So for me, Mother’s Day is a time for resting and having those that I love near. This year my mother decided she wanted us all to go to my grandmother’s home and cook lunch for her…as a surprise. I enjoy cooking and am pretty good at it, so spending the day with my grandma and getting to cook for her sounded good to me. Then I was informed it would be my job to plan what would be served, who would make what (after I was told I was responsible for the entree), and what time we would begin this meal. Ok…if it was my mother’s “gift” to grandma, why am I doing all the work (not that I didn’t want to do it, just seemed odd)?

I thought about spaghetti or lasagna (something quick and fairly easy to make for a crowd), but then thought that is kind of a “go to meal” for get togethers. I wanted to do something special. As a side note, my grandma and my Uncle John were the people who really taught me alot about cooking and really ignited a love and passion for it. I cooked for them often when I was growing up. I made some very funny mistakes and some weird experiments (mistaking cubed steak for ground beef and being very upset by how tough it was to break up and how chewy it was when cooked) and through it all had fun. I settled on pot roast. Easy to make for a crowd and at Xmas time made a phenomenal roast so I looked forward to sharing this with my family.

I have been unemployed since early fall and have been trying to get disability payments set up. This is a long process and has, at times, been frustrating and emotional. But it has also meant that funds are very tight. So I ended up telling my mother that I needed help buying the meat for the dinner (she had offered to help out with this when we first discussed the plans). So she gave me the needed funds and we went on with the planning. I was providing most of the stuff for the meal, my mom was in charge of salad and bread. My mother decided my sister (also known as “Spooky”) would be bringing dessert.

Spooky is known for over planning everything. 1st she wanted to bring ice cream cake (she said it was grandmas favorite), then she was going to get a sugar free cake as well. My grandma, my aunt Jeanie (who is develop mentally challenged and lives with grandma), and my Dad don’t eat much sugar. Grandma and Jeanie are diabetic and I think Dad is pre diabetic. So that way everyone could enjoy dessert without worrying. Then, it became “Well, everyone likes cheesecake, so I will bring that.”. She never asked me if I would make something, and I thought maybe like a strawberry shortcake or a fruit crisp might be better (less sugar involved and easy to prepare). But cheesecake it was (and might I say the turtle cheesecake was AWESOME! Thinking maybe I gonna have to get another of those for my birthday…or maybe to celebrate Tuesday?!? Gotta take a minute to smell the roses and all that) and that was debated for several days before the actual event.

When we got together on Sunday, my mother told Grandma that a card and the lunch were her gift to her for Mom’s day (it is Mom’s mother who we are talking about). Then my mother pulls me aside and tells me that her giving me the money for the roast was my mother’s day gift. okay, let me preface the following statement by saying I never expected a gift from ANYONE for mother’s day. I even told the Kiddo I would prefer her to make me something or help me out that day so I could rest. But my Mother giving me the money to make dinner for her and the rest of my family was MY GIFT?!? So giving me the opportunity to prepare her gift to her mother and clean up after everyone on Mothers Day was a gift? I would have rather not been told that. I was not upset about making dinner or upset about my mother not giving me a “gift” or anything.

But now…I’M PISSED! I know it is irrational, but who the fuck do you think you are?!? Giving me the “gift” of cooking you dinner?!? Everyone was complimenting my food and my mother kept saying how she made good brisket too and she taught me to cook. No, she didn’t. I learned to cook because she wasn’t ever home. My sister and I had to take care of each other (and Spooky’s cooking sucks!), we spent almost every weekend at Grandma’s and usually spent at least a month every summer at My aunt and uncle’s house caring for my cousins or just hanging out. Spooky pissed Mom off when she argued that no, Mom hadn’t taught me to cook.

Honey didn’t even remember to take the day off work! My ex husband wished me a Happy Mother’s day before my own husband did. I kinda felt like he ignored me this year. Then he was kind of a dick when he finally got home. So this year for Mother’s day I got to execute my Mom’s gift to my grandma, to spend the day cooking and cleaning, fight with my mother, not see my husband, and spend most of the evening in tears. What a gift!

Next year, I think I will stay in bed and sleep!

Honey and I are fans of Celebrity Apprentice. This season has been full of ups and downs. The people have been very polarizing, and it has been easy to figure out who you are cheering for and who you want eliminated. Lisa Lampanelli has been one that has acted like an absolute whore! She changes her ideas about what is right and wrong, she yells at people as if they are somehow beneath her, and she is one of the biggest bullies I have ever witnessed. She picks a target (player), and she works doggedly to make sure they get eliminated…one way or another. She will bring up something as a good reason to send someone home and when that rule applies to her or one of her friends, will then say that that is an unreasonable expectation to hold them to. She has cussed out so many people and has cried more in front of influential people than a 2 year old who missed naptime.

