Baby, baby, baby OOHHH!

Bet you sang that in your head, didn't you?

This has been a hell of a year. To hell with a recap though - I don't believe in that shit; even if I did, I certainly can't remember enough for an accurate recap of 2011. Suffice it to say, the year was kind of crap and hopefully next year will be a bit better.

James has applied for a promotion with ADT, and is interviewing on Monday. I'm not sure if the position is actually management or just the highest level of customer service, but either way it's an improvement over his current position (higher pay too, woo, hope he gets it!).

Sarah's been doing everything available for her school's Theatre program. 2 plays (they're currently rehearsing the 2nd, actually), drama club, Performance class, and she's applying for the Thespian society. I think I know what she's going to be when she grows up! LOL

Joseph just turned 2, and since his birthday his vocabulary has absolutely exploded. I was worried about him, he wasn't really saying much, but now he repeats just about everything. Which.... may be a bad thing, come to think of it. O_O We'll have to keep an eye on our language for awhile!

We had to ask Lori to move out. It's not fair, and I feel bad having to do it, but what it came down to was considering a combination of our finances and Sarah's emotional state (she's been having some problems lately), and we decided it was best if she left. We're giving her a month so she has some time to try to make arrangements, and I hope that she can. I feel bad enough as it is.

So, James convinced me to try SW:TOR. I played a bit on his account this morning, and will probably play more while Joseph is napping, just so I can get off of Korriban and really get the story going (I'm playing a Sith Inquisitor) and will decide how well I like it once I'm off-world. So far it's not too bad, honestly, and while it will never EVER replace WoW for me, I'm giving it a fair shot. :) The only problem I foresee is that should I actually end up enjoying it, there's no way we can afford for both James and myself to pay the monthly fee. Which is why I stopped playing WoW in the first place.

In other news, I want WoW back. Good lord do I want it back. I miss it so much, and with all the new content I want it even more. *sob*

Magus has been up here playing Skyward Sword a couple nights a week for the past couple weeks. It looks... just... outstanding. The controller is a little buggy sometimes and has to be re-centered often, and it doesn't always move the way you want it to, but all in all the concept is so sound that the minor bugs can be overlooked. The puzzles are great, true Zelda form, and the story so far, while... minor, relatively speaking, is on par with the other games. Bravo, Nintendo, you've done it again!

Uhh. I don't really have anything else to say. Lame update, I know; lot of words but nothing of substance was said. There shall be more in the future, never fear! The blog shall rise again! Or... something. Whatever.

Hope everyone had good (decent?) holidays. 2012 is just around the corner! EVERYBODY PANIC!

:P

Current Status: Alive

(but just barely)

Where do I begin? I know, I'll start with the bad stuff, that way this post can end on an awesome note.

My left knee is failing in the worst way. I've got 2 tendons that don't want to work anymore (and possibly some ligaments), and every time I step wrong, turn wrong, move wrong, LOOK at it wrong, it hurts and then goes out. I was playing with Joseph earlier today, bouncing him on my legs, and suddenly PAIN goes flaring through my knee. I think I was making a horrible face, because Lori told me I shouldn't do that anymore. I did it anyway. Hah.

Sarah's just getting over a horrible cold, that both James and Joseph caught. James is absolutely miserable, and yesterday slept for almost 12 hours. That, of course, meant he couldn't sleep today, and just went to bed an hour ago. Poor guy. :( Joseph, on the other hand, was sick for ONE DAY. Yesterday he had a really runny nose, didn't eat anything and took a 3 hour nap, and today he's mostly better. Kid's got a killer immune system. BUUUUUT, he's teething, and has been for the last week. He's like a demon. A cranky, hungry, tired, indecisive demon who's always chewing on his hands. *sighs*

Fortunately I'm not sick yet, and neither is Lori; hopefully it stays that way. I can't afford to get sick right now, not with as much as I have to do.

We got our "new" couch (read: James' parents used to own it, and gave it to us to replace the couch that literally fell apart) recently, and it's HUUUUUUUGE. I'm pretty sure it was designed for a room shaped like an egg. That or the biggest living room known to man. It's not an L couch, but it's not a straight couch either. It's curved like 3 sides of an octagon, which means it's really obnoxiously placed, and it has a giant ottoman that fits with the curve perfectly. The ottoman opens for storage, which is cool, but my god, there's no space left in my living room at all. It's like someone came in, took a look around, and decided that oh no, all this space isn't necessary at all, let's just fill it up with useless random crap until your (my) head bursts!!!!! But it's huge and comfy and I guess that's what really matters right now. XD

Our car is fixed, to the tune of over $500. Ouch. Hopefully it won't fall apart again anytime soon.

