Head Meets Wall

I was just about to sit down and write out an entry detailing how wonderful and funny age twelve is, with random British accents in the Sonic drive-through and mature jokes about Darwin....

but as I opened up the browser Tweenzilla flung her body on the floor to the right of me with much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth (can't take all the Mormon out of the girl now, can we) because she doesn't GET her math homework and how could her math teacher EXPECT her to do all of THIIIIIIIIS WAAAAAAH. She was shrieking right into my ear and it was all I could do not to give her a big wet willy. Because I'm just as mature as she is, I guess.

Sigh.

So anyway, age twelve is a blast.

At least her feet are still adorable.

The house is coming along. I think. We're having typical issues with the mortgage company, things you would probably expect in this kind of economy. Requests for paperwork from eight years ago (I shit you not), and me having to practically process the loan myself since our processor doesn't know anything about VA loans. I have pulled up underwriting guidelines and today finally got a big HUD mess fixed that the processor claimed she could do nothing about. Unfortunately for her, I used to do this kind of thing for a living before I took a job where I leave work every day with someone else's bodily fluids splashed all over me. They started wrapping the house in styrofoam today (is this why my utility bills are like a million dollars in the summer? shouldn't we be using something more effective than Big Gulp containers to wrap our homes in when we live in the desert?) so I think we'll be closing in the next 45-60 days. I haven't started packing yet, because I'm still a little nervous about a last-minute "just kidding, no house for you" e-mail, but I'm feeling better about it. May just start packing up the jeans I have hanging in the closet that haven't fit me since I gave birth to Tweenzilla.

Here's the garage today.

 

 



I have one week left of the current RN-BSN class that I'm taking, some Ethical Something-or-other in Health Care class, and then I have a whole two weeks off, which I am very excited about because I will need that time to study for the most horrible test imaginable, the RNC exam for NICU nurses. It's a test that certifies me as an "expert" in my field and is supposed to be some kind of honorable thing to take, but since I'm completely overwhelmed with the material and have so much left to study, I'm wondering why I did this to myself, especially since passing it doesn't equate to extra pay. Being a nurse also means constantly trying to keep up with all the info around you, and working toward bettering your profession, but I question why that has to mean memorizing 936 pages of the following:

Wish me luck.

DSC_0025

DSC_0025, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Bailey Boy

DSC_0042, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Hibiscus is Sulcata crack.

Yo yo.

Buh-bye summer.

Ok, so I know it's still a thousand degrees outside (and like 90% humidity, I'm pretty much just getting prepped for all that time I'll spend in hell after I die) but for the Dixons summer vacay has ended as of today.  Emma starts junior high in a few hours (hello insomnia!) and I've got a million thoughts swirling around in my overheated brain.

We still haven't really heard about our approval on the house.  Hopefully it goes through (we had a previous short sale, and underwriting makes me neeeeervous) because I've enrolled Emma in the school down near where the new house will be.  Otherwise, my drive is just going to SUCK taking her to school for the next few years. Everybody hated junior high, I know that.  I was a brace-faced awkward nerd for those years and I desperately want my daughter to be happy and not have to go through a dopey teen phase but I also realize it's kind of a rite of passage to becoming a "real" person.  I'm filled with such anxiety over the whole thing (I'm a giant steaming bowl of anxiety on a good day anyway) that she's feeling it and now she's all worried about this new school too.  She's Corinne Junior, I swear.  I'm just waiting for the day she also trips while running and ends up with multiple foot surgeries simply because she's a klutz.  The Klutz Gene is a dominant one.

Other things.

Finished my stats class for my RN-BSN.  Holy shitburgers.  Sorry.  But profanity is really the only way to convey my true feelings about a five week online statistics class.  By the end of the class I just didn't even care about the "weekly posting" crap, I just wanted the torture to be over.  I was aiming solely to underachieve, and I did it.  Got a 90.5.  Way to go me, I'm on the Dean's List of the Pay-Your-Way to a BSN Online Education Program.

Emma and I bonded while we did this:

(Ok, I just unplugged my phone from the wall charger to hook it up to transfer photos and I electrocuted myself.  Ow.  Like I said, Dean's List!)

Anyway, here's the photo:

Right after we buckled him in and got him swinging, the Target security guard showed up smiling. 

And this (APA format states that one should not start a sentence with "and" but this is my blog so kiss it, APA) is what happens when a state that only gets about a half inch of rain a year suddenly gets four years worth of rain in ten minutes.  We had two swimming pools!  Bailey the sulcata was not amused.  After I saved him from underneath the bush where I found him clinging to life, he hightailed it under the grill with his crabby little mug. Of course he's a tortoise and his face always looks like that, so who really knows?  But I like to think that he's got an old man voice in his head that's all harumphy and indignant in situations like this.

Incendiary Chad tried to blow up the entire street on the 4th of July.  That's over a hundred dollars worth of fireworks, people.  We're so rich that we light our money on fire.  Didn't you know that nurses make a ton of money?  (That's what the nursing recruiter told me anyway.  I'm still waiting.)

Emma and Mom at the Dbacks game.

I taught her how to elbow all the smaller kids out of the way so she could get Baxter the Bobcat's autograph.

Well lookie there, my Tylenol PM is finally kicking in, now that I have to get up in four hours.  Awesome.

Night night.

She's actually more expensive than that.

She's actually more expensive than that., originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Playing around on my old flickr account - found this and it makes me smile.

My baby has a birthday tomorrow. These twelve years have been a blast and I can't wait to see what her next twelve are like. How I love this girl. It breaks my heart that she hurts over her sperm donor dad refusing to play a real part in her life, but on the other hand we are both so happy that Chaddy came into our lives when she was three and stepped right into the role of Daddy.

Anyway, enough rambling. Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

My little old lady Missy

DSC_0035, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

New camera time!

DSC_0013, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

The last of the sunflowers.