Attempted Family Portraits

All our photo session really proved to me is that I have some really cute kids and I am totally going back to short straight hair!  Here's a few of the pictures, there's more on Facebook.

Halloween 2010 in Pictures

We had some friends join us for Halloween again this year, Riley and I got our baby fix playing with Alivia the poodle and Shannon and Corey got a workout running around with Aiden the dragon.  None of them wanted to pose for pictures.

...But I made them anyhow.  Here's Riley and Corey, ghosts from the Pacman game, and Shannon in his football uniform costume.  We were going to do a family theme, Pacman, Ms. Pacman, and three ghosts, but Shannon really wanted to be himself a football player, and Ken and I didn't really want to dress up.  (Hey, at least we're honest.)

Here's one of those rare family shots (thanks, Stacey!) and since they're so rare, you'll probably see this one again on our Christmas card. 

And here's Stacey's crew (it appears they all know how that family picture thingy works!)

Season One in the Books

The boys' football seasons are finally officially over and we don't seem to know what to do with ourselves with all of this time on our hands.  It was a great year all around, with each of the boys being announced over the PA for completing tackles at one time or another.  We thought for sure that all of the games were going to be played in cold wet rain, but the season finished off with two beautiful weeks of weather. 

Anyhow, surprisingly both of the boys LOVED football, and not surprisingly they loved it for entirely different reasons. 

Riley loved the social aspect, whenever his team got riled up the boys would run a quick scrimmage... using Riley as the football.  It's almost as fun watching the boys throw Riley around as it is for Riley to be thrown around.  Another bonus for Riley?  Hello... muscles.  Big guns.  I kid you not, they're there.  Not huge, but there.

Shannon loved football because he got to hit people.  (Not to be confused with getting hit BY people, that was not a highlight for Shannon although it did make for some hilarious expressions.)  He loved playing 'Bull In The Ring,' knocking the bigger kids out whenever he could, and he loved making his "I'm gunna get you!" pose after being tossed around.  Nothing beat the attitude that showed up when Shannon had an audience, wow, did he like to impress!

We're all looking forward to next year!  (They swear they're up for it, I'm crossing my fingers.)

Sis

After a short miserable time back home, we made a quick stop at the cemetery before heading out. Corey read the headstone of his twin sister, and this time I think it really sunk in that there was a person under there. He asked me to explain again why Carley was in the cemetery. I told him the story of how they were born too early and Carley died because she came out first but in doing so, she actually saved Corey's life.

Corey thought about that for a minute and hit his knees really quick. Shannon asked him what he was doing and Corey said he was saying a little prayer for Carley. Shannon then told Corey that he prayed too fast and to get back down there and say a longer prayer, like the Our Father or something. That's when I caught this picture.

Love my boys. And my little girl.

Field Trip: Kalamazoo River

Grahams Visit the 'Zoo (content warning)

The Grahams came for a visit last week, and generally the boys got along really well.

The Grahams were busy over the week, they filled their days golfing, swimming at Lake Michigan, visiting the Air Zoo, reinacting traumatic incidents...

The boys toured 'tornado ravaged' Gull Lake in a boat (hey, people on Facebook said there was a tornado so it must be true...)

Finally it was time for the Grahams to leave. They took the hint.

Joanne Won the Fight

Why...

Today Corey was in full 'I'm going to ask mommy a million questions that I really don't need to know the answers to because I already know the answers before I ask the questions' mode. I was giving him quick rote answers as soon as the questions came at me... not so smart of me, apparently.

Just as I was ready to silence him for good, Corey asked, "Mommy, why do you always sit down on the toilet...?" and I quickly answered, "Because if I didn't sit I would pee down my leg."

"Eeewww, NO, Mommy!" replied Corey with disgust. "Why do you always sit down on the toilet (seat) when you brush my teeth?" Oh. Oops.

Buttful

Shannon came home today and very proudly presented me with a Mother's Day coupon book that came from his Weekly Reader. On one page he was asked to describe me and this is what he came up with...

Whatever Works

I have two posts I need to get up (fire hydrant and First Communion time again,) but I am working so much that I just haven't gotten around to it. I'll continue after you stop laughing...











