My family is strange. No, really! I’m serious. Here’s a great example: Jeff’s birthday is coming up on the 16th, he’ll be 12. We asked him what he wanted, he named 2 games in particular. G2K had them (used, not as expensive) so I bought them yesterday and he didn’t leave Brittany’s room (where the PS2 is) all day ! Last night we were talking about his birthday again and we’re going to bake him a chocolate cake with hersheys and chocolate frosting… yum! and RICH! Good thing we got turtle tracks ice cream to go with it…

What’s so strange about that? Nothing. Here’s the odd part

He asked for a World of Warcraft birthday party. No, not a themed party with gifts and games… a party in-game. For those of you who aren’t familiar with games like World of Warcraft, they’re quite an experience. I consider them a chat room where you can enjoy chatting with people from around the world while playing a game at the same time You start by creating a character, which is a 3D representation of a cartoony-looking person (elf, human and a variety of other races). You use your mouse and keyboard to run around a wide variety of landscape killing monsters that give your character experience to level. Each level gives your character more abilities, spells to cast and such.

We’ve been playing WoW (World of Warcraft) for a little more than 4 years. It wasn’t our first MMO (Massively Multi-player Online game), we’ve played several others in the past. Jeff was so cute fighting nap time at 3 years old to try to stay awake and play Asheron’s Call (now’s the time I think about digging out old embarrassing pictures)

Because Patrick and I work from home and homeschool, we play WoW a minimum of 4-6 hours a day as a family. Not many families spend that much quality time together and I feel very blessed to have that! We have friends from all across the U.S., Canada and Australia. I also feel very blessed to have each and every one of them in our life. We’ve made some lasting friendships in games over the years and it’s an amazing experience.

Now that I’ve given you a general idea of what WoW is, I can continue with the birthday party plans In or near the major cities in WoW there are inns, taverns and even a fair. The fair is loads of fun and may just become a great creative writing project for Jeff soon! We have a family gaming blog if you’re interested in reading it: The Druid Family. I’ll explain that name some other time.

We’ll be having his birthday party one evening this week in one of the major cities in WoW. I’d wanted to have it at the fair so people could play games too, but this week the fair is moving to another city (one we can’t go to). So what about real life friends and family being there too? Weather.com is giving bad, cold, snowy weather all week… and they all have access to a WoW account They’ll be getting an invitation both via email and in-game mail system.

We will be serving gigantic feasts, small feasts and a variety of drinks along with delicious chocolate cake and ice cream from Shimmering Flats!

I’ll post pictures afterward so everyone who isn’t quite sure about my sanity can decide one way or the other

I like to read other people’s blogs and lately Chris has been tossing me links to some she finds funny or interesting. I don’t normally link to all the funny or interesting blogs, because that’s her job lol. This guy’s explanation of blogging, however… Just go read it Irregularly Periodic Ruminations – and I LOVE the name of the blog by the way!

As for my ramblings of the day … My aunt quit her job in December. She’d been working something like 75 hours a week for Kmart as an associate manager at one of the Kentucky locations. I told her ANY job that required xanax just to work there, wasn’t worth it! But since she quit, she has been looking for a new job so if anyone knows of a great marketing/advertising job toss me a link! In the meantime she’s been writing a book about what it was like to grow up with a father who had PTSD and was misdiagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic for 50 years. I hope she’ll have the opportunity to finish it before she gets caught up in the corporate world again but I also know she needs to provide for those two kids and pay the bills

I shouldn’t have skipped coffee immediately after waking up. I got swindled by my dog. Rotten little shih tzu! One of these days I’m going to buy her a shirt that says that Anyway, I skipped coffee as my first-thing this morning and was sitting here chatting on messenger with Chris. I hear Hayleigh making some noises then she runs over to me, does her cute little “I gotta pee” murble-growl and twisty dance. So I even ask her “it’s early, you have to pee already??” Again with the twisty dance, I’ll have to get that on video one of these days, it’s adorable! But… she lied! On the way out the door she almost tripped me and she headed straight for the snow in the corner of the porch. She played in the snow a couple of minutes then ran around the yard full speed once, only stopping twice to sniff around, then went back to the door to go in. She LOVES snow and leaves! She loves to find piles of dry leaves during the fall and run and jump in them. They’re a mess to get out of her hair, but… oh well. She’s been so covered with snowballs before that I have to wrap her in a blanket and use the hair dryer to melt her so it doesn’t hurt her skin but you should see the fun she has in snow!

