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[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

Hi.

I’m alive. I haven’t been here at all. I’m not sure where I’ve been. Mostly Reddit.

Wild Child said something so funny and I had no where to get it down. So, here I am.

The other day my daughter was telling us bits about a church shooter situation. She was reading, out loud, that a deacon/ usher ran the guy over.

Wild Child said: “USHER KILLED THE BAD GUY!! Wow!!”

He’s talking about R & B singer, song writer, Usher. So I went with it and told him yes, Usher saved everyone!

Wild Child was so proud of Usher. I’m proud that Wild a child knows Usher.

I guess I’ll be posting again. Nothing dramatic happened. It’s just been a lot of the same. My son-in-law is back to work today after taking about 4 months off. We kind of need to start over and figure out what to do without him home. We are getting our deck redone. The guy just smashed one of our sliding glass doors.

It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

When I posted about texting a lot of people on Mother’s Day, one was my baby sister. I have tried very hard not to be the first to text with her for months. We are fine. There’s no argument or issue at all. I know she’s very busy and has her own life, very far away. I wasn’t going to text on Mother’s Day but I did and she didn’t reply. Then Monday she hearted it. That’s it. To say that I’m done is an understatement. I’m not going there right now. I’m not texting anymore. If she texts me I will reply but I’m done. (She spent all summer with us from 3 years old on. Plus a couple of other vacations, Christmas three times etc. She was with us on her 17th birthday and her mom never called her that day at all. She cried and cried that night. On the other hand, every birthday she’s had, we’ve had a cake with her name on it to “celebrate” her even thousands of miles away. Every. Year. That’s one example. It’s not like she barely knows us. She lived with us. Sometimes “summer” was 4 months long.)

This isn’t just about her though. Not at all.

It really goes for everyone. We put our time and energy into what we care about. It doesn’t matter how busy you are. If someone or something is important to you then you make time. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick or in pain. I’ve done it. I’ve pushed and made sure people knew how loved they were. I don’t know anyone who’s been as sick and in pain as long as I have been. Not a single person. Just because I make sure I’m not a miserable bitch to everyone doesn’t mean it’s not hard. This goes for everyone. Gifts. Texts. All of it. I’ve wasted a lot of time on a lot of people. It really makes me not care much. People show their true colors if you let them.

If you stop making excuses for them.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I’m not sure if this is the base of the dressing, before she put it in the nutra-bullet or if this was part of the salad… but my daughter made this Asian chicken salad for dinner and it was so good. All from scratch and Whole 30. I could eat that all day! It was a lot of work though :/

This came today! I’ve been wanting to get this for a while and bought as an after Mother’s Day gift for myself. Haha. (I got very nice Mother’s Day gifts from my daughter!!) This is a… contraption… that converts old home videos to USB. I hope it works as advertised. It has good reviews so I’m hopeful. I really needed another thing to do that will hang over my head like a ton of bricks. I plan to set it all up in my room somehow so that it can be easily hidden when I’m not doing it. The old home videos will not be in here though. There’s way too many and I don’t have anywhere to easily hide them.

Since the kids finished my room, I can’t stand a single thing out of place. I DO “stand” it because someone always brings something in. But I really push myself to straighten up each night and then a little in the morning from whatever ends up happening in the night.

We were up really late last night. I’m trying to finish a matchstick embroidered double bubble gauze blanket. I need something to be finished and used. It’s not a quilt really but I am doing the binding the same way. Anyway, Sugar Dumpling loves staying up late so it’s not a problem. Plus with chicken pox, I feel like all bets are off as far as going to bed and getting up at any certain time. It’s really hard for me to be in bed, lights off, by 10:30pm. There’s really no reason to right now either.

Chicken Pox update: Sugar Dumpling is still covered and still getting new ones. Other than that he doesn’t seem to be bothered by them. No one else has any yet which is sooooo annoying. I just want to get it over with now :/

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

My matchstick lines are becoming less and less straight. Now that I’ve decided on a binding, I’m really trying to finish this. Will I regret not prewashing the dark blue, polka dot fabric for the binding… that remains to be seen. Look forward to a post about my sadness, eventually, on that.

