I got a reprieve from messing with the kids and sick and school. Not that TJ isn't still bad off (they can't seem to get rid of his splitting migraines) but our school system closed for the day. You know why they called off school? Becuz sports is way more important. The HS girls volley ball team is in state championships today. yeah...no school so that everyone could travel 2 hours to watch volley ball. I have nothing against sports and I am happy for those girls...but...oh, never mind. I cannot go see my dad this weekend...and it is nothing that turned out to be life threatening anyway..thank heavens. His tests came back to reveal he has a degenerative disc in his neck AND arthritis is setting in. So, that means pain. Nothing they can really do about it. Pain. I can't go see my parents becuz of $$$$$. With the ridiculous rising gas prices AND the ALL the money I've had to lay out for Dr. visits and all the Rx...the budget has been blown out of the water and I'm lucky if I don't have to start juggling bill payments again. I know several ppl that are beginning to choose between eating and affording the gas in their vehicles just to get back and forth to work. My parents have had to make sure that when they go shopping (grocery) that they make a day of it and get EVERYTHING they need in one trip so that they won't have to go out for another week or so. My mom has a hard time with that becuz she tires so very easily and having to go to more than one store at a time is difficult. I hope we can all survive all of this.

I don't know how my son is EVER supposed to make it in the outside world. EVERYTHING makes him 'erp'. He has been upchucking for the last 3 days. His allergies have gone into over drive. To the point where he has had the migraine headaches. I have had to keep the curtains closed becuz the light is too intense for him. I took him to his chiropractor yesterday and tried that...still didn't help. Back to the doctor's this morning. Theresa the P.A. prescribed Alleve and a different kind of allergy med for him. She said it is a basic need to get his allergies under control...and they aren't sure what it is that is driving them nuts. I then said to her, "He has been giving those girls from school rides home...and they smoke. Not in his car, of course...but they smoke before they get in the car...and it smells." She did this long, slow look up from her chart and gave TJ this look of disbelief. He said, "But they aren't smoking in my car!" She said, "But you know how allergic you are and it is ON them, and in the car. No more rides!" He hung his head. His gf WREAKS of it cuz both her parents smoke...in the house. She isn't going to be his gf any longer, tho. He has been ignoring her calls. The writing is on the walls. He's just being a chicken chit about it. I told him to treat it like a bandaid. Do it quick and get it over with. It is never pretty and the anticipation of it makes it worse. I got my back twisted and popped yesterday. Helped very little. I spent last night icing it and leaning up against the vibrator pad. And, you know, I can be my usual pleasantly pleasing self unless of course there is back pain involved. So, the kids have had to put up with Mommy Cranky Pants. Anyhoo, right now, I'm feeling good...wasn't this morning...but after having TJ in to see Theresa, I came home and stuck on one of those heat therapy back pads and took two Alleve myself. I would love it if those Alleve really DO last 12 hours. I think Scrawny must have back pain. She was waiting on the back of one of the patio chairs when I brought the walnuts out. I left her a pile and filled the squirrel feeder and snatched out a few peanuts for her too. I looked out there later and she was on the back of the chair nibbling on her treasures while watching another squirrel that was on the back of the swing nibbling on a walnut. When that other squirrel leaped down and tried to get another walnut, Scrawny took a flying leap, landed on the other squirrel's back and bit! I heard the other one let out an awful squeal and it went leaping across the lawn. It managed to double back and steal two nuts before Scrawny could get it again. She has been out there all morning chowing down and guarding her feeder. I don't think I'll attempt to get near her. She's pretty ornery! Yeah...change that name from 'WALTER' to 'SCRAWNY' and 'nachos' to 'walnuts'.

I need a walker. Better yet...some muscle relaxers! Last night, between classes, I bent over to pick up my bag o' books, as I always do...nothing new...to make my merry way on to the last class of the evening...and as I went to straighten up !*!*!*!*!*!**********!!!!!!!! Books being pulled up by my left arm...pain shooting up my right side. Can't lift my right leg hardly. Suddenly I'm off on a whole new adventure. I say a lot about me being old. Now I feel like it! So, once the kids are off on their daily routine, I will have to lift myself into my van and head off to our friendly neighborhood chiropractor. The only thing that helped me sleep last night was the memory foam mattress topper. I would like to find its inventor(s) and give them a big ol' hug! I'd give them a kiss, too...but let's not give them the wrong idear. Hubby went off to D.C. last night, Jr. took him to the airport...I drew him a simple little map to get him into the airport and back out and home. The easiest-don't-get-lost route I knew. I called him in between classes (before my back went out to party on its own) and he had gotten lost leaving the airport and was going south instead of north. I talked him back onto the right roads, in the right direction, and home. He had tried to take some route ("It's real easy...it's a back way home.") that his dad had told him...even after I had said, "Your dad will try and tell you an 'easy back way home' but don't listen cuz you'll get lost." My son NEVER listens to me. He has to make the mistake FIRST then listen. 17 years later and he STILL has to make the mistake first. The only thing that he has listened about so far is, um...taking the 'plunge' shall we say? And I think he has only listened to that becuz he has gotten quite the eyeful of unwed teenage girls in his school. He has heard all their complaints and really paid attention to what their lives are like...and decided he doesn't want to be anyone's reason for being in that position in this stage of his life. I guess that school is good for more than one kind of education. And now...for my next trick...get up out of this chair and pack my daughter's lunch.

First order of business...Ode To Darkness....a-hem....


O-bnoxiously
D-epressing
E-xtension





That's it. You're not waiting for more are ya?



Time to wrap up in the heavy robe and don the slippers. No more bare feet. Lots of hot coffee. And like I didn't have a hard enough time getting the kids out of bed for school already! SHEESH!



NOVEMBER! NOVEMBER WHAT? What the heck happened to September and October? Is there any way of putting the brakes on this?

And such are the lunatic rantings of a HeatherScot waking up in the cold dark, stubbing her toe, and not too much later realizing that she may have found her missing bank card but lost two months somewhere and is afraid they have been hauled away with the trash.

I am just too lazy to go down to the local landfill (where EVER that may be) and find them.