Sunday, August 31, 2008

It only took 5 months

Sam's glasses got broken today. I hesitate to say that he broke them, because I highly suspect that Emma did it. I'm sure it was an accident, hence the "It was an accident, Mama!" from Emma when I asked her what happened.

The manwhore rushed down to Target in hopes of a repair job, but the optical shop was already closed. We'll hit them up first thing in the AM and see what can be done.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Long weekends

Yay for three day weekends! Except I'm wanting to do something fun and I have no idea what. We don't have the money to really go anywhere. We're talking about a picnic and trip to the farmer's marker today. Whoohoo. How exciting. We go to the farmer's market most weekends.

I'm bored, can you tell?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

My first rejection letter

Finally, after nearly 6 months, I heard back from Harlequin. An "I'm so sorry to tell you that your story isn't what we are looking for" letter. It was very nice, wasn't even a form letter, but an actual letter with helpful criticism (my conflict isn't strong enough), and an actual signature from an editor. It could have been worse. Definitely not bad for a first rejection letter.

The manwhore was watching me all excited while I read it asking "Well?" I had to tell him, "Oh honey, if it is a letter, it isn't good news. They call you on the phone for the good news."

Onwards and upwards, I suppose.

Monday, August 25, 2008

No glasses for you, little girl!

Em had her appoint with the eye doctor today, and he says she doesn't need glasses. Yay! I confess to being rather surprised, but at least it was a pleasant surprise. I mean, she quite clearly could not read the eye chart at the pediatrician's office. No faking, no not really trying, clearly couldn't read it. It even seemed like she was having trouble reading some of the eye chart today, too. But, the dr did his little trick with the toy in his mouth and the light and lenses and declared that she didn't need glasses. All righty then. I'm not going to argue with that.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

School supplies

I'm starting to hate this part of back to school and this is only the second year I've done it. We got the basic list off of the school website a few weeks ago so we could shop during the tax free weekend. We got most of it at the hellhole that is WalMart, since we were at Mother's that weekend and Target wasn't handy, but spent less than $40 for both kids, so I was happy. We were only missing two things from the list because they were out.

I managed to find the watercolors at the grocery store. But I spent three weeks looking for motherfucking construction paper and just today found some at another WalMart. It is the crappy Rose Art stuff, but the teacher can just deal with it.

Now we knew that once we met the teacher, she would have a specific list for her class, and she did. We met the teacher last Thursday night and the girls started school on Monday (the boys in the class started on Fri). Not a lot of time to gather up the rest of the supplies. Target is still out of construction paper, was out of the binders that she wanted until yesterday and had nothing at all like the binder pocket or the composition journal that the teacher wanted. Apparently, she shops at WalMart and didn't bother to make sure that the pocket and the journal were carried any where else. I suppose she just assumed that being name brand stuff, they would be easy to find, but she was badly mistaken.

I ended up making a special trip to WalMart today just to look for the damned journal and binder pocket. No journals and I bought the last two pockets that they had. And I almost forgot to look for them.

Forunately, two other parents found the journals somewhere and bought a bunch of them for the class. All I have to do is send in some money to pay for them, much to my delight.

I'm rather hoping that the teachers have learned that if all 7 kindy teachers at one school are going to ask for the same journal, that it would be better for them to just order them theirselves and then make the parents pay them back. Because I've sure as hell spent more than $2.70, or even the $5.40 for two of them in gas from driving hither and yon looking for the damned things.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Don't read the poem

Today is the girls' first day of "real" kindergarten. Emma was very excited and even Elli was ok with it and seemed excited once she got there. They have one girl from their kindergarten readiness glass last year in class with them this year, so they were happy to see her. Sam wasn't happy to leave them there, but he will be starting preschool in a few weeks and probably protesting that.

I must say, I didn't cry or even feel sad. That is, until I got home and opened the little letter the teacher sent home for the parents. I didn't even read it all, but it started off with something about how I've had them for 5 years and blah blah she'll love them like her own, blah blah. Then I cried. Damned poem. So, when you're kids go off to school, don't read the poem, unless you feel the need for a good cry.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Glasses, Part Deux

Potentially, anyway. The girls had their 6 yr old checkup today. All is good, El is in the 36% for weight, Em in the 6% (holy what a difference 5 lbs makes, Batman!), and they are generally healthy.

But, Em failed her eye exam. Crap. She failed the 20/40 line in one eye and the 20/50 line in the other eye. I don't know how bad a person's vision has to be before she gets glasses, though. I guess we'll find out.

Oddly enough, we hadn't noticed her sitting in front of the tv or holding books up to her face or anything. But, she clearly couldn't see the eye chart today, so something is up. The pediatrician got her an appointment with the ped ophthalmologist in less than two weeks, so we'll know soon enough.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

It's always humbling to realize you aren't right

I swear, my poor besainted mother has "The shrink is IN" tattooed in invisible ink across her forehead. That's what she gets for having degrees in psychology and counseling, I suppose.

