Around noon today, I dropped a board on my foot. I think my middle toe is broken, it's swollen and hurts just to touch it. Of course the board broke the skin on two of my toes, the middle one and the one next to the big toe, so I had to put bandages on them. Now the middle one hurts even more. I'd take a picture but I'd have to remove the wild animal bandages that are on them.

I'm going through things again. Tossing even more stuff. Unfortunately that means that the living-room is pretty messy as I sort through things. Now that I hurt my toes, I'm going to have to re-evaluate what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it. I think one of my end tables is going to get taken out. One leg came off when we moved in here. I might be able to fix it, but it will probably always be weak. If I do fix it I'll try to find someplace to put it where it won't get abused by Aidan who seems to think that tables are for playing on.

The heat of summer has finally hit. It will be in the 100's for the next few days. I hate the heat! Well, at least my cooler is working, it makes things bearable. I hope you all can keep cool, and enjoy the summer.

One word.

From Jennifer St. Clair

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me.
It can only be one word.
No more.
Then copy & and paste this in your journal so that I may leave a word about you.

Updates

Everything is back to normal now, I'm not constantly worried about Aidan getting lost. I still keep a close eye on him, but I always did that. I'm even less worried about letting Aidan go outside with Howard. I realize that Howard was just as scared as I was, and has learned something about being a parent.

Aidan can count to 10! Well, I'm not sure that anyone but Howard and I would know that is what he is doing. LOL He sometimes skips 6 or 7, but he loves 3, 8, 9 and 10. He still isn't talking very much. It's starting to get frustrating for him and for me. Maybe the frustration will help him want to talk more. It's fun watching him learn new things. I'm thrilled with his love of books, even though he won't often sit still long enough for me to read one to him. He will sit down on his own and look at them and pretend to read one of them. He still loves his cars and trucks best of all his toys, he even likes to sleep with them. I'll have to get a picture of that one of these days.

I want to paint the rest of the kitchen, but I don't know when there will be time for it, actually time enough without Aidan getting underfoot.

Over the week-end

This week end was pretty busy for us. Friday Howard worked with his cousin Jimmy, while Aidan and I just went about our normal day.

Saturday we went shopping at Ross again. This time the store had a more normal amount of customers. We found a nice pair of slacks for Howard to wear to work. (I don't think I mentioned before, but Howard is working part time temporary for the City of Atwater. It's a possibility that it could develop into a permanent full time job eventually.) The slacks were only $14, the original price tag was $50 so we felt like we did pretty well on them. I found a cute orange t-shirt with Scooby Doo on the front for Aidan and Howard found a set of Spiderman summer pajamas. I got another pair of jeans, a pair of purple velvet lounge pants, and a top that Howard likes but I'll never wear in public because I have to wear it braless and at my age gravity is taking over if you know what I mean. LOL We spent close to $10 on Aidans stuff, and about $17 on my stuff.

Sunday we woke up a little later than usual, Aidan and I got up and let Howard sleep a little bit longer, then we went in to wake him up and give him his card and the cereal box. We had fun playing together. Then I made breakfast. Aidan and Howard playing together until nearly lunch time. We decided that we had to do laundry and that we wanted it to take as little time as possible, so we went to the laundry mat. Now we have lots of clean cloths. We had lunch at a little sandwich shop next door to the laundry mat. After that we went out to a family reunion. It was actually Jimmy's family (The side Howard isn't related to) but they wanted us to be there anyway. It was really nice, it was held in the yard of one of the family. They had 2 bouncy houses, games and wading pools and lots of kids. Everything was great until I asked Howard to watch Aidan so I could visit with out worrying about where he was. (The yard wasn't fenced and there was a road where people seemed to drive extra fast.) I guess Howard let Aidan out of the bouncy house, and thought he was going to me. I never saw him although some other people had seen him behind me for a while. Anyway, I went looking for Aidan over with Howard, he didn't know where he was. We started looking around, behind the cars, in the house, in the tents ... everywhere.

About 30 people from the reunion helped search. I was getting more and more upset, when someone mentioned the canal and asked if anyone had looked there. I almost fainted when I thought he might have fallen in. A minute or so later someone called "We found him!"

Aidan had walked down the road pretty far, I'm thinking that the distance to the corner where he was found is about the same distance as a normal block and a half. Some people found him and were going house to house searching for where he belonged. When I got my hand on him, I was crying and telling him that he did something very naughty and hugging him and wanting to spank him all at the same time! We left the reunion soon after that, because I was so upset.

