Trying to Connect…Or Not

We’ve been in San Diego over a month now and still haven’t settled in. I don’t know why. I suppose there’s lots of reasons at the top of the list being, laziness.

Our garage is so jam packed full of boxes, both packed and unpacked, both full of packing paper and broken down flat, that you can’t get into it. If you open the door from the house, you can’t step into it. If you open the main, big door to the driveway, you can’t walk into it. It’s spilling into the laundry room which makes it darned difficult to do laundry. It’s terrible.

Another reason is that we’ve been real busy. We’ve been keeping our weekends full of activities. There’s so much that we’ve been wanting to do for the past six years, that it’s hard not to go out and do it all at once, lol.

This past weekend we went to the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA. I’m sorry I didn’t get pictures. My phone died on the way there and  my car charger was in the other car. :( It was soooo busy that it was hard to walk around and see things. I went into the mystery books tent and once I had my purchases in hand, couldn’t figure out how to get to the checkout because it was wall to wall people, lol. Karen Slaughter was there. I almost had her sign a book but changed my mind. What did I get?

Well, I bought two Skippyjon Jones books by Judy Schachner. Everybody in my house is too old for these books but we find them hilarious and read them anyway, heheh. If you haven’t read one, do. I also got a SIGNED copy of Neil Gaiman’s A Game of You  from his The Sandman graphic novel series. I’m a big fan of his novels but have never read one of his graphic novels. The girl in the booth recommended I start with this one. I couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s a signed copy. And that’s it. Honestly, with two kids and my social anxiety, I had a hard time with the crowds and was ready to leave pretty quick. Oh. And the UCLA campus is pretty great. The buildings have some great architectural elements.

Afterwards, we hit Tito’s Tacos for lunch/dinner. It was just as good as I remembered it being when Jennifer and I went there two years ago. If you haven’t been and find yourself in the Los Angeles area, go.

So, tonight is a Twitter event for San Diego moms. I’m sure others can attend (it’s Twitter. Who could stop you??) but it’s geared towards moms and it’s to promote Kids Fest that’s happening here in San Diego this weekend. I don’t think we’re going because we’re trying to do NOTHING this weekend, but Twitter parties are usually fun and I’m trying to connect with other real life people. I think. I always have reservations about making new friends for lots of reasons. Mostly, I get tired of them or me moving away. It blows. Secondly, I’m a pretty terrible judge of people and some of the people I have tried to be friends with in the past ended up being not so nice people. That’s life I suppose.

Anyway, if you want to join in, the hash tag for the party is #KidsFestSDMoms. If you don’t know how to use hash tags with Twitter, let me know and I’ll help you out. They are having pretty neat giveaways to include family 4 packs to Legoland and Sea World as well as other stuff but you have to attend the party to be entered to win.

Thanks for reading to the end! I know I was longwinded.

Celebrate Differences

I have two very beautiful daughters. I know. They’re my daughters so I’m biased but I still say they’re gorgeous, both inside and out. I’ve talked about them often but I’d like to take this blog post to tell you a bit more about them and maybe a little something else as well.

My oldest daughter is 13, going on 21, lol. She’ll actually be 14 in July. She’s tall, thin, pretty, outgoing, and not afraid to try new things (for the most part.) I sometimes wonder if she was switched with someone else’s baby at the  hospital because I possess none of these traits. Then, she opens her mouth and her attitude spills out and then I know…Yep, she’s definitely mine. She has other flaws too. For instance, she’s lazy when it comes to her homework and her chores. She talks back way more than is good for her health. She picks fights with her sister over nothing (in her mind it’s not nothing, but in reality, it’s nothing). Sometimes she can be moody and no fun to be around for no good reason at all.

When she was younger, she had a speech and language delay. It made her different. Having a speech and language delay affects all aspects of your life. If you have a hard time understanding what you read or what is being said to you, you not only have a hard time reading, but you have a hard time with math, science, history, everything. It’s tough being different but she was lucky in that kids never picked on her for her problems. Luckily, she overcame this setback and performs normally in school now. Well, except for when that laziness thing interferes. ;)

My youngest daughter is 11 going on 7. She’s a pretty girl with the best tan you’ve ever seen. She looks like she’s lived in California all her life instead of just one month. She’s sweet beyond all belief yet she has a wicked sense of humor. She has some of the quickest comebacks I have ever heard in a kid or an adult. She hates to see anyone or anything hurt either emotionally or physically. She has the ability to pick up on other people’s emotions around her to the point where they affect how she’s feeling. This can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. It’s bad when someone else is angry or sad and she ends up crying and upset as a result of picking up on that.