Okay, I seriously have been working quite a bit lately but I will have plenty of time to tell my stories sometime next week. Actually I'll have all the time in the world since Ken is moving to day shift on Monday. This move means that I wont be able to take on very many jobs at all unless I put the kids in before and after school care. Unfortunately the work I'm doing is very sporadic so it isn't financially feasible to put the kids in daycare at all. Sound familiar?

Luckily summer is right around the corner and I can once again take three months to ponder what I want to do when I grow up after yet another attempt at work doesn't really work for our family at all. Grr or yippie, not sure what to think at this point. Sigh.

Theriously?

Corey has had four loose teeth for months now, and today the little left bottom one finally annoyed him so much that he asked me to fix it. I was pretty impressed that he was willing to let me pull it and when he walked up to me and opened his mouth I just reached in and yanked it out on the first shot. Trust me, that never happens with me...

...and apparently that was what Corey was counting on. He was as surprised as I was to see his little tooth in my hand and I started to get all excited and self-congratulatory when Corey let out a ear piercing scream. He cried and cried and cried, so hard that he could barely breathe. Finally he was going at it so much that he started dry heaving and I knew I had to do something.

I screamed, "Knock it OFF, Corey, it's just a tooth!" The room fell silent as Corey stopped crying immediately and gave me a stunned look. "I know, Mom," he said with urgency, "but I MISS my tooth and now I can't make the 'TH' sound!" I just looked at him like "WTF???" (which according to Corey would sound like, "Wot da twuck?") and he started bawling all over again. Then I left the room and laughed my butt off.

Post Script: Guess who is not willing to let some crazy tooth fairy guy come into his room tonight, money under the pillow be damned?

How to Challenge Corey

So your spelling test is a little too easy for you and there's no way in heck you're going to take the time to improve your penmanship... what to do? Well if you're Corey you just practice your Roman Numerals. Duh.
Seriously, the kid could stand to work on his handwriting!

The Sixth Solstice and that Other Holiday

Shannon had a little difficulty this morning and I am not exactly his favorite person anymore. It all started when he woke up and ran to the bathroom for that morning pee that all little boys seem to take. What is usually a simple task apparently isn't too easy if somebody put you in your footsie pajamas in the middle of the night. Especially if they put them on you backwards.

So anyway, Shannon's running for the potty trying to unzip a zipper that is not there and growing very upset. As he kicks open the bathroom door, a hat filled with about 20 bouncy balls falls from the ceiling landing directly on his head. Balls bouncing everywhere and a bladder ready to explode, Shannon just didn't know what to do! Seriously, it was freakin' hilarious, I wish he'd let me take a picture.

So all the commotion wakes Corey up, naturally, and the first thing he does is go down to his computer and fire it up. But what is this? The screen is broken and the mouse doesn't work? (Or is it just the way mom set up the wallpaper on the computer...)


Not to worry, Corey has another computer directly behind him! The mouse works! Corey moves the cursor up to the search bar and starts typing in his latest most favorite website, occasionally looking down as he pecks his way through the address. But wait...


Oh, the frustration!  The home row is backwards!  Naturally I had to reiterate to Corey that this was temporary, the computer wasn't ruined, and then of course I had to show the boys how to dismantle a keyboard.

Anyways, all of this happened before daddy got home, so we went into the kitchen to prep the bouncy ball gag for daddy's entrance. Corey looked around and asked why there were sixes all over the kitchen.


The numbers, left over from Riley's ninth birthday, obviously didn't represent a birthday, but they did represent The Sixth Solstice, a holiday that falls on the first Thursday of April, wink wink. I explained that the sun isn't quite at it's highest point yet, it was six degrees off and today we celebrate that fact. And of course... we celebrate it by only eating things that are green, which is why I made green jello the night before.


After having jello for breakfast (it was a holiday after all,) we waited for daddy to get home, bounce bounce, where he told us all about how he suckered numerous people at work the night before by pulling off the CTRL + ALT + ↓ trick that Corey inadvertently taught us the day before. Try it, it looks like this:


To turn everything back, just do a CTRL + ALT + ↑.

