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!

Not what I believe

When looking for what Church you are going to attend, you depend upon the Church's statement of belief. You want to go to a Church that believes what you believe. For us that used to be pretty easy. There was an entire synod (or group of Churches) that believed what we believed.

However, over the past few years our synod has changed. They have passed resolutions that not only aren't what I believe, they quite frankly don't seem to believe what the Bible says is true.

Some of these resolutions don't really seem to have much to do with how I worship and I'm a bit confused as to why the synod felt it was important to make such a resolution on the topic at all. But one very important resolution does affect how I worship.

Based on a very small poll of our Church members it was decided that our Church should do nothing regarding this resolution. Needless to say, my husband and I are quite upset about this, so much so that we won't be allowing our offering to go to the Church synod any longer. So much so that we may be looking for another option for our worship.

I learned that there is another meeting going on right now at our Church asking for the opinions of our Pastors. I'm pretty certain that at least one of our Pastors feels the same as we do and hope that his influence will help with the Church's council. Unfortunately I won't find out until tomorrow if I'm correct in my assumption and how the Church's council felt about it.

this seems to be becoming a habbit!

today at Girl Scouts one of the parents was talking about the service project that she has decided that the girls should do and berating me pretty much because our troop hasn't done any service projects...
However, we have. We just made butterflies for the Holocaust Project. We have donated food to the food Pantry for Thanksgiving Baskets. We have done Operation Christmas Child, Birthday Boxes for kids in foster care, and every year we send girl scout cookies to the soldiers.

I think she was more annoyed that the troop hasn't done any of the projects that she wanted to do. I really don't care.

She's probably also annoyed that I'm pretty vocal in my disapproval of her kids' behavior (a direct result of her very poor parenting skills!)

I'm very annoyed by her kids' behavior and by her continuing to bring very messy things for the kids to do to the meetings. Of course most of the mess is made by her children. One meeting she decided the kids should make bird feeders and brought bird seed to fill them. the little ball kind of bird seed. ugh! as she was vacuuming up the mess her daughter starts spinning with her feeder and more bird seed goes everywhere. She tells the kid to pick up the bird seed, which the kid does for all of maybe 3 seeds and then they leave. I get to vacuume up the rest.

Today for her food from another country she brough corn chips & salsa...that her kids dumped off their plates on the floor...and oh they had to leave early so guess who got to vacuume that mess!

I realize that not everyone can be as perfect as me...and I know I'm not perfect. but can they just all stay away from me?

We had similar issues with this family when the troop went camping this summer. Not that there were messes that they didn't clean up, but just differences of opinion. I was talking with my mom about how I didn't bother to get camping training so our troop can't use any of the Girl Scout camps. I told my mom how I liked that I wasn't in charge of all the girls myself. However, I got to thinking that it might not be a bad idea. LOL! however the problem with that is that due to safety issues I would need another parent or two to come with us and alas this mom would be there. ugh!

So next summer...no troop camping trip.

Spending money you say you don't have???

and other rants...

There's this person I know who supposedly doesn't have enough money to make her budget. When negotiating to rent a house from another friend she said she couldn't afford to pay the mortgage payments on the house. She once asked my advice about her offering at Church...if she should stop giving to the church so she could afford to buy a new car. blah blah blah

I say this because she recently announced that her husband just bought a 60 inch HD flatscreen TV!!! They subscribe to the best cable package, and also recently upgraded their cell phones to iphones!

I THOUGHT you said you didn't have any money!

I'm so very sorry, but this is exactly why our country is in the mess that it's in. Folks like you spending money you don't have going into 5 digit debt so you can have a bunch of stuff you don't need. ugh!

in other ranting news...

A friend of mine recently had a visit from her SIL & family. The SIL lives in Arizona and when told to bring coats so they could go to the mountains to play in the snow...they brought fleece jackets at best. So when making plans to go play in the snow, Friend asked all of us if we could loan them more appropriate snow gear. Friend said that they would return the snow gear either the following night or the day after. Borrowed on Sunday evening, trip on Monday...so should get gear back by Tuesday.

I loaned out our current coats, ski pants & boots because the sizes were the ones they needed and I was told the coats would be returned quickly.

Unfortunately things hit a HUGE snag when Monday night it turned out that some of the kids were violently ill...seems that stomach bug they had in the house last week hadn't quite worked all it's damage. Friend said the coats would now be returned after they were all laundered.

When I loaned out the coats, I told friend that I would be near her home on Tuesday and could pick them up then. So on Tuesday I called, knowing that the coats were probably NOT ready for pick up due to the Monday night snag. HOWEVER, friend reported that they were in the process of washing the blankets the kids got sick on first and that the blankets needed to be washed one at a time. Okay, that is fine.

but then I see on Friend's facebook that on Wednesday the entire clan when out somewhere. "Umm hello? who is at home washing my coats?"

Okay, perhaps it is just me and my thinking...but if I had promised you your coats back on Tuesday I would NOT have told you that I needed to wash my blankets one at a time before your coats. AND I would have taken all of the stuff to a nearby laundry mat so that I could get all the loads done at once so I'm not sitting by the machine all day...sometimes paying for a convience is worth it! AND I most certainly would not be posting about going somewhere to play even though I still haven't returned your coats!!!

Luckily we are not expecting another cold front and I do have other coats to wear. But I'm still mad that she hasn't returned my coats yet.

