Why is it that when you finally pay something off, it breaks, it blows up, you wreck it, lightning strikes it down, (fill in any other natural disaster...sorry, phenomenon here). I paid off my laptop a couple weeks ago, and wouldn't you know it's starting to act really stupid? Just a few moments ago, the screen goes completely WHITE while I'm trying to chat with a couple friends, and that has NEVER happened before. So I had to completely reboot. Dang blasted computer...

Oh, and very important...DON'T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK TONIGHT!

I just opened the window to listen to the rain. Rain is so peaceful and puts me in a relaxed state of mind. I needed the rain. Travis is staring out the window right now, in awe of the rain. A calm breeze is coming in through the window. Too bad I can't bottle up the smell of a rainshower such as this.

**********

I have been on the phone all morning.

There was this meeting last Sunday with everyone involved in church music, and one of the things brought up was that from now on, Kenneth, our song leader, would be picking out the songs in advance and letting us know what they are, instead of the usual me and the other piano player picking out the songs and letting Kenneth know what they are, now that we have a pretty long list of songs we feel comfortable enough playing in church.

1) I called our pastor's wife to see if the other piano player had mentioned to her any specials for Sunday morning, and that if she hadn't mentioned any, then I have a song or two that I wanted to do, but she was in the shower and our pastor said he would have her call me back.

2) I called the other piano player to see if Kenneth had contacted her yet with the songs he had picked out for hymnals. Her husband answers the phone and said she was asleep...still? (Must be nice to be able to sleep in that late!)

3) I called Kenneth's cell phone to find out what songs he had picked out. No answer. I didn't leave a message.

4) Phone rings 5 minutes later. It was Kenneth. He had not picked out any songs yet. Kenneth told me to talk to the other piano player and for us to pick out our songs. I told him I was waiting for her to call me back, and then I would call him back and let him know something.

5) I called the pastor's wife back because it'd been over an hour since I last tried to call her. That was a long shower! The pastor told me he forgot to tell her I had called. So I asked her if she knew if the other piano player had mentioned to her about getting anybody to sing specials for Sunday morning, and she said she didn't know, so I told her about a song I had been working on, called "Going Home" and asked her if she wanted to sing it tomorrow since it was one of the songs on her family's CD, and it did not dawn on me that probably wouldn't be a good song for anyone to try to sing/listen to in church tomorrow, considering everything that's happened over the last couple days. She said if she saw anyone else crying during the song, she would absolutely lose it, too. So then she said she was going to repeat a special she sang last Sunday night, and that Ms. Mary (soulful lady) would be singing special No. 2.

6) The second I hang up the phone, the other piano player calls. We sat down, picked out our songs (hymanls) for Sunday morning, I told her what the pastor's wife told me about the specials and I told her what Kenneth said about the hymnals.

7) Before I can tell the other piano player why I had called her earlier, my cell phone rings. It's Kenneth. I tell the piano player I need to see what Kenneth wants and that I will call her right back.

8) Kenneth was calling to see if I had gotten up with the other piano player. I told him "I'm on the phone with her right now." So I hang up with him after telling him I'll call right back since I need to call the piano player back to discuss our songs.

9) So I called the piano player right back, so I FINALLY got song titles written down after all of that rigamarole, and asked her if she wanted to sing "Without Him" with the pastor's wife, which I forgot to mention while I had the pastor's wife on the phone!!! But anyway, the said she'd love to sing that song again since it'd been a little while.

10) So then I sit down and decide what songs I wanted to play in piano for Sunday night, fiddle around on the piano to make sure that's what I really want to play, then wrote them down.

11) I called Kenneth back to give him the Sunday a.m. songs and Sunday p.m. songs.

12) I called the pastor's wife AGAIN to ask her if she wanted to sing "Without Him" and she did.

PHEW!!! Talk about glitch in communication. (Must have been that solar thing.) I wish all those folks would just get e-mail, for gosh sakes!

