My Procedure for Discipline

If you would like to see how I go about disciplining my children and how I react to my emotions – read here!

I don’t feel like going through it all over again!

Feel free to comment and tell me what works for you – cause I am all out of ideas! not to mention patience!

I want to take time to smell the roses… among other things.

My life is rushed Way2Much.

I want to slow down and do some enjoyable things.

But first I need to take care of important matters such as organizing my basement and getting rid of all the items my family no longer needs.

When all that is said and done:

1. I wish to read a book – finish it and read another – etc, etc.
2. I wish to put all my puzzles together. I am in the middle of a puzzle of Jesus Christ.  I have Christmas themed puzzles and Thomas Kinkade puzzles as well.
3. I wish to plant and maintain a vegetable garden.
4. I wish to expand my flower garden.
5. I wish to work on my scrapbooks.  I want to make my own fabric covered scrapbooks as well. 
6. I wish to work on a room dedicated to arts and crafts and get back to my artistic nature. (been lying dormant for far too long)
7. I wish to go on a long bike ride or for a walk every day.
8. I want to spend every morning at the beach – just for a few hours to start the day peacefully walking along the shore.
9. I wish to take a cooking class and learn different meal solutions, even those out of the ordinary. I am tired of the same old routine.
10. I wish to get back to baking all those tempting and delicious cookies and desserts I used to prepare.  (I need an oven first!)

These are just a few of my many wishes.  Tell me what yours are! We can dream together! (sounds like a singles ad – doesn’t it! – this is FAR from it – I am happily married 

St. ANNE’S PICNIC RECAP! ONE FOR THE FAMILY!

I am busy it seems!

I am maintaining my other blog since it is for healthy reasons but somehow slacked off on this.

I may be suffering from panic attacks – but hey I am a hypochondriac so who the hell knows what I am suffering from – I say everything! LOL

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO ME – why thank you!

I celebrated my birthday in style! I travelled 77 miles (yes I clocked it) to Don Bosco’s Marian Shrine in West Haberstraw, NY.  I like to visit Mary on my birthday – why not – she is 48 feet tall! Plus I need her help to get me through the days! I say this in a joking way, but prayer never hurt me, my friends!

Seriously, it was our (as in my father’s side of the family and his pisonas – anyone want to help me with the spelling on this!) annual picnic. It occurs on my birthday weekend and this year it landed dead on.  So I went with my daughter because we play a mean game of bocce!

My husband stayed home to take my son on his second camping trip of the summer. He just returned from his first one the night before!

{NOTE: I don’t want to be around when he comes home from this trip – think about it – 2 weeks out in the wilderness, staying up late and working his tail off to earn badges – no thank you! He is going to be one cranky 14 year old!}

Saturday we went to my mother-in-law’s to celebrate my birthday and my niece’s birthday – hers is 4 days after mine. My two nieces were visiting the whole month of July. They live in Florida and their mother came up halfway into their stay to help my mother-in-law with her post-operation care.  They left on July 24th. So we needed to celebrate with the entire family on Saturday – that was the only day that was left available.

I got nice presents!

• My sister-in-law got me a metal stand for a hanging basket – I wanted one so it was a good gift!
• My nieces gave me a butterfly garden stone – it is very nice
• My brother-in-law and his girlfriend (even though he forgot to put her name on the card) gave me a pair of lounge pajamas (another gift I wanted.)
• My mother-in-law bought me another pair of pajamas, a beautiful purple print scarf that she thought would look perfect with a black cocktail gown and a beautiful bracelet made with Murano glass. This gift came in a gorgeous Victorian style hat box (a gift in itself!) 

My sister-in-law also made a nice Boston Cream Cake for my birthday! I love love love Boston Cream!  She also out did herself and prepared a Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream pie for her daughter and a Chocolate Pudding Pie for anyone who may not enjoy the other two!

But back to St. Anne’s!

I had to take the GWB! :-O !

Good news, seems like gas is too high that no one wants to go anywhere anymore because I breezed across it! Amazing! The drive on the Palisades is always a nice one as well.  I am there in record time – although I got a late start. So I missed the mass. Now here comes the fun part and I will insult some people….

I am driving on the entrance road – I pass the parking lot to the chapel because I know I missed Mass so I may as well go straight to the picnic sight – so I keep driving.  I see the 48 foot statue of our Blessed Mother. I go to this site every year, yet I don’t remember it. I am amazed by it.  I drive around and realize – I am lost! Not really, but I had forgotten that our picnic site is right across from the Chapel, so I drive around just for fun and head back to the chapel. Naturally, I drive slow in the parking lot.  I notice a lady leaving the bathroom and walking back to the chapel. Well all I say to my daughter is “Look, it’s Aunt Jemima!” and she looks at me, smiles and says, “Mo-hmmm” in the “that’s not funny” way.  I turn the corner to find a parking spot, and explain, “Oh crap, it’s a convention!” My daughter can’t help but burst out laughing while giving me a look like “mom, you know you are going to burn in hell!”  These ladies were beautiful, they were dressed in yellow and white garb and I later found out they were Baptist.  But I am sorry, they reminded me of the lady on the syrup bottle.  I wonder out loud if we are going to get free samples of syrup!

