Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh...

Last summer I sent Zach to his first sleep-away camp, Word of life, up in Saranac Lake, NY. He was excited but nervous about being without Mommy for the very first time. I tried to pump him up and calm him down by reminding him over and over that he was going to "have tons and tons of fun!" I kept talking up the swimming, canoeing, hayrides, water slides, zip line, etc... etc... etc... I told him that he was going to make friends with all the boys he would be sharing a cabin with. We assured him that they had running water and showers. My mother came with us as I drove the 2 hours up into the Adirondack Park to drop Zachariah off to camp. He was such a trooper, not even a tear as we left him with his capable counselor and a gaggle of other boys his same age at his cabin. I made sure to draft a letter and leave it in his bag so that he had something to read from me at night before he went to bed. Reminded him to wash his hair and brush his teeth every night. My parents and I wrote him letters and mailed them 2 days before he went to camp so that on Day 2 or 3 he would get some nice mail. Half way through his week I made sure to put together a special little care package for him filled with Graham crackers, marshmallows and Hershey bars - all the makings for the perfect Smores.

The following weekend my mother and I drove back up to Saranac Lake to pick Zach up. The whole trip I wondered about all the exciting things he got to do, the kids he had made friends with. I had prayed he'd remembered to douse himself with Off! every day. We pulled into the parking lot and it was a may-lay of kids being reunited with loved ones. I walked up to the main building to claim my child and up walked the most dirty little boy I'd every seen. His hair was tousled, he had red blotches all over his body from where the mosquitoes thought he was an all you can eat buffet. He had band-aids on both knees. He looked anything BUT happy.

On the way home I managed to coax some kind words from him about his stay. He really liked the zip-line, he loved the air trampoline on the lake (although got hurt on it), he got to swim everyday, they went hiking, and had a Smores party and a huge bonfire out front of their cabin during the week. Overall though I was reprimanded for leaving him there all week and was told he cried every night before he went to bed because he missed me so. :(

After getting home I unpacked Zach's things from the car including his duffle bag. I loaded all his dirty laundry into the wash, and upon one last inspection of the bag found a letter addressed to me with a folded up piece of paper in it. It was a letter that Zach had written to me in response to a letter I had written to him....



In case you aren't fluent in "upset 8 year old" the letter reads as such:

No I haven't gone canoeing but I will today. You have to pass your swim test to go canoeing. And I passed my swim test. You have to do 4 laps and tread 4 minutes. I miss you Mommy and Nana and Papa. I want to go home. My leg, arm, head and finger hurt. I have bruises, rashes and sunburn. Please, please, please, please, please bring me home please.

I just found the letter in a pile of papers in my desk a few days ago. I had forgotten the letter that had me in tears....laughing. I had shared the letter with my parents after I found it, mainly because they had wanted to know what I was laughing so hard at that was bringing tears to my eyes. I know I may sound like the worst mother in the world, but if you knew Zachariah, they you would truly see the humor in his pleading.

I asked him tonight if he wanted to go back to the sleep away camp that he went to last summer.... I got a resounding NO!

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Falling asleep

I let too much stuff rumble around in my head. I try not to be a worrier. I try to be this happy go-lucky person that doesn't let anything bother her. It's not always the case. In the past this has left me paralyzed by excruciating migraines. Luckily I'm not having to endear that kind of pain right now. Instead my body is forgoing sleep...

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Help Wanted?

The market for jobs feels like it's getting smaller and smaller. I've applied to a few insurance companies-but for some reason feel that whatever I may be offered I would be grossly underpaid in relation to my education. Not to mention when you take a gander at the openings listed on some of the job websites - HotJobs, Indeed - 1/2 of the listings are for those get rich quick work online work from home scams! I cannot believe that newspapers are using these websites as a link to their job classifieds. So-I'm thinking I'm going to have to start to tackle the phone book. That's how I got my job with Per-Se Technologies (now McKesson) all those years ago. I had Zachariah and was unemployed. I refused to go back to work for a department store, so, I took out the Yellow Pages and started looking through them for ideas on where to send my resume. The NYS Job Bank through the Dept of Labor isn't too bad. But-that site makes me just wish I had gone back to school for nursing, instead of Biology and Education! Especially with hearing that so many school districts are contemplating staff cuts.

I'm trying to stay positive. I'm praying everyday that the Lord will bring a new employment possibility into my life. I'm trying not to get discouraged. Thank God I have friends that are constantly reassuring me that SOMETHING will come up. I know that I am internalizing my stress though-still apparent with my waning insomnia. It's a toss up, my body usually defaults to migraines with stress...now it's choosing insomnia...I think I'd rather go without sleep...it doesn't hurt as much.

