A Quick Breath

It's been a crazy busy month for us that will continue into August. We have had good and bad, happy & sad. And the beat goes on...
Okay, enough with the song lyrics as cliches. What's been going on?

• As you know, the beginning of the month was consumed with my dealing with MJ's death. I devoured the Internet daily looking for news of any kind and listening to his music endlessly. This is getting better. I still read whatever I can find, but I don't search for it as obsessively. I spent a small fortune on the tribute/memorial magazines that were put out, which are still in the paper bag I put them in after bringing them home. My emotions are much more under control now and although I dread the day the autopsy results are released, I think that I'm ready. I know that the findings won't be pretty, and I've resigned myself to that.
• In my desperate need to listen to MJ's music constantly, I realized that I didn't own enough of his music catalog. Eric taunted me by letting me know that he was quickly accumulating gobs of songs via the Internet. So I downloaded iTunes and that addiction has taken over my home. It's bad. We are loving it, but it's taking a lot of time to try to find music that we've done without for years because the last time we owned it was on vinyl or cassette.
• CASis, CANiece1 & CANiece2 (see bottom of this post for explanation) drove in last Tuesday and my sister spent some time teaching me the ins and outs of getting music online. We talked a lot and were up late for the 3 nights she was here. Our kids played together so great and we really missed them when they left Friday morning. They left to drive to my sister's house in Missouri (where my mom is already), then will go play tourist in St. Louis and Chicago. They're taking a side trip to Gary, Indiana to find the Jackson's home there, then back to drop MOSis & her kids at their house. My mom is driving up through Nebraska on her way home to see a friend who was a bridesmaid in my parents wedding. My sister and nieces will drive back here, after stopping in Kansas to see the OZ museum. I'm so jealous.
• My kids will be 11 in 9 days. Wow. We are having a birthday party at the Rec Center this Sunday for them. They are so excited. They'll have cake & ice cream followed by swimming. Then we'll have cake and ice cream on their birthday with my parents and my sister & nieces (they won't be back in time for the rec center party). The next day (Friday), we'll be up bright and early to drive to South Dakota for the weekend. We're going to Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Bear Country USA and whatever else we can cram in. Driving back late on Sunday. My dad is going too, so it should be fun. My dogs will be staying with my mom at her house while we're gone. We've never done this before, but if it works it may mean that we can take more vacations as a family instead of splitting them up. This is very exciting.
• Speaking of that, IF all goes well we MIGHT take a family trip to California over Thanksgiving week. This has just entered very preliminary discussions, so stay tuned.
• My CASis is graduating from nursing school the week before Christmas and I am going. Unfortunately, flights there right now are costing about $400. I simply can't afford this. I am thankful that it is still months away, but very worried that it won't get much better before I have to purchase my ticket.
• The fuel pump in my car may be failing and it's the car we are driving to South Dakota. The tags on both our cars are due.
• Our air conditioner is not working correctly. For the last 2 nights it's been 84 degrees in my house when I've gone to bed. I haven't slept well. The kids and I are waking up cranky. The chinchilla's cage is now in the bathtub to keep her cool. The dogs just walk around with their tongues hanging out. It's miserable. Our neighber who works in HVAC is going to come over tonight and take a look. I'm not very hopeful. I'm very afraid that something is wrong and will cost a lot to fix.
• Oh and our mortgage went up due to the amount of our taxes last year. It's only $40 a month, but still.
• My best friend's birthday is in 2 days and I have nothing to send him. Can't afford much and that kills me.
• We started back to school shopping over the weekend. Spent so much money and still have so much more to buy. They start school on August 18. My babies will be in 6th grade, that's middle school. It's just unbelievable...
• *Talk of Sex Life Ahead-Enter at Your Own Risk* Shell & I aren't getting along very well right now. The stress of our money situation isn't helping, but it's mostly about sex. My sex drive is pretty amped up right now, which is really wonderful and very welcome. Typically when we have sex, she makes love to me first as it turns her on and gets her wet so that I can make love to her. Whatever. Saturday morning when she got home from work, I got my turn (as she puts it), but she was tired and turned down getting her turn. Saturday night we went to a birthday party and had a few drinks. The kids were spending the night at my dad's, so we were excited to have the house to ourselves. I got my turn and then fell asleep before she got hers. I felt really bad and she was a little bitter during the day on Sunday, but seemed to get over it as the day wore on. Sunday night the kids went to bed and we turned on a movie. A naughty movie. And...I fell asleep again. Needless to say, she's pretty pissed about it. I can't apologize enough. I swear I really didn't even feel that tired. But apparently I was and she's mad. It doesn't help that the last few weekends haven't exactly been prime for lovemaking. So we were looking forward to this one all week. The weekends are really our only days for it, since she works nights Monday through Friday. So yeah, the situation this weekend sucked. Add on the money situation and the broken a/c...and it's kind of tense in my house. It'll work out, it's just a bummer in the meantime.

I think that's enough catching up for now. I've been trying to keep up with all the blogs I read, but commenting is still suffering. Now that I've written this, I'm going to go comment on your blogs. Thanks for reading, as always!