wow

life has a funny way of nearly killing me so that i might fight a little harder. i'm in a lot of pain and have been sitting for the last hour trying to decide if this is the worst pain i've ever been in, and decided its like 3rd maybe 4th. shingles suck, but this isn't the worst, so i guess i should be happy, or at least realize i can distract myself from having to feel every little burning nerve pain. that's what this blog has been; time to write and spill the pain out for the most part. i try to keep a little bit of a diary, but most of the time i just want to vent. i want to scream and carry on like a hysterical child, but i know i'll just be tired and feel shittier in the end, so here i am. ironically, last week i was complaining to my brother about writers block. i said something like good authentic writing only comes from oppression. i guess i don't need an oppressor when i do pretty well on my own. i've been kinda worried for months bc i expected things to turn out horrible when i tried to go back to college. college seems to translate to extreme illness and terrible clerical and postage luck for me. i had thought i might make it through healthy and smoothly if i started far enough in advance and remained calm. i'm not so sure if my terrible forboding was me manifesting this shit storm or just being in tune with what was coming so i'd be slightly less dissappointed. either way, this particular series of events was not something i expected, but its close enough for me to still giggle and say, but of course. as varujin mazmanian said to me many times at stevens, if i don't laugh, i'll cry.

Frustration

finding peace has been a lot like trying to see the center of my own back. i know its there. i can feel it if i really concentrate. i can touch it if i try really hard, but without some kind of reflective aid, i can't manage to do it.

meditation and prayer are wonderful, and i do find something calm for a moment, but as soon as i have to do anything, like stand up, i become entangled again. i've been told a lot lately that i take things too personally. i suppose that's the theme of the year for me: let it go. freely accept everything without judgment. now if i could just stop getting reflexively frustrated by every single thing i encounter, i might find a better habit lingering underneath. i know being a cynic is poisonous, but its also sooooo easy for me to take my frustration and assume the worst. kindness and hope require a slightly calmer base.

when we were younger a friend of mine found a capitalist mantra on a pen that i adopted and that carried me a long way. i think i need a new one. i've been looking for one for a while. i just don't know what exactly it is i'm looking for, which brings me back to the theme of the year, which seems to be the theme of religions in general.... lol

as for news that exists outside of drea's head, i added pictures to my 2009 collection. i didn't pick and choose, so there are a lot of them. you'll have to scroll down to the bottom to see the new ones.

First Day of School, From 2009

also, we're staying in san antonio. mark got a job down here. i'm still going to uta for spring. i'm staying in the dorm after all. the kids are going to stay with him. i'm praying for the extended miracle that this will be far less painful and difficult for everyone that it seems. i'm just hoping the stars align and the classes i need to graduate are all available.

First Day of School

Pre-K started out incredibly well after all. The head start administration for our area sent me a letter at the beginning of the month informing my that my kids were on the waiting list. Last week I got a letter informing me that I should report to the meet and greet and the first day of school with my kids. Then the teachers called and I finally believed that it was going to work out. Angie and William are in separate classes and seem totally comfortable with everything.

I took some pictures at home on our way out, but decided not to at school. A few of the other children in their classes have never gone to school before so they were a bit stressed out and crying. I didn't want to add to the chaos with flash photography. William reminded me a couple of times on the way in that I was to leave them there and go home, so needless to say my kids weren't crying. Angela woke up this morning jumping up and down and got dressed faster than she ever has before. I hope the enthusiasm lasts at least until Christmas, if not another 20 years or so.

The house is eerily empty and quiet now. I have time to go through the remains of our posessions and pack them up for our eventual move, but I think I'll find some way to procrastinate some more.....

admitted

today i checked my application status and found i've been admitted back into uta. i have to figure out where i'm going to live now, and its rather bleak looking. if mark gets a job in dfw and we move up there before january, i won't have to worry much. i'm going to apply for dorm housing just in case, but i'm going to put it off until my acceptance letter comes in the mail because there really isn't any hurry. living in the dorm is not appealing, but its super cheap, so it could be worse. i've paid a lot more for that torture before, so that's at least an improvement. in the mean time the kids are going to have to start school here in san antonio. their elementary school still won't answer the phone or return my calls, so i'm just going to have to go by tomorow to check on their registration. i should have made this decision last january and then i would be leaving in a couple of weeks and not having to fret for the next few months. oh well...

5th time's the charm?

I submitted my application to return to college once again last friday and the suspense is getting to me. I have this horrific luck with forms getting to where they need to be and so I've submitted really early this time. Everyone is being super supportive. Hopefully things will work out this time.

