Oh boy...

... here we go again!  Or at least, we think it’s here we go again.  It seems, despite vigilant attempts to prevent it, Oldest Son’s dog may have managed to knock up Miss V’s chihuahua.  This is said chihuahua, the crazy thing.

This will be her second pregnancy in her 7+ years with us, and I am NOT looking forward to it.  Though admittedly, her last one DID mellow her out noticeably, it just didn’t stick around long after the pups were born.  And this time, the doggy-baby-daddy is a bit larger than the Pomeranian who was the first one.  He’s a sweet little boy, but he just couldn’t resist her feminine wiles, and I guess we’ll know for certain within the new couple of weeks, but I just...  UGH!!!  We don’t need this at the moment.  But we’ll deal with it, as we always do.  I just hope her pregnancy and delivery is as easy as her first one was.  We didn’t even know she had given birth the last time, she was so quiet about it.  So now I have yet another thing to deal with, but I’m not going to worry about it until I know for certain.  I’ll keep updating as we find out!

Aaahh...

Sometimes, after a day at work, my feet positively ache.  And so far, nothing but laying down with my legs raised above heart level for about 2 hours is all that has helped.  But the other day, I stumbled upon this recipe for a foot soak, and I fell in LOVE with it.  It smells wonderful, and actually helps my feet feel better in 20 minutes FLAT.  I just dumped the required amount into my foot bath (a Christmas gift from my daughter 2 years ago) and 20 minutes later...  aaahh...  no more sore feet and I can still smell the peppermint! I did add the essential oil to it, as I didn’t feel the tea had enough oomph on its own, and let it run.  Ooh, the relief was amazing!  I’ve had to make more because my kids are just as in love with it as I am.  lol

Ignore my messy floor, it needs a good cleaning, and I just haven’t had the time or desire to clean it.  lol  The only “problem” with it, and it’s really not even a real problem, hence the quotation marks, is that if you use the peppermint tea in it, you’ll end up with teensy tiny bits of peppermint tea in a ring around your feet.  So not really a problem at all, just a personal preference.  I’m going to make up a big jar of it to keep on-hand for days when I come home with aching feet.  So thank you, Erin at Suburban Simplicity, for a great foot soak recipe that has helped keep me from suffering from aching feet!

Surprise!

Well, seeing as how the cat’s out of the proverbial bag, and it’s been announced officially, I can post about it here.  It seems my son and his fiancée are expecting number 2 this coming October.  Of course, we are all excited, and wish her the very best, and hopefully she won’t have the same horrible hyperemesis gravidarium she had last time.  Oh, she was MISERABLE her last pregnancy, as she could barely hold anything down!  And she also didn’t even have the joy of a baby belly to show for it.  Even though my beautiful grandbaby was a healthy weight and a good length, her mama barely showed at all!  

But this time, it’s looking like she’s NOT going to have to deal with the horrible vomiting, and she might even show this time.  She’s only a few weeks along (6 or 7, to be exact), but already has a tiny bump going on.  And believe it or not, she’s excited to get a big ol’ pregnant belly.  She said she felt like she missed out on something not having one the first time.  lol

So, when she found out she was pregnant, as I did with my oldest, she said, “Baby, mama’s got a new baby in her belly.  Is it a boy or a girl baby?”  And my sweet Flower said, “Oh mommy, is girl baby!”  So now we just have to wait a few weeks and see if her prediction is as spot on as her father’s was.  But whatever she has, we’ll all be happy so long as s/he’s healthy and has no complications.  But that’s all for today from up here in the wilds of northern Florida!  Have a great one!

Sometimes I feel like it would be nice to have friends that I can talk to about anything.  As it stands right now, my one real friend lives over 300 miles away, and we rarely talk anymore, likely because of the distance between us, as well as familial and social obligations.  So I have no one to go to when I’m having a problem with one of my kids (lately it’s the Oldest I’m having problems with...), or when I just need to vent about something that’s just really irritated me.  Sure, I talk to people all the time, but I don’t always manage to do more than listen with most of them.  They call me to complain about their own lives, and the second I want to talk about my own life, they have to go and can’t talk anymore.  🙄

Makes it really hard when I’ve had a particularly bad day, or when I’m just not feeling quite up to snuff.  Not having anyone to vent to really is a problem for me.  So I might start using this space for that.  I mean, let’s face it.  No one actually reads this blog, so it’s really more for my own catharsis than it is for anything else, right?

Adventures in Crafting

My daughter is a wonderful young lady, she truly is.  She can be quite a handful at times, but for the most part, she’s pretty mellow.  But she’s also a great deal like my husband’s sister, in that she’s more interested in finding a way to make money than she is in finding a boyfriend or playing with makeup.  So tonight we started testing out recipes to make bath bombs and shower melts.  

Tonight’s recipe failed.  Epically.  Both the bath bombs and the shower melts.  But I believe the problem with the bath bombs was ours, and not the original poster, as I think she added too much witch hazel to it. But no matter, we’ll be trying again.  But, it’s also been fun, being able to just sit down with her, and not worry about what this person or that is doing/ saying, only looking at our phones to check the recipe instructions, instead of being totally consumed by social media and all of its “charms.”  

She’s excited to try again, to see if we can get the balance of dry to wet correct.  And then, if we can, we’ll invest in some soap colourant so we don’t dye ourselves pink or purple or whatever colour from food colour.  But it’s a learning experience for her, and that’s what I like.  It’s letting her know that it’s okay to fail, and that sometimes she’s going to fail, even that sometimes she NEEDS to fail, so that she can then appreciate when things work out and go her way.

