highjacking my vacation!

ugh! My SIL & brother are taking a trip to a beach near Hometown FL and suggested that I come along too as my oldest brother & his fam are going to be there as well. See the idea is that instead of my brother dragging his family all over Hometown FL to see the different family members, he picks a nice place and invites everyone to come to see him. He's already traveled across the country to get there, the least they can do is drive to the beach. To me this seems a totally reasonable request and a way to make the vacation less stressful for everyone.

But we have one family member who is a stubborn old coot who refuses to come to the beach. And while one would think, "no big...I just won't see them this time" unfortunately this stubborn one is our mother.

I bought our tickets and reserved a condo...then I sent the itenerary to everyone. I even invited Mom to stay at "my condo" so that she could have a "mini-vacation" at the beach. But she says she probably won't come because her hubby doesn't like the beach. ??? What? They live in FL for "St Pete's sake"!! (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)

I've just emailed my SIL to verify that they won't come to the beach as I'm in shock to hear this. (SIL & brother) do all their FL vacations this way, so they're used to who shows up and who doesn't. UPDATE: SIL emailed me back.. she says that they were only able to get the family to come to them once. Now they all insist on having us drive to them because no one wants to see the family they don't like. ugh!

My plans were to get there, go to Universal the next day, spend the weekend seeing family on the beach, go to Busch Gardens and then come back home. The brothers won't get there until the weekend, so I'll have some time on the beach alone...cool!

Now it looks as if instead of having the family come to us on the weekend, we'll have to drive to see them.

Why don't these people THINK????

Today I attended a play put on by a wonderful local group. The play (what I could see of it) was awesome!

I mention the what I could see of it because unfortunately we were seated near some families with VERY YOUNG CHILDREN. Age 4 tops.

hummm they make childrens' TV shows only 30 minutes long because...kids have very short attention spans. A story that isn't finished up in 30 min or less doesn't mean anything to them. Yet folks insist on enriching their kids by dragging them along to these plays. sigh!

So instead of the play I got to watch the kids in front of me playing with a stuffed animal that the one child felt the need to hold up high over his head and hide behind the girl in the next seat...the kids also were climbing around on their seats. I got to have the girl next to me grab both the arm rest on her chair but also the arm rest on my chair and proceed to shake both chairs! and then some child behind me decided at one point that it was time for his drum solo! Oh and I almost forgot (not sure how that happened) the one child who needed to ask in a very loud voice about just about everything in the play. "WHAT IS SHE SITTING ON? WHAT IS THAT?"

I wanted to get up and move to the seats near us that the rest of our group didn't bother to show up for...but unlike the rude kids, I didn't want to be rude by blocking the view of the folks behind us. sigh!

I've had folks argue with me on this point but I still believe that if a place offers free admission for children under a certain age it is because ... the younger kids wont get it!!! I know that the parents think it's best to take the kids while they're free because then they can afford to go...but seriously, how much time is your young child interested in it?

Really?!?!?

I guess the lesson I've learned from this is while I love going to these shows...next time I'll try to get seats away from the kids... WISH ME LUCK!

gosh, I thought I might be finished ranting...

not so much.

Everything at our new Church is going great. We're all set for our "birthday" to be on May 16th and keep growing all the time. YAY!

but here's where the ranting begins...

here's review http://reneesdisapprovingrants.blogspot.com/2009/10/current-reason-im-ranting.html

After I posted that Kat unfriended me and dd's best friend's mother on Facebook. This wasn't the first time she unfriended me on Facebook. She did it back when we did our Girl Scout troop's camping.

here's the camping story for you...
We planned a Family Camping trip for our troop. This means that each family gets to come camping with the troop and we plan family activities and such. I booked all the camp sites and we assigned sites when folks arrived. I decided to put Kat and her family on the other end from me because Kat decided that she didn't want to be near my dog (although every time she came over to my house she loved all over my dog...whatever!) Well camping turned out to be pretty much a disaster. Kat and another mom decided that they were too tired to parent their children...or that the behavior the kids were up to wasn't enough to deserve their input. I spent a lot of time making sure that no one got burned or wasted our supplies. note: only two folks brought any fire wood, one of those being me... so instead of using our evening campfire for cooking and smores we had to share our wood with everyone and just have smore fires.
Kat ended up driving home each night and didn't sleep at the camp ground at all...this was fine until the final morning when it was time for us to leave.
After being totally packed up and ready to go we called Kat (woke her up) and waited another hour before she finally showed up. Meanwhile we decided to help her out by packing up her camp for her. Kat brings everything and the kitchen sink when she camps! So when she finally arrived, we went over to help her load her car and she tears into us for treating her like a child... that lead to the first unfriending.

after about a month Kat decided that I was friend worthy again and friended me back.

