Happy New Year!

One of these days, I really, really am going to transfer all the posts from my old blog here. Really. And I'm really, really going to start posting again. Though regular posting might have to wait until summer when I have more brain cells to spare, since I have a writing intensive semester coming up.

B & T are doing great. They drive me nuts. Would you believe that next year T will be in MIDDLE SCHOOL?! T is in the gifted program at school. I had no idea that a kid could talk his way in, but he did. His IQ was 1 point less than the threshold. The kid NEVER shuts up. And he never does his homework unless I hold the game systems hostage. I don't know how many times I've threatened the life of the playstation and Wii. And since Christmas, we now have an XBox 360 to threaten. (Or steal. He got a very cool zombie game I really want to play when they are at school just so I don't humiliate myself with my lack of skillz)

B has been definitively diagnosed with cerebral palsy and his legs are getting more and more crooked. Something Must Be Done Soon. What, I have no idea. B is definitely smarter than T, but he flunked the IQ test, probably because his physical challenges slow him down. Plus he's a bit of a space cadet. His hearing was tested, like mine was when I was little, with the same results. He's not deaf, he's ignoring us.

Tyler's latest bedtime delay tactic

Tyler waltzed into my room about 10:30 pm and started watching tv, like it's ok to do that on a school night. I told him to go to bed NOW!!!! He turns to me and says in his babiest voice, "Can't a little boy get a hug and a kiss from his mommy?" :\

Of course he got a hug and a kiss. I don't know what little boy he was talking about since he's 10 years old and weighs well over 100 lbs... about 40 lbs more than his twin brother.

I still want a fruit bat or two as pets

I've wanted one since I saw those cute flying puppies with five foot wingspans at Animal Kingdom. They have so much wing, and such cute faces. I was reminded of them at one of my current fave blogs, FU Penguin by this post and this picture.

I think a dozen or so fruit bats in the house, plus a coffin with native earth should scare off any burglars. And potential girlfriends for the twins. And invading Florida-visiting-relatives. And best of all, any potential future ex-husbands.

My Brettypie

A couple of days ago, Brett was going down the stairs when he had an epiphany. He turns to me with a big grin on his face and says, "I know why you like Halloween so much! You can violate your diet!"

Gee, thanks little boy.

Of course, this is no worse than Tyler naming his bath toy after me. Except that the bath toy is a whale.

It was a dark and dreary day...

Ugh! It's a dark and dreary day, and it's been like that for the last two days. We're having up-north weather (only warmer). Rarely does it stay cloudy and dark like this all day. And it barely rained yesterday. If it's going to be dark like this, it could at least water the grass and fill the "lake", which is really a retention pond. This weather is killing me. I'm so sleepy it takes two energy drinks to make me functional.

At least Tyler gets to wander through the swamp on a cooler, and therefore less buggy, day. Though I'm pretty sure less buggy in a swamp means you only get half a mouthful of bugs when you open it rather than a full one. I hope he leaves the snakes alone. He discovered yesterday how cool they feel when they wind around your arm. Yes, he is aware that we have four types of poisonous snakes in Florida and one of them looks similar to the one he played with yesterday. It has a cool rhyme to go with it that lets you tell the difference, but neither of us can remember it. Something along the lines of "Red and black, friend of Jack's," something, something, something and something about leaving the poisonous fucker alone.

Another semester begins...

And I a fully prepared. I think.
Books... check
Permanent marker (to write reminders on my hand)... check
Planner (to write the assigments in that I will later write on my hand anyway)... check
XAMP installed... uh, no... guess I didn't write that on my hand. Do that tonight.
Caffeine sources... check
Highlighters (to mark up the books which then become unreturnable)... check
Paper in various forms (printer, filler, notebook... for scribbling and tearing up in fits of rage... bye-bye rainforest)... check
Spackle & other wall repair (for when the books in the wall in the same rage that destroys the rainforests)... check
Motivation (which needs to be rationed... it tends to run very low towards the end)... check
Fat ass rooted to the chair in front of computer (very useful for the online classes... however, that distraction called facebook is causing us some real problems).... check (like it's ever any different)

Ok, I'm mostly prepared. I still need very large binders, which I need for the remains of the rainforests that I print the online notes on. I swear the online classes waste more paper than the get-up-off-your-butt-and-physically-go classes

It's been a while

I'm not writing like I used to. I've had the entire summer off (thanks to unemployment & no $$ for school for the summer semester). Funny thing, the less I have to do, the less I wanna do. All I've done this summer is play facebook games.

Now facebook, that something us middle aged women can get behind. Not only can you find all the people you lost touch with, you can block the ones you never ever want to find touch with again. So about half the people I found, I blocked. Generally, if I wanted to stay in touch with you, there's a good chance you are programmed into my phone.

Tornadoes + Trailers = Oh Crap

The last two days were chock full of tornado warnings around here. One touched down in a trailer neighborhood (it's not a trailer park... it's like people bought lots of land and plopped down either a trailer or a house... it's all mixed) and relocated parts of some of the trailers. When they interviewed the owners of the destroyed trailers, they were all well spoken and none of them seemed to be typical trailer trash. Then one of the women interviewed looked really familiar. Then they mentioned her name. She was B&T's preschool teacher when they were 2 years old.

It's a really weird neighborhood. There will be a creepy, crappy trailer, then a rather decent house, then a fairly new double wide, then a little block house, then another creepy crappy, then a cracker shack, then another decent house.... totally devoid of any sense of order.

Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theater

I am, of course, a huge fan of Halloween. So when one of my facebook friends posted this video, I just had to inflict it on the rest of you: