You want me to do WHAT?

I've been here since 2004. 5 years. I didn't realize I'd been blogging that long. I don't think anyone reads my blogs anymore but that's ok. I like to come back for sentimentality sake. I'm heartbroken that ALL of my private diary I had saved on my hard drive was obliterated a month ago as the hard drive died a slow and painful death. Normally they can get the information off the drive by mounting it on their server, but the drive wouldn't respond. Period. It was cold dead. Which means I lost pictures and documents from about 2007 onwards. Highly treasured photos at that. Maybe it's for the best that my kids don't read all that garbage I used to write about George. Entries upon entries of disgust, contempt, borderline hate. Maybe it is better to just put it all behind me and let them have what little memory of him they have left. Jake has no memory of him hardly at all, and Ry remembers very little. The memories will fade as they get older, I'm c...

Well as much "Fall" as it can get in September here anyways. Kiddos are back in school, and it's going..well...meh....ok I guess. Ry hasn't been the target of bullies yet, so I'm pretty thankful for that, but I'm still gonna be keeping an eye and ear out. Jake isn't impressed with 2nd grade, I think he's bored, honestly. He asked me if he could just skip 2nd and go to 3rd grade, and I almost went for it. But then I hark back to my days in elementary, when they wanted to advance me a grade, and my mom asked me about it, allegedly I said "no" and that I'd rather stay with my own class. So I'm thinking that even tho academically Jake may be ready for 3rd grade, emotionally he's not. He's such an academic snob though. Seriously! He tells me quite frequently that he just wishes everyone would learn how to "shut their piehole" (gulp, a pickup from me, I'm afraid) and quit bugging him in class. I told him he wouldn'...

Woooohooo can you hear it? I can. It's the sound of parents happily buying school supplies and clothes. Wait...what's that you say? You don't get happy about buying school stuff? Think about it this way...you're buying not just tools for your child's education, but tools for your PEACE and sanity to return for a little while. Now I love my kids, really I do. But having a summer full of nothing but RAIN has driven them and me a bit batty. I promised at the first of June to set up their pool. Then the end of June. By mid-July we realized it wasn't happening. So we'll probably end up going to the lake if we catch a sunny day sometime to go swimming. Of course with this "break" in sight, comes a bit of melancholy. Ry's going to 5th grade, and JJ's (yes JJ, his new nickname as my youngest niece can't pronounce his full name and we think it's cute) going to 2nd. And my oldest niece, who seemingly was only born just a few months ago, is st...