Life is Good

I am officially out of my funk! I am finally in the groove with school. Fall is here which is one of my favorite seasons. The kids Book Fair is almost here. Gillian is seeing High School Musical on Ice with one of her friends as I type this and then they are spending the evening at the fair and then she is spending the night with them. Technology is incredible. While sitting here typing this my friend has sent three pictures of the girls having a blast at the show! How cool is that? Instantaneous pictures! Life is Good.

We will be decorating this weekend for Halloween. Halloween is one of our favorite Holidays. My youngest was born on Halloween which makes it extra special around here! We always celebrate his Birthday afterwards so that he gets both days. We did his first B-day on Halloween and I felt like he kind of got cheated, so we haven't done that again.

My oldest son lives right outside Houston and he said life around there is finally get back to normal after Gustav's visit. We were going to rent a beach house on Galveston next year. It doesn't look like that will be happening. It is so hard to see those pictures. We went to Galveston almost every weekend when I was a kid. Every one of those people are in my thoughts and prayers. I am hoping that everyone gathers together and gets Galveston at least cleaned up fast so the people can at least have some closure.

Survivor is back!!! It is my favorite show in the whole wide world! I haven't seen the first episode yet, but I plan on watching it this weekend. I was so happy to see Jeff Probst win the Emmy for best host because he really is. I like all the other hosts, but he really deserved it. I hope we have some good contestants on there this season.

Ohhhhh, I had my one year anniversary for quitting smoking last month. I am so glad that I quit. I am really beginning to breath easier. I really don't miss them at all. I have had a few dreams about them and I have had a few times when I found myself looking around for that pack of cigarettes in that split moment! I wish everyone could quit because it truly does make a difference in your life. I have to thank my family and Chantix for helping me quit. It was what I needed to help me through those first few days.

OK, that is about it for now. I am going out to dinner with the two guys in my life right now. My two Michael's are taking me to Outback tonight :) Wish My Matthew was here so I could say my three guys in my life right now. Gillian is out having her fun, so we thought we would have us some fun too!!! Life is still good.

See you all next time *hugs*

Five years ago today......

Five years or 1824 days ago my mother passed away. I really dread this day every year. I get in this funk and it seems like I am there for a few weeks. I am still mad as hell that she went and died on me and I still miss her like crazy. I was her only daughter. She was the bes mom a daughter could have ever asked for. I could always count on her, I always knew that she was on my side. We used to talk almost every single day. I would think about calling her, and the phone would ring and it would be her or vice versa. We just had that type of connection. We fought too. We would just agree to disagree. Now I feel like I am all alone. I know I have my own family, but she gave me a sense of belonging and I lost that when I lost her. I don't know if I will ever get that back. I wonder if other people feel that way after losing their parents. I hope not because it is such a lonely feeling. It is not with you all the time it just kind of pops up every now and then and slaps you in the face then disappears again. I tend to really feel it around the anniversary of her death or her Birthday. I still cannot believe it has been 5 years. I have only had a few dreams about her. One of my friends said that is a good thing because that means she is at peace. My friend is a Hindu. I hope she is right, because she so deserves to be at peace. I hope she is up there floating around on a fluffy white cloud munching on her favorite chip Lays classic and sipping a glass of iced tea. I love you mom :)

The Presidential Election

This election is really getting to people. First off let me tell you right up front that I am a Republican. I have been my entire voting career including my voting in Weekly Reader in school. I had the privilege of voting for Ronald Reagan for his second term. I missed voting for him the first time by five months. Over the years I have sat back and quietly voted because that is what we Republicans do. I don't know about others, but I don't feel the need to protest. I don't need to be out there acting out to get attention for my party. I find it sad and quite pathetic that people feel the need to do that. In my opinion those people just need to get a life.

My best friend is a Democrat. We are constantly teasing each other about how our parties would feel if they knew that we were best friends. If she had her choice Hilary would be running, but since she isn't she is backing her second choice Obama. I am backing my first choice McCain. We don't agree with each others choice, but we totally respect each others choice. I do not feel the need to change her mind and she does not feel the need to change my mind. Neither one of us feels the need to put the others choice down. We see enough of that in the media, both the very large liberal and the very small conservative media. (We do agree on the media issue) I find it totally cool about her that she can admit that there is a whole lot more liberal media outlets than for Republican media.

We are also both back in college after many years away. We both see how the liberal edge is in all the colleges. I have professors mention little snippets about the election all the time. I have yet to find a Republican professor yet at this new college. I had quite a few at my last college. I guess what bothers me about this is that the majority of the minds the professors are teaching are young and impressionable. I just don't feel like there is free will. That scares me a bit. It is like they want these robotic answers and no thinking. I haven't asked my friend yet if she sees what I see. I would like to know what the other side thinks about it without prejudice. I know I will get that with her.

My Poly-Sci professor asked us the other day if we had seen Palin's speech the night before. He then laughed right behind the question and continued on with his lecture. He did not want to know what we thought. He just wanted to put it out there that he thought it was funny, not serious....just funny. I actually said later in the lecture when I could that I enjoyed her speech. That it was a fresh approach and that it was a nice change. He didn't really like that and stated that he didn't agree. I didn't care, at least those impressionable minds heard another opinion if only for that one fleeting moment. I guess you could call that my attempt at protesting!!

I will be glad when this election is over. Until then my friend and I will sit back and watch all the craziness around us.

College is ticking me off.

I don't know if I have blogged about this, but I am a full time college student as well as a wife and mom. I just graduated this past Spring with my Associates Degree and now I am going on for my Bachelors degree. I have a class in American Studies called Long National Nightmare: America in the 70's. I had no idea what this class was about. My counselor suggested it and because I am a new student I just said okay. What a stupid move. The class is taught by a very young thirty something Dr. of something (haven't figured out what yet.) All that the class is about is books and movies in the 70's and what social and political meaning they had. I am sorry, but it is going to kill me to do a 5 page essay on some of these movies that I think are nothing more than entertainment or even less, crap. How the hell am I going to come up with 5 pages of bull to get through this class. I have to do at least 3 of these and one last paper that has to be 8 to 10 pages. I will NEVER ever let another counselor suggest a class. I bet they have the top 10 classes that nobody wants that pop up on their screen and those are the ones that they suggest. The Dumb ass newbies (pointing at me) take it just because the process of going to a new school is daunting to say the least, so we just nod and smile thinking all the while that we are being well taken care of! HA HA HA I will guarantee myself this. Next semester I will be the Master of my own domain. I will not dare take a class until I know exactly what it is all about and who will be teaching it. Until then I will read the material and try my best to BS my way through the papers. Hopefully I will somehow pull an A from the class. Lesson learned.

Another thing that really annoys me about these Professors (Dr's.) is their vocabulary. I was taught in Comp 1 that you do not use extremely big words. It is considered pretentious. These people love to use as many big words as they can. It is sometimes as if they are speaking a completely different language. I think I have a pretty extensive vocabulary and they are blowing me away. I have started a glossary section at the back of each one of my notebooks just to jot down the words that I have never heard so that I may look them up when I get home. I truly feel they do this just to annoy us!

Other than that life is still good :)