What a Weekend...

I don't want to say this past weekend aged me...but what do you think? At least I still have a smile on my face and my lipstick still looks fresh.

It all began Friday morning after my precious eighteen year old caused me to have three hours of sleep before getting up to work a morning shift.

I came home from work to go work a funnel cake stand at the football game and got home a little before midnight. Saturday was okay, slept late and didn't have to be at work til 5:00.

Sunday rolled around and I was scheduled for another double shift. Lunch was good, two women (twin sisters) that read my silly little blog came in to eat with me and gave me a great way to end a shift. They even got to meet "Dr. Evil" AKA the owner of the restaurant.

I had an hour before I was due back and Dr. Evil told me I could come back a little later than I was scheduled.

Zoomed home and picked up Massey and headed to Wal Mart to pick up a couple of things I needed...BIG MISTAKE.

I bought five items. We checked out through the garden department, usually an easy escape. The guy checking us out immediately said "I remember you from when you worked for Johnny's Pizza on Virginia Ave."

Not to date myself but that was 1982.

He was just chatting us up and going back and forth between my five items like I had rolled up with a cart full of things. I was kinda wondering about it but for once in my life just kept quiet and rolled my eyes at Massey when he wasn't looking.
He said "That'll be $82.50."

I thought that sounded high but he had stopped twice while ringing up items to check his tape to see what he had rung up.

We didn't even get past the guy who takes out his yellow highlighter and marks your receipt before Massey said "He rang up the bed sheet twice."

My nerves were already rattled...trips to Wal Mart tend to do that to me.

I told the man with the highlighter that the cashier had charged me twice for the fitted sheet I had bought.

He looked at my receipt and said "Well there ain't nothin' we can do out here now, he done moved on to another customer."

I was instructed by the highlighter holder to go inside to customer service for my $15.00 refund.

GREAT!

How hard is it to scan an item , put it in the bag and move on to the next item? Thank the Lord they didn't give this cashier free reign with the yellow highlighter pen. I guess you have to take a special class to hold the yellow highlighter.

I had already eaten up most of my break by this point but wasn't leaving without my $15.00.

Into the store we went and headed for customer service.

We waited in line for ten minutes while the woman behind the counter waited on one lady with one item to return. The woman in front of us finally gave up and left without getting a return.

Massey wanted to leave but I refused. It only took me twenty minutes to get my $15.00 back and I reminded myself why I never go to Wal Mart in the daytime. The only good time to go to Wal Mart is after work, preferably after midnight when the idiots have dwindled to a minimum.

Got back to work with two minutes to spare.

The owner commented to me when I got back how great it was that my blog had brought him two new customers and I said "Aren't you glad I got fired from Longhorn?" He came back with "What took you so long?"

Had an excellent dinner shift but I was so tired by the time I got off that it reminded me that I was indeed fifty and feeling every year of it.

It was a long weekend. Got a lot done, left a lot undone but am finally home. Took an extra strength Advil for my aching legs and sat on my duff to blog..."Priorities."

Tomorrow starts another week. The days tend to tumble together, the nights seem shorter but I keep on keeping on.

The football team doesn't have a game this next weekend so things are already looking up for me.

The kids are out of school tomorrow and I don't have to be at work til 5:30. No guard practice, no school pick ups...YIPPEE !

Massey and I are going to the cemetery to do some work around the family plot. Can't let my parents think they are forgotten and it always makes me feel good to make sure it looks nice.

My Labor Day will be a labor of love. Putting fresh flowers out...raking , weed eating and letting my parents know they aren't forgotten.

Another exhausting week...but aren't they all when you have teens?

They say kids keep you young...I tend more to believe "Survive or Succumb."

Til next time...Non Succumbing Cotton"

"I'm Passing Pink Floyd History"

Facebook..."MY" New Frontier

How do you make a 49 year old woman look stupid?

Invite her to join Facebook.

First of all I had to get my daughter to set up my account.

Then I found out you could upload pictures....requiring another consult with my daughter.

It took me a week just to learn to navigate around the site, took another week to figure out the difference between the homepage and the profile page.

After that, a friend sent me an email telling me I needed to set my site to PRIVATE. (I have a cyber stalker out there ya know)

That only took me an hour and three different tries.

Then they start throwing "hugs" and inviting you to "pillow fights" nominating you as "nicest person"..(yeah, RIGHT!) asking to fill out inane surveys, "sending chocolates"...the list goes on and on and on.