My health problems, it turns out, are very simple. I'm carbohydrate intolerant. The southbeach diet is the most common low carb diet out there, so that's what I should be doing. I tried a few months ago and had a lot of trouble adjusting to the blood sugar drop off that occurs when you don't eat at correct intervals. All that time I was vegan, it turns out I was still having problems because I ate so much rice and potatoe. I didn't even know people could be carbohydrate intolerant. Now I just have to learn to adjust my diet and not eat deep fried buttermilk biscuits like I did this morning....

I need to do school supply shopping for the kids, and make sure the school didn't screw up their registration. Pre-K here we come.

New Technology

Colored bubbles and spray on drugs are the amazing things I love today. I loved patches, but sprays seem so much cooler. As for colored bubbles, I have no words for how awesome that is.

A long time ago, a couple of people who like to request technology out of me as though I were Merlin, asked me for two things: a personal protection forcefield type bubble, and a patch to release medication. The forcefield is a long way off, but the term contact high just got a lot more literal with transdermal technologies spray system. Five minutes to absorption of allergy medicine? I don't have to wait and hour and forget I took it? wow

job searching

now the job search is going into overdrive. i've started getting everything in line to apply for federal jobs. as it turns out, they have the most thorough and inefficient means of accepting applications, which is interesting, but not surprising. its nice to know the screening process is so in depth since the pay is quite good and we all pay for the work. its sad that in this day and age you have to print tons of paper copies of your own records and send them in the mail to apply.

as for the rest of the plan for moving, we went from owning a bed, coffee table and desk, to owning a dining table and chairs as well. estate auctions are awesome. i just hope mark likes it. i think i'm going to keep it very minimal and buy either a couch or 2 lounge chairs and call it quits. i'm thinking of selling off all my books, but i don't really know how to go about it just yet, and they're mostly paperback anyway. giving everything away is much easier and feels better in so many ways, so maybe i'll give them to the library. at this point, the idea of moving them all again is nauseating.

i hope my kids will deal with this move well. its the first one they'll remember. they've been so catered to and spoiled since we've been living with extended family that just having me and mark is going to take some getting used to.

moving back

mark and i have decided to head back to dfw. we're both looking for work and places to live. i seem to be in some kind of hiring limbo where i'm too overqualified for a lot of stuff and too under qualified for a lot of stuff, leaving just about nothing i am qualified for. i'm planning to go back to school as soon as possible. this is going to seriously be difficult. mom wants me to go to nursing school. i'm starting to think that's not a half bad idea. i just have to find a way to eat while i do it. i'm debating taking down my blog and using my web space to post my resume, etc. we're considering using a resume/ application service.

as a side story, leo is so amazing at manifesting reality its silly. he thinks, i am so lucky, i just find goodness lying around, and then found a diamond in his carpet while cleaning it while moving out. i suppose i am as well. i think, moving back to dfw is going to be difficult and so far it's tedious as hell and exhausting. thankfully, i gave away all of our furniture, so we have very little to move.

summer time

I think I need some kind of summer plan. Alex asked me what we were planning for the summer while we chatted a month ago or so, and I just listed off our vacation plan for August. He pointed out that was like a week at most, and now I see his point. Right now we spend like 2 hrs a day learning to read, write, count and do developmental tasks like jump on one foot. The rest of the time I thought we'd spend outside, but the kids allergies go crazy every time we go out and so do mine and we all get sick. My ears have been ringing on and off all week and so I have no desire to fix the pool and sit out in the pollen more.

What should I do for the rest of the day? So far we watch way too much tv. I'm actually looking forward to new SpongeBob. This is not a functional plan for the next 2 months. I guess its time to schedule some craft time. Finger paints and glitter here we come...

Space

We've finally hit 70 gigs on this machine. With too many users on one hard drive, it was going to happen eventually. I've stopped all subcription downloads, compressed or deleted all temporary files, and emptied the recycle bin. I'm just glad I was the one using it when it maxed out and have time to clean it up. Sal would have flipped out. I think I am burning lunch though.... nope. Now there is enough space to last until I have time to remove programs I don't use anymore. I think I'm the only one who installs crap on here. I think I'm going to burn all the pictures of my kids on CD since I have them all up on google anyway. I have prints of the ones I like, for the most part. I guess I could do the same for the music, or just buy another hard drive. UGH. I spend most of my time here installing, updating or researching for someone else. The internet should be used to waste time and amuse myself to my own detriment.

I finally put pictures of my kids up, but my paranoid mother wants me to unlist them all, so that's something else to do. I think I'm going to set it to log in, so people can still see them without an invite, bc sending out invites is a pain.