In other news:

This is a $13 sandwich. Usually it’s fine. I always order an extra scoop so it’s really fine (but then the side is another $3, still fine). But this is crossing the line. You can see how thin it is too. It’s not a fat scoop that just needs to be spread out. Nope. All I did was add pepper and remove the lettuce. I didn’t touch the chicken salad. I eat there often enough to know that this is unusual and unfair. I don’t mind paying for something if it’s good, convenient and a normal amount. This is not that. I sent an email. I’m trying to be more active about not wasting money and this is one way to do that. I was very nice. I complemented them on a bunch of things but I did tell them this wasn’t ok. I spent $32 there today for one person. It will end up being 3 meals. I think that’s a good deal, really. I just don’t think this part of it should go without mentioning to the restaurant. My daughter agreed. Although there’s no way she’d take the time to complain haha. She agrees with me doing it though :)

Blah blah blah. Waaa waaa waaaa. Boo hoo.

It’s actually a nice day and everything is good :)

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I’ve been very conscientious about not being the first to reach out to anyone lately. It’s been since around Thanksgiving I’d say. I didn’t text anyone for any holiday. I barely texted for birthdays, although I did some.

Yesterday, I ended up texting several people. At least 15. It wasn’t a test. I truly meant the texts. I skipped over a couple of people. My cousin in Michigan, in particular, because she was just not a good mother when her kids were growing up. She’s not even that great now that they are grown. I know she loves them but she turned into such a selfish person. She and I were extremely close for most of our lives so it’s hard to recognize how terrible she was to her kids. We spent all summer, every year, with them. We went on vacations etc. Very close. She wasn’t always selfish and crazy. We are on two different planets as far as how we raised our kids. She started to change when her oldest was in elementary school. Around that time we were moving to Texas and picking between two private schools for my daughter. Somehow it came up that one of the schools had mostly organic catered lunches and she rolled her eyes at that. But the kicker was when it was mentioned that at that school, in 10th grade, there was a mandatory class trip to Rome. They’d be learning Latin etc etc etc. My issue with that was there would be no parents on the trip; only administrators. That’s just not how I roll but it is really a great school. My cousin heard that and said, “that’d be the day my kids go to Rome before me.”

And that was that.

I’d never look at her the same way again. I’d never feel the same about her. Who says something like that? Why wouldn’t you want your kids to do everything, regardless of what you have done?!? It made no sense to me and it still doesn’t. She was divorced when the kids were young and all three chose to live down the street with their dad until the day he died. I will never forget that comment and feel so bad for the kids.

Anyway, I did not text her a happy Mother’s Day greeting. But guess who was one of the only people who texted me first and not just a reply? Her. She thought of me when I was actively NOT texting her her :/

I need to put my phone down and stay off of it. Either someone hurts my feelings or something makes me angry at stupid people. I am still done trying with people though.

That’s not changing.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I wasn’t going to post today but I had to so I remember this…

My daughter and son-in-law are in their room, wrapping gifts for Mother’s Day. I’m in my room and the boys and my mom are downstairs, far. So it’s pretty quiet up here. All the doors are closed. All of the sudden I hear loud yelling…

“Get over here right now! Get over here right now so I can hit you!!” HAHA… what..?

I can only assume that son-in-law popped my daughter with an empty wrapping paper tube and she is in a position that she can’t get to him fast enough. I laughed out loud. Seriously, OUT LOUD. No one heard me.

In chicken pox news: Sugar Dumpling is a strong, brave, sweet boy. He is covered in them!! He’s not sick, obviously, he’s just itchy when it’s time to reapply the lotion. I’ve been covering him in calamine. He wasn’t sleeping though because the spots I was trying to cover on his head just weren’t enough. Last night I covered his head. Basically like shampoo. After about 20 minutes he looked at me and said, “this is a miracle, nana!” That poor baby. It was a big mess and I have my headboard covered in a towel. His pillow case is half pink. My wood floors are covered in pink dust. It’s so weird how it turns mostly white on skin, once it’s dry. But on white bedding, floors, other clothing… it stays pink. Ask me how I know :/ I hope it comes out but whatever. I was worried the head thing was a mistake but it was totally worth it. He slept all night for the first time in days. He barely moved and slept until 10:30am :)

My daughter has preemptively shaved Wild Child’s head so if his pox experience is the same, we can do his head easier. So far, my daughter, wild child and I are clear. But it’s 21 days after the last spot scabs over. Sugar Dumpling is still getting new spots. It’s crazy though since he’s so covered already. I think he���s on the way out of it now. He’s a good sport and mostly in good spirits but not exactly his normal mood.

