The Pagan Mom Blog

I have often joked that you know when you have hit blogger superstardom, when you receive hatemail and a possible stalker. We here at PMB are so excited to announce that we have finally acheived this!!! WOHOOO!!! Break out the balloons and cookies!

Ok so I got this email and honestly, I laughed. Then I wondered, should I just hit the delete button? Should I post about it? What? Then there was something said in the email that made me think, yea…..I am totally going to post it here. So without further ado here is the email (scroll down to where I nitpick it if you want to skip the email):

I tried to call you while you were at ingles, but you had already left. I saw you on four square and just thought I would give you a shout. Dont forget to wipe!
Oh, BTW, it is really stupid to put your mastercard on your phone. Tell your father-in-law that the best way to make online purchases is to buy a pre-paid credit card, load it using cash and then use it to make online purchases. NEVER EVER save credit card data on ANYTHING! (read your blog

I love four square. It gives me the energy to get up an fuck with people. stupid people who love to tell the whole fucking world where they are and what they are doing. Then they blame hackers. But it was their own stupidity and they go on un-aware of their own ignorance until yet again another “hacker” causes mischief in their petty little lives. These people should learn how to think. And another thing…….

OH, My…. was I blogging out loud again? I meant for that to go to my blog site. Sorry for the confusion!

Now, let’s discuss….shall we?
I tried to call you while you were at ingles, but you had already left. I saw you on four square and just thought I would give you a shout. Dont forget to wipe! Hmmmm. Ok so yea I checked in on foursquare saying I had visited Ingles. Of COURSE I already left. I don’t check in when I am physically there.  I am constantly amused by people who assume that you must be at the store to check in. Hell, I have been known to come home after work and check in to 4 different places I had visited that day. The only exception to my rule is drive thrus and if I am at a local event. Besides, there is a much easier and 100% more obvious way to know where I will be. If this person had paid any attention they could have figured out it wasn’t foursquare! Lastly, I have no idea what the “Don’t forget to wipe” statement is supposed to imply. I am going with the idea it’s for a shock factor. Who knows?

Oh, BTW, it is really stupid to put your mastercard on your phone. Tell your father-in-law that the best way to make online purchases is to buy a pre-paid credit card, load it using cash and then use it to make online purchases. NEVER EVER save credit card data on ANYTHING! (read your blog first let’s clarify that I was NOT discussing my father in law. He uses the internet for email. Nothing more. I was discussing my husband and having gone back and re-read the post I can see where the individual made the connection. I am taking that as a blogger lesson and will work to make sure that my posts are clearer. Secondly, this is what we call “preaching to the choir”. I thought it was pretty clear that I was unhappy about the idiot things my husband has done. So by the time I got here I was laughing even harder than when I started out and thinking, “no shit sherlock”.

I love four square. It gives me the energy to get up an fuck with people. stupid people who love to tell the whole fucking world where they are and what they are doing. Then they blame hackers. I wasn’t quite sure how to break this up so I decided not to. I love foursquare myself. I find alot of new local places to hang out at thanks to my local tweeters. I often meet up with them thanks to foursquare. And yes, I do love telling people what I do. That’s why this is being posted. This is life, real life, and I don’t hide from it. I share the good, bad, and ugly. You can either like it or not. You can read it or not. But, Mr. Stalker, it is very hypocritical to show such nasty hate for me sharing with the world what I do and yet say you love foursquare. And really, if that is what gets you up in the morning, I feel sorry for you. Maybe if you spent time going out and enjoying life you could be much happier? And don’t try to say that you ARE happy, people don’t use such strong language when they are truly happy with themselves. Now that last part, about the hackers. I would really love for someone to explain HOW blogging, tweeting, and checking in on foursquare after a store visit causes a hacker to put a virus on my work computer. Yea cause my tech friends and just about anyone with a basic computer understanding knows that it cannot happen that way. A virus is placed VIA email or infected website. Since I check all my email on my phone I can’t get it any othr way BUT by an infected website. For that matter, the website I suspect infected my work computer is (1) the only website I visit at work for the purpose of having some enjoyable music to listen to while I crunch numbers and (2) I visited daily. It also has been reported numerous times on their forums about the SAME virus I had for the last few weeks.