I have watched Lisa doing her standup and was a fan of her crass and self deprecating style. She is in a majorly male dominated field and I feel she holds her own and really stands out, in a good way. But her behavior on this show has really opened my eyes to the real nature of her as a person.

Celebrity Apprentice brings these people on this show to fight one another for a chance to represent Donald Trump’s cooperation in many business themed tasks. Anything from commercials, to raising funds, making/delivering food, internet viral videos and ad campaigns for magazines, new product marketing and so on. During the after interview of Lisa’s reaction to her win, she made a comment about how much money she had won for her charity. It was a 100,000 reward for her charity…The Gay Men’s Health Organization. She commented that that was a tremendous amount of money for her charity, even after her cut. WTF?!? HER CUT?!? Her cut is the publicity she gets from being on this show. That money is supposed to go to the damn charity. If she asks for a cut of the monies…hell, even if they offered her money to fight for them (the charity) she should decline!

Is it possible that all the celebrities take “…a cut” from the monies they raised?!? Is that legally, ethically, or morally right? I am really disgusted by this. After watching this group of people, and all the dramas…I will never be a fan of Lisa Lampanelli again. She can take her big, loud, emotional bullshit and stuff it up her very ample ass!

GO ARSENIO HALL!!!

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/young-rangers-fan- cries-inconsiderate-neighbors-keep-baseball-054131053.html

So after reading this article and watching the companion video, I am very annoyed. In no way does being a kid mean that you get everything you want just because you are small and cute!?! The adult got the ball before the little boy did. The parent picks up the child as the boy has his hand stretched out toward the ball, and then breaks out into a full fledged temper tantrum. About this time, the scene is the feature on the jumbo-tron and the entire crowd erupts into a chorus of boo’s. So the players throw a ball to a security guard and the dude throws it to the Dad and then the kid gets his ball. Then everyone cheers. So this kid has been shown that in life, if you throw a fit, you will get what you want.

If the boy had been 11-14 years old and acted that way, he would have been ridiculed. Just because the little brat is still in the single digits, he should get whatever he wants so he doesn’t cry?!? If it’s that easy, a parent would be training their kid to get all sorts of freebies. What rule says if a kid is going for the ball (even if you catch/retrieve it 1st), that you must surrender it to said kid? Why does that make them assholes? I say that father is the real asshole…he should have bought/brought a ball for the kid in the 1st place!

Not sure why this chaps my ass so much, but it does!

So with the good news comes the bad (otherwise known as “the other shoe dropping”). The good things are good, but to some…never good enough. It is all kinds of easy to pin-point the lack of progress others show. While being oblivious to your own deficiencies. You sit there and play armchair quarterback to everyone else’s plays, but what about the moves you are making?!? Why is it ok for you to do nothing and take cuts? Why can you not stand up for yourself and realize your worth?!? Better yet, why can’t you make the people who put a value on you, see your worth. You just continue to do the same (sometimes more) for less and less. Thinking you are so lucky to get anything at all, that no one else’s efforts seem good enough to you. You are helping to add to this situation, and sitting around and bitching about how awful it all is isn’t fixing anything. I am very confused. You won’t draw a bottom line, and you just keep taking less and less while doing more and more. If you would let them know exactly how much you do…and the fact that if you say “No more!” and leave, there is no one else who will take the crap you put with for so little in return! Bu you are so terrified that you keep letting it happen. Then you want to complain all the time because it’s never enough! I know you’re stressed, I get that. But we are all going through things right now. All of us. We need to be there for each other. If you are solely bitching and not judging and pointing the finger, then make that known from the start. Don’t come across like you are accusing and griping. I don’t see you working anywhere near as hard for this group right now anyway! The rest of us are pulling double duty…some more than that even. All we hear from you is that you aren’t feeling well or are tired. Get a freaking grip!

I can’t believe that my baby girl is being confirmed this weekend, and graduating next month. She is growing up so fast. She will be learning to drive this summer too (despite what a certain asshole believes). I am unleashing Nessie 2.0 on the world…BEWARE! HA HA! Good times shall be had by all.

I got a letter (no, not by email) yesterday with some great news! I am shocked and very happy to get this news. I never thought it would happen so very quickly…it is nice to have something go better than anticipated.

