long time no post.

what's new?  well, not a whole L of a lot, hence the lack of posting.  my new job is torture.  i am forced into sales which i loathe and suck at.  sigh.  hopefully soon the company will be on it's feet and i can go back to doing what i do best.  customer service and installs.  ook.  i love my boss and my coworkers and our office puppy.  i get to see my favorite baby on a semi-regular schedule (not like i can't just walk downstairs and see her anytime i want to but its more fun at work).  the hours rock, 9-3 M-Th.  but i miss my bff who i now only see on our saturday morning goodwill excursions and occasional family gatherings.  still making so little money in commissions that i qualify for unenjoyment so at least i still have cash flow but with a big old dent where my bonuses used to be.  i've been blocked writer-wise for months, in part due to the fact my darling daughter has been living on our couch since she got home from kentucky.  not that i'm complaining because having her home to spoil and adore has been lovely.  in fact, she left us again on Sunday and we've been in mourning ever since.  the house is unnaturally quiet without her and i keep having that "somethings missing" feeling.  she is in tacoma with her bff who is pregnant with her second child.  her hubby is about to deploy for his second tour in iraq so meg will stay with them and help her with two youngun's until he returns.  then she plans on getting her own place and coercing her brother into moving in with her after he graduates next spring.  anything that gets him out of this town and away from his semi-hoodlum friends is okay in my book.  he is being a bum, my boy.  he refuses to look for a job.  he has weight-lifting with the football team every day which he uses as an excuse.  he prefers to play video games,  jam with his band and go camping with his friends (which i fear involves much beer drinking and general carousing).  unfortunately as long as he lives with his father and his father allows such behaviours, all i can do is lecture, nag and pray.  hopefully the coming year brings a bit more maturity for him but he's pretty spoiled so we'll see.  michael is doing pretty good, sick of allergies which have been murderous this year.  he just cut off all his hair because he was convinced he was going bald.  but once he cut it down to nothing he could see he actually still has a lot of hair and a nice hairline.  he looks adorable like a little boy and his hair is super fuzzy and i love to pet his head.  the bad news is that my dear mommy has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is having a very hard time.  she smoked for 54 years and i mean seriously smoked too.  and she waited almost six months from the time she started feeling somehting was wrong to the time she finally went to a doctor so her cancer is advanced.  sigh.  they are slamming her with chemo and radiation and it's burned her throat so badly she is having trouble eating and is skinny like a bird.  bless her heart.  oddly i am not freaking out.  if i let myself think of the possibilities i get very frightened but i try to stay focused on now and what needs to be done to make her comfortable and keep her spirits up.  my being sad or worried isn't going to help her or my daddy.  poor daddy is a wreck.  he loves her so much and i'm sure after 56 years he cannot imagine life without her.  neither can i.  but hopefully we won't have to just yet.  i emailed my sister to break the news the other day.  not sure if she'll be helpful or if she'll decide to run from it like she runs from most other things.  balls in her court now.  i guess thats all the news thats fit to print.  hope all is well with all of you....

okay anyone out there who has kids who plans on taking them to the waterpark this summer.  i have a family season pass to the asotin co aquatic center, a $282 value.  i still need to raise $150 to send my son to football camp so it goes to the first person who wants it...yes, i'm a little desperate....

just after midnight last night, my step-daughters fiancee passed away. his name was Cory Ellis. I never got to meet him, I knew him only through the changes he wrought in Heather. And loving him did change her completely, made her more compassionate, more able to give love and support. They were only together for a short time, a year or so, maybe even less. He was only 31 years old. She is barely 22. Even though he was too sick for them to carry out their plans to marry, she is a widow today. He was a soldier who served his country. He was a semi-professional wrestler until the illness took it's toll. He was kind and good and loving to Heather's daughter Adia. His death is a tragedy and my heart is breaking for Heather and for Michael who has to try to help his daughter wander through the maze of grief.

Rest in peace Cory Ellis. You made a difference in this life. You will not be forgotten.

today was a good day. today i went went Christmas shopping. successfully I might add. i think i'm done. kids covered. parents covered. inlaws covered. friends and work family covered. still have money in the bank thanks to a Christmas miracle.

re: the miracle. about six weeks ago i was bored at work and surfed around until i somehow ended up at the state of wash dept of revenue website where you can put your name in and search for money due you that for some reason or other is being held by the state of wash (or whatever state you happen to live in). so i put in my name and voila! two hits. apparently i overlooked cashing out my 401k from when i worked at Royal Business Systems in 2001!!! and i was still owed some vacation pay as well. i really had no expectation at all that i'd see any money before the holidays and the website wouldn't tell me how much, just that each payout was more than $100. sweet. so i sent in documentation proving i was kym castle and am now Kymberlie Hausen and forgot all about it. so after doing the majority of my shopping this morning i came home to unload and happened to check the mail. i was feeling kind of stressed in that way you only get around the holidays, i spent over my budget on the kids of course and i was trying to figure out how i was going to rob peter to pay paul and still be able to feed us all. not bad but still i knew there wasn't going to be enough to go around. ook. so then i open the mailbox and there, big as shit, is a check from the state of washington for $392!!! whoop! so now all our bills are paid in full, the fridge and cupboards are jammed full of foodies. everyone i wanted to buy for has a present waiting to be wrapped, especially the babies who shall be a tiny bit more spoiled than usual this year. and best of all i can breathe easy. no one is going to freak out because we run out of food before payday. no utilities are in danger of being turned off :) rent's paid. i better get to knocking on some wood with a quickness but i'm actually feeling pretty good. and i still have about $200 worth of hats that michael is taking to quin's skate shop on monday to see if they'll let me try to sell. skater hats and baby skater hats. hand crocheted. very cute. can be made to order. tell your friends.

so yay! my baby girl will be home on the 16th or so. she's flying in on the 16th anyway but will probably stay up in spokane with jared's fam so they can see him fresh back from Iraq and also baby ryland of course. i have southern comfort eggnogg, mountain dew, the ingredients for enchilada's and everything i need to make two huge cheesecakes all in her honor. i can't wait to see her.

the boy is supposed to be spending several days here over the break but we'll see how his social life goes. soon his bad ankle will be healed up and he wants to start training for UFC. ook. i'm not crazy about this idea but this is what i get for raising the boy in redneck usa. his friends get together every weekend in the summer and kick the crap out of one another in max's friend turtle's backyard. no refs, no adults, no trainers. it terrifies me. the only way i made it through last summer was by reminding the boy constantly that if he hurt himself before the football season he'd be really really bummed and his coach would be even less impressed. i was hoping the urge would go away but apparently he's intent on fighting so michael and i have decided to get him a trainer. it's going to be his birthday present in January. hopefully his ankle will keep him out of commission till then. i just want someone who knows what they are doing teaching him how to keep from breaking his neck or causing permanent damage to someone else. God help me, my children have made it their mission to find ever more terrifying hobbies with which to torture me. karate, motocross, skateboarding, football, now UFC.

on the subject of my children trying to kill me, i've recently learned that my daughter is quite the little drunkard. oh. somehow i really thought that the queen of SAD would avoid alcohol. not to be. when she moved to kentucky she friended me on her myspace page so i could see the pictures she posts, apparently not realizing that i can also see her bulletins. and she is a survey freak so i get a lot of insight into my darling eldest childs world. there's a lot of drinking going on. hmmm...what a shock. in my defense, i never drank around my kids except on special occasions and then never to excess. they saw me hammered only once and that was at a fourth of july party tam and i threw that got out of hand quickly. jack daniels. i have no will power on the stuff...but anyway, so my kid is partying with her friends, some of which are underage but some of which have just returned from 15 months in Iraq (they can do whatever the hell they want with my blessing). it's scary and of course i can't bring it up to her without careful planning or it will give away the fact i can read her posts and then she'll unfriend me and i won't have a clue what is going on with her. and no, i dont' feel bad or intrusive. i would never and have never read her diary or notes in her pockets or anything of that nature but if she is going to post her foolishness online for all the world to see...i will talk casually about it when she comes home, reminding her that you can drink without getting slammed and you have to learn and keep to your own limits. no drinking and driving under any circumstances and no getting into a car with a drunk. i'm also nervous about the fact she's madly in love with a 21 year old who just came home from war. and she's drinking. hmm...there is a recipe for grandmotherhood if i ever heard one. michael thinks that i'm intrigued by that idea but in truth i really want her to wait and do things right.

