Decisions decisions....

It's been a fairly mellow week. Last Saturday, at the very last minute-Chance was invited to the neighbors birthday party. Which was nice. He had a great time and we finally got to meet a few of the neighbors. They rented a big bounce house so you can imagine we didn't see much of Chance during the three hours that we were there and had to drag him home. (it started at 5pm and the only reason we left is b/c it started pouring down rain, which only ended up lasting for 20 mins or so) The house across from us, their son is having a birthday party on Sunday-so he was invited to that one as well.

I have definitely got to get myself to a chiropractor soon. My neck is still killing me, but not so bad that I am confined to the couch and heating pad like before. Today I figured it was a good day to get out and do something. So we spent the day out. Had a nice day. Went to Tinseltown and bought tickets for the 5pm showing of UP. Did a little shopping around that area and then had time to kill still. I was attempting to find a health food store over on Montwood but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for since it was more like a protein powder type store. John picked up a couple of things he has been needing though so at least it wasn't a total waste of a trip. We happened to drive by a self service car wash, so I whipped it in there and said we had to try spraying under my truck to get my brakes to stop grinding before it drove me insane. They have been making the most awful sound ever since we made it into El Paso. And I'll be damned if it's b/c I need new brakes since we shelled out $600 before leaving the east coast on new brakes on the front and rear of my truck, and a tune up. I think we left our water hoses in GA, and you aren't allowed to wash your cars in your driveway here anyway-so i've been putting off the chore for awhile now. But today when I was in the parking lot of starbucks and went to stop to let some people pass.....I guess the noise my brakes make are louder to those on the outside since the look the guy in the parking lot gave me was priceless. So anyways, we went to the carwash and John sprayed under it really well and wouldn't you know....no more grinding! I'm sure I had a bucket or two worth of sand all up in there. Gotta love El Paso! Now I just need to get an oil change. John went the other day and had it inspected and got it registered here, so that's good to go. Now we get to pay it off finally!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The movie was cute. Chance loved it. Disney does really good 3D. We weren't too impressed with the 3D on Monsters Vs. Aliens, but Disney does it right. It's a little sad that I am so excited for the G Force movie coming out. Yep that would be the movie about the gerbils. And then Toy Story 3 next year! After the movie, we went to Cheddars. This place is just awesome. Has an atmosphere like Chili's or Applebees but actually a little nicer, and it's soooooo cheap! John got the check and told me how much it was and I said that it had to be wrong. We bought an app, two entrees and a kids meal and it was $29! The service is really great too. We can never seem to eat for under $50. On the way home, I asked John if he wanted to go by the bookstore since ya know...we'd be driving right by it on the way and he just laughed at me and told me I already knew the answer to that question. I am thinking we probably should just get the Barnes and Noble credit card. Especially if they do rewards. We'd probably get a free vacation to Hawaii with the amount of money we spend in that place. I picked up another 4 books on my list. One of those being the first book in The Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I've long since finished Twilight, and I have heard these are good, so I hope they live up to my expectations. I did exercise some self control and didn't buy every single one in the series all in one go tonight. But I figure if the first one is good, then I probably will just buy the rest in one trip to save me the experience last time when I went to buy #4 in the Twilight series only to find that freakin Walmart only spld it in the Spanish version. I thought I would break out in hives and start climbing the walls. I ended up sucking it up, going across town a few days later and spending $22 to get it at B&N. Crisis averted! I had to order three books tonight that I am missing out of one of my other series' that I read and they should be in within the week, so I'll try to plan for finishing "Dark Lover" around that time, so I can pick up the others then too if I like the first one enough to continue on.

Chance is doing great in karate. He earned his green stripe the other week when the instructor caught him standing at attention so well. Then he got his first black stripe on Tuesday for his attendance, and then his second black stripe on Thursday. Once he gets one more black stripe, I believe he gets promoted to the next rank. I about fell out of my chair laughing though. of course this happened AFTER Chance got his green stripe for showing how well he can stand at attention...but they had turned on the music and while all the other kids were standing perfectly still....there's our child over there doing the robot, walking like an Egyptian...dancing his little butt off. I'm just waiting for Chance to get busted since he's so in his own little so you think you can dance world over there, he's not seeing me giving him the "STAND STILL!!!" look....well Mr Lance catches him and I was sure he would tell him to stand at attention but oh noooooo. He busts out laughing and looks over to make sure we are seeing this. Then Mr Lance starts busting a move right along with Chance. It was hilarious. I wish I had gotten video of that. On Thursday, Chance was trying sooooo hard!!! It was actually to the point of being comical. He was sitting cross legged, back straight, hands on his knees, had a serious face on....looking dead ahead...yes maaming....doing everything right. The instructor took notice of that and Chance got to wear the black belt for the entire class! And this happened before the official start of class. Most kids seem to come rolling in right around 4:15, which class starts at 4:15, but we get there around 4pm to get a seat in the front and that way Chance can play the silly games that the instructors play with the kids who actually get there early. Which usually only four or five of them are there before 4:15.

