transition guy...
meet sid. he is our (my) new kitten. we adopted him today from the local s.p.c.a. and he is a doll baby.

he was aptly named after sid viscous of the sex pistols and believe me, this one is a pistol. he's been running the house, playing with the dog, and ticking off zoe, the matriarch of the cat branch of the family all day.

i just heart his little self! and believe it or not, the kids are letting him be!

unlikely source?

i was a bit at the end of my rope this week. come friday, i wasn't sure there was a rope left. long story short, the youngest is a banshee baby! he screamed all week. he had a cold and was up most nights and that makes for one tired momma (a word he still won't say).

but, i was able to depend on what some would consider an unlikely source. the baby daddy took him for a night. it meant that i slept! even though it wasn't his weekend to have the kids, he came through and offered support, an ear, and reprieve from the crying (mine and the kid's). not only that, but the kiddo slept the night he was with me from 8:45 p.m. - 7 a.m. this was a welcome first! it was nice to know i wasn't all alone in this, which is sometimes how i feel at the end of a long day of trying to work and entertain three kids, knowing that the days i am without them i will be busy working, cleaning, or working (oh, did i say working).

i'm waiting for school to start now, but i'm not sure if that will help or not. that just means there will be more time constraints to focus on too. i guess we'll see.

as for the kid swaps, they are a work in progress. thank god i have someone who is willing to step up and help out. and this, my friends, is the reason i do not want to kill him :)

a special day ...

today is a special day. not only is it the birthday of two great friends (happy happy day to you), but it would be my 10th anniversary. it isn't the anniversary of when i was married. we always called that our familiversary, the day we became a family. instead, this is the anniversary of the start of our relationship. it was our first date and the first time i met the kiddo. it was also the day we always celebrated for ourselves since we celebrated our familiversary with the kids.

today will be tough, but it is special in its own way. i'll get through today and that is important to me. and it won't be the last of the special days that i face, so why not step up now?

this was funny...

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% Yankee

20% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

the first sentence...

of my impending novel (yeah, right). comments?

She had a harried weekend, full of thinking, talking, socializing, working -- all the things that make you frazzled and tired come Monday.

my newest hobby ...

yep, you got it. i belly dance now. and i love it! i really really do. in fact, now that i've moved up from the beginner course, where you learn the basic shimmies and what my instructor calls the travelling 6 pack (a series of commonly used steps that make up the basics for most choreography), i get to do cool stuff.

i started learning two choreographed dances just last night. one class is what is called a fusion class, where you do bellydancing and other dance style moves to nontraditional music. we're using "hips don't lie" this session. and since i'm taking two courses now, i am learning a veil dance too. it isn't as much fun because it is all flowy and pretty, but i like it nonetheless.

but, the best part of the whole deal is that i've graduated to a coin belt. that is basically a hip scarf with metal coins on it that jingle when you move. i get to jingle now. fun!

one of my favorite days ...

it was clean sheet day here in my world! i heart clean sheet day! the bed feels so fluffy and it smells so nice and well, clean!

see, it doesn't take much to make me happy despite common gossip :)

can you really have too much space?

it appears you can. it looks like 2400 square feet is just too much for me and two little people to live in. it isn't that i wish i had less room for them to run or to run from them, or that i wish i had fewer bedrooms to house them or my visiting oldest. instead it is that their toys and games and stuff spreads throughout the house regardless of how many times i fight to contain it.

a few examples: sitting at the dining room table and being goosed by a peek-a-block hiding on the chair and stubbing your toe on one of the 17 (literally) batmen under the table. stepping on spilled grapes in your bedroom when you didn't know they even knew there were grapes in the fridge. sweeping piles of shedding lab out of your front hallway 5 times a day without exaggeration. and dealing with piles of "his" junk mail that even though he saw last night, he didn't take, pick up, or throw out.

it's just too much space to contend with at the moment. i will lock myself in my cluttered, chaotic, yet controlled office and forget about the rest for just a minute.

a first...

it seems the biggest of the three little people received a card today from the potato state resident. she sent her first "just cuz" card in his almost 14 years of life. wow! maybe our split has made her realize that believe it or not, she is actually his mom. go figure!

regardless of why she sent it, she should have. and maybe, just maybe, he'll end up with more than two loving parents (me and his dad of course) out of all this because she may decide to step up a bit. one can hope!

oh, and on a funnier note, i was just very un-pc. a friend commented that i was doing well by keeping up with my hair coloring appointments as we've both been known to go in and out of the mood and the money to do such things. i stated that "i have to or else i look trailer." we all know what "trailer" is, but it wasn't the most correct thing i've ever said. nonetheless, it isn't the worst either!

strange observation...

i went to a meeting for new adjunct faculty at my local community college where i'll now be teaching an online course. i made an observation, and while it wasn't a scientific one, it seemed odd.

there were 35 of us in this meeting, all new adjuncts. there were 22 women in this group. of those 22 women, only 3 had on wedding rings. now i realize that not every married woman wears a ring. but even if a handful were not wearing their rings, that seems like an odd number of unmarried professional women in that group.

our ages ranged from the second-year grad students who were under 25 to a few women discussing their grandchildren entering college. that's a wide age spread.

i wonder what that means. does it mean that i'm in a larger group than i thought, this group of professional, single women?

the new hobby...

