Terrible weekend, just terrible. Friday started out well enough. Left work at 12:30 and Brian took the afternoon off, which was cool. I took the kids to lunch and we ran some errands. That night the girls went with us to Best Buy and Borders for a little shopping. We came home and had dinner and watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Good times.

Saturday morning was okay too, pretty uneventful. Saturday afternoon Casey and I went to a baby shower, for a 17-year-old. Not cool. But I figured she needed all the gifts and good wishes she could get so we went. It was strange, because almost everyone was trying to act normal, even though we were all thinking the same thing.

That night, we went out to the pizza place we went to last weekend because my brother-in-law's band was playing there. And that is where things started going downhill. The band sounded great, the boys were having a good time on stage. Brian played two songs with them and was awesome, as always. Why these boys haven't asked them to join the band is beyond me.

Lots of their peeps showed up, including some that had never been to a show before and some that hadn't been in forever. We were all having a good time, drinking some beers and enjoying the show and things were going great until right after the first set.

My older brother and his wife were there, sitting at the table right behind us. She is a first-class bitch, always has been. It didn't help that my brother was completely drunk. I guess he started earlier in the day and didn't stop when they showed up. Usually this is bad, sometimes he's not a nice drunk. But he was behaving himself, just having a few drinks and watching the show like the rest of us.

I guess she was ready to go before he was, which wasn't a problem for any of us. The earlier she leaves, the better. The problem was that she wanted him to drive them home. Even though he was pretty much trashed and their daughter was waiting to be picked up at my house. He didn't want to go yet and they ended up having a really loud screaming and cussing match right at the table. It was lovely.

They must have realized that we were all watching them because they took it inside to the bar. Someone else told me what was going on and that she wanted him to drive so I followed them inside to try to talk some sense into both of them. That is the polite way of saying that I was there to kick her bitchy ass if she tried to make him drive anywhere. When they did leave, they went to my house to pick up their kid and she started yelling at my kids and ordering them around and it really pissed me off. At least Brian finally got to see her true colors, she's always so nice to him and he always scolds us for being mean to her. Now he knows she deserves everything she gets. Bitch.

That wasn't enough to ruin my evening though, although it definitely did it's part. About an hour later, my new sister-in-law showed up. Crying. And asked me to go to their house and pick up my brother and take him anywhere else but there. I guess they've been fighting for the last week or so because he decided that he didn't really want to be married anymore. Yes, the brother who just got married in June.

She said that he hasn't been coming home at night and he's been really mean when he has showed up. Apparently he pushed her up against the wall the other day when they were arguing and she said that she couldn't handle it anymore. I don't really blame her, I know how he can be.

So my other brother and I got in the car and drove over to their house. He was passed out on the couch and when I woke him up, he said he wasn't leaving. The house is hers so she has the right to tell him to leave and when I told him that he said that we would have to call the police if we wanted him to leave. When I said that I didn't want to call the police on my own brother, he got up from the couch, threw over the coffee table and stormed out of the house. He got into his truck and drove off without saying a word to anyone. We picked up the table and cleaned up the mess and were standing at the back door, getting ready to leave when his truck pulled back into the driveway.

He got out of the truck and headed towards the door. I asked him what he was doing but again he didn't say anything. She disappeared as soon as he showed up. He stormed through the house, checking all the rooms. I thought he was looking for something and kept asking him what he needed. He just kept walking around until he opened the closet door in their bedroom. She was crouched down on the floor, hiding.

He didn't touch her but yelled at her that she had no right to involve his family in their problems. He called her terrible names, threatened her and then spit in her face. He started to leave and then turned around and tried to go after my other brother, who had followed her into the room and was standing to one side. Luckily I was between them and was somehow able to keep them apart. He took off again and I haven't talked to him since.

We convinced her that she shouldn't stay at the house so she packed a bag and went to a friend's for the night. We drove around to a couple of places we thought he might be and then gave up for the night. I took John back to the pizza place and told Brian that I was going home. He couldn't leave because he had peeps there too, including his sister, so I went home alone. I didn't want my brother to show up without me being there. The kids had been through enough adult drama already. I didn't think he would come over, but I wanted to be there just in case. John filled Brian in on what had happened and the rest of the night was uneventful.

