Monday, Munchkin goes back to school. As much as I love being home with him and having extra time with him in the mornings before I go to work, it really put a wrench in my new morning routine.

Since Hubby went off to boot camp, I’ve been walking on the treadmill every morning in the hour between getting Munchkin to school and getting ready for work. But this past week has been lazy week. So to make up for it, I will not only get back to my morning routine, but I have also mapped a route at work to give me an extra workout during the day. I have made a commitment to get healthier, and I must stick to it. I am frighteningly out of shape. To the point of truly scaring me.

So I will be doing more physical moving. I have to. And hopefully it will be enough.

Thirty-eight years ago you came into this world. Born to a Coastie, you traveled the US. Life wasn’t always easy for you, and you found trouble wherever you could. Eventually you ended up in Kissimmee, where we met. A down and out musician and a self-destructive chef. Not much in common other than our need for each other.

You saved me from a bastard of an ex and going home in shame. I like to think I saved you from yourself.

We lived together for a while, got pregnant, then married, and the rest, I’m looking forward to learning.

A month ago, one month before your 38th birthday, you bravely decided to take your destiny in your own hands. You joined the Navy Reserves. The oldest new recruit anyone we’ve met to date has known. You are kicking ass. You are doing better than you thought you would. And you sound truly proud of yourself, for once.

And I am more proud of you than I ever have been before. And you have had many proud moments already (though you may not think so). This has been difficult. I thought it would be easier. But not being able to talk to you has been hard. Three weeks without hearing your voice was almost more than I could bear. And Thanksgiving with no word was nerve-wracking.

But today, on your birthday you got an hour. One whole hour to talk on the phone. It was bliss. I missed you so so much. And when we got to the end of our time, all I wanted was more. Now I must go back to snail mail. Hand written letters, with the four day delay in receiving them. <sigh>

I can’t wait to see you. 3 weeks. Exactly 21 days and I can see you. Hold you. Kiss you. Then you are taken from me again. Hopefully just for a little while. I hope.

But in the meantime, I will take what I can get. What the Navy will give me. I will take an hour on your birthday. A very happy birthday indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I know I’ve been a little negative, whiny and annoying of late. I apologize.

I do have much to be thankful for.

I am somewhat healthy and working on becoming healthier.

I have a healthy, courageous husband.

I have a healthy son.

My father is healthy.

My sister and her husband are healthy.

My brother in law and his wife are healthy.

Everyone is employed.

We all have roofs over our heads, warm clothes on our bodies, and enough expendable cash to do a few extra fun things.

We are good. And we are thankful.

Today we are missing Hubby while he is at boot camp. We are anxiously awaiting a call. Hopefully he will have the opportunity to call us.

We are also missing my sister while she is visiting with her husband’s family. Much love to all of them up in New Jersey.

We are missing Mom, who left us 8 years ago, but will always be in our hearts.

But we are thankful for all we have and can do.

I am also thankful for you, dear reader. Thank you for allowing me to purge, celebrate, and be.

Again Happy Thanksgiving!

I am still not writing the post I’ve been working on. I’m not ready. I’m still too angry. Even after nine years, I’m angry. And I refuse to give over a happy holiday, or Hubby’s birthday, to the selfishness of someone else. That post will wait at least until Saturday.

So I will talk tonight about my crappy day. I want to get this out before tomorrow. I have so much to be thankful for, I want to make sure to fully concentrate on that. But I must purge this tonight. So here it is. I thought it couldn’t get any worse. The money woes. The loneliness. It couldn’t, right?

Yes. Yes, it can.

I mentioned last night the money suckage. I told you of the final straw, the heater on the fritz. Oh, yeah. It’s on the fritz all right. A thousand bucks on the fritz. $1000.00. Yep, I’m done. I can’t afford to rub two nickels together because they are gone. Gone to buy a working heater.

Oh, and did I mention the parts won’t be here till Friday? At the earliest. And it’s cold. At least for Georgia and my pathetic Southern ass. A girly girl who never quite learned how to build a proper fire in our tiny fireplace. Well, I never learned, but I’m not really a girly girl.

Hubby has usually been the one to handle these things. Keeping roaring fires going. Making sure we’re all cozy and warm and safe. He can’t do that from 700 miles away. So I’ll be fitfully sleeping. Tending the hearth. Keeping us warm. We’ve moved to the living room, where the fireplace is. We have blankets and pillows and an alarm clock. It brings back memories of when I was around 9 or so. There was an ice storm in Atlanta that knocked out the power for a few days. We moved a mattress into the kitchen, where the fireplace was, and stayed warm, cooking on the fire (the stove and oven were electric), and I thought it was soooooo cool. I couldn’t understand why Mom was so freaked out.

Now, I get it.

I will take care of my family, split as it currently is. At least I am still connected to everyone and don’t have to cook over my pitiful fire. I can Tweet and email and listen to XM radio. I can game with Munchkin, as long as one of us is bundled tight against the cold in the office. And I can still call it an adventure.

