It must be over 'cuz I'm singing!!!

Wooooo Hooooooo! Darling Daughter's divorce is F-I-N-A-L with NO visitation! YIPPY SKIPPY and thank you court system for understanding that it is in my grandson's best interest to NOT be subjected to his father's stupidity. If you had told me five years ago I would be happy to see my daughter divorced, I would not have believed you. I'm not a big believer in divorces and often think they are too easy to obtain and tend to make marriage just one more disposable item in our society. But THIS divorce keeps my grandson safe. And I am ALL about keeping Mr. B safe. I was scared to death the judge was going to order county-supervised visits, where my daughter would have to take Mr. B to a county facility one hour a month and let him be fawned over by his father. This is what they normally do in situations where a parent cannot be trusted to keep the child safe while the child is in that parent's care. But daughter's lawyer was good, and the judge listened, and apparently two counts of child endangerment are (more than) enough to keep this guy away from Mr. B. Mr. B is safe. Mr. B is young enough to forget what's happened to him (according to his pediatrician). Mr. B will grow up with excellent male role models in his grandfather and his uncle. Men who know how to treat women and children with respect, who know how to go out and work for a living, who understand why laws are NOT meant to be broken, and who understand that there are consequences to actions. My daughter and I talked about how to deal with Mr. B's questions about his "daddy". Her idea is to explain that some kids have mommy's and daddy's, some kids have only a mommy, and some kids have only a daddy, but Mr. B is lucky in that he has one person who wants to be both his mommy and his daddy. She's such a good mom. Mr. B has been asking about his father, because he sees other kids at daycare get picked up by their fathers. A neighbor told him that his father was "on vacation" but since Mr. B remembers the high-speed police chase and the car crash, I didn't like him thinking that ex-SIL (yes! EX-son-in-law!) was being rewarded for his actions, so I explained to him that his dad was NOT on vacation, but was on a "big people time out" because his job was to keep Mr. B safe, and he wasn't able to do that. Mr. B definitely understood "time out". I'm sure it won't be all smooth sailing from here. EXSIL (Oh yeah, that's going to be his blog name) will be getting out of prison in April, and we may have to deal with him again, despite court orders otherwise -- that's the kind of guy he is, afterall. But it's not time to worry about that yet. It's time to celebrate the court's decision and know we don't have to face traumatic face-to-face meetings in a cold county-ordered facility. And it's time to celebrate that this man cannot put my grandson's life at risk yet again. And it's time to celebrate that my daughter will no longer be verbally and emotionally abused. Heck, it's just plain time to celebrate!

This and that

Wow, I really have been absent from Blog-Land. You know it's not like me to go this long without posting or to post so infrenquently. But Hooooo-Yahhhhh... life is busy right now! In fact, the entire month of March is pretty well booked up.... how did that happen?!? Apologies to all my blog friends because I haven't even been out to read or comment on anyone's blog, lately. Today is Mr. B's birthday!! Happy happy 3rd birthday, Mr. B! He and my daughter are due here any minute for a birthday dinner and presents. No cake. Mr. B doesn't eat cake. I offered to make him a birthday cake, but he said no. We're having birthday ice cream sandwiches... Mr. B and I were discussing his birthday dinner. He had no requests, but did say, "Umma, where did we eat when Mama stayed overnight here?" Apparently he was talking about Christmas Eve when he and my daughter spent the night, and we had Christmas dinner in the formal dining room. I said, "The dining room?" and he said, "Yes! I want to eat at the fancy table on my birthday!" So fancy table it is... complete with the good china and the lace tablecloth and candles. Nice to see it get used more than twice a year. Mr. B has a dog named Jack. Apparently, Jack is a food thief and delights in absconding with Mr. B's cheese sticks as often as possible. I was on the phone with my daughter the other night when Jack decided to eat Mr. B's cheese stick. As we were talking, I suddenly heard Mr. B screaming/ crying (you know how 3 year old's do...) and near hysterics because the dog had grabbed and eaten the cheese stick. My daughter stayed calm, offered him another one. Mr. B says "No! I want THAT one!" to which my daughter said, "What do you want me to do, reach down in his belly and get it?" and Mr. B said "YES!". My daughter happened to have another cheese stick in her hand, so she pretended to reach into Jack's mouth and pull out the cheese stick... and I hear her say, "OK, here it is." And what do I hear next? Mr. B - vomiting. LOL! Definitely a case of "be careful what you wish for"... By the way - is anyone else feeling the pinch at the grocery store? It seems every time I go, prices are jumping. A month ago a package of cheese sticks were $4.99 and last week they were $7.99. Coffee has jumped up $2 and $3 a can (and, to make it that much worse -- have you noticed that the "one pound can" is now 11 ounces?!) Even my old staple, tunafish, has jumped up by about 30% (and yes, THAT can got smaller too -- what used to be an 8 oz can, then 7.2 ounces, then 6.5 ounces is now 5+ ounces!). More than ever it's important to do menu planning and coupon clipping! I'm off to baste the turkey (from the freezer -- purchased last Thanksgiving for .88 a pound), peel the potatoes and steam the brocolli.... and put candles in the ice cream sandwiches!

