First time I've posted today. Not much to say as I've spent most of my time with family. I hope all are well and for the moment the big news is... Kiddo goes for her White belt tomorrow!

Is it the 17th yet? iPhone's update comes out then and I am hoping to do the one thing I've missed being able to do.. sending and receiving pictures from my husband's phone and sons. At least I can hope..

I am proud to be an American.. I know. What a topic change there! That said, perhaps I am proudest most because I can come here and complain that the President is spending way too much money and leaving the citizens of the country to flounder. I am able to say that I really hate this feeling that we as a nation are becoming more and more vulnerable to attack and it worries me that our President seems to be looking for some naive ideal what life should be with regard to our relations with other countries rather than what it actually is. I can't say right now if he's right or wrong. All I know is how often we were bombed before, and the anticipation of what our future holds.

What EXACTLY is being done about Korea and Iran and their nukes? Are we threatening sanctions if there is no talk of peace? If I take everything away from a person they have nothing left then why wouldn't they go ahead and attack? Sadly with something even deadlier. Keep in mind as I type this it has been several days since I've watched the news.. I'm on a mission.

Get ready.. I'm surly to become very unpopular here.. Call me funny but I'd like to think we are American's. We may come from African decent or Hispanic decent.. in my case, apparently Polish but we are American's. I do not feel a need to hyphenate Polish-American. (Okay.. the Polish thing is a funny story.. I'm still very much a Heinz 57 variety type.. you know.. American. You can still be proud of your heritage and not be a hyphenated American.

More unpopular.. why is it okay, illegal but simply accepted that a group of hispanic men gather at a store, going so far as to even set a bed up.. I do not lie.. and hang out but when I sit in a parking lot and talk with a friend I ran into the police come and chase us off because it's illegal? We aren't bothering anyone trying to buy a cup of coffee, we aren't making a mess.. we are .. talking. Heck, we didn't even set up a bed behind the store!

D-Man!! Helloooo!

Meet my friend.. the person that has most encouraged me to accomplish that which I was sure I couldn't. A man that has listened to me vent, complain and whine.. been there through good and bad. Someone that was also there when I needed someone to lean on.

Our children have grown. He's heard me.. well, perhaps I should rephrase that as it's always been online.. he's read of my troubles with the Kiddo's dad when he became a teenager and now I am happy to see he read that my son has, on his third attempt been successful in gaining his daughter with the hopes that it will be permanently settled in July.

He helped me bust my youngest daughter when she was online in the middle of the night and he was there with encouraging words as she tried to make it through school to be a medical assistant. And she did.. with Honors.

I have cherished his friendship, we can argue and still remain friends.. afterall.. a difference of opinion need not be the end of a good friendship.. any friendship. However; untimely crashes with the internet a couple times did leave one or the other a bit worried.

He's one of the most creative and best writer's I've come across..

And...
He plays drums!

UUUHhhh... this was originally email so I wrote it differently than I might have if mail had gone to those it was intended for... so I deleted the post. I prefer to leave the names off to protect the innocent.

Long and short.. my son was granted temporary custody of his daughter and it's doubtful when they have the final hearing on July 22 that he'll lose her.

He's back to calling her "Beautiful" he's just a different person.. I'm so happy for them both! Thank you all for your constant presence and reassurance! You've no idea how it's helped to hold us all together and keep our eyes on the prize.. which was the Kiddo and a good life for her.

He's excited to quit paying child support as now he'll have money to put her in after school activity or two.. find something she's successful at to counter act the past years and the learning disabilities. He'll also have money to help me buy some things to try and teach her over the summer and get her caught up.

God does truly answer prayers .. and watch out for little girls!

What kind of mother kicks her children out of the car? This is an all important and newsworthy question it seems. For me, it's a diversion from the swine flu, the economy that is clearly tanking, and heaven only knows what other newsworthy stories. Afterall.. I think this is an idiotic story.

In an effort to get away from her two daughter's bickering kicked them out of the car. A 10 and 12 year old were left to walk three miles home. Or, so they thought. Apparently the mother did in fact drive back to pick them up however, the ten year old had been picked up by a stranger and taken to the police.