We’ll worry about paying for everything later. Fiddle-dee-dee, tomorrow is another day.

Monetarily that is. It always happens this way. We finally get to a point where we can start making ends meet. Getting to where Peter and Paul are both being paid, to where I’m not so worried about getting the bills paid, to a comfort zone.

No, I was not surprised when I went to get an oil change two weeks ago and found out I need four new tires and front brakes on my car. I knew going in Hubby’s car needed brakes all the way around, at least one new tire and a new muffler. Not to mention the registration is due on both cars.

Then we have the trip to Chicago for Hubby’s graduation from boot camp. Flight, hotel, travel expenses. Boarding of the pets.

And of course there’s Christmas.

But the icing on the cake. The piece de resistance. The final nail in the coffin. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m pretty sure the heater is on the fritz. And the water heater is a little wonky.

I mean come on now, REALLY??? It has to be this way? For the love of Pete, why can’t we just have everything work out for once?

So, I’m going to bed tonight with the hopes that the heater holds on for one more night. As I watch the temperature in my bedroom drop from 71 to 68 in a matter of minutes. I’m afraid I’ll have to bundle Munchkin and the two smelly dogs into the car, along with clothes for work tomorrow. I’ll have to call Da, in the middle of the night (which shouldn’t be a problem, his bed time has been 5AM of late.) And I’ll have to drive 20 minutes in 30 degree weather in order to sleep the rest of the night in warmth.

So any good money thoughts you can send my way I would be grateful for. Thanks.

<Munchkin was concerned about me getting a blog post done this evening, so graciously suggested I talk about his newest obsession. Halo. The online free trial version of the original game. Below is a short question and answer. Enjoy!>

What is Halo?

Halo is this game that you can play, like, online and you can have multi-player games and campaign games.

What is the goal of Halo?

The goal in multi-player for Slayer is that you need to try to kill everyone that is not on your team. There are different colors, too. Blue, yellow, green, purple, etc. The colors are for the armor you where. Armor is like your shield. When you walk around you find blue and red crystal things. When you walk on he blue crystals, you turn camoflage. The red crystal is an over-shield for your armor. (If you want to play this game, go to Google and type in free Halo trial.) There are different weapons and vehicles. Weapons are like grenades, sniper rifles, turrets, and something called a needler. There are only 2 vehicles. One is banshee, the other is warthog. The warthog carries 3 people, a gunner, a passenger and a driver. One person can fire the gun, one person drives and the passenger can shoot his gun 360 while they are moving. The only way you can get different vehicles is if you modify them at www.freehalotrialmods.org. There are other vehicles that you can unlock by going to that website. Vehicles like ghost, wasp, tank, etc.

You told us what a warthog is. What is a banshee?

A banshee is a vehicle that flies in the air. And you left click to shoot bullets and right click for missiles. The banshee can only hold one person.

What is the other kind of Halo game?

Capture the flag is the other game. Your goal is to kill people who try to get your flag. Once you kill a person who took your flag, you walk up to your flag, touch it and it goes back to your base.  To steal the other team’s flag you go to their base, go under ground, take their flag, ride or walk all the way back to your base and touch your flag.

<Munchkin and I played slayer tonight and he beat me by 5 points. The little shit kept telling me he was going to show me how to play, then would get near me and kill me. Next time, it’s on, little dude!>

Munchkin is eleven years old. Two more years and we will be dealing with broody and bored. And I suppose I should pick a more masculine, less baby-ish nickname for him here in the blogosphere. Suggestions placed in the box will be considered.

We’ve been lucky so far with attitude and personality. With the exception of being slightly spoiled (not quite to the rotten point), he’s a pretty good kid. He is unfortunately of the McDonald’s generation and still doesn’t quite get the idea of waiting for or working towards a goal. That is our current subject on the homefront. That and studying and reading being the tickets to getting anywhere in life.

And I suppose we need to discuss a little more about standing up to one’s friends. Munchkin spent the night with a couple of friend’s the other night. Imagine my surprise the next morning when yet another friend’s mother calls to let me know Munchkin called her house at 4:15AM. OMG was I so embarrassed. Turns out, one of the spend the nighters took Munchkin’s phone and used it to call not only the 4:15AM friend, but also a friend in Ohio. Yes, we live in Georgia. And no, we don’t have unlimited minutes on our phones. GAH!!! On top of it all, this same phone appropriater has his own cell phone, AND they were spending the night at his house. Dammit! Luckily the friend’s mother who called was not upset. She’s very sweet and understanding (with four kids of her own, she’s been through it all already). She didn’t want me to get mad at Munchkin, but thought I should know. <sigh> As for the Ohio call? Can’t wait to get that phone bill.

In getting it off my chest, before Munchkin came home and in order not to lock him in the cabinet under the stairs, I told my dear sister about the incident. At which point she started laughing. Uncontrollably.