Sunday was okay. We didn't do much, met friends of ours who are getting married in two weeks to pick up Brian's outfit for their wedding. We did the grocery shopping and spent the rest of the day at home.

I'm still reeling from being in the middle of those horrible examples of the marriages in my family and from seeing my brother treat his wife the way he did. I can't get it out of my head. I'm so tired from not getting much sleep the night before last. I didn't sleep very well last night either. I need to call my brother and make sure he and his wife are okay. I need to call my bitchy sister-in-law and tell her to go fuck herself. Okay, so I won't do that second one. But I'd like to.

I heart my iPod

I love Sade. That song...King of Sorrow from Lover's Rock...wow. That part where she says "I have already paid for all my future sins." I love that line. There are songs from that CD that I could listen to for days. And that thing about having paid for future sins, me too.

Shitty morning today. I woke up late, and was an hour late to work. Stopped at Starbucks on the way and got a terrible-tasting Caramel Macchiato. It was raining as I drove in, and the umbrella was not in my car. I had to park a mile away from the day since I was late and I spilled my yucky coffee on my shirt as I walked into the building in the ice cold rain. After I got here I found out that my checking account is overdrawn, no idea how that happened. And blogger is being an asshole.

Glass half-full stuff: the girls are both home from their vacations. I didn't really have to park a mile away. It's 12:15 so morning is over. I get to leave work at noon:thirty tomorrow. We have good plans for this weekend.

nothing much...what's new?

My apologies to the one person who reads this thing for not updating more often. My head is just spinning and it's hard to make it stop long enough to put things down in writing.

Casey is coming home tonight. Her flight gets in at 11:45pm. And I have the day off tomorrow so we can sleep in and spend the day laying around the house, so yay! I feel like I haven't had a day off in forever, which is probably not true. Poor Brian has to work. I feel bad for him.

Work has been kicking my ass lately. I've been doing a special project in hopes of getting some sort of bonus for completing it quickly. We'll see. I could really use the extra money right now too, for Hannah's senior pictures. This year is really going to cost us I think. But she is worth it and we're really proud of her.

Speaking of Hannah, she will be back from Colorado tomorrow night. I hope she is having a good time. There are lots of kids her age to hang out with but she doesn't really know them and isn't always the most outgoing kid. But even if she spends the whole time with my aunt, she'll have more fun than she would at home. I can't wait for her to be back, even though she only left on Friday. I hate not seeing them every day. I'm lame, I know.

We had a few friends over on Saturday night for a cookout. It was a lot of fun. The weather was gorgeous, it was sunny but breezy out. Perfect. We had chicken and steak kabobs, salmon, salad, rice and a few other cookout foods and margaritas. Yum!! Later that evening we went to a local pizza place to listen to the band that was playing out on their new patio. My brother-in-law's band is playing there this Saturday so he wanted to check out the sound and space and stuff.

That was a lot of fun too. We had a few beers and listened to the kick-ass girl singer. I personally had a few too many beers so I spent Sunday doing a bunch of nothing. It was awesome, except for the headache. And for some reason my back hurt. That sucked. So did the fact that the boy drank the rest of the margaritas Sunday night. Damn him.

I have way too much shit going on right now. Bleh. I mean, it's not all bad, but there's just so much of it. I'm feeling very weighed down by all of it.

Took my parents to a doctor's appointment for my mom on Friday that took 2 fucking hours. Crazy. And while we were waiting, my stepdad felt like it was a good time to drop a huge bombshell on me. Didn't I say that I knew there were a bunch of family secrets that no one wanted to tell me but that I was cool with not knowing? NOT KNOWING. It's big, so big. Shocking and yet at the same time, not really. I haven't even talked to Brian about it yet. I don't know what to do with it either. Tell the rest of the family? My brothers have a right to know too. See what I mean? Too much shit.

