDHS public information officer John Erickson.

Erickson drives back and forth to Indianapolis from his home in Columbus. The 79-mile roundtrip commute accounted for about 7400 of the 9800 miles driven late last year on Erickson's state-owned Ford Escape.

"I have a take-home vehicle because I am on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if I am needed to quickly communicate essential messages for the safety of Hoosiers," Erickson told WTHR. "I may need to go a joint information center or a disaster scene to coordinate risk communications to the public." When asked whether he could do that in a personal vehicle instead of one funded by state taxpayers, Erickson provided no response.

2009 mileage reports show both Erickson and Thompson, as well as many other IDHS workers, routinely fell far short of the 1000 business miles the Indiana Department of Administration likes to see each month to help justify the need for a state take-home vehicle. The vast majority of their mileage was for commuting only, and WTHR's 6-month investigation has discovered the same holds true for employees at other departments, as well.

No response. "I'm on call 24/7." Guess what. My husband is on call 24/7 and doesn't have a car. He provides services to the residents of this apartment complex on his own time and in his private vehicle. And being the honest people we are, we only claim what he uses which is no where near enough to itemize on our taxes, so we don't even claim it.

I'd love to see one of these "EMERGENCY PERSONNEL" get their fat asses up at 3 am to respond to a murder or someone beating the fuck out of your door because they are in an altercation with their wife and she's trying to kill him and the kids. And be in your underwear while doing it.

This is my life and not only does no one pick up our tab for this, no one fucking thanks him either. Welcome to the real world Mr. State employee.

Yeah. Hot button. But Shannan asked for it. You know whats funny? I looked through todays issue of the Tribune online and found absolutely nothing newsworthy. This article I chose from Channel 13 is days old, and they've been doing the fact finding for awhile now. I guess thats the advantage of living up here. Lots of good stuff to pick from! Next week, we'll discuss laying off the men and women who are here to protect and serve and then see how long it takes for the COP to bitch that crime rates are up. Bring your friggin popcorn.

so i'm about 17 journal entries behind in English class...

a little sidenote, English has always been my best subject. Math was my worst. Funnily enough, I'm pulling in a 96% in Math. I'm rapidly remembering high school English, where I would procrastinate my shit until the night before it was due. I wrote my 1000 word paper last week in under an hour. And this week I have to shape it up into a final draft and turn it in. Have I done this? No. Good times.

We get a journal assignment each week and I do believe I"m putting them off because I'm such a cynical asshole that the subjects we are given to write about just seem well...silly. How to change the world, someone in history that I admire. It all seems a little too 5th grade English to me. Sorry Shannan, you are an excellent teacher but at almost 33 years old (yep, time t start the countdown to my May birthday) I've been around the block enough to know crap isn't changing. I live in a big city where police officers are being laid off, school teachers are taking pay cuts, and then people wonder why the youth of today is just not getting reality?!?!

Ok, that was really just a giant soapbox and I need to step down with my arthritic old lady toes.

This entry is about something I could change in the world and since I can't change healthcare, unemployment rates, people mooching off the government that aren't even...ok, see, too heated. I'm going to talk about something I wish I could change and isn't maybe that significant but really it is.

TELEVISION! Whatever happened to SITCOMS. When I was 6 years old and in the first grade, I would walk home from school (I was a latchkey kid), lock myself in, take off my pants and run around in my barbie underwear, make myself a cup of chocolate milk, and watch Three's Company. Remember that slapstick comedy, where it was so ridiculous you laughed at the sheer stupidity? Where are those days? But then again, where ARE those days, where 6 year olds could walk 3 blocks alone to get home? I wouldn't send MY 10 YEAR old 3 blocks, but then again, I'd buy her a 300 dollar netbook. My mom didn't buy me $300 ANYTHING. My first car cost $500. I ask again...where are THOSE days.

It's almost like society today has gotten so wise and so hip, that we just can't buy into that kind of comedy anymore. That too dumb to be true comedy. I don't even watch TV much anymore because it seems for every sitcom out there, there are 10 reality shows. I do like Pawn Star but that's another story.