WTF???

As it turns out, because Munchkin is usually so well behaved, I and Hubby have grown to expect him to always be well behaved. And it appears, boys will be boys. And they do things like prank calls, calling people at all times of the night, and other practical joking kinds of things. So, I guess I need to begin expecting more things to happen. And to be ready for whatever speech is appropriate for the crime.

But one thing Munchkin did learn? Either don’t bring the cell phone to a sleep over, or don’t tell anyone you have the phone. They are more trouble than they’re worth AND they are much more responsibility than he bargained for.

Didn’t we tell him that for months before he finally got the phone? Will he ever listen?

Ugh.

We are from “The South”. We are Southerners. Only barely. My parents are both from Massachusetts as are all of our relatives. But both my sister and I were born and raised here, below the Mason-Dixon line. In the suburbs of Atlanta. Scarlet’s territory. Where we women-folk don’t sweat, we glisten.

A few years ago my sister married a Yankee. A “Damn Yankee” as many of the parents and grandparents of our friends might call him.  I like to think most of our peers have gotten beyond at least the North/South incident, not all but most. However, at gatherings and announcements of the engagement, my brother-in-law was referred to as, “What is her Yankee’s name again?” Yep, Southerners.

Fast forward to the bridal shower, held in my brother-in-law’s hometown. In the north. New Jersey to be precise. My sister did the requisite registrations for gifts. Target, Macy’s and Crate and Barrel. There were all kinds of gifts presented. Crystal, china, linens, orignal artwork… you know, the types of things usually given as wedding gifts. Then there was the gift cards.

Sister: Oh, look gift cards for Cracker Barrel.

Brother-in-law: Really? Cracker Barrel? Hmmm.

Sister: Yep, Cracker Barrel. Interesting. I wonder why?

It turns out, an elderly relation of my Brother-in-law mis-heard the list of stores. Yep, misheard. And instead of questioning the logic of purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of Cracker Barrel gift cards, she assumed that we were Southerners after all and it made perfect sense.

Ah, the joys of stereotypes.

Munchkin bailed on me. Left me high and dry to fend for myself in this cold, lonely, quiet abode. The only living creatures with which to interact now being the two smelly, farty dogs, the smelly, inquisitive rabbit, and the fish.

Of them all, I think I’ll take the fish.

I thought of using my new found freedom to go to a movie. But there is NOTHING out right now that I could even pretend to be interested in. And as much as I love vampires, the thought of watching the Twilight movie, with poor dead Cedric Diggory, just doesn’t move me. At all.

Instead, I will go to our favorite Chinese restaurant for takeout. I will then come home and watch my TiVo harvest until I can’t stay awake. I will probably Twitter a bit here and there. I will manage Hubby’s Mob Wars, Might of Many and Fleet Command on Facebook (as well as make an appearance on mine), I may make an appearance at MySpace, I will deal with the stinky, farty dogs and ignore the bunny and fish, and I will just be.

Meh.

As I have mentioned before, Hubby is at boot camp. He is becoming a sailor. It is a big deal as he is the oldest recruit there at 37, soon to be 38 years of age. He has been made a section leader, making it an even bigger deal.

Before he left for boot camp he mentioned he did not want us to spend the money to go see him graduate. He thought it would be a waste of money to fly from Atlanta to Chicago for a 2 hour ceremony and fly back again. Plus it is just before Christmas. Plus we have been struggling with money for the past few months.

Last week however, he sent a letter telling me of the wonderful news of section leader and getting liberty and various other happiness. He changed his mind and definitely wanted not only me and Munchkin to come, but our respective fathers as well. <GASP!!!> Surprised about the fathers, but happy he wanted us there, I started making plans. Today I booked tickets for me, Munchkin and my father (his father won’t be joining, surprise) and looked into hotels with shuttles.

Imagine my disappointment upon arriving home to a new letter from boot camp. The disappointment was not in the fact we received a letter. That made us ecstatic. The fact Hubby has now decided (again) he doesn’t want us to come up, he doesn’t want us to spend all that money just for a short ceremony and an hour with him, that was a disappointment. We are so proud of him and want to see this. It seems REALLY important. And it is to me, and probably him, even though he is trying to downplay it.

Ugh.

Well, I’ve already bought the tickets. I don’t know what the cost would be if we cancelled. Or if we CAN cancel. And if I did cancel, he would probably decide next week that he wants us to come.

I’ll tell you one thing I have taken for granted. Daily, shit - hourly, communication with my loved ones. The fact that I can ONLY send a letter, and that letter takes at least 4 days to arrive (if not more) then I have to wait for a return letter. Jeez!!

So, here I sit with three tickets to Chicago, a recruit who isn’t sure he wants me to come dragging family, and a confusion headache starting to take over the top part of my head.

Any and all advice, comments, and happy thoughts, oh and did I mention advice? Those would all be very appreciated.