So, basically just waiting for the pox to drop on us. Haha. Getting my nails done and things organized. If I don’t get them it will be an actual miracle. I’ve touched each one, multiple times. He’s been sleeping in my bed since before the first spot and will be until he and wild child are totally better. It’s just how the sleeping goes here.

Daughter is getting her hair done and things organized a bit. Wild child will be more difficult to deal with but he won’t be sick either, of course. Slight discomfort is not the same as being sick. It’s not a big deal for kids. Adults though… we’ll see how it all shakes out.

We only have 7 weeks left of son-in-law being home on FMLA (he took off 4 months to help my daughter get better) and it sucks to be getting near the end. So much has happened that wasn’t planned. As it always goes.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE!!

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

**SHINGLES- CHICKEN POX**

First of all, in the future, if you get shingles, we highly recommend spraying colloidal silver on the spots. It helps eliminate the areas really fast. I’ve heard so many people suffer for so long but that really helped my son-in-law.

He ended up having shingles on his brain and it was messing with his eye. It’s been a whole thing. He never got really sick though? Thank God. He’s basically fine now.

SECOND OF ALL… for those of you who blindly follow drs without doing a lick of research, you’re so stupid. You’re just stupid. I knew shingles was contagious and can cause the chicken pox. It’s a 21 day incubation, just like regular chicken pox. And, if you want to really educate yourself, the chicken pox vaccine is a live virus vaccine (attenuated) and absolutely can spread the pox as well.

This morning, my daughter and I were saying that the 21 days weren’t nearly over yet :(

Guess what?

Sugar Dumpling officially has the pox. He had a slightly elevated temp last night with severe body pains so he slept with me. He doesn’t get sick often but when he does he tends to spike a high fever in a blink. So, he slept with me so I could check all night. By this evening, he was covered in dots :( Now we wait for Wild Child to get them.

I’m not worried about them at all. They might be a little uncomfortable but kids are fine getting chicken pox. What I’m worried about is my daughter and/ or I getting them. I’m not immune according to blood work I had many years ago. I had my titers tested etcetcetc. She’s never had them either. She is so unstable, health wise, right now, that this could get really bad. I’ll be praying hard. As for me, whatever. I’m in so much pain right now that I’m having a hard time talking or being even remotely ok to be around. I’m saving every ounce of anything for sugar dumpling. Wild child has been in other parts of the house all day. The kids drove up to the outlet mall to get my mom a new coach bag. Her birthday is tomorrow. None of the custom stuff I ordered will be here in time…. So anyway, I really haven’t seen anyone but him today. If I get very sick they will admit me. I’m expecting it will just be an at home horror though. Maybe it will skip us. Haha.

I covered him in the calamine and he’s sitting next to me in bed.

I wasn’t coming online today but I figured I should post this so I can look back later.

5-7-25

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

This is a screen shot of Tsavo National Park in Kenya.

I used to watch this live cam all of the time but it’s been a couple of years. I found it again yesterday and saved it. This is how I need to spend my time when I can’t do anything else. I know it looks like nothing now but I’ve spent hours watching 75 elephants hang out around that water. Those are my favorites but I’ve seen a lot of other wild animals too :)

I’m so thirsty. I’m going to be up to pee all night long.

Last night I didn’t sleep well. Not much at all after about 4:30am. Around 6am all I could think about was a woman who was stabbed to death in her home, in this area. It was about a year ago. She was a beloved music professor and professional vocalist. Her neighbor found her door open around 7am. This morning I just kept thinking… it’s 6:15am and she was still lying there. It’s 6:30am and she was still lying there. It’s 6:45am and she was still there, alone. Already dead for a while and no one knew. This was within walking distance of our new house. Colorado, in general, has very high crime rates. This city has very high crime rates. Our little subdivision does not. We do have car break-ins but not right around our street, so far. This stabbing murder shook everyone. But when I’m up that early and every thing is so quiet, I think of her. I wish I could force myself to have more peace.