Anyhow, just as everybody calmed down Shannon suggested that we get the guinea pigs in on a prank. He was brainstorming for a while and I told him he could probably think of something easier if he was actually holding his pets. Of course Shannon thought that was brilliant and ran to get Max and Cheepers. "What happened to my guinea pigs?" yelled Shannon in disbelief.
Not really sure what happened to those guinea pigs.... oh, look, they've been pooping jellybeans! I wondered aloud whether or not these aren't the infamous Easter Pigs I've heard about, for when the real Easter Bunny can't reach all the kids... Suckaaaaaa's!

Anyhow, that was all before noon, and the day is still young. I will probably direct future efforts toward my neighbors just so that the kids don't run away for good. So for all you neighbors out there, don't say I didn't warn you.

Clarification

I took all three boys to the mall today to get them some nice button-up shirts for Easter Sunday, and yes, Uncle Casey, much to your dismay, I bought the boys matching shirts. Corey's is green, Shannon's is yellow, and Riley settled for blue. Look for pictures sometime after Easter.

While shopping, I asked the boys if they wanted to go talk to the Easter Bunny. ($49.99 for a set of pictures? With the Easter Bunny? Good thing the conversations were free!) Anyhow, Shannon looked over at the large white bunny and yelled, "I'm not going up to talk to him, that's not even really the Easter Bunny!"

I was overcome with this horrible feeling - Shannon's figured it all out, how sad! Worse yet, he debunked the EB right in front of Corey! Not to worry, though, Shannon quickly added, "the REAL Easter Bunny is PINK!"

Studying With Corey

Today, after years of encouragement, I finally gave in to Corey's doctors and my pocketbook and had Corey undergo a Gait Study. The study consisted of four hours of hooking Corey up to devices, then hooking him up to more devices, and then adjusting devices that Corey unintentionally unhooked. Great fun!

Actually we had a great time. There's nothing quite like watching medical personnel interact with Corey for the very first time, especially when they are held captive by Corey for hours on end.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing how Corey tells you the difference between Kelvin and Fahrenheit initially, and wow, listen to him read that Biohazard sign! An hour later Corey is explaining how to utilize a weighted storage cube with an aperture sign on it in a Portal game and yeah, doc is getting a little exasperated. By hour three Corey has read every sign in the room aloud and showed the staff how he spells out words by twisting his fingers into Corey sign language. By hour four, the doctor is trying everything he can to keep Corey on track, just ten more minutes and it could all be over with if Corey would just STOP EXPLAINING THE MERITS OF COMIC SANS VS. TIMES NEW ROMAN!!!!

Anyhow.... measurements were taken of Corey for quite a while and then he was fitted with a little motherboard on his back that resembled a jet pack. Wires ran from this box to various muscles on Corey's legs. Corey had to do a few passes along a path surrounded by about twelve cameras and a bunch of computer equipment, and he did just fine. It looked something like this:

Why does this make me think of the Jetsons?

Then came the cool part. Corey was striped down and suited up with a bunch of reflectors and made to walk along the same path. The data was then transferred to a computer which gave the doctors an amazing rendition of just how Corey's gait affects all areas of his body. Initially Corey looked like this:

A case of the bumps.

What the computer saw resembled something like this, minus Corey's body:


Corey, still and in motion.

This is the same technique used in the movies to do computer animation, and it was fascinating to watch but it is very repetitive. Unfortunately Corey, with his not so subtle gait, often knocked off the reflectors which required us to stop often for an adjustment or two or five.

Going...

Growing frustrated and adjustment time.

Oops. An Entire MONTH?

Wow. It's been a while since I've done the whole blogging thing. I suppose I should start by apologizing to those who manually check in every now and then instead of subscribing to a feed; to both of you I say, "sorry!" I can't really say I'm too busy for my blog, it's just that when something interesting happens, I'm rarely in a position where I can sit and type it all up. (Especially now that I've discovered that you can briefly sum up your day in one sentence on Facebook and get immediate feedback. Find me there, people!)

Since February, Ken has been doing a little project which means I've been forced into a working on a project. We pulled the carpet out of our den and put down wood laminate in a Brazilian Walnut finish. Of course we had to rip out the baseboards to do this, so I had to touch those up and give them another coat of paint. Then the baseboards looked so bright that Ken decided to take off the door trim and the french doors and have me give them a fresh coat of paint, too. In the middle of that I decided to add another coat to my kitchen baseboards because they get so nasty and scuffed, well you can guess how long all of that took.

