So I was super duper excited to meet baby Caleb last night, but by midnight Sept.11 he still hadn't made an appearance and my friend was falling asleep. I had driven down there at 730 to take her to the hospital and they gave her something to speed up the process; we were told baby would pop out in a couple of hours! However, he curled up and went right to sleep and her contractions stopped :( The doctor said he should be born early this morning....so I'm super excited to see my little nephew!

Deliah spent 20 minutes or so playing with a teeny tiny frog that she brought in from outside. She was so surprisingly gentle with it that I didn't immediately remove him from the house but instead decided to watch them. She'd gently nudge him to get him to hop, and then race over to him  and dance around. It was so cute; she's so special! She never did hurt him, and I picked him up and set him outside with no incident. She's a big fan of other animals,though. The  cats would've eaten him for sure (Sassy Boo's favorite delicacy is are frog legs! ) and the other dogs are too clumsy. Yet the basset, the heaviest one of them all, managed to carry him in the house via her mouth and set him down to play with no harm. So funny...

Featured Performers...

The Hubs, an important albeit infrequent, member of the circus. He's a truck driver so is only home for a few days every 6 weeks. We met online 3.5 years ago when he said he was a Republican and I joked that since they had cut college funding, he needed to buy this poor student dinner! On October 4 2008 we were married in a lovely ceremony and are now parents to 6 furkids who drive us as crazy as any child could.

Boots Evander- Big black tuxedo cat (19 lbs) that we found living under the porch of my last house. He was full of worms and starving to death back then, but 4 years later he's *much * healthier. His name comes from Puss in Boots from Shrek (he's a loverboy) and Evander Holyfield ( not only is he missing a fang but also part of his ear!) He's also fiercely protective of his family, and enjoys disciplining the dogs. We call him "the enforcer"

 Natasha Sue (Tasha) a miniature schnauzer, is the bane of my existence. Living with her is often frustrating and stressful b/c she's a cantankerous old biddy who hates for anyone to have any fun or do anything without her. She is also vindictive, and likes to soil in the house when she's mad. Luckily she's 10, so I won't have to deal with her cranky old ass too much longer ;)

Lucky Dollar Charles (Charlie) was found about 18 months ago in the Dollar store parking lot. I initially thought he was dead, as he was painfully thin, lying still, covered in ticks, and had maggots crawling out of sores on his skin. I went to scoop him up with a trash bag and he licked my hand! After I jumped back into my skin, I gingerly picked him up and took him home where I removed ticks, bathed him, and made a vet appt. for first thing in the morning. We then found out that he has a missing testicle (which will most likely cause testicular cancer if not found and removed) that can not be operated on because he has severe heart failure and has to take three medications twice a day in order to stay alive. He can not be vaccinated or stressed, so it is important that all the other animals maintain a strict vaccination schedule and provide herd immunity. The vet gave him a prognosis of a few hours to a year of life. We are very happy that he is doing so well; he's still small for a beagle (only 15 lbs and not as tall nor stocky as he should be) but he's so full of life and loving that we hope to have many more years with this guy.

Jinx Marley is the queen b(itch) of the house. She's about 7 or 8 yrs old. I adopted her around 5 years ago after my previous dog died. I was at a shelter to donate her old items, and saw this pitiful dog in the last cage. The woman told me that they were getting her ready to be euthanized b/c people kept adopting her and bringing her back or she had run off. She looked at me with those beagle eyes (She's a beagle/dachshund mix) and that was it. On the way home she jumped out of my moving car through the window to go chase a rabbit. (sigh) She continued to run off frequently so we had her chipped and tried to fence her in. She,of course, dug out. So we tried the electric fence, but once she got past the line it stopped shocking her until she re-entered the line. So she'd run away and not come home! Jinx hasn't run away in about a year; the last time she did Hubs shot at her and scared her back home! She is also scared of water.

 Deliah Rose (Lia) is about 12-18 months old and is a beagle/ basset hound mix that was previously used in dog fights, shot in the head with a shotgun (either on purpose or accidentally) and dropped off in my driveway. She still has pellets embedded in her ears, and has incontinence, possibly due to brain trauma. She's super protective, and will defend us to the end. She will even step in if the other animals need help. She even went as far as corner my mother when she came into the house unannounced and before Lia knew her. She is loyal and loving but a bit hyper and quite destructive. We hope it's just the puppy in her! We also hope she stops growing soon, as she has doubled in size (both weight and height/length) since we found her back in January.Charlie is her absolute best friend EVER and they are inseparable. Charlie can not be neutered, so Lia had to be right away! That gene pool does not need to spread ;) (sidenote: all but Charlie are speutered. I don't believe in breeding)

Assassin Boomerang (Sassy Boo) will be 2 in October and is the fiercest 6 lbs you will ever try to hold. We've had her since she was 4 weeks old, when the man whose porch she was born under was drowning her siblings in the river (he knocked mama in the head with a hammer) and she would not stay under.  We heard the ruckus and offered to take her instead. I spent the next weeks nursing her back to health and letting her sleep upstairs and go everywhere with me. Now she is a healthy, feisty Sassanator who is part cat and part serial killer. She will hunt anything and likes to leave the severed heads on the porch for me. (Thanks) So far she has killed mice, wasps, moles,voles, rabbits, TURKEYS, birds, and anything that dares cross on to our property. Sometimes I catch her giving the deer the side eye...