I finally found out that all of these things somehow raise money for children's charities. If I could figure out how to help I would, but just giving someone a "poke" was hard for me to understand....(Thanks again Massey).

On one hand I love the concept...have renewed many old friendships and made a few new ones.

On the other hand...after finally feeling pretty secure in logging onto the site...they change the entire setup.

It took me three days to find the groups that I had joined, still can't figure out how to copy a pic from my site and post it on one of my groups (Massey has pretty much dissed my desire for additional help) so I am left to flounder all around the site, hoping to hit the right button, app, key or status.

I guess that young people all around the globe are laughing at me responding to my own posts when I mean to be posting on other's posts, posting double copies of pics because I never know if the first one posted and are all wondering why I am refusing to help children charities.

Ya know, ten years ago...who had a cell phone except Donald Trump and drug dealers?

Now my KIDS have cell phones, ipods, laptops, PS3, WII, the list goes on and on.

My parents are most likely rolling over in their graves...wishing THEY had a cell phone to call me and say "STOP THE MADNESS".

It is just a sign of the times unfortunately...we are a wired nation.

Whereas a kid used to be glued to your hip...now they are wired to the entire world and reaching people, places and search engines that I couldn't have dreamed of... even watching "The Jetsons" as a kid.

The only thing I am missing is "ROSIE" the robot maid...maybe SHE could help me out with my technological attempts at keeping up.

What in the world will MY grandkids be doing one day??? Jetting over in their Hovercraft that they got for high school graduation to visit me in the ole folks home to help change my "Virtual Depends"??


I think that I am scared...really scared...is there an app on FB for that?

Kids Can knock Ya Down A Notch....

I went into work today at 10:00 AM.

Worked until 4:30 came home, went to Walmart to buy new rugs for my kids bathroom, a new weight scale (my oldest son took ours when he left).

I guess he wanted to see how much weight he lost when he left our house so as to have a barometer to measure when he actually "needed" to move back home or die of starvation.

I came back home, and my sixteen year old wanted me to take him to Blockbuster for a new video game.

Of course I complied, and on the way home, my thirteen year old daughter having arrived back at home after going to a lake house with her friend...who she brought back home with her for a sleep over called me.
They wanted me to stop at Wendy's for two burgers... two minutes later I got a text that they needed fries as well.

Of course I sucked up to all their wishes as they demanded.

My son , in the car with me said "She always wants something from you".

I reminded him that we were on the way home from Blockbuster.... a trip ONLY for him.

Once home the saga got even deeper. I changed the air filter in the attic for the furnace, folded the laundry, fed and watered the dogs and cleaned the bathrooms.

Once on my own time, I decided to light my tea light candles that I have burners for..I can select my own favorite scent, put them in the Yankee Candle burners and make my house smell cleaner than it actually is.

Not that my house is a pig sty... but with me working six days a week and having three big dogs... it is nice to have a clean scent wafting throughout the house.

My sixteen year old son seems to consider himself a "Scent" connoisseur. He hates some of the scents that I burn, so I asked him to smell the one that I had selected to help me feel relaxed. I thought that I had made a wise choice "Clean Cotton".

He sniffed the cube of wax that I was posing to put in a burner, and he told me that it smelled "pretty good"... in fact, it reminded him of the bathroom at the McDonalds... or maybe it was Wendy's?

What a blow !!!

Either they have stepped up their quality control immensely, or I am a pretty bad house keeper.

I know he meant it as a compliment, but it took me down several notches.

At least now I know what standards are expected of me at home by my kids...

If these are THEIR measures... I am so far ahead of the game that I may not vacuum or dust for two weeks...Hell, I might quit scrubbing toilets and doing the laundry too!

The next time they ask me for lunch money, I'll just ask "Do you want fries with that"?

Back To School...UGH!!!

Tomorrow starts a new school year for my kids and another year of torture for me.

My daughter bounces out the door every morning looking forward to school (which she considers a social club) and I shove my sixteen year old out the door saying "Just two more years if you pass this one"!! (By this remark I am trying to encourage him in the only way I know how).

My daughter isn't an "A" student, but she tries hard and has never been a problem. She is loved by all her teachers and for the record...is just too sweet to be hard on (maybe that is one of our problems).