It's Saturday. Exactly one week ago I started this blog monster. If someone had told me one week ago what all would come to pass this week, I would have laughed in their face. Just like that, everything...EVERYTHING changes. A lot of it still doesn't make sense to me and a lot of it probably never will. I know it's hard for a lot of folks to comprehend, but something...SOMETHING good will come out of this. God uses things like this to open people's eyes and to set people straight. (You may disagree, but please, for once, keep your opinions to yourself.) What's sad though is that a lot of times, something like this happens, it has an impact on people, but then a month or so later, everyone is back out there, living like hell, forgetting that invincible is only a word for super heroes.

My problems are so small, almost non-existent at this point, and from talking to some other people, they ALL feel like that. One of my close friends said "All we [she and her husband] ever do is worry about bills." It's all they ever fight about and it has caused a lot of strain in their marriage. And she added, "I just want to hug him and tell him I love him and tell him not to worry about those stupid bills anymore."

I am more than dreading visitation at the funeral home tomorrow. I think I am dreading it MORE for Michael. If I see him break down, how do I keep myself from doing the same? It's like a domino effect. One person loses it, which causes another to lose it, which causes another to lose it, and so on. It's not that no one else is torn up about it except the person that first lost it...it's just that a lot of people try to hold it together, and seeing someone else lose it makes them lose it. I've even seen this happen at weddings, specifically my own wedding. My Dad was the first to start bawling and other people at our wedding said that they were okay until they saw my Dad sobbing on the front row.

That's it for now...more later, maybe.

P.S. I did, in fact, get a few more hours sleep last night. HALLELUJAH!

Not much new to say tonight. Just sitting here watching Michael play the new 2004 NBA PS2 game...it's VERY realistic looking...all the details of the Pyramid and stuff. Pretty cool. Travis is sitting here on the couch watching it, thinking it is an actual game. Every time they miss a basket, he says "Uh oh!" and every time they make one, he starts clapping and shouts "YAY!!!"

I hope I will actually get a better night's sleep tonight. Last night, Travis fell asleep on the couch around 10, and we waited until we thought he was good and asleep before attempting to pick him up and put him in his bed. Michael picked him up and as soon as Travis landed in the bed, he woke up screaming and crying, refusing to stay in his room and go to bed....:::sigh:::.... So we let Travis lay back down on the couch and he immediately goes back to sleep. A little after midnight, we decide we're going to turn in for the night, so this time *I* try to pick up Travis and put him in the bed. I get the same reaction Michael got...."WHAAAAA....NOOOO!" So then I make a pallet in the floor and drag my pillows and my quilt into his room and lay down in the floor with him. Michael went on to bed. Travis and I BOTH fell asleep in his floor, and I didn't wake up 'til after 2 a.m. and got in my bed with Michael...FINALLY. So 3:45 a.m., Jacob wakes up wanting a bottle. I get up and have to quietly make a bottle since I had to leave Travis' door open or else risk waking Travis up with the squeaky door. So I give Jacob his bottle in Jacob's room, then go to lay him back down, which usually is NO problem...once he's fed, lights out, he goes back to sleep very easily. Well, not last night. So I ended up having to make Jacob a few more ounces to get his belly full enough so he would go back to sleep. So I finally get Jacob back down around 4:15 and get back in bed. At 5:30 a.m., Travis wakes up and climbs in the bed with us...NOT a good habit to be starting, and when the sun came up, he started talking....and talking and talking and talking. "Momma, Dada, Momma, Dada, Momma, Momma, Dada, Momma, Dadaaaa!" So let's see, I slept from 12:30 to 2, then 2 to 3:45, then 4:15 to 5:30....and that was it. So I was doubly zombified today compared to yesterday. I NEED SLEEP....ZZZZZZZZZZ

I am shaking too bad right now to say much. But it will be okay...at least now I know not to go to that person with anything big anymore. I needed an ear to listen, not his opinion. When one is dealing with the shock of a death like that, you just don't know WHAT to say or HOW to feel or HOW to deal, and that is exactly what I was going through Tuesday, along with everyone else. I had literally found out a couple HOURS beforehand, and while my feelings at the time were not necessarily right, as far as placing my anger in the wrong place was concerned, I didn't need to hear about how wrong I was for feeling the way I felt. And the last thing I wanted to hear was that I am closedminded and that we (me and Michael) weren't really Sam's friends. What the h*ll? Hope that person is happy now for making me feel so much better.....all of this combined with a grand total of 4 hours sleep over the past 48 hours is not helping...I think I will go throw up now.

