I almost don't believe I'm actually sitting down. I have been running for the past 2 days straight, and tomorrow doesn't look much different. I am more tired tonight than I've been in years, and I'm extremely cranky. The bed is calling my name, so this is a brief update:

1. Went to the Memphis v. Southern Miss game Friday night. It was freezing cold and we wore like 4 layers of clothes. We won 30-26. Win #6 for the season means we're going bowling for the 2nd year in a row. If we go to the Mobile Bowl, we won't get to go because it's on a Wednesday. Pooey.

2. After the game, we put out garage sale signs in the neighborhood. THIS was at like 12:45 a.m. Saturday. In the freezing cold. Finally got to bed at 1 a.m. THANKFULLY I had set most everything up and organized it inside the garage Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, or the garage sale WOULD NOT have happened.

3. Got up at 6:45 a.m. to get dressed, wake up, drink coffee, do finishing touches on garage sale junk, and wait for Terri to get here. (She and I had a sale "together", meaning she brought all the stuff she wanted to sell over here and set up her stuff.) We opened the doors between 7:30 & 7:45. We had the most awesome garage sale. At least the best one I've ever been a part of. Between the two of us, we raked in over $400. Not a bad day's work. I sold a lot of baby stuff it made me nearly cry to get rid of. We decided to end the day around 2:30'ish I think...I wasn't looking at the clock. It took us forever to box up everything that didn't sell, even though we got rid of TONS of stuff!! We were letting things go for dirt cheap...I sold all of the big baby stuff, like the swing, basinette, etc., for $10 a piece, and a baby crib mattress for $5. Baby clothes went for 50 cents each piece. The one thing that I couldn't believe didn't go were all the baby shoes. Usually that's one of the FIRST things to get sucked up.

4. After we wrapped things up, I took a bath, then we went to eat Mexican (my treat), then went to Walmart to get some things for "Old Fashioned Sunday" tomorrow. We all dress westerny for church. (Westerny...that's a new word.) We also picked up a few grocery items.

5. Came home and I put together my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow, did a few loads of laundry, put together my "outfit" for tomorrow, started another load of laundry, and I think that's it.

TOMORROW is going to be extremely busy with teaching Sunday School and doing the church music, plus we have a guest preacher coming in.

I don't know about everyone else, but I, for one, am looking forward to MONDAY!!! This was a little longer than I'd planned, so I must ska-do into my bed. Goodnight and sweet dreams!

P.S. I found out two interest, twisted, messed up pieces of information today. My head is still spinning too much to sort it out right now. I might go into it at a later date.

I don't know what my problem is lately, but I've been told that I never want to be "picked on" and "messed with", which to me, is the definition of "harassment". I HATE it with a passion when I'm sitting on the computer, reading something, concentrating, and I get tickled, poked or prodded. Other times I like this so called "playfullness", but not when I am working on something or trying to figure out something.

Being a wife and mom, I have so many things I just naturally stress over that other people with other titles simply do not have on their plate. Generally speaking, and this may come as a surprise, but I tend to let a lot of things go, laugh things off even, and not worry over them. Some things can't be changed, right? But other things are constantly weighing on my mind, things I sometimes feel like I could change. Maybe I shouldn't let those things leave me in a sour mood, or at least in a sour mood towards other people, but it's hard when I'm constantly having to tend to everyone else's needs and desires and put mine on hold. I am a person, too. That's a newsflash, too, I bet? No, actually, it's very old news...

...Some people just read the wrong section of the paper...

I also get tired of not being able to talk about anything because the TV is on from 5:30 p.m. until nearly Midnight. And no matter how many times I argue that we need to have family time, with NO TV, at least for an HOUR, all I get are rolled eyes, and it may last for one or two nights with the TV turned off for an hour, if I'm lucky, and then it's back to the same 'ol same 'ol. But I learn to deal, or adjust maybe, and let everyone have their "TV time", and after supper's done and the kids are ready for bed, I mind my own business and spend time on the computer, and this isn't every night either. Some nights I join in on the TV watching if there is something on I want to see. (I'm not the type person who turns the TV on and leaves it on just to see "what's on".) Come to find out, it makes me an unpleasant person if I would rather spend time to myself and be left ALONE for a little while. (Who knew that time to myself meant I be left alone, unless of course someone is bleeding profusely, burned alive, or knocked unconscious?) In a nutshell, this is the way it works: If you're mama, and somebody in the house needs something, mama has to get up off her lazy butt and do it. But if you're dada, and one of the kids needs something, dada can continue to sit on his butt and say "Go ask mama" and not be considered lazy in doing so. It used to not be that way when I had a job that I got in my car and drove to Monday - Friday. Just because I don't get out of bed at 6:30 anymore, get a shower, put on makeup, style my hair, put on professional clothes and drive to an office everyday, sure as heck doesn't mean I don't "work" anymore. Being a mother is more than a full-time job, it's like having 3 8-hour shifts, 7 days a week...

...This should be Front Page news!

