Teach your kids some RESPECT!

So I really wish parents would teach their kids a little respect.  Just a little.  Because a little goes a long way.  On my new route I have a middle school.  And it is the common knowledge of all bus drivers that middle schools are the work of the devil.  These kids got so angry that I was driving the bus route home the way the transportation department laid it out (instead of the 'shortcuts' that they wanted me to take) that I was called a BITCH, a FAT WHITE HO, and about a dozen other nasty names.  I started by telling them I was going to drive it the way the route sheet dictated.  That is when the name calling started.  Then I had to pull the bus over and inform them in no uncertain terms that I was not going to be called a BITCH and that they would have some RESPECT... respect for the bus, for themselves, for other people, and for the neighborhood.
One little girl said she wished she would have recorded my little rant.  But sure enough I asked the kids if we were clear, and wouldn't leave until I got a yes Ma'am.  (it took a little prodding).  But the very next day, the kids were polite and behaved much better.  Maybe they were only trying me, but really folks, raise your kids better than that.  Teach them to be appalled at NOT treating others with respect.  It would make the world a nicer place.

Oh the DRAMA!

So much for resolutions!  I had the best of intentions about this blog, and then life got in the way.  First week back at school, I had my seat crew work to do.  Not a big deal, but still less free time for me.  On a side note, KIDS REALLY TEAR UP SCHOOL BUSSES... I don't know why some kids think they can draw giant pictures of men's genitalia, or write some of the profanity I have seen written on seats.  Or rip, tear, pick, or stab a seat with a pencil 100's of times.  They would never do that crap in their parents cars.

So as soon as that week was over, I had a minor incident with a light pole.  Nothing serious, just a headache of drug testing.  But as soon as that was over, I got served with custody papers from Co-Co's dad.  He is 11 years old and we haven't seen a dime of support from him since he was 2.  He never even put his name on the birth certificate.  I have had an active case open with Child Support Enforcement since 2004.  They have not been able to locate him.  Then WHAMMO!  out of the blue he wants to get 50/50 custody, pay no child support, and have his name put on the birth certificate without a DNA test.

I of course am less than thrilled.  It comes out now that my FAMILY has been hanging out with him and getting free tattoos from him for years now.  But no one could speak up and say where he lived.  And my DS didn't even know that his step dad wasn't his Bio Dad.  That was an interesting conversation to say the least.

So my last 10 days or so have been spent interviewing lawyers to see who I liked and who could do what I want them to do, etc.  Begging my parents to loan me the money for the retainer (of course the putz filed right after we splurged and blew the Emergency Fund on Christmas presents).  And as luck would have it, my parents have an IRS thing that they are dealing with, so they just dropped 10 grand on a tax attorney.  So I am tapped out, but stuck trying to figure out how to come up with a retainer to get some legal representation during all of this.

I have been emotionally drained.  I wonder at times if keeping the putz away from my DS was the right thing to do, but then I am reminded of the physical violence that the relationship had, and although it wasn't directly aimed at my son, it was done in a way that my son was witness to it, or could have been a victim of it as an innocent bystander.  So I know I did the right thing.  Now if I can get a lawyer to help me convince a judge of the same thing.

I also bid for and got a new bus route.  Goodbye 51!  Hello 117!  It's a good bump in hours so that is nice, but it will be all new kids to learn and a whole new area to learn to drive.  I hope that it goes well.

I have briefly thought about some of the tools that I will be using to get my life on track as a grownup.  LOL!  I am a grownup but BOY would it be nice to have a safety net of cash to fall back on, or to be more organized.  One of the things I have seen is the 52 week Money Challenge.

It's a pretty simple concept really... you just start with $1 and add $1 to the total deposit each week... and you make the deposit and not touch it for a whole year and end up saving $1378 in a year.  I know the idea is saving some money each week and this is a funish way to do it.  My only hangup right now is that the December weeks (the last 4 or 5 of the year) you have to depost about $50 a week.  I get paid every other week and with 4 kids living at home now and 1 living at her mother's house it is an expensive holiday season for me.... that's 5 kids Christmas gifts, PLUS 2 birthdays in December alone for me.  I don't think I can save $50 a week.  Or $100 out of every check.

I have seen some people do it backwards, which is easier, but still rough for me right now with the need to pay the lawyers retainer.  I am giving it some thought about how to stagger the payments to work with my bi monthly payday's and my family finances.  I will let you know what kind of savings plan I come up with.  But I think my best bet is going to be working the keep the change savings plans, and the $5 plan, in conjunction with this one.

