This weekend was a complete blur!

Over the weekend we celebrated my son, Jeff's, 18th birthday. He doesn't turn 18 until tomorrow but the weekend was the best time to get everyone together. It took me almost two weeks to get the house in order for company. Pictures were hung and furniture rearranged. I wanted my house to look somewhat in order before the gang showed up.

We took Jeff, Katie, Mark and Sebastian (Kat's boys) bowling in the early afternoon. One of the guest that Jeff had counted on was not allowed to come at the last freaking minute. But fun was had and I am glad that everyone enjoyed themselves. After bowling I picked up Kat and Chris picked up another of Jeff's friends. I had to run to the Sweetbay to pick up the cake and candles. I wanted the trick candles but they didn't have them. Guests started to arrive and before I knew it my house was packed like a sardine can.

The kids occupied their time playing Wii. From Rock Bank 2 to Mario Kart. The adults mingled back and forth. I am pretty sure that everyone enjoyed themselves.

There were four generations of my family under one roof. I think it would be neat if my grandparents lived long enough to see their great-great grandchild. Of course that would fall on the shoulders of Jeff and I hope to heck that he doesn't father a child in the near future. LOL!!! But it could happen. When Jeff was born my great grandmother was still alive. She didn't pass away until Jeff was seven years old. So it is cool to have a picture of the five generations all together.

Jeff made out well in the gift department. Mostly money but hey you can never have too much of that to begin with. We asked him what he was going to do with his birthday money. He wants to save most of it and then buy some accessories for the scooter we plan on buying for him and luggage for college.

I am so proud of him and all that he has accomplished. I know he has a good head on his shoulders and he has grown into a responsible man. I just can't believe that tomorrow my baby will be a MAN! Nobody warned me that my heart would be ripped from my chest when my baby grows up. Now I will have to suffer through all this again when Katie turns 18 in 9 years!

Still in ICU

Kat is still in the ICU and will remain there until tomorrow sometime. The complication was due to one of her lungs collapsing. So the decision to keep her in ICU will be in effect until tomorrow sometime. Jo and the boys did in fact go see her today. The nurse brought Kat out of sedation long enough to know that they were there. Kat being the feisty woman that she is, was getting agitated about the breathing tube still being in place. So Jo had them put her back under. I doubt that Kat will remember that because the medicine they use to sedate her will probably have her forget that Jo and the boys were even there. Maybe and maybe not.

I will be calling tomorrow morning to see whether or not they put her into a room and if they did I will go see her but chances are it will be Thursday before she has a room out of the ICU. Jo and I are guessing that Kat will be in the hospital through the weekend. She may not come home until Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Jo is going to call me later this evening to let me know how things are going. I would call myself but I think Jo would like to be the messenger from this point on. I am sure she feels terrible for not being the one to take Kat in the first place. Which she shouldn't in the least but I do understand it.

In support of Kat

This is my friend, Kat. She has been a blogger for more than ten years now. She is more importantly a single mom to two very cool teenage boys, Mark and Sebastian.

Kat was born with many congenital defects. One of which was severe scoliosis which she had surgery to correct back in 2006. She is having surgery tomorrow morning that will stop the vertebrae in her neck from closing in more on her spinal cord. This surgery is NOT optional. Either she has it or she will die in less than 2 months. This decision was a no brainer for Kat even though it will take away 90 percent of the mobility of her neck and shoulders.

She will be completely fused from the base of her skull all the down to her tailbone after the surgery is complete. Can you imagine that?

The purpose of this post is to drum up support for Kat and her boys while she is recuperating. On the sidebars of her blogs she does have a PayPal donate button. It's set up so that whatever amount is donated to her it will go directly into her PayPal account. I know that this is a hard time for many due to the economy but please if you can show your support. You may also spread the news around and let others know that a fellow blogger needs our help.

She won't be in the hospital too long. We expect her home until Thursday or Friday. I will keep you up on her progress!

Spending time with friends...

Kat and her boys came over on Saturday. As usual the boys hung out and played Halo 3 and another game that I can not think of the name of. Katie had too much sugar and started to entertain the boys with her rendition of a morbid Opera. Something about graves.. I don't know. She gets like that when she is excited and high from sugar overdose. I think her dad allowed her to have some Pepsi. Not a good idea.

Sebastian showed me a few tricks (cheats) for my Sims2 game. I knew a few but now. haha.. I own that game. Chris just rolls his eyes. It's better than being a WOW widow..haha... It's my only escape y'know. After all the housework and the cooking I too deserve a vice. Smoking just calms my stress but my Sims2 they keep me entertained.

Chris again struck gold with his cooking abilities and we stuffed ourselves silly with hamburgers, hot dogs and more. Don't get me wrong, I own the kitchen when it comes to cooking meals but when there is meat to be grilled, that's Chris' department.

I love having them over. The kids get to play and I actually have an adult to talk to. I would do it every weekend if she could stand it.

Getting down to the wire...