It's just that we are voyeurs by nature and we like the drama, the reality, the unscriptedness of life.

Or do we? If you ever watch these 2 minute media whores on interview shows, they will tell you it's ALL scripted. The producers manipulate the taping to make it look like a drama happened when it never took place.

I watched a thing about "America's next top model" (Which I will admit to having watched a few seasons of it) and one gal said "silly me, I thought I was entering a MODELING competition"

It makes me miss Chrissy and Jack, and Tootie and Natalie and Jo. As cheesy as they seem to us now, once, they were actually quite big hits. But I look at Leave it to Beaver and wonder if people really bought into that high on crack cocaine while we raise our family look on their faces like we bought into Threes company and people today buy into finding true love on The Bachelor.

If i could change the world, I'd bring back the days of cheesy programming because I"m nostaligic. I love 80s music, 70s hair, 60s tv shows, 50s clothes, and well, 2000s shoes. lol

But then again, I've never watched an episode of Idol. Maybe I'm just behind the times and need to get into that reality state of mind. Or maybe I will live in my own little reality world with my collections of Roseanne, Ellen, Frasier, and Friends on DVD. Maybe someday I'll add the Golden Girls to that collection. Back when TV was TV, women wore shoulder pads, men didn't have viagara, and telephones were rotary.

This probably isn't the most hardhitting journalism ever, but these aren't due until the end of the semester. So I'm not going to sweat it. I'm just trying to get back on track with them instead of saving them all for the end! Now I gotta find someone who is "interesting" and has a source to cite about them...Jeffrey Dahmer was interesting...

now that i have a minute to sit or shit...

i think i will choose....sit.

I never wrote about Trinity turning 6 last week. Doing yearly letters to my girls is my new thing. One day, when they retire, i might print them out and give them to them. Thats the plan. But me and plans...well...

I have decided not to write this directly to Trinity yet since all she can read is "Mom. Yes. Books. Kei. Caden. Trinity. Bryce. Sam. Andrew." She knows Andrew because apparently this boy punches her in the bewwy and it huwts.

She is a wonder child to me, not just because of her miraculous entry into this world where I fell straight on my womanly parts and shot myself right into labor. That's right. THere was ice all over the ground on February 3rd 2004 just like there was on February 3rd 2010. ANd I was carrying Miss 2 year old Chandler in my arms when I went down so it was like 200 lbs of solid mass going down. And oh how it hurt.

She came into this wold that night at 10:0something pm. "It's my life" by Gwen Stefani was playing in the operating room and to this day, that song gives me happy feelings. They got me back to my room sometime after midnight, whereby Donnie and the girls went home for the night because well, 2 and 4 year olds get cranky after midnight. It's the gremlin syndrome.

Shortly after he left, the nurses came and TOOK MY BABY and put her in the NICU. They put all kinds of wires and gizmos on MY child and told me they didn't know what the hell was wrong with her, but something was wrong. Donnie didn't get up the next morning until about 9 am because they were trying to get some rest. When he called me to tell me he was about to leave the house to come see us, I had to tell him that they TOOK HIS DAUGHTER AWAY and I couldn't get up to go see how she was thanks to all the wires and staples coming out of ME.

When he and the girls arrived, we all walked down to the NICU and donnie and I took turns pushing her bed to the window where the girls schmeared their faces to the window to see their new perfect sister they had been anxiously awaiting.

She was released from the ICU later on that day with a clean bill of health. Apparently she didn't get a good first breath in her life and was breathing too fast. 3 times too fast as it is. And being a star EMT student, I know this is a danger for hyperperfusion. Too much oxygen without exchange of CO2. THey were concerned she would asperate and therefore I couldn't breastfeed her those first few hours, so they tube fed her my milk to get her started.

When they brought her to me to keep forever, I did just that. She is very special to me,and as she so sweetly pointed out the other night, I'm special to her too. I'm not sure what KIND of special she means but I took it as a complement.