The rest of the email isn’t important enough to really tear apart. It shows a sad sad little person. I am guessing that they are either a young teenager or a shut in. I also suspect that I am probably not the only person they try to torment. Problem is, I have had some stalkers in my time. This person is nowhere CLOSE to being as terrifying. This person is really new at trying to be an annoyance. This person is also scared of me. Why email me? Why not comment right on the blog? It’s always been my policy to never block any comment unless it’s spam. If they are so big and bad then certainly they could respond in a public forum! Lastly, I know who this is. A good stalker makes it difficult to know. And this individual tried, they even had foresight to create a new email account just to send me an email. That really shows how much they love me! The email is hilarious, wholywhore@yahoo.com. Who names themselves wholy whore? And wholy isn’t even a word, did they mean wholly, holey, or holy?  But anywho, yea I know who this is. I apparently bruised their ego. Poor thing. If you can’t have a thick skin when involved in social media, it’s best to not even be involved.

So there it is folks…..I am famous now! One of my awesome lovely pagan sisters has already dubbed me “twitter ho”. I guess we can add foursquare ho and blogger ho to it too! WOHOOO!

Or at least I am going to try not to have a pity party.

Last week sucked work wise. I took Tuesday as a sick day. I felt bad and slept all day. But I am not sure that I was sick. Then Wed we were closed due to a snowstorm that came plowing through. The snow is killing us here with our work! Thursday I come in to find that my computer was infected with a very bad virus. Amazingly my free anti-virus had “disappeared” and did not protect me. No, it wasn’t AVG (for those that recommended AVG as I tweeted about the situation), it was avant garde if I remember correctly. Hell it was so long ago when we put it on there I don’t remember. So we went to the store and bought McAfee. The guy at the shop was saying we would need to bring the computer in. So we bought McAfee for when it was fixed and to talk to the boss. We tried to fix it ourselves. This virus “XP Internet Security 2010″ had an anti-antivirus program countermeasure. Which means we could get McAfee started on the computer but it wouldn’t configure. So then we tried to turn on the comp in safe mode and we couldn’t do it. We think it was the virus. THEN we managed to get online and I called McAfee for help. McAfee still had not configured but it was on there enough to slow down the virus and let McAfee tech people get remote access and clear it out.  Yesterday at work I decided to go to playlist.com for some soothing music. I clicked “My playlists” and got a popup about Malware and McAfee took over and blocked the attempt. Now I know where I got the virus. I visit daily and after the massive crash 2 years ago I had been VERY careful about where I went. That’s another place to put on the “do not visit” list!

The father in law and I have been discussing the hubs. I am finding out way too much stuff this week and I have renewed anger. Here we go!
1. Not only does he have the Discover card but he reinstated his Mastercard! Both are maxed out!

2. His Mastercard is linked to Google checkout on his phone. He kept saying Alex was buying games on his phone. Been telling me that for weeks and every time I said he can’t without a credit card. At no point did he feel it necessary to tell me that he had in fact put a credit card on Google Checkout. I found out one morning when Alex came out with his phone and I took it from him. I saw his gmail (which he doesn’t use) had dozens of notifications. So me being the nosy wench I am, I looked. They were game receipts with his mastercard number on it. That’s how I found out he reinstated his mastercard. And he is an idiot for putting it on his phone! If it’s stolen or lost and someone gets it, they are going to have a field day trying to shop. And what if he did manage to get the card paid off. Free shopping for the next theif!