next week should be a cakewalk at work, knock wood. no one wants to do business this time of year. monday night is the banquet for football at bennett hall in asotin. my son will be receiving his letter for football and i plan on crying my eyes out with pride and joy. oh yeah, and i have to bring a dessert. next saturday is our work christmas party at Roosters and that should be a hoot. i've got to figure out what i'm going to wear...i tried to talk tam into wearing her wedding gown so i could wear my maid of honor dress but she won't go for it. she's such a brat. i bought a wicked pair of silver shoes today so whatever i wear will have to go with those.

and that is enough about me...

okay i need to vent so if you don't want to hear it turn away...now

this is the worst day ever. first, i made hats and scarves for a co-workers aunt who paid me by check. her check, deposited in my bank account two weeks ago has bounced. causing other things to bounce because I thought I had money in the account natch. she claims she has cash, it was an honest mistake, she wrote the check on the wrong account. or so she told my co-workers wife who called her a few minutes ago. she was supposed to call me right away to get it all cleared up but still hasn't called so who knows what will happen now. meg's space rent is due on her storage in two days and now i don't have the cash to pay it. luckily i have an iPod that I can pawn for just about that amount but then I'll have to pay pawn fees.

then i found out that our branch didn't qualify for our annual bonus after all because we were slightly under quota. so the $600 i was dreaming of has turned into $60 that will be taxed at 45% because it's a bonus. how is that fair? i worked my ass off to earn the bonus and the gov't takes half? that's some shit right there.

still reeling from that, my other co-worker happened to mention that it wasn't so bad since our next paycheck would be over $1000 because of our monthly bonus. Which led me to do the math and come to the conclusion that I am now being screwed out of $200+ bucks on that program because they gave me a "promotion" and a title last month. I'm no longer considered admin/customer service. now i'm an installation tech. even though I helped with many of the processees of getting the admin bonus, I no longer qualify for it. Meaning that admin gets paid $10 for every app they board. I get $10 for every completed install. Next month will probably be awesome for me but this month sucked ass. Merry Christmas. NOt to mention the fact they still haven't done our yearly reviews which were due in October so we haven't got cost of living increases or the retroactive payment we always get.

And to top it all off, the pep bus going to Tacoma for the big State Championship football game is full of kids and no parents will be allowed to ride. So I'm going to miss my son's big day and the chance to storm the field and hug him till his eyeballs pop out after the game. which is really what I live for.

one more thing goes wrong (knock on wood) and i'm going home and crawling back into the bed with the covers over my head and staying there until january.

ook. i hate money. or the lack thereof. why do some people have things so freaking easy and no matter how hard I work I alwasy get the short end of the stick?

now i shall crawl down off my pity platform and get back to work...

I did it. I completed nanowrimo!!!

I am a writer. I have written a novel.

I'm quite pleased with myself. Now I'm going to have a warm shower and a hot breakfast and then I shall watch football!!!