Remember to have your header submissions in by May 30th, for the Regalo Boutique contest. I am disappointed that so far no one has submitted anything. I am hoping that you are taking an interest and maybe you are mulling over ideas in your head.

The contest is simple and everyone walks away with a gift just for participating. If you have some how been under a rock or just not paying attention for nearly a month now you can go here to read all the details.

There must be some people out there that love me enough to want to try this. Right?

Living Abroad

My friends, Alana and Phil, reside in England at the moment. Phil is currently going to college earning a bachelor degree in "gaming" and Alana has already graduated. They have been married just over a year and currently reside with her father. Phil works full time while attending classes but Alana has yet to find a job. She would like to go back to school to earn her Doctorate degree in the Literary arts.

They have been doing home improvements to make their own living area spacious and not so cramped. The home they share with her dad is not very big to begin with so doing anything they possibly can to make it more habitable for three adults is their primary focus.

They have many "projects" going right now and one of the them is to renovate the garage. I know Phil needs a place to study and to also work on his computers. Alana needs an office area to accommodate her computer and do some freelancing side work for a few magazines she is involved with.

One of the cool things they are thinking about adding on is what they call Conservatories. These remind me of what Americans call Florida rooms or Sun rooms. They sort of remind me of an internal green house the way they are constructed.

Alana's dad from what I hear is a superb chef and spends a lot of time in his kitchen. For Christmas they plan on revamping his kitchen for him. I know one of the items to be replaced is the kitchen "worktops". They have also decided to give him additional storage space in the kitchen.

I can not wait to see pictures after they are done. They do not plan on living there forever but while Phil is attending college they will be there.

Girls Night Out

I have not been out without the kids and/or Chris in ages. Not that I haven't wanted to I just didn't have anyone to go anywhere with. Kat and I have been planning for quite some time to get out and do something. When she posted about the movie 1408 and how much she wanted to go see it, I knew we would finally be able to go somewhere without our kids.

We planned on a dinner and a movie. I took her to Cheeburger Cheeburger because she had never been there before and they really do have good burgers. We also went to see the movie 1408.
Kat decided to get the tickets ahead of time through Fandango and it's a good thing she did because the line outside the theatre was ridiculous. Not to mention the concession line and all the teeny line jumpers. Kat was ready to knock some heads and I did not blame her one bit.
The teenagers theses days really have no common courtesy. As we were finding our seats Kat was told by two teenage girls that the seats we wanted were saved. Kat was like really? I don't see anyone sitting in them! And of course we sat down in the "saved" seats:) I know we are a bunch of 30 something year old rebels!
The movie was better than I expected, I really enjoyed it! John Cusack has never made a bad movie and of course Samuel L. Jackson was perfect for his role. A lot of suspense and it definitely had Stephen King's charm all over the movie. I have not been to a movie in a long time where you actually jumped out of surprise. There were even a couple of screamers in the audience.

So even though we went on opening night and yes the theater was pretty much packed with teenage brats. I am grateful that I got to go out and spend a few hours with someone who needed to do the same. I can definitely see this turning into a monthly girls night out.

Friendship

I have never been the type of person that made lots of friends. Don't get me wrong I have friends but very few. I do have a lot of acquaintances. I have issues with trust. Chris could tell you tons of stories regarding my trust issues..hell he could probably write a best seller on that.

Since I have started surfing the net and stumbling onto different blog sites I have developed an addiction to it. It inspired me to start my own site. Mainly to keep family that live 1200 miles away up to date with what's going on in my life and to come out of my introvert shell a little bit.

The first blog I found and quite literally by mistake was www.mysinglemomlife.com. This site belongs to my friend Kat. I read her site for about 6 months before I left a comment to any of her posts. She lives in the same city as I do, she is a single mom, which I myself was a single mom for a good seven years before I met Chris . She is a smart, caring, kind and down to earth woman but for some odd reason she doubts herself. Although to be completely honest I have doubted myself for years.
We are similar in many ways. I have met her only twice for very brief times. First was to drop off her Girl Scout Cookie order and the second was to bring her something I thought she could use. She has helped me greatly by advertising my business on her site and posting a very heartwarming blog about my business. We email back and forth from time to time. Kat has been ill lately and keeping up with what she does has been hard for her. I was truly worried for her when I noticed that she was not posting as often as she normally does. Sometimes it was days before I would see a new post. I hope she finds out soon what is causing her illness and gets the correct treatment. She has been through enough shit already. She is a Scoliosis survivor. She had to have two surgeries to straighten her back. She had to have two steel rods and tons of pins put in her back to have it corrected. She is still having to take pain meds for the crap she had to go through and also will have to start going to physical therapy. In my opinion she is one strong woman.

She is a wiz at posting for PAY PER POST and I enjoy the way she incorporates her experience to the ones she picks out. She is extremely talented in many ways and I admire her personality and the way she states her opinions and doesn't give a rat's ass whether you agree with her or not.
Go check out her site and find out for yourself what a wonderful, straight forward brass personality, and truly amazing person she really is.