Walk the Line

Just recently we signed up for NetFlix.... It was actually because Caayn got one of those spam emails where they promised us a $250 Victoria's Secret gift card and one of the requirements was to sign up with a sponser. Well, at the end of all that junk (which ended with them mentioning how you could then do the same crap for a $500 gift card..) Needless to say, we got no gift card. Although, wouldn't Caayn be happy, hehe?

So I did the rating movies thing, and stuck a bunch of movies in my queue. NetFlix is GREAT for parents who live no where near family and don't have a babysitter. We've seen all sorts of movies that we were wanting to see for a long time but didn't get a chance to because we couldn't see them in the theatre. Or those oddball movies you can't find or forget to look for in a rental store. Like Cannibal! The musical... Anyway, I'm digressing.

One of the movies we had in the queue was Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix... Mostly because I love to hear people sing. It gives me the chills. All in all, the movie itself was pretty dull. It felt like there was no plot line. But at the very end, they did that little thing they do in true stories. They fill you in on what happened later. On the last "page" it said that June died in May of 2003, and that Johnny followed her 3 months later. I was shocked! I knew when Johnny died, it was after he released that miserable album where he redid all kinds of popular songs (and let me tell you, he forever ruined that Nine Inch Nails song... *shudders*) But I didn't know she had died right before him. Gives me the heebie jeebies. Its like he died from a broken heart. My great grandfather died like that, not long after my great grandmother, and everyone always said it was from a broken heart because he pined after her so much. Sometimes I get boggled over the silliest of things.

And on a side note: A couple came today and picked up Abby. They sound like they could be just right for her--they even have past experience with greyhounds, which was a big point with me.

Anyway, thats it for now... I have to go clean out the cat box. Caayn and I had an agreement that I was supposed to clean it out until I get pregnant, and well, I've been slacking off. Ahh well. I'll return eventually!

Why does everything in life need a title?

I did our Christmas cards last night. It's weird, even though I wrote basically the same message in each card, I would have to pause a moment to wipe this utterly ridiculous mix between smirk and grin off my face. I'll admit it. I enjoy being a housewife and doing all the little wifely things. Womens lib? Drives me up the wall. Yes, its okay NOT to grow up and get married, its okay NOT to have children, but quit giving the women who DO and enjoy it, shit. Seriously.

Anyway. Caayn is quite thrilled about it though, because he hates signing cards or even writing in them. If it were up to him, our relatives would simply get a card signed "Love, Mr & Mrs Smith". Pfft. And every winter season I start needling on the idea of a "letter". What exactly goes into those holiday letters that women supposedly used to write? Is it for family that you don't actually see? Because I can't imagine writing a letter that entailed all the joys and woes over the past year and then sending it to folks that I talk to regularly and already know all of it. It bothers me. I'm really going to do it one year, once I figure it out.

We still have Abby. This is a great disappointment. She's in the paper that is coming out tomorrow, please dear gods let someone call about her! Holly (short of Jalapeno) is also in the paper, since I decided while it would be cool to have a cat and her kitten, I just can't handle having another kitten. Not with a baby. That was why the cat got declawed when SHE was a kitten, even when I'm morally opposed to declawing. So hopefully we'll get some calls.

I'm reading The Stand now... its one of my most favorite of Stephen King's books. My copy is falling to pieces though and after I'm done with it this time I have to retire it and buy a new copy. Poor thing. And seriously, I am going to unpack our dvds and find a place for them, just so I have an excuse to watch The Stand because ya know, it'll be out and about, not packed away.

There's a nagging feeling that there was something in particular I wanted to write about... I can't remember what it was now. Oh well. If I remember, I'll write again.

Penguins

I have a small addiction to penguins. The winter season is always great for filling that need to see those funny looking black and white birds. While at Target I picked up one of those tall coffee mugs, with a penguin on the side. Now I can wiggle around with glee on the inside while drinking hot cocoa. Yay!