She was special in alot of ways. My baby turned out to be very silent, very unsteady, very different than her sisters. I knew around the age of 18 months that we had a problem when she still wasn't walking. It wasn't discovered until she was 2 that there was a valid issue and that issue is called dyspraxia. Basically the signal from her brain doesn't reach the appropriate receptors in the same manner it does a typical child. The message GETS there, but it takes longer, and as a result she was severely hypotonic. Her muscle tone was for shit.

We spent a year doing 3 therapies a week, kept her on a liquid diet until she was 3 because she couldn't chew food. She could barely swallow what did go in her mouth, and without chewing, she was attempting to swallow whole food. And it was dangerous.

I am happy to report now that at 6 years old, she never shuts up, she never stops eating, and she never sits down for more than 3 minutes at a time. She can run, she can eat steak, she is learning to read. One of the major concerns with her going to school was eye to hand coordination which is what is involved when it comes to reading. But her progress is remarkable. She can spell every child in her class' name, especially Hunter, who is her bo-friend, whether he knows or not I cannot answer.

She idolizes her sissies, she thinks her Daddy is superman, she thinks her mommy is her personal teddy bear, and she is going to be a cop girl like her Wotney.

Her life as she knows it now, is perfectly normal. She is the only one of my 3 children with no recollection of the divorce. She has told me one time she wished she could see me and daddy at the same time, hinting that she realizes we may have lived together in the past, but she rolls with it.


I walk a fine line of doting on my children without totally babying the crap out of them, and Trinity BEING the baby, probably gets more attention than the other 2. She REQUIRES being the center of attention. The world DOES revolve around her and if you disagree, well, she'll fart on you. Every day my children remind me of why Im alive and what my purpose on this earth is. I feel badly that 3 short years after her arrival into this world, her daddy and I had to go and change everything around on her, before she even got her feet on the ground, but I like to think that this new alternate reality is even better for her mental health. Nevermind what happened between her dad and I, what is better is that "I"M" a better person and mother and happier with the path I walk each day. I make sure that the life I give them is an improvement on the previous life we had. Because if this life was worse, then what was the point?

I'm not sure what the future holds for Trinity. I can almost assure you Chandler WILL be an author of somesort. She might have a day job but I can totally see 4 eyes sitting at her laptop late at night pecking out her latest novel. Arielle will be a designer of some sort. Her brain craves design. Right now her obsession is cakes and we'll see how that goes, but if not cakes, she'll design clothes, interiors of homes, something. She is an original and she will paint this world somehow. And she'll convince you that HER design is the very best.

Trinity being 6 years old, her true personality is still developing. But I think that is what is so cool. She is so easily warped. She sees Rodney put on his badge and his gun and walk out of our home with honor every day. She sees her daddy go to work and use his brain after working so hard to get to where he is in his career. THese things are honorable. So I have absolutely no doubt that whatever this little red headed wild wonder does, she will do it with HONOR. And that...my friends...makes me proud as punch.

so i had a writing assignment...

hmmm. that's odd. Me? WRITE? Whatever will I do...insert eyeroll.

It's simple. I have to take English 111 to graduate. I hate taking English 111. Not for the same reason as most everyone else in my class. They all hate writing and would rather pull teeth than be in this class. I love to write. The reason I'm hating English 111 is because I have to do research papers, and then write my findings, and use CORRECT GRAMMAR. Yikes. I haven't had to do that in several years. Like a decade and a half.

So I bought the handy dandy reference guide that should help me out with the paper and citing sources and all that bull. I loved loved LOVED dropping more on this little SPIRAL bound book to refresh my dusty brain than I would to take my kids to McDonalds every day for a month.

We were given a journal and another reason I hate this is because we have to write in this form: Opening paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, and then a closing paragraph.

I don't write this way.

I figure this journal gets turned in for a grade in MAY, I am going to be assigned to write personal things in it every week until then, so I think I will just do things my way.