Had a house full of people yesterday. A friend from church, then Michael's sister, Wanda. Wanda picked up the kids for a little while because she knew it'd be hard, us being all upset, and trying to chase kiddies, so she took them to Walmart, then to her house to play for awhile, then after she picked up her two kids from school, she brought the kiddies back, along with her two kids. Then while they were here, Michael's other sister, Terri, came over. Wanda and her kids left, then me & Terri took Travis up and down the sidewalk in his red wagon, and talked. Terri then left to go do schoolwork. And all day long, Michael couldn't sit still, and he kept going out to just drive around, deal, and stop by some old friends' houses to let as many people that he went to school with know about what had happened. So while he's gone, I'm sitting here alone, not knowing what to think or do. Michael went to church last night, and while he was gone, my nephew, Daniel came by to see Michael since Daniel had lost a friend the very same way 2 years ago. Michael has never lost anyone like this before, so it's kind of hard to know what to do or say around him right now, and I suppose it will be that way for awhile. Daniel and I ended up having an hour-long heart-to-heart about a lot of important stuff. That was the first time I'd ever really heard Daniel open up like that. So Daniel left and told me to have Michael call him when Michael got home and he'd come back by here then. So Michael gets home from church, brings me some supper, then Daniel comes back over and we all just sat on the couch and talked and talked and talked about death and how Sam is in a better place now and we should just be happy for him, not sad for him. Sad for his family, yeah, but not for Sam. Then our Pastor, Bro. Greg, came over and another guy from church (all the while I'm sitting here in my PJ's and a sink full of dishes...I hadn't even gotten out of my PJ's from the night before and had not felt like doing ANYTHING around the house yesterday). They probably stayed until 11:30 last night, and we just talked about everything. We laughed, we cried, we sat in long periods of silence just trying to fathom that any of this had actually taken place. And there was a note, and Bro. Greg had a copy of it. He was reading bits and pieces of it, and then Michael started reading it. I wanted to read it, but at the same time I didn't want to read it. All I really know is that apparently, his wife had told him that she hated his guts, and he also wrote in the note some instructions to a cousin on her side of the family, I think, to go after the guy she was cheating with so that "he won't destroy another family again." What is amazing to me is that Sam even said in the letter that he didn't want anyone to be mean to Crissy; he said to forgive her. He wants her to get back in church and straighten her life out. I have been hearing so many comments about Crissy over the past 24 hours, and it's just awful. I understand people are angry and sad and hurt, but Crissy is dealing with a loss, too. I know that deep down, she did love him. There have been two times in our marriage that I've been so mad at Michael I *thought* I hated him, but I was shooting off at the mouth and didn't really mean it. That family, especially their 2 babies, need a lot of prayer right now, and that's about all I can say.

Now to lighten the mood....:::breathes a sigh of relief:::....

I think me & Michael have decided what Tiger basketball road games we're going to try to go to:

Saturday, December 6 - Ole Miss (IF you want to even count that as a road trip).

Saturday, January 10 - Southern Miss (went there last year, too...we LOSE EVERY TIME we play them THERE, so we're hoping for a win this time on their court. But look on the bright side, even if we lose to them THERE, we always whoop 'em in the TOMB OF DOOM.)

Saturday, February 28 - Louisville (figured we better make a trip up there before Louisville leaves C-USA)

...and as an added bonus, we are going to save our pennies and go to the C-USA Tournament in Cincinatti, March 10 - 13.
Last year, Ole Miss played here, but we went to Southern Miss and Michael went to UAB, so we're adding a few more trips to *our* basketball schedule this year. I guess for the rest of them, we'll order pizza and sit in front of the TV and have a myochardial infarction the last 60 seconds of the game. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I wanted to take some time this evening just to remember the things I remember about Sam.