3. He is only working 20 hours a week. It’s tax time and he is working 20 hours a week. I know I am not the only one who sees issue with this. He is supposed to be getting corporate taxes done for his dad, whom in turn is having to do them all by hisself. I informed my father in law that he was welcome to fire hubs ass whenever he wanted. I get sick and tired of everyone else busting their ass and hubs does bare minimum because he knows he won’t suffer any consequences. He loses his job I will have him removed from the house. I am that fed up. Unfortunatley father in law doesn’t want to because he knows I can’t afford the kids on my own. And it’s true, I would have a major issue doing it on my own right now. But I am willing to take that risk.

4. Hubs tells the father in law (not me) that he is signing the car over to me. Let me back up for a minute. Our car is not legal. It hasn’t been legal in over a year. His mom recently borrowed the car and got  a ticket. She was pissed off and I don’t blame her. So his solution is to sign the car over to me. Why? Well as my father in law states “So it becomes your problem and not his”. Ok fine. When I get the car, which I told him must be 100% legal before I will put my name on the title, I will trade it in and get a new car that has a smaller gas tank, thus allowing me to afford gas. Now what he doesn’t know is that I will not be allowing him to drive my car. He wants to put more shit on me instead of growing up and being a man, fine. Ok. But he better figure out what he is going to do cause I am not going to allow him to benefit from me. I won’t drive him to work unless I am going to work. And his clients that he has to drive to see every Tuesday, well he isn’t using my car to do it and I am not driving him. He wants to make it difficult for me, I can make it difficult for him.

So with all of this coming up, last night the car started acting up again. He never did take it in to have brakes looked at like he promised 2 months ago. There is a high pitched squealing sound as I drive and then when I hit brakes it goes away, hence why we suspect brakes. As of last night we have a belt slipping. He will wait until it breaks down. Then he will take it to our usual mechanic (whom is no longer as dependable as he was and one I will not take my new car to) and then we will be without car cause hubs has issues with getting a loaner.

So it’s Monday. I am hoping it’s a better week. More hours, maybe some good news. It has to be better than last week!

Monday already? Time is flying by very quickly!

Exercise – hahahahhahaha what is that? Yea, I am working alot and well I am sleeping in until I absolutely must get up and get laundry worked on and breakfast cooked. By the time i get home in the evenings I am catching up with reading (which is a must, more on that in a minute) and researching stuff on homeschooling.

Reading – This week’s Witchy Wednesday is being postponed. I am doing a book review on Wednesday. It must be posted that day because there is a giveaway going on and it’s part of the review agreement I made. This one has been so exciting I can’t wait to get the blog post written for it.

Other Giveaways – I am going to be reviewing some educational software so keep your eyes peeled for that review AND giveaway! I should have that up by this weekend but absolutely no later than Monday next week.

Homeschooling – still doing alot of research. I found a website, Homeschool Helper, that has been a blessing. They have all kinds of forms for recordkeeping that I have printed off and organized into a binder. Last night the girls and I discussed the curriculum. They really enjoyed having the opportunity to have a voice in what they learned. Claire really wanted to learn more about the human body so that became our science course. Molly really wants to learn about the American Revolution so that is her history course. This morning I am calling my old high school to get the copy of transcript so I can send off the paperwork. At noon I am meeting with a woman from the local homeschool group, she is selling off her elementary curriculum books and I am buying all of it. After having looked at book prices online, I am getting an amazing deal for this stuff! Over the weekend I picked up some books at the Dollar Tree for Alex, basic phonics and math type books for the Kindergarten age. Once all of my paperwork gets in I am going to set about getting educator cards at various stores in town. I found about 4 places that have educator cards. I have my AC Moore’s card which should come in handy and I may go get a Michael’s card just in case. I don’t go there often but it might help to have an extra card anyway. Oh annnddd I found a site (not bookmarked on this comp so I email me for link) that you can create a teachers ID card and student ID cards. I am not going to make any student ones as of yet, not sure what we would use those for. But the teacher ID would be helpful to show to get some of my educator cards locally.