My son...God help us, is another story all together. He is the smartest of my three. He can debate like nobody's business, he can tell you any historical or scientific data...he can even tell you why America is in such dire straits....and most of the time I agree with him. He HATES to be judged by numbers or letters ( that is his explanation for his GPA).

My daughter had her orientation at the middle school today, and got assigned to the team of teachers that had my son two years ago. In each classroom that I went into, after I told them that I was Zachary's mom and they had taught him two years ago...their first comment was "Zach was the smartest kid I ever taught".

Not that he passed their class with flying colors, but they saw the potential that I see on a daily basis.

He is a genius, he is my way to an early retirement...if ONLY we can get him out of school.

He fights the system, he fights the rules and he fights the entire concept of a controlled environment. My boy is a rebel...albeit a smart one.

But what I cannot instill in him is that at his age, you JUST have to play by the rules, you have to surrender to authority, and you just have to "PLAY" the game...not fight it at every turn.

Last year by the end of the school year...I had spent more time with the ninth grade principal than I had my husband. I look forward to meeting the tenth grade principal and I am certain by May, we will be well acquainted.

He is a good boy. He doesn't do drugs (a trip to the county juvenile detention center for a drug test guaranteed me that) ...Just checking after a rebellious period. But you have to keep a close watch on your kids, I am not one that will not keep a check on a floundering sixteen year old...and be caught off guard when it is too late.

I have come to realize that he is a pistol. He is loaded with information, facts and data that blow me away on a daily basis. He just doesn't like school. He doesn't like the fact that they judge and grade him on whether he gets a paper signed, or a progress report signed.

But how do I tell him that this is the way it works? How do I tell him that unless you come out of high school a millionaire...life is a hard ,hard road...even if you ARE smart?

I pray for him daily...and he probably prays in his room at night that I will leave him alone.

Guess who's prayer's will get answered first?

I have no reservation in saying that he is the smartest, brightest sixteen year old I have ever met.

Someone please tell me how to help him succeed, how to let him finally see his potential, and how to stop my heart palpitations every time a new school year starts.

Just thought that since I had this blog, I would throw it out there to you and see what came back.

Please help me help HIM.

Till next time..COTTON

"KIDS" ... What Can You REALLY Do Besides Worry ?

I got me a "BROOD" at my house.

I have three kids and they are all so different that it makes me wonder how they are all three mine.

My oldest, who has always been my hope for an early retirement...netted from his HUGE income of being "something" great, has dropped out of college for a break (I hope it is a short break).

My second in line is my sixteen year old son...who is a "freakin" genius that refuses to use any of his capabilities in any type of school work , homework or anything that may represent the fact that he is indeed smart. He can tell you how the Air Bus works, how to build an atom bomb, ANYTHING about history or culture...but can't seem to get a progress report signed or a project turned in by it's due date.

My third is my daughter...sweet and mature for her age, but blinded by the horrible heart wrenching debacle of "MIDDLE SCHOOL" and the fact that she has to struggle for the grades that she makes and most of her friends are seemingly "Breezing" through with all "A"'s. (At least she picks really smart friends). After being exposed to girls in their "tweens"... I have to salute her. Girls at her age are a vicious and conniving sort, and I would rather have my "average" scoring girl than some of the snotty little "priss pots" that I have encountered at the middle school she attends.

My point being...

I am in my late forties.

I thought by now one of my kids would have received the Nobel Peace Prize or at least would have discovered the cure for cancer.

But as a parent you have to take it all in stride. You have to unfortunately take everything into perspective...At least I HAVE them.

At least they are all healthy and happy (I guess that my constant cooking, cleaning and doing laundry pretty much make up the "happy" part) but I am OK with that.

I just want for them the absolute best and most.

It is easy for me at 48 to know what they need to do, but it is a totally different thing to get them to see my point.

I only want them to see that I am trying to save them years and years of wasted time and effort.

I want them to see their life from my view point..and to save them from wasted years, and to show them the short cut to success.

But as I type...I know it won't happen.

Life has to happen at it's own pace, with all of the the interruptions, pitfalls and mistakes.

I wish I could save all three of my kids from having to experience them, but I can't.

The only thing that I can do is to love them, pray for them and be there for them when they need to be picked up...reprimanded and sent back into the world to hopefully find not only themselves but find their way.

I envision great things for all three of my kids. I think that all three are extremely talented, gifted and destined for greatness.

