It is groundhog day

Today would be the awaited day for all kids to see if their will be six more weeks of winter. The anticipation will he see his shadow or won't he......well the little rodent should wear a blind fold so he can't see his shadow. The little rodent didn't disappoint and gave the little hooligans what they wanted 6 more weeks of winter.

This is one mommy that can not wait for spring. This might possibly be the longest winter of my whole life.



Today has been a good day. I know they have been rare lately. Nothing good bad or indifferent happened today but I am in good spirits. I got the kids report cards today. Ehhh not a shining moment but improvement had been made in certain areas so I will give them a reprieve. I have very high expectations for this quarter. Why is it you just don't see the importance of school until you are an adult and then you wish you had put the hard work in and done better. I wish I could get them to see that now. Not that they don't do well but that is only because I ride them about it constantly. I wish they would do it because it will really make or break what kind of college you can get accepted too. Not to mention it surely helps for those little things called scholorships. Someday they will realize I am not talking like the teacher on Charlie Brown and real words that are in their best interest are leaving my lips.

This is going to be a busy week Austin has basketball practice tonight, Colby has to be driven to school tomorrow, Thursday Austin has chorus and basketball, Saturday we have to drop kids off at Rachaels and go to a memorial service up in Laconia, hopefuelly be back in time to bring Austin to his basketball game. Crazy week!!!

This afternoon has been better...

Well as not to disappoint this morning was a day in hell so I cleaned and scrubbed the house this morning. This is how I got out all my frustrations it seemed to work at least for a while.

So I managed to get my butt in gear and I did take the kids sledding at the Bedford sledding hill. I got some great photos of them. We then came back and we started yummy dinner and some snacks for the super bowl. We managed to watch maybe half and then I started the clean up from dinner. I just couldn't get into the game. Jeff & Nate also gave up watching the game and played WII. They would flip back and forth just to check the score and watch the last minute or so of the game. So not much else going need to go finish up on laundry so talk to you all later.

Blah!!

Austin had another basketball game today and it was another win. I am so proud of his team. GO TEAM!!!

Aaarrrggg okay another irritation I got an e-mail today stating today was the last day to register the boys for little league for the 2009 season. HELLO people it is still January!!! Besides that I go and look at the price it is a whooping $95 a kid. Okay their is just no way that I can possibly pull this money off the money tree this week, it has been sucked dry. So sadly I may have to inform the kids they can not play this spring. I am so sad.......

We managed to scrape together the money to pay January's rent and ran over and payed that today. So this did make me feel some what better.

I have been suffering from headaches, heartburn and lack of sleep for most of this week. I am a mess. Not to mention I am officially just in a funk. I am just blah all the way around. So needless to say I am really trying to work on shaking this but it may be around for a while longer.

Well I have managed to already blog for 19 days out of this crazy month. I only blogged 34 times in all of 2008. So I have already blogged more than half of what I blogged, for all of 2008. This was one of my goals for 2009 to blog more and comment more on my friends blogs, so far I have successfully followed through with this goal. Yeah me!!! Yes I watch too much Disney channel w/the boys.

Tomorrow should finally be a bit warmer so I am planning on taking the kids sledding if I can get off my big fat ass and actually get them their. It is another thing on my to do list for 2009 that I really want to accomplish. Plus the kids deserve a little bit of fun. So this is my plan and then come back here and watch the superbowl w/Jeff & Nate.

So I guess that is it for now talk to you all later.

Month of Change

Well any of my regular blog readers which by the way I am finding their are more lurkers, who read my blog but don't comment then I realized. Which I am thankful for as I really thought the only one who ever read my blog was Rachael. LOL!!! Oh yeah back to what I was saying, as this seems to be the year of change for better or worse. I decided that I would change and update my blogs layout so it has been updated and looks all new and pretty.

I have a couple of people by the way that I wanted to include in this post that have become important in my life and I am not sure they are even aware. I have been acquaintances w/Jen Pettingill since college, I met Jen in 1990 through an old friend. She also got to be great friends w/Rachael through the same old friend. Now I have seen Jen pretty consistently over the last 10 years or so. We have always been friendly enough but somehow something began to change in the last year or so. I now regularly read her blog and try and keep updated on any new news going on in her life. I really look forward to knowing that she is coming up to visit and she has 2 of the sweetest little girls. She made the most heart felt and caring comment on my blog the other day and I wanted her to know how much it meant, to know someone is going through what we are at the moment. We have felt very isolated in this and have kept most of it quiet, I talked to few people about it all of which were my core friends of course but having someone understand and reach out made a huge difference in this week. It made me and my family not seem so low. So thank you Jen it might have been a little gesture on your part but was huge to us.

Someone else that for what ever reason has taken a silent seat is my friend Lesley. She is another friend I met through Rachael. Lesley has a rare and much appreciated humor. Even when things seem to be at their bleakest she can tell it in such a hysterical way, that you can't help but smile. I have some great memories of Lesley of a few past New Years parties that involved yoga and funny words on walls that still crack me up. Although she doesn't see it, she also may be one of the most creative people I know. From her quilts, to altering of items, her homemade hot cocoa. She is simply an amazing all around person that I have ever had the privilege of calling my friend. I am really hoping that this year will be the year of finding the time to spend more time w/her and her gorgeous daughter Kelsey.