I find it interesting that my own mother kicked us out of the car in some state.. Oklahoma maybe? But of course she didn't drive off because the walk home was more than three.. since we lived in San Diego. Had we only been three miles from home we'd have been left to walk home. And truth be told we deserved it!

See, here's the thing. Nobody, but nobody would have arrested the mother, this would not have been newsworthy if these children WANTED to walk that far to visit a friend. It was; near as I can tell; a familiar area. The children drove the mother crazy and rather than be a nervous upset driver who is more prone to cause an accident, she followed through on a threat. YES! Someone that is teaching their children there are consequences. How refreshing!

I don't know about you but I don't think it would have been quite so effective to tell a child that I'm kicking you out, you will have to walk home but hey! don't worry cause I'm going to drive around and make sure you are okay or pick you up. That last part you just do without telling them ahead of time. It ruins the effect so you simply meander through and make sure they are okay.

I've done the same thing. The only difference was that my kids knew to stay together cause they were too busy debating on whether or not I was going to come pick them up. Which, just like this lady, I did pick them up.

What people need to focus on is that those children, or perhaps someone else's could have been hurt or dead with a mother driving children in a car that wouldn't listen. It frazzles the nerves, when nerves are frazzled you either take a move to rectify the cause or you pray you won't make a stupid mistake. Her children were safer walking than in a huge vehicle with a frazzled person at the wheel.

Our parents did this stuff.. their parents did worse. It's about time we get on with figuring out what child abuse and neglect is and what is stretching it. Period. We are raising a generation of pansies.

And while I'm at it, the person that authorized the photo shoot of the plane over Manhattan should be FIRED. Not asked to resign, not a wrist slap.. nothing, just.. Fired. That was absolutely assinine, and borders on cruel. I understand wanting pictures but photoshop works great. And I bet the citizens and people working in Manhattan would have understood too if they had been told instead of it being kept a secret that only law enforcement knew about... was totally assanine.

This government will announce information that seems to me should be classified but doesn't announce that they will be taking pictures so when you see an airplane where it shouldn't be, please don't panic. How is that more secret than other stuff?

I told my husband that it said President Obama didn't know it was going to happen and my husband pointed out something, to which I agree, President Bush was held accountable and blamed for everything, as were past presidents. The fact is, they are the leader of the country and even if he didn't know, didn't agree to this, someone in his administration did and "I'm sorry" simply doesn't cut it with me.. not when you can see people trying to run away in fear. The buck does stop with the President.. period.

I just re-read the last post and I'm not sure but it sure seems to put my husband in a bad light. Not my intention cause actually he's quite the opposite.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you he walks on water, cause he doesn't but he does have patience with me. Trust me.. I am hard to live with too. He simply doesn't blog about it.

Just always read what I write with the idea that there are two sides to every story.. cause to be honest he's to me.. The best.

I am done trying to decide what I want to do in the bathroom. What kind of tile do I want? How about medicine cabinets? What about... what about.. blah.

The bathroom is small so that already limits us. But then there are conversations, snippits of which are below. Me: "What about this pedestal sink? I like this colonial type look for a colonial house."
Him: "No storage in the bathroom."

Me:"What if we get rid of the tub and put in just a shower. Then in the left over space build a linen closet?"
Him: "Shower is too small!"

Me: "What about the medicine cabinet?"
Him: "You just let me know what you want." Me: "What about this one that goes up the left side, another one on the right side and just a mirror in the middle above the sink."
Him: "That will make the toilet area too small."
Me: "What about this one but buy two?"
Him: "Why don't I just build something?"

Me: "Then please will you just do the bathroom?"
Him: "As soon as you tell me what you want."

Hellooo... a vanity has been shot down as too big before he ever heard me ask him if he can make this style but smaller. Can't have one with drawers at the top for the toothpaste and such and I really would like to get our medicine off the vanity top. To which he informs me we can put all that stuff in the medicine cabinet. Hellooo, they don't make medicine cabinets big enough to hold all the junk they have me on.