It just worries me that they may get side tracked on the way. It worries me that they may get a menial job that seems like great pay to them, and forget their potential. It worries me that they may think they don't need to further their education...Hell..it worries me that they might get killed by a bus crossing the street.

IT JUST WORRIES ME, HAVING KIDS!!!

If I had known that having sex with my husband would cause me thirty years of constant worry and concern...would it have made me change my mind?

Unfortunately, or maybe should I say gratefully it would not.

I love my kids, I desire the best for them and have tried to give them the best advantages that I could.

I truly believe that all three of them will be just fine. They will ultimately find their way to success...it is just a HARD, HARD road to have kids and have them find their own way...and to let them find it in their own time.

Let's just hope that "OLE" mom is up to the challenge.

Till next time...........COTTON

The Good, The Bad...and The Lazy

Last night my house was filled as usual with not only my three kids, but the neighbor's kids as well. I was going up the steps in the living room with an armload of clothes that were clean and folded. I remarked to my soon to be sixteen year old son that I wanted all of the clothes that I held to be properly put in drawers or hung in the closet. I remarked that I felt sometimes they just let them sit around so long that they eventually got shoved back into the hamper before they had even been worn...much less put up at all. Sometimes I find them back in the dirty clothes again...STILL FOLDED!!

My next door neighbor's son made the remark...let me see if I can remember it correctly.

"DUDE !! Are you too lazy to unfold them before you throw them in the basket? THAT is a dead give away"!!

I don't know what bothered me more...the fact that they are recycling clean clothes just so they don't have to put them up...or the fact that my neighbor's kid thought that my son was so dense that he didn't know that you UNFOLD the clothes before you throw them back into the laundry pile.

SURELY.....maybe I mean HOPEFULLY, my kids aren't the only ones doing this (besides my neighbor's son).

What in the world are kids thinking , when they work harder at a plan to not put up clean clothes...than just taking the small effort to do the job at hand?


AND MY KIDS WONDER WHY THEY DON'T GET AN ALLOWANCE!!

Instead of an allowance...I have thought about charging them when they are lazy. Charging them when they don't load the dishwasher. But of course they would have to borrow the money to pay me with from their father.

My solution has been this. If you want clean clothes...take them to the laundry room and do them yourself.

I am on strike in the laundry department (even as I type this post...the dryer is humming behind me with my 22 year old son's clothes that he did himself , spinning to my satisfaction).

For the most part, my kids are GOOD, some of the time they can be BAD...and a LOT of the time they can be LAZY.

Unfortunately...I seem to be stuck with them, and have had to make some MAJOR changes in regard to my title of "She'll Do Everything if We Let Her."

Things seem to be looking up, the kids are responding fairly well. I guess that running out of "undies" has it's good points when you are a mother of three.

When pushed...it is AMAZING what the Good, the Bad and the Lazy can accomplish.

Of course they are probably having secret meetings behind my back to come up with another plan of action....lucky for me; they are too lazy to come up with an idea that could fool me. You know what they say..."FOOL ME ONCE..."

Till next time ...COTTON

When Will Kids Stop Being Kids?

I was talking to my sister tonight, as we commiserated about our similar situations. I am forty eight, she is "fifty" something. I have raised and sent one son off...only to have him fly back into the nest at the age of 22...bringing back with him a dog that I now take care of and feed.

My sister has a 26 year old still living with her, having flown out of the nest, back into the nest, out once more and now home to roost!

Neither pay us rent, nor contribute to the household chores or care what their room looks like or what dishes or laundry is scattered within our eyesight.

Not speaking for my sister, but I have become hardened to the point that I have to MAKE myself be nice to my son...a "MAN" that I do indeed love dearly...but constantly am in awe at his lack of gratitude or sense of duty.

Wasn't it him that said "I AM OUTTA HERE" with a defiance that I thought would never find him creeping back to his own bedroom ? He doesn't help us with the bills, but manages to find the one item in the refrigerator that I truly want...and scarf it down (leaving the empty plate in the floor of his room).

He has his good points...he is pleasant to look at, very handsome and witty. He isn't into drugs or an alcoholic. His main bad vice is driving me and my husband insane (which he is extremely talented at).

He lives in his "cave"..his room which is so handily supplied with a wireless laptop (that we bought him ) cable TV, and quick access to the kitchen and a bathroom..(he is on the bottom floor of the house, with all of the other bedrooms on the third floor).