Michael should be writing this moreso than I, considering he grew up with him, went to school with him, and played ball with him. Michael is actually closer to Sam's younger brother, David, but he goes way back with Sam, too.

Michael and I starting going to Bethel Baptist Church right after we got married. I can remember meeting Crissy (who would soon become his wife) and I remember thinking that she resembled Sarah Michelle Gellar for whatever reason. This was in June 2000, and they were going to get married in October 2000.

Sam wasn't very tall, wasn't very short. He was actually a pretty good looking guy, brown hair, I think his eyes may have been hazel or green. Michael told me he used to wear sideburns that Crissy hated. He had a very southern accent. He was a deisel mechanic for a living. He was 1 out of 7 siblings.

I remember going to their wedding in October of 2000. It was not even four months after we got married. Their wedding was gorgeous, complete with candles, flowers and beautiful music. I will never forget getting all weepy at their wedding, as our wedding day was not too far in the past. Crissy looked beautiful and Sam wore the biggest smile on his face as she came down the aisle towards him. I just thought they made a beautiful couple. At the reception, they seemed so happy. They were going to leave from there to go to Disney World for their honeymoon.

Later on that same October, I found out I was pregnant with our first child, and maybe a month later, Crissy found out she was pregnant with their first child. I was due in July, she was due in September. She was probably the only person, besides family, to call me while I was in labor to see how I was doing, plus she wanted to know what it was like since she would soon be going through the same thing. After Travis was born, she came to the hospital to visit us and I remember her showing me her stretchmarks on her pregnant belly. September came, and we went to visit her in the hospital as well. What I remember most was how nervous Sam was, picking up his first newborn son to hold him, and once again, he wore a happy smile, just like the one on their wedding day. Then in 2002, they found out they would be having another baby, another boy.

Sam was a good father. He worked hard and had a good job to support the family so Crissy could stay home with their kids. He always had a good sense of humor. He took their oldest son to ball games.

And now, all of that is gone. Nothing left but memories. And pictures. Pictures that I'm wondering if his sons will ever see. And if they do see him, will they ask questions about their father? And if they ask questions, what will people say to them about their father? And when they tell them about their father, what will they tell them about why their father did what he did? Someday, I am sure they will find out. Sam's boys look just like him, and they will always see their own father when they look in the mirror.

Right now, I just pray for Crissy, that she can straighten up her act and be the best mom that she can possibly be for those two boys, because now...she is all they've got. I know a lot of people are saying bad things about her, which I can't say I haven't felt anger towards her, but I am not going to say anything bad about her. She will pay for her mistakes. We all reap what we sow, good or bad, pure or evil. And Sam, he's in heaven now, no longer dealing with the pain, and he will always be remembered.

Just for a moment, think about your life....

Think about every important, or not so important, moment in your life that changed your life somehow, and think about how things might be different if you changed one tiny thing that you had done, or didn't do....

Are you thinking about it?

Now pick out the one thing that you think has had the most impact on your life. It could be something like "If I hadn't decided to go to such and such college, I never would have met the love of my life." Or it could be something like "If I hadn't gone to Walmart this afternoon, I wouldn't have been rear-ended while going down Goodman Road." Okay, the later wouldn't necessarily affect your life that much, or so it shouldn't.

Michael's cousin committed suicide (either last night or this morning, not sure). He left behind his wife and 2 boys, about the same ages as our 2 boys. Their oldest son was about a month younger than Travis, and their youngest son was 4 days older than Jacob. Many will argue that his wife leaving him was no reason for him to commit suicide, and I agree with this. She met some "hot" guy, cheated on her husband, told her husband she didn't want to be married anymore, that she was 22, and still had some "things she wanted to do". So they started the divorce proceedings. Some friends of ours just saw him Sunday night, and he told them that his divorce would be final in 2 weeks. He also said he would give his right arm for his wife to come back. He wanted nothing more than to be a family again. He loved taking his older son to ball games, and playing rough with him, and just being daddy. I do not believe suicide is the way to deal with your problems. There is no problem too big that God can't help someone through. BUT it does not change the fact that had she not done the things she did to her husband, he would not have been driven to the point of even considering ending his own life. His wife and kids were his life.