Watching an episode of Worst Cooks in America and the bad cooks had to deal with a whole fish. They had to clean it, scale it, filet it and then portion out the filets. They were to take the bones out with as little waste as possible. I know, from experience that those tasks SUCK! But they did a horrible job at it. If it wasn’t fish I might have thought it was ground beef from the looks of it. A moment of silence for those poor arctic char who gave their lives (TWICE) to be on those plates. *Silence*…*crickets chirping*…ok, moment over!

I wish I was an incredible pie maker (I do realize the randomness of this statement). I love pie! Maybe I will have to work on that. I could learn to make great pie. The crust always gives me headaches. I am not a good crust maker. Hey, gotta have a goal to work on…right?

I got a call today that no person should ever have to get. I won’t go into specifics, but I was floored! And now I am going back and forth between depressed and optimistic. I have no idea how to deal with this news. Hopefully, this will turn out for the best…somehow. Wish me luck.

So after a hiatus of several years I once again started using OneNote. Honey has been introduced to the program and he told me how to use it to be able to share with him my lists of TV shows, books, movies and music that I want to add to my collections. It is so nice to be able to combine all of my stuff in one place so Honey has access and we can start knocking them off there. Unfortunately Honey underestimated the extensive nature of my lists. Maybe now I can get some of that stuff crossed off my list!

This last 2 weeks I have been battling a stomach flu so intense I ended up in the emergency room with an IV getting rehydrated. I couldn’t keep anything down for over 3 days…then got better for a day or so and then went down for another couple of days, only to get better again. Then after a day feel bad…once more. Now 2 weeks after all of this started, I am starting to feel a bit more normal (finally), still tired and my stomach still hurts. Gave the Kiddo the virus while I was at it, that kinda sucks…for both of us!

I did get a welcome surprise this last week…tulips! Yellow and purple ones, they are so very pretty. Yellow tulips and parrot tulips are my very favorite flowers. I like yellow roses as well (the kind with red along the top and edges of each petal), but tulips just scream spring to me. Their fragrance is so very intoxicating as well. Clean and light, not overwhelming like some flowers. On my bucket list is going to Holland during the tulip festivals so I can see the miles and miles of different colored tulips dotting the landscape. What a sight that must be! I have pictures of it and it just looks amazingly beautiful.

So I have been seeing a doctor for my back problems for almost 10 years now (the same doctor). I was diagnosed last month with Fibromyalgia (not a good thing, but nice to understand why the pain seemed to be getting worse instead of better despite treatment). I was given a new medicine to try and sent home. Now the meds were given for me to up the dose slowly so my body could adjust to the stuff(cause the side effects kinda suck), but even with those precautions taken, the dizziness was just about unbearable. Each time I up’ed the dose, I would spend a day or three feeling so super dizzy that I would dread moving. I really did not see a reduction in the amount of discomfort I had either, so I was not impressed with the new drug. I had an appointment to go back to the doctor this morning so I planned on telling him all about it.

I find out (after they called me on Friday to confirm my appointment with Dr. Reece) that my doc has called in sick and will not be there today, but there are several docs there so they tell me I will be seeing Donna instead. Ok, everyone has sick days…no big deal! Talking to the nurse while she is taking my vitals and stuff and ask her if Doc Reece is sick and she says “Yes”. “That’s too bad!”, I reply (1st time he has ever not been there for my scheduled appt…well when they haven’t told me ahead of time anyway).

Then Donna comes in and sees a note for the Doc in my file and asks me about it. I tell her I will find out about it from my Insurance and tell Doc next month. She informs me that won’t be possible due to the fact that he has retired. WHAT?!? WTF? Been a patient here for like 10 years and no one feels it is important that I know I’m losing my doctor?!? Now as I have already stated…I been here 10 years, so I have seen several of the docs there and the nurse practitioners. They are nice and I get along with them and all. But (and I don’t know about anyone else, but when I find a good doctor that I like…I stick with them! Very hard to find a good doctor), they aren’t Dr. Reece. I don’t even get to say “goodbye”. This is the doc who saw me thru my MD diagnosis, going a little nutty, my divorce, my new Honey, he even bonded with my kid (she used to always have to go to the doctor with me)!

To further complicate matters when Donna and I are chatting about the meds (new and old), and how I am doing…all my meds but 1 were changed. Not complaining bout Donna as a care provider…it is just a lot to process all at once. Oh and I know the damn dizziness is gonna be back…cause that med was DOUBLED!

Lastly, Kiddo is being confirmed this next month. She went on a retreat this weekend and we were asked to write her a letter telling her how much she meant to us. Tears poured out of my eyes as I wrote her what is in my heart for her. But when I read the letters from her sponsor and youth advisor (not sure exactly how it’s possible) I cried twice as much! Hearing the words of others who think as highly of my child as I do, makes me unbearably happy! One of the biggest joys of raising a child is knowing that when they aren’t with you, they will still be loved and appreciated for the wonderfulness that they are. I love that even though I know Kiddo is careful with revealing herself to others, she shines so brightly they cant help but see her true nature.