It can be 1:30 in the afternoon, and my daughter and her friends will be chatting (albeit) loudly...and he will crack the door to his cave and tell them to "SHUT UP"!!

Luckily my sister's son sleeps till about 4 or 5...and has no pesky sisters to bother him.

My point being..."WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THESE KIDS DOING TO US"?

I would have never done to my parents the kind of abuse that my kids are doing to me . Of course I grew up with "BUTT WHIPPINGS" so severe that they made a lasting and profound impression . But today, it is called child abuse...it ought to be called child REARING!!

My middle son is not much better. He is so smart that I find it hard to believe he is mine! But he refuses to put any of his talent into his school work, and with very little effort has "PUTZ" his way into the ninth grade. He can talk to you about anything...and is almost always right... but ask him to pass algebra and you would think that I asked him to go out back and dig an eight foot hole with a garden spade.
I know that I have spoiled my kids, and that is part of their problem...but how could I have created such monsters with no sense of remorse or sense of accountability?

Let's blame it on modern technology. Let's blame it on cell phones, myspace, texting, Blockbuster, video games, internet...ANY thing but ME!!

But regrettably, it all comes down to me. I am their mother, and I am the one that raised them. My only saving salvation is that one day they will have children of their own...(NOT living in my house) and will say to themselves....while their kids are scooting across the sky in a "JETSON'S" type car......"WHAT did I do to deserve this"?

If I had it to do over again, there would be a LOT more "butt" whippings, and a LOT less "BUT MOM"!!

I can only hope that as time passes, they will eventually realize that I really DID know what I was talking about when they weren't listening...and will be glad to repeat it, or once again show them the way.

I love my kids (to a fault) and only want the best for them... But don't kill me while you are finding out I was right all along.

The Girl who "Text" Wolf

I have a twelve year old daughter. She is the only other female in my house besides me.. except for the one Boxer female. It is tough living with males, but we seem to survive. Probably because we enjoy bossing the men around so much. She is my youngest, born eighteen years to the day that my mother died. That was always such a horrible day to remember, but now it is my daughter's birthday. My mother and God above have turned it into a day that is now sweet to remember. She was born two months premature, and was so quiet for the first 4 years of her life... since then, she hasn't quit talking. She and I are best friends, and I love her dearly. She got a cell phone recently, and immediately began her "texting" career. She is constantly on her phone... a lot of the time to me. I can be at work or the grocery store, or in the shower, and hear that little "beep" and know that Massey has something important to tell me. Usually, it is "can U get Dr. Pepper on the way home?" or "I have a headache, can U Check me out of school?" Sometimes I will text her back and say "get off your phone, and do your schoolwork!!" Then she will respond immediately " I am in the restroom." I will text back and say "DO NOT TEXT ME AGAIN" all capitals to let her know I mean it. Then she rapidly responds "OK" I will type back, "do NOT text me again." Thinking she will get the message. And then I hear the beep....check my phone, and she has replied yet again "Yes Mam" Sometimes, it is "what is for dinner?" or "can I go home with Breanna" ? It amazes me , this new world of "text"nology. How did my mother raise three kids without a cell phone? Granted, sometimes it is a message that I need to hear, but more often,it is a message that just because she has finished her schoolwork, and has been lucky enough to slip off to the bathroom... she feels the need to text me her thoughts.... immediately. I will have to hand it to her though.. she IS my link to all of this new technology. She set up my blog page for me, designed the font, colored the print, and made it "prettyful" That is a big word with her.. kinda like her use of the word "pimpilious" or "smartiful" ( I don't know how crazy I am about that those two) But she is a truly sweet girl, with a heart as big as the Pacific Ocean. She still loves her Mama, and that is a BIG kudo for me. She helps me constantly with my computer, cell phone, and trouble with the DVR. Where and how did these kids get SO smart and savvy with all of this technology? And still they can't seem to unload a dishwasher , or bring their dirty clothes down to the laundry room? But I ALWAYS check my texts from her.. although most every one of them is just "chatting" . At least I know that if she EVER does truly need me.. I am just a "beep" away. I guess by the time she has kids, they will just jump into their space car, and zip over to their Mom's galaxy , or Blink themselves over like on "I Dream of Jeannie" . The future is a scary place for me, but at least still having young kids; I feel a little more in touch... At least I have a twelve year old daughter that still talks to me, hugs and kisses me goodnight and doesn't mind being seen with me in public.... I must be doing something right . Till next time Cotton