the middle one (he's 7) and i picked up a new hobby today: racquetball. we went to the y today and checked out racquets and played around for 45 minutes in the "echo room" as he called it. it was great! we loved it! and yes, i know that is a tennis racquet to the right, but it was a cool pic and he liked it, so there it is.

we'll have to see if we continue, but so far we had some great fun and didn't do too bad as far as volleys go either.

a new (sad) milestone...

the rings are off. yes, i took them off today. i have been prepping myself for it for more than a month now. i figured he took his off so carelessly, so quickly, that i could too. and while some of you may think that wearing your rings for a full month or so isn't a long time, it sure does feel like it when the other person has moved on and moved out. i guess i am looking at them as just one other sign of how i want things to be rather than how they are. and believe me, it wasn't a quick, careless, or even wanted gesture.

so, what did i do in classic hoyden fashion? i bought a replacement. not only did this allow me the fun of ebaying (gotta love the bidding process), but also the fun of choosing a new piece of bling. and while i'm not ready to admit this to my mother, she was right. i shouldn't need a guy to buy me flowers and jewelry. i should be able to do it myself. and while this lovely marquasite ring isn't the half karat sparkler i was given when we got engaged, i think you'll agree it's pretty pleasant.

i guess i felt the need to replace my rings rather than just strip them off. one comment was that it looked so much like a wedding band that folks might think i'm still married (and she was commenting with the best intentions and more to give me an idea i may not have thought of rather than criticize the choice). but that is exactly what i wanted. i mean i am still married, right? but more than that, i want people to think i'm still married.

as much as losing my cohesive family unit is upsetting me, knowing that other people are judging me for it is worse. i know that no one could judge me as hard as i judge myself, but i feel this is a bit of a failure, like a big bit of one! and i hate the idea (also in classic hoyden fashion) of strangers seeing me with my kids and thinking i'm a single mom. i just hate that! so, while i work to get over my "i care what everyone else thinks" issue, i'll wear my pretty new ring and at least feel that i made this decision all for me.

roadtrips are officially more fun now...

at least you can pack a soda.

ok, so we want to keep folks safe on airplanes. we want to avoid liquid explosives. therefore, we avoid liquids. we want to avoid gel explosives. therefore, we avoid gel. while that may make sense on the outside, what the hell does it do to passengers?

if you tell folks they can't check any type of liquid, including toothpaste (which was a paste last i looked, although i guess there is gel and other types now), people will eventually stop flying at all, won't they? if i have to buy all new toiletries (including the much needed shampoo, deodorant, and lipstick) when i arrive at my destination, the one i'll be at for 2 whole days, then i sure do hope the airlines start cutting ticket costs for the associated "travel expenses" incurred.

granted, we can check luggage. but after my last flights, i noticed no one checks luggage. maybe this isn't about terrorist activity at all. maybe this is the airlines' way of shifting luggage from carry-on compartments to checked luggage holds. hmmm....

but we can rest assured that they will be confiscating a number of water bottles and pepsi cans. of course, they seem to have missed a large portion of the problem. isn't the issue the folks who would do this to begin with?

also, if you can bring a liquid explosive, can't you also bring a plastic one? maybe they'll be confiscating chewing gum next.

just a shout out...

a great friend of mine is graduating today with her phd! yeah, m! she has worked hard and gone through a lot to meet this goal, and she continues to kick my butt to ensure that i do as well.

i'm so proud!!!!!!!

sleep eludes her...

if i am so exhausted, why can i not sleep? does it have something to do with the idea that my life is in sudden, yet constant, upheaval at the moment? maybe it is merely because there are three teenage boys downstairs creating as little noise as they can, and which we all know is a lot. it could possibly be that i drank too much diet mountain dew tonight and can't get my system straightened out for the life of me.

or maybe i just miss the warmth of a kind soul next to me...

nah, must be the noisy kids!

healthy choice...


so maybe dove dark chocolate (which i could not find a picture of) isn't the world's best dinner, but it seemed to work well for me today. but i felt like i was on one of those healty choice/weight watchers/lean cuisine commercials where all of the women are talking about the horrible meals they ate and the one smart person had a pre-packaged, frozen, pre-portioned meal from whatever company.

alas, i am now an adult. that means that if i want chocolate, i might as well eat it first instead of pretending that i will not still crave its melty goodness after a respectable serving of meat and veggies. we all know i would have eaten dinner and then had the chocolate anyway. maybe this was more calorie efficient.

wicked awesome...

i am not really one to ogle machines (except maybe the occasional sweet ride be it car, truck, or motorcycle), and i'm even less interested in the aspect of war machines. that said, i was fascinated by watching the f/a 22 raptors flying overhead today. we live close to an air force base, and these planes are loud, fast, and basically wicked pissah! i couldn't help it. i was enthralled and excited, and in classic hoyden fashion, compelled to watch top gun!

even cooler than seeing these things on a once-in-a-while basis is that my seven year old is equally fascinated with them. i may never see one up close, and i know that i really don't want to hear them any closer, but they are amazingly agile acrobats of the sky and i heart them!

a rebirth of sorts...

i've been using the phoenix metaphor a lot lately, but the idea of rising from the ashes, a new, beautiful, clean soul is inspiring to me. and that is what the hoyden's boondoggle has decided to do.

welcome to part II of the blog you knew and loved, or were aware of and tolerated, or possibly never heard of and could not care less about.

here we go folks. the blonde hoyden is back and in rare form. she's not pulling any punches this time. we're going to the mattresses!