Recently attended yet another funeral. This one was for someone entirely too young for me to be attending their funeral, this seems to be happening a lot in my life. I don’t do funerals well… no, really, not at all! I tend to feel the grief of others way too acutely.  This leads me to this post. 

I have been sitting around all month wanting to scream “Get Your $hit  Together People, because you could die at any moment, and you’d best be ready!” at the top of my lungs.  I know, not the most mature way to handle my frustration, not the most “Christian” either… but it’s an honest response, and I’m not afraid of my faults.  We don’t have to be perfect to be accepted by the Lord… we just have to know and accept that He paid the price, for all we’ve ever done, and accept that, just accept that and to make him a part of our lives.  You know… it’s not like it’s having to cut your arms and legs off… Sure, with that acceptance comes responsibilities, but really… what is there in the bible that restricts your life so much that you’d live a life of loneliness and emptiness just to not have to be whatever it is you’re afraid of? Do you even know!?!??!  Do we realize it is a choice between Heaven and Hell?  I know, so many people think… there really can’t be a heaven or a hell… But what if you’re wrong?  I’m not going through all the proofs, historically, biblically, and externally from the bible for the existence of God and for the accuracy and truth of the bible.  It’s all out there, and anyone can find it…. but my question today is this… Are you ready?

Really, are you ready? Do your friends and family know where you stand?  Will they be left wondering if you are spending an eternity in Heaven,  or will they wonder if you’re elsewhere??   I’m sick and tired of wondering!!!!  Tired of people saying “I just think of them in heaven” when everything in that persons life points to the fact that they never accepted that Christ died for them.  Yes, I know people accept the Lord and fall away and there is debate as to if there is eternal salvation…. not going to argue that either… what I’m upset about is why would you choose to make bad decisions, decisions you KNOW are not good for you.  Is it independence you want? Freedom? are you really free if you are living a miserable life??  arrgggg… I just don’t like seeing friends in pain, especially that self inflicted pain that comes from the pride of not wanting to give up some thing, you know is bad for you, simply because you don’t want to admit its a problem or that its a bad influence on you… Yeah, I’ve made bad choices, yes, my friends tried to tell me I was being stupid or that my choices weren’t the best.. I didn’t listen either… so why would I think anyone would listen to me?  I guess I just need to vent.

We have a hope! We have direction, we have a way of life that keeps us from soooo many pains of this world!  Yet so many people deny that way.  I’m not talking about making mistakes along the way, we all make mistakes along the way.  I’m talking about flat out knowing what is best and not doing it.  Living hard, living fast, sleeping around, doing drugs… Do any of these things bring joy? I’ve yet to see one friend live this way and actually enjoy it.  It’s a quick “patch” to a deeper problem that seems permanent and it’s a tough thing to turn around.  But it can be turned around… there are people out there that care about you (maybe not the way you think they should, but they care none the less!!) There are truths out there, absolute truths that don’t go away simply because you “will” them away… and someday you’ll have to make a decision, and someday it will be too late for that decision… and right now, I’m just sooo sad that I may not see all of my loved ones in heaven someday. 

Here’s to tomorrow being a better day… for all of us.  

Blogged with Flock

How on earth does one loose seven halves to pairs of socks in one laundry cycle!!?!?!?!   This is unbelievable!!! I’m soo thankful that most of our socks were given to us or garage sale finds, because at a minimum of two bucks a pop (and some of the socks were hand me downs from Gymboree!) that adds up fast!!!! 
I should take my own advice and use a lingerie bag, but what a pain it is to remember to do, arg!! But it’s better than loosing socks I guess.  So, I’m off on a hunt for dryer sock gremins to see if they somehow got sucked into the dryer hose or something, somehow… most likely they are stuck in the sleeve of some outfit they were washed in.  then again, I still can’t find the matching shoe that we lost several months back… geesh!

Blogged with Flock

Humm… so, the scratching wasn’t a skunk.  I think it was Tanker, but I think he was trying to get at the mouse that was trying to get into the house (cause the scratching noise we heard was waaaayyy too loud to be a mouse!)  The mouse did eventually get in! grrrrrrrr….. I had to spend another three days scrubbing down the kitchen and sterilizing everything (I went through a half gallon of vinegar doing so!!).  But I’m happy to say that the next morning after his first “appearance” (read: the first sign of any droppings what so ever, and hearing him in the kitchen) we caught him with our nice little glass trap we set (along with 5 snap traps that he was able to pick two of clean!!! without getting snapped!) So he’s out of here. 

Tanker & Tiddles need to get to work keeping those mice out of my house!  Sometimes I wonder if they actually have scarred the two that we’ve had over the last year INTO the house (cause I’ve seen both of them pawing at our foundation from time to time).  It’s sooo tough keeping mice out of a manufactured home.  Our neighbor is pulling out all the old shrubs and trees and stuff from his yard that have obscured his entire house.  It’s been quite the undertaking, and I’m sure he’s displaced a LOT of mice, because all of a sudden ALL of the farrow cats around here are hanging out in his and our yard!!!!! 

