Monday, January 31, 2011

Excitement!!

I am so excited! We filed our taxes! ( How often do you hear that? lol) We are getting back a large chunk of change. We will be able to pay off 3 bills and still have money left over for a little indulgence! I am so ready for those bills to be paid off! Life will be so much easier with those paid off. The kids should be able to start back to karate once some money is freed up for gas. Then I won't be paying useless karate dues. And if my van doesn't break, which I have this horrible feeling that it will, I might be able to get my camera that I've wanted for 3 years now. I just have this horrible feeling that the van is gonna die...I don't know why...fear of Murphy's Law maybe. Either way, 3 bills get paid off....so I'm happy...

Friday, January 21, 2011

A critter update

I was readying through my blog and realize I had not updated on my critters. Firstly, Satchel....she got a virus and died about a week after I posted about her. I am still very upset about it, I carried her around with me everywhere and I was very attached to her. After she died, I started looking for a new pup and found Zeke. (he is the black puppy in the pic) And not long after that I found Summer (the white boxer). Summer is about 2 years old and spoiled rotten. She knows several commands, but her best one is sit pretty. She will sit up and do the whole cute paws in the air thing. Zeke is equally as rotten, but know no tricks as he will not sit still long enough to learn any. Zeke is 4 months old and going to be huge, he is already as big as Summer. And then to Heat, our greyhound. He bit Kaelyn about a month ago, bruising up her arm pretty good. I decided that he needed a new home after that. I don't know if he would have ever done it again or not, but I did not want to take the chance. He is being placed in a new home without children. In fact that adoption agency contacted me this week to tell me he will be going to an adoption group in Canada in a few days. Brownie, Emma's dog, is still around despite being shot twice this year. He's too annoying to die. He does come in from time to time and chill in the house, but then he starts tearing things apart and trash diving and has to go back out. And then there's the cats. They are all still here. We've had no more tragedies since the big one. Thank goodness. Bucky, the large tortoise, is wintering in a box in the living room. This has worked out surprisingly well for all concerned. He's not messing up my kitchen floor and yet, he still is staying warm. Everybody is happy. I was given a salt water tank a few months ago. It's been a battle. Currently I am battling aipstaisa, red slime algae and bristle worms. I only have 2 fish in there right now along with some crabs, snails and urchin. I hope to get a cleaner pack of critters next week to take care of all the problem species and then I will stock it with fish. I am also ready to get started on a second salt water tank, this one for seahorses. I will have to go slow with this one...as it requires planning and a very established tank. But I'm hoping to be ready to order my seahorses in late spring. Well, that is the critter update...I love em like my family.... Photobucket

Thursday, January 20, 2011

School begins...

Chris had his first full week of school this week. It went well. It looks like all the worrying he did over getting behind during the snow was for nothing. He's ahead in most of his classes. I think when he settles in his stress level will go down...at least I hope so. We discussed him just going to school and not working while he's in school, he's giving it some thought. Attie's birthday went well. We had cupcakes and ice cream and she loved it. She got some nice jewelry for her birthday. I handed down my diamond earrings and necklace to her and mom got her a cross necklace. She didn't want to go back to school after being out a week, and all this week she hasn't been real happy about going. Well, until today...they had a pep rally and she was excited about that. Some motivational thing about not being a bully with a guy dressed up as a fox doing tricks and things. She was really excited about it when I picked her up. Emma and Kaelyn are doing well. Both made good grades on their last report cards. Other than they have been trying to take each others heads of nothing really out of the ordinary with them. As for me, I talked with Chris and I'm going to start individual therapy this year. I go for my reintake in February and I'm going to have them change me over. I've wasted a year in group, I'm ready to move on. Maybe I can make some real progress this year. Maybe, we'll see...