Some even argue that if his wife had NOT been unfaithful to her husband, she would eventually sink into a state of depression for not "living" a little, and as a result, kill herself 30 years down the road. I DISAGREE with this. There is nothing wrong with "living" a little if you're not married and if you have no children!! You have to understand something about her. She WANTED to marry the man she married! She chased him down for YEARS. He dated other girls, and finally they hooked up and got married! She wanted to marry him and everyone that knows her knows she was DISAPPOINTED that she didn't get pregnant on their honeymoon. Then she decides about 3 years into this thing that she doesn't want to be married or have kids anymore. This makes no sense to me.

When you hurt someone, intentional or not intentional, you just don't realize how that person will react. I honestly do not believe she realized that her actions were hurting her husband THAT SEVERELY.

I'm sorry if you disagree with anything I just said, but it's the way I feel right now and I don't know what else to feel right now. I just know that it wasn't that long ago that I almost left Michael and took Travis with me. I thank God that never did happen and we were able to work through our differences and be a family again.

The only good thing I can remotely see about this whole thing is that he was a Christian and he's in heaven right now, no longer having to deal with the pain he was going through while seeing his family ripped apart.

The $100,000 question of the day is...

Why do you have to "put your two cents in"...but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?

That one's got to top the "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop" question.

Okay, now it's time for my daily gripe session...

For the purposes of anonyminity (is that a word? If I didn't use the right word, please let me know), I will use fake names here. Although both of these people will most likely never read this, I am going to protect their names. Let me tell you a little about "Jamie". "Jamie" has been married for a little over 3 years (about the same amount of time I've been married) and "Jamie" has NO children. "Jamie" also knows my close friend "Amy." "Amy" has ALSO been married for a little over 3 years, and has TWO kids. "Jamie" once told "Amy" that if "Amy" needed a babysitter, "Jamie" would be happy to do it as long as "Jamie" didn't already have something planned that night.

Well yesterday afternoon, "Jamie" calls me up about something totally unrelated, and then "Jamie" suddenly changes the subject and says, "I just have to tell you this about 'Amy'". Well "Jamie" already has a bad habit of calling me up to gossip about people, but "Jamie" usually sticks to telling me about her family, whom I've never met, or other people she knows that I don't know. So to ME, that is really not gossipping in the true sense of the word because I haven't a clue who "Jamie" is talking about, so I can't contribute to the gossiping. ANYWAY, yesterday she called me up to gossip about "Amy" and it really rubbed me the wrong way, and what REALLY bothered me was when she started saying things about "Amy" that applied to me, too. "Jamie" went on to say that "Amy" asked her if she could babysit last Friday night. "Amy" had a medical emergency that came up and was headed to the ER...it was really last-minute, but who the heck gets to prepare for an emergency? Like, "Hi, Jamie? Yeah, I'm going to be having an emergency next Friday night, can you babysit for me?" and "Jamie" even CONFESSED to me that the first thing that flew out of her own mouth was "Well, did you ask Candice first?" What tha?? I guess "Jamie" figured she better confess that to me or I would surely find out about it from "Amy". "Jamie" told "Amy" she already had plans to go out to eat that night, and I guess "Jamie" assumed that since I don't have kids, then I must not have a life and I must not ever go anywhere, so what's 2 more kids to take care of? Not that I would mind keeping "Amy's" kids for her...it's just the fact that "Jamie" had the nerve to SAY THAT. Well then "Jamie" started talking about how she can't stand "Amy's" husband, and then "Jamie" said "I'm sorry, but you don't just pawn off your kids on people all the time." Granted, I don't care much for "Amy's" husband either, but you don't see me calling up "Jamie" going off about him.