Yard Sale – this weekend I am participating at the girls’ school yard sale. I am not actually selling anything though. I am doing a March of Dimes table. My goal is to pickup loose change donations and recruit some walkers to join our efforts. We are working hard to meet our goal of $600 (as a team, my personal goal is $500) and I think we need more people involved to meet it.

Tonight is Girls Night Out. And we are going to my fave place in town…..La Carretta. MMMMMMM love their nachos! It will be nice to have some giggle time with the ladies.

So that is all that is going on around here. Hope you all are well. I think I won’t post tomorrow so I can prepare for the Review/Giveaway on Wednesday. See you then!

So for my commenters yesterday, thank you! I thought about commenting to each one but really it will all be right here with my news.

I came to the realization yesterday that I had not done Alex’s enrollment paperwork to get him into Kindergarten at the girls’ school. That has to be done by end of next month. It didn’t seem right to enroll him when I have been considering the homeschool option this much. I kinda had it in  my head that if we did it would be next year. Why would I enroll him for a year just to yank him out?  I was already nervous on how the girls’ might take it. So when the girls’ got to the office and got their homework done yesterday, we talked. I started out with confirming that I had been serious when I mentioned the possibility of homeschooling and checked out a few things about it. With nothing more I asked them how they felt about it and encouraged questions (which have been nonstop since yesterday). I was very surprised and very releived. Both of them instantly jumped at the chance. Molly’s main reason was that she was tired of waiting on other students to be ready to move forward. Which also made me feel bad for them because even though she waits, those that aren’t getting it are still rushed with time limits. Claire’s reason was that she was tired of the kids in her class constantly being disruptive. Both of them said they thought it would be cool to have more momma/kid time. Made my heart smile! They were a bit worrisome too. Molly has two friends that she really wants to keep in touch with and I already know them quite well so I see no issue with arranging friend time with them. Claire’s only concern was getting a midmorning snack lol.

The hubs is not as thrilled. He doesn’t wish to be listed as a teacher on our forms because he feels we should have teaching licenses to qualify to teach our children. I kinda understand that but he isn’t all that aware of what is going on in our schools. The eldest’s teacher has told me numerous times that she has to take a day to learn some of what she teaches in the class. Case in point was an issue with how they are teaching division this year. She had only known how to do long division, she had to learn the new method before showing the kids, and she showed me how it works at a parent teacher conference. Seems like her teaching license really said she had learned how to teach kids, not how to teach that specific curriculum for the year. He also doesn’t get that curriculum changes each year within that grade. Sure as they get older they may have subjects that I just can’t teach, like say Calculus. So I find someone who can. And I clearly pointed out that if it doesn’t work out we can put them back into school. Trust me, their education is everything to me…..I won’t let my kids get stupid.  So yea he isn’t happy but we are moving on with it anyway.

The decision wasn’t easy until the kids let me know they were on board with it. Had they said they really wanted to stay in public school I would have dropped the issue immediatley. In my opinion had I pulled them out against their will, it would have been a bad foundation for them learning. I honestly never thought I would do  homeschooling, I can find alot of positives with putting kids into a public or private system. I think that at this point in our lives, it’s a good move.

So today I am going to go ahead and talk to the boss. I am 100% he will be flexible with me since I am real good about keeping up with my deadlines and have a good work ethic (those were his words in a conversation late last year lol).  I also have to call my old high school to get the transcripts to send off with paperwork to the state. This is kind of exciting.

*I purchased this book at a used bookstore and did not receive anything in return of this review*

I got this book called Pagan Homeschooling. I have been considering homeschooling for a little while now. Mostly with the concerns of the snow days and the onslaught of the change in children in 4th grade. My eldest has issues with some of the girls who have turned catty. Nothing physical, my eldest just thinks they are being idiots and these girls are being….well girls. Anywho it has been on my mind for awhile. And I have certain things that hold me back from doing so. More on that in a bit though, want to get to this book.