Force-peace. It doesn’t really work that way, does it?

Back to Kenya for me. I’m looking forward to seeing all of my favorite animals again. I don’t know why I ever stopped the habit of checking in on them :)

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You what’s annoying? All of these zero to minimally educated people spouting off about current world events. When you read their babble you can tell, almost immediately, that they have no idea what they are talking about.

It put me in a mood all day.

How are people so blind? How are they so stupid? How can you be so caught up in hate for someone that you don’t care to investigate facts about ANYTHING?

What the hell is going on?

We are so doomed.

This is mostly about Gaza/ hamas/ Yemen … if you allow hamas to take over, you’re signing your own death certificate. They never cared about you. Look at the history. Look at hundreds of years of history. I saw some C level comedian on Snapchat say, “shout out Yemen!” and I’ve never wanted to punch someone in the face more. I see tumblr people here who have very large followings and they are saying the most ignorant and actually repulsive stuff. I really hope they have very little influence on people who don’t know any better but I’m pretty sure they do. It’s like a weird fandom and you know how “fans” are.

By the way, I’ve never punched anyone in the face. I will likely never punch anyone in the face.

I’d love world peace but let’s be realistic.

I’m going to try to stay off of my phone for the next few days. We still have birthdays and Mother’s Day etc etc so there’s plenty to do. I think I’m done ordering stuff. My daughter can do the rest since she has to pick anyway. Reading all the crap online, as much as I have removed myself from so much of it, is causing me grief. Again. I need a break. I need to stop being angry at people for being dumb. I’m just sitting here in my room too. You know? I’m not out in the world trying to save anyone either. I need to refocus on my own life and stop letting strangers get me so riled up. It’s silly.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

Chicken Salad Chick.

Tomorrow is the final of three days of rain. And I mean rain. all. day. type rain. That really never happens here. The last time was 6 years ago when we first arrived. Of course it turned to snow the moment my son-in-law walked out of the house to pick up that food for me. He was also going out to grab sour cream for something my daughter was making. It was all melted before he left to pick uncle up from the er. Thank God. It won’t be cold enough for snow tomorrow as far as anyone can tell. Above our elevation (about 7000) they are getting tons of snow. Probably wet, heavy spring snow. I’m not an expert though. I’m just guessing. Anyway, we aren’t used to gloomy weather. It’s sunny 360 days a year here. Yes, even when it snows.

In other news:

I don’t really have any.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

Wowowow.

I never knew this until today. I mean, in general, fuck canada anyway, for a lot of personal reasons but…

They had Japanese internment camps just like we did. But actually no! They were worse. They handled those souls worse than we did.

I know a few Canadians I like so blah blah blah. That’s just my overall opinion after working around them in south Florida and visiting, relentlessly, over the years. The worst, French Canadians from Quebec. I cannot.

I’m just shocked at this information. I didn’t know. I know what they did to indigenous people and what they covered up that Queen Elizabeth did and all of that. I’m not a scholar on the topic but I’ve done some legitimate reading. I had no idea they did this too. It’s so weird how holier than thou they are. Such a joke. Your history is foul too.

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I follow the Cemetery P*rn subreddit.

This picture got me thinking! If I could have something like this but a quilt table set up. I likely won’t be finishing many until I’m dead. So it would be fitting. Plus a big, nice bench so everyone can sit and cry over me. That’s what I really want. My daughter toyed with the idea of a sandbox or something future babies could play in. But sand is so gross and dirty so I don’t think so. Maybe a swing if it’s possible. A huge, overbearing angel statue too. Something ridiculous is what I feel I need. She and sugar dumpling will be the only visitors after a certain point.