Anyway, apparently dh and I both unloaded on her this weekend. For me to unload on her is nothing new. I was surprised that the manwhore did so. Apparently he needed to talk and she has a way of magically making people talk. Both of us are still stressed and stressing about the crap that is going on with his parents. His dad didn't show up for the girls' birthday, with the lame excuse offered by MIL that he wasn't feeling well. Maybe not. Who knows? But honestly, at this point, I pretty much don't believe her. Personally, I could give a rat's ass if I never laid eyes on the man again, but it is breaking the manwhore's manly heart, and the kids noticed he wasn't there, as well.

So, we were both tense and probably snippy. And we'd had a really stupid fight earlier in the week, adding to the tense and snippy. We've both realized we aren't always the greatest about communicating. I mean, I just found out after nearly 8 yrs of marriage that the manwhore can't stand the feel of wet clothing. (Hence the stupid fight. I sprayed him with the hose and he got mad.) I've also had the realization that likely my perception that he overreacts when he is mad is just that, my perception. Mother pointed out to me that I don't really have a good role model for male emotions. My dad just doesn't get mad, or sad, or much at all. Maybe he's part Vulcan. So, when the manwhore gets mad, I immediately make the jump that he is acting like his dad and going too far.

We stayed up until 3am Sat night talking about it all, after we had both worn Mother's ears out. But, it needed to be said and hopefully things will be easier. Honestly, as marriage problems go, ours are pretty minor, but a marriage can always be made better with a little understanding and communication skills.

As for me, I hate to not be right. But, I was not right about this. See, I don't even like to say that other word. Wrong. I was wrong! Argh! I clearly don't know how to judge anger. I will work on this. And then I will be right about stuff again. lol

Thursday, August 07, 2008

6 years

It's gone by so fast, I just want to stop time for a while. Six years ago tonight, I was in preterm labor with the girls, terrified out of my mind for them. El was born at 12:31 AM and Em at 12:44 AM, Aug 8, 2002.
I won't go into the details again, but I was thinking earlier today how funny it is that the 6 weeks I spent on bed rest seemed like an eternity, and the 6 years of their lives have flown by.

When you have premature babies, once you are confident that they are actually going to live, their health is fine and all that, then you start to wonder what being premature has done to their intellectual development. Or at least I did. Today, I think I'm finally convinced that their brains are working just fine. They had their kindy screening this morning and when they were done, both teachers sat me down to tell me how they did. An average score is 100. A really high score is over 120. Em scored 130 and El 122. They had sections of their tests that they had perfect scores on. El copied all the little line drawings perfectly, including the one the teacher said none of the kids ever get (a heart, who knew a heart was so hard to draw?).

I know it is just a screening for kindy placement, but still, I'm about to burst with mama pride.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

A really cool evening

I'm sure that this was just one of many cool evenings in my life to come as a writer, but it was a really cool one in my life so far. I realize that it possibly marks me as some sort of antisocial dork that I think so, but oh well.

Last night, while the manwhore and spawn were at home noshing on Domino's pizza, I was sitting in a restaurant in Nashville sipping enjoying a pomegranate cosmopolitan and crab cakes whilst literally rubbing elbows with the senior editor from a certain publishing company. Across the table was the owner of said publishing company and also at the table was a lovely lady who I think she said was the marketing director (I blame the pom cosmo and noise for not catching her exact title). Rubbing elbows around the rest of the table were a half dozen other romance writers, published and unpublished alike.

After a long leisurely dinner, we all met up at the Parthenon (yes, there are two of them in the world, one of them in Nashville) where Sherrilyn Kenyon was hosting a launch party for her latest book. You know you have arrived when you have book signings in the Parthenon at the foot of a 20 ft tall statue of Athena. Actually, she probably knew she had arrived when she saw the size of her advances, but I digress. She is big in the vampire romance genre, so there were people walking around in costumes, some vapirish, some just goth, and some Greek in honor of the location. There was a live band, dessert goodies from the Melting Pot and at least 500+ people there, including editors, romance bloggers and the ilke. I didn't drag my ass home until about 11:30PM.

All in all, a very cool evening (even if it was freaking hot outside and like an oven in the Partenon).

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Well, crap-a-doodle

Crap-a-doodle doesn't really describe the sinking feeling I got in my stomach when I open the mailbox and saw an envelope from the company that the manwhore interviewed with a few weeks ago. He really, really wanted that job, and I really wanted him to get it. If nothing else, the fact that it was only like 2 miles away from our house would have saved us money at the gas station.

Of course, you only get a letter when they are informing you that they've hired someone else. He hasn't really talked about it, but I think he had already given up hope anyway. I wasn't feeling terribly optimistic either, but I was really holding on to a little sliver of hope for him.

Alas, it was not to be, I suppose. Doesn't make me any less pissed at the universe that it didn't arrange things the way I wanted them.

Friday, August 01, 2008

You know what pisses me off?

When I get out of the habit of exercising and when I finally drag my ass back to yoga after not going for months and all the stuff I could do really well, I can barely do now. I had to come down out of some poses because apparently my shoulder muscles have atrophied from lack of use.

I really wish the Y had more yoga classes that I could conveniently get to, but they don't. And doing yoga at home just isn't the same, at least for me. But, I'm going to keep going, I swear!