People Updates:

• I have a very small hairline fracture on my ankle. That in itself isn’t painful. The severe sprain has me still limping around in a brace over a week later. I wish there was some awesome story or explanation how I was doing something REALLY COOL and REALLY FUN and REALLY NEAT but there isn’t. I fell getting out of the truck. In front of people. Who just watched me fall, severely sprain my ankle, and fracture it a little, and then they all turned around and walked away. THE END!
• Cassidy is totally turning into a TWEEN. There are a lot of things I looked forward to when I became a mom… first steps, first words, first day of school, it was going to be all fun and smiles and swings and cartwheels. Then she turned 10 and was all HA HA JOKES ON YOU, SUCKER! There’s too much to post about this under the scope of a single bullet. THE END!
• KC the cat and Hans are complete and total lazy asses. Hans spent ALL DAY SATURDAY on our bed asleep. KC hasn’t moved off the same couch cushion in two days. THE END!
• Ben is the most patient, understanding, ball of fantastic ever to grace the face of our fine planet. And also, falling asleep next to his warm body is the highlight of my day. THE END!

House Updates:

• We ordered blinds from Home Depot. Yes, I own Home Depot a letter of apology. Six blinds to go on the upper windows all over the top of the living room. We also paid for installation because ladders, heavy awkward wooden blinds, and blond don’t mix. I’m really excited for them to get here and be installed. They will help a lot with the sunlight that you can’t escape in the afternoons and also keep the heat out some in the summer.
• We also have a quote from a landscaper to come in and fix some sprinklers and clean out the pond, install a new pump and get it all up and running again.
• We’ve been slowly cleaning out the yards. Trimming bushes, mowing lawns, cutting down trees, this list is really endless so I’ll just stop there. It’s looking good and will only be getting better as the weekends pass!

Misc Updates:

• I forgot to mention the severe hives attack I had for about two weeks. It sucked. I went an ENTIRE WEEK with ZERO wheat, the hives went away, I laid in the bed in a fetal position and cried. I’ve very slowly started introducing some back into my diet, but not much. MUCH less than I was eating before. Being allergic to wheat is about a fun as having your teeth knocked out one at a time. With a jackhammer.
• I have become slightly obsessed with YouTube. Specifically, makeup guru videos. I have a few favorites and I have a blog post half written to point you to some of the best ones. Also, I finally broke my six month No Makeup Buying Binge and got a few things. I also have a blog post partly written about that because I’ve found some AMAZING stuff for AMAZING deals and I want to share.
• If I were a teenage girl, I’d totally have a poster of Adam Lambert on my wall. Best Idol by far this season. He makes it seem as if singing is just… effortless. TEAM ADAM!
• If you haven’t yet, check out Castle. Nathan Fillion is so awesome. I’ve had a nerd crush on him since I fell in love with Serenity and Firefly and he’s every bit as awesome in Castle.
• Heather Armstrong is going to be in Mountain View tomorrow and I’ve been trying to fit her book signing into my schedule but it’s so late and 40 miles from home where I’ll be then. It’s only 12 miles from work but I’d have to find something to do for five hours before the signing. DILEMMA!
• I need to charge the DSLR batteries. For serious.
• THE END!

At dinner tonight Cassidy asked about the relationship between cat and human years. I didn’t really know but I assumed that the general 7 years used for dog life would be close so Cassidy determined that KC was 70 years old. Her jaw dropped and she exclaimed that, “OMG KC IS REALLY OLD!” So I told her, “YEAH! Remember that next time you feel like chasing her around the house like a lunatic!” Then I told her that we’re really lucky that KC is still alive and with us because 10 is actually getting up there for a cat.

The conversation eventually turned to death and how it would feel to not have her around anymore which turned to:

Cassidy: I’d probably cry.
Me: I’d probably lose it, like, mentally. Seriously.
Ben: So it would be like… a Tuesday.
Me: I hate you.
Ben: *grin*
Me: And I’m totally blogging that later.

The ability to laugh at Ben making fun of my mental state is the best part of having a “normal” mental state.

And for the record, after doing some research I realized that KC is actually only 56 years old. Assuming she doesn’t get any fatter, or lazier, or bitchier, I think she still has a few good years in her.

Today is day 1 of NaBloPoMo and I’m blogging which means I haven’t failed yet! Day 1 has been lovingly sponsored by the bullet list, the Internets way to get away with run on sentences.

• Thank you all so much for the comments and emails after I made the previous post. All the little reminders that I was doing the right thing and to stick to it really meant a lot. You all rock.
• It has been really rainy and crappy all day which means we spent the day napping and playing geeky games and eating chocolate ice cream. Basically, the BEST kind of day!
• I started on this scarf last night using some hand dyed, hand spun yarn I bought off this fabulous Etsy shop. It came from Uruguay which somehow makes it seem cooler to me. This is my first cable knit scarf and so far I’m rockin’ the cables, yo.
• Speaking of, I’ve been thinking more about highlighting some of my knitting aventures on the site. Is that something you would be interested in seeing or would it kind of mar my awesome f-bomb dropping hardass personality? You know, I have a reputation to uphold here.
• I like pie.
• I have some pictures to upload tomorrow. One of them involved the fat cranky cat and a witches hat with orange ringlet hair attached to it. She hasn’t talked to me in two days… which isn’t necessarily something I’m complaining about.
• Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post which is probably going to contain a rather funny dream I had the other night about Ben getting pissed off that I bought him a Ferrari and when I woke up I was like, well yeah! Ben would totally be upset if I bought him a Ferrari, what the hell was I thinking?! Don’t worry, it will make sense to you too once I explain.