My job is getting increasingly irritating. We're not making ANY profit, and so, we're cutting our hours down. (Ummm, hello? Cutting hours means decreasing the amount of time folks have to come buy a smoothie...) And if I am going to be the only employee (the manager will be someone who doesn't work there, but works in the gym), what are they going to do when I go on leave in March? Or if my son gets sick? Or any other number of things. And the longer I work, the more guilty I feel about not being with my son. Picking him up from daycare is heart wrenching, because I have to see how AWESOME she is with him. She spends time coloring with him, reading, gluing things on paper, playing with playdoh, etc... I hardly ever do anything that doesn't involve chasing him down and tickling him. Which is fun, but hardly a day long activity.

Sometimes I get myself worked up into a tizzy... Like, why would I want to get pregnant and have another baby? I'm such a bad mom to the child I have now. Caayn keeps telling me that we are a normal family, but I have no way of knowing. I don't have any friends out here, much less friends with children his age. It's like this never ending circle that just spirals wider and wider, making me feel worse and worse. How do women do it? As it is right now, I feel like I'm not doing anything. My house hardly gets cleaned, I don't spend much time with Caayn OR my son, I don't play with the dogs... UGH! How does Caayn put up with me? He works all day, PLUS does everything with our son, the dogs and the cats. He's a freakin' saint.

I neeeeeed to do the Christmas cards. We slacked off and didn't make an official Xmas picture for everyone, but oh well. They'll deal with it.

And I need to throw a rant in here. I just finished the book Cell, by Stephen King. Now, let me put this out here: I think Stephen is a god. He is one of the most talented, inspired writers out there. I enjoy reading his work. But this book? It was NOT up to par. I was left seriously unhappy with the ending. One of my favorite things about his work is that its LONG. Its long enough that you can really sink your teeth in and get comfortable. The endings are good, you aren't left hanging. This was NOT good. If I had seen it in a movie theater, I'd have said, "WHAT?! Goddamnit!" You have no sense of "Ahhh... and thats all right!" Man. I'm disappointed. I have questions that NEEEEEEEED to be answered. Shame on Steve. Shame on Tabitha! If I were her, I'd have kicked his behind back into the office and made him tack on an additional 20k.

Oh well. I guess not all books can end perfectly. Then again, don't most books leave you hanging? No story is quite finished when it ends, there's always more to be told. I hate that. The bummer is now I have to go back to work with no books! Everything is still packed, and I feel an intense need to read The Stand. I wonder if I can find it...

Chitchat

We went shopping today, sort of. I've had my eye on a pair of boots, and was considering them for Xmas. My manager came to work today with new boots on and said that a bunch of stores in the mall were having sales, especially on footwear and junk. And since I needed a new basal thermometer, I figured I'd try a pair on while we were down there.

Of course, they didn't have my size. I wear a size 7 for the most part, and they only had 8 and up in the color and style I liked. Boo. I tried it on anyway, but it didn't fit. What a shame! It would have been a good deal too. Ordinarily they cost $90, but on sale they were going for $35. Thats a good savings!

The Steelers are playing tonight against the Browns. They've been kicking some serious ass tonight, which is really really good. We need that! Normally we'd stay up to watch the end of the game, but since I've been awake since midnight, we're just going to hit the sack. While at the mall tonight I saw that Cell had come out on paperback finally, so we stopped and picked that up as well as a silly baby book for Sully (its really too young for him)... I saw some gorgeous pregnancy journals... I might need one... There was The Belly Book, which included a space for a new pic each week... I also picked up a pack of holiday cards, so we can send them off to family... I'd better get on that, unfortunately. UGH! And we TOTALLY forgot to take a family Xmas pic, lol.

On the way out of the mall we passed the other bookstore and I saw a gorgeous kid book... I forgot the name of it already, but it was some sort of Xmas one I think, with a mouse, a bunny and a koala (I think). The art work was amazing. I love it! I'm so going back to get it and Stellaluna as Xmas gifts for Sully. Stellaluna is my very most favorite child book ever. Oh man! It's just so beautiful! Anyway, what I was going for when I started digressing up there is that Caayn will probably stay up a bit and read Cell, while I (hopefully) blissfully pass out.

I start the split shift tomorrow. I'm hoping I don't die! However, there is the possibility that the split won't last long. If business slows down any more than it already has, I may not open the second half. It depends on the weather. This morning it was -18 ambient, and -28 with the windchill. VERY COLD. Not only were there like no people in the gym, but would you really want to bring a frozen drink out into that temp? No. No one is interested in that! So hopefully we get back over 20F and business can pick up a wee bit again.