Good Samaritan turns Recurring Insomniac

So, on my way home from work last night I encountered what I thought was a dead cat in the middle of the road. Now day to day if I was to pass a dead cat on the road my heart would wrench, I would call out "Oh!" and then :( but would ultimately keep going thinking that another scavenger animal, or even possibly DOT, would come and take the poor thing away. Last night as I came upon the cat that's exactly what I did, until just as I was passing I caught in the corner of my eye the cat moving. I drove a little further down the road and something made me stop, turn the car around, and go back. As a proud owner of 2 obese lovable fur-balls (my BABIES!!!!), I would hate to see anything in pain and suffering. As I came back I found a very beautiful orange and white stripped tabby lying in the road, he obviously had been hit by a car and left for dead (some people SUCK!!! >:( ). He had lost his stomach contents and his breathing was very heavily labored.

I called 911 immediately. I had been told at some point by someone, of whom and when I can't recall now, that you are supposed to report to the police now when you hit a dog OR a cat. Since this poor animal was lying helpless in the road by itself, I had to assume the person who hit it carelessly kept driving and probably didn't even think about calling anyone.

I waited what seemed like eternity for a state trooper to show up, it was probably only about 10-15 minutes. A very kind NYS trooper came and felt bad for the animal but stated that it was against departmental rules to transport any sick or wounded animals in his vehicle. Shortly after a Saratoga Co. Sheriff's deputy showed up, and unfortunately said the same thing. So, they asked if I would be willing to drive the poor thing to the local animal hospital. The two officers scooped up the cat in a make shift gurney made of a bio-hazard bag and plopped him into my trunk.

On the way up to the Northway Animal Emergency Clinic off of exit 17N a rabbit shot out in front of my car! I hit the brakes and swerved....now hindsight being 20/20-NOT THE BRIGHTEST MOVE, especially with the trooper following behind me at a very close distance. Well, that little scare woke me right up. We pulled into the parking lot and after we got out I asked the trooper if he hit the rabbit, he said no-he avoided it, but that "in the future keep driving straight". He said that driving at that speed (I was doing about 71-72mph) I could have very easily lost control of the car. In my head I'm naively thinking-Ya right, I was in complete control....NOT! He was right....again, I say...hindsight 20/20!

Well they were very nice at the Animal clinic. They asked me if they could save him would I keep him. I had to tell them I already lived in a house with 4 cats (I only claim ownership of 2-the other 2 are my mother's) and that if I came home with 1 more I would be shot. Unfortunately, they had to put him down. I was frankly surprised that when I opened the trunk he was still alive. I thought for sure that he would have take his last breath in the back of my car. And I think my refusal for adopting the cat had something to do with them putting him down. It's much cheaper for an animal hospital to euthanize an animal than it is to fix it up and nurse it back to health. They did have 2 very pretty cats that had been saved by a vet that now live at the hospital. They are blood donor cats-giving life to other cats that are in the same predicament they once were.

In the end I finally made it home an hour and a 1/2 after I had left work. I didn't get to sleep until well after 1am. Having to wake up at 6am this morning-not pretty. I didn't take any melatonin fearing that if I did I would feel like a train hit me. I will be taking it tonight and going to bed at a fairly reasonable time :D

So-the moral of the story-if you want to own a cat-TAKE CARE OF IT! I know some people would disagree with me, but I think cats should be in the house...my babies are indoor cats and are declawed. They couldn't hurt a fly. Well...maybe a fly...or as we call them...crunchy-munchies for the kitties.

Zumba?

Ok, I've started this life transformation in the past few weeks. I've taken the first steps to a better financial future. I'm still looking and praying for a full time job. But I've been thinking about my physical fitness. I hate running. Treadmills...you walk and you don't go anywhere, and I've done the whole working out at Curves and other gyms, I tend to get bored, and stop. So, up late during one of my insomniac moments I caught an infomercial about Zumba Fitness, a dance aerobics. It looks really fun and I'm thinking about ordering it. It's not TOO expensive....$60 for a whole DVD set and workout weights....but I'd like to know if anyone has attended classes or worked out to the videos before. They do hold Zumba classes around here but it's out of my price range right now.

So, let me know! I'm thinking I might order it though! I have a spare TV and DVD player in the basement, I could always hook it up down there where there is plenty of dance space!

Le sigh....

Grrrrrrrrrrr..........