PLEASE don't get me wrong...I love being wife AND mommy, but I'd love it more if I could respectfully have some time to myself without causing a total core meltdown within my household! AND if I didn't have to listen to the TV from sundown 'til bedtime, and instead have the REAL family time I've been begging for.

So if anyone wants to know why I'm in a pissed off mood lately, that about sums it up.

Yasser Arafat died sometime during the night. I wonder who his successor will be? I have a lot more of in depth ideas about this, but it's too much to explain, and I'm too half asleep right now. Maybe later.

In just a matter of hours, I will be the owner of a CD/DVD burner. Maybe I should keep that top secret information, or my computer might be given a signal via Dell satellite to crash and I lose everything. (Note: This is a theory of mine that Dell has a satellite that sends a beam down to destroy your computer once it's either A) paid off, or B) has extremely important data stored on the harddrive.) Wouldn't that be awesome timing. And my luck. Anyway, I ordered it just yesterday from CompUSA, I checked the tracking status, and it's on the FedEx truck as we speak for delivery. You can't beat that with a stick. And it was about $15 less than when I looked at it about 2 weeks ago. Sweet deal! It's actually my Christmas present, but no one is going to stop me from opening it today when the FedEx man brings it to my door. No one! I've needed a burner for a LONG TIME. I've had a digital camera since Christmas 2002, and after awhile, the pictures really start piling up on my C drive.

Travis is so funny, and smart!! Michael is always saying "Who's your daddy?" and Travis heard him say it at the dinner table a couple nights ago and said "Who's your dada?" I about fell out of my chair laughing. And then this morning, I put the TV on PBS so he could watch Sesame Street, and once it was over, Mr. Rogers was getting ready to come on, and Travis said "I don't like Mr. Rogers. I want to watch Bob the Builder," so I tried to just change the channel to Nick Jr. since the Backyardigans was coming on, and he does like that show, but again he insisted on Bob the Builder, which we do have a DVD of that, I was just trying to get him to watch what was on TV, and then he said "You have to get the DVD!" only it came out "DDD", lol. Michael was still in the bed and he heard Travis say that. He was cracking up. Travis always knows when he says or does something really smart, too, because he'll get this proud grin across his face. It's too cute.

I think Kira is getting back to his normal self a little more. I saw him trying to pounce something earlier. He slept in the bed with me for awhile last night, but then I got up during the night to go to the bathroom and he was stretched out across the back of the green recliner, and then later on he jumped up in the window by Michael's side of the bed and stayed there 'til I got up with Travis this morning. I guess Kira's mad at us for leaving him at that awful place Tuesday. That's got to be really terrifying for pets, because they have no idea when you're coming back to get them or if you're coming back to get them. Plus there are all these strangers handling you, holding you down, poking, prodding, shots, surgeries, poor cat!! Animals have this 6th sense...as soon as you carry a cat or dog into the vet, they know that it's somewhere they don't want to be...even if it's their first ever visit...and immediately start squirming and trembling. Or maybe it's just that they smell all the other strange animals and it freaks them out. Who knows sometimes what they're really thinking. Kira is still a little skiddish today. When I've tried to pet him this morning, he flinches. I guess it'll take awhile for him to trust humans again. Then again, do cats ever really trust anyone?

I really can't believe how attached I am to Kira. I always thought I was a dog person, and didn't care for cats. Cats used to scare me when I was younger. Probably because the cat we had when I was a little girl would swat at me and hiss at me if I tried to pet her. She was a calico cat though, and they say calico cats are a "one-person cat". Either way, that set the tone for my dislike for cats. Dogs always seemed happier, more friendly to me. I still believe dogs are happier and more friendly, but they are harder to house train (we've never successfully housetrained a dog), they make a lot of noise, and they chew up everything in site when they are puppies. Cats housetrain extremely fast, with little or no effort, they are very quiet animals, extremely clean, very loving, and they chew some things, but not to the extent that dogs do. If you get them fixed and declawed (or use soft paws, which is what we're doing...declawing is like amputating fingers...it's mean!), they are virtually maintenance free. Just scoop the litter box daily, change the litter box weekly, and give them plenty of food and water, and you will have a wonderful pet. It's somehow soothing to see a cat stretched out in a sunny window or curled up in the middle of the bed. I've even heard owning a cat can lower blood pressure by 10 points. This works by spending a little time each day stroking the cat, which of course, this makes the cat very happy, too. It has a relaxing, calming effect.

I guess I need to get dressed before the FedEx man gets here. Nothing more embarassing than opening the door to the FedEx man, and he can see straight through my pajama top.

I've been blogger lazy as of late, and not really sure why. I guess I've had plenty of blog-worthy material, but every time I sit down to try to write something here, I get diverted.

The kitty came home today. Michael picked him up, and they told him Kira doesn't like dogs, lol. What cat does? The first thing he did when Michael put him in the car was pee on my floor mat. I figure he didn't eat anything the whole time he was there either because as soon as he got home, he ran straight for the dish and ate like a little piggy. He has mostly slept off and on wherever he wanted today. I have been spoiling him and babying him all day. I think Michael thinks I baby the cat more than I baby him or the kids, lol.