I pull into my spot and almost run Gene over! OK – he thinks the same way I do!  Nicholas is excited to see me and says hello (if you can’t tell I abandoned the damn numbers – I don’t think anyone can figure out who we are – never mind really care to either!)

We greet everyone at our anti-social spot we claim every year. Remind me to ask Aunt L. why we do that again!  I spot a huge tent, thanks to Aunt F! It did after all call for some thunder showers. Luckily, we didn’t need it.

I toss out my snacks on the table and look at all our stuff. We are 3 families with sub-families! A total of (hmm pause here while I count on my fingers…) 23 people if I added right! So many were missing – like my brother and his family (went to Providence – there phew I can spill the beans now!) and my sister and her family were at a Baptism. T and V were too tired to make it (come on guys!) and don’t know where R and J were – perhaps planning a wedding or something!

So for 23 people we had enough food to feed 100! Just like it always is! We had fried chicken – not provided by the convention people, but by Aunt F.! We had pickled eggplant, fried zucchini flowers, ham sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, pasta salads and green salad.  We nixed the idea of BBQ because it always takes too much time to wait for the grill to cool down (is this the real reason?) Well anyway, we always seem to bring more food than we need and the idea to eliminate the BBQ was a good one.

Now onto the fun! We make up our bocce teams – now here is where I need some help, because I have no idea what men played, what teams they were on or how they did. But who cares – because my team took second place! Unfortunately we couldn’t beat the smug team. I will leave any further description of them as I gave out enough information that if they ever read this they would know in a heartbeat who I am and that wouldn’t be nice! There were a total of 5 teams that played. My mom, daughter and Aunt L and I were on one team. Aunt F., Emma, Theresa and Tracy were on another. Their team was eliminated from the smug team.  We won our first round and had a coin toss with s.t. to see who will get the buy. They did (they got to rest up their arms). We played and won our second round.  Now the finals.  We tried, but they were better (due to their rest – and the fact that we played with a different set of balls – no comments please – than what we had during our first two rounds – these were heavier!)

It cost us $5 to participate but we won $10 for coming in second! Not bad. My daughter was very proud! Kat stayed back with the young kids to play with this year’s guest – the Cat in the Hat. She can add her own comments here about that experience!

Kat, mom and I decide to head over to the Gift Shop after our game. I will leave out any bit of detail here, except that I was heaving! What a work-out. Kat just laughed at me!  While I was in the shop, my mom’s cell phone went off.  I hear her say “she is here, do you want to talk to her?” I automatically assume it is my sister and I wonder what she wants to talk to me about?  I find out it is my brother! And he and his wife are wishing me a happy birthday! HA – I forgot it was my birthday, even though everyone wished me one when I got there!

We get back to our area and eat.  Raffles are drawn, my mother exclaims that we can share the winners when I mention that I didn’t buy any. They are pulling the winner for the 14 inch TV/DVD player and she says she could really use that. With that being said, they call her name! Looks like we are not sharing!

Everyone ups and leaves, that is except our family. They are all party poopers!

My mother brings out a cake (whiskey!) that she made for my birthday – everyone sings. I try to blow out a trick candle Ha Ha.  I get my present – pair of pants and 3 fall tops! I love them!  My aunt tells me my feet are black and Kat explains “yeah we need to cut them off!” Now I think she is talking about my feet but she means the black rubber on the base of the chairs that I was sitting on – seems it rubbed off on my sole!

By 6:00 we decide it is time to clean up. It takes us about an hour – does this surprise you? We did have over a dozen picnic tables! 

By 7:00 we are on the road and I pull into my driveway at 8:30 – there was a bit of congestion on the GWB – does that surprise you? It doesn’t me!

And that was my experience with the Annual St. Anne’s picnic.

Tidbits of info I forgot to mention – my father helped roll the statue away which by the way makes more money that who knows! On his way back he says he has seen it all, “they are so afraid of people lifting things here that they tied down a tree!” Sure enough there is a metal chain and lock on the trunk of a tree!  Go figure!

OH AND I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL TOMATO SAUCE WEEKEND! YIPPEE!

A Mixture of Pleasure and Annoyance!

If you know me personally, you know that I am dissatisfied with my living conditions.

I live on 1/4 acre of property and my house is set back 40-45 feet from the road – leaving not much land behind my house. I have enough side property, but being a nature lover – I would like more. My family thinks I have a ton of property. My lot is 100 X 100.  I grew up living on a 40 X 100 piece of property, so by that standard, yes I do have plenty!