James has pre-ordered SW:TOR online so will probably be playing officially by the 15th of December, and he's also picking up Skyrim soon. No Yule gifts for him! Bah-humbug. I still don't have any of the games I want, nor will I be able to get any until after the first of the year. No pre-orders or anything. I have too many gifts to buy. I still need to buy for the kids, and Lori and Magus, and James' family, and my family, and oh my god there's still so much to dooooooooooo!

There's a squirrel outside foraging for nuts in the leaves, right behind me next to the open window, and it's very distracting. I've seen some *very* fat squirrels this year. I saw one that was the size of a cat, holy crap! I've never seen one that big! O_O

I'm about to clean my dining room, finally. As soon as Joseph is asleep (assuming he naps at all today) I'm going to start tearing everything apart in there, organizing and tossing and putting away and generally making it awesome. I hope. There's not really a lot in there, but it's all BIG stuff, and covered in spiderwebs next to the back wall/door/window area. Ew. I wish I had a giant extendable Swiffer thing. That'd be much nicer than the broom.

I just read a book called 2012: The War for Souls, by Whitley Strieber. It was a bit squicky, and a bit typical, but not bad all in all. The beginning annoyed me because it confused the hell out of me, but I soldiered on and discovered that all in all, it wasn't too bad. It's about aliens, parallel worlds, souls, and the connection between worlds that saves everyone. Except the aliens. It's... it's a weird book. I recommend it, if you're not opposed to a bit of gore here and there, and overdone concepts and the supernatural don't bug you out.

That's about it, I guess. Nothing exciting going on here.

Life Take Two

Since I haven't written anything here in quite awhile, I figure I'll go ahead and make an extended post about what's been going on here.

Nothing.

The end.

No, ok seriously, there's very little to actually say. Sarah's doing well in school except for a couple of teacher-student misunderstandings, and got a D in one of her classes thanks to that (damnit), but that's forgivable. I don't expect her to be perfect. Hopefully, though, she'll remember to do her damn homework, ALL of it, from now on.

Joseph has been growing and learning and learning and growing. His vocabulary has hit about 30 words, but a lot of them see very irregular use. I can't wait until he's older and can decipher his speech a little better. To where "fffvvvvvit" is actually "vitamin" and "beep" is actually "truck" (he doesn't say beep for cars? i don't know why), and "nums" is NOT synonymous with both food *and* drink. But for now, it's all good.

James is getting on well at work. Still not getting paid enough, but who the hell is these days? As soon as we start getting his bonuses again, we'll be good to go. Uh... James works, yay? LOL nothing really to say here, it's work. He sits, answers calls, and comes home. Woo.

Lori's finally got a job, at a local mall. She recruits people to take surveys. Haha, she's like a telemarketer that stares at you rather than calls you. But hey, it's work, it's better than she's been able to find for the past 2 years (which is nothing, hah).

Me, well.... I've been okay. Saw my sistah Lindsey the other day for the first time in like, a year, and am really happy about that. Love you, Lindsey! I've been really irritable lately though, because I'm getting tired of having a house so utterly full of people. For such a tiny house, a lot of people live here. Sometimes it's not so bad, but frankly, most of the time it kind of makes me want to tear my hair out. It's a little better now that Lori's got a job, and I've been trying to make the best of it, but it's getting harder and harder the more time goes on, especially with how much the girl talks. Fortunately Magus is *very* out of the way and takes care of his own space, and he helps us out with financial stuffs when we need it (like when the car broke and cost $500 to fix, thanks for the help sweetheart), so having him here is easy-peasy.

I've been taking care of a bunch of housework in preparation for getting a new couch, and managed to fuck up my knee somehow. I don't even know how, just suddenly felt the urge to pop my knee and when it wouldn't pop the pain got progressively worse until I could barely walk yesterday. Today's a little better, but it keeps having these pain flare-ups and going out so I lose my balance. Even so, it's very satisfying to have done all the work I have. Although you can't even really tell anymore; it's amazing how quickly this house goes from mostly clean to FUCKING TRASHED. *growls*

Uh. Not doing much gaming right now, I've been too distracted by life. A little sad, but hopefully things will slow down soon. O_O

I guess this wasn't really that extended, huh? More when I have more to say, I guess.

Live Long and Jello.

Everybody Wiggle!

Joseph is sitting calmly on the floor watching The Wiggles. Shocking - he hasn't been calm for two days. He usually has to be in motion... constant, neverending, annoyingly hyper motion. It's nice to have a little bit of a break while he's still awake.

Sarah's in her room doing... I don't even know what. Probably sleeping, she had a long night and morning. Won't go into it here, but suffice it to say, she got into some pretty big trouble and is lucky the neighbours didn't call the cops. O_O Oh, and tomorrow is the first day of school. Exciting!

Life here has been pretty sedate other than that. Absolutely nothing of note has been happening. Dogs are dogs, kids are kids, people are people. God it's boring here. Thank heaven. Boring is good.