Christmas presents have slowly started making their way to my doorstep. I got two big boxes from Amazon today...some of the kids' toys. Shopping online is great. I detest going Christmas shopping in the stores unless I can go by myself. And I can't exactly ask someone "Hey, can you keep my kids while I go shopping?" I did run into two online shopping hassles yesterday though. For one, I was looking for a particular something for Michael, and I found it on one website for like $20 less than I'd seen it everywhere else, but when I went to checkout, they said I had to have a minimum order amount, and the minimum requirement was $1 more than what the thing I bought cost, so I had to buy a 2nd item on that site in order to meet the minimum order requirement. Of course, my total still ended up being a less than it would have if I'd bought the thing on another site. So that worked out okay...just aggravating. The other problem I ran into was Old Navy's website. I have recently changed my e-mail address, and I was sure to change my account information at oldnavy.com, but there was a glitch somewhere because after I chose everything I wanted to get from Old Navy, and hit Checkout, it asked for my e-mail address and password, and it had no record of me AND it emptied my shopping cart. So I basically had to re-register with my new e-mail address and fill up my shopping cart AGAIN. The only people we have left to buy for are our parents, and my nephew Nicholas. My sister told me Nicholas is into Winnie the Pooh, and the problem is, everywhere I've looked online for Pooh toys, everything is like $20 or more. We are on a gift giving budget, so I'm hoping I can go to Walmart and actually find something. It's really hard to shop for 2-year-olds...all the toys are either too babyish and they'll outgrow them soon, or they are too complex and advanced, and may contain choking parts.

I had more I wanted to write, but it's stuff I can't talk about on here because it will make people hate me.

More later!

I'm a slacker! I haven't blogged since sometime Saturday! Been busy, I guess. Had a lot on my to-do list today, and tomorrow's not looking much different.

My poor kitty is going in for surgery tomorrow morning. He's going to lose his manhood, as well as his front claws. And we're going to lose close to $100. I really didn't feel like we had the money to get the cat "fixed" and declawed, but after yesterday's events, I felt we didn't have a choice. This whole thing could have been prevented in the first place had Michael never brought the kitten home back in May, but he did bring it home...that can't be changed...and I got very attached to the cat, and he got attached to me.

I had been telling Michael for weeks now that we needed to find another home for the cat, and my inlaws said we could bring it by their place and leave it in their yard (they have like 3 acres of land and lots of woods behind their house), so yesterday afternoon, after the cat decided to "mark his territory" in Jacob's room, I couldn't handle it anymore. We weighed out the pros and cons. Even though I grew quite fond of Kira, and think he's a sweet, loving cat, I just couldn't handle my furniture being used as a scratching post, my house getting smelly, and Travis getting scratches all over himself. It was time for the cat to go, so yesterday afternoon, Michael drove the cat over to his parents' house and left him there.

I was pretty busy yesterday with church, and playing piano, and practicing with folks, and then we went to do our "big" grocery shopping after that before coming home, and it wasn't until late last night when I was getting ready for bed that I realized Kira was gone for real. It didn't help that I saw his dish in the kitchen, and his basket of toys that sits on the hearth. And it REALLY didn't help when my sister-in-law came over to see the kids and pick up her dog that we've been "dog sitting" and said that she left her cat over there several months ago and hasn't seen it since and figures that some other animal "got him". I kept saying "Nah, he probably meandered over to someone else's driveway and someone else has him now." But she kept insisting that something probably "happened" to her cat. Just great. So much for at least TRYING to make a person feel better. So when I was about to go to bed, I was practically crying, saying "Kira doesn't understand. He's scared and doesn't know where he is and doesn't know what to do or where to go." He'd gotten used to where everything was here and had a warm place with lots of comfortable nooks and crannies, and now he was left out in the cold. At that point, Michael started feeling really bad about it, too, and so we made the decision to bring the cat back here and look into getting him fixed.

So at 11:45 last night, Michael got in his car and went back over there to look for the cat. There were no guarantees that Kira would even be anywhere around. He could have easily taken off in the woods behind the house. I laid in bed while he was gone, and this may sound really silly, but I said a little prayer. All I said was, "If we're supposed to have this cat, let Michael find him and work it out to where we can afford to get him fixed & declawed. And if Michael can't find him, help me to feel better about the situation and our decision to let him go." I then dozed off, and not long after that, Michael was back with my kitty. He said Kira was stretched out in the carport underneath a car, and didn't want to come out because of one of the other cats that already lives there. But as soon as Kira heard Michael's voice, he started meowing and came out to meet him.

When I called the vet this morning, they said to neuter and declaw him will be $82.50, plus he needs his Rabies shot, which is another $10, so $92.50 is a lot less than I thought we would have to shell out. And I get to keep my baby!!

Well, I'm off to bed, or atleast to put my PJ's on! Later alligator!