Well, phooey

I had to take down the post previous to this one... pffft... Apparently, if you ask or even infer that people should ick-clay your oogle-gay ad-ay ense-say ads-ay, they can take away your account for same. So ick-clay away-ay if you want to-ay but on't-day ell-ta 'em-thay I asked-ay you oo-tay! Hey, what can I say? I eed-nay to uy-bay ore-may abric-fay. So now it looks like I haven't written in my blog forever. Well, I actually haven't written anything for five days. That's about a half of a forever for me, in the blog-writing sense. But I've had absolutely nothing to write about.... and no time lately to just make stuff up. I've over-extended myself swap-wise and now have too many things due at the same time. I will spend the entire weekend up in my quilt room getting caught up. Twelve quilt blocks (six are done), four penny pockets, and a dottee doll (doll is done) all need to be mailed on Monday. I need to mail my friend Karen her socks (they are done), and I'd like to whip up something cute to send along to her two grandchildren, but the swap stuff needs to be done first. Monday is divorce court day and hopefully my daughter will come out of it relatively unscathed and free. Friday is Quilt Show day - YAY! It's a very small quilt show with vendors that I go to every year in Lebanon, OH. But I am looking forward to it. What's not to like about a quilt show?! My son arrives from Colorado on the 10th of the month to stay with us for a week, and attend his friend's wedding. I'm excited. I adore my son -- have I ever mentioned that? When he's here we can't always schedule time where all of us can get together at once, but I made a point of scheduling everyone here for breakfast on Friday morning -- husband, son, daughter, grandson and me. I'm disappointed my DIL won't be here as well! But Friday morning around 8am, just close your eyes and feel the love, people... feel the love. My grandson's 3rd birthday is this Sunday. Happy, happy birthday, Mr. B! I asked him last week what he wanted for his birthday. His response? "A Nintendo DS". I'm not kidding you. Apparently many of the kids at his other babysitter's have Nintendo DS's. I was thinking more along the lines of new PlayDoh or moving up to a 64 pack of crayons instead of 8. No, I'm not getting him a Nintendo DS for his birthday. He also wants a cell phone and a car. Yes, I mean a real cell phone and a real car. LOL We are getting him just a small gift for the actual day, but I've ordered a water and sand play table, but he won't even know about it until the weather gets warmer. Supper tonight is interesting. Don't you love the fact that, after 30 years of cooking supper every night, I can still somehow manage to forget I need to cook supper until it's actually supper time?!? It's 7pm and we've not eaten yet. I browned some pork chops, threw them in a baking dish with some peeled and sliced sweet potatoes and some sliced onions, poured some pineapple juice mixed with brown suger and a bit of clovers over the top, and am serving them with green peas. Smells good, but I have no idea how it will come out. Stay tuned for that one. Doesn't matter -- my husband will eat it anyway.