Yes, I have been difficult about the tile. It's hard for me to picture the end result. Given the small size I'm leery of going with most of the tile that I like because I don't want to make the bathroom look smaller than it is. Now, the tile is held to the wall with some silver tape...so.. Finally, I gave up a couple weeks ago.. maybe last week and said to just make it all white. Period.

There.. I thought it was done, I picked tile. I think I'm going to try a different approach. I'm going to... hire him. he won't do anything that is not safe. Otherwise, unless it's going to be real bad he won't do it. And truth be told, I don't care, but I'm trying to design a bathroom that is appealing to a male plus myself. It's a wee bit difficult when the only input I get is to tell me why I can't do something. So, I'll hire him, he'll listen to what I want and come up with something using that $2500.00 software he has. Just like he does with other customers.

Does this sound like a good plan?

I've cleaned the bathroom up some... about half as good as I wanted to clean it but two things are significant. The first being that I did it instead of this "take it easy" routine! I'm so bored! And with each day I feel better. If only the horrible bruises would go away from the IV or IV attempts so it didn't look like someone tried to beat me up. Two on my right hand, two in right arm and three in left arm. Can we say.. OUCH!!

The second reason is that I used a spray cleaner I probably should not use but I did use it and I can still breath!!

Enough of that.. I'm doing better.

I've been stewing over this pirate thing and the Capt. Phillips and I am glad he's safe but as I recall the President ordered holding off attack unless the hostage's life is in jeopardy. He's not aboard his own ship, he's not at home and in fact, he's in the hands of someone that effectively kidnapped him. His life is in danger. Then, if our military is sent to handle a situation then it is safe to assume they will do as trained.. they will determine the best course of action once they are on the scene. So, in this case, since the military was sent, shouldn't the actions be determined by those men and commanders that are right there? That is why we sent them.. we TRUST them to do this job with wisdom, honor and precision. So then why do we have a President saying to wait? Would he have waited if it was a member of his family? I sure hope not!

I'll have to finish another day...

I think MOST of you know why I had disappeared but for those that did not know, I will try to be brief to spare those that have followed on Twitter and such.

March 26th I woke up and couldn't see out of what appeared to be my right eye. I tried to figure out what it was but when I turned the computer on and couldn't see it I decided this was an emergency. I must be able to see the computer!!

Given the emergency status I decided this was I made an appointment with my doctor, got the Kiddo ready for school and sent her off for the day honestly thinking this was something simple and I'd see her after school.

Doc sent me to the ER because he believed I had a stroke. The vision I lost was apparently the right side of both eyes. However, by the end of the day it had started to resolve itself. I don't know how. There are two stroke spots on the back of my brain which led the doctor to believe there might be a hole in my heart allowing blood to go from one side of the heart to the other unfiltered by my lungs and ending up in the brain. The test for that showed no hole.

I have one week left of wearing a heart moniter and a test to determine if there was damage to the optic nerve or only the brain. Those are the last remaining tests. Opthamologist is not going to give me new glasses yet as he believes there is a great chance for improvement within the next three months.

The doctor has released me to drive again AFTER my husband takes me to parking lots, then the neighborhoods to make sure I am comfortable driving despite the now small blind areas. He said, when they've gotten smaller your brain adapts so that different parts take over thereby helping you see. Right now the only time I have a problem is when I must work on white surfaces. The blog was one of those that I avoided because I couldn't ignore the black areas! But either I've adapted and learned to tolerate it or he is right about the brain adapting.

So.. with time I am fine. It bothers me that a cause hasn't been found yet. If you find a cause, you can fix that and be okay. But everyone else seems rather pleased with the actions taken by all the doctors. I had a nurse calling and she made her last call yesterday unless she more paperwork comes across her desk that I went to the hospital. Doctors are beginning to wait three months to see me rather than days. The cardiologogist is the only one left that hasn't released me to three months or more until he gets the results of all the cardio tests I've had.

So.. hopefully I'll be back and posting on a more regular basis.

The more the government gives you the more they will take away... just ask Citibank, GM and the other one..

Hhhmmpphh.. I need to figure out how to make the font bigger so I can type. I don't need it big once it's published cause I'm not trying type.