MAKE REALISITC RESOLUTIONS OR NONE AT ALL

Here is my list for 2009


eat more chocolate, preferably dark (it's good for you)
read more books
see more movies
drink more wine (starting to like red and a year ago would not have touched it)
stock up on sudafed for that damn red wine headache
worry less about everything
spend more time with friends
work hard but not too hard
enjoy family
walk more and park farther away in the lot when shopping

FIND DREAM HOUSE and buy it (well at least an affordable one that is a dream now)
PAINT every room whatever color I like
eat more choc........oh wait I said that already


HAPPY 2009

Things to come or not to come?

As I sit here with my coffee and work all around me I wonder what the new year will bring?

The last couple days or really weeks have been great. I am busy all the time with work or with friends and the kids. I pretty much love my life except for the issues with my little guy. But hey he is bound to grow out of it right?

I am not sure how much I will keep up with this new blog but I am glad I started it. And even happier that there are people out there happy to see me back at it.

Life is funny. A year ago I was living in San Diego knowing that we were moving to Texas and I could only tell close friends and you! Work was in the dark and it felt good and scary having a secret.

I have to say it worked out way better than I ever imagined. I love my job, still not too fond of the CORPORATE side of it, but none the less I love it. I have an amazing boss that I call my second husband because I swear I talk to him more than my own. I have some great work friends too that I keep up with thru IM and facebook and so on. I make GREAT $$$!! WOOHOOO, which is icing on the cake.

Outside of work I have my other half who is going thru some stuff with work and not that happy about work but we will make it through. The boys are growing and changing. GOD, my oldest looks so grown up, I am not sure if I should cry, laugh or worry........all of the above I think. Over the weekend he went hunting and got his first doe. He is a man now at 12. Pretty soon we will be enjoying that with all the meat that will fill up the deep freeze we still need to buy.

My five year old may be tough to handle but he amazes me on a daily basis with his ability to store information. SONGS, he has 100's of songs stored in his little head and sings them all the time. Not just preschool and holiday songs. Stuff right off the radio or from Noggin. He sang the Noggin theme song word for word yesterday. Last week he sang his entire Christmas concert start to finish in the car on the way home. Oh and he will stop in the middle and demand that i clap at the end.

I have my friends, best friends from college right here again. I am so happy to be near them again but i do not see them nearly as much as i would like. I hope that changes. Plus a couple new friends. A neighbor that I know will be a friend for life. And a friend through the hubby's work that I think will also be a friend for life. It is scary how much alike we are except for the fact that she is on the other team, if you know what I mean..........

Well, not sure why I titled this the way I did, I guess cuz I really had no clue what I would write about or if I even wanted to write. It comes and goes but when the mood strikes be sure to tune in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

May you have peace, love and hope in the new year.

Off for a few days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

My 1st week bag to blogging has been well eventful. It has been great hearing from all my old bloggie friends. LOVE TO ALL OF YOU!!

Our best friends flew in last night from CA and I am off pretty much all week from work to enjoy spending time with them.

I hope Santa is good to all of you.

;)

Why at this time of year?

As I sit here listening to my oldest practice trumpet, my youngest doing GOD knows what with the battleship pieces and waiting for the sugar cookie dough to chill, I wonder why now?

Yesterday, about 24 hours ago actually, we got a call from our very dear friends who are more family than anything and they told us their cabin was broken into. Their very much loved weekend cabin. Oozing with cozy country charm and mounted dear heads that yes were shot by the man of this couple.

$1000's of dollars worth of guns and hunting gear gone, appliances and other things and even worse it was obvious they planned to come back. Wheel barrows and bins overflowing with tools, ammo and other things sitting in the garage waiting to be carted away.

WHY??? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.

TIS THE F***ING SEASON.

We drove out to their place to help if they needed it and ended up spending the night because they felt safer with us there. My husband helped put all new dead bolt locks on this morning. The most disturbing part, the gun safe was not damaged, it is almost like they figured out the combination.

Well, my cookie timer just went off. Time to roll some dough. I will be praying tonight for the worst to happen to these crooks and hope they are caught and for the stuff to be found.