The title is almost misleading because it isn’t JUST about pagan homeschooling but homeschooling in general. They start off with a checklist of reasons why you may or may not want to homeschool. Only 1 of my reasons were listed. The book also covers resources that are both pagan in nature and those that are secular. The book is written for the pagan parent who does not wish to inundate their child with Christian influence, so the resources are devoid of those influences. That was reassuring because it seemed like every homeschool site I found online was about Christian homeschooling. The book touches on various stages of childhood; kindergarten, tweens, and puberty. Even better is the issue of children with special needs and how to handle that. The book covers using boxed curricula, unschooling,eclectic styles, what supplies you need, etc etc etc. As a bonus the book does offer insight on how to bring in paganism into your classroom IF YOU SO CHOOSE TO. The author makes it very clear that it is a personal decision to bring in religious teachings and that one doesn’t need to feel obligated in doing so in order to homeschool. She offers some pagan exercises to use with your children to help you get started.

So I have to be honest. I haven’t read it all the way through. I did a skimming type read because i have another book review that I am doing that must be posted very soon. After we get through tax time I will be really sitting down with the kids and talking to them about how they feel about it. Especially the older two who have been in public school for almost 6 years. My reasons for doing so are so that I can have them in a year round curriculum, use every chance I can for a teaching experience (ex: grocery store trip), be able to teach them about various religions now, make sure that too many snow days don’t mess them up, and their personal safety is a huge issue for me. After my experiences as a child and seeing more and more school shootings being reported on the news….I do fear for them. Now what I fear most is: I won’t be able to educate them in the manner they need, I won’t be able to work from home, I will get burned out being around my kids all day, and they will miss out on alot of opportunities they get from school. One thing is no more Saturday classes at University North Carolina because they are only offered to the gifted children. To be in gifted program you have to be in the public system. Same goes for Molly’s opportunity to go to Wake Forest this summer for a week, that is only offered to gifted children. Those things I don’t want to take from her because they are amazing opportunities. So I still feel like I am on the fence. I don’t want to mess up my kids, ya know?

Ok so the book info is:

Pagan Homeschooling: A Guide to Adding Spirituality to Your Child’s Education

by: Kristin Madden

published by: Spilled Candy Books

**As of this morning I will be discussing it with my girls this morning. I was very upset to hear of yet another school shooting. I am also extremely disgusted by our city’s refusal to consider year round schooling. Their viewpoint is that since we are a tourist town we must have kids off in summer to be available to work. With the many that are jobless I find it interesting we put off the work onto our students! After talking with my girls we will make the decision and then I will work with my boss on how to remedy the work situation. I am certain we can arrive at some sort of arrangement. He has been wonderful in the past about working with me and I have made sure to keep up with deadlines**

Seems like I miss so many days to sit and write that by the time Monday rolls around I got too many things to cover. A couple of topics I think I will save for Associated Content. Those are the high profile topics that I think I want to try and get lots of hits for so maybe I can make enough to get paid. Some of the more mundane I will cram in today.

Exercise – Well, it’s going ok. I am upset cause I canno find my pilates dvd and I prefer that because it’s not as hard on the knees. I did 30 Day Shred on Saturday and oy my knees throbbed for about an hour afterwards. I got a walk in yesterday morning but I didn’t go far because I am that out of shape and it hurt the lungs. Plus I just can’t walk slow. I think that is the city girl in me, wayyyy back in my teen years I walked everywhere. And in a big city you kind of have to. Anywho today I haven’t done anything yet. It’s rainy so no walking. I might squeeze in a bellydance dvd later.