She’s a different kid though. There’s no other way to say it. She was diagnosed with ADHD but she also has developmental delays and learning disabilities. Despite having taken her to several doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists in three different states, we’ve never gotten a specific diagnosis for her. She has a touch of a lot of things but not all of any one thing. Sometimes, she exhibits traits of Asperger’s Syndrome or autism, but all the doctors insist she does not have either. She’s 11 but has the maturity level of a seven year old and that is the age of most of the kids she plays with, with them being as  young as five but no older than eight or nine. All of this has combined to make it so that she struggles in school. A lot. A really lot.

Because of her differences and the tough time she has at school, she gets picked on a lot. Kids call her dumb and stupid and ask her questions that they know are too hard for her to answer just so that they can make more fun of her for not knowing. We homeschooled her for a while in North Carolina but she missed being in a “normal” school with other kids. So, we put her back into public schools here in California. She’s gone to school here all of 4 1/2 days and has already come home crying because of the other kids. Today, something pretty major happened and her dad and I had to go into the school.

It’s tough being different. Maybe all of this will make her a stronger person as an adult. Maybe being bullied is a part of growing up. Maybe saying that being bullied is a part of growing up is an easy answer to why a child hasn’t been instilled with the knowledge that being mean to others for the sake of being mean is wrong. Maybe more kids need to be taught that their actions have consequences and that making someone cry isn’t funny. Maybe more kids need to realize that words can injure and leave permanent damage in the same way that fists and weapons can.

Good Things

Grumpy and the lesser known dwarf, Bitchy have been my favorite dwarves of late. So, it's nice to have a few things to look forward to that are good.

We're doing something this weekend. I don't know what yet, but it'll be either the beach, Seaport Village, or maybe Old Town. We'll have to wait and see what we're in the mood to do and what the weather is like.

Next Saturday, the 17th, we're going to a Padres game. The Mister bought the tickets weeks ago, lol. He got them online at that website, www.stubhub.com. From what I understand, the tickets are sold by season ticket holders that don't plan on attending the game or event. Which means, they are excellent seats. We're very excited to take the kids to a major league game. We went to a few minor league baseball games in NC and the girls thought that was cool. Just wait until they see a major league game!

The following weekend after the baseball game, we are going to the LA Time Festival of Books!! I'm so excited about this that I could pee myself. I've been reading about Literary Feline's experiences at the festival for the past couple years and I can't believe that I actually get to go this year. It's a two day event and we're not sure if we're going Saturday, Sunday, or both days but we'll be going at least one day. Woot!

That's the next three weekends! Woot! I can't wait. They are all very excellent things to look forward to doing.

Excitement vs. Boredom. Which is Worse?

Things I like about living in San Diego again:

1. Convenient shopping. There is no shortage of places to shop.
2. Mexican food.
3. I like that it's not weird being here. It feels like we never left.
4. The Pacific time zone. It's dumb, but I like knowing that when everyone else that I know is getting ready for bed, I still have three hours to go, lol.
5. I like my new living room furniture and my living room.
6. I like the view from my backyard.

Things I don't like about living in San Diego again:

1. The neighborhood. My neighbor called animal control on us after only living here for a week. It was completely unfounded and the animal control lady was puzzled why she had been called at all. My answer to her was that the bored Navy wife, neighborhood busybody called her.
2. I hate that base housing never changes. Why can't military spouses evolve like other homo sapiens?
3. That we have bugs and our dishwasher is already messed up and the smoke detectors like to go off at random times for no apparent reason.
4. I have a terrible kitchen. Despite having rearranged it several times, there just isn't enough counter space or cabinets. It's hard to cook harmoniously in it. Oh. And the light in the eating area was burned out when we moved in and we still haven't replaced the bulb. We eat dinner in the semi-dark.
5. The garage isn't big enough. We have to park both of our cars outside. I watched kids bounce balls off of my car twice yesterday. I'm going to be driving a banged up piece of crap if we have to live here for any length of time. I WILL NOT buy a new car until we live somewhere else.
6. The office is still full of unpacked boxes one of which contains my desktop computer. I miss it.
7. The neighborhood. It just sucks.

I don't mind the earthquakes. They liven things up. We already had some sort of brush fire in the neighborhood. I'm willing to bet kids started it. There was also a house fire about 3 houses away. A kid started that one too. It's been pretty exciting living in base housing with all the fires, earthquakes, and nosy neighbors. I don't need to worry about being bored, that's for sure.

Now that I'm done here, I get to add to the excitement that is my life by calling base housing to see if they can send someone out to look at the dishwasher. Can you stand it?