I thank GOD everyday for the wonderful people in my life and hope this never happens to us.

"Oh the weather outside........"

I LOVE Christmas music. It has been stuck in my head for weeks. I listen to it every chance I get. I have had Feliz Navid stuck in my head, that Up on the rooftop song, silent night, and many more. It is like my own little inner concert!!

Last week my oldest had his Winter Band Concert. That was awesome. He is really talented on his trumpet. The older kids, Honor Band - they were downright amazing. They did this Calypso Jingle Bells thing, WOW!! This one girl played the BONGO's and I was totally mesmerized by the talent around me. Remember these are 12, 13 and maybe a couple 14 year olds thrown in there if they have a late b-day like my son. Then at the end they did this special song, damned if I cannot remember it right now, I think it was Jingle Bell Rock and all the private lesson teachers were part of it and those guys were FREAKING AWESOME!! A couple of them had white hair and I guess in their 60's and they were ROCKIN!!

Yesterday I went to my preschoolers program and that was a total HOOT. They were all over the place. Half of them were too far ahead in the songs. OH and then jingle bells - they could not get the kids to move to the second verse, it was Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, JIngle all the way...over and over and over again! Finally the Assistant Director got them on the next part but then as soon as they got the Jingle Bells again you would have thought someone had hooked them up to speakers! It was this whoosh loudness.......ohhhhhhhhhh JINGLE BELLS.

It was great. I seriously go to bed at night singing Christmas songs.

OH, GOSH and If I forget to mention the MOVIES!! THE MOVIES. HOLIDAY MOVIES, LOVVVVVVE THEM!!!

I can spend hours watching holiday movies. I am constantly checking Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel for one I have not seen. Last night on Hallmark it was The Christmas Choir. Anyone see it? Jason Gedrick starred - he was in movies back in the 80's. The most famous one I can think of was Iron Eagles with Lou Gossett Jr. I think that was the name of it. Rhea Perlman was in it as well, from CHEERS! Anyway, it was about a homeless shelter and a group of men form a Choir. It was very moving and the singing was PHENOMONAL, probably spelled that wrong, yeah I have spell check, do I care - NO!

I could seriously go on and on, but I have work. SO with that...........

HAPPY FRIDAY, have a great weekend and make sure you catch a good holiday movie this weekend.

toodles

A much needed Shelter.

*** 1st - thanks again for more great advice. The taking away is working. Last night one of his Bakugan's was thrown in the trash. I want to get it out so bad and hide it.***

Now for the post........

This past Saturday a friend and I took our kids to a shelter to see another side of life. This shelter is for homless kids age 10 and up. We took much needed donations, clothes and gloves, hats, etc. I cleaned out my oldest sons closet.

We decided to hang out for awhile too and meet the kids. Turns out there were only 2 boys there at the time, some others were out on a "pass."

We met Jordan, 14 and Herman 16. Both of them were very nice young men. My friend played pool with Herman and Janice the woman that runs the place at night. I watched my oldest play foosball with Jordan. My son who is 12 beat the pants off Jordan. Apparently Jordan is "king" of foosball and pool so it was pretty funny watching a younger kid mop the floor with him. Jordan took it all in stride, he was impressed and not in the least bit bothered by this kid beating him. I however was amazed and did not even know my son knew how to play foosball.

My younger son played air hockey with my friends son and Janice kept score. We all had a great time. I think Herman even played football with my oldest on playstation 2.

Does it sound like this shelter has a lot of fun things? Yeah it does. But let me tell you something. Everything there was donated and not in very good shape. The pool table has a huge rip in the felt and there is only one stick. The Playstation game is old and they only have 2 games. There is a dart board with no darts. There are at least 6 guitars that do not work, one that does but there are not any pics or music to play.

Jordan was fiddling with the one good guitar, so I started chatting with him. He can play a little but it is hard when there is not any music to follow and then he tried to play a song with a pencil since there was no pic. I learned that he used to play the trombone. This gave me an "in" my son plays the trumpet. He has not played his trombone for 2 years because he is not at that school anymore.