AND OH YES! I will be washing all the coats another time!!! ugh!

explaining the profile pix

to lighten things up a bit...here is what my profile picture is about...

that was taken a few years ago by a friend of mine. I thought the picture went really good on this blog. hee hee as most of the stuff I'll be ranting about is where I feel beaten up. get it?

the story behind the photo...
DH, DD & I were in the backyard playing wiffleball. DH was the pitcher, I was the catcher and DD was at bat.

DD swung at the ball really hard and kept on going. The bat connected with my face, right between my eyes! And even though I was yelling at them to get me ice...they both came running to me. "Um Hello? Crouching around me with looks of concern are not helpful! Ice is helpful!"

Anyway, Ice was eventually brought to me. I was out of the game. I wonder if Ice was brought sooner if the black eye would have been prevented?

BTW: DD felt horrible! Poor kid.

the current reason I'm ranting

okay this situation has been going on for entirely too long and unfortunately there isn't a whole lot I can do about it because it has to deal with one of the members of the homeschooling group that I'm a co-leader of. I have to watch what I say or do because if I tick her off too much it could get very ugly. But apparently my very existence ticks her off. sounds like a no win situation huh?

I'm gonna be somewhat nice here and assign her a different name because I'm not totally heartless...it's way more than she deserves though. I'm gonna call her Kat here.

Kat & I have known each other for quite a while and our daughters are friends. The kids get along great for the most part but occasionally they do have their squabbles. I cannot tell you how many times my daughter has complained about hers...it seems very frequent because of course the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. However, the kids always seem to work most things out on their own.

It is just that when Kat tries to get involved that all goes to hell. Kat gets all hot fired mad at me and my daughter and tries with all her might to punish us. She once tired to get me "fired" from my co-leader position with the homeschool group by sending emails to the other two co-leaders.

She has also tried to get the mothers of my daughter's other friends to not allow their kids to play with my child.* THIS IS WHAT ANGERS ME THE MOST!!!!

I don't really care that Kat can't stand me. The feelings are mutual. And while it pains my daughter, the severing of the relationship between our girls is okay with me too. There is a substantial age difference and the things the girls have in common with each other is getting less and less...I figured that the girls would eventually split on their own here soon without any help.

an example of the craziness:

Kat's daughter's birthday party.

Kat's husband managed to earn a free night at a local hotel. Kat decided to hold the birthday party at the hotel with the kids swimming in the pool and having a sleepover at the hotel. She invited a few girls, including my daughter and her best friend.

The following day she sent me and best friend's mom an email suggesting that if our girls didn't want to attend the party that would be okay and she could then invite some other kids. (namely: her twin son and one of his friends, because she hadn't bothered to plan a party for him!)

Friend's mom and I were both highly offended at this. We both wanted the girls to attend the party - HOWEVER, we were both weirded out at the thought of the sleepover being held at a hotel. Friend didn't want to sleep at the hotel as she doesn't like to. So friend's mom responded right away that friend would attend the party, but would not be sleeping over.

I decided to not tell Kat that my daughter wasn't going to sleep over. YES, this was WRONG of me. I was going to take my daughter to the party and let her know that I would be picking her up later that evening.

Of course my daughter threw a wrench into those plans when she and Kat's daughter were playing together and talking about the party. Instead of truthfully telling Kat's daughter that her stick in the mud mother wouldn't allow her to sleepover, my daughter tells Kat's daughter that she "has something better to do." *insert eye roll here!*

Kat's mother zipps me off an email asking about if my daughter is staying the night. I told her honestly that I wasn't comfortable with her staying at a hotel. To which Kat gets all hot fired mad and UNINVITES my daughter and best friend to the entire party. She said in the email that if the girls didn't want to stay for the sleepover that they could not attend the rest of the party.

okay here's where the assuming begins: best friend's mom & I think that what must have happened here is that Kat assumed that 1) We didn't trust Kat with our children for the sleepover and 2) that our girls were planning to have their own sleepover (because my child said she had something better to do.)

what was really going on was that I had promised my child something special since I wasn't going to allow her to do the sleepover (mommy guilt). Best friend and my child had no plans to see each other except for at the party.

Kat should know that I don't have any problems with my daughter being in her care as she has slept over at her house numerous times!

All that said I realize that having a pool party at a hotel pool isn't such a good idea either. There is no lifeguard and my daughter still doesn't know how to swim. And there's still the issue with the hotel probably having a problem with the situation also.

This isn't the first time Kat has "blown up" like this. I'm usually her favorite kicking post, but she's blown up at others too. The other co-leaders of the group and I keep track of it all...we're trying to CYA in case she takes it any further. There seems to be a pattern to Kat's outbursts. She blows up, tries to punish, and then acts as if nothing ever happened to your face and eventually she forgets about it.

sigh! I just wish there were some way for this all to not include me & my daughter anymore.

*no, I'm not paranoid. I actually saw the email she sent to best friend's mother.

why bother?

many of you may wonder why I bothered to start a new blog. Well the answer is simple... There were too many folks with access to my old blog that I wanted to rant about! LOL!

There are people that Ihave to deal with on a daily basis that drive me up a wall...and one of those idiots thought it would be fun to have a list of all our blogs so that everyone could read what all we were up to.

I actually got in trouble for one of my posts about a lousy field trip that we went on because what I said might be harmful to the place we went to...well DUH! That was the point!!!

Oh well.

Now I have a place to spew my rants. I expect that not everyone will want to read all of this and that's okay.

I know that my real friends know how I am (mostly sweet) but sometimes I've just gotta let it out or I'm going to explode. :D