This one is from the tower of the america's on their birthday.

From 2009

William and Angela are 4

Yay! I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do twin birthday parties. This year I got one big sheet cake for school with a theme William likes and a color I thought Angie would like. Turns out, Angie hated the color, so I got another cake with a theme and color she likes for tonight at home. Last year I got them each a small cake. Next year I think I'm going to do that again. I just didn't want a ton of left over cake at school and now I guess I know better. The party is in 20 mins and I'm sooo jazzed that its at school so I don't have to invite 30 4 year olds over to our home. Oh hell, i need batteries for the camera.......

valentines day

the kids are so excited about valentines day. they don't quite understand the distinction between holidays and birthdays, and i don't have any idea how to explain that in a manner that makes any sense. secular holidays seem like some kind of insanity or just an excuse to have a party with a theme that everyone knows. religious holidays require a religion. i guess i could look into one of those for some explination. being a pretty horrible catholic, i have no idea what the church says about saint valentine, or his day, but i can look it up... well, well, saint valentine was martyred for being christian in carthage around 400ad, and chaucer linked him to birds choosing mates in mid february in a poem and now we all give eachother chocolate in heart shapes.... yeah, that's sane.

FreeRice

FreeRice is the best waste of time i've found in a long time. i learn a few bizar words, realize i know a few bizar words, and force sponsors to donate food all at the same time....

Green Tea and Google can be scary

My tea tree is looking a little down because i over watered it, so a couple of leaves fell off. I went ahead and made a cup of tea from them and man was it awesome. I can't wait till its big enough to harvest in the spring. Only 18 months....

As for google, I just went ahead and started the facial recognition software for my web album, and honestly its freaking me out, but I can't seem to stop myself. One of my cousins writes about how google is evil and intusive which I can totally see, but I still love it. Personalized advertising based on my email content makes me giggle. Facial recognition software sorts my pictures so I can be lazy. So its intrusive. I guess its just a little hop leap and a jump to google facial recognition, google street view and google maps to easy online stalking....

oooooooo dragon

Chicks!

Chickens!

The chicks finally arrived in San Antonio this morning and we got them all settled in their little coop. The green heads are the commercial layer leghorns, the rest are broiler leghorns. They are so cute! I wish I had taken pictures of the last flock, but now they are all processed and ready for thanksgiving dinner....

chickens and mail-men

when i call the post office i get the voicemail....
i called the hatchery and all 52 chicks were mailed out yesterday and should be here by now. this happened with the last batch. the mail came with no chickens arriving with the letters. then at 1pm, the post office calls saying they have the chicks, but the mail truck would not be able to bring them until the next day, but which time they would have dehydrated and died, so i has to rush to get them, bring them home and get them settled, then rush to get my kids at school.
it looks as though the post office is not even calling this time.....
WHERE ARE MY CHICKENS!

VOTED

yep, and it was the longest line i've ever seen at a polling place. there was a 20 min wait. not bad at all...

i just realized its the fourth and i haven't started on nanowrimo....

i owe a couple people phone calls from like 3 months ago...

i just erased like 300 emails, so i think i need to get off all those mailing lists, including the one's my mom likes to put me on since she refuses to have her own email address.....

oh shit, i have to go get my kids. bye.

Holy Cow!

or should i say chicken.....
we had 26 chickens, then one died of seemingly nothing. probably parasites or something of that sort did it in seeing as it was about 5 days old. they were starting to get bigger and feathered when something bigger than protazoa got into the cage. a description of the cage is in order. its a chain link dog kennel with a sheet metal roof and welded wire poultry netting wrapped around all sides, including the floor. the floor netting was then covered with about 4 inches of dirt. so the big predator dug under the kennel and then ran into the netting, and tore through it. i realize poultry netting is not the strongest stuff in the world, but even a coyote couldn't have done that.
about 9 months ago we saw a big cat in the brush outside our fence line with 2 slightly smaller cats. camoflauged with some kind of coloring, the only way we really could see them was with a large spot light and binoculars. they have huge eyes. mom mentioned this to the local game warden while complaining about some wild local dogs, and she (the game warden) says its an ocelot, they are endangered, so don't kill it.
we now have 13 chicks. i did some reading and found out that at zoos ocelots are fed live chicks. we're upgrading to a steel dog cage for a night time enclosure. i just wish i new how small the holes have to be to keep it out.
i also wish i could find my camera to get some pics of the paw prints. they are HUGE! is it wrong that i want to set up a video feed to catch it coming back?
now my mother is all paranoid about me going to water the chicks late at night. these cats apperantly also hunt small deer. i think i'm larger and more intimidating that a small deer. i'm more the size of an average deer.....