If you are at this shelter you go to school there. You are taken out of your current school and forced to go there. He said he cannot go to a new school until next fall. This seemed to upset him, so conversation over.

Now - here comes the sad part. A lot of the times these kids are troubled or runaways but MOST of the time it is the other way around. Their parents do NOT want them.

I started asking Janice questions about the boys. I learned that both of these boys have mothers that said, I'm done, I do not want you anymore. They both have younger siblings that they are seperated from. Jordan had been there 3 weeks that day and will be there at least 90 days total, Herman only about a week longer. They both will spend CHRISTMAS in this place.

After 90 days they try to place them in foster care. Rarely do the parents change their minds and want them back. Even if they did there is a lot to go through to get them back. THERE damn well better be. Parents that give up their kids is the most disturbing thing to me.

I learned that people donate to this shelter pretty often but rarely does anyone stay and hang out like we did. I was told the boys will talk about it non stop the minute we leave.

I told Janice I would be back. I have now raided my husbands closet and found clothes to fit these boys because they need them badly.

On the way home, I asked my oldest if he understood why we went there. He had no clue. So I explained why those boys were there, every detail including the mother giving them up.

He said, we have it really good.

I hope to go back this weekend, I wish I could bring Jordan home, he is so sweet. We can take them on outings so I probably will, both boys if I can afford it or take my friend with me.

I got a lot out of going and I want to help. I have always donated things but never got involved with something like this.

Oh yeah and I am off to get some guitar music and a pic too and maybe donate some of my sons PS2 games. ;)

Resolution

So, we have come to a solution or resolution. It may not be the most practical or the nicest but it seems to be working for now.


Bad Behavior = Presents taken away.


Let me make it clear this was my the spouse's idea. AND, I told him I was not sure it was a good idea.


However, I have to say the last 2 days have been almost pleasant. Monday night was actually downright enjoyable. Oh and the cartoons have been cut out too, not completely but close. I know NOGGIN is a good channel for kids his age and the shows really are educational but sometimes there are better things.


He still whines INCESSTANTLY (SP??) but no screaming fits for 2 WHOLE DAYS!


If he even starts to whine or act out, I say "Do you want me or Daddy to take away one of your presents?" He stops immediately.


NOW, what do we do after Christmas?


Still take them away or threaten to? I HOPE AND PRAY it never happens. The kid is getting all sorts of cool things this year. Santa has been good to us.


Oh yeah, back in the old blog days in SAN DIEGO - we were struggling. The bills were paid and food always bought and things we needed were there but we still had trouble.


FINALLY now that we have moved and both have jobs that are bigger and better, we are doing well.



It feels good.

Difficult 5 year old

My 5 year old son acts like he is 2! HELP ME. On Sunday he screamed and cried for 20 minutes because I turned off his NOGGIN and turned on Christmas music while I was cooking. I tried to explain to him that he had enough cartoons for one day and he just screamed more. So, ignored him, cooked dinner and hoped he would stop soon. The holiday music was loud too! ;)

Suddenly after 20 straight minutes (yes I did time it) he stopped. He came in the kitchen and said "Sorry Mommy for yelling at you." I said OK and went back to cooking. What the heck do I say? It's ok? NO it is not OK. For whatever reason he does not get it. He really does act like a 2/3 year old when he is told NO.

The worst part is that he was just as bad when he was 2. One minute sweet as can be and the next screaming because someone tells him NO. I recall a day back in November of probably 2006 when I told my husband I thought I needed professional help because I wanted to strangle the kid. He had been behaving badly for probably a month straight and I simply could not take it anymore. I was having terrible thoughts and it scared the doodoo out of me. I believe I even blogged about it on my old site which will remain nameless for now. :)

My other half (husband) told me it was ok. Lots of people have these thoughts and they are good parents and the DO NOT act on them. We all have moments of weakness, as long as we know good and bad, it is ok. I despise the so called parents out there that do act on them. They should not be parents.

Any advice for a troublesome 5 year old?

COZY MAMA - starting over.

I have been in the blogging world for lets say awhile, but took a much needed break. Back because I miss the writing. You can comment if you want, but I do this for me. More to come soon.