As for the rest of us, I just had a cup of coffee so I’m not having to erase as many typos now. Jeff’s watching some anime show on youtube, Patrick’s working and able to hobble without crutches again today and Brittany’s getting ready to go to the grocery store with me.

I’m the oldest of 5 kids. My mom had 2 biological children, 2 adopted children and 1 step-child. She loves each and every one of us to pieces. But something’s quickly happening to change that.

Here’s a little history:

My sisters were adopted when they were very young. Kayla was about 5 and Sara was 2 or 3 years old. Their biological mother was abusive. I’ll give you a mild example: Kayla was 18 months old and running around in a diaper like a lot of 18 month old children do. She asked for milk, her “mother” (and I use the word lightly) poured her milk in a sippy cup… without the lid; and told her not to spill it. Threatened a spanking if she did spill it. You would shudder in your chair if you knew the extent of this woman’s “spankings.” Of course the 18 month old toddler did spill her half-a-cup of milk. That woman got a “switch” (if you aren’t familiar with that word, it’s a limb from a tree) and left bloody marks on that child from her ankle to the corner of her eye. Her little back was striped up like a zebra.

Yes. That was a mild example of her “parenting” skills. And it still took almost 4 more years for the adoption to go through. Four years and a set of twins later, my mom had adopted the girls and my grandma had the twin boys. Those boys are awesome! Both graduated high school and are pursuing their dreams. One is in college to be a nurse and the other is in college learning about diesel engines.

My mom raised the girls just like she did my brother and me. She taught them how to be loving, caring people. Both girls resented being adopted and sometimes Sara would say things to mom with the primary intention of hurting her feelings. Kayla has learning disabilities, she just wanted to know her biological parents and ask them why they were mean to her when she was little. She now has a husband and two little boys of her own. I don’t hear from her much but the last time we spoke, she was having problems in her relationship with her husband.

Sara on the other hand was at our grandma’s at Christmas. Her son Robbie just turned 2 in November. He’s the one I posted the picture of. His baby sister is Faith. He had bruised welts up and down his back. I don’t know the whole story but now I’m being told Sara did it. The babies’ father was abusive to Sara and she always said no one better ever do anything mean to her babies. So what’s happened?

How can women raised by the same mother end up so different? Is it because she inherited her biological mother’s “parenting skills” or her biological father’s temper? For someone who didn’t spend time with their biological parents going up, she really acts like them!

I honestly can’t tell you the last time I spanked my children. I think I may have used a belt one time when my son was 5-6 years old but I’ve never used a switch; most of the spankings I’ve ever given were with my hand and just a few quick swats on the bottom. I’ve found myself talking pretty rough with them sometimes but I never yell. I find it disrespectful, no matter the age or relationship of the person on the receiving end.

I don’t think it’s that difficult being a decent human being. I live by the “golden rule” I guess is what most people call it. I treat other people the way I want to be treated. Age, color, gender, religion, orientation… none of that matters. People are people in my eyes. If you want respect, you have to first be willing to give it.

As you know, Hayleigh is my dog. She’s the epitome of spoiled rotten shih tzu! I took her to the vet tuesday before last and he treated her for an ear infection, both ears We got antibiotic ointment for her ears and an antibiotic chewable for the infection. I’ve never had any problems giving her medicine or vitamins. I just give them to her, she chews them, they’re gone. This time was pretty much the same.. for the first week!

Tuesday I got up, made coffee and breakfast and gave Hayleigh her pill. She takes it between her teeth, I turn to check breakfast and hear “click”… I turn around, she’s standing there looking at me and the pill is on the floor. I said “come on, you’ve never had problems with pills, eat it.” She stands there looking at me. I pick it up and hold it in front of her mouth again, she takes it all the way in her mouth, I’m thinking ahh here it goes she backs up one step, drops her muzzle to the floor and I hear “click”.