Right now the floors are down but the trim needs to be replaced. Ken insists that the dark blue walls look good with the darker flooring, but I'm debating (in my own mind) whether I should change the color of the room or not. Whatever I decide, it's not going to happen anytime soon I'm sure.

I did finally get off my butt and got a little job lined up. Well two jobs actually. I just started subbing in the cafeteria for the boys' school district- it's physical work that is flexible and never amounts to more than 4 hours a day. This is good because a) after not smoking for 2 1/2 months I've gained just short of 15 pounds and I need to get moving, b) I can reject any work I want to and it wont be held against me, and c) I still have a good two hours each day to dedicate to cleaning the house and cooking nutritious meals for the boys when they come home from school each day. (One of those selections was complete BS, I'll let you guess which one I'm referring to.)

In another week or so I should also be cleared to work in our school district, as well as a few surrounding districts, as an axillary worker, para-pro, or a (don't choke here,) substitute teacher. Anyone who knows me as a parent will say, "ARE YOU CRAZY???" regarding the substitute teaching. A few people who knew me before children, back when I had that naive 'I can change the world' mentality and actually declared my (first) collegiate major in Teacher's Ed with emphasis in Special Education, will maybe see a little potential here. My take on it? Well I met all the qualifications to be a sub, so I filled in the circle for it on the application thinking, "What the heck?" We'll see if I ever respond to any actual teaching requests, though.

I'd post some pictures on here to at least give you something to look at but my camera is seriously on it's last leg. It will let me take about five pictures and then the batteries die on me. I do have a couple of interesting pictures on my camera phone, they look stellar at 1" x 1 1/2," but worthless at 4" x 6". Hopefully I can rectify this situation by Easter, and it must be rectified for sure before Shannon's First Communion! Maybe the Easter Bunny will hide a new camera in a golden egg for me? Yeah, I doubt it, too.

Task Complete

I finished the cake! It's starting to collapse on itself a bit and from some angles looks like a DNA strand, I made some of the hearts face the wrong direction, and I can't fit it in to my cake holder. Other than that, it's perfect! Corey will have to settle for this:

He might even take the time to eat the cake tonight, assuming it's before he opens this:

I know, I know, but what other choice did I have?

Corey and his Cake

Tomorrow is Corey's 7th birthday and he is very confident that his mommy can decorate a cake that looks just like this:

I know, right? I bought an 8 x 8 square pan and plan to frost it with my decorator tips. It will be a four layer square and the design will be one-dimensional. Unless somebody with mad fondant skills would like to do this for me free of charge... I didn't think so.

I'm feeling pretty good about Corey entering his 7th year, but if you want to hear the story of Corey's birth you can read it here. He is getting so big and even a bit more independent. He wants to go to a water park for his birthday so it looks like we might head up to Great Wolf Lodge for his birthday this weekend. I think we've been spoiled by Kalahari, but hopefully the kids will like Great Wolf just as much.

I'm just not in the mood to type a whole lot lately so I apologize to those of you who look forward to reading my posts. (Yes, all two of you.) I will try to do better, and I should definitely have pictures to post by Wednesday. Until then, I have to get to work baking four separate cakes because somebody was too cheap to buy at least two square pans.

New Computer Background

I'm not even sure which boy created this stunning artwork, but it is currently the background on my computer. All I can say is that I'm pretty sure the shocked expression is on the wrong character...

Another One of Ken's Projects

Ken came home from work this morning rarin' to go! Yesterday we had purchased some replacement parts for the toilet and he was adamant that they were getting installed this morning. Now this is a great thing, it's not every day that Ken decides to tackle a project mid-winter, especially when it's snowing outside. As he began listing the tasks he wanted to tackle I chimed in with, "Why don't you save it for tomorrow, I am NOT in the mood to help you today!"

Now, for those of you that are single or say, male perhaps, you may be confused as to why I made that comment. What? HE is going to do projects, what does she have to do with it? And those of you who are female and married are clicking their tongues thinking, "I know where this is going..."

I can't think of a single project in my ten years of marriage that my husband has been able to complete without my input. (This does not include his ability to make large unnecessary purchases without my input, that happens often enough.) Anyhow, if he's in the mood to tackle a project, he better okay it with me first or plan on having a grumpy wife in the near future.