My neighbors have more – like twice as much! They have plenty of room to put an in-ground pool and patio, waterfalls, etc. Yes, I live in a neighborhood where people make tons of money. However, we don’t! I am lucky I meet my mortgage payments and my monthly bills. I exaggerate; my point is that I am not well-to-do, nor do I wish to be. I like being who I am with my values set the way they are…but…I just want a teensy bit more property!

A few years ago, a man came knocking at my door informing me that he is representing a client who wishes to sell the vacant land ajdacent to mine. I disregard his offer, but take his card anyway. He tells me the price they want to for it (extremely cheap for this area especially for a 60 X 120 lot).  I could build a pool he says! I look at him like he is nuts! For this vacant land is to the side of my front yard! Who puts a pool in the FRONT yard?

I tell my husband – he seems interested. He wants to build a 3-car garage with a workshop upstairs.  Can we do it? He only wants the property if we can get the permits to do this type of construction. I do some legwork and find out that it has 2 front yards (being a corner property); therefore, any construction must be set back 40 feet from the road! It is also zoned, neighborhood business which means I can’t have any dwelling closer than 5 feet to the property line! I tell my husband he can build a 15 foot garage! Deep. Wide. Whatever!  Now you know that just won’t do!

He has me do some more research – my town planning department is not too helpful. They tell me I have to own the property, put in for a variance and then they will let me know if my husband’s wish can come true! I try to explain to the brain-dead woman behind the counter that I am not going to spend – tens of thousands of dollars on a piece of land that will be rendered useless. I don’t have that type of money.  She informs (the brain-dead) me that this is the policy take it or leave it.

My husband is not happy.  Weeks go by, I see a man walking the perimeter of the property and he is talking excitedly on his cell phone. My husband is convinced these people cannot do anything with the land therefore is dumping it to the poor soul who is stupid enough to purchase it.  I am concerned about a Dairy Barn (for those who do not know – it is a drive-up store where no parking is necessary and you get your dairy needs in an instant) being constructed there.  Friends and family are assuring us that no other business can build there because they will need ample parking spaces to provide for their customers/clients. I am soothed somewhat by that notion. That is until I saw how excited this man was.

I call my husband at work! “Listen, who cares if we can’t build the garage.  Think of how nice and pretty we can make that lot.  I can have my garden I always wanted, we can fence in a section for Wolf (our dog), we can PREVENT anyone else from buying it.” He thinks it over and says “Make an offer.” My heart pounds, I am ecstatic!

Long story short! I am outbid! By $24,000. Damn bastards!  I had everything going for me, but some land developer scoffed it up. This was 3 years ago, and my husband and I are still mourning over our loss. If only we jumped on the deal as soon as the man knocked on my door, I would be enjoying my front yard! But, we need to build a bridge and get over it though!

Fast forward to the present.  A few weeks ago I saw a For Sale sign on the land.  I call the number.  The woman is trying to tell me that it is a house for sale. I am arguing that it is land. We go back and forth.  She is yelling at me now. So I take a deep breath and say, “I am standing right in front of my house! It is the property right next door. Either I am blind or there is NO HOUSE there!” She then proceeds to say “oh that sign is there in error. It is for the house down the block – we will have that removed immediately.” I am so irate. First, she was nasty. Second, the land is NOT for sale.

But it gets my husband and I thinking.  What is going on with it? Who buys it and doesn’t build on it? My husband is smirking because he believes he was right – you cannot build on it for one reason or another – but they are building on smaller lots around here – so what is the deal? 

There is trash everywhere, it is disgusting. So my husband elicits the help of our teenage son and they clean it out.  Brave souls. I won’t even tell you what they found. Suffice it to say, it is an empty lot, which happens to be a dumping zone for all sorts of items used in sordid activities.

We’re tired of seeing this next to our home all the time.  Today, I finally decide to call the town and find out who owns it. I call the assessors office, they give me the name.  They tell me to call the Tax Reciever’s office to find out where the bill goes, since there is no dwelling on the property. I find that out as well.  I then proceed to call the Planning Dept. and they tell me that there are no plans on file. I take that to mean they never tried to submit anything to develop the area.  Therefore no variance or permits were sought out. What are these people doing with the property and why?

I need to find out and make them an offer! I will offer them $5000 less the asking price of the previous owners! They will laugh at me I am sure, but what do I have to lose?

Even the Squirrels Are Italian

This was taken a few years ago. I looked out my kitchen window and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to run for the camera.

This is too good to keep to myself!

I wish I can enlarge it more but it gets all distorted if I do.   

Spam – Your IT

I am guessing that if I get Spammed that must mean I really made it! People are noticing my site? Right?

Well it is annoying.  I ignore it for the most part, but look how many I have accumulated so far! 