So I haven't spoke to Kat since Sept after her last blow up about her daughter's birthday. Our daughters have spoke online via video chat and sent emails to each other. And that's fine. I decided that I couldn't trust Kat or her hormones to allow her to get that close to us again. As part of that I chose to block Kat on Facebook...so if she ever wanted to friend me again she wouldn't be able to.

Things went great for a long time until a mutual friend of ours posted a Facebook status that we had both responded to. I couldn't see what Kat wrote, she couldn't see what I wrote...but our friend mentioned both of us in a comment about it. So Kat knew I was out there. Later that day Kat sent me a message requesting that I friend her back on Facebook because she couldn't find me on there. I ignored the request, but let my co-workers for the homeschool group know that she had requested in case something happened. They suggested that I say something instead of just ignoring her. I chose to ignore her.

Then this past Wednesday we went to the park. Kat was there also. The girls all played and had a nice time...and we chatted with Kat who was very nice and friendly...as if nothing had ever happened before. I was about to send Kat a message that I wanted us to remain friendly acquaintances because I keep getting her mad and I didn't want to do that again...but before I could do this she called.

She called me because her husband had taken her son for the weekend and she & her daughter were bored. They wanted to do something. I didn't answer the phone, I let the machine get it. I was busy cleaning the house and really need to get it done because I have to make room for MIL's furniture that is coming here. (yeah, yeah, I took a Facebook break too!) But seriously, I didn't have time to entertain. Kat called here two more times...she also called my daughter's best friend's mom. Bf's mom told her they were sick and didn't want to share germs...and I think my kid might have the same germs...she's been snuffling lately.

so now what?

Oh and one of her calls came right as DH was walking in the door. He HATES when I won't answer the phone (thinks it is rude...doesn't matter who is on the other end.) I didn't tell him who called, but just told him that I didn't want to speak to them. so now DH is disgruntled with me.

Church saga continues...

I received an email from the gal who schedules the counters at my Church. She wanted to know when we would be able to count for the new schedule starting Jan 1. She said she knew that it would be difficult for some of us because of the situation and some leaving and all.

I wrote back that I would be unable to continue to count after Jan 1st. I figured that would be a good clean break time. But I could and intended to keep up with the dates that I was already scheduled for.

She emailed back that I didn't need to come on my last scheduled date so I wouldn't have to feel uncomfortable.

Hummm? I don't see why I should feel uncomfortable about it. I don't hold any grudges against these people. Sigh! Oh well.

Then I get an email from the confirmation coordinator asking if my child would continue. There I just said yes, cuz we intend to keep her there until we find something else and I don't want her tossed out. At least that she can't be tossed out of...they'll confirm non-members.

Our intention was to stay at our Church until our pastor leaves. I found out tonight that council has asked him to leave on Jan 3rd. Surprisingly that is the date we have scheduled to meet and get things going for our new Church.

It seems that either our old Church wants us out of there, or God wants us to get going on the new Church. I'm gonna have to believe that it's God!

Someone needs to find their edit button!

okay, I'll be the first to admit that my personal feelings for this person are probably hugely responsible for my reaction.

That said someone I know recently posted in a public forum way too much personal information. She let it sit for a while and then went back later embarrassed and deleted her post and all comments that had been made referring to the TMI.

Normal members of this forum don't have the ability to do this. A normal member would have only been able to delete their own post. Moderators & Administrators have this ability.

A former moderator had some of her comments deleted. And she made a stink about the deletion (she has some sort of compulsion to have the most comments on the board).

I'm not so concerned with the former moderator (I'm not a fan of her either) but I do think that miss lack of edit button(mleb) should have received more than the pat on the back and the "that's okay, but don't do it again" that she got. I really feel that to do the job that (mleb) has she doesn't really need to have moderator status and I think she has proven more than once she doesn't have the self control that a moderator needs.

Church voted...

to do nothing!

We were asked to vote if we wanted to leave the synod or not. They voted no.

We were then asked if:

1) we were happy with the synod and wanted to tell them so.

2) we were unhappy with the synod and wanted to tell them so.

3) we were neither happy or unhappy and wanted to tell the synod so.

They voted for #3!

So we are pretty much exactly where we were before, only now that we've voted we loose one of our Pastors.

Not what I believe update

We learned yesterday what the opinions of our two pastors are on the synod's resolution.

One pastor is for and the other is against the resolution.

Let the games begin!