Crafts – yes I posted about that yesterday but I sorta forgot something. I ordered a sewing machine. I have been dying to get the hang of sewing, I really suck at it. What prompted me was looking at sites about making your  own menstrual pads (look away guys). First it sounded gross in a fascinating sort of way but now I really want to make some. It is so much better for the environment instead of disposables or tampons. And with the eldest somewhat  getting close to the age of menstruation I would like to start her out right. And when we have talked about it she likes the idea of being able to have her own personal pads that are in colors and patterns that she chooses.  So yea, I am waiting for that to arrive.

Easter & Ostara – are well on the way. I have been hearing the birds chirp outside in the mornings and it feels like such a wonderful sound to hear as you wake up. With the work crunch I have gone against my feelings and ordered the kids their baskets from Swiss Colony. When I grew up I got handmade candies. With the exception of our jellybeans and my annual Cadbury Creme Egg. I wanted to continue that on and I did before becoming an accountant. Now  I struggle to find 5 minutes to knit let alone an hour to spend making a few spring items. And it would take around 5 hours to get all 3 covered in candy. Oh well, I doubt that the kids will really cry. And I may squeeze in time to make some daffodil lollipops with my kids on Ostara. Course that means I need to find all my supplies.

Ok tha is all I got for now.

I have no idea what to call this post lol. It’s a hodge podge so far in my head.

So far girls have been back in school since yesterday. Mon & Tues they were out because the schools were too overly concerned and called it off. Nothing happened on either day. This Saturday they have a makeup day. Ironically I find out from the news and a recorded phone call but NOTHING has been said about a time frame. I have no idea if this is a normal day of school. Other counties that are doing school this Saturday have announced on the news and online the time frame. I am now thinking that the city district is just too chicken to commit because they think we will get snow. It’s supposed to be in the 50’s this weekend. So freaking frustrating. I get being concerned for safety but this overly protective bs is for the birds. I am considering homeschool once again because at least then I don’t have to worry about snow days. And I could do year round like I want for my kids anyway. BUT, I have got to get myself established with working at home in order to do this. AND it has to be something that I can do when the kids & I move out.

Which brings me to the marital situation. Nothing has changed. He started trying to tell me he was reading these articles on mental disorders and how insomnia is related (I already knew and this is by far not old news). Basically I took away from that whole thing that he was trying to see if I was having a mental breakdown. Perhaps I am, it doesn’t negate the fact that there is marital bullshit to deal with. And when I informed him that marital stress contributes to mental issues he didn’t have a dam thing to say to it. At this rate he isn’t going to find anything out until I am packing the bags. He will not discuss it. And if he doesn’t care enough to discuss it I am not going to waste my time chasing him down to force him to discuss it.

Work has been nuts. Usually is but this year the boss is stuck at home because it has been snowing hard at his house. They live north of us on a mountain. So that’s where all the snow people have been freaking out over has been. Now people are upset because I cannot keep up with the phone. Hubs has been out dealing with his appointments and I have been by myself. With two phone lines. Piles of work to do. And when the phone rings it’s not one line that will ring but both. One guy even came over to the office because he claimed he called several times and there was no answer. He acted perturbed that I don’t have superwoman qualities.

Enough of the bitching though, it’s not all horrible. Hours at work have been awesome. I had a night out the other night at a Haiti Benefit. $5 glasses of wine (although they didn’t have my Reisling!), free chocolate truffles, and a String Quartet. It was awesome. Tonight I have a meeting with TedXAvl. I am a volunteer in their Hospitality department. What this means, I don’t know. LOL! No the organization offers a night of speaking about Technology, Entertainment, and Development. This event will happen in September so we are in planning mode.

I am also doing the March for Babies walk this year. Actually its me and Molly that are doing it. I haven’t done this fundraiser in a long time but I decided we are gonna do it this year. So if you can help there is a handy button to the right you can click to help us out. If you want to help out but strapped for cash, then please join a local walk. Every little penny helps!