THEN I went to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery website. I couldn’t care less about celebrities. I really don’t care. Where I grew up there were so many and they were mostly ignored. Thank God. I was also taught if I walked in a place and a famous person was there that the best bet was to walk right back out. No one needs to be in the paper etc etc etc. (My childhood was a bit different than most of yours, I’m sure).

ANYWAY… who cares about the celebrities! The point is, that cemetery will always be kept up well. It will always have security and be beautiful. People will walk those paths until the earth ends (which probably isn’t that long from now) so people will walk by my grave and at least… see it..? There are actually some very reasonable choices, price wise. It’s all expensive anyway. If I HAVE to be cremated just to afford being there then so be it.

The only problem is, I really hate California.

But I’ll be dead. So that’s settled.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I love Etsy again. I never really got THAT into it but I actually added the app now. That’s big for me because I hate having apps I don’t use.

Anyway, before I start reading tonight I wanted to order something for my mom for her birthday or Mother’s Day. She’s getting a new coach bag but that’s not any big deal. She’s horrible to buy for. She doesn’t like anything and has everything. Plus it’s her. We always try though; we really do. There’s nothing sentimental about our relationship. I could never buy a sweet “mother-ish” anything. I never had that kind of mother. I opened the app and left a review that was waiting and tried to think what on earth could there be here for her.

Then it came to me! What is her favorite motherhood thing? What makes her the most proud about being a mother? What brings her joy about being a mother? I got it!! HER DOGS!

So, I’m going to find a Mother’s Day gift from them.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

Does anyone else remember doing this when you were little? You’d put that under your chin and if your chin looked yellow it was proof that you liked butter. Haha WTH. I remember everyone doing it…

Today was nice. I wasn’t sure what we were doing and there really wasn’t any plan. My daughter got up and went to church on her own. We all hung out until she got back then we all headed outside. The weather was great. The sky was mostly blue but the clouds that we had were very ominous. There was a lot of wind and it cooled things down. Both boys did end up with sun kissed cheeks though :)

It ended up STORMING!!!!! for about 7 minutes :/ Which was fine because son-in-law was out in it. It was just a bit disappointing. We rarely hear thunder so it’s exciting when we do. You hear it, you get settled in to listen for a little while and BAM! the sun is back out and all is well. We miss south Florida storms.

It’s almost 11pm and I think I’ll read for awhile :)

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I’m sitting on the front porch while everyone plays around in the driveway/ front yard. Their scooters are too small so my daughter ordered a couple to be delivered in an hour or so.

Sugar Dumpling picked this flower for me :)

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

Some days I think my mom is fine and not being incredibly insane but my daughter will text me something like, “I’m so done.” And I’m like… oh…

That’s not at all happening today! It’s just funny. Because she IS insane but she’s also 10937483929 times better than how she ever was before my daughter came along. Currently my mom is scouring through texts to prove I knew all of the details about her knee shots that are weekly and have to be done exactly on the date and blah blah blah. I never read those group texts. If I put my phone down for 15 minutes, sometimes I’ll come back to 57 texts in the group. I cannot. Someone will catch me up later or it clearly has nothing to do with me. Anyway. She thinks I did engage in a conversation about it because I said they use those shots for wrinkles. I’ve never said or texted those words in my life. I wouldn’t even know what they use for that. So she’s spending her day searching for proof. It’ll keep her busy.

This is an example of how crazy she is: the whole family will be on the main floor, in the family room. The stairs down to her level are a very short hallway away from the family room. She usually sits on the last recliner of the sectional that is the closest to those stairs. It’s a pretty long stair way but it’s still just stairs. She will sit with a baby monitor IN HER HANDS to watch her 3 year old, healthy, big dogs. Not sick. House trained fine. SOMETIMES. EVEN. IN. THEIR. CAGES. I swear I almost killed her. Yesterday she sat the monitor down and she was doing something with the boys so I covered it with an envelope when I walked out of the room. I really wish I would have been there to see her freak out and scramble to move the envelope so she could see them.

[i-dont-sleeppppppp-p]

I’ve always thought the quote, “NOT GREAT BOB,” was from the movie, “Little Black Book.”

I can’t fix that. I can’t change that. I’m pretty sure she says those exact words to that giant dog.

I’m keeping it as core knowledge.