So the new expansion for World of Warcraft should be coming out soonish, and I am going NUTS waiting for it!!! They announced the name and some details of the expansion at Blizzcon in October (I think). We get to be Pandas!!! I can’t wait to be a freaking Panda. The only problem is that they have yet to announce the damn release date. After Cataclysm released they spent the next 13-15 months releasing patches every few weeks with new content and adding to the game play experience. After the patch about a month ago, they said there would be no more patching until the release of Pandaria. So now, we know that the game is not going to be any different until it is VERY different…AND THEY WON’T TELL US WHEN THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN!?!

I like to play the game very much , and I personally think that the changes are vitally important. People have been bitching about the changes to the game since Cataclysm (10 2010). Some have even left the world of Azeroth altogether due to the massive changes. One of my guildies (Legendz) was bitching the other day in chat, so I shared my opinion about how the game needs updating to keep it from getting stale. Then I proceeded to say how if it never changed, people would be upset that it was always the same boring things over and over again. So it is kind of a no win situation for Blizzard.

This person continued to complain about anything and everything from the layout of the Horde capital city to the location of the flightmasters. Even fussing over such stupid things as the quests available and the spells for his warrior. He spent the entire day bitching…LITERALLY! I tried to help him out when he had questions, but I started to get the distinct feeling I was being trolled and just quit talking to him. Others tried to help him and after they received the same headache that I got, even though there were like 40 people logged on in the guild…everyone completely shut up. Normally the guildies talk about silly stuff, things they need others to make/sell them (profession mats, cooking supplies. rare hard to find items), current events, and help requests. This cry baby would turn any comment into trolling BS, always turning the chats around back to himself…he wasn’t even subtle about it!

I am not liking trolls! But I can always ignore him…or go postal on him. Its always nice to have options.

So in this article I read some Wall Street brokers were bitching due to the loss of their BONUSES! Bonuses for most of them that were more than I would bring in in 3-4 yrs of work! A man making 350,000 was upset he only got 125,000 this year…I would BE OVER THE MOON for that kind of “windfall cash”. It would take me 10yrs to make his salary for 1…and his bonus is 1/3 the amount he will make all year…AND HE IS BITCHING!!! His vacation home will only be used for 1 month this summer…instead of the usual 4 (How awful that would be), his kids might not be able to go to the private school where his oldest is already enrolled, and (God forbid) he will not be able to purchase a 1.5 million dollar brownstone for his family (cause…they can NOT possibly be expected to share a room any longer)cause it will “drain their savings”! I am really having a hard time feeling any sympathy for these people.

One of the other people was saying how he had to “shop the ads” to find salmon at a bargain price of $5.99 a pound. How about when you find out the ground meat you are used to buying for $2.18 a pound is no longer available and then you have to hunt for it when it goes on sale for $2.99 a pound and hope you have the “extra” money to stock up. Let me switch places with these assholes for a year, let them learn how to survive on real budget. Including caring for children. I would kill for my biggest fear to be that my kid might have to go to PUBLIC SCHOOL! We had to ask our doctor if they would prescribe our kid a different med simply because I couldn’t afford the one she was currently on. My insurance made me switch to a brand name on one of my meds and if it weren’t for the fact that the manufacturer sends me a rebate monthly on my copay, I would have had to do the same thing. These are “real” money worries.

It is very sad to me that these greedy people become news for their losing several hundred thousand dollars a year …OF BONUSES! My husband’s company stopped giving out any kind of bonus for their peoples several years ago. A bonus is defined as;
bo·nus/ˈbōnəs/
Noun:
A payment or gift added to what is usual or expected, in particular.
An amount of money added to wages on a seasonal basis, esp. as a reward for good performance.

the words “gift” and “reward” mean that it isn’t something you are promised. There are no guarantees when talking about a bonus. So if these millionaire’s are living beyond their means…it is their own damn fault. Take a lesson in humility and be very thankful for the fact that you are still able to buy groceries for your family, have health insurance, and are able to even take a vacation. Millions of people in this country can’t even afford their mortgages, much less a porsche or salmon (even canned)! Quit putting the “misfortunes” of these bastards on my news screen. Maybe one day these fuckers will learn to give back to others less fortunate and be grateful that they aren’t jobless, homeless, or hungry!

I used to say “Mean people suck!” but from now on I think it might go more like “Greedy people suck!”!!!