I was very angry with Howard. He was supposed to watch Aidan, and didn't do a good enough job of it. I'm still a little angry, I follow Aidan everywhere he goes, or at least keep an eye on him at all times. I'm scared to let Howard watch Aidan if they are going to be outside, what if he gets busy with something and Aidan gets away from him again? What if the next time we are not so lucky? I think I'd loose it if something happened to Aidan. (Any of my sons actually.) I'm still shaking inside.

I hope you all had a good week-end.

The Father's Day thing.

Father's Day Cereal box.
I'm not sure why it's so blurry, but this is the best of 6 pictures, so there you go. It's a mini cereal box, the one serving size. The brand name across the top says "Aidan's Best Cereal" The kind of Cereal is "Father's Day Puffs" and the little blurb under the title says "Chocolate goodness for Daddy!" I think you can see the picture ok, but if not it the Cool kid picture from a few days ago. I actually put cereal in the box, Cocoa Puffs. It was fun making it!

Home Made Father's Day.

Thanks to Shylah I found a special home made Father's Day gift for Howard. It's at Mr Breakfast . I'll post pictures in a little bit, so you probably have already seen what I did. Now all I have to do is wait until Sunday. (Have I mentioned that I hate to wait? LOL)

Monday positives.

A few things I'm thankful for:

A pool to cool off in.
A happy healthy child.
The chance to do things I want to do.
Owning my own home, so I can so whatever I want to.
My friends and family.

Introspection

I've been thinking about my own need to make peace within myself. It's not that there is all that much chaos, or anger, or other disruption in reality but the little bit that there is I'd like to resolve. I think I need to accept myself, faults and all. I need to be completely happy with myself. That's the hardest part. I already feel that I accept the people closest to me faults and all. I accept that I can't change the things seem to me to be faults. I am very happy with my life as it stands now. All the faults in my life are actually just things I'd like to have. (More money, a bigger home). There are a few thing from the past that I need to really look at and let go. Self doubt and disappointment are the main hurdles I have to cross.

Aidan driving his go cart. 

The toy fish. 

Playing with the toy fish. 

Aidan is cool! 

A to do list.

Since we are going to be staying here in this little place I'm starting to make plans about the improvements I want to make around here.

1. 2 10x10 storage sheds. (because we need a building permit for anything bigger. I need one for storage and one for the washer dryer and freezer that we can't fit into the house.)

2. New windows and doors in the whole house.

3. A new floor, and carpet or wood laminate flooring through the whole house.

4. Remodel the bathroom completely.

5. Paint inside and out.

6. A fence around the yard

7. Plants, flowers and outside toys.

I don't know that we will get any of this done, but if we can set up a budget and Howard can work enough for Jimmy to get the materials, maybe we can make a good dent in the list. Jimmy said that he can get materials for the sheds for free, if the rules for such things allows for wooden sheds rather than metal ones. He said they can get the stuff and build both sheds in a week-end, even with all the interruptions that seems to happen when you would rather not be interrupted.

Trivia game,

I'd like to invite you to join my Daily Trivia Challenge for those of you who are in the Friends and Family Yahoo group, this is the same game. I'm going to put a link here in my links section. I hope you enjoy it, although right now it's set really easy because I wanted to get an idea of how it will work and what people will like.

Aidan and I.

I am feeling so very tired lately. I can barely get enough energy to get out of bed in the morning. I should check into getting some vitamins or something. If I were younger and still able to get pregnant I'd suspect that. Of course this could be symptoms of impending menopause, with it's hormonal shifts. I wouldn't mind either situation, but I would like it to hurry up and get past this drained feeling.

Aidan is growing and learning new things all the time, he is fairly normal for a 2 year old boy. His language skills are slowly improving but I still think he is behind where he should be. There are times he says things that completely blow me away. Like the other day he said "Shut up, bad dog." When Buddy was barking. I usually tell Buddy to "Be quiet" sometimes I will say something else like "There's nothing to bark at." Howard says "Shut up, Buddy" when he is here. I don't think that anyone says "Bad dog". So he wasn't just repeating what we say. But he still says, bite to mean that he is hungry, or thirsty, or that he sees something he thinks would be good to eat. He doesn't say Mama or Mommy, but he does say A-dad for Daddy. He is a good boy, active and curious, but in general he is very good. I am enjoying him very much.

Personally, I am split between wanting to work and wanting to stay home. It sometimes feels like two personalities, the one that loves working with people and wants to have a satisfying job, and the one that is happy to be home taking care of Aidan, cooking, cleaning, and all the rest of the traditional Mom things. Over all, I'd have to say that I am happy with my life. I don't have much money for extras, but all of the basics are taken care of. I'd like to go back to Oregon, but I can make it here if I have too.