Back up just a minute here..."Jamie" was obviously talking about me, too, because me & Michael occassionally have a family member babysit for us so that we can have some time to ourselves, go out to eat, go to a movie, etc. Marriages need that, and if "Jamie" has kids someday, she, too, will be able to comprehend that. So anyway, "Jamie" pretty much told me in a nutshell that it's irresponsible to get a babysitter and "pawn your kids off on someone". Not only was "Jamie" badmouthing a very good friend of mine, "Jamie" was talking about stuff she had no business even talking about. So I, in a very nice way, just told her that me and "Amy" are really close and that "Amy" does have trouble finding babysitters sometimes because her family is non-supportive most of the time, and since "Jamie" DID offer to babysit for "Amy" if she needed it, then that is PROBABLY why "Amy" called her in the first place...DUH!! I really get sick of people that say "Call me if you need me," but then they are never willing to do anything nice for somewhere. If "Amy" had've called me, I would have kept her kids a couple hours, I mean, "Amy" was having a medical emergency, for crying out loud, but apparently we were already gone and now I almost feel bad for not being here for "Amy".

The moral of the story is...

Just remember, you reap what you sow, so if you sow a good seed now, somewhere later down the road you will be blessed for it. It doesn't hurt to do a favor for someone sometime, even if it causes a little inconvenience. On the flipside, if you sow a bad seed, you just might get a payback later on.

Okay, so I am blogging an awful lot right now, but that's only because this is like a new toy to me. Once the newness wears off, I'll blog about as often as a few of you other bloggers I know of :-) But hey, I'm being nice about it...kind of...

Anyway...

I have a pot of chili on the stove right now, and it's a real mean pot of chili. You cannot get it spicy ENOUGH for me. My eyes will be a'waterin' when I sit down to the dinner table tonight. When I bought the ingredients last week to make my chili, I thought it'd be more like chili weather outside, but it turned out not to be, but oh well, I'm in the mood for chili, dang it, and I'll make chili if I want to. I like to eat peanut butter & crackers with mine. There's no wrong way to eat a bowl of chili.

Now, to the reason I decided to post again today...

''We are just ecstatic,'' Bob Schindler said after Bush told him he would issue the order that will keep his daughter alive. ''It's restored my belief in God.'' ~Terri Schiavo's father, about Jeb Bush's ordering to have the feeding tube put back in his daughter.

The problem I have with the above is that Mr. Schindler stated "It's restored my belief in God." Besides the fact that I believe that a person that has been in a brain-dead state for that many years should be allowed to die (sorry if you disagree with me, this is my blog, so get over it), I just don't understand his last statement there. If you once truly believed in God, then you will always believe in God, even during great trials & tribulations. Sometimes you may feel that God is far away, but the truth is, He is always right there. I think Mr. Schindler's correct choice of words should have been, "It's restored my faith in God." Belief and faith are two different words. I am sure all Christians have had times in their lives when their faith was weakened to an extent, but not their belief. I have had some tough situations come up, and I might say "Okay, God, where are you?" But I know He is there and I believe He exists, and when we come to a point in our lives where there is a great need in our lives, we ask God for help, and when He works it out for us, which He always does, our faith is strengthened again.

Well, Michael is on his way home from school, so it's about time to burn the house down with my inferno chili.

Chapter 2 of the First Tennessee Bank Saga:

I got a voicemail from some guy from my bank re: the mortgage payment that was paid in plenty of time, that never got there, and the money left my bank already. And this is what he had to say...::sighs and shakes head in disbelief::

"This is blah blah blah from First Tennessee Bank bill payment service regarding your online bill payment to the Leader Mortgage Company. I just wanted to follow up with you and inform you that I did contact the payee and they said that there had been a delay in payments posting due to the holiday [Columbus Day?] and that they are not willing to waive their late fee. Since the payment wasn't delayed because of weather-related issues, and it was just a regular delay in the mail, they won't waive the late fee."