And as scandalous as it sounds, I would need to do this behind Big Daddy Woo Woo's back.  He is a hoarder and a spendaholic, but in a cheap way.  He will spend a few dollars at every thrift store and garage sale in the neighborhood if he knew we had the 'extra' money somewhere.  Saving money isn't his way.  I know he wants to get a house, or a 2nd vehicle, or even a motorcycle, but I am more on the school of thought that we should have a backup fund and get out of debt before we get MORE debt, expenses, and stuff.  Maybe that is why we are such a good balance with one another.... we both can go to extremes but they are separate extremes.

Weekly Wrapup and a birthday gift

I didn't get much accomplished yesterday, aside from looking everywhere for some hair chalks for my Neice's 14th birthday today.  I know she will love them, and I will still be the cool aunt.  I mean who wouldn't love wild hair color (it washes out easily so her mom will be happy too).  I found THESE hair chalks listed online and that is what gave me the idea.  A bit of google searching and I discovered that they are available at Beauty Brands.  There is a Beauty Brands store close to me, so off I went.
When I got to the store, the clerks had no idea what I was talking about.  Even better, they asked the stylists in their trendy onsite salon and none of them had ever heard of hair chalks.  Seriously?  A fat uncool soccer mom like myself knew about something before them?  Not Good.  So I went to Sally's Beauty Supply and they had a different brand but at a much better price than the $12.50 that the other chalks were.  I got Beyond the Zone Color BUZZ for $5.99 each on sale.  She got pink, blue, purple, and red (because the only other color was orange, and orange is kinda a crappy color.

Beyond the Zone Color Buzz hair chalks.  Isn't the giftbag sweet?  It was a Michael's fun find for just $1.50!

We are supposed to be heading over to my sister's house later tonight to have cupcakes and celebrate.  Should be there around 4 or so (since tomorrow is the first school day back after a LOOOOOOOONG 2 week winter vacation it has to be an early night)  I hope she likes them.

Overall, this week hasn't been too bad.  I have:

1. made Seth a cover for his Innotab
2. taken all the Christmas stuff down
3. tagged all of my MP3's correctly (and had to add music to the kids MP3 players)
4. started and kinda fizzled on the FLYLADY system.

Seems like I should have gotten a lot more done after looking at the list of the major stuff. 

I have a ton of household chores to get done today to get us all back on track from the winter vacation, and a few ideas about what I should work on this week.  So far on my upcoming to do list for the week:  organize my photo collection, backup all of the photos and music onto my backup hard drives, clean out my purse/driver bag and restock it with the stuff I need while I drive, weed out some baby toys from my living room, get some storage cubes for the bookshelf to organize the kids toys, try once again to organize the laundry room, and of course some kind of craft project.  

I haven't figured out what my craft project for the week will be yet, but I do know that my scrapbook page for the week will be of my Great Grandfather Andrew Mavros.  

Baby Blues....

Or so I would like to believe.  I once again spent another day doing absolutely Jack Shit.  I think I need some kind of plan to get going.  I mean other than the whole FlyLady thing.  I know there is a ton of stuff on my TO DO list.  But I am a great list maker, and a poor list doer.

I did put all the Christmas crap away though.  That has to count for something.  Besides another item to do on my 'list'.  (clean out shed)

I also finally threw away my old baby bottles.  It was kind of a sad moment for me.  Almost bittersweet.  I am glad to have the cabinet space back, but it was like the end of an era.  I had my tubes tied about 18 months ago, a few months after the birth of my 3rd bio kid (a girl!).  I loved being pregnant.  I wish I could be pregnant now.  But that is normal.  My doctor told me that the number one complication from a tubal was regret.  I thought I was above it.  But I regret it.  Kinda.  I mean, I don't like closing the door on that part of my life, but in my head I know that I cannot rationally afford anymore kids.  But I miss the CHOICE.  I don't know if that makes sense.  Its sad to accept that I will never have another FILL IN THE BLANK of first moments once my daughter does them.

If I was a wine drinker, this is where I would pour myself a nice glass and drink my troubles away.  But I don't drink, or at least I don't drink more than once or twice a year.  So I am stuck trying to forget about it.  I don't know why a part of me wanted to keep those faded beatup bottles.  Maybe it was like holding on to a part of my babies even as they are growing up around me.  Ahhh... the joys and sorrows of motherhood.

I hate file maintence

I have around 1600 songs on my computer.  Maybe I have a few more, maybe a few less, but 1600 is a good estimate.  I don't bother to keep a whole album if I only like a few songs.  I just download the stuff I actually like.  Problem is, some, or most of it was downloaded from the internet.  And most of the tags were off.  I don't mind windows media player, but the tagging/find album info feature SUCKS.  So alot of my tags and album art was massively screwed up.