Wonder how that's going to fly?

I figure if I follow the rules on my research papers, I can do whatever I want in my own personal journal. This is my type of writing. Journal style writing. So as a result, THIS ENTRY will be my 2nd assignment. When am I going to get to that I wonder?

How about.............now.

We were told to write an entry telling her (the teacher that is younger than me) how to MAKE something. Lovely. I'm sure we all remember doing this in high school. It sucked then and it sucks now. And I'm picturing 30 entries starting out like this...

"first you blah blah blah. Then you add blah blah blah. NEXT, you will blah blah blah. And finally, blah blah blah."

This just isn't me. I'm not doing it for an informal piece. I will follow the rules on a formal piece but not on an informal piece. And part of me thinks this teacher who loves to read and write and collect books just like I do might find this entertaining, a student going away from the grain. Think?

When we were given the assignment I instantly flashed on smart ass things like: How to make babies. How to make a child cry. How to piss an ex off. But reality struck and I knew I would tell her how to make my world-famous-everyone-who-eats-them-falls-in-love-with-me-chocolate-chip-cookies. Because seriously, I will concur that my writing sometimes sucks, but my cookies NEVER EVER suck. So lets delve into this awesomeness.

FIRST....ah, we aren't going to do that. I think I'm a little over my 5 paragraphs. I take a huge mixing bowl, and it needs to be huge to hold the entire recipe because I do one bowl cooking. Meaning I don't mix the dry ingredients in a seperate bowl like most recipes tell you. I dirty one bowl because lets face it, I'm a great baker, horrible cleaner.

I start by throwing, well, PLACING DOWN IN THE BOWL nicely, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup of butter (it will be one stick of butter) and 1/2 cup of butter crisco (this will be a half stick). I have cooked them with all crisco and they will come out PERFECTLY but a little shortening-y. They will look like Martha Stewart cookies but the taste lacks a little. Cook with all butter and they will flow like lava out of Mt St helens. So 1 full cup of the buttery type product, but half and half will make them taste and look just perfect.

You will want to mix this with your handy dandy hand mixer till blended. The next step is absolutely my secret that I'm only sharing to get a good grade. You put 2 eggs and 2 tsp of vanilla in the bowl. And then don't just mix. MIX WELL. Have you ever mixed egg whites until frothy to make a meringue? It's the same concept. I set my stove timer for 2 FULL minutes and use my hand mixer to mix the crap out of my dough. Once you add in that flour you won't get another chance to mix super well. This step has no danger of overmixing, the egg stage. So after 2 minutes, put down the mixer, step away slowly, and take a deep breath. These last 2 steps are not at all important to the cookies.

You are next going to break the rules and throw all dry ingredients in at once. This might feel weird at first. You will soon get used to it. I do it for everything I make now.

Into your bowl measure out 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of baking SODA (the arm and hammer stuff) and 2 cups of flour. Mix with your handy dandy mixer until blended and the flour is all incorporated. Turn that mixer off again.

Now we move on to the heavy artillery. CHOCOLATE. Two of my children are peanut allergic so I cannot use most any of the name brand chocolate chips on the market. Not Nestle, not Hershey, not Giradelli, not Walmart brand. I happened to be strolling through Kroger one time and out of curiosity saw the Kroger brand. I picked up the bag and low and behold, they are safe for peanut allergics!!!! If I could have gotten my legs over my head I would have done a cartwheel right there. I have bought the generic for many years, but once, they were out of the regular morsels so I was forced to buy the miniature morsels and sweet Jesus and Mother Mary. You get even MORE chocolate coverage with the minis. It's like every bite is soaked with chocolatey goodness.

My point? Use whatever the hell morsels you want but I cannot guarantee they will turn out like mine if you choose not to use the semisweet miniature chocolate morsels I use. Dump these in the bowl. Try not to eat any.

Spoon mix the batter to fully incorporate the chocolate chips.