As I mentioned before, she wants to try to earn money for herself, and this is one of the ways she’s trying out to do that before she’s old enough to get a real job.  And I’m going to encourage her to do exactly that.  She is bound and determined to be a successful, independent woman on her own.  This is definitely going to be an adventure with her.  🙂

Two for two!

So Monday, after my labwork in the morning, and a nice long nap after arriving back home, I took my car to the mechanic, who couldn’t look at it then.  I had lunch with the husband instead, and went to pick up V.  And she did it, she got her permit, and couldn’t stop smiling for HOURS after!

She was SO proud!  She didn’t get to drive immediately, as I had to take the car back to the mechanic, but I let her drive after we were done with getting it serviced.  I’m realising just how much my sister taught my Oldest to drive, because I don’t remember EVER being as high-strung when he was driving as I was Monday while she was!  lol

We went to an unoccupied parking lot to practice parking, and she... promptly mashed the gas instead of the brake, and ran up over parking bumper and ALMOST up onto the sidewalk in front of it.

I laughed, as I had done this exact same thing when my sister (the same who taught the Oldest to drive, in fact) was first teaching ME to drive!  But she got upset, because she thought she was going to get in trouble for it, and started to cry a bit, until I assured her that it was fine, and she could continue driving, but only if SHE wanted to keep going.  She did, and we went on.

This was taken as we were on our way home.  So far parking and turns seem to be her biggest problems, naturally, as she is just starting out, and she understands that this is the reason she won’t be driving all the way home from my work yet, but instead will be driving from a gas station much closer to the house instead.  And NOW she’s okay with that.  So she’ll continue getting practice each day, and Sunday, when I’m off work, we’ll go to a local community college and she can, once again, try to work on her parking and turning skills in a lot where she can’t do much harm to anything important.  lol

Otherwise, things are going well.  We’ll see if I can manage to continue keeping up with this blog.  Not that I expect anyone to be interested in it, I’m not a very interesting person, but I’m still going to try!  I have to work today, unfortunately, but it’ll be fine, and as usual I’ll get through it, because what else is there to do?  The husband leaves early Wednesday to work at a festival, and will be gone until Sunday, so it’ll be a nice, quiet end of the week and weekend for the rest of us.  Hope y’all have a great week!  🥰

Hmm...

It seems 2 years is the span of time I like to go between posts.  Or rather, nearly 2 years.  It was the end of March, 2017 when last I posted, so I guess a bit of catch-me-up is necessary.  Well, let’s see...

The Littles (neither of whom is very little any longer, lol) completed their first year of high school together at the same school.  They both were promoted academically, but my son, E, just barely.  So we spoke to the ESE counsellor for the district, and she strongly recommended we enroll him in the “regular” high school instead of the charter school, because they can give him much more help.  And that they have!  He started his sophomore year in August, and so far is only not doing so well in one class, and that one is, to the consternation of his father the certified chef, his culinary class!

Miss V is just astounding.  Every day there’s something new I notice about her to marvel at.  Despite coming from me (total tomboy, can’t do hair/ makeup for ANYTHING), she’s a wiz at both hair AND makeup, and has even started a blog to showcase her cosplay stuff.  She has her days when I want to strangle her, what teenage girl doesn’t, but most of the time she is the sweetest thing I could ever ask for.  And she’s even getting her driving permit later today, if you can believe that!

  

Oldest Son and his fiancée are planning a big move within the next 1-2 months, and will be taking my sweet baby girl away from me.  A whole 18 hours away from me, in fact!  But it’s for the best, and I know that, which is why I’m not going to cry too much about it just yet.  

As for that sweet baby girl, well!!!  She has just grown and grown!  She turned 2 at the beginning of this month, and is just the sweetest, smartest little thing!  She calls me Nonna, though sometimes she messes up and calls me mama, because that’s what the Littles and her daddy call me, and she calls G-pa just “Pa,” probably because her other grandfather is papa.  And other than mommy, who is her absolute favourite person in the world?  If you guessed me, you would be WRONG!

Her absolute favourite person in the whole wide world is her Uncle Squishy.  She ADORES him, and he her.  They are so cute together, it’s not even funny!  He’s sometimes the only person who can get her to calm down, even when mommy’s around!

As for the rest, well...  April of 2017 my father got into some trouble due to his dementia, and spent a couple months in jail before being put in the memory care ward of an assisted living facility down south.  He’s been there almost 2 years now, and is doing well.  Healthy as all get out, just with almost no memory.

We went and saw him while we were down there for my stepson’s wedding back in January, and though I’ve no doubt he didn’t remember any of our names, he did seem to know that we were related to him, and seemed genuinely happy to see all of us.  He kept saying “look how big you are!” to E, who is roughly 6’5” tall now, and kept hugging V.  It really was very sweet.  I’m trying to find the time (and money!) to go and visit him again in a few months, so that it’s not always a year between visits.

As for me, well, I let the husband, who had moved down south in October 2017 to deal with some family issues that arose in April and July of that year, move back in with us this past December.  It’s been difficult adjusting to having him around again, but it’s also been nice to have the extra help getting things done.  I suppose I should include a picture of myself in here, since I’ve never put one up, so here ya go.  This is from my stepson’s wedding back in January.

Thrilling, no?  I have a face, after all.  lol  Well anyway, I’ve been at my job,which is still only part-time, for nearly 2 years now, and I was moved from cashier to bakery, and I must admit, though it takes me quite a while to convince myself to leave the house every work day, I still go and even sometimes enjoy being there.  Which is better than how I felt as a cashier, believe me!  lol

So, I think that’s about it.  I have a busy day planned for today, so I should probably get to it.  Hope you all have a great one, too!  🙂