Last Thursday we found out that Cassidy and her friend, Laura, had been going to a corner store in the morning and buying candy and other assorted junk food. I’m not sure if you all remember the time almost a year ago where she dissappeared for about 20 minutes and I almost had a nervous breakdown right as the cops found her? Well ever since then I’ve tried to balance her freedom with some simple rules. Mainly, you have to tell me where you’re going BEFORE you go. And here’s the thing, I told her had she ASKED me to go to the store in the morning, I’d have more than likely said to go ahead and go AS LONG AS she wasn’t late to school.

The main problem I had with her little escapade was that she has to walk in the OPPOSITE direction as school to get to the store and if for some reason something had happened, I’d never have even CONSIDERED telling anybody to look down that direction because WHY WOULD SHE BE THERE?!

Here, graphical representation:

I tweeted that she was “seriously grounded” and I meant it. Two weeks in the room and no electronics. Harsh, I know and by Sunday I was missing her like crazy and when Mali DM’d me on twitter and was all PUMPKIN PATCH! I told her WE ARE SO THERE! And I let Cassidy go with me. At the time, I didn’t think it was that big a deal but, believe me, it was discussed at length afterward and I know that I shouldn’t have done that. I’m the softy. I’m always the one that caves and lets her do stuff like go have fun while she’s supposed to be grounded. This is really one of the few things that Ben and I argue about. My being a push over which results in him having to stand up and be “the bad guy”. It’s not fair to him at all so after that I promised to try and be better about being more strict so he could focus on being less “sole bad guy” and more “funny fun dude who likes to have fun”.

Ben and I mutually agreed Wednesday that she could be on ‘probation’ for the remainder of her grounding but that if EVEN ONE TIME she lied or was dishonest that the grounding would pick up at that point and she’d have to finish out her last week of grounding. I even pointed out to her at one point that if that happened, her gounding would overlap Halloween and wouldn’t that TOTALLY SUCK?

Tonight would have been the final night of probation. TONIGHT.

TONIGHT! So when we had just gotten done taking pictures of her in her Princess Leia costume earlier this evening and I got a call from her teacher telling me that Cassidy was late to school today, and this was the SECOND time she’d been late, I thought that CERTAINLY SHE WASN’T AT THAT DAMN STORE.

I called her downstairs and asked her what time she got to school today.

Cassidy: *deer in headlights look* I was late because I got up late and left late.
Me: You called me at 7:32 to tell me you were leaving.
Cassidy: I didn’t tell you what time it was.
Me: My phone keeps track of the time you call me. You called me at 7:32 and Ms. Walker said you got to school at 8:16.
Cassidy: Oh.
Me: I am going to give you one chance to tell me the truth and it would be your best bet to be honest with me RIGHT NOW because I will send that costume back in a second of you aren’t.
Cassidy: Laura had money and she wanted to go to the store so we went and were late.

*motherfuckingsigh*

After more probing it wasn’t LAURA that had money, it was Cassidy and it wasn’t LAURA that wanted to go to the store, it was Cassidy. As a matter of fact, she had decided BEFORE she left the house and BEFORE she left me a message saying she was leaving that she had decided to go to the store.

So this time I know the punishment has to be severe. Grounded, no electronics for a week. That means no school carnival tomorrow, no trick-or-treating and no birthday party for Carrielee (BFF and aunt extraordinaire) on Sunday. The last being the one that seemed to effect her the most.

And it. Is. Killing. Me. I KNOW that this has to be done. I KNOW that if I don’t enforce this we’ll be back here in a month. I KNOW it has to be really hard on her to get the point across and it’s KILLING ME. I look so forward to Halloween and getting to take her out. We’ve never missed a single birthday of Carrielee’s. I feel like a horrible person for doing this to her and I KNOW I shouldn’t.

And at the core of it all: I don’t want her to grow up resenting me the way I resent my mother.

I’m taking these things away from her and I don’t want her to hate me for it but I know that, as a tween, hating me is just going to have to be a part of life for awhile. But I’m just so scared.

An aside to Ben because I want to say this publicly: Thank you SO MUCH for your love and support and for helping me to become a better parent. For talking me through things, for a gentle touch to let me know it’s going to be okay, for the space I need sometimes to work through these things in my head or hammer them out on a keyboard, and for the strength I know it takes to help me learn and grow in this daily roller coaster of parenthood. And most importantly, for being the best father any kid could ever have. I love you.

I can’t get to aflux from home. I don’t know if it’s a DNS error or what but it sucks balls.

We’ve been busy, busy, busy working on the house. Ben’s been painting the garage and I’ve been trying to get the last of the unpacking done and the back yard cleaned up more. There’s pictures of all of it if you click on one of the flickr photos up there.

Other than that, things have been pretty much normal and everyday grind type of stuff.

Weekdays: Get up, work, gym, homework, dinner, sleep, rinse, repeat.
Weekends: Get up, work on house, eat, work on house, eat again, work on house some more, pass out exhausted on the couch, watch TV, sleep, rinse, repeat.

I kinda feel bad about not blogging as much though so I’ve decided to start video taping more and posting them here and there and all across the web for you awesome people to enjoy. Here is a little gem that happened Monday after school.

Happy Wednesday! FOUR DAY WEEKEND AHEAD! YAY!!