  

Spam

Akismet has protected your site from 488 spam comments.

To top it off – the last few ones were in another language! At least Askimet is doing its job and none of it is getting through to the public!

Slowly Approaching 10,000

I am not sure when I started tracking my stats. I think it may have been in March sometime.

Within that time frame – I have acquired somewhere around 20-28 readers.

Look to the side, I have about 60 more hits before I reach 10,000 – an exhilarating milestone for me.  Why – I have no idea! I am just corny like that.

So do me a favor – look over to the right – if it says 10,000 – you are my 10,000th hit and I want to know! Leave a comment and say – HEY – IT’S ME! Even if you never commented before!

You win nothing! But it will satisfy my curiosity! And isn’t that worth it!

*************************************************

Time for me to whine!

COME ON GUYS – RIGHT AS I TYPE, MY VIEW STATS ARE AT 10075!

SOMEONE DID NOT PLAY ALONG AND LET ME KNOW YOU WERE HIT 10000!

I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED!

BUT I WILL GIVE YOU ALL THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT AND SAY IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANY ONE OF THE 400 OR SO SPAMMERS THAT LEAVE THEIR ANNOYING MESSAGES!

Another Blog

I am disgusted with myself – so I started another blog.

Check out my other personality on the right!

I don’t know how long it will last!

But hopefully it will work – not off to a good start!

I have a Pampered Chef meeting tonight, which means many things:

• they will announce all the products that will be discontinued – seen them already and I am SHOCKED
• they will announce all new product line – cannot wait!
• there will be so much food there – here lies the problem and the test to see how my will-power holds up!

I may mention my struggles from time to time on this blog – but I will be documenting everything on the other blog – appropriately titled Weightoomuch!

Top Ten Things I Learned Over the Weekend!

1. My 95 year old great-aunt is stronger than I.
2. My great-grandparents on my mother’s side fled their country due to religious persecution.
3. Actions indeed speak louder than words – but words can hurt – a lot.
4. My husband thinks my daughter needs a bra – (duh he doesn’t realize she already wears one!)
5. My parents think I am grossly overweight – well I already knew this but boy did they drive the point home this time.
6. Things can happen right under your nose – like a Siberian Husky sneaking out of the garage while I am on my hands and knees pulling weeds and my nieces and daughter are playing on the lawn!
7. My father does not find it humorous when he tells me I should cut my meal portion size down to half of my “normal” portion and I clarify that to mean eating only half a bag of Doritos!
8. Hospitals don’t really want you resting comfortably! They want you awake and feeling every bit of pain possible!
9. My son still possesses the knowledge of how to work a hospital bed – something he ”learned” when he was 2 years 9 months old while visiting me and his newborn sister!
10. No matter how bad I ‘think’ I have it, there are people worse than me such as “Jean” who is so confused, lost her keys, wants to die, and just wants to go home. (She lives in a nursing home, doesn’t have keys).  She broke my heart, asked me for help and for the first time – I felt completely helpless except to tell her that we will find them, why not relax and I am sure someone will come back with her keys!

Confusing numbers – Family Tree

Grandma and Grandpa had 3 children! (They lived in Italy and moved to America for a better life. Their oldest was 13 at the time.)

The oldest  a son – he is king – his sisters wait on him hand and foot. It makes my mother sick! Oh I should mention he is my dad! He is the best! Every girl should love their daddy like I do!

The second – the middle child – is a girl. She doesn’t know how to relax – she is always doing for everyone. So pure-hearted.

The third is also a girl. She is lively and playful and must have put all the grey hairs in grandma’s head! (not sure if she was the one who threw the knife at my dad’s forehead!)

OK – so Dad has 3 kids – #s 3, 4 and 7 (girl, girl, boy respectively)

Aunt F has 4 kids #s 1, 2, 5 and 9 (boy, girl, boy, boy respectively)

Aunt L has 2 kids #s 6 and 8 (boy, girl respectively)

Now – I am the middle child – I am 2 years, 8 months younger than my sister. I mention this because she and #2 would not let me hang around them! I was too young. Therefore, I hung around with (and got in trouble with) #s 5 and 6! They are both male and both a year younger than I. I sat on plenty of couches because of them! Thanks guys!

So there you have it.

Naturally, the numbers are in age order! 1 is the oldest and 9 is the youngest.

Now here is the breakdown of the cousins family:

• 1 – male – single – no children
• 2 – female – married – one son
• 3 – female – married – twins (b,g) and another daughter
• 4 – female – married – son and daughter
• 5 – male – married – no children
• 6 – male – married – one son
• 7 – male – married – two daughters
• 8 – female – married – son and daughter
• 9 – male – to be married in August!

None of our children are married as the oldest is 14 and the youngest is not quite a year! Looking forward to many cousin’s bashes to come!