I'm off to bed. If anyone is watching the game, cheer on our team.

Sleepless in Minot

It seems like most nights are a struggle to sleep. I have the opposite of insomnia. Going to sleep is the easy part, its staying asleep thats hard. Sometimes I'll wake up when I'm rolling over and then thats it, I'm just wide awake after that. It's now 2am, I've been awake since midnight, when I woke up to roll over and found that Abby has her back feet on my pillow (she has a deadly kick and I'd hate to wake up with a broken nose) and her front feet digging into my stomach. I try to roll her over, but she yips, then snarls and attempts to bite before getting up.

And now here I am. Still awake. My problem is the second I wake up, I start thinking. So thoughts of how I need to clean the house, unpack more boxes (we just moved), how working is causing me to not see Sully, how I'm a bad mom because I don't play with Sully enough, how I haven't bought Xmas gifts yet, pay day is Friday, maybe I should quit my job, etc start rolling around in my head. It just doesn't stop. Now I'm on the comp, but thats not really helping. I'd like to get some sort of sleep before 5 rolls around...

A Little About Me

I've done the blogging thing a million times. Seems like I can never get one website to work just the way I want it to. Or it becomes to uncomfortable. Ah well, we'll try it again.

The thing I hate about setting up a new site is that by the time you get it looking just the way you want it to, you forget the reason why you suddenly had the desire to set the thing up in the first place.

Oh, wait. I remember now.

Work! My shift is flip-flopping all over the place, and I am one unhappy momma. Starting friday I will be working a split shift. 7am to 10:30, 2:30 to 6pm. Ugh. I'll do that all of next week, then I've got Xmas week off, and the following Monday. After that the whole dynamics of the shop is changing. We're an itty bitty little smoothie shop, we don't make a profit each month, and we're struggling. Bad. So to begin, there are 3 workers. 2 regular, one manager. The night shift guy is quitting tomorrow, out of the blue. Apparently his marriage broke and he's leaving for Mexico this weekend. Oi. On top of that, the manager is going on leave Wednesday. That leaves me. In an attempt to bail us out of the whole, upper management decided to have the manager "quit" too, and she'll be hired by the gym we're tucked inside. Which again leaves just me. EEKS!

The irritating part is that the only reason I took this job in the first place is because the shifts were short and I could still spend time with Sully. And now that we are getting ready to start trying for Baby #2... Oi.

I've got another irritation. Abby. We have three dogs. We like dogs. We are a dog family. However, one of them has to go. That's Abby. She's 8 months old and dominant as all hell. Ever since we brought her home 5 months ago she has stepped all over everyone here. She snaps. She jumps so hard she moves the furniture. She knocks Sully over. For the longest time she was unpotty-trained, because she had reoccuring UTIs. She's trained now, just barely though. We put an ad in the paper, for $250. No calls. Put her in the paper for $200. No calls. $150. No calls. FREE! We had loads of calls, but no one actually interested. One lady came to see her, and was disappointed because she's a big dog. GEE! She's a Greyhound, they are one of the bigger breeds. Ya idiot! Finally the perfect couple walks in. No other dogs, understands the requirements in owning a Greyhound, plus no children, no cats, etc. We call them back the next day and they pick her up. Last night they called saying they have to give her back. Apparently she cries horridly when left in her crate from 6am to 5pm. Well no shit! She's still a puppy, alone in a new house, and needs to stretch her legs. All this boils down to the fact we now have her back, irritating us. Someone please take this dog!

Talked to Grandma last night... She's doing that thing where she lets you know she is in good health, basically hinting that you should come visit before she isn't... Hehe! I wish I could get out there, but alas. We don't have a spare 2k it would probably cost for a week visit back home.

Oh, did I leave you hanging as to who or what this is? I'm Phoenix. I write a lot of nonsense. I'm 21, married to a guy named Caayn. He's in the Air Force and we're stuck in the miserable little town of Minot, North Dakota. It's shitty. We've got a dude, his name is Sully and he is almost 2. I've got some dogs and some cats. In January, we are going to start trying for another baby. Yipee! That should do ya.

Thats it for now. More nonsense later.