Thank god for MP3tag.  It is easy to use, and allows you to save and tag and correct until you are sick of it. And trust me I am.  But I can check off the box under my New Years Resolutions for clean up my music collection!

So far the FlyLady system has me shining my sink (did it last night, haven't done it tonight yet) getting dressed up in lace up shoes, and reading her blog.  Well, tomorrow will be the challenge.  I have to write down the negative thoughts I have and say something positive to counteract them.  WOOHOO!  Touchy feely crap.

I am jubilant!

a lazy day and a rant about the economy

After feeling like I finally got something accomplished yesterday, I flopped today.  I spent the entire day playing around on the internet and being reflective.  So many mixed thoughts are zooming around in my head.  Maybe this year will be my year.  I guess I need to check with FlyLady and see what my mission for tommorrow is.  Or maybe even get off my butt and shine my sink tonight.  I guess so that I will keep on my getting things cleaned and organized mission for the year, I should find something simple to do.  Like cleaning the papers off of my fridge and the 3 clipboards hanging on my wall next to my dry erase calendar.  That ought to be a fast one.  And should make a difference.  Now if I could only get the motivation up to do it.

On another note, my aunt just called and told me about a house that is a 5 bedroom with a basement and 1.5 baths for sale for 48xxx and it's not too far away, and wouldn't be a bad change in schools for my kids.  If only I had the credit for a home loan.  But then I would have bought the house I love that used to be a daycare and is NO change of schools for the kids and is only 38xxx.  At least it's still on the market.

I can honestly say that I hate this economy.  After 2 years of drawing unemployment, I am blessed with a GOOD JOB.  And I am grateful everyday that I do have a job.  I wish it was more hours, but I am still low on the seniority list.  But I hope the crappy housing market hangs on until I have my credit sufficiently repaired to obtain a home loan.  The deals in my neighborhood are just too fantastic to pass up.

So this is what my 3 year old has done almost everynight since recieving his Innotab 2S.  I really love that he loves it so much.  One night as he was laying in bed playing with it (well, watching movies Daddy put on there for him) he even spontaneously told us he loved us.  Actually it was "Mommy Daddy Seth Loves"  but we knew what he meant.  I began to worry that he might break it and since he loves it soooooo much I have been checking every store I can think of for the case that Vtech makes for it.  Unfortunately it is sold out of everywhere and I am impatient.  I remembered THIS PIN on a DIY Ipad case and thought I could do it.

I gathered some of my kids books that they tore up.  Well, all their books are tore up, but these 2 were the most tore up with the sturdiest covers.

I measured 2 panels like a front and back cover and 1 spine.  I just used the innotab 2 as a reference, no specific measurements.

 My 11 year old is really rough on his pants, and I had stashed these aside after he TOTALLY blew out one whole leg from the knee all the way down.  I really like denim and figured I would use it someday.  So I cut up the inseam to open them up.

I opened them up so that I would have a large enough area of flat material to work with.

 I broke out the iron and the spray starch for the first time in at least 3 years and ironed and starched the pants front and back since you know how denim gets all wrinkly if you don't fold it right out of the dryer.

 After I ironed and starched them, I decided on which area I wanted to be the 'outside' of the case and used spray adhesive to stick the pieces down (remember the outside should be facing out....)  I left a smidgen of room between each of the 3 pieces so that the thing would close.

I folded the excess over and stuck it down with even more spray adhesive and used clothes pins to hold it in place.

 I cut pieces from another book that were a bit smaller than the cover pieces I just covered.  These are for the 'lining' of the case.  I eyeballed some elastic strips to be corner loops to actually hold the tabtop in.

I used more spray adhesive to hold the loops in place on the back side only.

 I forgot to take pictures of covering the inside panels, but it's just an old baby tshirt that the kids can't wear anymore.  And I covered it the same way as the cover.  The only difference was cutting the holes in the tshirting for the elastic loops to go thru for the spine side of the loops.  Then I glued the whole kit and kaboodle together in a stack....

 This is the outside of the case.

And this is the inside while the innotab 2 is in there.

And since I love denim so much and hated to waste it, I cut the pocket from the other side of the jeans and used the spray adhesive to stick it down on the inside cover.

So that was my craft project for the week.  If I had to do it differently, I would have used an adult sized pair of pants so that I would have more room to work with.  I have some bulky edges because of the seams in the blue jeans.  A bigger butt area of blue jeans would have given me less seams to have to fold over.  But over all, I like it.  And it will do the trick for Seth's TabTop.