Nothing new.

I'd like to say that something exciting has happened, or that I've had some kind of epiphany. But the truth is, my life is boring. Nothing is happening around here at all, except that it's starting to get hot. I'm still not doing anything creative. It looks like we will not be moving after all. The Park was sold recently and the new owners have fired the manager. He was the one who was going to get the double wide for us. So, since he is going to be leaving in the next 30 days or so I doubt it's going to happen. Other than that nothing new around here.

Genealogy

I've been lucky the last couple of weeks. I have an on-line subscription to a Scrapbooking magazine. Theyt had worked out a deal with Ancestry.com to allow access to the 1930 federal census. I was able to find all of my Grandparents, and their families. As well as a couple of Uncles who were either out on their own or were married already. I was able to find my fathers mother, she was only 12. I learned her mothers name, my Dad never knew it because he always called her Grandma. Her name was Cordelia. I found it interesting to discover that my Grandaddy, my Dads Dad, worked as a stenographer when he was 21. This also gives me some approximate birth years for some of the family members that we didn't have information on. I feel happy and satisfied with this information. I plan to get a years membership as soon as my Credit Card will handle the cost. It's almost $200. It will give me access to several census', as well as other databases. I really enjoy the research and I get a ... thrill when I find that elusive ancestor.

Cars and trucks

Aidan has discovered cars and trucks. He loves them. He even takes them to bed with him. I mentioned the book he picked out yesterday, it's about BIG TRUCKS! He usually loves to go out and play in the truck with his Uncle Jimmy, until today. Actually he still likes going out there as long as his book stays in the house. He didn't want Jimmy to read his book, and tried to hand it out the window to me. I don't know what he was thinking would happen to his book but he did not want it out there. In the end they did look at it together, and then Aidan climbed out the window, into my arms, carrying the book. Jimmy teased him by trying to grab the book. Aidan glared at him and tucked the book under his arm and turned away. It was funny.

I've been wanting to paint lately, but with Aidan around it's not an easy thing. If I had the time and the talent I'd like to paint some trucks on his wall, I don't know exactly what I'd do, but it would have trucks and cars and maybe even some tractors. Maybe I can find a stencil or something. Hmmm now I'm going to have to go looking around the internet for things I can use. Then I'll have to find the paints I'd want to use, and then figure out how to do it and how to get Aidan out of the way. Which means that it probably won't happen for awhile. I tend to start out all gung ho for a project, then as the problems build up I start to loose enthusiasm for it and eventually it gets left unfinished, or maybe even unstarted. But if I can get it done it will be really cute.

Shopping woes.

Remind me never to go to any store on it's opening week-end. We just got a Ross Dress for Less in Merced. Sometimes you can find good deals on things there. Howard and I decided to stop in and check them out. I didn't realize that it was opening week-end, that is until we walked inside. The place was a mad house, so many people! Children running loose with out parents any where close, and brand new cashiers. After I found a cute little outfit for Aidan (it was $7.99 for overalls and t-shirt) he spotted a book on Big Trucks. His favorite things are cars and trucks right now. So, for $3.99 I got that for him as well. I found a pair of jeans that fit me almost perfectly (I can make the adjustments needed) for $12.99, and a box for our mail for $3.99. We walked around a little more then got in line. Trust me to pick the slowest moving line in the whole store! I spent one and a half hours in that line. I guess someone was arguing about the prices on everything she had picked out, and then had a voucher which took extra work to get put into the register. Then it was shift change. Once I got to the check out, the girl was really sweet, but slow. She apologized for the delay and told me that almost all the cashiers were new to this job as of today. Oh well, Howard and Aidan went looking around while I stood in line, and then went out to the car so that we didn't have a whinny 2 year old in line for that long. I am pleased with my purchases, but I'll make sure that the next time we go over there it will not be any kind of special occasion.

Procrastination

I've been putting things off, or forgetting to do them. For example, I really should finish painting the kitchen, but since Aidan isn't napping much any more I've been putting it off. I got the upper cupboards painted. (Did I tell you all about the paint?) I've also forgotten to mail Allen a book he left here in November, and some pictures of him when he was little. There is no real reason why I've been so lax with that. I just don't think of it when I'm going out of the house, or I'll be out of money at the time I do think of it. Or I'm sure I'll get around to it later. (sigh) I really need to get that package mailed, and finish the kitchen, and maybe even paint the bathroom.