Where I wash the floors in my house at 1 a.m,

Right now, my anxiety levels are super high. I haven't been sleeping, am on edge, and seem to be having headaches all the time. Migraines at least once or twice a week, and I have noticed that my OCD has kicked in to overdrive. My hands are dry and raw, even bleeding in some areas, because I wash them probably over a hundred times a day. Not exaggerating. I counted the other day by marking a piece of paper by the sink until I hit 66 at 4 p.m. and got so angry about it that I cried and threw the paper away. I use the moisturizing foaming handsoap from bath and body works (husband is puzzled why I buy it in bulk, but I am going through a bottle about every two weeks and I am rarely home during the week!) but my cuticles are still ragged and my nails peeling. I started to wear cleaning gloves around the house for a few days until I saw an episode of "Obsessed" where a girl had my same issue and they decided wearing gloves all the time was the breaking point for an intervention. Sigh. She also, like me, had to wash her hands every time she came in the house from going outside, every time she touched food, and after washing dishes. I just don't see how that's an issue, I really don't. Some of my problems I identify as being "problems" but I don't think washing my hands after being outside,doing dishes, touching food, brushing my teeth, putting on makeup (before and after), or directly before I eat is something that classifies me as being off my rocker. To me, that's good hygiene! I also don't use the towel I dry my hands on for anything else, and it drives me INSANE that hubs will grab it and wipe down the countertop and then hang it back up. It is no longer clean when you do that, and if I dry my clean hands on a dirty towel, I now have DIRTY HANDS. GRRR. (okay, I admit, that did sound psycho, but jeez. cut me a break here,okay? He's very hard to live with.) Probably the most significant and easily identifiable aspect of my problem is that I pick at my skin, particularly blemishes on my face. Even 2 y/o Gabe notices my "boo-boos" and it really embarrasses me. Still, in times of stress my skin will break out, and then I will claw at the pimples, put harsh chemicals on them to dry it up, cause my sensitive skin to break out even more, and then have open sores on my freakin' face. I've even caught myself doing it at night, subconsciously. I hate it,I really do. After each time I vow that next time I'll leave it alone, but then something pops up, and I *have* to dig it out, to win over it and destroy it. If I weren't obese, I'd be a perfectionist, I swear! My weight is my one failure, and it's kind of my safety net. If I ever lost 100 lbs, then I could really strive to be perfect, and I'd be in a world of trouble. Thankfully, I have an injury that makes it hard to exercise and keeps me huge, because it'd be a wrap if my messed up mind actually thought it could achieve perfection!
           Anyway, that was a long tangent there; back to my heading/title sentence. I am stressed out about this whole law school thing, and whether or not it is wise to uproot my family and move off to school where I could flunk out, or even worse, graduate with a lot of debt and no job prospects. I keep reading how hard it is out there for lawyers, and how if you aren't smart enough for a tier one school (Harvard, Yale, Columbia) then you shouldn't even bother. I'm not even smart enough for Tier two! (Vanderbilt, Duke) With a 3.5 UGPA and 154 LSAT score, I am looking at Tier three and four. Should I even bother? I've wanted to be a criminal prosecutor since I can remember, but I know any lawyer working in the public sector makes little money and deals with a lot of stress. Lawyers are also more likely to commit suicide, become alcoholics (30 percent of lawyers are alcoholics compared to less than ten percent of regular population) and have failed marriages and families. They are more likely to struggle with OCD and anxiety as well as depression, and I already deal with all of those, so what chance do I have?? Then again, I wonder if it is more of a correlation does not equal causation type thing, since all of these things are characteristics of type A personalities, and type As are more likely to enter into the law or medical professions. (see, I'm putting my psychology/ sociology minors to use!) Gah. I know I over analyze, but my brain is always GOING. That's why, when a friend invited me to meditation classes, I had to decline even though it'd be good for me. My brain does not give me a moment of peace; I've tried to "ohmmm!" before numerous times with no success. I can't shut off. I sit there, when I am supposed to clear my mind, thinking of all the things I should be doing now instead of wasting time sitting on my ass with my eyes closed. (coincidentally, I have been known to review law statutes during sex...wtf is wrong with me?) This is why, at one this morning I was up scrubbing my hard wood floors instead of sleeping. I made the mistake of researching law stuff and reading crap about lawyers online and got too stressed to sleep. When that happens, I either give in to the stress and drive myself crazy or compulse and clean something. My usual target is my kitchen (oven, in particular) but lately it has been the floors. So while you all slept, I was sweeping, steam mopping the downstairs hardwood, then polishing the floors with a sponge and Orange Glo, then hand washing, and finally taking the dustbuster to the edges of the floor and the floorboards. I crawled back into bed at 4 a.m. and slept until 7, upon which I woke up to feeling like my skin was crawling and hopped into the shower. Then I re-dressed and hopped back into bed until 11, when the dogs started howling and demanding to be released. And then, icing on the psycho cake, I washed their bedding for the third morning in a row (it smelled like dog. I'm crazy) and proceeded to steam mop their floor, vacuum and polish.  They just watch me; I think they know I am crazy and neurotic! I take medication and I have therapy sessions; I can only imagine how I'd be if my mother hadn't sensed the crazy when I was 13 and got me help. It's weird though, because when most people think OCD and anxiety, they think of the character Monk  and his super duper clean home. Yes, my home is always tidy, but it is never clean (at least not to my standards and most ppl's) There is too much clutter, my baseboards,floor, and some furniture always seem to have cat hairs on them no matter how often I dust, my shower has badly discolored sealant/water stripping (it was molded but I killed the mold. Hubs needs to replace that stripping..) My carpets have stains (to be fair, they were there when we moved in) and I am always paranoid that it smells like animal. We have 4 dogs and 2 cats, so its a valid fear! I'd never advise anyone to eat off of my floors; at Monk's house you could eat off the toilet! I also am pretty carefree with my appearance (or so it seems. I spend a lot of time making it look like I'm not wearing make up) and totally free with the kids getting themselves or me messy. I try not to pass on the neuroses, and I'd like to think I hide it well. Ask anyone who thinks they know me, even my closest friends and most of my family. Unless you talk to my parents, younger brother, or husband, everyone thinks I've got it all together. Many of my friends envy me and think I've got the perfect life. And, I have a pretty good life, but for people like me, pretty good isn't good enough. There's hidden torment below the surface, and I can't be complacent or satisfied. It really, really sucks. If I had health insurance I'd probably ask to be re-evaluated and try a different medication; it feels like i am barely holding it together lately. Not dangerously so, but just not *normal*, whatever that is. I think I'll feel better next year, when decisions have been made and I have a plan. I'm a planner, and I need to plan out every aspect of life. This not knowing is driving me crazy!!!!