And yeah, I really needed to hear that my dad abused my mom when they were married. I like the way he called him "her first husband" instead of saying that it was my dad. I can't decide if my stepdad just needed to tell someone else these things or if he's punishing me because he's pissed that my mom is going to visit her mom next week without him. His choice, totally, but I'm the one who made all the arrangements for her to go so maybe this is his way of getting back at me for it. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm tired. It's been an insane weekend and I'm starting to crack under the strain of it. On the positive side, I did talk to Casey today. It was so healing and uplifting to hear her voice and laugh. She's having a great time and she's bringing home a manual typewriter. She decided before she left that she wanted to get one. She wants to be a writer, pretty cool to write stories on an old typewriter I think.

I spent hours cleaning up her room today. Literally, hours. She's such a little pack rat and hates to throw anything away, including gum and candy wrappers and water bottles apparently. It's tradition for me to clean her room out while she's gone. It was nice though, because so many of the things in her room just really fit her perfectly. It made me feel like she wasn't really that far away. She has about forty of those colored metal bangles that she wears all the time and she stores them around a bottle of bubbles, it's so perfectly Casey. Bracelets wrapped around bubbles. I love it.

I'll have my kid back in twelve days. That is waaaay too far away for me. Nobody, not even Brian, understands how hard it is for me to be away from her for a month. And I haven't talked to her in more than a week.

I hate this...

Writing it down helps me remember

-: I forgot to get new tags for my car after my birthday. I remembered that I hadn't done it yet when I saw a Sheriff's car driving behind me on my way to work this morning. No, he didn't pull me over. I need to get to the BMV right after work today. I hate that. One year I forgot to get them and didn't remember until September. Next year, someone please remind me before my birthday to get new tags.

+: We picked up Hannah's proofs for her senior pictures on Thursday. They are gorgeous. We ended up with 36 proofs, which we have to narrow down to 5. So far, we've got 16. It's going to be so hard to pick just 5 but we'll get it done. We have them until the 19th so that gives us plenty of time to decide.

-/+: Today is Hannah's follow up appointment with the Juvenile Probation lady. This should be our last meeting there. She has written her essay, done her community service and I assume she has the money for her fines. I'll be very glad when this is all over, which it should be after today.

+: The kids bought me an FM transmitter for my iPod as a late birthday present. How sweet is that? Now I can listen to it in my car, yay! It was completely unexpected and I was very touched and happy and proud of them. They really are good kids.

+: We saw Superman Returns on Friday. I liked it a lot. Then again, you know how I love all superhero movies. And as Brian said during the movie, Kate Bosworth is way hotter than Margot Kidder.

summer storm

So I was going to ask Brian to take a walk with me after dinner tonight, because I really need to get my ass moving again and because because our town is so nice and quiet. Unfortunately, my plans got changed by a really bad storm. I was on my way home from work and had to stop at my sister's house to pick up the panini grill. Brian called right when I got there and told me to stay put because the weather was pretty scary.

He said that the tornado sirens were going off, the dog was freaking out and a bolt of lightning hit the walnut tree in our backyard. It's the neighbor's tree, but a lot of it hangs over into our yard. We have to pick up a lot of walnuts. I took pictures of course:



That is our garage, and our barbecue grills. There are bits of tree all over the yard. Here's a closer view of the damage:



and:



Brian said that when it hit, there was a really loud noise and when he got to the back sliding door to check it out, the yard was full of smoke. Somehow the lightning strike made our automatic garage door not open. I don't know how that happened.

The dog's leash is tied up to that tree. It hangs from a hook that was in the tree when we moved here. We think that might have been what attracted the lightning:



The leash was one of those vinyl coated, steel cable ones. It used to be coated with clear vinyl. Now it's burned to a crisp:



It was all waaaaay too close for comfort. I'm glad none of the kids were home, especially Casey. She hates storms enough as it is. I hope the tree is okay.

Nothing new to blog about, just wanted to post this picture of me and Brian. Because I like it.



I slept in until 12:30 today. I finally feel like I got enough sleep. I can't even remember the last time I slept in that late without being ill. It was freakin' sweet!