Well, I'm guessing this is my error in writing. I should have had you warm up the stove at the beginning. Sorry. Mark a few points off for me. You are going to preheat the over to 350 degrees.

While that is going on lets get out the baking sheets. I use plain jane throw away once a year pans, 3 for 3 bucks at walmart. My SECRET here is, I use parchment paper. You can find this in the tin foil aisle at any major store. It is NOT the same as wax paper (she says sheepishly) You line the baking sheets and I can personally guarantee that you will get a more even bake on your cookies than if you try to use greased cookie sheets. This tip works for ALL cookies. I bake about 30 different variety of cookies a year. I use parchment paper on my pans regardless of what the directions say. Ignore the greasing if it says to do so.

So now, our oven should be hot. Lets get 2 cereal spoons out to start placing the cookies down on the sheet and get ready for the good smells! Spoon up a 1 inch or so amount out of the bowl with one spoon, use the other spoon to help you wipe the dough off onto the cookie sheet. Keep the dough dollops relatively small, unless you want giant cookies then knock yourself out. But we like small balls around these parts.

I usually tend to open my oven door next and put my cookie pans in. That might just be me but it's a good way to get to the finished product faster! Now, set your timer for 9 minutes. 9. not 8. not 7. not 11. 9. Unless your stove runs hotter than normal, then maybe I would advise a minute less.

When they are finished baking, you need to pull the pans out of the oven, but again, maybe thats just me. I let mine cool on the pans for about 2 minutes, then I scoop them down onto a wire cooling rack. This would be the most important step of all. Count down the minutes until every last cookie is demolished. Or if you are in my house, watch Trinity take little bites out of each cookie, either way, they don't last long.

For a good time and a reason to go to the gym, go back to the beginning of this journal entry and repeat ALL the steps.

This concludes my journal entry on how to make something. I fully intend on taking CREATIVE writing next semester and this will totally be my thing. I think I will love it like I love chocolate. I think that's what makes me such a dork. And thats ok. I will be the dork with an A.

Dear Chandler Rose...

You turned 8 last weekend. 7 days ago today actually.

I've been searching for over a week for the right words to say to express how this has made me feel.

I'm still quite unsuccessful.

I think what would best describe how amazing you are, is that I can write this entire entry and you will "get" every word I say. You are quite the child. Plain and simple, you amaze all of us who get the privledge of raising you.

I think what has amazed me lately is how you take no crap off of anyone. You are such a sweet timid little girl but you have learned that does not make you worth getting picked on.

I love that you give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but if they screw up, you let them know.

I love how you love learning and how you look at me and quizzically ask me if it's this easy for everyone. I don't think you know how to fail. I hope that drive to succeed follows you into adulthood.

You remind me so much of myself when I was a child. Which is ironic because your daddy says the same thing about himself! I hope that as you journey into your life you keep your tender heart, but do not let it scare you away from the world. I let the world scare me to death and here I am, trying to conquer it when I'm 32. I know you. You will just keep being you without fear of anything because you are just dingy enough to float through your way and no other way.

I knew the instant they placed you in my arms you were a very unique little person. I worried my entire pregnancy that I couldn't love a 2nd baby the way I loved my first. Wow. I couldn't have been more wrong. They put me in your arms and I saw the most intensely deep wise little girl.

The day you were born was quite a special day. In that I woke up not know you were going to be born that day. I woke up at 8 am when daddy got home from work, and i Had no idea that I was in labor. I know, that sounds dumb, but I was havinga gallbladder attack and I couldn't tell what pain was what. 12 hours later your daddy was flying down the highway doing 80 miles an hour while I screamed.

We had your in a panic, not knowing if you were going to be born breating, if you would live, if I would live. You came into this world that cold January night screaming, healthy, and ready to live.

2 weeks after you were born, I had that brush with death I felt was coming. That day as I lay dying, you laid with those bright eyes, looking at me like you knew. You cried very little as mommy couldn't hold you.

I believe you've been grateful for life since you came so close to not getting that chance.