Yay!!!

why God, why is it so expensive to ship a guitar across the country?  it's not very big and it only weighs 5 freaking pounds for pities sake.  come on!  now if i could ship it through my work account with UPS it would cost me less than $10.  But shipping it as a normal person it's $50!!!  Plus $12 for the box unless I can find one on my own.   and I have not one but three guitars to ship to Kentucky...I keep thinking I'm forgetting an option of some sort, some kind of cheap shipping method...i've tried UPS ($50), USPS (website confusing but I think it was about $60),  DHL (cheap but not available in town anymore) and Greyhound Package Express ($50).  what am I forgetting?

i'm freaking myself out a little.  my word count is 11487.  i've consistently written a minimum of 2000 words a day for the last five days.  (I cheese a little the first day and only wrote 500 words).  the storyline and dialogue are flowing like crazy.  i really like who the main character is turning out to be, she's something of a smartass so far and i have a feeling that is going to serve her well when things start to go bad for her in the coming chapters.  i completed the prologue which was rather lengthy since it sets up some major stuff to come and chapter one and i'm a few paragraphs into chapter two.  i'm sure after nanowrimo when i start editing it will get a lot shorter but right now it does seem rather wordy. 

overall i feel good about it, glad i chose this particular storyline to work on and optomistic that i will for the first time in my life finish something i started....

of course there are 24 days to go but i'm off to a rollicking start

yeah.  the air today smells like hope...

yeah, i was raised in a southern baptist bible thumping armageddon preching house of God.  so i've been seeing signs of the apocolypse everywhere...no kidding, i'm shitting a brick over here.  so this, this is some seriously good news. 

ladies and gentlemen, we have just elected the 44th president of the united states, former senator Barack Obama. 

i haven't been this emotional over an election since President Clinton was elected the first time.   i actually cried!

sweet...

here i sit in my lofty perch.  the window is open and the breeze coming in smacks of winter.  the rooftops have puddles of rainwater from last nights deluge.  a flock of birds is gathered on top of the liberty theatre sign, occaisionally one of them will dip down to the roof for a drink or a quick bath.  i can hear them chattering to one another.  the trees are beyond description.  this must be akin to what it's like in New England, yeah?  the lingering green overpowered by golds and rusts and reds and oranges so vibrant they don't look real.  mounds of fallen leaves fill the planter boxes along the rain soaked street.  the sky above is a thick blanket of cottony grey-white clouds, heavy with the promise of more rain to come.  the hills are finally emerging from their foggy slumber, now just the tops remain in the mist.  a flock of canadian geese, in perfect V formation, just flew so close by my window I could see the rings around their eyes.  cars form an almost constant stream of color down main street and more pedestrians than seems usual fill the sidewalks, thier laughter and chatter drifting up in bursts between bouts of traffic noise. 

i could stay here, in this moment, at this computer, in this apartment on this street in this town for the rest of my life and as long as this was my view, my frame of reference, i think i'd be just fine.

except now i have to go get groceries...

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to learn I adore Halloween! 

Candy, parties, alcohol consumption...an excuse to dress slutty at work.  What could be better than that? 

I am a devil this year.  A wild swing from the witch of recent years.  :)  I'm wearing the same pant/skirt contraption and the same cleavage-busting beaded black float top but in trade for my pointy hat and wicked heels I have a gorgeous red velvet and maribou trimmed cape and sequined horns.  My hair is ENORMOUS....I came out of the bathroom and said "Hair big enough?"  ANd he said "Bigger!"  I said "That's what she said," and we laughed.  Then I went back into the bathroom and added at least two more inches in height and an inch in diameter.    It's got it's on freakin solar system!!!  I was checked out thoroughly by a line of Avista workers at the Starbucks in Albertsons this morning.  Very good for the ego...my flip flops probably ruin the whole effect but last year my witchy shoes hurt me terribly so this year I'm going for comfort. 

We're having potluck here at work, chili cheese dogs, baked beans, pot salad (i wish) and more candy and cookies and brownies than I think is even legal.  My boy is coming by at eleven to pick up some cash for his football game road trip tonight and I bought a big plastic skull shaped drinking cup with a lid and jammed it full of candy and I got him some plastic bolts for his neck (that amuses him for some reason, don't ask, he's odd)  and a gatorade frost so he's all set.  I sent an overnight package of candy and goodies to the girlies in Kentucky and wrote TRICK OR TREAT SMELL MY FEET on the outside of the box.  Cuz I'm just like that I guess.