Which brings me to my motivation to get fit. I have 65 days to get myself to where I can handle that walk. So once I get the hubs to order more heating oil in our house (we are out again!) I am going to start doing pilates and the 30 Day Shred video. After tax season I am going to order P90X. It is a tough workout but I think it will do nicely for what I want, which is to shed the awful fat from my body and get toned. And once it warms up I will start walking again. My Droid works nicely as an MP3 player so that will help out alot.

All of this also leads to another volunteering gig I am lining up. We have a street festival here called Bele Chere. It’s 3 days of music, awesome food, craft booths, and 300,000 people crammed into our city streets. I volunteered once before in the Children’s Area. This year I am shooting for a roving volunteer. Basically I walk around and give help to whomever needs it. Whether it is finding a specific booth or band or helping them navigate to their car or finding their hotel. I like that idea better because I will work with one other person and we can roam around while helping others. Children’s Area wasn’t bad last time I just don’t want to be stuck in one place like that. I had sort of a traumatic experience last time. I had tried avoiding working on facepainting because I have no cool drawing skills. But that last day someone bailed on us and I gave in and helped that table. I was there for 7 hours. For the most part kids gave me easy tasks. Once in awhile I got something that I had no clue what it even was lol. But the worst was this sweet little boy, maybe all of 7 years old. He wanted superman emblem on his cheek (the one thing I could do extremely well!). So I was hard at work and we were chatting. I can’t remember the specific question but it was something like “Why can’t I do this, so and so can!” I responded “I don’t know, maybe you should ask your mom and dad”. That’s when the kid looked at me so serious, but not sad,  ”My mom died when I was a baby”. Talk about feeling like a huge pile of poo! And what do you say to that? I apologized to him for it and he seemed ok but I just felt horrible. Like I was supposed to start asking all the kids if their parents were alive just so I could be sure I didn’t commit that faux pas again. Fortunatley his dad overheard it and later came up to me and said not to feel bad. I still did. So yea, I will try my hand in another area this year and see how that goes.

So what is going on with you all????

My son is a little dancer. He ALWAYS dances around the house. So I got to thinking about it and have decided he really needs to do dance classes. He has the right idea he just has no coordination or rhythm lol. But anywho I set about checking online locally for some classes. I discovered that a lot of sites are dedicated to little girls. I know it’s not the most popular thing for little boys to do but if I am going to hunt down boys dance classes, it helps to see boys on the website. Of course maybe they don’t have any boys dancing. And that is good to know cause I don’t want to shove my boy in a class full of girls. I want him to see other boys getting jiggy with it. I dunno, maybe it’s a pipe dream lol.

The other thing I quickly discovered is that dance classes run like school. All the ones I found started in August and ended in May. Not exactly what I wanted to see in February, ya know? I get the whole recital thing but I kinda wasn’t expecting to have recitals, just somewhere that he can go….get his groove on…and learn a few things. No pressure or anything. But, that doesn’t look like it will happen.

So I am looking at two places. One is downtown. I don’t understand their pricing. It says something like $40 45 min class per month. Now the way I read that is “$40 for one 45 min class per month”. Hopefully I am wrong because that seems ridiculously stupid. This is one of the sites that has all girls. Hip Hop classes start at age 5 which will be fine cause Alex turns 5 in July. The other place is 30 min away and is $36 per month  for a 45 min class each week. It clearly said that. Very understandable. AND they offer all boys hip hop classes AND show boys on their website AND offer one free class for boys. I think that is to motivate people to actually let boys take dance lessons.

So who knows. I think it would be a great experience for him to learn how to move the right way. He loves to be the center of attention so I think he would love being a performer. At least in our living room anyway lol.

I have had the unfortunate pleasure of really noticing my shape in the mirror.  And I mean REALLY noticing. It’s not that I beleive I will ever be my 130 lb self again, but I do need to do something to take some weight off so a walk to the corner doesn’t knock me out.