You have lived life even though it's tossed you a few curveballs. You just keep rolling with the punches. You amaze me because you know when times are tough. But yet you keep moving ahead. Sometimes you break and need us to catch you, and we all are happy to do so. There have been quite a few bumps in the road for you, but you never complain.

From the minute you were born, daddy and I knew you would be a middle child. We have always tried to give you plenty of attention to counteract the middle child syndrome. As it happens, you are sandwiched in between 2 pretty loud mouthed sisters but you manage to make your opinion known in a quieter way.

Everyone who knows you remarks on your personality. And here lately, that personality is blooming at lightening speed. Everyone who knows you knows they are lucky to get to know you. Because you don't just care about just anyone. You are polite but you hold your deep feelings for those who have earned it. I think thats what makes it that special when you care about someone.

Make no mistake Miss Chandler, you are a light in our lives. You forever live in Arielle's shadow, your birthday is 9 days after Christmas, heck Trinity's birthday is a month after yours! You seem to be stuck in that awkward spot in life where you just get crammed in wherever you fit, but you do so with such style, with grace, with a happy heart. You are thankful for life, thankful for everyone in your life, and thankful for the freedoms in your life.

I hope you know you are always safe with Rodney and me, and Daddy and BJ. You are safe to live, to love life, to learn, and to grow. We will protect you and your gentle heart forever and a day. You make us all proud. Thankyou for being you and for giving me even more life when I came so close to losing mine.

and those white lines on the streets, they are merely a suggestion for some.

let me start this with i am not an animal person.



when i say animal, i mean person place and things.



i don't keep plants alive. i don't like living breathing things. you know. dogs. cats. rats. children.



i used to think it was because i was mauled by a dog as a 3 year old child.



i think now it's because they are just icky. they sniff my crotch. they lick the lotion off my legs. note to dogs. it SMELLS like limes, but there is no LIME in my lotion. not the brightest creatures which is another reason i'm not a big fan of dogs.



i do like dogs better than cats. i will never ever own a cat because A) my daughter is allergic. and B) you have to have them POOP in a BOX, then scoop said POOP up, and dispose of it. I didn't even do that for my children. So no cats.



My children are dying for a dog. They have a dog at daddys. Actually they had 2 and one ran off. His name was Charlie and Trinity calls him "Chawwee" and just the sheer cuteness alone makes me ready to go run out tomorrow and buy her a damn dog and name it Chawwee. And then give her ice cream. Then commend her for pooping in the proper receptacle.

We do not have a dog. We do, however, have turtles. Miniature turtles. 2 of them. One is named Cotton Candy and the other one I don't know.

We keep them in the bathroom because they smell like, well, like shit. So you can take a dump and not know if it's your poop or the turtles stinking. FUnnily enough, their food smells like poop too. It's a real treat to me the germaphobe with a super sensitive sense of smell.

My dumbass brother gave them to my girls last summer. I'm not sure why. He had 3. He gave 2 to us and one to my niece. Since we got 2, we got the little plasticy cage/aquarium thing. Since my niece didn't get one, she used a bowl and 24 hours later, that turtle was OUTTA there. Gone.

So a year later my girls still have both of theirs. I seriously think I'm only keeping them to earn brownie points with my children. ("See, girls, mommy is so cool I let you keep the poopy smelling pets that we can forget to feed for a few days or week and they somehow survive.") Somehow I thought this would be a lesson to learn how to take care of pets. If these turtles were dogs their corpses would have started stinking up my bathroom 6 months ago because we almost never feed them. The data I have found suggests they need fed twice a day.

But see, feeding them makes them go poop. So I feed them every other day to cut back on stink. Call PETA now.

All that was to tell you I'm not a big animal lover. I wear rubber gloves when I clean their poopy cage up, and I will not, will NOT touch them. I hate animals. Living things. THings that breathe. So I use a fish scoopy net thing to get them out.

What do I hate worse than living things? DEAD USED to be living things. I've had a few dead mice thrown in my face growing up and dead stuff SKEEVES me out. BIG TIME.