I turn around and look at her, she’s standing there all full of attitude kicking her back legs at me (comical to see really… she’s trying to tell me she’s the boss). So I scold her a little and tell her “eat it”. She puts her head down, picks it up with her teeth, looks up at me and drops it. This time I hear “click, click” because it hit on its edge and fell onto its side.

*sigh*

I get one of her favorite chicken treats out of the fridge. THAT got her attention! Now she’s ready to sit, lay, roll, shake, jump and stand! Anything but take her pill So I tell her “eat it” and point to her pill. She looks down at it, looks back up and me and lays down. I said “I did not say lay down, I said eat it… eat your pill.” She looks at me and cocks her head to the side like “pfft on you.”

Meanwhile, my wonderful husband is rolling laughing… which I’m sure makes things better, right?

So I pick her pill up off the floor and try sneaking it in with a bite of a treat. AHA! Success! “click” *sigh*

I pick it up again, cut it in half and try again. “click”

This time I mush the treat all around it and hide every corner of the first half of the pill. She watches intently of course, I mean after all it’s CHICKEN we’re talking about here! The dog’s crazy about chicken and turkey. I couldn’t help but laugh at the expression and the overall situation I’d found myself in that morning. I looked at her and said “mommy will win this, the medicine will make your ears better.” She cocks her head to the side again… now I’m sure she was thinking “oh no you won’t!”

I make her sit, she sits, I give her a treat just like any other time she does something good. I think she swallowed the pill, I start to put the other half in another part of the treat when I hear… you guessed it… “click.”

So I decide to get creative and chop the pill into quarters or smaller. Honestly it’s NOT a big pill!! Her kibble is bigger! Anyway, I chop it into small pieces and use a fork to mush the rest of the treat up with the pill on a saucer. I put it in the floor, wash my hands and head back toward the stove now that I’ve “made her a special breakfast”, right? Watching her out of the corner of my eye, she eats almost everything on the saucer… leaving only 2 small pieces of the pill.

It took 3 whole chicken treats to get the rest of the pill into her!

Three days of antibiotics left… wish me luck!

It’s been 9 days since my last blog post and it feels like a month has passed! So here’s what’s been going on for the past 9 days.

We’ve been staying up way too late and sleeping in way too late I’ve still been working and the kids finished their achievement tests but other than that, we’ve been relaxing and enjoying doing as little as possible! We bought the kids the Rock Band Track Pack for PS2 yesterday. Guess we felt guilty for going out to dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant without them (ok no, not really lol)

Patrick’s new job starts on October 31! He should be getting his VOIP phone and headset some time this week or early next week. We’re still looking for a table or desk for his little corner office space in the bedroom. He even has a window now! LOL! We have a desk in there, but it’s very small and doesn’t accommodate 2 monitors. The job requires 2 monitors.

While we were out yesterday I mailed the kids’ achievement tests back to FLO (Family Learning Organization) to be scored. I can’t wait to get their results back. I’m sure they both did really well, but I always get anxious after mailing them out. I start thinking things like “what if they marked the wrong area with the wrong test questions” or “what if they just rushed through it trying to beat the timer?” They understand the importance of testing but they ARE still kids! lol

Hayleigh isn’t limping like she was before. Not until I get her down and look at her foot that is. If I look at it, she remembers that it’s supposed to hurt and she’ll limp until I grab a toy and start playing with her… then she’s fine! Her ear is clearing up and looking a lot better now too. Poor thing, I think she may have had a little bit of a skin infection in her right ear. Probably due to me getting water in it when I gave her a bath. Those little floppy ears are cute as they can be, but really easily infected if they stay damp too long. I’ve been cleaning them with R7 every day and she’s been laying down with that ear open lately, hopefully that will dry it out really well

It’s almost November!! You may have noticed the newest banner on my blog – NaNoWriMo! We’ve decided to take the entire month off of WoW to write. Not the kids, just Patrick and me. He has the ideas but claims he can’t write them down so I’ll be doing the writing while he’s doing the thinking