Today Ken was feeling pretty sure of himself, however, and he told me to take my little nap (ooh, it's a horrible thing, my crazy messed up sleep cycle,) and insisted that he would be just fine without me. Just before dropping off to sleep, I may have asked him whether he was sure he had all the correct parts or not, but dreamland was upon me so I am not 100% on this. I crashed and he got to work tearing everything out of the toilet and removing the toilet seat.

I vaguely recall somebody calling out my name all nice-like a few times, but I finally woke up when Ken frustratingly yelled, "Wake up, Colleen, I need you to run to Home Depot!" Crap. Now what? It seems that the new toilet system was missing one, no two, wait THREE parts, and we had to go do an exchange. I asked if he had laid out all the parts before getting started (no,) and asked if he was certain that he didn't have the parts (yes.) Before walking out the door one of us had the foresight to double check that the new toilet seat was the correct size and sure enough it wasn't, so we grabbed that too and made our way to the store.

As we got to the plumbing aisle, a grumpy old man in an orange apron asked us what we needed and Ken explained that our product was missing a seal, and nut, and some other gadget. The old man took a look at the picture on our box and agreed that surely we would need these three items, and then proceeded to pick up a new box and look through it for our parts. Then he picked up another box and another. None of the boxes on the shelf seemed to have the parts we needed! (Ironically, nearly every box on the shelf had been opened and damaged, as if other customers had scrounged through them looking for parts that were not there.)

After about a dozen boxes, the frustrated employee came across a box that had the three parts rolling about loosely, and handed them to us. He then returned the box (missing three pieces) to the shelf and walked away. Niiiice. We then picked out a toilet seat of proper dimension and made our way home to finish the project.

As soon as we got home Ken emptied the parts out of the box and got to work competing the remaining additions to his assembly when all of the sudden he let out an exasperated "You've got to be kidding me!" I hopped up to see what was wrong this time when Ken lifted a sub-assembly up in the air and said, "Why would they have put these parts together like this? I had the missing parts all along!" For the next ten minutes I heard about how stupid the toilet-part-replacement-company was to combine a few pieces rather than let them rattle around loosely in the bottom of a box, and I rolled my eyes and pretended not to hear him.

Finally Ken disappeared into the bathroom to install the rest of the pieces and I settled into my news. Not two minutes later, "Colleeeeeeeen!" And that's when I knew the project would go no further without 100% of my attention. Within ten minutes I'd walked him through the remaining steps and we had a functioning toilet and a shiny new toilet seat. We both took a step back to admire our accomplishment, and Ken decided he'd better get to sleep. Before leaving the room, though, I reminded him that the boys would be home soon, and if he wanted to be the very first one to pee all over the brand new toilet seat now was his chance. After all the trouble we had been through, I think he actually considered it.

Still Going...

Okay, I have officially hit the one month mark and I haven't had any missteps along the way. However, the counter that has been keeping track of my progress is an annoying little thing that causes my pages to load very slowly so I hear. Because of this I have removed the counter from my blog.

Don't worry, if I blow it with the no-smoking thing, you'll be the first to know.

It's Better if I Don't Accomplish Anything

No matter what I do, I always feel like there is a subtle odor of guinea pigs on my main floor. Today as I was putting away groceries I noticed an old container of rain shower scented carpet deodorizer (for pet owners!) that I had purchased way back when I always felt like there was a subtle odor of doggy in the house. How convenient! It seemed like there was an awful lot of carpet deodorizer left which was strange because we had a pet dog for three months and I vacuumed nearly every day to try to get rid of that subtle doggy odor.

Anyhow, I cleared the guinea pigs out of the play room and (ah-choo!) sprinkled the rain shower scented deodorizer on the carpet according to directions. The instructions said to let it sit for a few minutes so I went on to other things (ah-choo!) as I waited for the powder to do it's thing. By the time I came in to vacuum up the powder (ah-choo!) I couldn't help but notice the guinea pigs were climbing all over each other trying to gain access to their water bottle (ah-ah-choo!)

I checked to make sure the guinea pigs had enough water then kicked the vacuum on. As the powder became displaced, some into the air, (ah-CHOO!) my eyes started watering and my throat grew very itchy. (Uhhhhm, uhhhmmmmmm, ah-choo!) I hurriedly finished up my vacuuming and left the somewhat hazy room to get a glass of water while everything settled.