So last week, I walk by the bathroom and notice the floor is all wet. This is the downstairs bathroom that never flushes right and after having to leave a toilet full of poop for my husband to deal with one morning at 6 am, I haven't used it since because well, I poop alot. Sometimes I need aids to do so, and then we have a real multiple flusher. So I need the reliable toilet.

I walk by the bathroom that I never use, and therefore have forgotten about Cotton Candy and whatever the other one is, so who knows how their lives have been going. And the floor is wet.

Huh. Weird. I turn the light on, and the tank is usually on the toilet, and there it is, flipped upside down on the toilet seat. Thank GOD the lid was down or they might have just found a nice new shit smelling home.

I pick up the aquarium and was terrified to look. Neither one is moving. I holler for the person I married for this precise reason because even though I can do anything a boy can do but better and my superpowers are awesomeness and red hair and ass kicker extroidinaire, well, shit. I cannot look in this cage to see the dead used to be living creatures. This is why women marry men. That and emptying the mice traps.

He comes in and one is moving. K. The other one is not.

I'm torn. I can't keep one and not the other. The only reason I have them is becuase there are 2 and I always figured if one died, I'd just hire the mutant ninja turtle guys to come whack the other. At this point I don't know which one belongs to Arielle, which one belongs to Chandler, or why neither child is helping with the monthly feedings...

Finally that lazy sumbitch starts moving around. So the 2 things that I thought were dead used to be living creatures, are both still alive. THANK GOD! Thankyou God for saving these turtles lives. Thankyou God for not dissapointing my little girls. Thankyou God for not making me have to face dead smelly things that smelled bad enough alive, for not having to have a turtle funeral, and for not having to decide who's turtle it was we were burying.

The one who didn't move had a shell as white as snow. I'm not sure how long they sat there without water. Could have been a full 24 hours. I know I put water and a crapload of food in the tank for them, shit be damned! EAT AND BE MERRY SWEET TURTLES!!! I hate you less now than I did a month ago!! I'm sorry I contemplated leaving you behind in our apartment in Seymour, leaving you as orphans and lying to my girls, your mommies.

Sometimes, you think you hate something. And then you give it half a chance, and you wind up liking it. I thought I was going to hate Indy and was pretty much calling it "temporary" even though that meant 3 years while I go to college.

I had a nightmare the other night that my husband was killed. I know, stupid right. Well, there has been alot of activity in the area with police officers getting injured/killed. And as horrified as I was to wake up and realize that was a horrible dream, it occurred to me, without him I have no home here. My home is because of him. I lose him, I lose Indy. Through my nightmare I realized I actually like it here. It takes me 30 minutes to get through the city in the mornings, just to get to Greenwood and I LIKE IT. I like passing the yahoos doing 50 downtown. AS IF.

5 weeks ago, that was me. 5 weeks ago I'm doing 30 in a 45, 40 in a 50 where everyone is doing 70. I'm not so scared anymore. I was planning out how to pass semi trucks miles in advance. I was having severe anxiety attacks. The thought of having to go back to my old shitty life in Seymour, and my old shitty go nowhere job in a go nowhere town made me appreciate the potential I'm sitting on here.

look out Indy. I'm here. I have arrived. I am home.

and yet, she looks like me.

lastnight.

i'm washing Trinity's hair.

Being 5 years old, she equates this to having a root canal.

The "santa is watching you" excuse is getting ready to expire.

I decided to sing her a song Donnie and I had made up for her when she was a baby and would sing to her all the time.

She will sometimes search the radio for her song.

Maybe someday she'll find it.

So she tells me Daddy no longer belongs to me. Um, yes, thats right babygirl. "Him BJs now. And you Wotney's. I'm yours and Daddys. And BJs and Wotneys."

Yep.

"Except I don't have daddy's hair. Daddy have bwack hair. I have lellow hair and it's turning R-E-D. I don't have Wotney's hair either. Him have no hair. Him have zero hairs."