I haven't been gaming at ALL lately. Joseph and Sarah leave me exhausted by the end of the day, and I usually don't feel like putting forth the mental effort to game at that point. I think I'm finally going to start working on my Minecraft build tonight, though. I'm going to start plotting some things on graph paper and working on it in the game. I still have to finish my 'zomg it's gigantic' wall around the base of the cliff face my house is perched on. I think I'm going to start building houses dwellings in all the cliffs around the lagoon (epic lagoon is epic). And the walkways, OH the walkways, there will be MANY of them, and they will all be GLASS!

Uh... I might also play some SB3 tonight. I really miss that game. It's more fun to play it with other people, but I still enjoy being the crap out of 'the enemy' by myself. Haah.

Boring post is boring.

Robots In Disguise!

My son has a little Transformers backpack, toddler-sized, that he just LOVES. The picture on the front is holographic, so it looks pretty awesome when he's wearing it and running around. At first he was scared of it, because, y'know... toddler... never worn a backpack. But once he got used to it he LOVED it. He's sitting on the floor playing with the zipper, getting used to having a bag of his own to carry around toys and diapers and a snack in.

My daughter has an oldschool metal Transformers lunchbox that she's using as a keepsake box. We found it at one of those restaurants-that-sells-everything, and for $10 I couldn't say no. She used it for school a couple of times and gasp got made fun of for it, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. TRANSFORMERS. IS. AWESOME.

My hubby is jealous - his 2 year old and 13 year old have more awesome stuff than he does. Hahaha. He tried to get adolescent girl to give up her lunchbox so he could use it, but she adamantly refused. Not that I blame her at all. I haven't been able to find another like it since. If I manage to find another, hubby will probably be positively ecstatic and jump for joy and shit.

So, Diablo II fell through last night. Yesterday was a pretty stressful day (toddler was acting up all evening), and by the time I was done de-stressing I fell asleep. I felt bad, cause G and M had the host up and were waiting for me, and I totally flaked. Today, I think, is going to be better - toddler's not throwing fits so far today - and hopefully DII won't be a problem tonight. Seeing as how it's the only multiplayer/co-op/mmo I can play right now. I really miss gaming. (Though, speaking of which, now that L has found her graph paper I need to start graphing my design for Minecraft; doing it cold is just tooooooooo hard.)

CHEESE POPCORN FTW!

The AMAZING Buttfloss!!

Why? Why the hell were thong underwear ever invented? Whoever decided we needed something embedded in our asshole for an entire day was a true sadist and needs to be hung. A lot.

Anyway - Smoking in the house has become irregular at worst and nonexistent at best. I'm trying to quit, my lungs just can't handle any more harsh chemical inhalants, so I've been asking hubby to not bring smokes into the house anymore. Sometimes he forgets and brings them home, at which point I will smoke them because I have no willpower, but in all he's usually pretty good about leaving them at work, where he's allowed to have all the cigarettes he wants... on break. :D There was one point not too awful long ago where there was an entire month with no cigarettes except the occasional clove, and I felt really great. My lung capacity was improving again, I wasn't coughing every day, and my singing voice was finally improving. Then, shitstorm things got kind of hectic for awhile and hubby brought cigarettes home. Well, things are finally calming down again, so smoking is becoming less prevalent here again. Whee.

My son has been a total butt lately. He's entering his "I Hate Everything!!!" phase, so multiple times a day there are fits for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, you can't get to a toy in your toybox? Fit. Your blocks didn't stack right? Fit. Want to do something you're not supposed to do? Double Fit. Good grief, it's like God took every toddler attitude problem ever and put them into my son. All at once. The only time he's ever calm is when he's in his highchair having just been served food throwing his food on the floor. It's times like this I'm glad we have dogs, otherwise things would get nasty QUICK. Food squashed in carpet is disgusting.

I really miss my daughter, and hope she's doing ok. Before she left she was having some extreme jaw pain due to teeth (12 year molars? Wisdom teeth? I'm not entirely sure...) erupting, and was able to eat pretty much nothing. I think chocolate milk was her best friend for awhile, actually. But now she's with granny, and I haven't heard from her since she left on Thursday morning, so I assume she's not dead. Update: I just called, and she's fine. Woot.