By the time I finished my water the overpowering rain shower scented carpet deodorizer had dissipated somewhat, so I moved the guinea pigs back into the playroom (ah-choo!) along with everything else I had moved out of the way. Once I was done, I peeked in at the guinea pigs and gave myself a satisfied little pat on the back for a job well done. Finally I had done something about that subtle guinea pig odor on the main floor!

Now instead of picking up the subtle scent of guinea pig throughout my house, I have the pleasure (ah-choo) of picking up the combined scent of guinea pig AND rain shower carpet deodorizer everywhere I go! Ummmmm.... Oh, and did I mention that I now have a sore throat?

Where We're At

Nothing too fascinating going on over here lately, I'm sorry! Ken's been busy working, I'm not, and the boys have been fairly mellow lately. I have managed to set a new personal record, though, THREE WEEKS people! (See tracker if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

That means we've saved over $180 so far, $180 which should be sitting in a clear jar for me to gawk at whenever I feel like it. Sadly Ken took it to mean he had an extra $180 to blow this month. On what? Not too sure, you may have to ask him. I would complain, but the money will appear (magically, if need be,) just in time for two little trips (Texas and Alaska,) I hope to take over the summer. Which reminds me, anybody want to watch the boys for me?

Today I took the boys to a Mad Science workshop at the library. Mad Science is a company that teaches kids science in a fun, hands-on manner. The boys seemed pretty excited about it and I got them settled in the classroom and went to an adjacent area to read a book. Well... we all know how Corey takes things way too literally, right? Let's just say it got really ugly when the mad scientist introduced himself and told the kids that they were going to get to handle ACIDS and bases to test for pH. Guess who didn't get to read her book? Hmm, that was fun.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, I decided that we needed to do a family activity since Daddy's pretty much a stranger to the boys lately. I brainstormed for an idea that wasn't too pricey, (you know why,) and it occurred to me that we had a ton of Chuck-E-Cheese tokens courtesy of Santa, we could take a free trip there! On a Saturday night! Well that sure beats, oh... I dunno, getting my head stuck underneath the wheels of a forklift, so why not?

Chuck-E-Cheese wasn't too bad, considering. Corey only got separated from me once, and we only had to wait about 20 minutes to turn in our tickets for a slip of paper and then another 15 minutes to turn our slips of paper into tacky little toys that would end up in a garbage can by Monday. Whew, fun!

Let's see... I finally decided to get a subscription to the local paper again; no, not for the deep, informative articles (it wishes) it provides, but for the job search (and also to line the guinea pig cages with.) The job search has pretty much been a dead end, as far as walking by places and seeing if they're hiring or browsing the internet goes. My only decent job offer in this area came from a job I'd located in the Gazette, so for $11 bucks a month I thought I'd go for it. I got my first issue and all I could say after scouring it was thank goodness we have guinea pigs. There were a whopping ten jobs listed in the entire paper, ten! And not one of them fit any of our silly requirements, either. So that's where the whole job thingy is at.

Hmm, what else? Crazy beautician #83 decided to leave the chemicals in my hair a little too long and I'm a blond again. Ken loves it, Corey asked a lot of questions. My talented stylist also worked around the pesky scar in my eyebrow by simply removing most of my eyebrow, so there's that, too.

Shannon has discovered beat-boxing and LOVES it; I should have known how talented he was when he couldn't whistle through his lips so he taught himself to make the noise with his vocal chords. Now he searches youtube for the all the latest and greatest beat-boxing ideas.

Oh, yeah, one of Corey's former teachers is now giving piano lessons! (At $15 a half-hour, boo!) I'm very excited and we may just go for it if I ever manage to find work.

And Riley. Well, he's learned the art of talking back, but 99% of the time he keeps it in check. Tonight he got caught so bedtime was way early, which explains why I had time to sit and write this post. Which I am now done with as well. I'm going to go try and read that book that I wasn't able to get to earlier...

Save the Date

Here it is, what you've all been waiting for! Shannon's First Communion date is set. Mark your calenders for Sunday, April 25. There will be a special 2:00 Mass at St. Ann's with a reception following. If you want to come visit from out of town, this is a great time to do it, even if you're not Catholic.