a 35 pound wild cat lives in the next yard over and had 2 kittens last year......
now i can't even take my kids outside alone near dusk. a dingo ate my baby type thing. its no wonder wild cats have been hunted near extinction. i don't like my neighbors to eat my pets. that's my job.

happy father's day

to all the father's out there. i am attempting to enbark upon a musical journey of understanding. off the deep end i run once again. may there be arms out-streched to catch me when the time comes for me to land. this may just be proof positive i have little ability to communicate well with people, and have even less ability to improve upon the skills i am lacking without input from some sane other....

me, myself, and i

are deleteing everything i just wrote bc it is too self serving and self depricating. someone slap me and remind me to be myself again. i got lost in trying to be too many things that i am not. so now where to begin......

in normal news, our dogs ripped off and chewed up the trim over the drivers side wheel of my mom's mini, so back to the recue center they go. dogs 2, cars 0.

stupid song

i have this stupid song stuck in my head. i heard it yesterday on sirius 1, the top 40 station and this afternoon one line started repeating in my head. its not even that good a song, and i don't know who its by or the name of it. all that repeats is the poor voice of a guy singing, be careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it....
its really getting annoying. i'm not so sure i like my subconcious being so overt lately. i'm not liking life being what it seems... its eerily predictable.

Archival

I got into the spirit of very late spring cleaning for this site. I went way back to the vert beginning and consolidated all of the pre-blogger files into one archive. There are surprizingly few dead links and I only erased one file for my sanities sake. All in all I feel like its pretty easy to navigate 7 years of nonsense with relative ease. The only thing left to do is check my webspace. I haven't logged in to freeshell in a long time, but I guess I still have plenty of webspace.... I managed to move almost all of my pictures to picasa, although the really small older ones wouldn't load for some reason. I'm thinking about moving to blogger's webspace instead of using my own, but I'm hesitant about that. I'm also considering using google home page to move everything else to so my webspace will pretty much be an index pointing to all content on other servers, and then i can play around with my web space and try to find some time to make something new...

i dunno. i'm just glad i started this all that time ago. its kinda nice to have a half ass diary. i'm not much of a photographer, but the pictures make a difference somehow.

changes

so i made some changes to this blog that were long in need. the archives links now point to the right place and you can see the entirety of the ink blot i like so much at the top of the page. you can now peruse my babbling way into the past with ease. enjoy the long, drawn out nonsense i spew.

the camera needs new batteries. the kids are really getting into pretending and its entirely too cute to go undocumented.

i'm trying to avoid infection this week so everyone please send me good immune system juju and prayers and the like. thanks! in other health news, with some threatening, i finally got my doctors office to order an h-pylori culture! it only took 6 months! way to go san antonio. this town bring the whole mexican attitude of ma& #241ana to a whole new level..... (why the hell is the tilde there and not above the n?)

funky feeling.....

lately i've been having this weird syncronous feeling, like time is folding in on itself and is no longer linear in my mind, but is, i don't even have a word for that, universal i guess. its really creeping me out today. i had a weird dream that was far too realistic and things keep happening today that reinforce the dream. maybe this is what the coming of quetzalcoatl is all about.... the dialation of space-time into something else.

that's the end of my crazy susperstitions now. anyone curious should read, "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl", by Daniel Pinchbeck. i've been trying to be better atuned to everything around me, but i think i'm not quite ready for that.

i think there is a pattern forming

it goes a little something like this:
h-pylori, ibs worsens, cycts, weird uterine problems, stomach bleeds, pain is overwhelming, pain killers en mass, antibiotics, pneumonia, antibiotics, bronchitis, antibiotics, bronchitics, bronchitis, bronchitis, massive lifestyle change, ok for 2 yrs, repeat......

this will be round 3. i think my stomach is bleeding a lot, i have yet to throw up a whole lot of blood, but i foresee it in the near future...... my gastro's office staff and i are playing phone tag......

martini and rossi are calling......