Okay, FIRST OF ALL, how the heck does COLUMBUS DAY delay payments being posted? I have never in my life since I have been paying bills ever experienced a delay in payment of anything because of Columbus Day! Christmas or Mother's Day, that's highly understandable, but COLUMBUS DAY? This is NOT 1492 when something had to sail across the ocean blue.

SECONDLY, let's say the mail DID run smoothly, but it had to do with the accounts receivable department with the mortgage company. That means that they were short-staffed on Columbus Day and did not have enough people to process the usual number of payments.

SO, the $100,000 question is....HOW THE CRAP IS THAT MY FAULT?? I didn't know I am supposed to mail my payment 3 weeks earlier than usual before friggin' Columbus Day to get my payment there on time to avoid a dadgum late fee! The payment is considered "late" if it is not received by the 16th; this is the 21st and they STILL have not received it. So who is the culprit that is responsible for this royal pain in the butt? The bank? Or the mortgage company?

Stay tuned for the conclusion of the bank wars.....

I spent a lot of time tossing and turning last night. Most of that could be contributed to the fact that I woke up around 3 a.m. with a 2-year-old's foot in my armpit. So I tried to shove Michael over because I was squeezed between Travis and Michael and couldn't move in fear that I would wake Travis up and never get him back to sleep and then I'd be a zombie this morning. I don't even remember Travis getting in the bed with us last night. He really doesn't usually sleep in the bed with us. So I finally get Michael over to the edge of his side of the bed, so I then have room to toss and turn. Travis gets really hot when he's sleeping, so I was burning up, wanting to throw off the covers, but I knew I couldn't because that in itself would start a fight. Then I got woke up around 7:15 this morning with a loud "Momma!!!" in my ear, all the while Michael is pretending to be asleep, although I *know* he's awake. Then Travis decides he wants to climb in and out of the bed, which of course he needs my help to get back into the bed, which brings me to the great mystery...how the heck did he climb into the bed during the night? And then the jumping on the bed starts and I had to put an end to that because I really didn't want him to fall off and bust his head open on the computer desk.

Since we are on the topic of sleep, or lack thereof, I had this really weird dream the other night. If you really know me, you know I have REALLY STRANGE dreams. Well, in this dream, I was going to the prom, and I was back living at my parents' house, but the whole time I was conscious of the fact that I had had two babies, because when I pulled my prom dress out of the closet, I was sure it wouldn't fit BECAUSE I had had two babies. And yes, it was the same dress I actually did wear for my Sr. Prom. Well I put it on, and it FIT. As a matter of fact, it fit better than it did in highschool. Heh, only in my dreams!! So anyway, the prom is supposedly taking place in Tunica, of all places, and I remember piling into a limo with a bunch of teenage girls, all dressed up, and as we are going down the road, we cross this REALLY TALL BRIDGE and I am getting really nervous, and then my teddy bear goes flying out the window. Wait, TEDDY BEAR? What tha!?! When I thought about what the meaning of this dream could be, I thought the teddy bear going out the window while crossing the big bridge was symbolic of me going through something BIG in my life, which resulted in me letting go of my childhood (the teddy bear out the window). Yeah, I guess having kids might do that to someone...but when you have kids, you just end up with more teddy bears :-)

Now for a subject change...if anyone knows the html code for a hidden midi file, please let me know, since some certain people are never online to help me out with those kinds of things :-D

And the quote of the day is....

"For those of you that think money doesn't buy happiness, you don't know where to shop."

~Jerry "The King" Lawler

Do you use First Tennessee as your bank? If so, I'd like to hear if you are having the kinds of problems with them that I am. Let me tell you about my latest fiasco...