Shannon has to make it through his First Reconciliation (confession,) before he gets to do his First Communion and he is very very very worried about it - apparently this is a very daunting task for an alpha male. I recall being overly concerned about saying the Act of Contrition correctly, but he doesn't even have to have that memorized! I say he's getting off easy.

What's Up

Hello! I haven't posted in a while, but most of you are aware that I have been spending the last 9 (almost ten!) days forgetting to take my Chantix, grabbing invisible packs of smokes that don't exist, and opening up the door to the garage without realizing it. If you didn't know this, well it's because I didn't really tell anybody when my starting date was because I didn't want to disappoint anybody. (Or myself.)

I am shocked that I have made it this far, I have only completely quit once in the last twenty-one years (!) and that was for three weeks. Every day was impossible and it didn't take much to jump back in at the time. This time I am so much more mellow. Sure I get a little cranky, but as Ken says, it's nothing compared to how I act during my typical hormone induced mood swings.

Honestly, I find that if I can just yell at somebody three times a day I am able to handle the withdrawl quite well. Luckily, I have a husband and three boys who easily give me cause to do just that. If they're not around, there are always idiots on Facebook for me to yell at, even if it means just spitting at the computer screen. Oh yeah, and politicians on TV, too. Okay, once I think I even yelled at a guinea pig, the point is I haven't dreamed of buying a pack of smokes!

Speaking of dreams, Chantix (further referred to as my miracle drug,) has some rather interesting side effects. Luckily I have not become suicidal, depressed or diabetic, although apparently these things can happen - please call my husband or doctor right away if my blood sugar skyrockets and I lock myself in a closet for longer than one hour. (Less than one hour would be normal.) The one side effect I have experienced, particularly in the first week of taking my miracle drug, is having vivid, crazy dreams. I wish I could explain them all to you but that would take forever and be a bit awkward or embarrassing. Let's just say that I don't need to buy any extra movie channels from the cable company, I pretty much work my through every genre on a nightly basis as I sleep.

Anyhow, I will hopefully be posting more now that I'm developing new non-smoking routines. They're not too different from typical Colleen behavior, I still stay up half the night and nap a good portion of the day. I still get on the internet, although I have quite a bit less interest in it for some reason. I still maintain the house, keeping it semi-clean and usable. I still... well that's about all I do in a regular day. 8o)

What is new with my routine is that I find myself cooking or baking on a daily basis. (The food is still inedible, but wow, it appears more than once a week!) Who knew that if you didn't have to pop into the garage every five minutes, you can bring food to a boil without it boiling over? You can actually hear the timer go off when you stay in the kitchen - amazing! And would you believe that your hands don't dry out to the point of bleeding because you're constantly washing your hands between smoking and dicing and chopping!

The downside to all of this time in the kitchen? Unfortunately I can now TASTE the food that I make. (There has to be a fix for that.) Maybe this is why my appetite is no more than it was before and I'm not gorging on everything in sight. Another perk? Since my mouth isn't so dry, I now drink 3 to 4 Cokes a day as opposed to my usual 8 - 10. Bonus!

Anyhow, I'm kinda proud of myself but leery about it too. I know I'm a gloomy Gus, but I'm hoping to stay positive with this. It helps that the kids are thrilled for me, (although Shannon said he LIKED the smell of smoke on me - reason #1 to quit,) and hopefully the boys are young enough that they will not be able to remember their mommy as a smoker by the time they're teenagers! It's the least I can do for them considering how this habit has affected our family.

Okay, I'm not going to dwell on this any more, there's nothing worse than an ex-smoker, (I use that phrase loosely,) who harps on things all the time. However, if you have anything positive to say during the next month or two, feel free. If you have anything negative to say about it, don't bother with the comment section, call me - I'm probably due for a good yelling session!

Things That Made Me Giggle Lately

Well it's been a long Christmas break and school is about to start up again. Here's what has entertained me the last few days:


Watching Corey bury his dad in pillows while dad snores away.


Listening to Max and Cheepers make music (and Corey screaming that it's HIS keyboard and get those things off of it!)


Okay... this is one of those trick candy containers. You think it's bubble gum but when you open it, this pops out.


And finally, watching the boys' mad Photoshop skills progress.