Now its time to convince our land lord (my parents) that it would behoove us to get an indoor cat.  You know, for Vienna… protect her from all the mice germs by having a mouser in the house   I know my mom would prefer a cat to mice… now to convince my dad… Poppie… too bad Vienna doesn’t know how to talk or beg just yet tee hee hee

There’s something under our house. Since I’ve been up the past few nights with Vienna I’ve been hearing a scratching sound. Wouldn’t you guess it, the sounds is directly… yep, under Vienna’s room floor!  Why couldn’t it be under our floor where I would know/hear it come into the house if it is actually trying to do that, instead of making me paranoid that some animal is trying to get into Vienna’s room! 

Now, I’m not a pansy, I’ve lived with mice, I’ve lived with cockroaches, drunks in the stairwell and missing light bulbs in the hall.  In my soviet apartment living so close to others, you just accept that sometimes these things will be a part of life.  However, having a baby in the house… NO! Not gonna happen, Don’t like it, can’t stand it, won’t tolerate it!!  All those germs near my baby’s tiny little body… humm… yea…

So, I got Sam out of bed. He had to hear it!  Yeah, it’s somewhere between Vienna’s wall and the bathroom wall… but it sounds like it’s near the duct system, and it sounds MUCH bigger than a mouse.  So, we get dressed… sorta… and start searching for flashlights.  We look everywhere… we just bought a huge nice one, but all we can find are these two dinky little things… one of which is completely useless.  We head outside in the cool fall air and smell… SKUNK! It dawns on us how often we’ve smelt skunk in our back yard… so we walk the perimeter of the house looking for… I don’t know, anything that would give us a clue.  Not really finding anything we head back to the area where the sounds were coming from.  There’s a panel there that vents the dryer hose from the laundry room.  But Sam won’t remove it. He doesn’t want to face the back end of a skunk… but there is just the faintest smell of skunk, but you can smell it more down by the vent….

Now, my dad swears it’s not a skunk or we’d be smelling it in the house all the time.  Neither Sam or Dad are convinced it’s a mouse either.  That leaves cats.  There are several candidates in this area.  There’s Tanker (Yes, I’ve named the stray cats). Tanker is a gray male cat who has been hurt sooo many times. A few weeks ago he was limping really badly, but he seems better now.  He likes to lay in the sun in our back yard.  I don’t know if he belongs to anyone, but he doesn’t have a collar so I don’t think he does.  Then there’s Tiddles, the ginger cat… short for Tiddly Winks, cause he/she seems to wink a lot (he or she because it’s not as obvious as it is with Tanker).  Tiddles likes to walk around our place like it owns the place.  You’ll often find it on the front porch during the day or setting off our motion light at night. 

At this point I’m pulling for it to be a cat.  It’d be great, mouse deterrant and no stinkies.  But how do you find out??  I’m all for pulling off that panel… maybe we’ll have to do that this evening… I mean, what’s the big deal, I’ve watched Myth Busters. If anyone’s seen the skunk episode, they couldn’t get a skunk to spray them, and they had several remedies on there that seemed to work… besides it’s only temporary…. now to convince Sam that it’s worth his taking the risk ***big cheezy grin!!***

Vienna’s been having a high fever for three days now. This is when it’s tough being a mom.  I don’t mind that I’m sick myself and I stayed up with her all night (yes, all night, I got maybe 2 hours total sleep one night and maybe 3-4 the next) that’s not the hard part.  The hard part is seeing my typically energetic 1 year old, melt into a little blob who just wants to lay there and cry; little heart pounding a million beats per second and huffing and puffing to breathe.  Harder still is to watch her refuse meal after meal. Especially knowing she’s under weight to begin with. 

Thankfully she has been drinking her electrolyte & apple juice mix quite well.  Chugging it often actually.  But how good of a replacement can that be for food.  She’s been falling down a lot today, and a little shaky as well.  I finally called the doctor’s office today.  Since her fever was down this morning, but back up this afternoon, they told me to wait until tomorrow.  Apparently there’s a bad cold with sore throat going around, which is what I have. The sore throat is probably why she’s not eating. But here’s a mother’s question… how the stink do you KNOW!?!?!?  **big sigh** I’m sure time will tell, but if the fever gets back up to the 102 range again we’re going to urgent care, no matter what the cost!

Sam gave Vienna  a  nice bath to cool her down. She smells lovely, and she even looks much better than yesterday. I on the other hand STINK, not just stink, I stink and I’m covered from shoulder to knee in baby snot.  Hopefully a hot shower will loosen my sore joints and relieve some of the sinus headache…

I’m going to take a shower before I finish the laundry.  Since she’s not taking in solids, the stuff she is intaking is exiting, well, it should be solid, but it’s not… so all 4 sets of sheets now are dirty (I thought we had only three, but I found another sheet set in the back of the drawer… as well as a half matrices pad, so… that was soiled at her last nap…) **big sigh**  it’s days like today where a shaved head and tatoo’d makeup sounds fantastic (better yet, a beauty team that can do my face and hair and nails while I sleep… ahhhh to win the lotto).

I’m not really complaining.  I don’t mind the laundry, I don’t even really mind stinking so much… I just want to be able to make my baby comfortable and happy again.  But for now what I can do is de-stinkafy so that my daughter doesn’t have to be uncomfortable and feel nauseated by her mother at the same time!!!