Tonight we are invited to  party with the local band Bridgewalker, friends of Michaels from way back.  He dug out the vamp contacts and his fitted fangs and has promised to bite my neck later on.  Which I'm into completely.  :)

Oh and the capper on this awesome day?  The sales team did so awesome this month (52 signed deals 48 approved) that we're all going home at noon!!!

Hows yer halloween going?

ah, fall. 

crisp air, gorgeous leaves, shorter days, longer nights, warm blankets, sweatshirts, football.  an excuse to lace my cocoa with whiskey.

i like it very much.

i have empty nest syndrome bad.  i've been dipping into the blues for a few days now.  it wasn't supposed to happen so fast.  i need more time.  i'm not done mothering yet.  the boy thinks he's a man now and i see less and less of him as his schedule gets busier and busier.  if he didnt like my cooking and want my money i'd never see him. 

why o why did i wish those days away when they were mine?  silly, foolish mortal.  children insist on growing up and not needing you anymore.  it's what they do.

the rapidly approaching election has me spooked.  i grew up in the church man, i know the signs, i've seen the horsemen.  this could be world shakingly bad.  if i let myself think about it too much it seriously freaks my shit.  so i've vowed not to think about it.  on election day i plan to find a location as far from tv and the net as i can get.  wake me on nov 5th and break the news gently. 

today i am disillusioned.  distracted.  on the edge of despair.

and i have to pee.

there's this guy i've known for a really long time who has the uncanny ability to reduce me to a giggling, panting, shivering teenage girl

thanks for making an old lady feel sexy

you know who you are

on monday, this monday, just four days away, my baby girlchild will be departing on a four day cross-country journey to her new home in Kentucky.  my heart is breaking into tiny, sharp pieces.  i had no idea it was going to hurt this much to let a chick leave the nest.  i've been brave and tough, up until last night i was able to focus solely on the logistics of getting her apartment packed and cleaned, her belongings stored, her utilities cancelled, her bank accounts sorted, AAA added to her insurance, a bon voyage party planned ( i know bon voyage is not really appropriate but I can't bear to call it a going-away party).  a million tiny details that will separate our lives.  sure she's only going to be down there a year.  sure she'll be home for a month in december.  sure she's going to be living with good, decent, stable people who she has lived with before and got along with fine.  sure she's a smart, savvy, hard-working girl who will do fine on her own.  i know all those things in my mind but my heart is screaming that the world is a scary place right now, so much is up in the air, so much could go wrong at any minute.  how will i get to her if she needs me?  how will i find her in the event of a zombie apocolypse?  who will i make enchiladas and cheesecake for?  who will hog my computer, im'ing until her fingers bleed?  who will calm me down when her brother goes missing, as he is wont to do?  who will be a liason between me and her father?  and who will she be when she comes back?  if she comes back here.  she is talking about tacoma, closer but still a world away.  how do other mother's survive such things?  i know i'm being overdramatic, i know this.  but last night i finally hit the wall, the limit of my braveness.  i can't stop crying.  everytime i think about saying goodbye to her on monday, there i go again.  i'm excited for her, proud of her, thrilled.  and at the same time i'm praying she might change her mind, chicken out at the last minute, stay here with me where I can put my hands on her anytime I want.  i know i have to let her go and i have to do it without guilt or sadness being inflicted. 

i just can't figure out how i'm going to manage it....

Tammy Sue Anderson-Mohs & John H Taulbee
8/8/08

Here's me in my gorgeous gown with my awesome posies.  then there's me and tam toasting her nuptials, john and tam after coming back down the aisle as mr. and mrs. and me and tam bawling like babies!  my handsome handsome baby boy and the awesome and delicious cake
Mr. and Mrs. Taulbee