When we get snowed in I get cabin fever. I will happily walk to the coffee shop, a corner store, or the grocery store just to get out. Unfortunatley my body cannot handle it. I am usually red faced and barely able to breathe, employees tend to freak out and want to call 911. And I sit around and think about doing exercise and whatnot but I have some hangups. First I hate to exercise in front of people. Especially the hubs who is ten times more sedentary than me. Why? Cause he likes to inform me that I am not “doing it right”. Nothing is more irritating than having a fellow fatty (who is twice your size) tell you that you are doing it wrong while they are sitting with a bag of cheetos. Just saying.  But the other issue I have is I am not motivated in the winter which is usually when I am at my biggest. Come spring and summer I love to be outdoors. Whether it’s just walking outside, camping, hiking, or just sitting outside. I feel my most invigorated when I am outside in warmer weather. Winter makes me want to be inside. I don’t like being cold and I don’t like being out in the cold. I used to take morning walks, not since it got cold though. So I don’t know what to do. I want to be moving around but I don’t want to be cold. BLAH!

So I was going to do this post about my Tuesday Morning but a few other things have happened since then and it inspired a pet peeve post. I haven’t done one of these in awhile and I felt like it would be a good topic.  Ready?

1. Abuse of your dog. Ok maybe that is a bit extreme BUT I really felt bad for this dog yesterday. We were under a Blizzard Warning and we had winds of up to 60mph. I saw a woman walking her chihuahua (sp?) along a busy road. It was really cold and the woman had foresight to put on extra doggy clothing. Unfortunatley it was either too small, doggy had arthritis, or the cold was bone numbing to poor doggy. This sad little thing was struggling to move his tiny legs. And even worse was the leash was pulled taut as she tried dragging him down the street. I know dogs need exercise but this thing needed to be picked up and cuddled. He was so miserable!

2. Solicitor’s who whisper. I had a call at our office and this woman whispered the entire call. I was really frustrated because I told her repeatedly that I could not hear her. She continued to whisper and all I could get from her was she wanted to send a fax. I thought she might have been a client who was ill and couldn’t speak but needed to get us some information. No. She was from the local paper trying to do some sort of fundraising. It’s bad enough that she wasted my time (and I missed several client calls while dealing with her) with her solicitation but she WHISPERED! What the hell? Is that supposed to be a new trick or something? And if you are sick to the point of loss of voice and your job requires cold calling, you can’t do your job. Go Home! It will be a joy when she calls back in a few days.

3. Who has the worst weather. If you are on the East Coast you know how bad the weather has been. Last night I heard even Louisianna was getting hit with snow! What I really hate is  the pissing contest. ”Well we have 4 feet of snow, pity us more because that is worse” mentality. Northeners who don’t understand why 2 feet of snow shuts down the south, etc etc. Bottom line, it’s not about how much snow you get but how your area can handle it. In MD, my parents have 50″ of snow and yet have power. We get 2 feet around here and you can kiss your power goodbye for at bare minimum of 12 hours and maximum of 3 days (and maybe more if you are real rural). It’s all because north have the training, the crews,and the equipment to deal. We do not. If we had 50″ it would kill us around here. Louisiana it’s gonna be worse. So don’t knock people because they don’t have as much as you and can’t handle it. How often do you think we get snow? LOL we have had more snow this year than what we get in 2!

4. Cellphone usage while driving. Tuesday morning on my way to work was beyond treacherous. I had two people almost rear end me, one almost sideswipe me, and two more cut me off all together. Why? Because they were on their cell phones not paying attention. I used to be one of those people until I almost ran a red light. I refuse to touch my phone while driving now. When they passed the law making it illegal to use themI was thrilled. Too bad it’s not being enforced! I was so scared and pissed Tuesday that there was a 6th person. A woman in a black PT Cruiser. Yea. She was on her phone and driving down the road soooooo slooooooowww. Guess what I did. I laid on my horn the whole way down the road. Oh yes I did. I wanted to interrupt her conversation that bad. 

So there are just a few.Feel free to add to the list in the comments section!