its all coming together

my health problems have finally formed a recognizable pattern! i found a phd paper from 2005 that has a section on a specific gene that pretty much describes by life from 1999 to 2003 when that gene starts overreacting. i wish i'd been healthy enough to graduate and the sense enough to go to med school so i would be able to get the fucking treatment i need, knowing well that i need it, instead of insisting there must be a link between all my problems to doctors who recommend me to a shrink, implying my assumption that my problems are all gene related and related to one gene are absurd and paranoid. its kind of nice, and yet deeply unsettling that i've been right all along. although i realize very fully that there can not be much help available from a paper only written 3 years ago, my mother is telling me to call this woman up for advice if i don't get a decent response from my doctor. i'm on the edge of getting rid of this shit at last. i think i've had an h-pylori infection for 13-15 years. they've told me its been gone, but my symptoms say otherwise. this shit is amazing. its incredibly adaptable in the human body, and the human body has a gene that takes care of it and 5 other bacteria strains. its an old enemy. immuno-endocrinology is what i need to learn. i hate studying biology. its dry and full of facts that have never been near as interesting as mathematics or physics, to me. too bad. i sure should have tried to care a bit more. although i wonder if knowing is going to help if no one has figured out what to do with the findings. knowledge of the genome doesn't seem to produce too may useful therapies.

today has been a wild ass ride. i got the diagnosis of a new disorder, and that connected all the dots. now i just hope the damage can stop and maybe heal a bit.

wireless connectivity 2

so after a lot of thinking about it.... both laptops now connect. they connect at about 38-43kps and have trouble initially connecting every time. i think its that the router is new. it was a gift. it is a 802.11n and the cards are 802.11b/g so the frequencies don't exactly match. the router is supposed to send out a broad range signal to communicate with b/g/n simultaneously, but i think the laptops sense the extended frequency as noise or interference and have difficulty aquiring initial contact. the router claims to be perfectly compatible with all 802.11 technology, but so far, it only gets along well with my Wii. plus, i've had these machines hooked up to an ancient but very reliable linksys router after the last wireless router died. its wired router is 8 yrs old and never dies or gives any probles and connects at 100k every time, so this slow ass old wireless card just doesn't cut it any more. web pages just keep getting bigger, and we all got so used to being plugged in that we are too impatient to wait. so it seems wireless just won't do here. we're not going to upgrade the cards when we can use the ancient router with just as much if not more effiency. so now i'm pluged into the new router, and have put the old one back in its original packaging, to be pulled out again when this one dies in 18 months as all our wireless routers have.

the older i get, the more finiky about wireless technology. the interference is high, the signal strength is high, and that all translates to another kind of air polution. not to mention that i have serious issues with american design and marketing philosophy. just because moore's law is in effect, doesn't mean we have to purchase at the same rate, nor that product life cycles should also operate at the same rate. it seems cheap, and lazy to me. even worse, it produces more junk than our lazy culture can recycle, or would ever even think to. quality implies longevity and consistency, something that isn't seen very often any more, especially in american made products.

on an entirely different rant, i just finished working my second shift from home and have decided that the program i work on could have been better designed by a blind monkey. it is as far from user friendly as unix, but also has no supporting documentation available for the user. you either know what to do, or guess. the training for this program focused on customer service. i can be as polite and apologetic as is physically possible for me, and still preform insanely substandardly by company desires. i know i'm not stupid, but i just can't handle this level complexity with no training, no live call examples, and a jump right in attitude. i kind of want to call and bitch a lot at someone, but who?

wireless connectivity is a bitch

so this computer is finiky as all hell. it takes like 5 retires to get it to connect and i have no idea why. its sitting directly next to the router. the older model connected much faster, although for just as arbitrary a manner. it connected on like the 3rd try. i want to take it downstairs almost directly below where i'm sitting and i have my doubts those 10 ft will be spanned by this magical new technology. i've turned of all the power save modes on both the router and the laptop so the radios are on constant broadcast to try and maintain the connection. i feel like i need better wireless juju. send me your good juju if you have any. mine is broken.....

potty training, the beach, ihop and work

i think i can consider my kids potty trained at last. sometimes we don't make it, or get a little too excited or cold, but for the most part, the fight over it all is over. change only seems to bother them when they have to put forth significant effort, which is pretty nice. they're really flexible, considering how compulsive we all are.

we're going to the beach later this week. it'll be their first time to see the ocean, so i'm excited and have got them talking about it. it should produce very cute pictures. every morning they ask me if we're going home to the beach. they have some trouble distinguishing going out from going home. out seems to only mean outside, as in out in nature, where as home is any structure or location with a name. any location except the pancake house, which william can spot while driving down the highway. he even recognises the IHOP sign in commercials. he doesn't even really like pancakes, so i guess its just that he's a morning person in a family of night time people and that's about the only place we go that's any fun early in the morning. when your options are home with a bunch of groggy people, church or the doctor before 9am, then IHOP is a very happy place.

i'm going to start working next week. i just finished my training and have to wait for clerical stuff to go through, then i should find out once again that i'm sufficient, but never excellent at customer service because i'm not chipper. maybe this time i can dig a little deeper into a well of false happy tones to earn a nice rating that won't translate to better compensation.....