It is funny, I know I have been overly sappy in a lot of my blogs this year. However, I am really going back and appreciating the small things. Really my over-all sense of any type of security in my life is slowly crumbling around me, So I have really tried to concentrate on what I do have that I truly call secure. That is certainly not a job, the house I live in, or even my car or anything material. Suddenly what has become important more than anything else that I am fiercely hanging onto w/every ounce of strength I have are #1 my family & #2 are my friends. I have always known deep down that these two things were important but for whatever reason this year, I am trying to let everyone know that they are important in my life and not just assuming they already know. See I can raise my family in any house, I can drive any car as long as I have my family and friends by my side.

Okay I think I need to stop writing my blogs at 1:30am I am way to emotional and sappy but I do love you all so oh well.

Trying to smile through the storm called my life

I am really trying to put on a happy face and let loose with the kids. Kids really are a great distraction. Snow days really can be a lot of work when you think of all the shoveling and snow blowing that is soon to follow. However, watching the kids jump for joy at having a snow day still makes me smile at the memories of my childhood those feelings of joy for those snow days are still very vivid. Then daddy gave the boys an offer they couldn't refuse. He offered to go outside and help them build the ultimate of all snow forts. So using the picnic table as a base they built an awesome snow fort. They were out their for about 2 hrs. They are prouder than proud.























Here are the photos from Colby's first time skiing at Pat's Peak I am positive we finally found a sport that we will continue for him. So as you can see they taught him to ski w/no poles which I thought was odd. He took a few spills which Jeff almost missed on getting on camera as he was laughing to hard. I am so thrilled that we finally found a sport that he thoroughly loves. I will get him into a ski program next winter so that he can ski often.





When things get a little stressful I love to give the kids an extra treat or two. Gets all of our minds on the yummy item we are baking. So I decided to make a pan of pecan, chocolate chip brownies from scratch. No box mixes allowed through this door. Brady was a wonderful helper and whisked all the batter up and got to lick the whisk at the end as a reward. P.S. I know I am fat but I really am not this fat. Austin took a terribly angled picture that makes me look like Attila the Hun but I am sucking up my vainness and including it anyways.

Well it seems if I had a lot of photos to include today. Jeff goes for the dreaded meeting w/health and human services tomorrow. I am praying that it will be all good. Other than that it looks to be a fairly quiet weekend although I would really prefer it to be summer. So I could have an excuse to have a summer drinking party. I could really use one after this week. I am happy to see it drawing to a close. Things can only go up from here so that is how I am thinking right now.

Alright updated most of the pictures tonight a few more still to come but those can wait for another day.

When it rains it pours

Well I suppose let it all come down at once. Oh by the way screw the I am thinking positive about everything lately. I officially give it up for lent. Phew!!!! I am also thinking I may take up alcoholism for my birthday. It may not make reality better but it sure in hell will make it seem better in my head. Evidently I am being punished for something I did that was really bad, I just wish I knew what it was.

Okay so on to the story you are all waiting to hear. Donna comes to pick up Christopher today and informs me that next week is my last week. As they need to put him in a special preschool and because I live in Bedford the bus will not pick him up or drop him off here. Okay I understand this completely I am all for getting him into a preschool that will help him out. My beef lies with the fact that evidently Chris has been looking for another daycare in Manchester for Christopher since he first started coming here!!!!!!!!!! Nobody bothered to tell me this in the last month. So now I get blind sided and if things were not bad enough now I am out another $400 dollars a week. OH MY GOSH!!! I Knew that I was losing money but until this very second hadn't actually done the math as to how much money I would be losing a month. Okay so this is almost half my rent payment. If you have read my previous post, you would see that that really is an option either.

Jeff ate every ounce of pride today and went down to health and human services to able for food stamps and any other possible free service we qualify for today. It was probably our most degrading moment when we finally realized we had no other options. We have an appt. for fuel assistance Feb 13th but not sure how we are supposed to get through the next 2 weeks until that meeting.

Okay well I can't even think about this anymore. So I will hopefully be better and keep you all updated more tomorrow.

In a bit of a panic

Jeff being out of work really wasn't to bad in October, November & most of December as he was working for his buddy Jim. However, now he hasn't worked at all since the end of December. We had to make some tough decisions on Friday as to pay rent or buy food. We decided we really needed to feed the kids so we went grocery shopping. Now the furnace just shut off and we went to check the oil. Yeah that is a major problem as it shut down because it was warning us we are so low on oil. So now we are going to buy a minimal amount of oil to try and get us through for a few days anyways. Now I don't think we are going to be able to pay rent this week either and February's rent will be due in only 2 weeks. Not to mention I am waiting for the disconnect notices for the electric, cable and phone here probably within the next week. I feel like I am on a sinking ship and I am not sure how much time we have till it is completely submerged. I am praying we get the W2 from unemployment so that we can file taxes and survive for a little while longer till Jeff can find employment.

Okay I am going to go have some more coffee and try and trick myself into thinking it is alcohol. I would drink the real stuff if I didn't have to get up at 7 am.