I'm not a writer; I just talk a lot....(about myself!)

When I was a child I wanted to be an attorney, a famous writer, and the first female president. Yeah, I was *that* kid,lol. Now, at almost 25... I still want to be some semblance of all those things: a criminal prosecutor who later writes true crime novels in order to pay for her presidential campaign. I'd like to think I can do all of those but with a six figure student loan debt looming ahead I damn well better be successful at something! Currently I live in Podunkville, KY but have grand hopes of uprooting my family to a town with a museum,decent city park, and actual mall to shop at. Speaking of family, mine is pretty strange for these parts; (where women pop kids out left and right and without thinking about it...) it consists of myself, the husband (occasionally) four dogs, and two psycho kitties. Our pets are all very spoiled and treated as our children. This is probably why we can't afford to have kids, but I like to believe that I just enjoy being able to lock them in their room and leave the house...something people don't look upon too fondly when you do it to kids! Another contributing factor to the child free lifestyle is my wonderful job as a nanny that allows me to experience the *joys* of parenting 10 hrs a day and still be able to sleep at night. Through this job I've met and made friends with some people whom I'd never thought I'd have identified with (SAHMs) and gained a new respect for these amazing women. Seriously, going to work in an office is easy; talking to a two year old all day long,every day, about THE SAME DAMN THING OVER AND OVER is haaaard! Don't believe me? Find your local drunk and spend a day with them; this is the life of a mother of a toddler. Although I am fairly anti-social, I find myself using facebook to set up playdates with these moms under the guise of our kids getting together simply because I crave adult conversation.  Although it's always crazy at my house,it's a fairly lonely existence that leaves me alone with my own thoughts a lot. Those who know me well know how dangerous that can be! I'm your stereotypical type A personality; neurotic, anxiety ridden, perfectionist, inability to relax, impatient, competitive, aggressive, and general psycho bitch. Luckily, I'm medicated or I would have overthrown the government by now. Or been shot by someone tired of dealing with my level of crazy....