I have a couple of videos from last week and some pics that I'll try to post sometime this week. I'll have alot of time to catch up this week.

Hmm, what else? Oh, SCHOOL! Not really sure what's going on there. I went Tuesday to turn in my unofficial transcript and my paper to get in state tuition and they were going to let me go ahead and pick my classes. The very first class I need to take for culinary...she tells me the times and I'm like "I can't take that class! I have to get my son to school" This class started at 8am, it's about a 25 minute drive from here assuming traffic isn't crazy and Chance's school starts at 8:15am. So she tells me to look over the catalog and try to figure out what I want to do to make it work around Chance's schedule. I get home later that evening after karate and sit here for HOURS trying to figure out how to make this work. And it's just not going to unfortunately. The classes either start too early, or end too late....overlap, etc. There's really just no way right now. I thought about afterschool care at the Y for Chance and I'd just have to take the later classes that end at 4:30pm. But since those classes were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, what about his karate? We've already paid for 6 months of karate and it's something he really enjoys so I am not going to deny him that. After school care would have been another $100+ a month and I am sure gas is going to be back up to where it was last year. I thought about maybe just trying to go part time to school, but then I am not sure if I could get financial aid and well....to be honest....I was denied financial aid when I went to college the first go round and I divided up the cost with my parents and paid a decent sized portion myself and that sucked. So if I can get financial aid, I want it! But obviously culinary just isn't feasible right now. John goes on TDY's here, and I would be expected to start my 1st round of field training so its too much to take on with so many unknowns. There's no way I could finish up before we leave here. If I had a support system here, it might be more realistic, but I have no one here except John. So I guess I will keep dreaming that maybe we'll end up at Ft Bragg next and maybe I could do culinary there. I have family and a couple of friends there and Chance will be a little older. I looked at their course description and compared it to EPCC and I think I like the the Fayetteville one better.

I did look around at some of the other things EPCC offered and came across their massage therapy program. That is actually something that interests me and if the schedule I saw online is the right one, that's totally something that I could work with. All the classes start at 9am. And most end at 2pm. There's a couple of months of classes that end at 4:30pm, but if I went for it-I could still utilize after school care for Chance since it would only be a couple of months. It's not a degree program, so it's short. It's something I need to look more into, like finding out that if I did it-how difficult it would be, to be licensed in another state.

The kicker of all this....I finally realized I couldn't go back to school right now for culinary, was somewhat at peace with that and then today I got a letter in the mail telling me I am eligible for the max amount of financial aid. Soooo I guess I'll go back up to EPCC this week to turn in the paper I have to sign and ask about the massage therapy program. I mean something is better than nothing right? There's no way I can get a job here. I "no habla espanol" so that's pretty much a deal breaker right there.


Anyways, this has gotten way too long. And it's getting late. I'm having a bit of a homesick night. I tend to get that way everytime I go to the bookstore. Brings back a lot of memories. Came home and started looking at alot of old pictures which made it even worse. And now I'm listening to the music on my blog which most of these songs are circa 2000, so yeah. Gone are the days of being able to call up a friend at the last second and taking off to do whatever without a care in the world. I'm sure approaching another year older isn't helping at all. Chance keeps reminding me that I have "alot of birthdays". Wow. Thanks kid. As if i'm not already dreading it enough...I get to spend it alone. Again. Third year in a row. I think I am going to subtract all the birthdays John has missed and that will be my age. Which means this year I will be turning.....21.5! Lol, yes that's a half. One year he was in the damn field for my birthday and only came out way later on in the day when he was popped in the eye with some smoke grenade and they fubarred his eye all up. So that year gets a half. He was deployed for it in 03 (should have been home by then though, thanks Dubya!) he was in the field in 04 and that's the year I count as half, deployed in 05, deployed in 07 and 08 (if not for that 15 month bullcrap, he would have made it home for that one-again, thank you Dubya!) and he'll be gone for 09 as well, but really-who's counting? I think it's just the army playing their evil mind games. Like his R&R for his second deployment. He would have made it home in time for Chance's first birthday had the damn plane not broken down keeping him there an extra day. He made it home the day after. Go figure! Anyways, enough of that. It's depressing. It's just a birthday anyway. I've learned to not care much about it anymore. At least he was here for Chance's birthday this year. NOT having him in the shithole country of Iraq is all the birthday present I could ask for, so for that, I count my blessings.