To make a long story short, I do most of my banking online. I paid mortgage on Oct. 7. I get a late notice in the mail today. The notice was dated for the 16th, so I thought, Hmm, maybe they already have the payment by now and this notice and my payment just crossed in the mail. But I thought I would call mortgage company just to be sure. Mortgage company has not received payment. Mortgage company told me to call bank. Bank says they mailed it. Bank can't figure out why it hasn't reached the mortgage company yet. I can't figure out why the money has already left my bank account. Bank wants to contact mortgage company to tell mortgage company that bank sent payment to mortgage company on the 7th. Like, umm, didn't I just do that? They said I'd hear something back within 3 business days. Oh and what really p'd me off was when I first contacted the mortgage company, I was trying to pull up my bank statement online and my computer was being really slow, so I was telling the lady over the phone to wait just one minute because I was waiting for my computer to bring up my bank statement, and finally she asked me "Can you call back later? We do have other customers waiting." And I'm like EXCUSE me, but you can wait just another gosh darn minute, because I pay you $828.41 a month, and I've already used 7 of my cell phone minutes being on hold to wait for the next available agent, not only that but I have $33 in the form of a late fee on the line here!! (No, I really didn't say all of that, but I sure wanted to! Sometimes I need to speak my mind. It might help me feel better.) Since when is there a time limit as to how much time you can take from a customer service representative? If I am trying to resolve an issue, I, as the customer, have every right to take up as much of her time as I want. That's her job, and the next people in line can wait patiently just like I did. I'm really having trouble turning my long stories into short ones. :-/

Got up a little earlier than usual this morning because I needed to run to the store for something before Michael went to work. Ended up not having to go afterall, then I waited for him to leave so I could jump on here to check mail, check orders, and to write something in here. I get this little pop up that says type "TREAT" to get your AOL treat of the day. Hmmm, so I type it, and it takes me to AOL Radio, and wouldn't you know, this song comes on, which just so happened to be my all time favorite song during my Junior year in high school, by who became my all time favorite artist. Can anyone guess what song and what artist? Maybe a few people that read this could guess, um, if anyone does actually read this. The artist shouldn't be too hard to figure out...I even saw her (a clue) in concert in June 2002 in Orlando, Florida (another clue!). Anyway, sometimes I hate hearing songs that take me back to that time in my life. It was the best time of my life, and at the same time, the absolute worst. I guess everyone feels that way about high school.

Last night after Michael took the computer away from me and wouldn't let me play online Scrabble with Brian & Chad (GRR), I put in one of the DVD's a girlfriend of mine, Amanda C., (sorry, I know way too many Amanda's to not put the last initial) let me borrow. Amanda C. is the girl whose house has the door that I nearly amputated my toe on. I guess she felt so bad, that she let me borrow several of her movies. So back to this movie..."A Walk To Remember". It's got Mandy Moore in it, so I thought it was going to be another chick-flick that would end all happily ever after. WRONG! I was bawling my eyes out towards the end, all the while Michael is sitting here on the computer, just catching tidbits of it, and even Michael said "If I were paying attention to the whole thing, I'd probably be crying too." Had I known that's how the movie would end, I would have saved it for another time.

For anyone that is interested, (which a few of you will be), only 33 more days until the FIRST HOME BASKETBALL GAME FOR THE MEMPHIS TIGERS on November 22 against somebody I don't think I've heard of, and since I'm not looking at the site right now, can't remember who the heck it is!! Oh well, who cares, we're gonna KILL 'EM! Anyway, here is the link for the 2003/2004 Basketball schedule.

I got called a feminist today. Very strange indeed. If I were a feminist, seems like I wouldn't have had such a strong desire to stay home with my children. If I were a feminist, seems like I wouldn't have dropped out of college, and I'd be working on my law degree right now to become this career woman, so I could work 16 hours a day, having less and less time for my husband and children, all for the "little g" god we call MONEY. I just have no idea where in the world this person gathered this info about me. I know I shouldn't let things like that bug me when people don't know what the heck they are blabbing off about, but it bugged me and I can't help it.

Why is it that when you get one major thing in your life straightened out, something else big and major comes up that really stinks? It's like, the mean 'ol devil just isn't happy unless he is concocting some sort of problem to give to me. GRR I won't go into any details, but just the other day I was saying "I am just so happy!" and then BOOM! Like maybe I shouldn't have opened my big mouth. :-!