I played some D2 last night, with M and G. We were on vent (having finally gotten my stupid computer to cooperate, after being remotely accessed and fixed by M, who was at work), and hilariously M and I went AFK mostly at the same time, only I announced I was back and he never did... so I'm alt-tabbed out of D2, fucking around online, and all of a sudden I hear G say, "S, are you still awake?" ... Yes G, I'm just waiting for M to get back. "He's been back for awhile. We've blah blah blah." Nobody said anything! Augh! Anyway, we get going, and after some minor glitches we get some quests done before I pass out. Unfortunately, this is just another instance where I'm following people around who know what they're doing. I'm sure I could figure it out on my own (after all, I am a WoW player), but since I'm playing with people who've already been there done that, I'm wandering around behind them and picking at leftovers, it seems like. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be playing with friends, it just seems like it's going to get frustrating never having any idea what's going on until there's a town portal and the quest is over. (Speaking of town portals, I need to get myself a new wand, now that I've got more than a couple hundred gold, and I also need to get that scepter I found to G, who could definitely use it.) I think I may play on my own for awhile, get used to questing and figuring out where stuff is; then maybe I'll take the lead and be like, "Hey M, G! Over heeeeeeeeeere, ya slowpoke losers!" Haha, okay not really, I wouldn't call them slowpokes, they both really like to run. *snicker* (Love ya, guys, haha.)

TEETH!

That is all.

Angel Tears (or not)

RAIN. SWEET, SWEET BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL WET COOL REFRESHING RAIN, OH HOW I'VE MISSED THEE IN THIS HEAT.

Oh, so... it's finally raining here. Temp cooled down a bit, heat wave broke, and there are storms rolling through. I'm so thankful, it's been nearly too hot to function, and so dry that everything died. It's very sad. But with the rain, my rose of sharon are coming back to life, and maybe the grass will turn green again for a minute.

I fucking hate Barney. I really really REALLY hate Barney. And you know, with all the people I've seen that claim to hate it, I have to wonder why the hell it's still on the air after all this time.

I got expensive chinese food last night, and just ate the eggdrop soup that my hubby didn't eat because it wasn't very "flavourful". I thought it was delicious. A little thick for my tastes (gelatinous, even), but the flavour made up for it.

I'm feeling very ADD right now. Can't really concentrate on any one thing, and if I do manage to focus, it's not for very long. I've been getting distracted by the TV, internet, hubby, baby, dogs, etc. I mean... AUGH WHY CAN'T I THINK????

It really sucks being broke. I really wanted to go get some candy last night (was craving something ultra-sweet) but it was a no-go because I spent my birthday money on chinese food and beer (hahahahahah) and didn't have any leftover for sweets. I ended up having some birthday cake ice cream, which was too cold.

My oldest isn't here, she's with her granny a couple hours away. I miss her already, but hope she's having fun out there.

I know someone on the TOR Beta, and all I have to say is this - An Englishman should not have a FuManChu mustache. Not ever.

I have no idea what the hell I'm doing right now. I think this is a sort of stream of consciousness experiment, but gone horribly awry, as my consciousness never streams anything long enough for me to get it down on paper (uh.... monitor?). Most things that go through my head are extremely fleeting.

I think I want to play KH or DMC, but it would probably make my son cry because I'd change the channel while he's sitting in his high chair (if he wasn't in his high chair, I wouldn't care). I really don't feel like upsetting him right now, he was a royal pain in the ass last night and I do not want a repeat performance.

I've run out of boring things to say.

Caffeine and the art of insomnia

I slept mostly well last night, for once. It helped, I think, that I had the whole bed to throw myself across. It did not help, however, that my iPod and glasses were on the pillow next to me and kept falling off. I don't know why I never bothered to move them. But last night was probably the best night's sleep I've had in awhile, despite the constant waking up.

I never did play DII last night. Because... I fell asleep. Hah. But I think I got enough sleep that I can pull a late-nighter tonight, because I'm really looking forward to it. I feel really bad for M though, because I keep saying 'Yeah, I'll play, I'll play,' then it just doesn't happen. He's probably getting frustrated with me. SORRY, M!!!!! *HUG*

Thanks to being sick I've discovered that a whole lot of the games I play make me sick to my stomach. It's mostly the swift, dizzying camera angle changes. Makes me very sad, because I'm really beginning to miss playing. I hate how being sick affects my head. Le sigh.

The adolescent is leaving today, for a whole week. It... actually, it won't be much different than with her here, because she spends so much time either in her room or hanging out with M. I hardly ever see her anymore. I kinda miss her. I'll REALLY miss her while she's gone. I usually do. For the first couple days I'm grateful I don't have to listen to the whining or arguing, but after that I'm like, "WAAAHHHH I WANT MY BABY GIRL BAAAACK!!!" So I love my kids, sue me. Haha.

The baby has been obnoxious today. Took him to the store without a cart, and he decides to grab as much as he can (thank heavens he didn't break anything), and run to the automatic doors to open them while I'm trying to pay. Unfortunately it's going to keep happening for awhile because he's going to have to learn to stay with me while we're out, and the only way to do that is to let him walk on his own. It's going to be a bitch.

I hate getting distracted by the internet when I'm trying to blog. Bye.